Being Saved

Feast of Saints Phillip and James

"I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,
unless you believed in vain."
--1 Corinthians 15:1-2

As a convert to Catholic Christianity, I used to think a lot about the differences between the Protestant Evangelical understanding of salvation and that of the Roman church.  I don't give it as much thought anymore, since so much of my religious conversation takes place within Catholic circles these days.  But perhaps because I feel that God has been working on me with great intensity lately, and perhaps because a friend mentioned a question about purgatory recently, something about this reading struck me deeply today.

St. Paul says that, through the Gospel, we are "being saved."  These two words reveal so much.

I think Catholics are far too prone to just shrug off the evangelical emphasis on the salvation experience of accepting Jesus as one's lord and savior.  One of the great gifts of evangelical Christianity is its relentless refrain that a true disciple is engaged in a total love affair with God through Christ.  Every individual must surrender himself utterly to Christ's love and mercy, and until he does, the journey of faith hasn't really begun, no matter how much religiosity he displays.

Catholics, who are perpetually prone to falling into rote repetition of ritual and the acceptance of Christianity as more of a social identity than a way of life, need to hear that evangelical insistence on a personal relationship with Jesus.  They need to hear it and answer it by having one, starting right this minute.

Such an emphasis on personal conversion is not foreign to Catholicism, of course.  In fact, it is the heart of the Gospel as expressed in the Catechism, taught by the Church fathers, and lived out by saints throughout the ages.  But the Church also holds firmly to the faith as lived through the sacraments, and so inward faith and outward ritual expression of that faith always reflects a dynamic, creative tension in the life of Catholic Christians.  We are saved through Christ's grace, encountered in our hearts but also poured out in the sacramental life of the church as we make our pilgrim journey through life.

And this understanding of salvation as a journey is perhaps Catholicism's gift to the rest of Christianity.

Here's the thing: I have accepted Jesus as my lord and savior.  I did this first as a child, but I've done it countless times since then.  Not because, as some Protestant theologies would have it, I backslid and fell from grace, but because my desire to surrender to Christ's mercy and forgiveness does not mean I really have fully relinquished my own control into God's hands.

I want to live for Him and conform myself completely to His will.  But wanting it doesn't just make it happen.  I need to work at being a disciple, daily commiting myself to prayer and good works, not to earn my salvation, but to more fully accept the salvation that Christ has already effected for all of humanity.  Through God's grace, I gradually soften my heart so that Jesus' saving power can really work in me, sanctifying me into real surrender to the Father.

It's not like I once was not saved, then I was a little saved, and tomorrow I will be a lot more saved.  That's too simplistic an understanding of the ever-deepening relationship of love I share with Him.  He already effected my salvation through his blood and his mercy.  Now I am slowly learning how to love Him in return.  I am being saved.

This, I think, helps explain the mysterious teaching on purgatory, a state of being which exists within us, not something that God imposes upon us.  God is ready to bring us home to eternal peace with him right now.  We, sadly, aren't ready to go, even though we might really want to.  The process of letting go and really embracing God's love is slow and sometimes painful.  He's patiently waiting for us to finally get over ourselves and accept what he pours out so freely and generously, in reckless, unconditional love.

Lover of my soul, I accept you as the master of my life.  I am powerless to do anything without you.  Break me open so that I might see whatever remains uncoverted within me.  I will give it all to you.  Amen.

Holy Trinity: The Tie that Binds

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.

Letting go so that we may receive

"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.

Now am Found

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

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

"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

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.

The Awesomeness of All Souls

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.

Glimpses of Glory

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

"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.

The Greatest of These

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

"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

"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.

Out of Our Hands

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.