"So give for alms those things that are within, and see, everything will be made clean for you. Make sacrifices for those things that are within, and see everything will be made clean for you."
Gospel of Luke 11:41
George Maloney S.J. in his book "Alone with the Alone" speaks at one point about the discoveries made by Dr. Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers, one of America's outstanding psychologists, speaks about his discovery relating to personality development. He says that as we move beyond the responses we have developed and learned from our life experiences; from our families, from our culture; we move deep down to the area of the "inner-most self". This core of personality, the inner self, is basically healthy and positive and society-oriented. It is an inner most area where we experience the expression of our true selves. We enter it in silence, and through silence, we make contact with God as healer. But as long as we live superficially, on the surface, where we experience only the noise and fragmentation of our day to day existence, we will not know the health of our body, soul, and spirit that God wishes each of us to experience.
If we attentively read scripture, particularly the Gospels, we will find this study of Carl Rogers played out in the life of Jesus and expressed in the words of His teachings.
Jesus experienced His greatest difficulty with the Scribes and Pharisees. The difficulty that Jesus experienced with them was not from the fact that they were necessarily evil people. The difficulty was from the fact that they lived on the surface of life. Their social identity, if I can call it that, had been shaped and formed by a whole series of external rules and laws which did not reflect the reality of God, and God's intentions in regards to the human spirit.
"Oh you Pharisees. You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves, you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools; did not He who made the outside make the inside too?"
Like the Pharisees, we all have a social identify, and that's important. I'm a man, a child, a father, an accountant, a deacon, a property owner, etc. I also have deeply engrained beliefs as to what is important and not important. And if I'm not careful, I can impose these values onto others. These social characteristics define my outer identity.
Thomas Merton would describe all of these characteristics as our sacred cows. But to discover our true inner self, the self that is one in relationship with God, that self that God wants us to be, we must begin to empty ourselves of these sacred cows. I'm not saying to get rid of them, but to leave them aside to graze in some distant pasture. As we journey inward, in nakedness, in poverty, without our props, we begin to discover that which lies at our core of our being. In poverty of spirit, we discover our true identity as one loved by God and called by God to love others.
Prayer for me is not something I do. Prayer is a place I go to put myself in right relationship with Christ. It is "being" with Christ.
The Pharisees were so tied up in their social identity, made up of their conditioning to complex rules and laws of their outward social order, that they were blinded to their true inner self. Instead of being living expressions of their true inner identity, they justified themselves by honoring only the sacred cows of their outward identity and following the dictates of their own narrow thinking.
So too do we if we cling to desperately to outward realities and erroneous thinking build-up over a lifetime of human experiences. Quarrels, fighting, disagreements, divisions, etc. most often arise in those who are defending and protecting their sacred cows. This attachment to our exterior identify causes us to lose site of our call to love, to serve in obedience to that inner voice that beckons us to move beyond ego involvement to discover that which lies deep within.
The pathway inward, the narrow gate through which we must enter to discover this "new person" can only be found through silence and prayer.
"So give for alms those things that are within, and see, everything will be made clean for you. Make sacrifices for those things that are within, and see everything will be made clean for you."
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