Set Boundaries to Your Love

When people show you their boundaries ("I can't do this for you"), you feel rejected.  You cannot accept the fact that others are unable to do for you all that you expect from them.  You desire boundless love, boundless care, boundless giving.

Part of your struggle is to set boundaries to your own love—something you have never done.  You give whatever people ask of you, and when they ask for more, you give more, until you find yourself exhausted, used, and manipulated.  Only when you are able to set your own boundaries will you be able to acknowledge, respect, and even be grateful for the boundaries of others.

In the presence of the people you love, your needs grow and grow, until those people are so overwhelmed by your needs that they are practically forced to leave you for your own survival.

The great task is to claim yourself for yourself, so that you can contain your needs within the boundaries of your self and hold them in the presence of those you love.  True mutuality in love requires people who possess themselves and who can give to each other while holding on to their own identities.  So, in order to give more effectively and to be more self-contained with your needs, you must learn to set boundaries to your love.

The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen

~

Thus the paradox of love.  These words of Nouwen's seem so contrary to the idea of love as a total self-giving that Christ demonstrated.  Must we truly love less in order to love more?

Anthropomorphic Analogy

It is true that a canvas simply and blindly offered to the brush feels at each moment only the stroke of the brush.  It is the same with a lump of stone.  Each blow from the hammering of the sculptor's chisel makes it feel—if it could—as if it were being destroyed.  As blow after blow descends, the stone knows nothing of how the sculptor is shaping it.  All it feels is a chisel chopping away at it, cutting it and mutilating it.  For example, let's take a piece of stone destined to be carved into a crucifix or a statue.  We might ask it: "What do you think is happening to you?"  And it might answer: "Don't ask me.  All I know is that I must stay immovable in the hands of the sculptor, and I must love him and endure all he inflicts on me to produce the figure he has in mind.  He knows how to do it.  As for me, I have no idea what he is doing, nor do I know what he will make of me.  But what I do know is that his work is the best possible.  It is perfect.  I welcome each blow of his chisel as the best thing that could happen to me, although, if I'm to be truthful, I feel that every one of these blows is ruining me, destroying me and disfiguring me.  But I remain unconcerned.  I concentrate on the present moment, think only of my duty, and suffer all that this master sculptor inflicts on me without knowing his purpose or fretting about it.

That analogy from—can you guess it?—Abandonment to Divine Providence rings true.  We are that canvas or that stone.

Have you ever felt like everything that is happening to you is making you worse, like you are losing all you have gained?  Do you ever feel like everything inflicted upon you makes it impossible to become the beautiful light that you ought to be to set the world on fire?

In those moments perhaps you may find some consolation in this analogy.  For whatever we may feel, whatever we may think, we are not omniscient.  Only One knows truly what will come of every blow that rains upon us and every chiseling away of what we consider necessary.  He is the one who will make of us a statue of incomparable beauty that will take away our breath when we see it at last exposed from the rough stone.

The Rising Sun

The other day as I prepared to rise for Mass, I would much have preferred to stay in bed.  Yet I had planned to rise.  Thus by resolute effort of will I shook off the warm covers and slid my feet to the floor, standing a bit shakily as I felt the weakness of my body from insufficient sleep.

Then the window drew my gaze—or rather the sight outside it.  For the sun was just rising, casting glorious golden gleams across the sky and clouds.

That beautiful sight was enough to rouse my heart to joy at being thus awake.  The sky continued glorious as I made my way outside and began the walk so well known and yet now changed with new construction and vanished trees.  My tiredness slipped away as I breathed in the warm, moist air, and I began to feel so alive—so gloriously alive.

Often through my life I have that same experience.  I do not wish to do something—in fact want only to do the opposite—and then I persevere only to experience something glorious like a small gift for my faithfulness. 

There is nothing like the glory of a sunrise.  It always seems like a small glimpse into heaven.  I feel as if this one in particular were prepared just for me to remind me that the Son smiles upon me.  May you find Him smiling upon you as you open your heart to see Him in all the little things as you tread faithfully toward Him!

Green-Eyed Monster

Iago: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Othello: O misery!

~

Shakespeare was a brilliant man.  One need only feel the tearing effect of jealousy to know at once how truthfully his characters speak and how perfectly they enact the results of jealousy.

Throughout my life, I have found myself wanting to do everything—or at least everything that I perceive as good.  It matters little how many wonderful things I have done or how much I have accomplished, but as soon as I hear of someone else's amazing project I must be jealous.  I begin to wonder why others get to do all these spectacular things while I muddle along where I am.

Someone reminded me recently of how we all make up what is lacking in each other.  If I could do everything myself there would be no need of anyone else.  Yet because I cannot do everything—because after all I am not God—and because I am but one small part of the world's community, I must allow others to be good also.

Their goodness does not take away from mine.  Somehow jealousy twists us up inside so that we believe the opposite, but others' abilities can never lessen ours.

It is folly of course to draw our self-image from our accomplishments anyway, but of course we fallen creatures must persist in that folly.  Then we find ourselves crushed because someone else has done what we wished to do or is better at something than we are.  Yet there will always be someone we will perceive as better than we are at doing something we wish to do.  In such a populated world the statistics of that being true are incredibly likely.

However, that does not take away from our individual contribution.  No matter whether someone else may be better in a particular area, or even in all areas, we still have a part to play that no other can.  We may not know it, but the reality remains.

When we begin to know that reality with our hearts, then we can appreciate others' gifts and talents without jealousy.  That takes much humility.

Blessed John Henry Newman spoke beautifully of our personal vocations.  By reminding ourselves constantly that we are not our own, that we do not live for ourselves but for God, we shall gain greater confidence in accepting what we can and cannot do.  If I live to achieve something great for God, in the end it becomes about me and what I have done instead of what God has done.  Yet if I can truly live for Him, then naught else matters.

I will leave you with Newman's words:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission.
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.

I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him,
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers.
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

Your Choice

How will you suffer?

In essence that is the question that we face each day of our lives.  We all will suffer.  It is not as if by choosing the way of individual freedom and pleasure we could ever choose not to suffer.  For suffering truly is part of the human condition.

Nor by choosing Christ will we have no more suffering.  Sometimes people think that all we need to do is follow Him and then we will never suffer again but will always be filled with joy and love for all the world.  Unfortunately that is not the case.  I have had to learn that lesson myself.  To be perfectly honest, that is a lesson I must continually re-learn.  My head of course knows the reality, but when my Lord bestows joys upon me as I seek to do His will my heart begins to expect that serving Him will be an easy and joyful thing and then I face trials and my heart wavers.

It was the priest's homily at Mass this morning that inspired my reflection today.  He spoke so simply and clearly to the heart of this matter, asking this question: will you suffer on your own or will you suffer with Christ?

In all our suffering we have the choice of suffering in union with Christ or trying to face it all on our own strength.  Suffering with Him will not take away the suffering.  It will not make it easier to bear.  Yet it will give us the strength to bear it, the reason to bear it, and the hope that through that suffering we will attain a greater good for ourselves or others.

Light of the World

I keep thinking that I need to plan to make things happen.  By nature I am a planner.  I understand that in order to make things happen one has to set goals and create a plan to reach those goals.  This fact makes perfect sense to me.

The ways of God do not.

He seems to keep trying to teach me not to plan, not to try to make things happen.  Perhaps that is because I tend to get so caught up in making what I want to happen come to pass that I do not always see what is right before me.  Perhaps it is only that He wants me to remember that He is God and He can bring things to fruition more perfectly than I ever could of my own volition.

I am the light of the world.

How brightly He shines in the darkness of this world!  How brilliantly do His works shine when we can glimpse them like rays of the sunrise I saw this morning, beaming out from beneath the clouds.

I was blind and now I see.

Surprise

Today I had the absolutely splendid experience of surprise in so many ways.  I had forgotten how delightful surprises are and what joy they bring.

I knew that I had been struggling and that I was becoming weighted down, but I did not realize quite how much dryness I was experiencing until I received the surprising gift of consolation.  Somehow the dryness always comes upon us slowly.  We think we are doing well, joyfully facing life with all of its challenges, taking care of ourselves and striving to be the best people we can be.  Then slowly, bit by bit, the feelings subside without our quite realizing it.

When I think of surprise, I always think of Chesterton's play of that name.  There are some particularly striking portions from that play that talk about our desire for surprise:

POET. Oh, my God, what am I? Mud out of the highway soiling your carpets; a rag blown over the wall. But will you let me speak one moment for all the ragged people on the road, the truth that your officers do not tell you; what I know out of the very mouths of the poor of God?

PRINCESS. What in the world do they want?

POET. They want surprise. They do not want sufficiency or security. They want surprise. They do not want regular wages. They want irregular wealth. You say they can always find a pig at the pig-trough and ale in the ale-cask. If ever, one fine morning, they found the pig in the ale-cask and could drink ale out of the pig-trough—they would think they were in a fairy tale.

Is this not so?  We think that we want security.  We think that we want what we want.  Yet who has ever been happy with receiving exactly what he asks for?  At least not happy for long.  Always we move on to the next thing that we want, the next thing that will fill the aching emptiness in our heart.

Everyone wants the surprise of winning the lottery or some rich relative to appear and bequeath us some vast fortune.  It is not just that we want the money, but we want the surprise.

There is something ingrained deep in our hearts that makes us desire surprise.  I find it particularly fitting today to think of surprise because of it being the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the Incarnation, which is the greatest surprise of all.  For what greater surprise could there be than that God should become Man?  He remains the God of surprises, answering our prayers when we least expect them and bestowing upon us beautiful gifts we never expected, ever moving in new and surprising ways throughout our lives.

Prayer and Hope

Since Nouwen's words on prayer are so powerful, and prayer is so important for our lives, I shall continue on with some further words of his:

To pray means to open your hands before God.  It means slowly relaxing the tension which squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence with an increasing readiness, not as a possession to defend, but as a gift to receive.  Above all, prayer is a way of life which allows you to find a stillness in the midst of the world where you open your hands to God's promises and find hope for yourself, your neighbor, and your world.  In prayer, you encounter God not only in the small voice and the soft breeze, but also in the midst of the turmoil of the world, in the distress and joy of your neighbor, and in the loneliness of your own heart.

-With Open Hands

There are so many powerful words there—so many powerful ideas.  If I were to summarize them in one word it would be this one: abandonment.

For the idea of abandonment is, to put it simply, to let go of yourself and your needs and wants in all situations in order to find God everywhere and to be open to receiving the gifts and graces He is pouring out upon you.  It is particularly true that we must find Him in the loneliness of our own hearts.  That is where it is most difficult to find Him sometimes.  We seek to fill that loneliness with everything except an openness to Him because it is painful to experience.

Yet in prayer we must accept that loneliness and embrace that pain if we want to truly begin to know this God so much greater than our minds can fathom.  For in that acceptance, that surrender, we begin a true communion of hearts—the true purpose of prayer—and we find a source for a burning hope.

On a Pilgrimage

Praying means, above all, to be accepting toward God who is always new, always different.  For God is a deeply moving God whose heart is greater than ours.  The open acceptance of prayer in the face of an ever-new God makes us free.  In prayer, we are constantly on the way, on a pilgrimage.  On our way, we meet more and more people who show us something about the God whom we seek.  We will never know for sure if we have reached God.  But we do know that God will always be new and that there is no reason to fear.

-With Open Hands

As I was struggling with prayer, trying to find time for it amidst the busyness of life on the road and demands upon my time and energies, I felt more and more that I did not even know what prayer was.  Then, like a light from the heavens, came a little book specifically on prayer.

The quotation above comes from that book, which was a gathering of various quotations from Henri Nouwen on prayer.  Always his words speak so deeply to my heart, reflecting the truth like a prism bending light into the depths of my being.  He is quickly becoming a steady spiritual guide for my earthly pilgrimage.

In that quotation, the words that strike my heart most deeply are these: We will never know for sure if we have reached God.  What a powerful and almost chilling statement.  Must we truly let go even of certain knowledge of reaching God?  Now that is abandonment indeed.

Yet that is often what troubles me: that I cannot know what is God and what myself, or what even may be the devil masquerading as an angel of light.  How can I go toward Someone when I do not even know I am headed in the right direction?  It feels too much like risking opening my heart to a stranger or merely to a phantasm of my own creation.  Either I must build up some comfortable idea of this God I worship or else find Him a perfect stranger, like Psyche who had never seen even the face of Cupid.

If we, like she, prompted by her sisters, try to see our Lord, to force Him to conform to our own will, perhaps we will find that He too vanishes in the darkness.  Perhaps instead we must remain in the darkness, with no candle, receiving His love and giving ourselves wholly even when He seems strange and unknowable.

Duc in Altum

As I walk beside my friends on this path of life, I see more and more of them choosing to make leaps of faith, whether because circumstances impel them or for some other reason.  From the outside it is easier to see their choices as leaps of faith.  They may still be too caught up in the dreads and anxieties of being forced to choose between goods—or of worrying what might come to pass from their decisions—to see clearly the hand of Providence.

Yet as I see the pattern of Providence spread across these varied lives and places, I find my heart quicken within me.  It encourages me—excites me—to see the working of God in them.

It gives me courage for my own leap of faith as I prepare to launch myself into a new ministry.  However, it also sheds light even upon the little things, reminding me of His working even in my own daily grind.

Certainly it is easier to think of Providence and leaps of faith in reference to some great act or some weighty decision, but even in the lesser things it is possible to leap boldly with faith into the darkness of uncertainty.  For in that darkness we find the One who holds us in His hand.  The deeper we go, the more we discover of the loving gaze in which we may rest.

So let us put out into the deep and there find the great catch of fish awaiting us.  Duc in altum!

Are You Hungry?

There is this popular motto going around these days regarding how to approach Lent: Don't give up chocolate for Lent.  Now that statement is meant to be provocative.  Hence I feel perfectly justified in responding with a similarly provocative statement: that is absolute hogwash.

Now of course if you give up chocolate (or any other little pleasure) for Lent and that is all you do, you may be missing the point.  If giving up that chocolate leads you to an awareness of God and of how you are seeking Him elsewhere, then it is certainly worthwhile.  However, if it merely causes you to substitute something else to fill that hole in your life, it has utterly failed.

Still, the reason I criticize the above statement is primarily because it could lead to a justification for continuing to overindulge simply because you are doing something else for Lent.  Asceticism is a necessary part of Lent, whether that means fasting on bread and water or giving up something like chocolate.

If it makes us hungry, that is a good thing.  For it is hunger that leads us to God.

Here is a young Franciscan, Brother Casey, meditating on the practical fruit of our hunger with an example from the Scriptures (his longer blog post on the same subject is here):

Our society has turned its back on asceticism in favor of a pleasure-driven search that results in momentary happiness, but no spiritual fruit.  Take that influence along with our fallen human nature and we enter a repetitive search for God in all the wrong places, trying to fill our persistent hunger with what will never satisfy.

Yet in the end, as Saint Augustine said: Our hearts are restless, until they rest in Thee.

Healer of Families

Here is a beautiful hymn for today's meditation in honor of Saint Joseph.  It is sung by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, who live in the lovely community known as Ephesus.  Note the image of Saint Joseph holding the child Jesus, who looks up so lovely and trustingly into his eyes.  May we trust likewise in his intercession before the throne of God!

Live in Abundance

​Yesterday, as I mentioned in a letter how I wished I could make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament more often, a phrase sprang to my mind that I had forgotten: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. I believe this phrase originated with de Caussade. One might also say merely the duty of the present moment, but that would be to forget about the incarnational presence of Christ in each moment.

For Christ comes to us not just in the Eucharist, not just in the Scriptures, not just in exceptional signs and visions, but in each and every moment and in all that happens to us. After all, He is everywhere and in everything.  We often speak those concepts intellectually without understanding with our hearts how He is constantly pouring Himself out for us, as is the nature of love.  Yet that is the reality.  I daresay we would die if we could truly see Him fully in each moment, for none can see the face of God and live.

It is that awareness of the Sacrament of the Present Moment that keeps us present to things and people around us.  It sets us free to live fully each moment. I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly, said Christ.  (John 10:10.)

Saint Joseph must have lived most faithfully in that vein, for he responded so promptly to the workings of grace and the Holy Spirit.  Although so much of his life was hidden and shrouded in silence, that hiddenness and silence speak strongly of a life lived in adoration of the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

How much peace Joseph must have found in adoring the Omnipotent God in the smallest of circumstances.  It is no wonder then that he should have been chosen to serve as the foster-father of the Incarnate God and as the husband of the one who uttered her absolute fiat to the will of God in all circumstances, who certainly saw with the eyes of faith her Lord in every twist and turn of her earthly pilgrimage.

The Example of Two Men

At Mass yesterday, Father mentioned that the most important part of the reading about Jacob's son Joseph and his brothers had been left out.  That part, he said, was about how Joseph got lost going out to his brothers and a man in a field directed him.  According to tradition, the "man" who directed him was the archangel Gabriel.

He used that story to illustrate how God sometimes directs us to suffering.  After all, Joseph was stripped of his wonderful coat, thrown in the cistern, and then sold to Egyptian traders; he must have been wondering what God was doing to him.  Saint Patrick suffered similarly.

Yet think of all the good that came from that God-directed suffering.  Joseph was able to save his family from dying of famine.  Saint Patrick converted Ireland.

In our own lives, we look for ways to avoid suffering.  It is part of our culture.  Hence it is nearly inescapable that we should imbibe that perspective even without consciously giving in to it, especially since this view seems to be inherently rooted in our fallen human nature.  So when it comes to the spiritual life, we approach it in the same way.  We expect God to send us messengers pointing us to glory and good things, even in this life.

Sometimes God sends messengers who lead us to suffering instead.  This experience may cause us to doubt our faith, or to doubt the goodness of God, but if we look to the example of Joseph and of Saint Patrick it may help us to remember that God sees all and has a greater plan in allowing us to experience that suffering.

In essence, we must united ourselves with the Divine Will, as Father said: we must abandon ourselves to Divine Providence.

The more ways we have of helping our intellect to understand the ways of Divine Providence, the more I think we will find ourselves able to make the surrender of the heart that it requires.  Even though ultimately our minds may stand in our way of making that leap of faith, hopefully our knowledge shall rather aid us in preparing to make that absolute surrender of ourselves, recklessly abandoning ourselves to the God who knows all things.

In Honor of Saint Patrick

From words he himself is said to have written:

The words are beautiful enough they need no pondering attached to them, but I will say simply that he knew the power of heaven and earth.  Written in the style of the druid's incantations for protection, the song he wrote binds the power of Christ, the power that Christ has given to us.  Here it is in full:

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom

I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

The Heart's Deep Unknown

More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?

Those words from Jeremiah caught my attention particularly today.  So many times I remember trying to understand the human heart and yet it seems impossible.  I like to think that my analytical capabilities suffice to explain it through the use of common sense and various psychological methods of analysis, but deep within I know they never can.  Somehow there remains something mysterious and unknown about our hearts.

As Chesterton put it: "The self is more distant than any star."

We never truly know ourselves.  Throughout life, as we learn to purify our motives and identify our desires, we come to know more and more of who we are.  Others help to cast light upon our true nature.  Yet something remains beyond our reach.

Jeremiah the prophet beautifully expressed that impossibility.  In an age of science and reason, it seems unthinkable that there should be anything we cannot know.  Yet in that lack of knowledge, there is a recognition of a deeper truth, if only we are humble enough to allow ourselves to see it.  If we do not blind ourselves, we know as Jeremiah went on, that there is only one who knows us intimately with all our flaws and imperfections and who yet sees us in the loving light of a father:

I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.

Come Always!

"If you offered Me your joys and your moments of recreation, I would send you few trials because it is only your union with Me that I am seeking, and as a rule you come to Me only when you are unhappy.
Then come—oh, come always."

~

I read those words above in a book called Lui et Moi, translated into English as He and I.  The book contains interior conversations between our Lord and Gabrielle Bossis and speaks in various beautiful ways of that desire the Lord has for our love—the desire for intimacy with us, His poor creatures.

Some people seem to live charmed lives, as if the Lord is making all things work together for their good even in this life.  I wonder if this is because they already have given Him their hearts, becoming united with Him here below.

Yet even Job suffered much and he was certainly faithful.  Perhaps the Lord only allowed his sufferings, letting him be stripped of everything he owned, that he too might reach a greater union with his Maker.  That is after all what happened.  Rather than give in to the temptation to curse God for all the evil that seemed to be happening to him, he still blessed the name of the Lord.

In our own lives, I believe it is the same.  Whatever happens to us—good or ill—our Lord allows out of love—out of a desire for union.

All we need to do is come to Him, laying everything before Him like little children, whether it is our joys or our sorrows, our plans for the future or the struggles with past failures.  Always He is there waiting, desiring us more than we can ever desire Him.

When the Going Gets Tough

...the tough get going.

So goes the expression.  Perhaps it is a particularly fitting one as we enter this second week of Lent.

Discipline has always come easily to me—not always to the extent that I wish of course, but certainly far exceeding that of most people.  Thus it has always been easy for me to enter into the sacrifice of Lent, which seems of necessity to require the giving up of something; somehow I take that sacrificial aspect for granted as part of the season rather than it being a main focus.

Because of my self-discipline I often find it difficult to relate to those who fail at what they are giving up.  Intellectually of course I can relate, but not so much experientially.  If I say I will do something, I jolly well will do it.

Consequently, I have found myself able to enter into Lent with a spirit of joy.  Certainly there is an element of sorrow in meditating upon our Lord's passion, but how much more joy there is in recognizing His great love for us and in giving up some little things to become united with Him.  It is joyful not on account of the sacrifice, though, but rather on account of the freedom.  For I always find that when I am able to give up some little things I become more free and less weighted down by the chains of things I must have to be happy.  Because I can see so clearly the freedom it brings, the enemy does not even try to tempt me.

Already this Lent, however, I have come to a point of greater temptation.  The enemy likes to catch us when we are weak, waiting until sickness and our own efforts have brought us to a place of confusion and darkness.  Then he strikes.  For he knows that in the clear light and joy shining from the heavens he will have no chance.  It is only in failing strength that he has hope of victory.

Yet our victory is in the name of the Lord.  By His strength, we shall remain firm in our resolutions to live wholly for Him this Lent.  Pray for me in that, as I pray for you.

My Will Be Done

"There is so much unbelief in the world, for too many people speak of God unworthily and never stop finding fault with His activities in a manner they would never dare use toward the most incompetent workman.  What we really want to do is restrict His work so that it conforms to the rules and boundaries that our limited reason considers suitable.  We try to improve and do nothing but complain and grumble.  Yet we are surprised at the way the Jews treated Jesus Christ!  Ah! when I think of God's love, His adorable will, His unerring acts, I cannot believe how He is treated.  How can the will of God be unreasonable?  How can it ever be wrong?  Yet we say: "There's this bit of business of mine.  I need this.  What I want has been taken from me.  My neighbor is hindering the good works I want to do.  Now, isn't this quite unreasonable?  And, on top of it all, I fall ill just when I should be fit...."

Thus the words I read this morning from Abandonment to Divine Providence, words that seem altogether fitting as I struggle with a cold that seems to have sucked away all my strength.  I have so little time at home these days that I think I ought to feel well so I can accomplish all that must be done.  Yet apparently my Lord wills otherwise.

How much I find myself falling into the trap of willing what He wills only so long as it fits within the breadth of what I wish.  I begin to float along, thinking I have abandoned myself, and then all of a sudden I come up abruptly against some great wall before me that halts me at once, preventing me from following my desired course and forcing me to follow another.  Sometimes I think He allows such things just to remind me that I must want His will because it is His will and not merely because it pleases me.

Yes, I must will as He wills, unite my will to His.  Nothing else matters.  Nothing else is important.  In the words of de Caussade:

"...Now let me tell you that the will of God is all that is necessary, and what it does not give you is of no use to you at all.  My friends, you lack nothing.  You would be very ashamed if you know what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are.  You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies—though that will never occur to you.  Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet His beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is."

How true!  We do not know that His will is His love.  We are still spoiled children who think that love is giving us exactly what we want.

It came to my heart that He must love me very much to deprive me of what I so greatly desire and to allow to happen to me what I find unpleasant.  For who does not desire to give that child, no matter how spoiled, exactly what he wishes?  Even more must my Lord desire to give me that for which I ask and that for which I dare not ask.  Yet one thing restrains Him: His love for me alone.  For He loves me not only enough to suffer in my place, but He loves me enough to let me suffer.  That is surely true love.

Have You Been Transfigured?

Throughout our lives we face joys and sorrows, moments of great enlightenment and times of deep darkness, the toss and swell of waves in the sea of life.  Although we long to taste the pleasures without the pains, these opposites reflect and complement one another, working together into a pattern that one day we shall know in its fullness.

At times we may feel such elation in the face of some joyful experience that we feel we shall never taste sorrow again.  Love in particular may produce such fruit.

Then death or pain comes and we wonder how we shall ever taste joy again.

Yet ever we step forward, day by day, toward our resurrection, from joy to sorrow and then to joy again.  We are able to continue forward because of our transfiguration experiences.

The apostles standing at the Transfiguration saw Christ revealed in His glory with Moses and Elijah beside Him, talking with Him of the Crucifixion, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.  For in that Transfiguration the apostles were given an experience of the glory shrouded in the Crucifixion that they might not despair when the time came.  Yet they wanted only to build tents there that the experience might never end.

It is ever so.  We wish to cling to those moments of transfiguration.  We do not understand—or do not wish to believe—that they are lights given us to carry us through our own crucifixions to the Resurrection.

Decisions, Decisions

“I must have a prodigious amount of mind;
it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”

-Mark Twain

I often feel that way when faced with some momentous decision—or even some lesser one—and sometimes it takes me so long I think I must have an even greater mind than he.  Those of small mind must be lucky indeed.

They say one ought to choose the lesser of two weevils.*  Now that may apply very well to politicians—although I am not sure it does in fact—but the principle assumes that there is a lesser evil.  Sometimes there is not.  Many times we are faced with a thousand different decisions of equal or near-equal value and goodness.  That is when the mind becomes stymied and one begins to feel the weight of his mind's size.

What a free nation are we—free to choose whatever we wish.  We are faced with hundreds or thousands of options for everything ranging from vehicles to shampoo and from how to spend our leisure time to which emoticon to tag onto a text message. Those who thought we deserved thousands of choices must not have taken into consideration the energy and willpower that making these decisions requires.

After facing all of those choices that daily life thrusts upon us, it is a wonder we have any willpower left for aught else.  No wonder there seems to be a fear of commitment.

I must confess I find myself practically powerless when facing a choice of two goods.  Of course making no decision means a third path of lesser good and therefore losing both the goods instead of enjoying one.  Yet how is one supposed to choose between them?

A little girl in France now known as Therese did not much bother with that choice.  She tells the tale, in her autobiography, of a time when her older sister offered for her to choose among the goods of the various dolls and toys she had outgrown.  Rather than choose among them as her sister expected her to, or waver in long indecision as I would be wont to do, she merely stretched out her arms and unceremoniously took the entire basket, announcing, "I choose all!"

That is where I too stand.  Until my body fails me or reality reminds me of its impossibility, I must have all the goods, material and spiritual, that I can take, whether from greed or holier motive.

I choose all.

*See Master and Commander if you do not catch the reference.

My Garden Prayer

Fear binds my trembling blinded soul.

“Father, take this cup away!”

I long for Thee with all I am.

Yet doubt invades, consumes,

Keeps me far from Thee. Why

Must I hate Thy cross? Why seek

What is not Thee, to passing

Pleasures cling? I want them not,

But only Thee, who art

Forever.  That agony reigns

As I come before Thy throne.

I fall exhausted at Thy feet.

“Father, let Thy will be done!”

Ask and You Shall Receive

"Ask, and it shall be given you:
seek, and you shall find:
knock, and it shall be opened to you.
For every one that asketh, receiveth:
and he that seeketh, findeth:
and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

Matthew 7:7-8

After hearing that reading this morning at Mass, I was reflecting upon why it is we must ask when God knows all things before we ask.  He wants us to ask certainly, for He tells us so clearly.  Yet does He not know all things?

I think the reason has more to do with ourselves.  We do not need to ask for God's sake, but for our sake.

If we ask, we recognize that we are not gods unto ourselves, that we cannot do all things, that we must be dependent upon Him.  Whether He answers us yea or nay, whether He provides what we want or what He knows we need, our act of asking requires that we open our hearts.  The more we open them, the more we will receive, in abundance, flowing over.

Deceit of Pride

THOMAS
But what is there to do? What is left to be done?
Is there no enduring crown to be won?

TEMPTER
Yes, Thomas, yes; you have thought of that too.
What can compare with glory of Saints
Dwelling forever in presence of God?
What earthly glory, of king or emperor,
What earthly pride, that is not poverty
Compared with richness of heavenly grandeur?
Seek the way of martyrdom, make yourself the lowest
On earth, to be high in heaven.
And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed,
Your persecutors, in timeless torment,
Parched passion, beyond expiation.

THOMAS
No!
Who are you, tempting with my own desires?
Others have come, temporal tempters,
With pleasure and power at palpable price.
What do you offer?  What do you ask?

TEMPTER
I offer what you desire.  I ask
What you have to give.  Is it too much
For such a vision of eternal grandeur?

THOMAS
Others offered real goods, worthless
But real.  You only offer
Dreams to damnation.

TEMPTER
You have often dreamt them.

THOMAS
Is there no way, in my soul's sickness,
Does not lead to damnation in pride?
I well know that these temptations
Mean present vanity and future torment.
Can sinful pride be driven out
Only by more sinful?  Can I neither act nor suffer
Without perdition?

---

So it is that growth in virtue often leads to spiritual pride, as demonstrated so powerfully in these words from T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral.  We begin to think we have done well and then that subtle temptation begins to undermine whatever good we have done, whatever virtue we have achieved.

Sometimes it seems hopeless to escape.  Yet that also is but a snare of the enemy who wants to use all for our destruction.

There is a way to counter it, a way that seems to wend its way into every aspect of my life and words these days: abandonment to Divine Providence.  For what is pride but a securing for ourselves control?  And what is spiritual pride but a confidence in our own abilities to achieve salvation and become holy?  The counter then is to let go, to seek humility by surrendering all, even the desire for holiness, to the One who is all-powerful.

King of the World

We know we ought not to have idols.  So we don't, more or less.  I mean we don't put up golden calves or statues of the gods and bow down before them and worship them, offering sacrifices of animals to appease their anger.  We might put our focus on other things or put other people first before God, but are those really idols?  We are so good at justification, we can justify just about anything and make ourselves believe we are not really putting those things or people first at all.

Yet how often do we make idols of ourselves, trying to be god unto ourselves?

There is a new song by Natalie Grant that I have heard many times on the radio and it always brings me back to that prideful reality in myself.  It reminds me that I must abandon myself to Divine Providence and not try to force my Lord to carry out my will.

The song is called "King of the World."  The words may of themselves provide fodder for meditation, so I will include them below, but they mean much more with the music: here.

"King Of The World"

I tried to fit You in the walls inside my mind

I try to keep You safely in between the lines

I try to put You in the box that I've designed

I try to pull You down so we are eye to eye

When did I forget that You've always been the King of the world?

I try to take life back right out of the hands of the King of the world

How could I make You so small

When You're the one who holds it all

When did I forget that You've always been the King of the world

Just a whisper of Your voice can tame the seas

So who am I to try to take the lead

Still I run ahead and think I'm strong enough

When You're the one who made me from the dust

When did I forget that You've always been the King of the world?

I try to take life back right out of the hands of the King of the world

How could I make You so small

When You're the one who holds it all

When did I forget You've always been the King of the world

You will always be the King of the world

Choosing Your Friends

The other day I happened to hear a homily focusing almost entirely on friendship, coinciding with my own thinking thereupon.  In these coming days my reflections may draw from many of the priest's words, which reflected so closely my own life experience.

At this moment, I want to speak to a comment he made about how his friends were those who had chosen him rather than those he had chosen.  My experience has been much the same.  I wonder whether this experience differs according to introversion and extraversion. Regardless of that fact, however, there perhaps is a truth that we all experience: how others seem to find in us something that draws them to us and makes them desire our friendship even when we do not think ourselves worthwhile.

It is amazing how that act of choosing friends can draw us up out of ourselves—whether because we are choosing to seek out friends or because we are the ones being chosen.  It gives us confidence.  It sheds light upon our many good qualities often hidden beneath the shadow of our weaknesses and failings from our own perspective.

I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you. You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

These words from John 15:15 speak to that idea of choosing.  In our relationship with Christ, it is He who chooses us.  How much it means to be thus chosen!

Divine Providence Wherever I Go

I happened to pick up a breviary and it fell open to this passage from the dialogue on Divine Providence by Saint Catherine of Siena:

Eternal God, eternal Trinity, You have made the blood of Christ so precious through His sharing in Your divine nature. You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for You. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When You fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for Your light. I desire above all to see You, the true light, as You really are.

I have tasted and seen the depth of Your mystery and the beauty of Your creation with the light of my understanding. I have clothed myself with Your likeness and have seen what I shall be. Eternal Father, You have given me a share in Your power and the wisdom that Christ claims as His own, and Your Holy Spirit has given me the desire to love You. You are my Creator, eternal Trinity, and I am Your creature. You have made of me a new creation in the blood of Your Son, and I know that You are moved with love at the beauty of Your creation, for You have enlightened me.

Eternal Trinity, Godhead, mystery deep as the sea, You could give me no greater gift than the gift of Yourself. For You are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being. Yes, You are a fire that takes away the coldness, illuminates the mind with its light and causes me to know Your truth. By this light, reflected as it were in a mirror, I recognise that You are the highest good, one we can neither comprehend nor fathom. And I know that You are beauty and wisdom itself. The food of angels, You gave Yourself to man in the fire of Your love.

You are the garment which covers our nakedness, and in our hunger You are a satisfying food, for You are sweetness and in You there is no taste of bitterness, O triune God!

Although she does not speak of Divine Providence directly in terms we are accustomed to, she speaks more deeply: she speaks to the heart of this mystery, the relationship of God with man.  For of what use is reliance upon a God who does not love and whom we do not love?  God is love and in delving deeper into that relationship of love, we gain trust, and can surrender our hearts to His Divine Providence, which guides all things toward the ultimate goal of perfect love, our union with Him.

Perfect Timing

Although the various events of today have left little time, I want to reflect briefly upon an aspect of Divine Providence brought to my attention once more.  Whenever I am fretting about something—about being late or inconveniencing someone in particular—I often find that it all works out perfectly, as if my Lord is trying to remind me that He has everything in control.  He accounts for all our weaknesses, all our failures, all our choices...

What does fretting gain for us?  Moments of tenseness or anxiety.

Why then do we not let go entirely and trust wholly in Him?  Something keeps us back from doing so.  Often, I think, that something is our desire to be in control, our need to make things right, our pride unable to believe that we are not the center of the universe.