The Hobo Journal

St. John Bosco Novena

2012-01-19T21:21:00.002-06:00

Our friends at Pray More Novenas will launch the January novena next week in honor of St. John Bosco.

I must admit I was largely unfamiliar with this fascinating 19th century Italian saint who dedicated his life to ministering to at-risk boys. I wish I had known about him during the years I spent as principal of an alternative school serving the same kind of boys St. John knew well.

Read a profile of St. John Bosco here and join us for the novena!

Sunday Best

2012-01-12T21:32:00.001-06:00

Another recent First Things column by George Weigel got me thinking about what we wear to church, and now Christianity Today's Duane Liftin takes up cause with a thought-provoking piece that raises important questions about our attire on Sunday mornings.

Supporting his thoughts with rich scriptural references, Liftin notes the obvious trend toward casual dress throughout society and most noteably in church and wonders what this says about the way we prepare ourselves for worship. If take so little thought to how we dress at church, are we also putting little thought into how we prepare our hearts and minds for the experience of encountering God?

These are things I hadn't considered until recently, and I sure don't want to start wearing a tie to church on Sunday mornings (though that's what I wore almost every Sunday as a boy), but I think Liften raises some compelling points.

There's a real problem, of course, with choosing to "dress up" for church now that casual has become the norm. You'll stand out, almost as if you are trying to draw attention to yourself or make some holier-than-thou point. Liften acknowledges this issue, but suggest we should shy away from the challenge on account of this issue:

We all understand that the wrong clothes can distract our fellow worshipers. Elaborate, showy attire may reflect a prideful, elitist, egocentric display of wealth, status, and power (Mark 12:38; Luke 16:19; James 2:3). Or it may serve as a mask, a facade behind which lurks a very different reality (Matt. 23:27). In this way and others our choice of clothing can be sinful. But this does not render our everyday ("common"), come-as-you-are attire "spiritual" or "honest." If we care for our fellow worshipers as we ought, we will take them into consideration as we dress for worship. We will clothe ourselves in ways that edify them and strengthen their own worship. We will attempt to avoid the nonchalant attitude that says this event is entirely routine; that it merits nothing special from me; that my only consideration in what I choose to wear is what is easiest and most convenient. Such a self-centered attitude is corrosive to a true spirit of worship. Instead, the goal in our choice of clothing should be to express to the Lord and those around us that this event matters, that I view it as a holy occasion, one which deserves our highest regard. If the first audience for our nonverbal messages is God himself, and secondarily, our fellow worshipers, dress that best suits these first two audiences may also serve a third: outsiders who join our public worship.

Liften says he does not want to prescribe a dress code for church, and I appreciate that humility. But I'll definitely think twice before dressing for church next Sunday.

Doorways to Faith

2012-01-11T20:47:00.000-06:00

At First Things today, George Weigel offers a meditation on the witness of converts to the Catholic faith. Weigel catalogs an impressive litany of converts and their various intellectual contributions to the Church and culture at large. Despite their diverse backgrounds, Weigel says these Christians were ultimately drawn to Catholicism's "symphony of truth:"

You don’t have to be an intellectual to appreciate this “symphony of truth,” however. For Catholicism is, first of all, an encounter with a person, Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14.6). And to meet that person is to meet the truth that makes all the other truths of our lives make sense. Indeed, the embrace of Catholic truth in full, as lives like Blessed John Henry Newman’s demonstrate, opens one up to the broadest possible range of intellectual encounters.

Viewed from outside, Catholicism can seem closed and unwelcoming. As Evelyn Waugh noted, though, it all seems so much more spacious and open from the inside. The Gothic, with its soaring vaults and buttresses and its luminous stained glass, is not a classic Catholic architectural form by accident. The full beauty of the light, however, washes over you when you come in.

I appreciate Weigel's reflections, but as a convert myself (and having talked with scores of converts over the years; we have a way of finding each other and reveling in our shared experience), I think the journey to the Church is often complicated. I personally converted to Catholicism as a 30-year-old former Baptist-turned-Quaker-turned-Buddhist. In the beginning, I was, like Thomas Merton (whom Weigel mentions), drawn to the aesthetic dimensions of Catholic worship. I fell in love with liturgy and incense and the mystery of it all. Later, I became convinced of the intellectual, moral, and religious truth of Catholic teaching. And of late, I am finally arriving at the ultimate purpose of the Catholic faith experience: a direct, personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Redeemer.

I guess my point is, each of these historical converts Weigel describes exemplified one of many doorways into the Catholic Church, doors all of us might pass through at some point in our faith formation.

Holy Trinity: The Tie that Binds

2012-01-09T19:43:00.001-06:00

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open
and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens,
"You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
--Mark 1:10-11

I recently was pleased to listen to Now You Know Media's audio program on the Orthodox Church with Professor Peter Bouteneff. My appreciation for theology was deeply enriched by this program and its emphasis on the Church Fathers and the development of Christian doctrine. One point Bouteneff stressed was the absolute necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity for understanding the entire message of the Gospel and the coherence of Christian faith.

I recalled all this yesterday when the Church in the United States formally observed the Feast of the Epiphany and in today's celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. During his homily yesterday, my pastor noted that the gifts of the magi had special significance: gold represented Jesus's kingship, frankincense represented his divinity, and myrrh - which was used for burial purposes - emphasized his humanity. But as Bouteneff's lectures echoed in my heart, I saw another layer of symbolism: gold as fitting the kingship of the Father, frankincense as the wispy, breathlike Spirit, and myrrh - the Son who is God-Man.

Today, all three persons of the Trinity are fully present one of the most dramatic passages of the Gospels, when the Father tears open the heavens, pours out the Holy Spirit, and blesses his Begotten Son. Again and again throughout the gospels, God is fully present in the interlocking mystery that is the Trinity.

Pope Benedict XVI adds an interesting twist to this feast day, however, by emphasizing that the loving intimacy shared at Jesus' baptism was not merely a dance of joy among the persons of the Trinity. In our own baptism, which certainly occurred in time but which is ever present (as is the Trinity) each time we bless ourselves, we are invited to fully join in this eternal communion. In fact, all of Creation joins in:

Baptism is not only a word, it is not only something spiritual but also implies matter. All the realities of the earth are involved. Baptism does not only concern the soul. God's action in Jesus Christ is an action of universal efficacy. Christ took flesh and this continues in the sacraments in which matter is taken on and becomes part of the divine action...Baptism will remain throughout life a gift of God, who has set his seal on our souls. But it will then be our cooperation, the availability of our freedom to say "yes" which makes divine action effective.

Again and again of late I hear the Lord's gentle, loving whisper, inviting and inticing me into deeper intimacy, into a communion of bliss and perfect love that is the fulfillment and consummation of all longing. Two feast days in a row offer an extended celebration of this love.

Beloved, here I am. Amen.

The Way of Enchantment

2012-01-04T09:43:00.001-06:00

Memorial Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Today is my 41st birthday. As I meditated this morning on the passage of time, I have to admit I am no longer a "young man," but neither am I old. If I'm very lucky, I've reached the halfway point. In some ways, I'm probably at the pinnacle of my health and at an extremely satisfying life point professional and personally.

I am also tremendously grateful for the spiritual graces God has bestowed on me. Like most people, my inner world is a mess in all kinds of ways, but each day I feel some greater measure of Christ's peace in my heart. My prayer life is more stable and gratifying. I am able to pray for others and have greater wisdom in what to pray for and how. I try to say this with humility because I know I'm probably one illness or tragedy away from a complete meltdown, and will probably stub my toe and unleash some fury of anger and pent-up rage later today. That's why I'm grateful for moments when I can, through grace, have some clarity.

One bit of clarity came recently while reading an essay by R. R. Reno in First Things. Reno was reflecting on the ancient Latin poem, On the Nature of Things, which celebrated Greek philosopher Epicurus. Reno contrasted Epicurus' materialist worldview, which recommended a dispassionate detachment from all material things as the key to happiness (paradoxically an approach that appeals to many of today's materialist, secular, atheist thinkers) with the path of the ancient Christian fathers, especially St. Augustine.

Augustine shared with Epicurus a sense that this life, with all its joys and beauty, was nevertheless ultimately disatisfying to the human heart. Inner peace could not be achieved through outward attachments, acquisitions, or accomplishments. Rather, says Reno, Augustine's path to peace was through radical attachment - to God. Augustine's was the path of love, which Reno poetically calls "the way of enchanment:"

"Let my bones," Augustine prays with an ardor that evokes the profound desire that suffuses the Song of Songs, "be penetrated by your love." His prayer is answered. After his conversion he writes, "You pierced my heart with the arrow of your love."

This divine arrow--which is a direct reference to Cupid and Venus that fuses the entire ancient pagan fascination with the enslaving power of love to the Old Testatment's nuptial vision--cures Augustine's restless, troubled soul. "Suddenly," he writes, "it had become sweet to me to be without the sweets of folly. What I had once feared to lose was now a delight to dismiss." Like a fire that clears the field of weeds, the fierce heat of love burns away his distracting, dissipating worldly desires, bringing him to rest in an arresting desire to abide in Christ. It is a paradox, but not an unfamiliar one. The burning passion of love makes us stable, which is to say, tranquil. Under love's enchanting spell we rest in that which we love.

This all resonated with me powerfully. For quite some time now I've been praying for a deeper conversion of heart, but I've been framing it in terms of some kind of transformation of self that I want God to work in me. I have prayed for greater peace, for more gratitude, for more joy, for more spontenaeity, all of which are good things, but I've been seeking these things as one might seek out a mechanic to fix one's broken car.

This is not the way of enchantment. God calls us into relationship. This is what I've been missing, but what I've in fact been seeking all along. I want to grow in love, a love that is born of deep communion with Christ, in adoring and delighting in him and, in turn, allowing him to adore and delight in me. If I grow in love, then all the other things I seek - peace, gratitude, joy - will come too, as fruits of that mutually shared and celebrated love. This is the essence of Christian discipleship as I've come to understand it.

And so perhaps in my forty-second year, I will simply pray to fall more deeply in love with the One who first loved me.

This prayer from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, whose feast day we observe today, speaks for my heart:

O my Lord Jesus Christ who was born for me in a stable, lived for me a life of pain and sorrow, and died for me upon a corss, say for me in the hour of my Death Father forgive, and to your Mother behold your child. Say to me yourself this day you shall be with me in Paradise. O my Savior, leave me not, forsake me not, I thirst for you and long for your fountain of living water -- my days pass quickly along, soon all will be consummated for me -- to your hands I commend my spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Unite me to yourself, O adorable victim, life-giving heavenly bread, feed me, sanctify me, reign in me, transform me to yourself -- live in me, and let me live in you, let me adore you in your life-giving sacraments as my God -- listen to you as to my Master -- obey you as my King -- imitate you as my Model -- follow you as my Shepherd -- love you as my Father -- seek you as my Physician who will heal all the maladies of my soul -- indeed my way, truth, and life, sustain me O heavely manna through the desert of this world, till I shall behold you unveiled in your glory.

The Holy Name

2012-01-03T19:49:00.001-06:00

Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus

"Kyrie Jesu Christe, Elaison...Learn it in Russian, learn it in Greek. Say it. Pep up your spiritual life with the Jesus Prayer in the various languages. It's a fine prayer."
--Thomas Merton

I was happy to see this feast day on the calendar, as I've recently taken an interest in the "Jesus Prayer" that provides such an important foundation to spirituality in the Orthodox Church. In particular, I've been reading Merton & Hesychasm: The Prayer of the Heart, and practicing the simple, repetitive prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on my a sinner." The prayer can modified and simplified even further. A friend meditatively prays, "Jesus" on his in-breath and "Mercy" on the outbreath. Following Merton's advice, lately I've started praying the short version in Greek, "Kyrie Jesu Christe, Elaison."

"Hesychasm" means "stillness," representing the grace of inner calm and peace that often flows into the heart of one who perpetually invokes the name of Jesus. This prayer is based on the notion that the name of the Lord, when called upon in faith, has the potential through grace to unleash enormous power in into the world both visible and invisible. Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware explains:

The invocation of the divine Name possesses a sacramental character, serving as an efficacious sign of His invisible presence and action. For the believing Christian today, as in apostolic times, the Name of Jesus is power.

While we typically associated the Jesus prayer with the Eastern Christian tradition, devotion to the Name has a long-standing importance in the Christian West as well. Abbot Elias Dietz of the Abbey of Gethsemani reminded monks of St. Bernard's thoughts on the holy name during his chapter talk last weekend:

"O blessed name, oil poured out without limit. From heaven it pours down on Judea and from there over all the earth, so that round the whole world the Church proclaims: “Your name is oil poured out.” And what an outpouring? It not only bathes the heavens and the earth, it even bedews the underworld, so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld should bend the knee in the name of Jesus. . ." (CS 15.4; CF 4:108)

As he goes on to say, the name of Jesus is both precious and cheap: precious for the depth of mystery and wealth of mercy it contains, cheap, because it is so accessible to us, even when we are at our weakest and worst:

"Hidden as in a vase, in this name of Jesus, you, my soul, possess a salutary remedy against which no spiritual illness will be proof. Carry it always close to your heart, always in your hand, and so ensure that all your affections, all your actions, are directed to Jesus. . . . The name of Jesus furnishes the power to correct your evil actions, to supply what is wanting to imperfect ones; in this name your affections find a guard against corruption, or if corrupted, a power that will make them whole again." (SC 15.7: CF 4:111)

The name of Christ is so accessible to us that we are free to use it in reference to ourselves:

"Made a sharer in the name, I share too in its inheritance. For I am a Christian, Christ’s own brother. If I am what I say, I am the heir of God, co-heir with Christ." (CS 15.4).

This is heavy - and beautiful -- stuff. In my own prayer practice, I have often invoked the Jesus Prayer in times of panic and despair, or when I could not muster any other words. But as I practice this prayer on a more regular basis - driving the car, walking to the office, waiting in line at the grocery - times of ordinary life, it becomes more like breathing. And while I may not yet perceive Christ's presence with the clarity of St. Bernard, I feel a measure of hesychia - of stillness - that is his grace.

Kyrie Jesu Christe, Elaison!

Mary, Mother of Mystics

2012-01-02T21:23:00.002-06:00

Feast of Sts. Basil and Great and Gregory Nazianzen

Yesterday was, besides the first day of a new calendar year, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Auspiciously, I received a new audio program as a Christmas gift, Ten Christians Mystics and What They Tell Us of God, with Father Murray Bodo, OFM, which I began listening to today. Fr. Bodo begins his list of ten personally favorite mystics with Mary herself, whom he calls the "Mother of Mystics." I had never considered Mary this way, and appreciated his insights.

In his introduction, Fr. Bodo explains what's significant about mystics: they reveal to us that mystery of Christ's love that is ever flowing into our lives as a present, life transforming reality, not just an historic event of the past. Scripture is certainly the revelation of God's relationship with man, but it's easy for Christians to conclude that it's a story the primarily takes place in the past. The mystics reveal how God is working in our very lives, and by their willingness to hear God's call and respond, they also reveal how us ordinary Christians might live more faithful, Christ-filled lives.

[Mystics] prove to us that God continues to communicate with us in our own time, that God continues to love us, and to cherish us a mother cherishes her own child. We see, too, that like Mary we all can be Christ-bearers. St. Francis of Assisi states this truth beautifully when he writes: "We are God‟s bride when our faithful soul is united with Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit; we are his brothers and sisters when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven, and w are mother to him when we carry him in our hearts and souls through love and a pure and sincere conscience, and give him birth by doing good."

In this way, Mary is the ultimate mystic. God reached out to this girl who had no way to anticipate her vocation and purpose in life, and responded to his invitation with an unequivocal "yes!"

The life of Mary is a template one could place over every mystic: an Annunciation of the Spirit, a giving birth to God, a sense of the Incarnate God‟s presence, and following the life of the God who is human, from Nazareth to Calvary to his Resurrection and Ascension to the return of the Spirit at Pentecost. And all the time in between is Ordinary Time, in which one incarnates God in one‟s own daily life, nurturing God and sharing God with others. The whole journey is summed up in Mary‟s words, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

Fr. Bodo makes it clear that not all of us will be graced with mystical experiences, but all of us will face challenging calls that will mirror Mary's life and faith-filled responses. In this way, she is not simply Mother of the mystics, but Mother of us All.

Blessed Mother, you grace us with your perpetual prayers of intercession. Pray that God will bless us with listening hearts that we might hear God's call and respond with some portion of your own loving faith. Amen.

New Year's blessing prayer for clocks and calendars

2011-12-30T10:05:00.003-06:00

[Fr. Ed Hays writes beautiful books of prayer that transform the everday, ordinary experiences of life into sacred moments. The following blessing prayer is from Prayers for the Domestic Church: A Handbook for Worship in the Home.]

Watches and calendars may be placed on the table.

Lord, You who live outside of time,
and reside in the imperishable moment,
we ask Your blessing this New Year's Day (Eve)
upon Your gift to us of time.

Bless our clocks and watches,
You who kindly direct us
to observe the passing of minutes and hours.
May they make us aware of the miracle
of each second of life we experience.
May these our ticking servants
help us not to miss that which is important,
while You keep us from machine-like routine.
May we ever be free from being clock watchers
and instead become time lovers.

Bless our calendars,
these ordered lists of days, weeks and months,
of holidays, holy days, fasts and feasts --
all our special days of remembering.
May these servants, our calendars,
once reserved for the royal few,
for magi and pyramid priests,
now grace our homes and our lives.
May they remind us of birhtdays and other gift-days,
as they teach us the secret
that all life
is meant for celebration
and contemplation.
Bless, Lord, this new year,
each of its 365 (366) days and nights.
Bless us with new moons and full moons.
Bless us with happy seasons and a long life.
Grant to us, Lord,
the new year's gift
of a year of love.

Amen.+

Anti-establishment for the 21st century

2011-12-13T20:54:00.001-06:00

Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr

"Thus says the LORD:
Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted,
to the tyrannical city!
She hears no voice,
accepts no correction;
In the LORD she has not trusted,
to her God she has not drawn near."
--Zephaniah 3:1-2

Today on the First Things blog, Anchoress Elizabeth Scalia reflects on the odd disdain so many people have for Denver Broncos quarterback and happy Christian Tim Tebow. I was less interested in Scalia's specific comments about Tebow (who seems like a nice, likeable, humble, faith-filled fellow to me) and more in her thoughts about a culture that would treat such a guy like a freak. Scalia excoriates contemporary culture for its fake allegiance to tolerance, cooperation, and the condemnation of self-interest:

If unselfishness, co-operation, and bare profits were truly prized by the narrative builders [of contemporary culture], then monasteries would be heralded as authentic models of the doctrine of “fairness” and practical solutions to our socio-economic dolors; people would be encouraged to dedicate their educations, their talents, and their monies to help grow and sustain them. Ditto for parish outreaches, faith-based job-training programs and soup kitchens; church-administered hospitals, substance abuse programs, and crisis pregnancy centers.

Scalia's point is that our culture is, in fact, the epitome of self-indulgence and hedonism. If Tim Tebow is a freak in our culture, then the men and women who still answer the call to consecrated life in monasteries and religious orders and utterly alien to this world.

This generation obsessed with being different ought to consider the ultimate example of otherness - and learn from them.
Abba, convict us of our blind selfishness and hypocrisy. Help us to learn from your saints, those of old and those who walk among us today, nearly invisible to the eyes of the world. Amen.

Letting go so that we may receive

2011-12-09T13:20:00.001-06:00

"Wisdom is vindicated by her works."
--Matthew 11:19

Today's meditation from Jay Cormier's Waiting in Joyful Hope is so good, I have to quote from it at length:

We are not a very patient people.
We can't spare the time to stop and catch our breath. Quiet unnerves us; silence is a sure sign that something is wrong; reflection and thoughtfulness are luxuries. We do not live in the moment -- we live in the next moment.
We need to be constantly connected, online, and plugged in.
We are terrified of being bored.
We are in a constant hurry -- and yet we do not get very far.
We struggle to walk between the austere, demanding John at the Jordan and the Jesus who welcomes and forgives all.
Too often we let our fears and doubts, our cynicism and fatalism, affect our decision making. We are defeated by what is not rather than inspired by what could be....
Advent calls us to patience -- not patience that passively accepts without complaint whatever disappoints us, but patience that is certain in the hope of better things to come...These days of Advent are a microcosm of our lives, revealing to us the preciousness of time and confronting us with our mortality. May these days teach us to realize the sacred in our lives, to behold God's love in the midst of our family and friends, to embrace the patience of Advent in order to see our lives and world through the eyes of God.

Encouraging words, but hard words for me. I cling so desperately most days to my to-do list, this never-ending agenda of accomplishment that I have, for the most part, arbitrarily imposed on myself. And in my desperate rush to check things off, I miss important, sacred moments, I become fragmented and harried, and my overall affect becomes increasingly grim, angry, and afraid.

This is precisely what Emmanuel comes to save us from. He reorders our priorities. He gives us an abiding peace in which to rest, and all our efforts may arise from his infinite pool of energy and wisdom. He gives us eyes to see the sacredness of every unfolding moment.

But we must first surrender all those things we cling to so that he can give them back to us as sanctified gifts.

My Deal with the Blessed Virgin Mary

2011-12-08T21:46:00.001-06:00

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

On an autumn weekday in 1993 I went into an empty Catholic Church, knelt before an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and prayed. I was not a Catholic, though I had been sporadically attending Mass with my girlfriend, and even now I'm not entirely sure what brought me there. I was anxious about many things that day. My girlfriend and I were at a pivotal place (we were maintaining an intense but long-distance relationship), I was uncertain about my course of studies (I was in graduate school at the time), and I was feeling spiritually lost and in need of guidance.

In my desperation, I prayed to the Blessed Mother, something totally foreign to my Baptist upbringing, and asked her to intercede for me, to pray for me and help me resolve the big decisions I faced about school and about my girlfriend. I loved this young woman, could see her as my wife, and was anxious that our relationship succeed. In the kind of reckless spiritual bargaining people often find themselves engaging in during prayer, I offered Mary a deal: Take me under your protection and pray for me, and I will dedicate myself to you and your Church.

I had no idea what I was promising but the Blessed Mother evidently accepted my plea. In two months time I had transfered schools, which put me in much closer proximity to my girlfriend. We were engaged six months later, and have been married for 16 years now. Our daughter will be two years old in a few weeks.

On the other hand, I was not as faithful to our bargain. I did become Catholic eventually, though it took me another seven years to finally follow through. My devotion to Mary was anemic at best, and I have always been the most cafeteria of Catholics, even as I have tried to exercise some discipline in prayer and study and development of my own faith. I am a deeply flawed disciple, to say the least.

But periodically I am reminded of that day nearly 20 years ago when she accepted me, a lost boy so anxious to love and be loved and find my place in the world. Today, as I prayed in church during the feast of her Immaculate Conception, I felt her presence again and could sense her loving, caring, prayerful protection as she graciously continues to hold up her end of our deal.

And so on this day I rededicate myself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to her son my Savior and Lord, and to his body, the Church, that through his grace I might be a better servant to him, to my family and friends, and to my brothers and sisters in need, now and forever.

Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy; hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve: to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Amen.

Pray More Novenas: The Immaculate Conception

2011-11-29T13:10:00.001-06:00

Before I became a Catholic, and for years after my conversion, I was terribly uncomfortable with novenas and other traditional expressions of Catholic piety. Part of this was rooted in the seemingly over-the-top results that are often "guaranteed" to those who faithfully offer the prayers for nine straight days as perscribed. In their excellent little book, Why Be Catholic: Understanding Our Experience and Tradition, Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos warn about the kind of un-Christian superstitions to which Catholicism is always prone. Our sacramental understanding of reality can tempt us toward a kind of "Catholic magic" whereby we assume that, through our own activities (such as prayers) we can force God to give us a blessing.

Certainly the instructions for some novenas can suggest just this type of thinking. A few months ago, however, I responded to a friend's invitation to join in a novena to St. Therese of Lisieux, to whom I have personal devotion. This novena was sponsored by a one-man website operation called Pray More Novenas, run by an ordinary Catholic layman named John-Paul who wanted to, well, pray more novenas, and as a means of encouraging himself, has started a worldwide network of folks who now join together to support each other in the prayers. The next month I joined in the novena to St. Jude the Apostle, and today we launch the Immaculate Conception novena, which will culminate on said feast day, December 8. Over 6,000 people are praying this novena together.

Pray More Novenas doesn't promote Catholic magic, but rather Christian devotion and disciplined prayer. The tradition of nine days of prayer comes straight from Holy Scripture, when Jesus instructed the disciples, following his Ascension, to return to the upper room and wait for the arrival of the Holy Spirit, which descended upon them on the tenth day. Since then, nine-day devotions of various sorts have proliferated in popular practice. And while no one is guaranteed a specific outcome to their prayers, Scripture is also clear that God pours out blessings upon those who call upon Him in faith.

And so I have become a devotee of novenas. I look forward to selecting specific prayer intentions and the gentle discipline of offering the prayers, in communion with Mary and various saints, every day. John-Paul makes it easy for us digital-age disciples by sending an email with each day's prayers, and an online forum provides a place to note your intentions and any blessings that might unfold.

I invite readers to join us. Here's today's prayer:

O most pure Virgin Mary conceived without sin, from the very first instant, you were entirely immaculate. O glorious Mary full of grace, you are the mother of my God – the Queen of Angels and of men. I humbly venerate you as the chosen mother of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Prince of Peace and the Lord of Lords chose you for the singular grace and honor of being his beloved mother. By the power of his Cross, he preserved you from all sin. Therefore, by His power and love, I have hope and bold confidence in your prayers for my holiness and salvation.

I pray first of all that you would make me worthy to call you my mother and your Son, Jesus, my Lord.

I pray that your prayers will bring me to imitate your holiness and submission to Jesus and the Divine Will.

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Now, Queen of Heaven, I beg you to beg my Savior to grant me these requests…

(Mention your intentions)

My holy Mother, I know that you were obedient to the will of God. In making this petition, I know that God’s will is more perfect than mine. So, grant that I may receive God’s grace with humility like you.

As my final request, I ask that you pray for me to increase in faith in our risen Lord; I ask that you pray for me to increase in hope in our risen Lord; I ask that you pray for me to increase in love for the risen Jesus!

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Christ Climbed Down

2011-11-28T21:20:00.001-06:00

Via my dear friend Tom comes this Advent poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, compadre of Thomas Merton and co-founder of San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore:

CHRIST climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

Advent of Our Birth

2011-11-27T21:27:00.001-06:00

First Sunday of Advent

"What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
--Mark 13:37

Today's reflection in Jay Cormier's Waiting in Joyful Hope provides a beautiful kick off to this Advent season. Cormier reminds us of all the times we have stayed up all night, studying for an exam, or getting an early start on a long journey, or perhaps for even more profound experiences, like sitting vigil with someone about to die, or waiting on the birth of a child.

This last example struck home powerfully for me, of course. My daughter was born near dawn after a long night of labor, nearly two years ago now. The parallels between that vigil and the joyful expectancy of Advent make the sacredness of this season palpable to me. Months of anxious waiting, preparation, and dreaming came to a climax that night.

There are differences too, of course. Our waiting was accompanied by a subtle but real fear: fear that something might go wrong. Whereas we are assured of the completeness that accompanies the arrival of the Kingdom.

This doesn't stop us from worrying, fearing, even doubting though, even about the Kingdom, does it? We are confident pregnancies will come to fullfillment, but we harbor quiet doubts about the infinite promises of the Gospels. Human nature, original sin, or just the absymally deep fragility and alienation of our spirits nurtures in us the constant risk of complacency.

This is why Advent is also a discipline. We must work at being watchful, must actively nurture joy, expectant gratitude, and abiding faith. Because the Kingdom will come as surely as the newborn child, and with mystery, glory and fullfillment far beyond our wildest imaginings.

Creator God, we await your birth among us, but ultimately it is you who give birth to us and through your grace, raise us up to be your blessed children. Let us ever be watchful for your redeeming love alive in our midst. Amen.

Of Christ and His Church

2011-11-17T19:38:00.001-06:00

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

The gregarious Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, launched the annual meeting of that august body earlier this week with a delightful address on a theme from Blessed Pope John Paul II: "Love for Jesus and His Church must be the passion of our lives!"

You can read the full text of Archbishop Dolan's remarks here.

Archbishop Dolan offered a stirring vision of what faith in the 21st century must mean for Catholic Christians. His positive message of passion and love reminded me of the premier episode of Fr. Robert Barron's monumental series Catholicism, which I watched last night on EWTN (interestingly, Archbishop Dolan also gives a shout out to Fr. Barron in his address). In the premier episode, which focused on the preaching message of Jesus, Fr. Barron emphasized that, despite the horrifying violence of the crucifixion, Christ's core message is one of joy and love. The Gospel is a pathway of happiness and freedom.

In his presidential message to the bishops, Dolan stressed a key component of our witness to that message of joy and love is the realization that Christ's message cannot be separated from the Body of Christ alive in the world today, which is His Church. Quoting the late Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac ("For what would I ever know of Him, without her?"), Dolan emphasized that the Church is ultimately where the world encounters Christ.

The Church we passionately love is hardly some cumbersome, outmoded club of sticklers, with a medieval bureaucracy, silly human rules on fancy letterhead, one more movement rife with squabbles, opinions, and disagreement.

The Church is Jesus -- teaching, healing, saving, serving, inviting; Jesus often "bruised, derided, cursed, defiled."

Because of this, Dolan encouraged the bishops to renew their commitment to renewing the Church itself. Part of this work of renewal is acknowledging that the Church has failed the Gospel in countless ways through the sinfulness of its human members. The world is lost, and sadly the Church has contributed to its lostness. But Dolan offers a rallying cry to bring the work of redemption - of the world and the Church - to the Church itself, where Christ pours out forgiveness, renewal, and rebirth through the sacraments and the life of faith.

We who believe in Jesus Christ and His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church interpret the sinfulness of her members not as a reason to dismiss the Church or her eternal truths, but to embrace her all the more! The sinfulness of the members of the Church reminds us precisely how much we need the Church. The sinfulness of her members is never an excuse, but a plea, to place ourselves at His wounded side on Calvary from which flows the sacramental life of the Church.

We have failed to live up to Christ's message, but for this reason we need to conform ourselves to the message - and share it with the world - all the more. It is through the renewal of the Church and its faithful witness to the eternal truth of the gospel that it remains relevant, vibrant, and immediately important for today's world:

It is always a risk for the world to hear the Church, for she dares the world to "cast out to the deep," to foster and protect the inviolable dignity of the human person and human life; to acknowledge the truth about life ingrained in reason and nature; to protect marriage and family; to embrace those suffering and struggling; to prefer service to selfishness; and never to stifle the liberty to quench the deep down thirst for the divine that the poets, philosophers, and peasants of the earth know to be what really makes us genuinely human.

Holy One, pour your renewing life out into your people and your Church. Forgive us for our many failures and remake us in your image so we may continue to be your Body in a world desperate for your love. Amen.

Unutterable Splendor

2011-11-16T13:07:00.001-06:00

At the First Things blog, Evangel, Hunter Baker offers some reflections on Todd Burpo's popular book, Heaven is for Real. The book recounts the story of Burpo's son, who (it appeared) nearly died of appendicitis. Except that some time after the incident, the boy began describing how he had, in fact, died, and visited Heaven, where he encounter Jesus, angels, and dead relatives.

Friends loaned me this book a few months ago and I'd heard many other Christians share their reactions. I approached the book with a little trepidation, suspicious of any human attempts to describe in words an experience that must be far beyond human imagination. And while I did find the book hopeful and encouraging in its testimony to a scriptural vision of the afterlife, I was still a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing. The little boy's description of heaven was just almost too conventional, and I chaffed at certain details like his assertion that Jesus had blue eyes. I'm not suggesting I know what Jesus looks like in heaven, but I can bet pretty confidently that the historical Jesus did not have blue eyes.

Baker offers a more poetic response to the book than I can muster:

The problem, I think, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with human attempts to describe heaven and/or the things of God. I’m not saying it can’t be done at all, but it seems to me that other than through full-on revelation (as in the book of that name), the sublimeness of heavenly things can only be approached from the side or seen from the corner of the eye. A direct confrontation seems doomed to fall short. I felt that way to some extent about Heaven is for Real (a non-fiction account) and more so about the picture presented of the divine appearing by Jerry Jenkins at the conclusion of the Left Behind novels. When Jesus arrives in the story, he appears to everyone in exactly the same way with exactly the same message. It feels like the description of a heavenly voicemail attached to a hologram.

Baker reminds us of Paul's description of being caught up into paradise ("the third heaven") in 2 Corinthians 12, where "the man...heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter."

Human words - even the sacred words of scripture - surely cannot do proper justice to the splendor, glory, and infinite beauty that is our destiny.

Lord, quicken in us the hope for eternal life with you and let us be humble and open to all the unimaginable delights that await us. Amen.

Fear and True Love

2011-11-14T16:41:00.001-06:00

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love."
1 John 4:18

Monsignor Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington offers a thoughtful reflection on the meaning of the "fear of the Lord" in scripture and the life of faith.

Citing St. Augustine, Msgr. Pope distinguishes between "servile" fear of the Lord (which is a fear of being punished for failing to do God's will) from filial fear (the fear a son feels of failing to properly reciprocate his father's love).

Genuine fear of the Lord is rooted in love. It is the aversion we feel at the thought of hurting or offending someone we love. In genuinely loving relationships, we long for unity with our beloved, whom we appreciate and adore. Msgr. Pope's (and St. Augustine's) comparison of this kind of fear to the relationship of a loving father and his child resonates for me, but ironically in the reverse.

As a father myself, of course I hope that my daughter comes to love me in such a way that she avoids hurting me and bringing separation and enmity between us, not simply out of fear but because she values our relationship so much. But the reverse is also true. I cringe at the thought that I might hurt her someday, I'm sure out of selfishness and unintended oversight if (when?) that happens.

Of course, I feel that aversion toward hurting my friends, my wife, and others too, but I have never known a human love quite like I feel for this little girl. Nothing compares. My adoration for her is beyond words, and I hope with all my heart never to let her down.

This, then, must be what scripture means by "fear of the Lord," or at least the closest thing I've experienced so far, and suggests why such an attitude is so important for faith and discipleship. Modern secular society undoubtedly would scoff at the phrase "fear of the Lord" as something arcane and primitive. This reveals how short-sighted and weaak the modern mind has come to be, and how far from true love we really are.

Lover of my Soul, your patience with and passion for me is humbling. You pursue me though I reject you again and again, you who made me and love me and long for my rest in you. And I long for you too, looking in all the wrong places. Take me and make me yours. Make me always true to our love. Amen.

Now am Found

2011-11-11T13:28:00.001-06:00

Memorial of St. Martin of Tours

All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is,
and from studying the works did not discern the artisan...
--Wisdom 13:1

Much meditation recently on the utter lostness of the world. Great dismay at the secular worldview that denies God's existence and humankind's place as subject to a Higher Power. Even in the face of more perplexing, awe-inspiring scientific understanding and discovery than we've ever known, we simply make an idol of science itself and establish ourselves as masters of the universe, beholden to no moral code other than what we arbitrarily invent and impose on one another.

Terribly harsh, I know, and perhaps overstated. And who am I to express such disgust? Me, a child of this age myself, prone to as much self-indulgence as anyone? And the record of those who adhere to more traditional worldviews is no less impressive when it comes to kindness, justice, and mercy.

We are all lost, then. And we can spend lots of time wringing our hands over the tragedy of it all, but I don't think that's what our Creator intends. We are not made for judgment, pity, and shame. We are made for praise, glory, and love. The discovery of our lostness serves no purpose other than to reveal that we are, ultimately, found. In the crazy economy of God's kingdom, we are loved infinitely, with no regard for our ignorance and brokenness, and in complete irrelevance to our incapacity to love in return.

No, no time for judgment, pity, and shame. And no point. There is too much praise and joy to share. There is too much love to glory in.

Holy One, you are revealed to us in countless ways. May we waste not one more moment in ignorance of your boundless love. Amen.

From Here to Eternity

2011-11-10T12:30:00.001-06:00

Memorial Feast of St. Leo the Great

"Our great dignity is tested by death--I mean our freedom. When the 'parting of the ways' comes--to set one's foot gladly on the way that leads out of this world. This is a great gift to ourselves, not to death but to life. For he who knows how to die not only lives longer in this life (if it matters) but lives eternally because of his freedom...So he who faces death can be happy in this life and in the next, and he who does not face it has no happiness in either."--Thomas Merton

Last night I had the pleasure of celebrating Vespers with the Orthodox Christian Fellowship at Western Kentucky University at WKU's spare but lovely Chandler Memorial Chapel. Father Michael Nasser, pastor of the local Holy Apostles Orthodox Mission, presided with guest BishopThomas of the Diocese of Toledo and the Midwest. The prayers were ethereal and hauntingly beautiful and I was awed by the great common stream of liturgical prayer and faith shared by all Christians, especially Catholic and Orthodox.

After the service, Bishop Thomas gave a brief talk on "An Ancient Faith in the Modern World." He emphasized that Christianity is not meant to be a lifestyle and belief system that seeks to accomodate changing times. Rather, Bishop Thomas stressed that Christianity is essentially a path that begins in the present moment but culminates in eternity. It is only from this perspective - that we are children of God created to give praise and worship (as we did at Vespers) - that anything makes sense. And from this perspective, not much of the modern world makes sense.

The modern world, Bishop Thomas noted, suggests that this present moment is all that exists and all that matters. And if this is true, then nothing matters.

Which is not to say that, from the Christian perspective, that the present moment is meaningless. To the contrary, it is in this present moment that we must begin our encounter with God. As Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel:

"The kingdom of of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or 'There it is.'
For behold, the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke 17:21)

He is referring, of course, to Himself, but also to His eternal presence among those who trust in Him. We encounter the kingdom here in the modern world, but faith and discipleship prepares us for a world far beyond this one.

Holy One, bless us this day with a vision of eternity and faith courageous enough to set our eyes firmly on our destiny. Amen.

Make Me a Door

2011-11-08T12:31:00.000-06:00

"But the souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace."
--Wisdom 3:1-3

The readings this month offer a bridge between All Saints/All Souls and Advent, calling us daily to remember both those who have died and also to be mindful of our own mortality and the preciousness of the present moment. We are called to open ourselves to the reality of the Kingdom, which breaks into our lives unexpectedly and with transformative consequences.

The below poem by Tim Myers, which won Honorable Mention in the 2010 Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, is as beautiful an expression of faith as I've ever seen. I aspire to live my life in such a way that I might own these words, both in the present moment and at the time of my own passing.

Myself as Tree: A Prayer

Adonai,
give me life then kill me if you must,

only let it be
that like a tree I live, a planted thing,
knowing the ground deep and deeper,
drinking up world through roots I send down,
water drawn from soil and darkness --

let the season-round ring by ring increase me--

when sun comes, let my leaves flutter
each with its own small luster --
let autumn-release fling my numberless seeds
outward on winds
as shifting and sure as Hope --

and when my sap fails at last,
come Thou, Axman.
lay me down, fell me hard
(I'll murmur Your name all the while),

stand over me gripping the ax of Death
and split me with Your hands
(the right I call Making, the left Unmaking),

let the blade bite, let it jump into
my drying white interior,
oh Unspeakable, shape me, plane me --

make me a Door.

Of Mustard Seeds and Microscopes

2011-11-07T14:16:00.000-06:00

And the Apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."
The Lord replied, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."
--Luke 17:5-6

My immediate reaction to this teaching is always a paradoxical blend of relief and shame. It's good to know that even a tiny bit of faith is so powerful. On the other hand, what if your faith isn't even the size of a mustard seed? How much do you get for, say, a grain of sand-sized faith? What if you need an electron microscope to see your faith? I've not moved many mulberry trees lately....

So, we're a bit chastened by this teaching, but I don't think Jesus meant it simply as a chastisement. Rather, I believe he's actually encouraging us that no matter how meager our faith may initially appear, that tiny little speck is the beginning of our life-fulfilling path to completeness and joy. God takes us where we are, loves us as we are, and makes us His own.

Today's responsorial, from Psalm 139, follows a similar theme. The psalmist begins with the extremely humbling awareness that God knows him more intimately than he even knows himself:

O LORD, you have probed me and you know me;
you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know the whole of it.
Behind me and before, you hem me in
and rest your hand upon me.

These are not entirely reassuring images. But then the poet reminds us that this intimacy is not merely scrutiny of our faults, but a loving awareness of who we are at the deepest level. God does not know us in this way to judge, but to love us at the core of our being:

If I take the wings of dawn
and dwell beyond the sea,
Even there your hand guides me,
your right hand holds me fast.
If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,
and night shall be my light”--
Darkness is not dark for you,
and night shines as the day.
Darkness and light are but one.

You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you know.

God know us and knows how puny our faith is, but through grace makes that tiny little whiff of faith our very redemption and the starting point for our complete transformation in his all-knowing, all-embracing love.

Great Lover of my soul, there are no words I can offer in humility, in praise, or in love that you have not placed in my mouth and in my heart. I am yours. Break me open so that you may love me all the more. Amen.

EWTN announces schedule for "Catholicism"

2011-11-07T09:14:00.001-06:00

EWTN has announced the schedule for Robert Barron's "Catholicism" series, which I previously discussed here. The series begins Wednesday, November 16, with a look at Catholic spirituality, "Fire of His Love: Prayer and the Life of the Spirit." Click here for more details.

Praying Well Together

2011-11-04T09:07:00.002-05:00

Memorial Feast of St. Charles Borromeo

A key theme of my reading and meditation this week, inspired heavily by the Solemnities of All Saints and All Souls, has been on the communal nature of the faith. While a direct, personal relationship with Christ is at the heart of Christian discipleship, it's never simply about "me and Jesus." We're all in this together, now and in eternity. A very practical example of this is our communal prayer.

On the First Sunday of Advent the new English translation of the Mass will formally premier. I must admit that I was not a big fan of these changes when they were initially announced, even going so far as to join an online group advocating for a delay of the new translation.

I have softened my opinion on all this, though there are still changes that pain me. The pinnacle of the Mass for me has always been when we say, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." The tenderness, helplessness, the utter surrender of this prayer is often a breakthrough moment for me. When I have been distracted or unprayerful throughout the entire liturgy (and usually for the entire week before), this prayer is what brings me back to my knees (spiritually; being physically on my knees is never quite enough), and prepares me to truly receive the Body of Christ for the complete grace and offering of reckless love that it actually is. Now, we will say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof," which is the closer translation of Matthew 8:8 (upon which the line from the Latin Mass is originally based), and has a similar, but subtly different, set of theological connotations.

Other changes seem completely neutral in value (and therefore pointless) to me. What makes "consubstantial with the Father" any different in meaning or clarity than "one in being with the Father?"

Nevertheless, I have now heard many good arguments for why the new translation is richer in symbolism and sacredness and more deeply rooted in scripture. These are fine arguments, which I can live with (and have to; and I find a kind of freedom in that). Ultimately, though, the goal of this translation is adhering more closely to the original Latin upon which the entire Roman Rite is based, and I've decided that is itself enough to satisfy me.

There is nothing magical about Latin, of course. Latin is special, not because it possesses any inherent quality in itself (some argue that it sounds ethereal and otherwordly and fosters deeper contemplation and reverence; okay fine), but rather because it is the language of the Church. It is the universal language that for twenty centuries has bound Christian worship in unity and purpose. There is something particularly awesome and powerful in knowing that when we proclaim the words of the Mass each Sunday (or each day), we are proclaiming the same words in unity of faith with over a billion people across the globe, and with Christians throughout the ages. We've lost a little appreciation for this since Latin ceased to be the "Ordinary Form" of the Mass in 1962, but it remains that whether we pray the Mass in English, Spanish, Swahili, Chinese, or some other vernacular language, we are praying the same words. The common source for those words is Latin.

And, of course, the common source for those words is also a common faith, without which all words are empty and meaningless. We worship One God, the Father of us all. As George Weigel wrote earlier this week at First Things, the way we worship matters:

The re-sacralization of the English used in the liturgy affords all of us an opportunity to ponder just what it is we are doing at Holy Mass: we are participating, here and now, in the liturgy of angels and saints that goes on constantly around the Throne of Grace where the Holy Trinity lives in a communion of radical self-gift and receptivity. This is, in short, serious business, even as it is joyful business. We should do it well, as the grace of God has empowered us to do it well.

The Awesomeness of All Souls

2011-11-02T21:24:00.001-05:00

Solemnity of All Souls

"As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine,
and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
they shall judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the LORD shall be their King forever."
--Wisdom 3:6-8

Today is not a Holy Day of Obligation, as was yesterday's Solemnity of All Souls. A reader of Father Christian Mathis' Blessed is the Kingdom blog suggests that "obligation" is a horrible word and the Church should replace the term with something else, perhaps "Holy Day of Awesome" (found this via the also-always-awesome Ironic Catholic). I agree wholeheartedly, and though the magisterium has not deemed it such, I find All Souls to be fairly awesome as well.

The Lectionary provides no less than three options for Old Testament readings today, three options for psalms, thirteen options for the epistle, and twelve options of Gospel readings. I don't think there's another feast day in the Christian calendar with this many possible Mass readings. What's going on here?

The answer is that the Bible is absolutely teeming with glorious messages about the peace, joy, and eternal happiness that awaits those who die in the faith. Fewer teachings are as clear from scripture as this: the life we see here in front of us is only the beginning. All those who have preceded us in Christ await our arrival and shower us with their own prayers and blessings, even now.

I don't say this to diminish in any way the sadness and loss we feel for those who have died. Growing up, I was never especially comfortable with funeral sermons that chastised mourners for their tears, as if grief were somehow incompatible with faith in life after death. St. Augustine found no such conflict:

Therefore the Apostle [Paul] did not exhort us not to be sorrowful, but only not to be like "others who have no hope.'' We grieve, then, over the necessity of losing our friends in death, but with the hope of seeing them again. This necessity causes us anguish, but the hope consoles us; our infirmity is tried by the one, and our faith is strengthened by the other: on the one hand our human condition sorrows, on the other the divine promise is our salvation.

As Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, points out, love means attachment, not of the selfish kind, but of the holy kind, and so in our loving humanity we grieve for those who have left us. But we are not beyond consolation, because we know our loved ones have only left us for a time. This is both the scandal and the hope of our faith. Those who profess a gross materialist understanding of reality have no such hope. For them, death is the end, and so there is no greater meaning to our day-to-day suffering than what we give it.

For Christians, every moment of our lives is a moment of freedom understood from the perspective of eternity. We still suffer, experience loss and hurt, but that is not the end of the story, and every mundane daily task, every frustration, and ever moment of grief is experienced within the context of our cosmic journey into the arms of God, where we shall know and be known, as we have been among our brothers and sisters in life, and far beyond our wildest dreams in the Life to Come.

All souls in heaven, pray for us.

To be a Saint

2011-11-01T16:21:00.002-05:00

Solemnity of All Saints

Today is probably my favorite day in the entire Christian calendar. Truth be told, I relish it even more than Easter and Christmas, though these are no doubt more important solemnities, but those holidays have become so overwhelmed by commercial and social dimensions, I really have to work at observing them as holy days. Not so with All Saints, snuck in, as it were, after the secular festivities of Halloween (which wouldn't even have a name without the "Hallowed" ones of All Saints).

Today is when we savor the communal nature of the Christian faith in all its glory. Today we recognize that the historical icons of Christianity - Mary, Joseph, the Apostles, Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, Thomas More, Theresa of Calcutta, and a host of others, including the seemingly ordinary saints who have gone before us, including friends and family who have died, are as real and alive to us right now in the awesome family of Christ as when they walked the earth in flesh. They pray for us, intercede for us, "cheer us on" (as my pastor put it today), as vigorously and enthusiastically as our closest family and friends in the faith do here in this world, even moreso.

And they invite us to holiness, and to join them in the shimmering light of God, promising a destiny of eternal life. But they also invite us to follow them into sainthood, starting right now.

My favorite take on this comes from Thomas Merton, writing in his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, about a conversation with his friend Robert Lax, not long after Merton had been baptized:

I forget what we were arguing about, but in the end Lax suddenly turned around and asked me the question:
"What do you want to be anyway?" Lax asked.
I could not say, "I want to be Thomas Merton, the well-known writer of all those book reviews in the back pages of the Times Book Review"...so I put it on a spiritual plane.
"I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic."
"What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?"
The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had thought about it.
Lax did not accept it.
"What you should say"--he told me--"What you should say is that you want to be a saint."
A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said:
"How do you expect me to become a saint?"
"By wanting to," Lax said simply.
"I can't be a saint," I said. "I can't be saint." And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility that makes men say they cannot do the things they must do, cannot reach the level they must reach: the cowardice that says, "I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin," but which means, by those words, "I do not want to give up my sins and attachments."
But Lax said: "No. All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be a saint. Don't you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it."
A long time ago St. Thomas Aquinas said the same thing--and it is something that is obvious to anyone who has ever understood the Gospels. After Lax was gone, I thought about it, and it became obvious to me.
The next day I told Mark Van Doren:
"Lax is going around saying all that a man needs to be a saint is to want to be one."
"Of course," said Mark.
All these people were much better Christians than I. They understood God better than I. What was I doing? Why was I so slow, so mixed up, still, so uncertain in my directions and so insecure?

Of course, with God's grace Merton found his way, and became one of the greatest uncanonized saints of the 20th century, laying down the same challenge to us that his friend Lax laid down to him. It's not just possible, it is God's promise. And our destiny.

Holy One, make me holy. I am yours.

Saints of all ages, past, present, and future, pray for us. Amen.

In love with Christ; in love with the Church

2011-10-31T21:14:00.003-05:00

"You have seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced."
--Jeremiah 20:7a

Catholic theologian Tim Muldoon, reflecting on Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series, recently pondered over the meaning of the Catholic faith in today's world. "I find myself dwelling on the basic question of how one can describe this faith, this Church, this tradition, this religion, this community, this worldview, this theology," he writes. "It is an impossible task!"

Muldoon describes the standard narrative (SN) of the history of the faith and its place in helping build Western civilization, but concludes the standard narrative is no longer sufficient for explaining the hold Catholicism continues to have on over one billion believers worldwide. No, Muldoon argues, Catholic Christianity continues to thrive because it answers the deepest need and longing of the human heart:

Unlike what many of its critics seem to think, [Catholicism] is not fundamentally about a kind of military-like uniformity of taking orders from the general. It is much more like the way that beachgoers watch the ocean: we go because we respond to a summons from the heart. What the SN cannot convey, and what the critics tend to miss, is that Catholicism is fundamentally about a real encounter with the risen Christ, a response to God's own initiative to seduce us into falling in love with him...[A]t the grass roots, it is about an individual person coming to know another individual person, and repeating what the centurion said at the foot of the cross: surely this is the Son of God.

Muldoon remind me of how I have often described my own journey to the Catholic faith, which I consummated by being Confirmed in the church eleven years ago. "When you fall in love with someone, it doesn't mean you agree with everything they say or always feel peace and bliss in the relationship," I have said many times, "But it does mean you can't imagine living without them in your life."

And that's true of my relationship with the Church, but increasingly I see that it is so much more. My faith is more than my love of the Church and what keeps me there is not always the same thing that led me there, as Abbot Christopher Jamison says in his book Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, of his own vocation as a monk. "I do not know why I became a monk," he writes, "because the reason I joined is not the reason I stayed."

Originally, I fell in love with the Church - its beauty, its history, its majesty, its people. Then gradually, I fell in love with Christ, a response to how He first loved me, and relentlessly pursued me and seduced my soul. Now, I remain in the Church because it is there, through its beautry, its history, its majesty, its people, that I find so many wonderful ways to love Him and be loved by Him still.

O Lover of my soul, you have seduced me and I am so glad I have let myself be seduced! Continue to woo us through your earthly Church, O Lord, and draw us ever deeper into your love. Amen.

Of Godly Men

2011-10-29T13:55:00.002-05:00

Last night I finally had the awesome experience of watching Of Gods and Men, the critically-acclaimed French film featuring the true story of Trappist monks caught up in the religious violence of the mid-1990's Algeria Civil War. Based closely on James Kiser's book, The Monks of Tribhirine, the movie describes how the eight monks, led by Dom Christian de Cherge, prayerfully struggle with how to respond to the escalating threat from Islamic extremists and their violent crusdade against foreigners and "infidels."

The monks are frightened by the risks, but feel compelled to remain at their monastery, despite entreaties from the French government and local authorities to leave for their own safety. The monks provide medical services and have close personal ties to the local Muslim population and are loathe to abandon them. They fight to maintain neutrality between the corrupt government and the militant insurgents and are caught between both in an ever-increasing spiral of danger.

I don't want to give too much away if any readers aren't familiar with the story, but I did find this film to be extremely compelling and inspiring from a faith perspective. The modern secularist will probably be puzzled by the monks seemingly suicidal decision to hold their ground, as will perhaps a lot of Christians. But this is no story of religious fanaticism, but rather the story of having a moral purpose and in meeting one's commitments to others in faithfulness that some things in life are worth grave risks. The world would do well to learn about the kind of love (Christ-imitating love) that leads one to give everything for another, even those who look differently and believe differently than one's self.

Indeed, Of Gods and Men is, in part, a statement of a love that transcends religious differences. As the situation in Algeria deterioriated in December 1993, the real Dom Christian began to prepare for his own possibly martyrdom, and wrote a beautiful "Last Testament" describing his decision to stay. The entire text, and a lovely discussion about it, is featured in this 2007 article for Spiritual Life. De Cherge wrote, in conclusion, an a priori message to the man who might someday take his life:

The final words, in Arabic, are the classic Muslim conclusion to any statement of worth, "God willing."

Of Gods and Men is moving, awe-inspiring, and compelling for anyone, believer or no-believer alike.

And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing.
Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU to you, in whom I see the face of God.
And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen. In sha ‘Allah.

A Church Meeting Postmortem

2011-10-28T20:15:00.003-05:00

From The Praying Life blog comes this gem, a "Church Meeting Postmortem:"

I cannot for the life of me
figure out
how people who love God,
good people
faithful people

are able to spend so much time
talking about God
reading about God
and running here and there
doing God's work

and not have time to stop.
And bow.
Awestruck.
Lost in love.

Every five minutes or so.
I know the sweet seduction
of anxiety, power, and that little harlot
ego.

I have fallen for their whispered lies,
and empty promises.

I have wakened from a night
in their arms,
unsatisfied, restless, and fretful.

But, I ask you,
do we not have a clue,
that the Beloved is in the room
disrobing
right before our eyes?

How many ephiphanies are omitted
from the minutes
of last month's meeting?

How can we go on pretending
that Holiness is not breathing
shivers of ecstasy
down our necks?

Am I crazy?
Probably.

But I am also sick and weary of sitting on this Wonder.
Don't be surprised then,
when I rise up and prostrate
myself
during Carl Mitchell's report
on the cost of replacing the pews
with moveable chairs.

I just couldn't go on pretending any longer,
and this hungry Love has taken me

beyond propriety,
decency,
and order.

Check out the whole blog here.

Glimpses of Glory

2011-10-27T11:08:00.001-05:00

Thursday, 30th Week of Ordinary Time

"When we catch even the tiniest glimpse of God we are filled with joy. To be aware of his presence, even for a split second, so fills our hearts with love that we must break into praise."
--Fr. Benignus O'Rourke, OSA, Finding Your Hidden Treasure: The Way of Silent Prayer

This is true, but the trouble for me at least (and I always speak for me), is that the instant that glimpse passes, I forget it. I go immediately back into my grim, relentless push to get things done and check things off my list (a list that never ends or even gets any shorter, by the way).

What a shame. Because those moments are truly glimpses of glory. They come on totally unexpectedly. My daughter looks at me and grins, I get the sudden whiff of rich, earthy fall leaves, I hear the lonesome song of crickets, pining away from a now-faded summer. And in those moment, there is pure delight, and my heart leaps in praise.

Perhaps my defacto assumption is that, when the moment passes, God is no longer near. But we know this is untrue. It is only our openness, our listening, or faith, that has ceased. These are moments of grace, meant to sustain and inspire us through the ordinary moments, which are never quite as ordinary as we think, when we open our eyes to the shimmering glory all around us.

As St. Paul reminds us today, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). Nor checklists, nor grocery shopping, nor bills, nor traffic, nor politics, nor any other distraction we choose to see as more important.

Holy One, I give praise for this glorious moment, just as it is, and pray for the heart of faith to know we are never apart. Amen.

The Final Word

2011-10-26T13:43:00.003-05:00

"The spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the spirit Himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings."
--Romans 8:26

Word comes to us today that a family friend who is battling cancer is slowly losing the fight. His condition has moved beyond human treatment. Body systems fail. Pain overwhelms. A family suffers.

I do not know how to pray for such needs. Words seem empty and hollow.

But this longing for peace, for ourselves and others, this longing for the reconciliation and a resolution to all grief and pain, that longing itself, that is the prayer. Yesterday St. Paul proclaimed that all of creation itself is groaning in labor pains for the fulfillment of our deepest needs and longings.

Creation cries out with us. The Spirit itself cries out in response.

We wail for God and God wails back, like a separated mother and child crying out for one another.

A thundering chorus of unformed words, the torrent of all longing and desire, echoes all around us in a mighty, cosmic roar.

We are not alone in this, even when we feel most alone, and this suffering is not the final word.

The final word is one of sheer silence, which we find at the foot of the Cross, where this great call and response reaches its climax and we are finally made One.

Oh my God, words fail. I release all these unspeakable needs to you, listening for your voice crying out to us in response. Enter into our suffering once more, and let us abide in this veil of tears with hope for all that you are about to reveal. Amen.

A Biblical Perspective on Purgatory

2011-10-25T12:43:00.003-05:00

The latest issue of First Things features an excellent article by Gary A. Anderson, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at University of Notre Dame, on the biblical origins of the doctrine of purgatory. Link here but unfortunately it's only available to subscribers at the moment. Will post an update when the full text becomes available.

The essence of Anderson's argument (and I hope I can do it justice here) is that while the atoning and redeeming work of Christ's self-sacrifice effects total forgiveness for the believer, the effect of sin remains, not as a punishment but as a necessary and natural consequence of our actions. We are forgiven but still must undergo sanctification to experience the full richness of the Beatific Vision. To be sure, we don't sanctify ourselves; that's still the work of God's grace and mercy. What we do is continue to surrender ourselves wholly and completely to Christ's redeeming love until that work of sanctification is complete in us - and for most of us that work will not be complete at the time of death.

In support of his point Anderson points to bibical narratives about King David's patience in suffering the long consequences of his own sin, King Nebuchadnezzar's alms-giving after his own repentence, and how the widows who benefitted from Tabitha's charity in the book of Acts appeal for mercy on her in the Acts story of Peter raising Tabitha from the dead.

St. Augustine would have had no trouble with this improbably juxtaposition of grace (free gift) and merit: Through the divine grace, human beings are enabled to participate in the work of God. Though they win merits for themselves, the merits are themselves the fruit of gifts in the first place. A close analogy might be the young girl who buys a Christmas gift for her mother. From one perspective it is no gift at all; the mother simply gives back what she provided in the first place. But from another
angle the gift allows the child to participate in the exchange of love that is basic to the family itself. Her enthusiastic desire to show her love "wins" anew the love her mother has already given her.

We respond to Christ's totally self-giving love, not simply with cries of mercy and an acceptance of forgiveness, but in a return of totally self-giving love. And yes, it was all Christ's love to being with, but now we participate in it fully. And for our loved ones who have crossed over, we can pray for them that this circle of love may be completed and that we might join in it when our own sanctification is complete:

Salvation is, after all, both individual and communal in nature, and the doctrine of purgatory reminds us that our lives are not ours alone. We are linked in a great chain of being (one body, many members, to invoke Paul) to all of our beloved ancestors. We don't have to pretend that all are saved and by so doing make a mockery of our moral choices, but neither must we commend our beloved to eternal suffering.

I've not done Anderson's article justice with these few short paragraphs, but I commend it to others for their study and prayerful consideration. For me personally, I responded deeply to Anderson's metaphor of the child who gives her mother a Christmas gift which the mother herself undoubtedly paid for. I've been meditating lately on the prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict, where the first sentence commands, "Listen, child of God, to the guidance of
your teacher," and pondering over what it means to be God's child. This metaphor gives me new
insight.

Beloved, all that I have comes from you. I am utterly helpless without your grace and mercy. Let your love sanctify me so that I might reflect your light and love back upon you and the world. Amen.

The Greatest of These

2011-10-24T15:52:00.007-05:00

Father Robert Barron's mini-series documentary Catholicism has been shown in excerpt the last two Sundays on PBS. I've been deeply moved by this passionate, deeply historical, and extremely thoughtful look at the origins of our faith. See a trailer for the series here, which is scheduled to shown on EWTN during the month of November.

Last night's episode examined the critical role of Saints Peter and Paul in the shape and spread of early Christianity, and culminated with a lovely meditation on Paul's "hymn to love" found in the thirteenth chaper of 1 Corinthians.

Fr. Barron pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing here) that in heaven, there is no faith and hope, only love. This seemed startling at first, but makes perfect sense. There will be no need for faith, because we will know God and our True Selves intimate, face-to-face. There will be no need for hope because all longing will be fulfilled. But there will be love, infinite, abiding, overflowing love. Faith and hope will have reach their ultimate end in this eternal dance of love.

As today's first reading points out, "we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17). We are heirs to unsurpassing love.

Holy One, strengthen our faith, strengthen and sanctify our hope, but above all, conform us to your love, which is our destiny and birthright. Amen.

Teach Us to Pray

2011-03-15T06:28:00.004-05:00

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves."
--Psalm 34: 19

"Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
--Matthew 6:8b

There are many broken hearts in the world, many crushed in spirit. The news is full of tragedy and devastation in Japan following a massive earthquake and tsunami there. Closer to home, a student of mine emailed yesterday to share that her son has died from suicide.

Someone asked me the other day, as we watched the horrifying scenes of destruction from Japan on the television news, "How does one pray for a tragedy so enormous as this?" The scale of suffering is so large, whether it is the massive death toll from an earthquake or the never-ending emotional earthquake of a suicide, we hardly know where to begin in our prayers.

Today Jesus reminds us that God is not concerned with the quantity or the eloquence of our words. In fact, God is so close to the suffering and brokenhearted, he hears their prayers and ours even when those prayers are an unformed, half-choked cry for mercy, even the cry of anger and despair. He hears our prayers, even when our prayer takes the form of a question like, "How does one pray for this?"

That is prayer itself, a turning in awe, horror, fear, wonder, longing, and faith with utter surrender to the One who knows, who loves, who saves.

God of Mercy, hear our prayer.

The Paradox of Lent

2011-03-10T12:25:00.002-06:00

"Lord, open my lips; my mouth will proclaim your praise."
--Psalm 51:17

Christianity is a faith of paradox. The examples are countless. We die in order to be reborn. God becomes human so that humans can become like God. The smallest is the greatest, the greatest the least.

These paradoxes come into particularly sharp focus during the season of Lent. We fast in order to become fuller of the things that matter. We give to others so that we can be grateful for what we have. We embrace our brokenness so that we can be healed. We proclaim our sinfulness so that God's grace can be glorified. We mourn our lostness so that we can relish the joy of our salvation. We practice discipline so that we can experience total freedom.

Despite its somberness and seriousness, Lent is not a time of sadness. It is a season to nurture joy, gratitude and love, which will come to full realization in the glory of Easter. It is a time to acknowledge our brokenness, sinfulness, and dependence on God, so that we might revel in His gracious love, which embraces and cherises us with no regard for our dependence, brokenness, and sin.

This phrase from the Psalms, which serves as the opening verse of the Invitatory psalm during the Liturgy of the Hourse, is the consummate Lenten statement. I call upon God to open my lips, because I am utterly helpless to speak when I fully acknowledge my fail humanity And yet, with God's grace, I find my voice, which was made for one purpose.

Holy One, with humble, broken hearts, we fall upon your mercy, our heads bowed in shame. In your infinite compassion, you pick us up, gently turn our faces toward you, and whisper your endless adoration into your ears. We are your children, your beloved. Help us to turn this season of sorrow into the season of endless joy you planned for us from the birth of creation. Amen.

The Calling

2010-05-20T10:00:00.004-05:00

Thursday, Seventh Week of Easter
Feast of St. Bernadine, Priest

“Paradoxical as it may seem, it would not even occur to a person – no, nor to an angel or saint – to desire contemplative love were it not already alive within him. I believe, too, that often our Lord deliberately chooses to work in those who have been habitual sinners rather than in those who, by comparison, have never grieved him at all. Yes, he seems to do this very often. For I think he wants us to realize that he is all-merciful and almighty, and that he is perfectly free to work as he pleases, where he pleases, and when he pleases.

“Yet he does not give his grace nor work this work in a person who has no aptitude for it. But a person lacking the capacity to receive his grace could never gain it through his own efforts either. No one at all, neither sinner nor innocent, can do so. For this grace is a gift, and it is not given for innocence nor withheld for sin…

“He who experiences God working the depths of his spirit has the aptitude for contemplation and no one else. For without God’s grace a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire or long for it…you will never desire to posses it until that which is ineffable and unknowable moves you to desire the ineffable and unknowable. Do not be curious to know more, I beg you. Only become increasingly faith to this work until it becomes your whole life.”
—The Cloud of Unknowing

We who long for contemplation, though we feel unworthy and completely clueless as to how to be contemplatives, have been chosen for this work by God’s inexplicably mystery and grace. There is nothing to do but start cooperating.

Great Silence, still my racing mind, my searching heart. Allow me to accept this calling, and follow you into the cloud of unknowing, where we are truly, fully known. Amen.

Out of Our Hands

2010-05-19T13:11:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, Seventh Week of Easter

“And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.”
—Acts 20:32

I struggle sometimes when people ask me to pray for them, or when I, in my enthusiasm, offer to pray for someone or some situation. When it comes time to pray, my words falter. I don’t know how to pray sometimes. But I have the intention.

Likewise, I often don’t know how to pray for myself.

So, here Paul provides an example of how it is not ultimately our prayers that bless others, but rather the unconditional love and grace of God which we acknowledge through our prayers.

I spend an awful lot of time trying to make the world into my image. I hope that most of the time, my vision for how things ought to be corresponds with the Divine plan for what ought to be, but it’s likely I often miss the mark. And I often wind up frustrated because things don’t unfold as I plan or intend. Then, too, Paul’s example is helpful. We are vessels, and the land to which we are being delivered is beyond our imagining, a place of immense inheritance, where every need and longing will be fulfilled.

Lord of Life, I commend all those in need, including myself, to your gracious word. Build us up and give us the inheritance you so lavishly have reserved for us. Amen.

The Divine Gardener

2010-05-05T13:28:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, Fifth Week of Easter

“He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”
—John 15:2

Well, there it is, isn’t it?

Who can tell the mysterious ways in which we are being pruned? Who is to say that this spiritual dryness I feel isn’t simply the Divine Gardener, weeding my spirit, pruning and shaping the branches of my being so that great fruit can bear forth?

Holy One, be gentle with your shears, but complete your work in me. Reveal all in me that needs to be removed, so that I might abide in your perfect love. Amen.

What Peace?

2010-05-04T11:14:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, Fifth Week of Easter

“Peace I leave you; my peace I give you.”
—John 14:27

Some days I just don’t feel it. Maybe I’m going through a dry spell. Maybe it’s acedia, that delightfully old concept of listlessness and spiritual sloth. But maybe not. I’m still praying; I just don’t feel much right now. Maybe it’s the mental and physical exhaustion of being a new parent and facing a new job transition.

At any rate, my tendency is to view this condition as a problem, and specifically as a failure. I am slowly learning, however, that this not the case. Consolations come and go, for reasons beyond our capacity for understanding. Feelings, motivations, desires and fears are conditioned by that mysterious combination of nature and life-long patterns of mind. They are transient. They are impermanent. They are not the essence of my true self.

The peace Christ promises, at least in this life, is not the peace of perpetual consolation and ease. It is the promise that, regardless what I’m feeling at the moment, I am loved, redeemed, and restored in the ultimate sense. Joy will return, and then recede again. Life’s pace will change, and so will my affect. But at the level of my truest self, all is one, and all is well.

Lord of Peace, I honestly wouldn’t mind some consolation right now. Open my eyes and heart to experience joy where you are trying to reveal it to me. But above all, let me rest in the peace of knowing you, even when I don’t feel it. Amen.

A Prostrate Heart

2010-05-03T13:42:00.002-05:00

Feast of Sts. Phillip and James

“Through [the Gospel] you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.”
—1 Corinthians 15:2 [emphasis mine]

“Any monk or nun who is corrected for anything by abbot or abbess or one of the seniors and perceives that the senior is upset by feelings of anger, even though they may be well in control, then that junior should at once prostrate on the ground in contrition and not move until the senior gives a blessing which will heal the upset.”
—from The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 71

Some teachings in the Rule are easier to apply to the modern circumstances of lay life than others. When I read this passage today, I chuckled at the thought of prostrating myself before my wife or my best friend when I have angered them, and refusing to move until they gave me a blessing.

This is funny to think about both because of the imagined looks on their faces and the awkwardness they would feel in response, and secondly because I can hardly picture making myself humble enough to actual do such a thing.

My resistance to this kind of humility is partly socially conditioned. In our modern, egalitarian society, to show this kind of deference to another considered self-diminishing and unhealthy. But the greater resistance comes from my own unwillingness to completely admit my own error without somehow justifying it, minimizing it, or pointing out the error of others. “You shouldn’t be so angry with me,” I want to say. “I am only human. And look at all your faults! You should be prostrating before me!”

This is natural, of course. No one likes to admit their failures, and it is all too easy to justify our foibles by point out the failings of others, especially when one person’s error is tied up in the errors of another.

The relevance of this chapter of the Rule is not for us to actually go around physically prostrating ourselves to each other,(though that might not actually be so bad), but to remind us of the utter humility with which we ought to continuously seek understanding and reconciliation. In reality, if we all applied the Rule, we’d be falling down before each other simultaneously, and the gateway to forgiveness and peace would be instantly opened.

It will require a substantial transformation of our stubborn wills, of course (which is why the physical act of prostration is so powerful), but ultimately, as St. Paul reminds us, through grace God is working out our kinks, and we are being saved, restored to perfect unity with God and one another.

Holy One, I come to you with prostrate heart. Give me the humility, courage, and grace to approach others with the same longing for reconciliation and peace. Amen.

To Be Adored

2010-04-30T09:49:00.001-05:00

Friday, Fourth Week of Easter
Memorial of Pope St. Pius V

“You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
—Psalm 2:7b

From time to time, I long to be adored.

This is not easy to admit. It sounds thoroughly self-absorbed. My life is good. My prayers this morning were filled with thanksgiving for the many undeserved blessings I have known. There are many people in my life who love me unconditionally and there are so many others in the world who suffer beyond my own scope of experience.

And yet, in the quiet truth of my deepest heart, sometimes I still long to simply be adored, and all the goodness of my life does not quite fulfill this longing. I am filled with some humility and even shame to acknowledge it, but I take a small bit of consolation in that I think every heart longs for this also, though few are willing to own it.

Of course, we are adored, but we don’t see it or accept it. Just as there are people in our lives who genuinely ache for us and our happiness, but we don’t feel, recognize, or understand their love, so it is with God also. The Spirit pours out upon us in desire for our very hearts, and in self-giving adoration, but we are too blind to see it. Or perhaps, we are just still too young and immature in our own development.

When I hold my baby daughter, the word adoration is probably too weak to describe the surge of love and worshipful concern that pours out of me. Does she feel that? Does she know? Perhaps on some level she does. It is such comfort to me when she simply smiles in return. She will likely understand my adoration for her better as she grows and matures, but even if she never fully knows, it makes the love I feel for her no less real.

And this must be how God adores us, with complete and reckless abandon, content with our relative unawareness, delighted in our occasional smile, and totally committed to our well-being and happiness. We are, indeed, adored, and the longing we feel is fulfilled in him.

Holy Parent, Divine Lover, break open my heart so that I may bask in the passion and desire you feel for me. May the adoration of your love pour through the universe this day, and may we have wisdom to return it to you and to one another. Amen.

Of Light Bulbs and Laser Beams

2010-04-28T09:40:00.003-05:00

April 28, 2010 – Wednesday, Fourth Week of Easter

“I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.”
—John 12:46

During this recent time of personal and professional transition, I’ve reflected a lot on the meaning and purpose of my work. I am leaving a job to pursue another, related role in the same field, but many of the specific projects I’ve initiated will pass into other hands…or, quite likely, will pass away altogether. This has contributed to my sense of loss and mourning, and my doubts about the impact I’ve made.

With these feelings lingering in the margins of my spirit, I was particularly struck by a comment in John Maeda’s terrific book, The Laws of Simplicity, which we have recently used in contemplative leadership study with one of my work teams:

I was once advised by my teacher Nicholas Negroponte to become a light bulb instead of a laser beam, at an age and time in my career when I was all focus. His point was that you can either brighten a single point with laser precision, or else use the same light to illuminate everything around you. Striving for excellence usually entails the sacrifice of everything in the background for the same of attending to the all-important foreground. I took Negroponte’s challenge as a greater goal of finding the meaning of everything around, instead of just what I directly faced.
There’s probably no better metaphor for the way I’ve approached my own work than a laser beam: hot, intense, searing, cutting away that which I deem imperfect and constructing the ideal product. My approach has worked for me in a number of ways, but being a laser beam, as Maeda notes, brightens only a single point at a time. And it will be many of those specific points of my work that will likely fade away or be tossed away with my departure.

What real impact I leave will be relative to the extent I’ve served, unwittingly, as a light bulb. Where I have brought some illumination, some warmth, some insight, some larger perspective, the light will likely remain.

That light is the light of the divine, shining through me, by grace. I know this because I was trying to be a laser beam and was oblivious to the warmer, softer light that was emanating around me anyway. And this is the light that will guide me in the next chapter of my story.

Light of the World, you have lead me through darkness though I foolishly thought I was leading the way. Humble me and give me wisdom, so that I might know when to be a laser and when to be a light bulb. And may I have the grace to see that either way, the light is yours. Amen.

I Thirst

2010-04-26T13:45:00.003-05:00

Monday, Fourth Week of Easter

“Athirst is my soul for the living God.”
—Psalm 42:3a

I am tired and weary today. I am sad. The economy has finally caught up to those of us who work in the public sector, and the organization I work for is facing some sizable budget cuts. People are going to lose their jobs. My own job, which I will soon be departing, will not be filled.

I am left with a deep sense of mourning over this. What does it mean to give your heart and soul for work that, in the end, will either be left incomplete, or will be divided up and doled out to other employees who have no choice but to willingly accept it? What do I do with all this work I have created and all the residual stuff associated with it?

It makes me feel thoroughly expendable.

And, it makes me feel selfish that I’m mourning like this when other people are losing the jobs they have.

We tie up so much emotion, aspiration, hope, and passion in the work we do. There’s nothing wrong with this, I suppose. All such longing is a manifestation, a sacrament, of our deep thirst for fulfillment, meaning and purpose, a thirst that is quenched through our work and our relationships, but ultimately, quenched by God.

Holy One, pour your goodness out upon those who are struggling with the loss of jobs and upon those who must make these difficult decisions. I offer my own work here up to you, and release my attachment to what becomes of it, trusting that, by your grace, any light I have brought here will continue to shine where it is needed. Quench my heart’s longing, and let me rest in you. Amen.

Forever

2010-04-23T13:35:00.003-05:00

Friday, Third Week of Easter

“Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
—John 6:58b

In the past, I have always tried mightily to spiritualize phrases from the gospel like this. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in eternal life, it just made me uncomfortable to talk about it. Folks always seemed so literal-minded when they’d characterize the hereafter, it felt like they were sapping a great spiritual truth of all its mystery and holiness.

So, I tend to take phrases like this one from the Gospel of John and think about the abundant life we can experience in the here and now through participation in the life of God, even as I acknowledge a belief in life after physical death.

As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve given a lot more thought to death and what comes next. Our impermanence and mortality become ever-more apparent as the years pass, I guess. Without giving up my hesitation to talk about what the afterlife is like, I’m encouraged by the faith that there is indeed life everlasting, a continuation of the journey beyond the confines of this body. I won’t speculate as to what it will be like, as I think it surpasses anything we can conceive and imagine. I don’t even know if vestiges of my personality will remain. But I do take comfort in knowing that the energy of longing and love, of passion and desire, of beauty and grace that is the essence of my being, will, through God’s grace, be redeemed and healed and held in perfect comfort in a place beyond time and space.

That’s a magnificent and stunning thing to conceive, and it puts all the small human drama of my everyday life into a context that leaves me humbled and quiet.

Bread of Life, let me dwell ever more deeply in that space at the center of my being where you meet me and redeem me and love me forever. Amen.

Bread for the Cosmos

2010-04-22T12:42:00.004-05:00

Thursday, Third Week of Easter

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world.”
—John 6:51

What does it mean to eat the bread that is Christ?

Eating is the most common and ordinary of biological activities, tied to the whole messy process of digestion, and the deeply mysterious process of cell development, growth, and reproduction that sustains our existence in the fleshy forms of our bodies. When we eat, we enter into the most vivid example of our physical interconnectedness. We literally are what we eat. Cosmologists tell us that our bodies and all physical matter – not only the food we take, but also the gasses and liquids we need for survival, and all other substances in the universe – originated from the infinitesimally tiny ball of cram-packed atoms that exploded at the beginning of the universe.

It was into this matter that the Word became “flesh” (sarx in Greek, which as theologian Elizabeth Johnson points out, means something more akin to matter than actual human flesh, but human flesh is nevertheless sarx also). When God entered into the human experience via Jesus, all divinity identified itself completely with the very cosmos and in Christ’s resurrection it is not just humanity that is saved, redeemed, and restored, but the entire cosmos – sarx itself – as well.

The Incarnation was not simply an historical event in time. Through the miracle of Eucharist and the sacramental nature of the post-Easter universe, we continue to bask in the miracle of the divine-cosmic connection. When we eat Living Bread, we are made one with God and the entire scope of physical existence. All separation and alienation –from God, from each other, and from the very Earth itself – has been healed.

Bread of Life, fill me physically, intellectually, and spiritually. Help me to see your body – and my body – in everything I touch and perceive. Amen.

The Discipline of Joy

2010-04-21T11:09:00.003-05:00

April 21, 2010 – Wednesday, Third Week of Easter

“There was great joy in that city.”
—Acts 8:8

“Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.”
—Psalm 66:1

Yesterday we were confronted with one of the greatest prices of discipleship – radical forgiveness. Today, we are greeted with one of the great benefits — radical joy. And yet, joy is more than the by-product of discipleship. It’s part of the discipline itself.

How often do we know true joy in our lives and we recognize it as such? Sadly, like many of the spiritual virtues, we often only recognize joy after we have experienced it, sometimes after it is gone. The moments of greatest joy often accompany the pivotal moments of our lives – marriages, the births of children, birthdays and other events celebrated with dear friends. But just as often, the experience of real joy is sown into the fabric of our everyday existence: quiet moments shared with a loved one; the steady, quiet pace of family life; the rewarding sense of vocational accomplishment; the beauty of the natural world.

As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are called to become connoisseurs of joy. We are to become mindful of the present moment, and the countless ways that God is revealed in the ordinary, to nurture gratitude and a sense of wonder, an appreciation for beauty, stillness, and simplicity. As students of joy, we do not simply wait for joy to come, but actively discipline our awareness to see the joy already imbued in our redeemed lives.

Lord of Joy, your blessings shower upon me in such a steady stream that I hardly take notice. Rattle me into awareness. Shake me awake, reveal to me the joy that flows through each moment, and let all the earth cry out in praise! Amen.

Radical Forgiveness

2010-04-20T14:28:00.005-05:00

Tuesday, Third Week of Easter

"Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,

'Lord, do not hold this sin against them'."

--Acts 7:60

Each day of this Easter season, the scripture seems to be challenging us with ever-more difficult demands. We have experienced the glory and power of the Resurrection. Now we study what it means to be a disciple. If we are not dumb-struck by Stephen's example, we have not fully grasped what new life in the kingdom of God is asking of us.

We all know the difficulties of forgiveness. To be hurt and to nevertheless offer our heart in vulnerability and openness to the offender is perhaps the hardest task of Christian love. We say to those who have sinned against us, "I count your action as if it never happened." And when we do, we often secretly take some comfort in knowing that God might still even the score.

Stephen blasts that little indulgence to bits. As he is falling in a hail of stones, Stephen doesn't just forgive his attackers, he asks God to count their actions as if they never happened. He surrenders every shred of attachment to the possibility of vengeance.

This is a forgiveness that we cannot fathom. And yet, this is the forgiveness we ourselves have received. God counts all of our failings as if they never happened and then calls us to love ourselves and one another as he has loved us. How is this possible for frail, broken, well-intentioned but perpetually selfish people such as ourselves? Only by grace.

God of Reckless Love, I have known the humility, grace, and unworthiness of being forgiven. There is only one way to respond to such love. Break my willful spirit and let me abandon myself to your transforming power. When my own love is insufficient, may your love take over. Amen.

The Courage to Receive Grace and Power

2010-04-19T14:59:00.004-05:00

“Stephen, filled with grace and power,
was working great wonders and signs among the people…
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”
—Acts 6:8,15

If Stephen experienced any doubts, any crisis of faith about the words he was called to speak, we get no sign of it from scripture. He was “filled with the Spirit” from the first moment he appears in the story, right up through his prayer that God forgive his murderers as they are stoning him.

What a picture of faith.

I am beginning to see that all of us are regularly filled with grace and power. The difference between us and Stephen is that he never doubted that God was accomplishing his will through Stephen himself. We, on the other hand, don’t recognize the Spirit at work in us, or don’t have faith that the Spirit will abide in us when we do. We know our own foibles. We are sure that whatever God is moving us toward, we’re going to screw it up, and so we demur in our calling to be witnesses to what God is revealing in us.

Our faith in God, while stunted, is still true faith. But that faith does not come to fruition until we also believe in ourselves. God has anointed us for great work, to speak his word to the multitudes, to give our lives in devotion to him. The final barrier to love of God is to finally give ourselves over in faith that he does indeed love us just as we are, and can bring to life his very kingdom through our own meager words and deeds.

There is a danger, of course, in confusing our own will with the will of God and we should be ever-vigilant about this pitfall. But when we know the Spirit is at work, may we cease to doubt that the Spirit is at work in us, just now, just where we are.

Holy Spirit, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see the face of an angel. I don’t feel the courage of Stephen. I know my failures and my weaknesses. And yet…even through my brokenness, I see the great wonders and signs you are working for me, for my family, for my friends. You have commissioned me to be your disciple, to bring your kingdom to bear. Fill me with your grace and power, and I will follow. Amen.

This I Seek

2010-04-16T09:01:00.001-05:00

“One thing I ask of the LORD
this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the LORD
and contemplate his temple.”
—Psalm 27:4

I’m not sure that many of us could say, given one thing to ask of the Lord, that we’d choose to hang out in church all the days of our lives. This psalm, attributed to David, expresses a longing for the Lord represented in his desire to be in the temple, where in Jewish thought God dwelled in a particularly immediate sort of way.

It was this immediacy of God’s presence that must have inspired David’s singular desire. David longs to be in the temple because that is where, he believes, he can encounter God in the most direct sort of way. Again, we find the passionate voice of the lover in David’s yearning to be with the Lord. David longs to “gaze” on God’s “loveliness.” Later in the psalm, he cries out, “Come, says my heart…seek God’s face; your face, Lord, do I seek!”

What does it mean to seek the face of Pure Spirit, to gaze on the loveliness of Being itself? David is taking us deep into the experience of intimacy with God, where only the language of lovers can express the inexpressible sense of oneness that God offers his Beloved. For David, the temple is the bridal chamber where Lover and Beloved are united.

Our Easter journey of discipleship is not meant to be the drudgery of religious routine and dry doctrine. God is calling us to fall in love with him, to dissolve the worries and anxieties of our ego into the pure bliss of union. Church is not merely an institution of obligation and order, but the gateway to a lover’s garden of spiritual intimacy and delight where we may gaze on God’s loveliness, and see our own loveliness reflected in his desire for us.

Beloved, let my ego defenses fall away and allow me to discover my heart’s one true desire! Amen.

Lord of the Brokenhearted

2010-04-15T11:12:00.003-05:00

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.”
—Psalm 34:19

What a powerful phrase—“crushed in spirit.” It implies the utter depths of despair.

There is so much suffering in the world, and we are all subject to it. Earlier this week an earthquake devastated the Tibetan region of China. Hundreds are dead, and there would have been far more if not for the rural, mountainous terrain. It was but the latest in a number of highly-publicized earthquakes in recent months. Hundreds of thousands perished in Haiti in January; thousands in Chile in February. The news images are heart-wrenching. “Crushed” is the operative word – buildings are crushed, bodies are crushed, and certainly spirits are crushed too.

As vivid as these examples, we do not have to experience a literal earthquake to know broken-heartedness, to be crushed in spirit. The metaphoric earthquakes of our lives can be nearly as devastating. Illnesses threaten our lives, tragedies take our loved ones, careers end, life savings are lost, and relationships rupture and leave as much psychic damage as any natural force.

This reality causes so many to lose faith, to doubt the existence of a benevolent power in the universe. But we were never, ever promised a life free of suffering. Impermanence and loss are the natural products of being mortal, created beings. If it were otherwise, we would be gods, not humans.

God has never promised to protect us from broken hearts, because to be human is to know heartbreak. He does not preserve us from a crushed spirit. But he is adamant that in our suffering, he is present. His cross is the greatest symbol of the way God suffers with us in the human condition. He, too, knew broken-heartedness. He, too, was crushed in spirit. And he prevailed. Just, as he promises, we too shall ultimately prevail, through his grace.

Lord of the Brokenhearted, hear the anguished cry of our crushed spirits. Reveal yourself to us in our suffering. Reveal yourself to us in your own crushed spirit. Draw us ever closer to your own broken heart, so that, in intimacy with you, the whole cosmos may be healed. Amen.

Taste and See

2010-04-14T11:13:00.002-05:00

“Taste and see how good the LORD is...”
—Psalm 34:9

This psalm inspired one of my favorite contemporary Catholic hymns. I love the exquisitely sensual image of God’s goodness revealed through the experience of taste. We Catholics believe in the sacramental nature of reality. The physical world is the medium by which we encounter the divine. Eating, which can be a very mundane, ordinary physical activity, can also be the gateway to the holy, as revealed in the delight we take in food, and in the company of others with whom we share it. The Eucharistic meal perhaps best illustrates this “communion” of God and humankind.

The context of this phrase in the psalm is not really about the act of eating, however, as meaningful and true as that image can be. The psalm, attributed to David, is a triumphant hymn of praise to the God who has answered his prayers, delivered him from fear and danger and filled his heart with overflowing joy. It is an invitation for others to join the psalmist in his adoration of the Lord. It is a lover’s outpouring of breathless devotion.

“Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame,” David gushes, and then exclaims, “Taste and see how good the Lord is!” In some translations, the word taste is rendered as “savor,” a word that is even more sensual in its implication of relishing the experience of God’s intimacy with complete exhilaration and bliss.

We are embarrassed by public expressions of affection. But David feels no shame, and invites us to join in his wild love affair with the Lord. Can we too give way to God’s relentless passion? Can we too embrace God with our whole souls and bodies, with all our senses? Can we savor what the Lord has done for us, in our hearts, with our tongues, in our bones?

Beloved, your desire for me overwhelms my defenses! Let the boundaries I have made between us fall. Let me unabashedly return your embrace. Let me savor you and your goodness with my whole being and reveal to me the intimacy my heart was made for. Amen.

Where the Spirit Blows

2010-04-13T10:44:00.005-05:00

“You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
—John 3:7-8

There is no accident, I suspect, that Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus, from which this passage is taken, features prominently in the Easter season lectionary readings. We have experienced the Resurrection, with its blinding glory and majesty, but now we must figure out what it all means, how we are to live as disciples.

Jesus answers: you must be born of the Spirit. And when we are, we are no longer masters of our own destiny. When the Spirit gives us life, it moves within us, drawing us here and there, stirring us in new directions. Just like the Spirit itself, which comes from a place beyond ourselves, we are buoyed to places we cannot imagine. We do not know where we are being led.

Lest we find this image too ethereal and comforting, it is worth noting that this journey of the spirit is not always pleasant. Yesterday I saw an old friend of mine whose husband is suffering from dementia associated with Parkinson’s disease. Beyond the exhausting challenges of helping him negotiate the illness, I could tell her greatest hurt was in knowing that he was not going to improve, but likely only deteriorate further until their inevitable parting. The Spirit is taking them both to destinations they do not want to go.

These un-chosen journeys of suffering, part and parcel of discipleship, are nevertheless brought to fulfillment in the Easter Mystery that launched us on this path to start with. The Spirit does not always take us where we want to go, but the Paschal Promise is that we will ultimately find our way home. Where we are being led is, in the end, to absolute and total glory, to the resolution of all suffering, to a reconciliation of all within and among us that is incomplete, broken, and unfulfilled. Our broken hearts will be mended. Our lost loves will be reunited to us in a way far more intimate than we have ever known.

God of Eternal Promise, fill us with your unpredictable Spirit. Lead us on, into the unknown, with faithful hearts overflowing. Bring all those who suffer into your Life, as you bring the whole cosmos into the unity and fulfillment of New Birth. Amen.

It's all about us

2010-01-19T15:49:00.001-06:00

“Not as man sees does God see, because he sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.”
--1 Samuel 16:7

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
--Mark 2:27

In this case, Samuel saw what he judged to be positive qualities in Jesse’s son Eliab, but these weren’t the qualities God was looking for in a king. We are sometimes fooled by people’s outward attractiveness; more often than not, however, we are fooled by what we judge to be the outward negative qualities of others, whether their appearance or their outward behavior. Think of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel, who see Jesus’ disciples eating grains they picked on the Sabbath. This behavior did not conform to their expectations of how people should act.

This is our more typical mode of reactions to others—negative judgment. And, more times than not, it’s actually well deserved, as well deserved as Samuel’s positive assessment of Eliab’s outward appearance. We are, by and large, frail, broken, selfish, and often repulsive in our relationships with others. Despite our own positive qualities, whether outward or inward, if someone wants to judge us they usually have plenty of good evidence to point to.

But this is not the Lord’s way, and we should be grateful for it. The Lord not only “looks into the heart,” but does it in a way that does not see “as man sees.” God sees all that is worthy of judgment, but somehow sees more. God sees us as a beloved child. And our weaknesses, our frailties, our sins, are secondary to the overwhelming, redeeming love God pours out to us, anointing us as lovingly and generously as Samuel anointed David at God’s command.

As sinners, we make everything all about us. Paradoxically, God makes everything all about us too. The Sabbath, the sacraments, the scriptures, the structures of Church…are all made for us, given as gifts to beloved children who are made worthy by a God who sees more in us than we can see.

Am I not more to you?

2010-01-11T13:38:00.004-06:00

"[Elkanah gave a] double portion to Hannah because he loved her, though the LORD had made her barren...Elkanah used to ask her: 'Hannah, why do you weep, and why do you refuse to eat?Why do you grieve? Am I not more to you than ten sons?'"
--1 Samuel 1:5, 8

Ultimately, of course, God blessed Hannah with a son, Samuel, but today as I read this passage I am struck more by Elkanah, and his God-like love for his barren wife.

Our lives are often barren, dry, disappointing, unfulfilling. Elkanah loves his wife despite her barrenness, and offers his unconditional love to her, suggesting that his love is of greater value than ten sons. We probably have no equivalent for this in modern times. To be childless in the ancient days was a terrible curse and made one a social outcaste. Elkanah's love is worth far more than the social approval or security provided by a family.

God offers a similar love to us, a double-portion of love, though for us, too, this love does not always manifest itself in the outward signs of good fortune valued by society today. When we feel barren, it is not a sign that we are unloved, and we are promised abundance beyond our wildest imaginings if we open our hearts to receive it.

I write this at a time when my own life is far from barren, but rather overflowing with blessing and new life. But no person is spared times of emptiness and desolation. These are the times we need to hear God's loving whisper, "Why do you weep? Why do you grieve? Am I not more to you than even your heart's greatest desire?"

Victory over the world

2010-01-08T08:54:00.002-06:00

"Who indeed is victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

--1 John 5:5

One book that has influenced me as much as any piece of spiritual writing is The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. Of the many things I cherish about that book, one thing that really stood out was the authors' suggestion that most Christians are, essentially, functionally agnostic or even atheist. Despite what we profess to believe about our place in eternity as redeemed children of God, most of us act as if we are, in fact, alone in the world. We fret and worry and rely solely on ourselves. In today's reading, the author of 1 John makes a passionate case that, as baptized believers, this is a deluded point of view. "I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life," he concludes. In the Gospel passage, Jesus heals the leper and reminds us that he does, indeed, will our redemption and restoration to wholeness.

What would my day be like if I truly understood it as a moment in eternity? If I saw my life without the limits of space and time that this finite body suggests, but rather from the perspective of timeless and infinitude that we are promised? It's a miracle too spectacular to easily accept, which is why we mostly don't accept it. But what if it was true? As disciples, isn't that what we are called to accept? Isn't that what we profess to believe? The miracle of our own life and eternal redemption?

Beginnings

2009-12-31T12:39:00.003-06:00

"In the beginning was the Word."
--John 1:1

Interesting that on this, the final day of the calendar year, the Gospel reminds us of the Beginning. Or maybe not. Isn't it a cliche to say that every ending marks a new beginning? Yes, a cliche, only because we don't fully embrace the truth and power of the fact that we are constantly being reborn, remade, renewed. Every moment is the beginning with this God of infinite, reckless, unconditional love.

I'm not making any New Year's resolutions this year. I'm barely even thinking about tomorrow, as this baby has me firmly rooted in the demands of the present moment. But even as I attend to this moment just now, I realize that everything I do is overflowing with an immense sense of hope and possibility--for her, yes, but also for me and for the world. Rather than resolve to do something this year, I just offer a New Year's prayer--to abide in this sense of wonder and hope and joy in every moment to come.

Abba God, sanctify us on this last dark evening of the year, and bring us all to new, abundant life in each and every moment. Amen.

Another kind of Divine Office

2009-12-29T15:53:00.003-06:00

Feast of St. Thomas Becket

"From our first breath, love called us into existence. Without care, a child does not survive. Somehow, through the crowded years, we learned to listen. To hold another's words quietly and seek to understand. To take delight in the strange beauty of each person. To act in hope even when no light glimmers. To behold our own self with amazement. To wash the feet of another."

--Jeanne Schuler

One week ago my wife and I brought home our daughter from the hospital. We are still in a daze from the experience of labor and delivery, our initial anxiety that she was a few weeks earlier than her due date, early troubles nursing, and now the relentless schedule of feedings and diaper changes and tending to her needs. Slowly, though, we are settling into a rhythm, and there is a parallel between the baby's schedule and the steady rhythm monastics keep by the Divine Office, or the Liturgy of the Hours, the routine of prayers, hymns, and psalms marked by monks since the time of Benedict or even earlier.

Every three hours, regardless of whatever we are doing or want to be doing, we turn our worshipful attention to this little girl. Outwardly, it is the routine of life: feeding her, cleaning her, clothing her, and invariably pouring out words of love and comfort to her. Inwardly, we bring whatever is in our own hearts--sometimes our fears and anxieties and worries, our frustrations and weariness--but always as she rests in my arms, those grumblings of the small self fade away. As I stare into her big, dark eyes, infinite pools of perception and possibility, my heart breaks open, and I pour out gratitude and adoration and hope. And we rest in each other's presence, united by an Indescribable Love.

In this routine, and in this relationship, is the perfect metaphor for our relationship with God, and the nurturing that takes place in prayer like the Divine Office. When we pray, we often start out of obligation and routine, but when our hearts open to the relationship at the core of this experience, we are swept away by the beauty and awe of being infinitely loved. We are even sometimes able to simply rest in God's presence, giving and receiving love in an endless circle.

The beauty of this metaphor is that it works both ways. Sometimes we are the parent adoring the Divine Child (as in this Christmas season), but often we are the child, held and adored by the Divine Parent who loves us beyond all understanding.

Through this little girl, God is already teaching me so much.

My many possessions

2009-08-17T06:25:00.004-05:00

"When the young man heard this statement he went away sad, because he had many possessions."
--Matthew 19:22

I have never particulary identified with the rich young man in this Gospel passage, in part because I've never thought I was rich but also because I never had much interest in being rich or having a lot of nice things. I always took a little bit of smug satisfaction in Jesus dressing down the wealthy in this reading.

But today, I hear the word of the Lord. I am not rich by American standards, but I am certainly rich compared to many others, and my life is absolutely full of nice things (possessions, broadly understood), from a modest but beautiful home to newer, well-functioning cars, to my many friendships, my physical health, enough resources for nice vacations and evenings out, and a busy social schedule. In fact, as I think on it, the greatest frustrations of my daily life come from the relentless management of all these good things. I don't face any serious deprivation, illness, or oppression, but I sure whine and fret a lot over the broken air conditioner, spending too much time at my good-paying (mostly rewarding) job, finding time to exercise more and preserve my already strong health, or deciding which competing dinner invitation to accept from friends.

I am embarassed to admit this, but Jesus has hit me square between the eyes today. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with having all these things, but the lack of gratitude for them and the excessive focus on maintaining and managing my "possessions" can pose a real obstacle to true discipleship.

The Hungry Will Be Fed

2009-08-03T06:46:00.005-05:00

When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”

--Matthew 14:15-16

I have been trying to work with this idea of nurturing a heart of compassion. Steve T has given me some wise counsel on this, as he does on many things. And God keeps speaking to me, especially through Scripture.

In yesterday's Gospel, we saw Jesus trying to retreat to a "desert place" where he can be alone to process and pray through the death of John the Baptist. But the people come to him anyway, longing to be cured of their illnesses and he does. Then the disciples try to send them away so they can eat, but Jesus insists that they feed the people, and performs the Five Loaves miracle of feeding them all.

There are multiple layers of meaning here, of course. God is reminding us to give even when we don't think we've got the resources, and the need will be met. And this is about more than sharing food. Jesus provides the example himself. He needed time alone, but he let go and gave of his time, trusting that his needs, as well as those of the people, would be met.

I am far more covetous of my time than I am of food or money. My perpetual obsession with finding "balance," which I am seeking deliverance from right now, reflects my fear that my resources will not be enough to meet my wants and needs. When I read this passage yesterday, I thought God was speaking to me about being more generous with my time, but on further prayer and reflection, I discovered that, at least today, I am not represented by the disciples in this Gospel, but by the hungry people. God is telling me that I will be fed, even when the food (time, energy, solitude, etc.) looks pretty scarce.

As far as the East is from the West

2009-07-28T06:07:00.003-05:00

"As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who are faithful."

-Psalm 103:12-13

Friends who follow my blogging know I've fallen silent here over the summer. I've been unable to explain why I stopped writing. The motivation and desire just seemed to leave me, and I felt little regret about it, though I missed the contact writing provided with kindred spirits. I don't know what is different today, except that I again felt the motivation and desire to write.

I feel as though the Spirit has been working on many dimensions of my inner life these long months of spring and summer, though I can hardly name all the ways. But one message was clear to me when I awoke at 4:30 this morning. "Nurture your heart of compassion," the Spirit said to me. And then here again, in Scripture, is a message about the divine virtue of compassion.

I've been working with the Enneagram for many months now, trying to understand myself more clearly. Deep inner fears and motivations have been exposed, some familiar and others utterly surprising. I am extremely hard on myself, for sure, and in subtle ways I am hard on others. This is part of being a ONE on the Enneagram. ONEs, at their best, are visionary idealists. Think of Mahatma Gandhi.

I'm no Gandhi, of course. Average ONEs tend to be crusaders in small and large ways, working diligently to improve themselves, their workplaces, their societies. But average ONEs also suffer from severe spells of hypercriticism and resentment as they (and everyone else) perpetually fail to live up to the ONEs ideals of completeness, wholeness, balance, justice, etc. Over time, they can become depressed and disgruntled with everything, and lose their generally optimistic, hopeful character.

I am at risk for this, and have struggled with it in one way or another my whole adult life. In many ways, my spiritual life itself is a manifestation of these dynamics. I woke up this morning thinking of some difficult people I work with, quiet resentment boiling deep within myself, and that's when the Spirit spoke to me: "Nurture your heart of compassion. Open your heart to them in compassion, understanding, and forgiveness." I knew the Spirit was not just talking about my relationship with others, but my relationship to my own heart.

I responded as a ONE. "But, if I respond to injustice with compassion and understanding, who will fix the injustices?"

(My, what hubris!)

"I will," answered the Spirit. "Besides, you will not lose your passionate vision of integrity for yourself and for the world. This is a part of your gift. By opening your heart of compassion, your vision will become more vivid, vibrant and powerful for others."

I did not go back to sleep after that.

In one way or another, this is what the Spirit has been working on in my for quite some time now. Perhaps it's been the same message in different forms, applied to various areas of my life. Ironically, I have resisted the message. In some ways, I've become even more closed and self-protected in my ONEness, doubling up my dissatisfaction with self and others.

And yet, the Spirit has bypassed my resistance, pursuing me relentlessly, pursuing me with compassion.

Confessions of a Radical

2009-05-06T06:38:00.005-05:00

As a ONE on the Enneagram, I have always had a compulsion for trying to improve things--for improving the world and especially for improving myself. My desire to fix the world manifested mostly in through a keen interest in politics and social movements. My childhood heroes were not Spiderman or even Luke Skywalker (though I was quite the fan of both), not sports heroes or movie stars, but rather Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi.

Seriously. These were the men I wanted to emulate.

So I was interested in history, in politics, and especially in the spiritual dimensions of social transformation. In college I was heavily involved in peace and environmental activism on campus and in the classroom. I first studied journalism, but then decided that I wanted to get down to the roots of why there was injustice in the world and how to correct it, and ended up taking my degree in philosophy and religion. I went to grad school to study theology and ethics. But this wasn't "in the trenches" enough for me, so I became a teacher with the intent of transforming the world one kid at a time, and foolishly thought that with my "spare" time I would continue to devote myself to community activism.

Of course, I quickly discovered that teachers don't really have that much spare time, especially compared to college students. So the activism slowed to a stop. Meanwhile, working in the bureaucracy of the public schools led to cynicism. My values didn't change, but my confidence in government did. Always interested in all-encompassing political philosophies, I studied libertarianism and adopted a nearly anarchist outlook on social change. But that critical stance toward the world remained.

There was a corresponding struggle for transformation going on inside me, which I'll write about some other time. My point in all this is to demonstrate how thoroughly I actually am a ONE and always have been. And it's always been all or nothing. The world had to change according to my viewpoint, and my viewpoint was total: Marxism or anarcho-capitalism, the change was motivated by a comprehensive system of ideas that left little room for nuance or compromise.

One of the lessons of the Enneagram is that God is constantly inviting us to grow and become whole. Now, this is a theme with great appeal for a ONE, of course. But for a ONE, the growth means letting go of some of that harsh, critical stance toward the world. I remain a ONE, but something happens to the way I manifest my personality as a ONE. I move toward greater tolerance, understanding, compassion, and above all patience.

Something happened while I was in Norway that has caused a subtle but significant shift in my attitude toward the world of politics lately. It wasn't that they saw the world differently than me, it's that the Norwegians bent all the definitions of politics I had come to know. They are neither liberal nor conservative, neither socialist nor capitalist. They are collectivists and individualists at the same time.

Some people have heard me talk or write about Norway and think I've just fallen in love with the people there and think they can do no wrong. I do love Norway and the Norwegian people, but I have no such notions about the rightness or wrongness of their political system and attitudes. They just demonstrate to me that there are multiple ways of looking at a problem, and far more than just two solutions. Reflecting on the Norwegians has brought a kind of peace and deep reflection to my mind when I watch the news now or reflect on politics. My absolutist perspective has been tempered by a new kind of openness and curiosity.

This is how a ONE begins to come to redemption. And this is just the beginning.

Knowing the "ONE"

2009-05-04T06:32:00.004-05:00

A few months ago, while visiting friends, I noticed a book on their shelf about the Enneagram. I read and studied the Enneagram some many years ago, but had not thought about it in a long time. I borrowed their book and carried it around Norway during my trip, but didn't read much. Then last month at the LCG meeting the Enneagram surfaced again in the conversation, and with a few pointers from Michael, I resumed my studies using the Enneagram Institute's website and the Richard Rohr book, Discovering the Enneagram: An Ancient Tool for a New Spiritual Journey.

The Enneagram is a very old personality profile system likely developed by Sufi mystics but adopted in the last century by both Christian contemplatives interested in its uses for spiritual direction and by secular psychologists who saw it as a tool for human growth in general. The Enneagram proposes that there are nine basic personality types ('ennea' means 'nine' in Greek), though the system is subtle enough to recognize scores of combinations (hundreds when the various levels of growth and development are considered).

It's a humbling look into the human psyche, because the Enneagram pulls no punches. We are all deeply broken and our brokenness is laid bare when we study the features of our own personalities. The system is useful for identifying features within myself that I might not discover otherwise--and probably wouldn't--if it were left up to my own powers of introspection.

Long story short, I'm a "ONE" on the Enneagram. Riso and Hudson, the Enneagram Institute folks, call this type the Reformer. The name is nice, and there are many great gifts to this particular personality. We are dedicated to making things better--both ourselves the world. We are advocates for change and we are absolutely dedicated to growing individuals and society into more integrated, balanced versions of the ideals we believe in. Of course, this is also a very dangerous way to look at the world, and we become extremely critical and judgmental of everything and everybody, especially ourselves.

This is a kind of extreme description, a caricature of traits that make up the ONE's personality, but I identify myself in it thoroughly. In future posts over the next few weeks, I'll explore the Enneagram is greater depth, what I'm learning about myself and others through the process, and especially what God is revealing to me about how I can come to know Him better.

Becoming Easter

2009-04-14T06:34:00.011-05:00

It has been a joyous Easter season so far on many levels. I have felt confirmed and renewed by the liturgies, the spring weather has been pleasing, I am happy to be home after long travels abroad, and a very dear friend is entering the Church next Sunday and I have the honor of being his sponsor. Many great blessings are converging for me at the moment.

Lent did its work on me too, simultaneously convicting me of my own sinfulness and leaving me acutely aware of the general brokenness of the world while also longing for a metanoia, a renewing and rebirth in Christ. A couple of simple, small things happened in last night that vividly brought to my awareness this collective brokenness and need for redemption.

As I was leaving a restaurant with some friends and casually crossing the street to my car, some stranger in a passing vehicle yelled at us hatefully for crossing too slowly. Then, as I drove home, a passenger in the car ahead of me casually tossed a beer can out the window, littering the beautiful country roadside.

These things combine to leave me with a slightly sick feeling, struck by how selfish and unfeeling people can be. And these are tiny, insignificant slights compared to the real injustices and cruelties that are unleashed in the world every day. Above all, I am left with a powerful sense of my own self-centeredness. The judgment I feel toward others is quickly turned inward as I contemplate the thousands of little ways I also show disrespect and a lack of caring. The violence, intolerance, and apathy of the world is reflected in my own tendency toward all these things.

The world is broken, and I am convicted by this brokenness with a great desire to do something in response. Of course, the only place I can effect any kind of healing is within my own heart, and even then only by divine grace.

So this week I'm meditating on the Paschal Mystery as it applies to my own heart, a heart that is broken like all the rest, and how I can let the joy and peace and compassion and understanding and tolerance and acceptance and reckless love of Easter become my gift of healing back to myself and to the world. This is no easy meditation, but I'll continue to sit with it and see what happens. It is the only response to a broken world. It is the testament of Easter.

Lord of My Life

2009-04-08T06:23:00.004-05:00

"All the faithful should listen to the word as it is announced in the liturgy or in Bible services and respond according to their ability. In this way, for the whole Church, Lent will not be merely a season simply of a few formalized penitential practice, half-understood and undertaken without interest, but a time of metanoia, the turning of all minds and hearts to God in preparation for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery in which some will for the first time receive the light of Christ, others will be restored to the communion of the faithful, and all will renew their baptismal consecration of their lives in God, in Christ."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I feel the great stirring within me, the anticipation and expectation of Easter. The liturgical calendar and the scripture readings and rites that accompany it have succeeded in bringing something to life within me. Lent has revealed many dark corners within me that are in need of redemption, but not without the abiding promise of deliverance. The light of Easter is about to break, and I have never been more aware of my need and desire to surrender completely and wholly to the Lord of my life.

I am not sure I have ever felt quite like this. Don't get me wrong. I am not hearing angels' voices or experiencing special charisms. Rather, I just have this deep sense of calling and confirmation within me. "The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue," the Scripture says today, "that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them."

Perhaps there are many ways to speak to the weary. I'm not sure what my way is, but I am pretty confident I will be led there if I remain open.

The "Universal" Church

2009-04-01T06:24:00.007-05:00

I had a couple of powerful "church" experiences in Norway that are worth sharing too. Two of my American companions were also Catholic and we decided to visit the little Catholic church in Lillehammer one Sunday morning. It was my first experiencing attending Church outside the U.S., but it revealed to me just what we mean when we call the church "catholic," as in "universal."

Immediately when we entered I felt at home. The smells and sounds were completely familiar to me. We introduced ourselves to the young priest, who of course spoke perfect English and welcomed us. I had read that the Catholic Church in Norway has traditionally had an unusual sort of reputation. It has been the refuge for intellectuals, artists and scientists--usually converts from others traditions or from no faith background at all--and has a heavy monastic flavor. But today's church in Norway is increasingly an immigrant church as waves of newcomers from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa arrive daily, and many of them are Catholic.

This was evident at Mariakirken, the Catholic community in Lillehammer. We were surrounded by a great diversity of faces, including Poles, Phillipinos, Somalis, Vietnamese, Norwegians of course, and even an American we discovered later. The liturgy was all in Norwegian, but the structure is the same all of the world, and we found that with the little worship aid we could follow right along, singing and proclaiming the responses in our heavily-accented Norwegian voices. It was a deeply unifying experience to gather with these people from all over the world and share in communion and a universal liturgy of praise, worship, and reflection. It even made me appreciate how the old Latin liturgy provided a truly universal language for the church, and how those Latin fundamentalists might have a valid point or two about the importance of the old rites. But the truth was, Latin wasn't needed for us to understand each other and be one.

The other powerful church experience took place at Domkirkeodden, the ruins of the old cathedral at Hamar. The original cathedral dated back to the 13th century, but it was burned in the mid-1500's and all that remains are parts of the walls, stone pillars, and the reassembled altar stones, recovered from nearby fields where they probably were used as cattle and sheep fencing for some centuries. The church is now surrounded by glass walls and ceiling at the same height as the original cathedral. This preserves the ruins but also leaves the space open to the majestic view of Lake Mjøsa surrounding the peninsula on which the ruins rest, the nearby mountains, and the vast blue sky above.

Here we received a guided tour from the site's director, a fantastic story teller (and trained Luther priest) named Steinar. He brought us inside the cathedral of glass and stone and, lest we think this strange structure was no longer a church, he had us close our eyes and listen while he sang the "Kyrie Eleison." My eyes filled with tears of joy and peace and at once I felt at home in this ancient place. Then Steinar led us up around the altar, which has been restored and is used again for interdenominational services. Here looking across the altar past the ruined walls to the lake, the mountains, and sky, Steinar pointed out how in this place the past, present, and future are united. We were one people and one earth on that holy ground.

Homecoming

2009-03-31T06:17:00.003-05:00

"In building a community of pardon that is the temple of God, we have to recognize that no one is complete, self-sufficient, perfectly holy in himself. No one can rest in his own individual virtues and interior life. No man lives for himself alone. To live for oneself alone is to die. We grow and flourish in our own lives insofar as we live for others and through others. What we ourselves lack, God has given them. They must complete us where we are deficient. Hence we must always remain open to one another so that we can always share with each other."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I am happily at home again after a month-long visit to Norway. As many friends know, I approached the journey with some reluctance, fretful about the loss of my routines, the lack of time for quiet reflection, etc. I even began to think of the trip as a kind of Lenten experience, a penance of sorts, a surrender of the ordinary and familiar.

And it was. But it was also a Lenten experience in the holiest sense, in that through surrender I experienced a great renewal and regeneration. I cannot convey how wonderful my journey was, how thought-provoking, heart-warming and life-changing. There were the actual experiences of being in a beautiful place and doing strange and unusual things, but more importantly was the intimate encounter with the people who opened their homes to us, shared their lives, and introduced us into their ways of thinking and living while eagerly desiring to learn from us too.

My routines were disrupted indeed, but I now can see what deep ruts had begun to define my life and way of thinking about work, about myself, about my world. The break from routine gave me new insights into how closed I have become in subtle ways, and a renewed desire for deepening my friendships and making new ones, for traveling and experiencing new places, and above all for nurturing my need to listen deeply to the needs and opinions of others. I am a man of deep passions and strong views, and that can be a gift. But it can also be a heavy burden when it blinds me to the wisdom of others. And so I now carry a strong yearning for more openness, deeper listening, and above all a heart of peace, compassion and understanding for others.

I have been so richly blessed in my life. The opportunity to visit Norway was just one of many examples of the riches that I have received. I have deserved none of them, and I find myself bewildered and humbled by this graciousness. Why me? I don't know the answer to this, but I do know how I must respond. To the best of my ability, I must use the great beauty and goodness of my life to serve others, to share with others, to lift others up so that they too might know some degree of beauty, goodness, and joy.

I don't know how to do that, and I am a deeply broken man, not a prophet or saint. But just as surely as I have been given these special experiences, I will believe that the One who Provides will also lead me to where I can do some good, if I remain open, quiet, humble, and willing to listen and be lead.

I am home, and yet the journey is just beginning.

Mercy Now

2009-02-27T06:15:00.003-06:00

"The purpose of Lent is not only expiation, but above all a preparation to rejoice in God's love. And this preparation consists in receiving the gift of His mercy--a gift we receive insofar as we open our hearts to it, casting out what cannot remain in the same room as mercy."

--Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

This passage from Merton calls to mind a fantastic song, "Mercy Now," by Mary Gauthier. It's a beautiful prayer for grace and mercy on us all for the big messes we make in our lives, in our families, in our workplaces, and in the world. The song is also a call for us to have mercy on each other, and on ourselves.

Perhaps the hardest of all is mercy for ourselves. I find in myself the need for mercy, often in the strangest places. In a couple of days I'm going to leave for an overseas trip that will last a month. It's an opportunity of a lifetime, at very little personal expense to myself, an experience that I am sure will grow me personally and professionally.

And yet, there is a deep resistance within me. Part of it is being away from my wife, part of it is letting go of many things at work and fretting about how much will be waiting for me when I return, part of it is fear of dealing non-stop with new, unfamiliar people (which I don't mind, but for an introvert, that's work), sleeping in strange beds, eating strange food, having a new routine, having less time to read, pray, write, and just be by myself.

I will be gone most of Lent. Earlier in the week I was thinking about the Lenten implications of all these disruptions to my routine, and I started to think about my trip as a kind of Lenten journey in itself. Lent takes us out of our comfort zones, and that's certainly what I'm about to do. It will lay bare some of my basic fears of not being in control, and paradoxically my fears about both being overwhelmed by contact with others and my fears about being alone (the separation from my wife is weighing heavily on me, though I am sure we'll have nearly daily contact).

Its not that I'm ungrateful for the opportunity, and I'm not consumed by these fears, but it goes to show how even in the midst of great excitement and new beginnings, there is much within ourselves that needs mercy. For Lent, I'm going to give up a little bit of control, give myself a break, and try to have a good time in spite of all my hang ups and fears. I'll blog here as I'm able. Pray for my journey, and I'll be back soon.

Season of Healing

2009-02-25T06:27:00.005-06:00

"We must remember the original meaning of Lent, as the ver sacrum, the Church's "holy spring" in which the catechumens were prepared for their baptism, and public penitents were made ready by penance for their restoration to the sacramental life in common with the rest of the Church. Lent is not a season of punishment so much as one of healing."

-Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

I am just now beginning to feel normal after a four-day bout with a nasty virus that left me unable to eat, unable to go to work, barely able to write or read (only in short bursts--there are certain pleasures I insist on no matter what). I could not just rest quietly, either. I was forced to confront that absolute lack of control we have over even our own bodies when we are ill.

This illness was a small burden compared to those others face, I am sure, but after a few days I began to view it as a kind of pre-Lenten desert experience. It purged and cleansed me physically, and, if I had caught on to the idea sooner, might also have had some purgative spiritual effects as well. Maybe its not too late.

Today I'll start trying to eat again, but I do so with great mindfulness of what I am ingesting and how much. It's not just paranoia over making myself sick. I also have noticed how mindlessly I fill myself with all manner of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, fast food. Not that any of those are inherently bad. What's perhaps worse than the up-down effect it has on my body is how I just consume like a machine with little regard for the effect, or more importantly, the experience of the food, its taste, the company I am with, the pleasure of eating.

I return to work today as well. In just two days away, I have had to surrender control of many things, and I gained a little perspective. Just like eating food again, I approach work today with a little trepidation. Part of it is fear of being reconsumed into the whirlwind of busyness, manipulation, and other fakeness that characterizes so much of work. The other part, though, is a genuine desire to appreciate my work and its effects, to be grateful for the contribution I am making, and especially to more skillfully deal with my co-workers--probably the source of greatest frustration for me. My brief "desert experience" reveals clearly that I cannot transform my workplace, and especially my colleagues. I can't even transform myself. But I can begin to open myself up to being transformed. And that requires quiet, contemplation, listening, self-reflection--skills I've dabbled with during my four day "retreat."

I think that this is how Lent is supposed to work as a season of healing. I had the "grace" to be unwillingly sent on such a journey, but with Lent we get to intentionally create a kind of mini-desert experience for ourselves. By stepping back, withdrawing momentarily from our habitual patterns, our unskillfulness is revealed in all its messy glory. We experience some degree of shame, but also a desire for repentance, and God's unwavering openess to our return. Above all, the desert cleanses our perceptions, helps us see what was there all along, and opens us for real healing.

Saying "yes" to the present moment

2009-02-23T14:21:00.004-06:00

"I do believe, help my unbelief!"
--Mark 9:24

Perhaps there is no statement in Scripture uttered by anyone other than God that is truer than this one. It is certainly the most beautifully human statement I can recall.

To acknowledge at once both our desire to believe and the limitations of our belief, the limitations of our desire to believe, in fact. And belief, of course, is far more than simple intellectual assent to some formula or doctrine. Belief, in this sense, is faith, the ultimate letting-go into the basic benevolence of the universe, a saying "yes" to whatever is unfolding in this present moment.

I've been trying to recover from a nasty virus the last three days. At various times I have prayed for healing and seethed with resentment that my body has betrayed me, especially during this all-important final week before my month-long travels. It did not occur to me, at least until just now, that the purest act of faith in this situation might have been to simply say "yes" to my illness, to accept and embrace the reality of my finite, mortal body in this complex, interdependent universe in this particular moment in time.

Doing so would not mean that I ceased to take care of myself or do the things needed to get better quickly. But it would mean that all the self-absorbed, existential resistance I put up to the present moment might give way to clarity, equanimity, and openness. Probably a much better condition for healing.

We believe, and we disbelieve, and somewhere in the dance between God meets us.

Solitude and Solidarity

2009-02-18T06:27:00.006-06:00

"People brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village."
-Mark 8:23

The Carmelites produce a wonderful little quarterly journal called Spiritual Life. The Fall 2008 issue includes an article from Susan Muto titled, "Flee to be Free: The Call of the Desert." Pdf version of the article here.

Dr. Muto writes that humans have a deep inner long for solitude, just as we also have a deep, innate desire and need for community:

The quest for solitude, to be alone with the Alone, is not confined to a monastic elite: it manifests itself in all people seeking to find the meaning of life; it is as natural an instinct as that for solidarity or the reaching out of oneself to find communion with like-minded others.

The story from today's Gospel reveals both dimensions. The blind man is brought to Jesus for healing by others, but Jesus calls him away into solitude to actually restore his sight.

Many who are called to a more contemplative life experience a similar paradox. We are called to silence and solitude, but we also crave the contact of others who understand this impulse, who can affirm and support this instinct. This is great charism of lay contemplative communities. It takes others to learn to be alone, and only by being alone can we really learn to be present for others.

Good Problems

2009-02-17T06:25:00.004-06:00

"Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?"
They answered him, "Twelve."
He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"
--Mark 8:14-21

Oops.

Yes, I do understand, but I forget.

I grumble and worry about problems at work, forgetting that there are millions who do not have a job.

I fret about the challenges of relationships, of finding the time to visit with friends and family and meet my many perceived social obligations, forgetting that there are those utterly alone.

I feel anxious about an upcoming trip overseas, forgetting that there are those who cannot move on their own, let alone who have the opportunity of a lifetime such as mine.

I am troubled over the many responsibilities I have because of owning a home, cars, and a myriad of consumer goods, forgetting that there are those who are homeless, penniless, who have nothing.

I feel unworthy and broken because of my short-sightedness and self-centeredness, forgetting that I am loved and redeemed and healed anyway, no matter how many times I forget.

Thank you for forgiving my forgetfulness, Lord. Thank you for these problems. Amen.

Sabbath

2009-02-10T11:23:00.004-06:00

"So God rested on the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation."

--Genesis 2:3

God didn't need to rest, I am sure. So what is the Sabbath all about? After each work of God's creation, He reflected on it, and declared it "good." God took the time to step back from this holy work, to consider it, ponder it, and revel in its beauty and goodness. God did that.

Maybe God does need to rest, what do I know? I doubt it still. But what God does definitely need--or perhaps what God simply likes to do--is appreciate the wonder of the creative process, of being itself. God is an artist who is not simply content to create, but takes joy and even awe in the act of creating, and in the breathtaking nature of what is created, of what is.

We humans observe Sabbath for multiple reasons. Certainly we do in fact need rest, just as the earth needs to rest from our labors upon it, and the tools of our labor need rest, maintenance, restoration. The creative process of living is dependent on regular periods of rejuvenation.

But, just as we are made in God's image, perhaps we need Sabbath to also revel in the wonders of creation, both God's and our own. To ponder, contemplate, and allow ourselves moments of joy and awe. To look upon what we and God have accomplished, and to know that it is "good."

The pace and connectedness of modern life make it so that an actual Sabbath day is rare for most of us. For contemplatives, though, Sabbath is more than a day, it is an attitude toward life, a continual turning inward, to a place of rest, reflection, restoration, and revelation, allowing ourselves to be amazed at what we and God have wrought.

Praying for Healing

2009-02-09T12:47:00.003-06:00

"They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was."
--Mark 6:55

As I meditated on this passage today, the internal Judger within me immediately felt disdain for these people: "They were only seeking Jesus out to get what they wanted from him! I'll bet most of these folks took their healing and then high-tailed it back home, never to give him another thought."

Folks often say that what we judge in others the most is what we actually disdain in ourselves.

How many times have I prayed for my own self-serving needs, and how little has my heart been changed? How quickly have I forgotten the grace I received? And how generously God answered my prayers anyway, just as He did these people? We are not so different, any of us. And God loves us anyway, and wants our joy, and happiness, and healing.

The Country Beyond Words

2009-02-05T06:30:00.005-06:00

"Teach me to go to the country beyond words and names. Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier...

I need to be led by you. I need my heart to be moved by you. I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer. I need my will to be made strong by you. I need the world to be saved and changed by you. I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow. I need you for all the crazy people. I need your healing hand to work always in my life. I need you to make me, as you made your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior. I need you to name the dead. I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers. I need you for myself whether I live or die. I need to be your monk and your son. It is necessary. Amen."
--Thomas Merton

The last week or so--really, for weeks now, I have pretty much failed to live out the Cistercian values of silence, solitude, even prayer really. I have been away from home, visiting family, working late, engaged in all manner of activity, both internal and external. I have a big trip coming up in a few weeks, and I'm anxious about that too, and the result has been distraction, exhaustion, frustration.

I sat down to really pray this morning for the first time in days, and my words just came out a kind of wordless croak.

And that seemed perfectly okay with God. So we sat there, together, in the silence. And I was just me, exactly where I am, and God was just God.

Hidden Majesty

2009-01-29T17:06:00.002-06:00

"When I consent to the will and the mercy of God as it 'comes' to me in the events of life, appealing to my inner self and awakening my faith, I breath through the superficial exterior appearances that form my routine vision of the world and of my own self, and I find myself in the presence of hidden majesty."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Some days I just can't feel it. My heart feels barren, my prayers are flat, almost echoing as if I'm speaking in an empty room, alone. Worse, on days like today, I feel the dark tendrils of doubt, anger, frustration, and despair creeping in from the margins of my mind to cover the innermost regions of my soul.

This was my experience upon waking today. I have no explanation for it, but it followed me throughout the day, impervious to any distractions, even earnest prayer. It abides still.

And yet, I read a passage like this from Merton, and I am bowled over by its truth and beauty, even though it fails to dispel the darkness.

Days like today call me deeper within myself. Call me to silence, to solitude, to self-reflection. If I can abide in this inner space, and not panic at the darkness and doubt, but simply be with it, offering it to God's divine mercy...it doesn't pass, but something stirs within it, beneath it, a benevolent force that reassures me the whispers of despair are to be tolerated, but not heeded. I am not alone. Far, far from it.

Getting the Point

2009-01-27T06:28:00.006-06:00

"I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know."
--Psalm 40:10

My pastor, whom I mention from time to time in this journal, offered yet another powerful bit of wisdom in his homily this past Sunday, a lesson passed down from one of his seminary professors. When reading scripture, he advised, always remember that it is first and foremost about God.

The dramatic human stories of the bible offer us many examples of ordinary people living out great acts of courage and faith. But we can easily be discouraged by some of these stories, as we try to compare our own puny faith to that of the biblical saints. My pastor is advising that before discerning what a passage of scripture is telling us about us, we should first seek to understand what it is telling us about God.

This was particular helpful last Sunday, when the Gospel reading was then transformed from a story about courageous fisherman who abandoned their nets at Jesus' first call into a story of a God who calls very ordinary people to follow him, people with jobs and families and everday lives and, frankly, ordinary faith (as time would prove of the disciples, prior to the Resurrection, anyway).

Today's psalm is more challenging. Here, the psalmist reminds the Lord how unafraid he is to proclaim God's goodness and justice publicly, how he speaks of salvation "in the vast assembly." This all makes me a bit uncomfortable. I am not fond of bold displays of faith in public, at least outside of an explicit religious context. Granted, I write a blog about my spiritual life for all the world to see, but I think it's probably pretty clear how flawed and faltering I am, how doubt and struggle permeates my inner world as much as loud proclamations of faith and rejoicing.

Again, though, my pastor's wisdom prevails. I am making this about me, setting myself up in contrast to the psalmist, about whom I am making many assumptions. What is he telling me about God? The psalmist is reminding me, not about how brave his in speaking up about God, but rather about the Lord's grace, God's faithfulness to us:

I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.

The justice, faithfulness, kindness, truth, and grace of God, in the face of my own puny faith, is the point. God is madly in love with us, and our own resistance and bashfulness does not deter his pursuit of our hearts one bit. "Sacrifice or oblation you wished not," the psalmist writes,

Then said I, "Behold, I come."

This is all that God wants from me.

The "New" Covenant

2009-01-23T06:45:00.012-06:00

"Now our high priest has obtained so much more excellent a ministry, as he is our mediator of a better covenant...For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more."
--Hebrews 8:6, 12

The weekday readings since the end of Christmas have featured many deeply theological passages from the letter to the Hebrews. The author describes Jesus as the high priest of a new covenant between God and humankind. One of the subtleties here is that the new covenant does not replace the old covenant, but actually brings it to complete fulfillment.

In the Abrahamic covenant, God called the Hebrews into special relationship, one based on mutual fidelity. God deepened our understanding of fidelity through the Mosaic covenant, which articulated how people who live in relationship with God ought to conduct themselves in the world. The prophet Jeremiah, quoted in this passage from the letter to the Hebrews, challenged the people to let God not only transform their outward behavior, but their very hearts. The law's purpose is to show us what a life of love looks like in practice. But the point is to fall helplessly in love with God, and by extension, the world and people God has created and redeemed.

Throughout the history of this unfolding covenant, the people kept failing to live real lives of faith. They were often selfish, short-sighted, and even blasphemed God for their own failures. God is depicted as being frustrated, angry...hurt practically...by His people's willfulness and refusal to submit to His love. And yet, He never rejects them (despite some of the rhetoric attributed to God in the Scriptures that He wants to and does). Instead, God relentlessly pursues the people, wooing them again and again back to Himself, and rejoicing in their return, putting aside their sins (see the prophet Hosea for a great metaphorical description of this relationship).

Jesus comes into this story for so many reasons, some probably beyond our understanding and awareness, but it is clear that our failure to live by the covenant is at the center of his purpose. In Jesus, God makes the most dramatic demonstration of His love for all time--He gives Himself completely, taking all of our sins on to Himself. "Here's how much I love you," God says. "I will wipe out your failures, and not just that, I will take on the flesh and nature of your very own human lives, and pour myself out as a human being, for you. You will see a perfect example of the covenant, in the flesh, and I will be one with you once and for all."

I don't pretend to understand how all of this works, or really even what it all means. In my own life, though, I can see myself as a microcosm of salvation history itself: God coming to me in an offer of simple relationship when I was a child; God showing me the way of righteousness through the Law, and my failure to live up to the covenant; God calling me to love and deeper relationship; and ultimately, my complete and utter dependence on God. I have earned and deserve none of the blessings of my life, much less the redemption of my soul and the total devotion and love God pours out into my heart.

When I consider this gift, not just for myself, but for all of humanity for all time, it leaves me humbled, breathless, and filled with the deepest gratitude and wonder.

The Gift of Silence

2009-01-20T06:27:00.005-06:00

"After patient waiting, he obtained the promise."

--Hebrews 6:15

The Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani's Plan of Life includes four key elements (prayer, study, work, and conversatio, or "conversion of manners") based on the major charisms of the Cistercian tradition. Conversatio is further broken down into five virtues which represent the fruition of a life dedicated to a transformation of the human spirit in accord with God's will. The first of these virtues is silence.

According to the Plan of Life, "One should make a genuine effort to spend time in silence during the day. The amount of time will vary given one's availability. Silence will allow one to be more centered and to discover one's inner depths." As we know, silence is more than the lack of external noise. It is in inner state of mind, a kind of precondition for the experience of true contemplation.

It seems to me that silence plays three instrumental purposes in predisposing us to contemplation. First, silence clears away or mutes the filter of incessant distraction (both inward and outward) that prevents us from truly perceiving the world as it is. Silence opens our awareness to the wonder, beauty, and truth of nature and everyday experience, which we otherwise miss by our relentless activity and noise-making, and especially to the ideas, words, and needs of others. An attitude of inner silence should be the foundation of every conversation and encounter with others, since we only truly hear another and can effectively respond to another when we set aside the endless babble of our own opinions, prejudices, and desires.

Second, silence prepares us to hear the deep stirrings of our own heart. Much of our outward activity and our inner mental commentary is meant to distract us from the soul's deepest fears, dreams, and desires. Practicing silence means that we honor the full range of our experience, including listening to these oft-ignored or neglected dimensions. By hearing our own heart more clearly, we can identify and address our true needs.

And finally, with an enhanced attitude of listening to others, to the world around us, and to our deepest selves, silence also opens us up to hearing the voice of God, the way God is challenging us, wooing us, drawing us to God's self. Often, it is actually through nature and through the voices of others that we hear God's voice, and so by opening up to one of these instrumental purposes of silence, we open up to them all.

I do work at meeting the challenge of silence by starting my day with time for prayer and quiet reflection. These times are important, but quiet is not always silence. One thing I need to work on is nurturing an attitude of listening during this time. And the bigger challenge is maintaining an open, silent heart as I proceed through my day. This must be St. Paul's call to "pray without ceasing," and probably constitutes the next frontier of God's work within me.

Answering the Call

2009-01-18T12:31:00.005-06:00

"When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"
--1 Samuel 3:9-10

"Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?'"
--John 1:38

I spent part of yesterday at the Abbey of Gethsemani for a meeting of the Lay Cistercians, a group of ordinary people who have affiliated themselves with the monastery and seek to live Cistercian values in their everyday lives. Two of the monks joined us for our discussion, and a senior brother who has lived at the Abbey for over 50 years inquired as to why we were drawn to this group and this place.

It's a question I have been pondering seriously since I first inquired about participating in the group last fall, and a question that the Cistercian Order itself has placed upon us also. Last summer representatives from Lay Cistercian groups around the world met with abbots from the order's monasteries at Huerta, Spain, to explore the role and place of lay organizations and our future relationship with the Order. Lay groups were challenged by the abbots to discern, in part, why we specifically want to affiliate with the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO, the Trappists' formal name), as opposed to some other group or movement.

Each of us at yesterday's meeting offered our own personal answers to this question. The answers were tentative, unsure. The truth is, we don't exactly know why we are there, why we keep coming back, though the common themes have to do with a special, spiritual connection to those men and that place, and how the tradition interacts with our own personal biographies.

Through the discussion, one thing that was revealed to me very clearly, and which I shared with the group, was that we were answering a calling. We are trying, in some way, to respond to a call that none of us fully understand. The anonymous author of the 14th-century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, says that not all people are called to a life of contemplation. In a deep sense, we do not choose to become contemplatives, God chooses us. God gives us a disposition and desire for contemplation. We may, of course, ignore this call, but those who come to the Abbey, and abbeys like it, are trying in some way to respond to this inner need that God has placed within us. We don't know why we are there or what God is working out in our lives through the connection we've made to the Cistercians, and perhaps that is okay. We are simply trying to line up in accordance with God's will for us. Perhaps the Holy Spirit itself is bringing us together in this way.

An even deeper question which emerged from our discussion was how is my life being transformed by my encounter with the Cistercian tradition? As our facilitator Michael, a founder of the group, pointed out, we don't come to the Lay Cistercians to do something, but to become something. All of our activities need to be reflected upon through the lens of whether we are indeed encountering God and allowing ourselves to be remade according to God's will.

I am a bit chastened and feel a sense of great awe and humility at the realization that I am not following this path simply because I like it, but because God has called me to it. There is a deep responsibility and sense of wonder embedded in that fact, and it heightens my concern that I am answering the call faithfully and allowing myself to be transformed by it. These are questions I'll ponder deeply, and intentionally, in the days ahead.

Getting Saved

2009-01-16T06:33:00.006-06:00

"It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor 'salvation' has come to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised.... The word [in fact] connotes a deep respect for the fundamental metaphysical reality of man. It reflects God's own infinite concern for man...for all that is His own in man, His son. It is not only human nature that is 'saved' by the divine mercy, but above all the human person."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Growing up in the Bible Belt, "getting saved" was an essential moment in one's life. For the churched children like myself, it was a rite of passage of great significance, when one accepted Jesus as one's personal Lord and Savior. For the unchurched, the "lost," it could be a life-changing event, and I heard many a testimony as a child from adults who had repented of licentiousness and drunkeness and a variety of other sins that were, frankly, titillating to my young ears, but here were these nice, seemingly ordinary people who had transcended those wicked ways by God's grace.

And sadly, anyone who was not saved was indeed mortally "lost," bound for the eternal flames of hell. And this included any good people who might be Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or otherwise, none of whom actually lived in my small town or whom we had any dealings with. But the lost were everywhere, because it didn't matter if you were a church person, if you had never really surrendered your heart to Jesus, if your name was not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you were a goner.

I am not trying to make light of these beliefs. The folks I heard these teachings from were by and large good people. But by my late teens, I had begun to see the world in less stark, less black and white terms. I rejected the notion that one had to abide by some theological formula to be "saved," and I began to have a different idea about what, exactly, we were being saved from.

In New Seeds, Merton tries to rescue the concept of salvation by showing how it is indeed more than an intellectual affirmation of a theological formula, but is nevertheless an experience that all us are called to, regardless of our religious labels, station of life, or circumstances.

"The object of salvation is that which is unique, irreplaceable, incommunicable--that which is myself alone. The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent."

Our normal way of looking at the world is "lost" in the sense that we assume we are an independent reality, cut off from all other people, alone and yet at the center of the universe. Even if we profess religious belief, our tendency is to doubt, to operate as though we are utterly alone. This leaves us with nothing but the mess of our own, self-centered fears and desires. We must give up this false sense of separateness, but to do so means that we give up making our normal sense of "self" the center. God becomes the center, and we have to surrender our whole person to be remade from that new centerpoint. And somehow by giving ourselves up, we find our true self, in all its wholeness.

"The person must be rescued from the individual... The creative and mysterious inner self must be delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises."

My forebears' understanding of what it means to "get saved" may have been limited by their own experiences, but that is true of everyone. What they had absolutely right was the understanding that we are all in some way lost, and that only by giving ourselves up completely to God can we discover who we really are.

"To be 'lost' is to be left to the arbitrariness and pretenses of the contingent ego, the smoke-self that must inevitably vanish. To be 'saved' is to return to one's inviolate and eternal reality and to live in God."

Never Alone

2009-01-15T06:33:00.004-06:00

"If today you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts."
--Psalm 95:7-8

I got up this morning acutely aware that I have not prayed in a few days. My work has been busy this week and has kept me more distracted than usual. I thought I was behind on some of my political reading and writing, and so I chose to work on those things instead of pray the last couple of mornings.

Today, as I prayed again, reflecting on the last two days, I was actually struck by a strong sense of God's presence, even during that time of my distraction and inattentiveness. God was there, even though I wasn't paying attention, and somehow that was obvious to me, but only in retrospect.

My lukewarm discipleship is not a problem for God, only for myself. God remained faithful to me, and all I missed out on was the joy of the awareness of his presence. And that loss is enough to bring me back to prayer.

Extraordinary Time

2009-01-12T06:15:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, and today we begin Ordinary Time (at least until Lent commences a few weeks from now). Fittingly, the observance of Jesus' baptism is followed in the church calendar with readings about Jesus' calling of the apostles. In today's Gospel, he calls the first of them, the fishermen Peter, James, and John.

At his baptism, Jesus becomes the New Adam, the first of a new kind of people. Theologians puzzle over Jesus' baptism because the Church teaches that he was sinless and therefore would have no need of a baptism of repentence. For myself, I think his baptism must be understood in light of the Incarnation. God becomes fully human for a wide variety of reasons, some of which we understand and perhaps many which we don't. But one reason for God to incarnate in the life of a real human person is so that Jesus can show us the way, as a human. In his baptism, he becomes our example, our leader, our commander, our high priest (as the author of Hebrews is going to remind us this Ordinary Time), in this work of discipleship. He is our trailblazer and pioneer in the work of becoming a people renewed, reborn, healed. To be the New Adam, he must be one of us.

And so, yesterday we recognized him as such, and today he begins his work of calling us to follow him, just as his own baptism was followed by his calling of Peter, James, and John.

Notice that the fishermen do not go seeking for Jesus. He calls to them. Perhaps as we begin (again) our commitment to discipleship, the first lesson we need to learn is to listen for our call. Our prayers are so consumed with us talking to God, us beseeching God for this or that. Which is fine, we are told. But first, we must listen for what God is beseeching of us.

As we take our first, stumbling steps into Ordinary Time, following our new High Priest, our New Adam, let's pause long enough from mending our nets to hear his call.

Finding My True Self

2009-01-08T15:16:00.004-06:00

Chapter Five of New Seeds comes to its climax with Merton's discussion of the "false self." Earlier, Merton described how human beings are called to express their individuality most fully by co-creating their identities and realities with God. But Merton warns that this is not some kind of Nieztschean "will to power" exaltation of the individual with no reference point beyond oneself. Because of the false self, we are perpetually at risk, not of becoming fully what we are meant to be, but of actually distorting our true identities.

"All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real."

The false self is not real. It is the identity that we create for ourselves, and that we spend our entire lives trying to protect and preserve, even as all of life and creation reveals that it is an illusion. The false self is our sense that we exist somehow independently and separately from the rest of creation (and from the Creator), and that this identity is somehow the center of the universe. According to Merton, all sin arises from this distorted sense of self, which leads us to engage in all manner of greed, hatred, delusion and a myriad of other, less obvious but equally insidious forms of self-aggrandizement.

So, how do we create ourselves as a real individual, while negotiating the pitfalls of the false self? I suspect Merton will elaborate on this throughout the rest of the book, but he concludes the chapter by saying that our real identiy is "hidden in the love and mercy of God," and only by surrendering ourselves completely to God can we create, with him, the person we are meant to be:

"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him...

The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone."

Creating Our Identities

2009-01-07T06:26:00.004-06:00

"Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom...To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

The fifth chapter of New Seeds continues with Merton explaining that, unlike the tree which automatically expresses its full individuality in God, we get to choose our identity, and not as one chooses which shirt to wear today, but rather as an artist who creates an identity through the work of his hands. It is not only our ability to choose freely which makes us in the "image and likeness of God." It's our ability to create, especially to create ourselves. In this sense, we are co-creators with God of our identities and our very realities. What an awesome power and responsibility. No room here for victims. We are fully in command of what we will become.

Of course, because we also carry around the "false self," we often squander this power and create ourselves very poorly. This is the topic of the remainder of chapter five.

The Source of Love

2009-01-06T06:28:00.002-06:00

Feast of Blessed Andre Bessette

"In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us."
--1 John 4:10

The theme of today's readings focuses on love, God's love for us and how our love for one another emanates from that love.

Even before I read the scriptures for today, as I prayed for the people around me whom I love, I found myself pondering how I can best show them love. And God's response was clear to me: "Love them as I love them, not as you love them."

As full and deep as my love is, it remains partial and often sadly conditional in comparison to God's love. And of course, I cannot simply will myself to love as richly and unconditionally as God. But in this desire to set my love aside and love others as God loves them, in this intent, comes the capacity to love more fully and truly.

A Tree Like No Other

2009-01-05T06:33:00.003-06:00

The fifth chapter of New Seeds strikes me as one of the finest expositions of Christian existentialism. Here Merton focuses on the essence of what it means to be a human, and the unique human experience of discovering oneself and one's purpose and meaning in life, a purpose inextricably linked to God.

"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It "consents," so to speak, to His creative love...No two created beings are exactly alike. And their individuality is no imperfection...This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do."

This passage reminds me of the Islamic concept that all created things besides humans are already "Muslim." That is, they are surrendered to God (for a Muslim is "one who surrenders to God.") I love this idea, that all of creation is already conformed to God's will and purpose and plan, except us humans, of course, though this is also God's ultimate desire for us. A tree is Muslim, then, by being a tree. And not just any tree, according to Merton, but by fulfilling its full capacity as an individual, ordered to God's vision and its place in the universe of created things.

Similarly, we reach the apex of our being, the meaning and purpose of our lives, when we manifest ourselves in our full individuality, co-created with God. I'll write more on this idea tomorrow.

The End of Seeking

2009-01-04T14:45:00.004-06:00

Epiphany of the Lord

"We have seen his star at its rising and have come to do him homage."

--Matthew 2:2

I have long been a spiritual "seeker." To this day, I cannot explain exactly what it was I was searching for. Wisdom, insight, peace, are words that come to mind. My spirituality was very "practice" focused, as if I found the right formula, I would get what I was searching for. Not that I thought there was one universal, "right" formula for everybody, but I still thought there must be a formula for me that would work.

God has pretty much done away with all that now. Not that I don't continue to be tempted by the idea that there is one best spiritual practice that I should be pursuing, or that I don't sometimes catch myself feeling guilty that I haven't been disciplined about my prayer life or spiritual reading or meditation or whatever. But it is thoroughly clear to me that this is not what it's all about.

The search is over. God has found me, not the other way around.

I'm not denigrating spiritual practice, just putting it in the proper perspective for me. Once the Christ child has been found, the practice shifts from seeking to being: being in relationship, practicing the presence and intimacy of being together. I have nothing to do anymore but "do him homage."

The Story of Us

2008-12-30T09:34:00.005-06:00

The Hobo Journal started many years ago when I got the notion of sharing an edited version of my spiritual diary with friends. I don't know what first gave me the audacity or inclination to do so. I prayed it was divine inspiration, not ego. There certainly seemed to be nothing particularly amazing about what I had written, at least to me. But something about the writer's compulsion to share your insides with the world seemed to motivate me. I e-mailed the journal back in those days, and I got back a few thoughtful responses, which encouraged the compulsion further, but it never was intentionally about how other people would respond to it. This is a mystery I can't explain. I don't write for others, and yet the sharing is somehow essential to the process. When I stopped journaling a couple of years ago to focus almost exclusively on my doctoral dissertation, I missed it, both the personal writing and the sharing.

One dynamic I've always noticed. If I sit down to intentionally write something wise or profound, as I am occasionally tempted to do, it backfires every time. That's when the ego is creeping in, and the Spirit calls me out on it every time. The entry winds up sounding forced, dull, thoroughly uninspired. Conversely, any time I have ever written anything that had the ring of truth to it, I am convinced it did not come from me. I had no idea what idea was going to emerge when I sat down to write it, and when I re-read it, it sounds like it came from someone else's mind.

So I can't explain why I write. It seems to have its own purpose which defies explanation. Clearly, it is a history of my love affair with God (or, perhaps more accurately, the story of God's relentless, passionate pursuit of me).

Gethsemani's Abbot Elias, in his chapter talk this week, spoke similarly of the monk's vocation, which likewise has no readily-identified purpose. It is a life that exists for its own sake:

I sometimes think the idea of going to a monastery to interview monks is about as intelligent as going to a resort to interview people on their honeymoon and ask them why they are there. The comparison is not as silly as it sounds. The heart of Cistercian spirituality has always been the prospect of spousal union between God and the soul. Such union--or even its pursuit--transcends rational explanation.

I cannot explain why God pursues me, or why I need to write about it, but I am grateful nevertheless.

The Christmas Summons

2008-12-25T10:08:00.003-06:00

"Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of a man's nature, as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise Him in the name of all creatures that ever were or ever will be. I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised Him then, for themselves, they must praise Him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God."
--Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Many blessings to all on this sunny Christmas Day!

Merton on ABC

2008-12-22T10:43:00.003-06:00

ABC's Nightline recently featured a three-part interview with the Merton Institute's Jonathan Montaldo and Morgan Atkinson, producer of the documentary Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton. Includes lots of great photos of Merton and Gethsemani, and good introductory discussion on Merton's life and work.

Let Your Life Speak

2008-12-22T10:09:00.004-06:00

"A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through his pores by the crushing restraint of a spiritual straight-jacket. They come from his direct docility to the light of truth and to the will of God. Hence a saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit reference to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love of God than the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an artibrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so feeble that they make you think there is something the mattter with religion."
--New Seeds of Contemplation

I must confess that I have a judgmental prejudice against people who make an outward show of religion. This is a flaw in me, and I am also vulnerbable to the charge of hypocrisy, given that I write a blog about spirituality. I am acutely aware of this vulnerability, and hope that I write for good reasons, and certainly not because there is some special holiness about me (as those who know me well can attest otherwise).

My point is that I shouldn't feel such glee at reading Merton's words, because I have my own set of flaws, but I can't help but appreciate his point. I live in the so-called "Bible Belt," where trite, bumpersticker theology abounds. I have no doubt that the outward show of religion notwithstanding, folks around here have no corner on the holiness market compared to places where religious expression is a more private matter.

I always felt that the Quakers had the best overall advice for saintliness: "Let your lives speak." And leave it at that.

The Reason for the Season

2008-12-21T16:54:00.006-06:00

"Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another 'thing' and as if His creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic minds fail utterly to see."

--New Seeds of Contemplation

Today my pastor--one of the best homilists anywhere--noted the now-annual hysteria of people who freak out this time of year because we need to put "Christ" back in Christmas. As if we are a totally pagan nation with no religious reference point for this grantedly commercialized holiday. My pastor went on to say something very striking and profound: "Jesus is not the reason for the season," he said. "We are."

His point was that God intervenes in the experience of human life to redeem and transform it. Christmas is not about God in the clouds or God who transcends the messiness of human experience. On the contrary, Christmas is about the God who descends into our very lives, who meets and encounters us in the very human world of our jobs, our families, and the mundane, boring, broken, and yes, commercialized, securalized, and religiously pluralized world that we live in. God comes for us, in God's mercy and grace and love, so that this messy life of ours might be redeemed. We are the reason for the season.

Merton's point seems to be a similar one. As contemplatives, we do not detach from "things" so that we can know God. We detach from our false, alienated self so that we can encounter God in the things of this life.

Family Matters

2008-12-17T19:34:00.000-06:00

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
--Matthew 1:1

“Jesus embraced humanity. Mysteriously, the word became flesh and accepted all that came with it, out of love. What about my family tree and all of its baggage? Sometimes I find myself wanting to run from it, excising all of that messiness that courses through my veins. I can’t do that, though. Sure, I’m not fated to anything. I can be transformed, I can take a different turn in the road. But total rejection? Not possible. It’s all a part of who I am. With God’s help I can discern, move forward, and even accept. Out of love—I can accept.”
--Amy Welborn

The older I get, the more I see how I am shaped by the dynamics of my family, my ancestors for generations past, for both good and ill. I work ardently on both the wounds and blessings my family has bestowed on me, and I think I’m making progress sometimes, and then one day I’m startled that I am this old and still dealing with the same family issues I dealt with as a child. I suppose I always will.

I have nothing of the sort of family of origin wounds that some people bear. I have without doubt been more blessed by my family than wounded. And yet, the wounds cut to the core of my personality. Maybe this is yet another way that all humans are united, one of the things in which we differ more by degree than by kind. When we touch on those dimensions of the human experience that unite us, that’s where we also touch on the presence of the Divine. These things that make us essentially human are the places where God redeems us, reveals himself, heals us. This redemption in no way replaces or changes the essence of those experiences, including our family dynamics, but it makes it possible to experience wholeness through our families, not in spite of our families. All things are brought together again in love.

Season of Darkness

2008-12-15T08:19:00.002-06:00

“Inexhaustible light, dawning to remove the shadows that surround us,
wake our faith from its slumber.”
—from today’s Universalis Morning Prayer

Winter has nearly reached its greatest depth of darkness. I struggle with the lack of light this time of year. The darkness makes me feel sluggish, withdrawn, cranky. Whatever inner darkness I happen to be dealing with is always amplified by the outer darkness this time of year.

And yet, in a few days the darkness will reach its peak with the winter solstice, and light will start to break. This dawning of greater light coincides with the full ripening of Advent into Christmas, and the promise of Light that will vanquish all darkness in the fullness of time.

Yesterday was “Rejoice” Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent. My pastor gave a good talk on rejoicing in the midst of darkness and turmoil and doubt. His words echoed an article I recently read about the 17th century Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, who gave us a wonderful prayer technique called “Practicing the Presence of God,” in which we simply rest perpetually in an awareness of God’s presence, returning our attention and mindfulness again and again to that still place within us where unwavering light shines at all times.

May this season’s darkness prepare our hearts of perpetual Light.

The Writer's Silence

2008-12-10T15:51:00.005-06:00

Today is the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death. I have tried to slow down a bit today, observe a little more silence and quiet, in his honor.

Frederick Smock, writing in last Sunday's Courier-Journal, reflected on a constant theme of Merton's life and one which presented a paradox for such a prolific poet/writer as Merton:

Life is a journey toward silence, and not just the silence of death. Youth talks a lot -- is noisy. Old age is reticent. There is so much to consider, after all. Older men tend to hold their tongues. They know the wisdom of forbearance. To have seen many things is to reserve judgment. In this modern era, when news and politics are dominated by endlessly talking heads, silence becomes a precious commodity. The mere absence of speech sounds like silence. But true silence is a presence, not an absence. A fullness. A richness that depends for its worth on the purity of intent, not just the lack of
distractions.

As a writer (or sorts) myself, this wisdom gives me pause. I do babble on sometimes, and to what end? This was a koan Merton lived with all his life. I think what he concluded in the end was that he had to write because he was a writer, it was the way he made meaning of his life and
experience, it was ultimately the way God made him.

A contemplative writer faces the special challenge of responding to this gift/compulsion of writing in a way that is selfless and authentic. Can we be still enough, silent enough, to allow words to arise from a place deeper than the external self that writes for all manner of selfish reasons? Can we listen to the Word itself, and let our own tiny words rise up out of that infinite Source. Our words are always incomplete and partial, but if we rest in silence, we may perhaps offer up something that reflects the enormity and magnitude of the Word Beyond Words.

I think maybe this was and is Merton's prayer for himself, and for us.

The Advent Promise

2008-12-06T14:18:00.001-06:00

Feast of St. Nicholas

“He who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes…on the day the Lord dresses the wound of his people and heals the scars of the blows they have received.”
--Isaiah 30:20, 26

I love this image of God gently dressing our wounds. The concept of woundedness and brokenness has become very important to me in recent years. I think I have slowly gotten more in touch with my own existential wounds, and I see them less as a problem and more as a natural by-product of life. We are all wounded and while these wounds will always shape the way we look at the world, they do not have to alienate us from each other, from our deepest selves, from God. In fact, the whole message of the Christian Gospel is that God is recklessly, wildly pursuing us, trying with all his might to make us his. Isaiah reveals the kind of love God will show us when we finally stop our struggle and acquiesce to his embrace. The wounds and scars of life will no longer define us.

The Gift of Contemplation

2008-12-03T15:01:00.006-06:00

"The only way to get rid of misconceptions about contemplation is to experience it...For contemplation cannot be taught. I cannot even be cearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized."

--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

In Chapter 2, Merton goes on at some length discussing "what contemplation is not," first by noting its ineffable character, and then naming numerous things that it specfically is not, such as mental reactions, ideas, emotions, trances or ecstatic spiritual phenomena, or special psychic powers. What complicates matters is that contemplation may sometimes be accompanied by some or all of these things, but that is not contemplation itself.

Merton notes that having a quiet, peaceful disposition may not make one more likely to experience contemplation, as many active, passionate people also have tasted of these things. Even being prayerful or religious doesn't guarantee it, though "they are almost necessary preparations." But he does say that one kind of "active" person is not disposed to contemplation, and those folks should probably not even think about it:

Such people, given to imagination, passion and active conquest, exhaust themselves in trying to attain contemplation as if it were some kind of object, like a material fortune, or a political office, or a professorship, or a prelacy. But contemplation can never be the object of calculated ambition.

And therein lies a lot of the frustration of my own spiritual life. Until very recently, I have strained after spiritual understanding as an object, and found myself frustrated again and again. And I have known many other spiritual "seekers" in that same, self-inflicted predicament.

What has changed for me? I think I will alwasy face that temptation to materialize the spiritual life (and there are worse kinds of materialism, to be sure), but something fundamentally has shifted in recent years. Two books have impacted me deeply: The Sacred Romance and The Shack, but in many ways I was ripening to this new kind of self-understanding for a long time. Grounded in the realization that I cannot attain wisdom through calculated ambition, I began to see my seeking as a kind of frantic effort at control, rooted in a deep existential fear that I was not good enough, that I was fundamentally flawed. And of course, I am fundamentally flawed. I am human. But what I am slowly coming to believe is the Gospel promise that we are loved and complete in spite of our brokenness.

After almost four decades of life, I am finally starting to have a little bit of faith. The freedom that comes with that faith is an overwhelming relief, and it leaves me free to explore spiritual pathways without having to obsess about the final destination. I am free from the burden of awakening, because, as Merton says, "It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God Who chooses to awaken us."

The Question and the Answer

2008-12-02T11:54:00.001-06:00

"The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer. Though these are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are in fact an awareness of the same thing. The question is, itself, the answer. And we ourselves are both. But we cannot know this until we have moved into the second kind of awareness. We awaken, not to find an answer absolutely distinct from the question, but to realize that the question is its own answer. And all is summed up in one awareness--not a proposition, but an experience, 'I AM.'"--Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

What is Merton talking about here?

How am I the question? My life longs for meaning, clarity, continuity of purpose. I live through all these extended "selves" that I present to the world--in my work, in my roles as husband, son, friend, in my writing, my activities as a citizen, the questions I ask myself and others. There is a kind of fragmentation of the true self in this process, and I long for wholeness, my life in fact begs for it. Living my life as a question is not unique to me. I happen to live "out loud" in a manner and volume different from many people, I suppose, but I think the basic features of my inner life--this sense of fragmentation and longing for unity and completeness--is common to all of humanity. Perhaps many are unable to hear the gentle whisperings of their own hearts, but those quiet stirrings are still there.

How am I the answer? Perhaps because the the true self knows that it is meant for wholeness, can actually apprehend it, can smell the faraway fragrance of joy and wholeness and love, and this is why we experience fragmentation when we live out all of the partial "selves" we present to the world. We ask the question because we already know the answer, though we are terrified to believe--we are meant to be sons and daughters of God.

In this sense, the question and the answer are one. Contemplation is our most natural state, our source and our destination.

The Season of Watching

2008-11-30T14:57:00.005-06:00

First Sunday of Advent

"Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come."
--Mark 13: 33

"God is likely to come into our presence at just about any moment, and we do well to be watchful for such moments. God in each person we live and work with. God in each stranger we pass on the street. God in the earth and the cosmos we so often take for granted. God in a crowded theater and in the privacy of your own home. Be watchful, be ready. Cultivate eyes ready to see God in any and all places, any and all circumstances...Overwhelming grace when you least expect it."
--Mitch Finley

Thus begins Advent, the season on watching, of expectation, the season of contemplation.

Infused Faith

2008-11-30T10:56:00.006-06:00

"Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being...It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source."
--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

I recently picked up Merton's New Seeds again to study it thoughtfully. It was one of the first Merton books I read, probably just under 20 years ago. I remember reading it breathlessly then, rapidly, with awe and wonder. It moves me just the same now that I am more mature and weathered in my own faith and understanding, but I resist the urge to plunge through it this time, opting instead to meditate with it one sentence, one paragraph at a time.

Merton begins with an extended reflection on what contemplation is. The definition is extremely important, because as an adjective (as in "contemplative spirituality"), the word describes a particular, unique state of being that is, according to Merton, the summit of all spiritual life, the essence of faith itself lived this side of the grave. According to Merton, contemplation is not an intellectual or emotional experience, though it holds intellect and emotion within itself. In fact, contemplation embraces the totality of human experience, while transcending any particular form of intuition or experience.

Contemplation is awareness of God, and it is something that I speculate all people have experienced, though they might not have had the vocabulary to name it as such. Understanding Merton's meaning of the word, I can say I have been blessed to experience contemplation myself, probably on a regular basis. I emphasize that I am "blessed" with this experience because one of the things Merton emphasizes, along with many other saints, is that contemplation is a grace. It is not something we earn or achieve. It is something that comes to us, though it is not simply available to a chosen few, but is the birthright and destiny of every soul.

Contemplation wraps itself around me in those fleeting moments of human experience when I intuitively feel my own, infinite connection to all other people, when I am suddenly stunned by the tragic beauty of life, the vast interconnection of all things. In those moments, I am keenly aware of my own human brokenness, along with the brokenness of all creation, but I am also aware of a loving Presence, a sense of underlying wholeness and completeness that heals my individual woundedness and the wounds of the entire universe. I experience a kind of unconditional love that embraces all beings and being itself.

The experience is not an emotion, per se, though it is usually accompanied by a host of emotions and thoughts, especially gratitude and humility and compassion. And it usually passes pretty quickly. It is a foretaste of the fulfillment we are destined for in eternity, and it is a consolation offered to all people. It is exquisite, undeserved, and partial enough to leave us filled with a yearning for more. It is God's self embracing us, promising completeness beyond our wildest imagination. When we experience it, we experience infused faith, a confidence of heart that is beyond intellectual assent or emotional response.

While contemplation is not something we can achieve, as the essence of spiritual experience itself, it is worthy of study and observation, and as I understand it, it can sometimes be the fruit of a life well lived. I pray today that my meditations on this book bring more abundant life to myself and others.

The Mystery of Who We Are

2008-11-29T08:44:00.009-06:00

"The angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street. On either side of the river grew the tree of life...Nothing accursed will be found anymore."
--Rev. 22:1-3

We buried my wife's aunt on the day after Thanksgiving. Like any good funeral, it was a day of both hope and sadness. After the Mass, we processed to the cemetery, a short walk down a country road from the church. The November sky was overcast and the wind was blustery, forcing us to huddle as we walked. I gazed down the road ahead at the long procession of loved ones, lead by the pall bearers gently carrying the departed.

We walked in silence, and I was suddenly struck by the image of all of us walking, not to our aunt's grave, but to our own. The feeling echoed a moment during communion a few minutes before, when I followed brother-in-law and nephews up the aisle to receive the Body of Christ, and I was acutely aware of the mortality of us all, that some day we would bury each other, one by one, until it was my turn, and then my nephews would follow, and every single one of us will pass from this body.

As I watched our collective procession to the grave, a great ocean of emotion stirred within me: sadness, for myself and for everyone else, a sense of loss and grief, but also a great sense of hope. Just as we were walking to the grave together, we had walked to communion together, a family united by God's grace and love. We are one in our brokeness, in our woundedness, and especially in our mortality. But we are also one in God's redemption, one in our love for each other, one in our faith and hope that we are intimately and inextricably connected far beyond the connections of family and social ties. We are the Body of Christ.

Being the Body of Christ does not spare us from the sadness of pain and loss, the surrender of what we want for ourselves. Jesus' own life gives abundant example of this. So we are, without question, walking to the grave together, and the suffering and grief that attends that passage. But we are most surely walking beyond that point--together--into a wholeness, a completeness, a glory and joy far beyond our meager imaginations. That is the mystery of life, the mystery of death, the mystery of Eucharist itself.