Paradoxes & Parables: Metanoia Messages to Enlighten a Weary World

By Rev. John J. Lombardi

Father John “Jack” Lombardi is a Roman Catholic
Priest of thirty-four years and has pastored parishes in
Western Maryland and Baltimore city. He enjoys outdoor
recreational activities, spiritual adventure, travel,
mystical theology, and God’s world, all summarized by
St. Thomas Aquinas saying, “God is the artist, and the
universe is His work of art”. Father Jack enjoys hikes
and walks with his dog and faithful companion, Bella,
a Labrador Retriever, and appreciates the Christian
spiritual community and working for The Lord!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369407592

Rev. John J. Lombardi

Rev. John J. Lombardi is a Catholic priest of thirty years of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and is pastor of St. Peter Catholic Church in Western Md. He enjoys the mystical life of the Catholic-Christian Church, outdoor activities and social outreach, and pilgrimages to both local and foreign lands to serve the Lord especially in the poor and needy. He loves the balance in discipleship between spirituality and activities and wants to pass this on to you!

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Copyright © 2023 by Rev. John J. Lombardi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Rev. date: 10/31/2023

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Contents

Introduction

Interlude: A Meditation

Chapter 1     Introduction to a Paradoxical Life

Chapter 2     Paradoxes, Parables and Stories in depth…

Chapter 3     Jesus and PSAs… Teaching Straight Truth and Connecting the Dots

Chapter 4     Bible Examples of Parable/Story/Allegory

Chapter 5     From The Tradition + Doctrine—Paradoxes, Koans and MindPractice

Chapter 6     Wisdom, Figures and Saints

Chapter 7     Eclectic Examples of Metanoia Messages—A Compilation of Brain Change

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Brightness and darkness intermingle to make stunning realities.

Full moon over Blue Ridge Mountain and

Holy Cross Abbey, Berryville, Va.

By Author

Dedicated to all the Fellow Pilgrims over

the years of Fr. Jack Lombardi

Thanksgiving!

To Marge Redmond who guided and edited

and shaped this book to completion.

Introduction

Paradox: Truth standing on its head—to

gain attention. -G.K. Chesterton

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message. -Malcolm Muggeridge

Metanoia, the Greek word means after-thought or beyond-thought, with meta meaning after or beyond and nous meaning mind. It is commonly understood, variously, as a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion.

This is what our book is about—Truth from a different perspective, realization thereof which is also attractive and sometimes beguiling! But rather than paradox, it is salvific and wise, a singular Truth that stands on its head.

This book is also about parables, wherein God speaks to us! Or, as techies would say today, He messages us.

God reveals many things to us through paradoxes and parables. He uses twists and turns—and uses burns, too—to help us learn. Ah… but learn what? Well, let’s see, about God Himself, His Kingdom, His ways, about ourselves, being-in-the-world—all while being linked to God all the Way through! Good enough for a start, I’d say.

So, why this book and the Bible’s technique of teaching through parables and paradoxes? We shall look at these things by way of review—along with allegories and story-narratives. These will teach us to love God more and our neighbor as well, and may even provoke us away from the habit of lazy thinking. Those twists and turns might encourage some deep contemplation!

Huh? Twists and turns meaning doing things not in the usual way. God can and does teach us through peculiar means that on the surface may include aberrant, bizarre or strikingly different methods.

Example? Okay. Think of Jesus’s parable of the ‘unjust steward’ in Luke 16:1-13. The steward used weird and seemingly questionable means to gain money and win back the favor of his boss. This was to show us spiritual folks how to live in the world! Recall, this is God teaching us in this unusual way!

So, what else can we expect? We shall discern the deeper purpose of the Bible, Christ’s teaching and learn more about the lives of the saints. After all, it’s all about Divine Life—God’s, and ours—as in living a supernatural life NOW! These unusual teaching methods are all meant to help us love God perfectly and our neighbor, and that the Kingdom is here-and-now, as is the Cross and the Resurrection!

*       *       *

The Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once observed: We are not humans having a spiritual experience. We are supernatural beings having a human experience.

Think about that. We follow and worship Jesus of Nazareth—one of the most radical of men, and now, ironically, some of His followers want to fit into some bland, stereotypical nondescript just-like-everyone-else clique! Really? Back in His day, Jesus was one of the least popular guys to hang with. Very few Jews were followers. And yet today, Jesus Christ has probably the most followers—nearly three-billion world-wide!

The Son of Man Who had no place to rest His head (Matthew 8:19-20) lived the simplest and the most gnarly lifestyle, and is now mainstreamed, unfortunately airbrushed into a blued-eye European Caucasian (thanks to Renaissance artists). Many of us are being cosmeticized too, wanting to live in McMansions and worrying about our 401K plans.

Hmmmm not good. It makes you think. But, Jesus wants you to think differently. So does our living Faith. Jesus also wants you to think more deeply. That is the real purpose of parables and paradoxes—to provoke you into deeper thought and to direct action!

Now it’s time to explain about those burns that help us learn, mentioned above.

When you really want something, you stretch yourself—study to get your driver’s license, cram for that chemistry test, not to mention the fat and carbs you burn training for the basketball team, or to lose weight. You seriously struggle and strive. No pain, no gain.

So, it’s the same struggle, the same level of effort a disciple goes through to qualify for joining a monastery; he or she burns for that acceptance. Do you burn while fasting during Lent, thinking about chocolate, or some other desire? Think about the martyrs who burned with love of Jesus, even while imitating Him in His death.

*       *       *

Paradoxes. Our Faith is full of them. For that matter, the Catholic Church itself is a paradox. We are, according to Vatican II, both a divine church and human (founded by the Lord Jesus and led by mortals).

Also, paradoxically, the Catholic Church teaches through mystery and catechisms. We incense things like saint’s relics and explain things like supernatural life! Lastly, the Church has produced the greatest saints and personages (such as Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena) and spawned some of the greatest sinners—abusive priests and wicked Borgia-popes!

Irish author James Joyce is a child of the Catholic Church. So is Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Think about this— an accomplice to murders—St. Paul—helped birth our Church, along with a teen virgin, the holy Mother of God, Mary.

An excellent video I recently saw addresses this Big Question: Why does God allow suffering? It was about Joni Earekson Tada. This film is packed with Truth, realistically speaking about hellish suffering as a quadriplegic. She was hugely harmed after diving into the Chesapeake Bay, not realizing that part was too shallow. God speaks to us through her mangled body. Joni addresses that Big Question. Think of this: someone held captive by her disabled body can accomplish amazing things and speak liberating truths. Paradox.

Further, the Church teaches that God is ultimately mysterious and above our comprehension (transcendent) and yet, God is here among us. Read John 6:56. It is also described in St. Francis’s Canticle of the Sun AND His physical presence is presaged in Daniel 3:91-92!

*       *       *

Learn as you read, enter more deeply into this Divine Life. I propose to investigate in what some might call a weird way. Within parables, paradoxes and stories, we can discern Truth, learn how to become holy, love God and love our neighbor—the Essence of Life.

So, just what are we talking about? Here is a wee taste of what is to come:

• Beguiling paradox. Joseph was abducted by his jealous brothers and sold into slavery into Egypt. When Joseph became counselor to the Pharaoh, he revealed himself to his brothers. Though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve this present end, the survival of many people (Genesis 50:20).

• The Good Samaritan. This was Jesus’s answer on the meaning of what it is to be a good neighbor—that our neighbor is sometimes an outsider to one’s culture (Luke 10:25). This takes what is in the head and impresses it into the heart.

• Seeming contradiction. Jesus’s famous counsel on self-identity and true nature: Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

We like and loathe these methods. We like them because they are tantalizingly fun, and kind of loathe them when the Truth escapes us, when we don’t quite get it.

Getting it. Understanding sometimes comes after a bit of deep thought and extensive reading. However, one can be told the truth directly or indirectly. Jesus gave it to us straight at times, but more often utilized parables. He wanted to make sure the lesson became thoroughly embedded within our very fiber, so that our whole being gets involved, and doesn’t remain a head lesson.

There is a word from Buddhism—shikantaza. It means just sitting. Later on, I will share more about Zen Buddhism, which generally consists of two schools, i.e., the Soto and Rinzai sects. Rinzai focuses on koan work and sudden enlightenment, while the Soto school deals more with shikantaza. Anyway, point: we sometimes just need to sit, meditate, contemplate some things, sheer concentration, to be enlightened.

Narratives. People like stories; they are entertaining. The Harry Potter series and J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings come to mind, as do the grand operas of Wagner and Verdi. The plot unfolds, and you are drawn within. There is always some kind of tension (a demon or anti-hero throws a monkey wrench into the drama). This is also evident in movies, the Avenger series, for example, along with the Indiana Jones franchise. I must say, however, that at times the galactic-style special effects in these films can overwhelm the plot. Just an opinion.

The truth shall set you free (John 8:32). That Jesus-statement can mean we are chained to something not good, and also, we can be liberated from that-something.

There are a lot of black-and-white truths in life—and in the Bible. But there are plenty of gray areas too. Meaning: There exists a mixture of dogmatic truth and elastic truth. Put another way, since there are gray areas – we need prudential wisdom—the ability to make a wise, good decision in a particular morally-nebulous or negligible circumstance.

Jesus had different strategies for teaching. Sometimes He utilized direct truths, such as Follow me and Deny yourself —most certainly quite direct. He also taught with questions. Lastly, Jesus used parables and stories and sometimes allegories. His goal? To get you, all of us, to Heaven, to righteousness and into the right relationship with God the Father.

As a Jewish rabbi, Jesus had at His disposal many philosophical and verbal techniques, i.e., boomerang thinking—that is, truths which swirl away from us and then come back once we begin to ponder them more deeply. Therefore, when Jesus utilized parables, paradoxes and seemingly serendipitous forays into daily life, He was giving us excellent opportunities to re-train our brains and get us to think differently. My goal? Ultimately, to get you, dear reader, into a union with God, in this case through enlightenment and /or a lightbulb experience—not just in your head but in the heart. You can encounter Him in His word via story-telling and by koan-like enticements.

BEGUILE. This word can be interpreted as negative or positive. Webster’s Dictionary says: to mislead by cheating or tricking, and to pass time agreeably or pleasantly, to charm or delight. Our Lord and Master Jesus utilized the positive aspects to awaken, cajole and shake up the minds of His listeners for intellectual enlightenment and to encourage moral action. In the East and West, it is accepted that the purpose of wisdom is not just for enlightenment but to engender action toward re-birth and the re-generation of life—the whole life, as in mind-body-spirit.

So, wait a second—this is yet another book on Jesus? Yes, it is, but from a different perspective—combining East and West cataphatic knowledge of God through affirmation theology, and its opposite, apophatic knowledge of God through negation. Don’t get scared! The italicized words mean, respectively, words and negations These concepts have been used for two millennia—you just don’t realize it! They express the paradoxical nature of theology and religious phenomenon. Example? Think about our Lord Jesus—He was King of Kings and homeless; Christ was Divine and yet was the Man of Sorrows. He performed miracles but didn’t save Himself on the Cross of execution.

One of my favorite paradoxes is St. Paul’s strive to enter into that rest… (Hebrews 4:11) Note that: striving and rest are seemingly opposites and yet, in Paul’s mind, one aspect leads to the other. That rest means the Lord’s Sabbath and not our fallible filled-with-football-games and lawn-mowing—i.e., compromised- Sunday of materialism.

All right, now that I have cleared up the confusion, we shall plunge into how this book came about—to include some of my background, starting with this Big Question:

How can one hold mystery, moral ambiguity and perplexing truth within the mind all at the same time?

Read on, Dear Friend. Become beguiled and enlightened!

Interlude: A Meditation

SEEMING OPPOSITES:

GODLY PARADOXES

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Light and darkness mingle to make up life.

Shrine of the Little Flower Church, Baltimore,

+Photo by Author

In our Faith, we have many beguilements, including twists of mind and meaning. One of those ways is by means of utilizing paradoxes. For instance, we believe in a God-Man—Jesus Christ. A Virgin-Mother gave Him to us, and we humans have sometimes been considered, in the Protestant description (Martin Luther), as simul justus et peccator—we are simultaneously justified and a sinner. (Which, you may note, we Catholics theologically, technically disagree with— but you get the basic point!)

Here’s what we know from the dictionary:

Paradox, defined.

1: A person, situation or action having seemingly contradictory qualities or aspects.

2a: A Statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to commonsense and yet is perhaps true.

2b: A self-contradictory statement that at first seems true while being beguiling.

The ancient Greeks were well aware that a paradox could take us outside our usual way of thinking. They combined the prefix para (beyond or outside of) with the verb dokein (to think), forming paradoxos—an adjective meaning contrary to expectation. Latin speakers used that word as the basis for a noun paradoxum, which English speakers borrowed during the 1500s to create the word paradox.

So, in life—and even in religion—things seem one way, and yet are actually another way. The upshot: Paradox is a situation or person that is something contrary to what it appears to be—a kind of (religious) riddle. The religious paradoxes of our Faith seem crazy or impossible but are actually truly helpful and authentic—as much as a direct or mathematical truth is, but taught and expressed in a different way.

Spiritual teachers in the East and West use all kinds of ways to teach us truth: Zen Buddhists have koan-riddles; Jews have stories and parables; and Christians have paradoxes and mysteries. We do not always like these ways, or get Truth on the first try—but that is the point: we need to persevere and go deeper, or higher.

Before we go on, remember this: A paradox is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived!

God is transcendent and immanent. St. Augustine looked for God everywhere in his world, and in all kinds of people, and yet, he found God within himself! In his famous prayer in the Confessions (sometimes described as the first biography) he prayed:

O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you.

In Isaiah 66:19, there is what we call in theology the universalist vision of the prophet and God—for all to be saved (as I Timothy 2:4, put so bluntly). Now, contrast this with the Lord in the Gospel, where He says: Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. (Luke 13:24).

Here’s another twist from Hebrews, 12:6: For whom the Lord loves, He chastises; and He scourges every son. Hmmm, paradoxes abound.

Maybe we’re supposed to learn something from this unique way of teaching! God wants all to be saved but only a few will be? And: When we suffer, this may mean God is loving us?

There’s something to this, I think…

It’s kind-of like a "square-circle"—this particular oxymoron is classically beguiling: which is what we are meant to contemplate—combine seeming opposites, balance different-ness, blend them together.

Now, visualize a see-saw or a balance-scale—avoid the extremes, where the seats heavily weight to one end or another (the extremes—like in our wrongful, errant thoughts) and rather strive to balance the whole contraption into the middle, where the seeming opposites blend and complement each other and form a new reality out of duality.

Now, learn a great lesson from Latin: in media stat virtu—in the middle lies virtue. So, don’t go to extremes in either direction. Got it?

In life, you’re probably trying getting the square-peg-into-a-round hole thing—doing something that seems impossible. That’s not a religious paradox, however, because they are possible and highly probable.

Since paradoxes abound in our Faith, Bible and life—i.e., God uses tough love and is as loving as a mother (Isaiah 66:13); people are neither totally good nor evil but a mix of both! Then, there is this from Jesus: Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 10:39). Okay, then let’s get this straight, and truly learn from paradoxical pedagogy!

The Essence of Paradoxes

Number One: Ponder. Unlike mathematical truths (2+2=4) and direct truths (the flower is red) or intuitional truths: I see the flower: pretty (no thought required!), with paradoxes and even parables, we need to think and rethink. Paradoxes entice and entangle; we need to spend time with them. Unlike a soundbite or a Wikipedia micro-lesson, understanding these deeper teachings will only come with time: life, events, and experiences. In essence: no pain, no gain. Sweat and even blood means investment and striving, versus contriving and laziness.

Number two: Penetrate and persevere. Parables and paradoxes elicit truth only after we put in the time, effort and perseverance. We go deeply, as there are many levels to Big Truth…

We must personally appropriate more and deeper manifestations of