“‘How can the harshness of existence be sweetened at the core?’ the Ba’al Shem once asked his disciples.

He then answered his own question: ‘By raising oneself toward the greatest desire of all: the longing for true goodness.’

It is perfect compassion.’”

I found this brief passage from a book referred to in this month’s issue of Tikkun, a Jewish magazine that typically offers much to think about. In this instance I would add: and pray about too.

Ba’al Shem Tov (the Master of the Good Name) as he is usually referred to, was one of the great rabbis of the Hasidic tradition that swept through Eastern Europe a few centuries ago. Living in the 18th century, the Ba’al Shem Tov inspired such devotion among his followers that he is still held in great reverence even now.

Many stories are told of this charismatic man whose teaching was collected and handed down after his death. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, writing in the 20th century, said of his name, “the term ‘Baal Shem Tov’ signifies a man who lives with and for his fellowmen on the foundation of his relation to the divine.”

In this instance, his teaching starts with a realistic view of human life. That life was especially difficult if you had to live as a Jew in Eastern Europe some 300 years ago. Your chances of being persecuted because of your religion were excellent and, almost surely, you lived in poverty.

Was there any way of changing this grinding way of life, asks the teacher. In putting the question, he suggests an image of daily life as a piece of fruit. The outside many be rough and prickly but there may be some way of changing it as the material nears its core, of turning it from bitter to sweet.

The rabbi’s first answer – – raising oneself toward the longing for true goodness – – does not impress us as surprising. He sets forth a spiritual task that sounds quite familiar. Most masters of the inner life would assent to his recommendation.

Developing in yourself the desire for true goodness sounds like a beautiful agenda for one’s whole life. The phrase “true goodness” suggests that one will encounter false goods, those substitutes for the real thing that often deceive us.

Also the instruction “raising yourself” teaches us that we must move to a higher plane if we are to lay hold of true goodness. It is above us and reaching it requires a discipline that stretches our capacities.

This first answer coming from the Ba’al Shem Tov moves the heart immediately.  Who among us does not aspire to true goodness? Does not everybody deep down want to be good, to grasp goodness and never let it go?

But it’s the second question and answer that throw us off stride. What is true goodness, the teacher asks? Perhaps we think we already know the answer, something like cultivating within ourselves spiritual perfection.

To our surprise and perhaps dismay, the rabbi’s response is outer rather than inner directed. For him, true goodness is perfect compassion. That means entering into the suffering and problems of others and responding with sympathy and understanding.

Once more, we discover how central compassion is to the religious spirit. When you come right down to it, caring for and about other people is more important than looking toward ourselves.

Of course, we must have compassion for ourselves too. But that comes comparatively easily, at least for those who know themselves loved by God. That knowledge allows us to sympathize with ourselves in the difficulties we encounter.

But then, reaching out to love our neighbor as ourselves, that is the test of true goodness, says the Ba’al Shem Tov – –  and not only he, but most of the other great spiritual teachers as well. They form a kind of chorus: if you want to be good, first be compassionate toward others.

These masters love to put things in a nutshell, to make us think, reflect, and pray. The words discussed here provide ample material for contemplation. They might even help us to find some sweetness at the core of existence, no matter how hard we find our lives to be.

Richard Griffin

A letter written by a beloved pastor to his parishioners provides abundant inspiration for this week’s column. His words express courage, peace, and love, enough to fill the hearts of readers with material for reflection and prayer.

The pastor whom I will call Father Frederick Rynne, has been a friend of mine since we first met as high school freshman, 60 years ago. Not only did we share intellectual adventures in the classroom but we played on the same baseball team, he at third base, I on the pitcher’s mound (occasionally).

Even more important, we shared the same spiritual ideals that helped activate our post-college careers. He has been outstanding as a priest who has served with distinction the people of several parishes and, at an earlier time, also directed campus ministry in the Boston archdiocese.

In the last few years, as the archdiocese was torn by the sexual abuse scandals, Father Rynne has assumed a wider leadership, calling for the removal of the previous archbishop and heading a priests’ association that has spurred reform.

His tenure as pastor in his current parish has been marked by devoted service to the people there, helping that community of faith to flourish. He has given serious attention to liturgy and homilies, and to current biblical and theological scholarship. His parish is active in service to others.

Now, however, this outstanding priest has become sick with a life-threatening disease. He has an inoperable tumor that involves a kidney and his liver. Currently, he is consulting with doctors about how best to deal with this serious threat to his bodily well being.

Were I in this situation, I fear that my response would be fear and foreboding. “Why me?” I would probably ask as I searched for reasons for my  fate.

Father Rynne, however, feels at peace despite the diagnosis. “It is not for me a great misfortune,” he writes, “but a necessary part of my life to which I feel called.”

To respond the way my friend is doing takes not only courage but spiritual vision. He sees this latest blow as something that fits in with his vocation. He does not, of course, think that God wants him to suffer but, still, he accepts suffering as part of his calling. As he tells his parishioners, “I have always felt fortunate, blessed by the Lord, and I do now.”

The word “always” suggests that his attitude forms part of a life-long habit of regarding himself as blessed. Now that a time of personal crisis has arrived, he can draw upon a spiritual reserve made up of gifts received from a loving God.

Father Rynne regards his parish as his home and he wants to stay there. He has so informed his archdiocesan superiors, who have shown themselves sympathetic to his request.

As he tells his parishioners, “I love being pastor here. It has always seemed right for me and the conviction that this is part of my vocation has never wavered and still does not.”

He also assures his readers that the works of the parish will continue as usual. Despite his illness, he will do what he can to serve parishioners and will see to it that the priests who have helped there will continue their service.

In closing, he asks for prayers and support, both of which I feel sure he will receive in abundance. I have seen at first hand the way in which his parishioners have supported Father Rynne before now, an indication of how they will respond in his time of crisis.

My friend does not regard himself as a person of outstanding virtue, I am sure. However, I regard him this way. He has thus far lived out his priesthood faithfully and generously, a sign of hope in a period of scandal and grief in the Archdiocese of Boston.  

No doubt there are other parishes where pastor and people are well matched and share mutual respect and affection. To find it in my friend’s parish to such an extent has buoyed up my faith as it has the spiritual life of others. For this pastor to have responded to personal crisis with such faith and courage gives to his parishioners and others who know him a renewed appreciation of spirituality.

Richard Griffin

“Did God make himself?” This question, if you can believe it, a four-year-old child recently asked her mother. She really did.

How could such a young person ask such a deep question? I don’t know but have irreproachable witness that she actually did.

Maybe it’s an example of the natural wonder that every child is born with. This would be the wisdom that children have until schooling or Saturday morning cartoons shake it out of them.

Whatever the case, the question about God qualifies as an instance of someone almost unbelievably young reaching into mystery.

Mystery is that condition of things whereby there is more to be known about them than we can ever know.

I take it as a gift that I have been able to maintain some of the wonder about God’s inner life that I first felt as a child. Thanks to my spiritual tradition with its emphasis upon the Holy Trinity, I learned enough about the inner life of God to enable me to think about this mystery from time to time all through the decades of my own life.

While not claiming to be a theologian, I have read what theologians have said.

More important, I have entered into the celebrations of the church’s liturgy that have focused on various aspects of the divine being.

What I love about this mystery is its revelation of an exciting dynamism within God. The divine being is seen as the site of movement, rather than inactivity. There is not a lonely solitude there but rather a continual exchange of love.

In this scenario, the Father gives life to the Son, and then together in love they produce the Holy Spirit. If this sounds sexual, then perhaps it is reflected in the physical love that human beings exchange with one another. It is the way we use human experience to grope for who God is.

This language does not mean gender, however, because that would make the three persons, or at least two of them, sound masculine. Father and Son have to be understood as above gender, so that you can call God “She” just as much as “He.” And, if you follow the original language of the Bible, you almost have to call the Holy Sprit “Her.”

Back to the girl’s question, I do not know how her mother answered. My response would have been to explain my belief that God never needed a beginning. God always was.

I like to think that this answer might stimulate further wonder on the child’s part about God’s being. Could there actually exist a being who never began, always was?

Not having any experience of a thing without a beginning, we are flabbergasted by such thinking. Even the astronomers, who assign almost unimaginable ages to the galaxies that make up the universe, see the Big Bang as the beginning of that universe.

To get your mind around the idea of a non-beginning, you have to go beyond rational thinking. Drawing on some of the wonder I felt in my early years, I still find it stimulating to contemplate that reality.

As further answer to the child’s question I would fantasize about the movement in God’s inner life as a kind of replacement for a beginning. No, God did not have to make himself but God did not have to simply wait around doing nothing. Instead, there was this marvelous activity that amounted to a life fuller than can be imagined.

The question we began with here contains an insight altogether remarkable in a child. Her asking it means that she has at least some grasp of something fundamental about God. The girl seems to know that God is sufficient unto himself.

Otherwise she would not have posed the question as she did. Her words presuppose that no one else could have made God. Only God would have been an agent powerful enough to have been the cause of his own existence.

I feel glad for a child’s question that has stimulated me to an enriched contemplation about God. God did not need to make himself but I believe God made me. And I am convinced God did so out of the love that permeates his own being.

That realization strikes me as enough to reenergize the contemplative life for many a meditation.

Richard Griffin

“My heart is broken.” These words from an elderly woman shown on a television news program represent the feelings of many people whose parish churches face closing.

A priest who is an official of the Archdiocese of Boston simply says of such a closing: “It’s a death.”

The decision of the archdiocese to shut the doors of some 60 churches has made Catholics in many areas weep. Some of their pastors who must move out for another assignment, or perhaps retirement, also feel the loss. Among them, a few have tearfully said they also feel a rejection of their ministry.

Incidentally, one of the churches to be phased out is Our Lady of Mercy in Belmont, the parish where I received my first communion. The memory of this event, happening when I was seven years old, has given me a lasting emotional tie to a building that will soon be given over to the wrecking ball.

In contacting parishioners for this column, I had hoped that they would talk about the connections between their parish church and their spiritual life. Some of them did speak to that subject but only in passing. Instead I discovered that most of them were preoccupied with other issues, so much so that it was hard for them to talk about anything else.

Almost inevitably, to some parishioners the closings are connected with the sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Archdiocese of Boston. Despite official denials, many people believe that the closings would not have otherwise taken place.

Asked about the closings, one longtime parishioner says: “My honest opinion is that none of it would have happened were it not for the abuse cases. The whole thing boils down to this: they have to absorb the cost of abuse cases that happened 40 years ago.”

On a more personal level, he confides his feelings about his own parish: “I’m very disenchanted. I’ve been in this church since 1947, my kids were baptized there, my parents were buried there. Where am I going to be buried?”

His ultimate feeling is one of resignation: “I’m still hurt but you’ve got to roll with it; the archbishop has made the decision.”

This parishioner’s wife adds: “Our pastor was devastated and angry. They told him to get over it.”

Another man has been connected to his parish his whole life, 74 years. “It means a lot to me that it’s closed. I’m sorry because it’s a warm church, it’s been the spiritual side of my life.”

Yet this same man goes on to insist “I’ve got my own faith and that is not going to be changed by the closing. Spiritually, the church is the same.”

A friend who lives in a suburb northwest of Boston says the people there do not much care which parish they go to: “They don’t have the same attachment that people in the inner cities have.”  He, too, sees a tight connection between the parish closings and the sexual abuse scandals.

Not everyone agrees, however, that the closings should not have happened. Ann Smith, whose parish will be closed, says: “I think people have to get behind this and support it. As badly as I feel, something has to be done.”

This comes from a person who received her first communion and confirmation in her current parish church and was also married there. But she admires the archbishop and realizes that his is not an easy task. Having attended several cluster meetings during the planning period, she sees more clearly why the decisions had to be made.

A lawyer who attends church in the Gloucester area does not agree. He goes so far as to call the closings “church-sponsored iconoclasm.” With this phrase he regrets that the archdiocese is tearing down so many valued structures.

My findings suggest that the official church has a larger problem, a crisis of confidence on the part of not a few members. Had I spoken to Haitians, African-Americans and other Catholic minority communities, I suspect their reactions to the closing of parishes might have been even more negative.

Perhaps the Archdiocese needs a more thorough process if it expects to bring its people along with its plans.

Richard Griffin