When Everything Goes Wrong

The other day I finally listened to Bishop Robert Barron talking with Dr. Jordan Peterson on the latter's podcast.  There were several good things that struck me from it and I would certainly recommend listening to it (you can find the video here), but there is one thing in particular upon which I want to reflect at this moment: the idea of right praise.

Bishop Barron mentioned the liturgical nature of the writing of the creation account in the book of Genesis and the reason for its structure: "The end of a liturgical procession is the one who will lead the praise."  Of course it was man that was created last of all the animals.  Therefore, when God gives Adam and Eve dominion over all the creatures there is far more to it than most of us would think when we hear the word dominion.  The dominion indicated is a lordship over the animals, but in order to lead them to praise of the Creator.  "All of these things belong in a chorus of praise of the true God led by us," said Bishop Barron.  It is our duty to praise God.

When we fail in that duty, much as when the Israelites turned to idols, everything goes wrong.  They became enslaved and began to lose their battles and suffered plagues and droughts and so on.  It is little different for us.

Right praise is essential for our daily lives.  Christ taught us that in the prayer He gave us, praising our loving Father in heaven: "Hallowed be Thy name."

Our daily lives often teach us its necessity in other ways.  I have certainly found it so.

Praise began to become a necessary part of my daily life through indirect participation in the Charismatic Renewal.  Listening to praise and worship music taught me to raise my eyes above my own struggles to look toward God.  One of these songs in particular seized my heart in the midst of some personal darkness and confusion: the song Blessed Be Your Name, which beautifully proclaims a decision to praise God no matter whether things go well or ill from a human perspective and which references the book of Job.

I keep being reminded that the devil's tempting revolves around one primary tactic: to make us look at ourselves instead of at God.  Praise powerfully counters that temptation by turning our gaze away from ourselves and toward God.

When I become focused on my struggles, my failure to achieve anything worthwhile, my inability even to accomplish the little duties I see before me, and so on, it is easy to become discouraged.  It is easy to feel hopeless.  Yet such feelings merely reveal disorder in the hierarchy of my life.  I was created not to establish my own little safe world of accomplishments and perfect order, but to give God right praise.

If there are places in your life where you are struggling perhaps you might dare to ask yourself whether the cause is the same.  Are you looking at yourself or are you giving God right praise?

God's Providence allows all that is.  By His will, including His permissive will, He has brought everything to this moment exactly as it is.  Thus no matter how dark the moment it is part of His plan.  And we also are part of that plan.  We take our rightful role when we choose to fulfill our vocation of leading all creation in giving praise to God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Are You Clinging to Your Teddy Bear?

Have you ever seen the above image or one like it?

It is quite a good illustration for how God works in our lives.  Although sometimes it seems like He is not quite so gentlemanly about asking us to give Him whatever teddy bear of comfort we are clinging to in our lives.  Sometimes He simply takes things away from us, leaving us in confusion and doubt.  Then we feel lost and abandoned.

He could of course show us the bigger teddy bear first to win our confidence.  Yet He rarely does.  In fact, He rarely even gives us the greater gift immediately after taking something from us.  Perhaps He gives it sooner if we surrender readily to Him whatever pleasure or security He is asking us to give Him.  Perhaps it is only because He is forced to take away the teddy bear that has become a danger to our spiritual health that He waits for us to turn to Him before He gives us the bigger one lest it should become an idol as well.

So many times I find myself wondering why He seems to deprive those dear to me (and myself as well) of things that seem necessary.  Surely if He truly wanted us to live life more abundantly He would provide us with the support and healing we need in order to be able to do so?

It is easy to allow the enemy to work here—so easy to believe the devil's dastardly lies that seem so much more consonant with the reality we experience and to believe them in such subtle ways that we scarcely even realize it.  We end up relying on our own strength.  We believe that God does not wish to answer our prayers and therefore we must accept His will—a truth certainly, but one that so easily becomes rather a lie lived in bitterness because it taints our view of the Father's love and goodness rather than uniting us with the passion of Christ.

"God alone suffices," said Saint Teresa of Avila.

Is that not the only answer to the taking of our teddy bears?

We think we need them.  We think we need to hold something to give us comfort and security and we can't bear the thought of facing Him with empty hands.

Yet His hands were empty as they hung on the cross for us, as He poured out His love for us, a love that would soon be transformed into glory in His resurrection.  He had no teddy bears.  Everything had been taken away from Him by the Father's will to which He surrendered absolutely.

God alone sufficed for Him as Man because He wanted us to know that it is true for us as well.  He really will give us everything we need.

Of course it may mean we need to change our hearts.  We may need to change our prayers.  We may need to quit telling God what He needs to do and asking Him what we need to do and how we can fix things and simply enter into His presence open to receive His love.  Why not come before Him with empty hands and empty hearts and say to Him: "Lord, here I am; I come to do Your will.  Heal me in whatever way you wish."

Let Us Become Like Palms and Olive Branches

Chanting the Liturgy of the Hours must be the most beautiful way to enter into Holy Week.  I am much grateful for that gift Luke is sharing with our parish.  Because of it, I found myself reflecting on the second reading in today's Office of Readings which comes from a sermon by Saint Andrew of Crete.  Its words struck deeply into my heart, reflecting there some thoughts stirring there of late.  I want to share some of them with you:

"Let us go together to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives.  Today He returns from Bethany and proceeds of His own free will toward His holy and blessed passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation."

What a beautiful phrase: to consummate the mystery of our salvation of His own free will.  Yes, His own free will.

Sometimes perhaps we forget—or merely do not understand—how willingly He goes into the suffering of His passion. It is easier to think that He did it because He had to do it. For who could possibly choose to suffer so much pain by His own free will? Who would choose to embrace the Cross? Surely only the One who loves more deeply than we can understand—who loves more deeply than we can bear.

How then do we respond?

"Let us run to accompany Him as He hastens toward Jerusalem, and imitate those who met Him then, not by covering His path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before Him by being humble and by trying to live as He would wish.  Then we shall be able to receive the Word at His coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us.

"In His humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world and He is glad that He became so humble for our sake...."

Humility.

It is the foundation of all the virtues, the foundation of freedom, and the foundation of joy.  Yet somehow it is the most difficult of the virtues to embrace in more than mind's intellectual assent.

Why?

I think it is because we fear our own vulnerability—our own woundedness.  We try in every way possible to shore ourselves up lest we fall crashing to the ground, lest we become a hopeless mess, lest we do what we would never wish....

Vulnerability.  It is a word that has haunted me whatever path I have taken: it drew me to theatre, to charismatic prayer, to friendship, to psychology, and again to prayer....

Yet still the word looms like an insurmountable tower, its gates impregnable against my weak-willed assault.  I gaze at it like a puzzle, wondering how to unlock it.  Yet in truth I am made ungainly by my own weighty mail with all its interwoven rings of steel, my own walls of protection stacked stone upon stone over the years, and cannot grasp with my armored claws something so soft and simple and small.

Of course we need our gates and walls to keep out the evils of the world.  The problem is mainly that we forget to let down the drawbridge when the King comes knocking, especially because He comes without fine array, riding on a donkey.

"So let us spread before His feet not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in His grace, or rather, clothed completely in Him.  We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him."

When we admit our own vulnerability—that we are naked before Him—then we know that we must be clothed in His grace and in His very self.  That humility allows us to throw ourselves before Him to tread upon as He enters the heavenly Jerusalem in glory where one day—after our own journey to Calvary—He will raise us up to reign with Him and to enjoy our own resurrection.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!

Why Don't We See More Miracles?

Perhaps sometimes as we hear of Christ giving sight to the blind, healing the lepers, and even raising the dead, we wonder why He rarely works such miracles today.  More often, though, we merely accept that miracles are a thing of the past and not of the present.  By our own lack of faith we confirm their absence from our lives.

Take a moment to ask yourself this question: do you really want to see miracles in your life?

It might seem easy to answer yes right away, but if so then I would dare to say that it may arise from a failure to understand the demands that a miracle makes upon you.  For a miracle requires metanoia—conversion of mind—conversion of heart.

In a talk my friend Josh gave a while back, he spoke directly to this reality: "Miracles happen when God tells us what to do and we do it."

If we deeply examine our own hearts and minds we may find the opposite reality existing: we want to tell God what to do and have Him do it.  That is the miracle we hope for.  We want to see the sufferings in our lives—or in the lives of those we love—removed.  We want to rejoice in the glory of the healing power of the Divine Physician right now.  We want to be restored to the fullness of life that we may live more abundantly as has been promised.  We want to be fully alive because we feel so far from it.

Yet those good desires leading us to Christ often drag along with them a reluctance to give up whatever is keeping us from union with Him.  We end up clinging to patterns that prevent us from receiving the grace He wishes to give us.  Merciful God that He is, He allows that.  He never takes away the suffering we see as evil when it saves us from worse evil or gives us a crutch to rely upon in our own brokenness that we are not yet ready to give up.

Moving out of that brokenness means letting go of our own victimhood.  However, as my friend Joseph reminded me recently, so few are willing to do that.  Whether we realize it or not, we often like to see ourselves as the injured party.  It's a safe place to be.  For who can fault the victim?

Instinctively we know that if we remain as victims before the face of a cruel world we can't blame ourselves for our fate.  Where we have failed again and again, we can become martyrs of circumstance  and therefore save ourselves from the heavy burden of guilt.  When everything seems against us and we want to hide in our beds, we can assure ourselves that after all it isn't our fault and that if God had wanted us to do more He could have made it possible.

It is far harder to embrace all the failures and sufferings as part of our reality without accepting also the crushing condemnation that certainly is not of God.  For to do so means to stand vulnerable as Christ did before Pilate—silent and without defense.

Yet think of what Christ said finally in answer to Pilate's questioning:

"You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above."

Nothing has power over us except by the will of our Heavenly Father.  Nothing can harm us against His most loving will.

Yet just as Job wrestled with his sufferings, as everything he held dear was taken away from him, we too wrestle with our own pain, the worst of which may be our own failure to live up to our own expectations of ourselves or seeing how our brokenness hurts those we love.  In that darkness and confusion, we can rebel against our situation without yet being willing to open ourselves to God's love.  We can fall into self-hatred and despondency, forgetting that the Creator of the Universe rules our lives.

Why should we not see miracles?  Why not expect God to transform our lives radically even where we struggle most?

The only reason I can see is because we go to Him with outlined expectations, limiting Him to the finite box we have prepared for His working, instead of going to Him with open hands and open hearts.  What might happen if we began to listen?  Would we hear God's voice if we let our inner selves fall silent in adoration before Him?

"Miracles happen when God tells us what to do and we do it."

What Is God's Will?

“If God would just tell me what His will was, I would do it.”

Would you, though?

That question of itself could make an entire meditation.  However, look again at this phrase in another form:

“What does God want me to do?”

If I had the proverbial penny for every time this phrase had been asked or spoken, I would be rich indeed.  Even the number of times I have heard it in my own life would make a weighty pile (and that of course includes its origin in my own mind or mouth).

Take a third look at it:

“I don't understand why God won't just tell me what He wants me to do. I keep asking Him and asking Him.”

As with most aspects of our lives, there are two movements at work here.  The first is good: we turn toward God and ask Him what He wants, so there is a stirring of our hearts for God and a desire to be open to His will.

The second, however, often undermines the first.  Because we are so focused upon asking God what He wants of us, we fail to recognize what He is actually telling us through what is happening to us in each moment and what He is speaking through the silence in our hearts. Our failure originates from a misconception about what God's will means.  We think of it as something we do.  In becoming focused on God's will as something we do, we are looking for, in modern business parlance, “action items.”  Now that sort of perspective lies not too far off from the approach of Pelagianism which places salvation within the reach of our own actions instead of as our acceptance of unmerited grace given freely by our loving God.

Thus, like every other temptation it focuses us on ourselves instead of on God.  We become fixated on wanting to do the exact right thing and fearing that if we fail we will ruin God's plan for our lives.

Do you really think you have the power to ruin the plans of the OMNIPOTENT GOD?

I somehow doubt it.

Why then do we look outward?  Why do we seek the will of God in anything other than what He is giving us in the present moment?

In some sense it is because we are not happy in the moment.  We feel unable to bear whatever suffering happens to be our lot, either sickness of ourselves or loved ones, the loss of a job or work that makes us miserable, our plans falling apart, friends failing or betraying us, the death of someone we hold dear, a loved one following the wrong path....  The list could go on and on.

In all these things, we experience inner conflict because we know that things are not as they should be—as they were meant to be.  In short, because it is not yet heaven.

Consequently, we flee from these struggles, seeking solutions everywhere but in the depths of our hearts where God resides—where heaven begins to sprout like the mustard tree.  Saint Augustine put it so well in his much-quoted words: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

The path of abandoning oneself to God's Providence offers the pathway to that rest.

Now often when people begin to think of abandoning themselves to God and accepting His will in every moment, they understand a sort of resignation or giving up on doing anything.  There enter cynicism.

Perhaps the best way to look at it is to understand our own will as a reflection of God's will since we were after all created in His image and likeness.  When we speak of His will, we can refer to His passive will and to His active will.  The latter means what He directly wills, as for example His creation of the world or the working of miracles.  The former encompasses all that He allows to happen without directly willing it, including any of the evils in the world, and which He permits in order to bring about a greater good, as He did with the Crucifixion.

In our own lives it is much the same.  We actively will certain things, seeking to do what is good and to grow in virtue.  That is easy enough to understand.

What about our passive will, however?

Certainly it is harder to understand—and harder to live—but ultimately it is where we become most united with God, for HE IS.  Remember He called Himself I-AM-WHO-AM, for He is being itself, existence itself.  Thus accepting what is means accepting His presence in each moment.

There is a piece of folk wisdom that says that one first has to admit to having a problem in order to begin to be able to change it.  Similarly, when we accept our current situation as it is things often do begin to change.  Even if the external situation remains the same, our hearts become transformed within us, our minds become converted.

Therefore, let us accept whatever is in our lives not in order to become bitter and resigned and stoic about it, but because we thereby choose to believe that our Beloved Father will bring about a greater good through it, that Christ is present with us through it, and that the Holy Spirit works our salvation through it.  Let us embrace everything that happens to us then in order to become one with the Holy Trinity at work in that moment.

Behold the Handmaid of the Lord

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

I like to imagine it might have been early in the morning and dark when our Lady crept outside, following a silent prompting in her heart to come out and pray as she stared up at the beauty of the stars fading with the first light of dawn.  Then, in that darkness just before the dawn, the light of the angel Gabriel burst upon her like the rising of the sun.

"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women."

Called by name, she could not doubt that it was to her the angel spoke.  The message was for her and none other.

Who would not tremble at such a grace-filled message?  The words must have spoken to the depths of her heart and to her vocation, touching her soul in a way that only the truth of the Lord spoken to our hearts can do.

"Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God."

First, the injunction not to fear, a call to trust, to commit all doubts and uncertainty into God's providential love.

Then words of such power:

"Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father; and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.  And of His kingdom there shall be no end."

For where God works there is ever clarity and strength, slicing through our own expectations with the sword of truth.  And He ever calls us to transform our perspective.

"How shall this be done, because I know not man?"

Tradition holds that Mary had taken a vow of perpetual virginity and that Joseph had done so as well.  Her question makes most sense in light of this view, which certainly precludes any possibility or expectation for a child in the picture.  I wonder whether she questioned in that moment her certainty regarding her vow of virginity.  Did she ask in her heart if God wished her to tread a different path?

"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.  And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God."

Although Mary must have known then that God confirmed her in her vow of virginity, nevertheless the message must have transformed how she saw the entire rest of her life.  She could have questioned further, she could have resisted, she could have clung to what she wanted.

Yet she said only: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." 

She could scarcely have uttered a more beautiful surrender of her expectations for her life.  All that she must have seen as necessary she laid down, accepting instead the power of God at work.

My prayer today is that we will have the courage to do the same, to surrender anything that we think is necessary for ourselves or others, to lay our expectations at the foot of the angel Gabriel, and speak with Mary: Behold the Lord's servant always, ready to fulfill all that He desires.

I wonder too about those moments after Gabriel departed.  Did the world seem dark and dreary?  Did her heart ache within her even with the joy of receiving God's message?  Perhaps the devil too crept in to tempt her not to trust in the Lord's plan and in His messenger, for if he could undermine her trust, he would have a foothold to drag her away from her obedience.

Yet Mary arose with haste, never heeding such tactics, and went to bring Christ to her cousin, to share with her the glory of God's word.

For her it was necessary only to attend to the duty of the moment and not to worry about the future.  She went to be present where she could draw closer in her service to the Lord and did not fret about what must come or what to do about it or how.

Here I am, Lord; I come to do Your will.

X. Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

Finally Christ reached the place of execution and there He was stripped of His last possessions: the clothing His Mother had made for Him.  There He stood, naked, with nothing to call His own but His blood streaming over His body.

We are ashamed when we have nothing.  We cannot bear our own poverty.

Yet He stood without humiliation because He placed His trust not in things of this world, but in doing the will of the Father, which He did so perfectly.  He knew that, although stripped of all worldly possessions, He possessed the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven as promised by His Father.

If only we trusted in nothing bound to pass away with this world.  If only we could have for ourselves nothing but the blood of Christ shed for us.

If we ask Him, certainly He will strip us of our attachment to things of this earth.  He loves to draw us near to Him, wanting us to live with Him eternally.  Although He knows that we must suffer, just as He did, to prepare us for such glory, He is ever gentle with us.

My innocent Jesus, by the merits of the torment Thou hast felt, help me to strip myself of all affection to things of earth, in order that I may place all my love in Thee, who art so worthy of my love. I love Thee, O Jesus, with my whole heart; I repent of having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

Oh Providence

There are a great number of people who have difficulty believing in a good God based upon the evils that happen to them or to the world at large.  On the other hand, there are a great number of people who believe in a good God because of the good things that happen to them and how everything works out well for them—adherents of the ol' Prosperity Gospel as it were.

I try not to fall into the latter category.  I try to trust that everything happens for a reason and that everything that God sends me is indeed a gift no matter how difficult to handle.

A beautiful approach to life as a passive recipient, however, can become a mind-crushing vice in taking action.  As usual, I can best find examples from my life to illustrate my meaning: in this case, I have set out to create a work of art in honor of the Epiphany.  For weeks I have trusted that it would all come together even though I was lacking certain necessary elements (i.e. actors).  Now it seems a bit as if everything is falling apart.  What do I do?

I begin to wonder if that will be the cry of my life.  Is that not the cry of all our lives?  What do we do when things don't go as we expect?  What do we do when God does not provide what we think we need? We could give up.  We could decide it wasn't God's will after all.  We could take it merely as disappointment and try to thank Him for that gift.

Or we can go on.

Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

For some reason lines from Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" often come to mind in these times of struggle and darkness.

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

It isn't our right to command, nor to control the destiny of our lives or the lives of others.  We could flee in terror, cowards that we often are.  Or we can hold our ground, we can advance, we can charge forward when it seems like folly, when it seems that all is lost.  That is trust.  That is faith.  And that is one of the hardest things we can ever do.

What will He do with it?

That remains still to be seen, but He will do something glorious with it.  That we must believe.

When can their glory fade?

Prayer Against Depression

On this feast of a most admirable man converted by reading of the saints before him, I would like to share with you one of his lesser-known prayers that I find very beautiful:

O Christ Jesus
When all is darkness

And we feel our weakness and helplessness,

Give us the sense of Your Presence,

Your Love and Your Strength.

Help us to have perfect trust

In Your protecting love

And strengthening power,

So that nothing may frighten or worry us,

For, living close to You,

We shall see Your Hand, Your Purpose,

Your Will through all things.

By Saint Ignatius of Loyola

May any who struggle with difficulties or challenges find in this prayer, and in the intercession of its author, new hope and strength.  He was a warrior of incomparable ability in the service of God and I pray that his example may inspire you to dedicate yourselves to that same life of sacrifice however our Lord may call you.

Ad majorem Dei gloriam! For the greater glory of God!

Faith is Easy When You Don't Need It

FAITH IS EASY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT

I passed this sign as I biked to Mass this morning.  It seemed particularly relevant in light of my recent experience.  Also its message is uncomfortably true.

When we see the winding paths of our lives wending into a straight course toward the heavens, we do not need faith, for we can see and recognize that God is at work.  We need faith in the darkness when we seem to have lost the path.

Yet sometimes in that darkness faith does not seem enough.  We can have faith certainly—indeed we must have faith—but we must also know how to act.

For example, I recently held auditions for a play to be performed in honor of the feastday of Saint Philomena.  I had been praying that Saint Philomena would bring the actors necessary and trusting that if she wanted it to happen she would indeed bring them.  So as I prepared to audition the fifteen or so people I needed along with my stage manager and designer there to support me, I found my expected cast reduced in the face of only one auditionee.

How would faith have me respond?  It seemed entirely unreasonable to have faith that the rest of the cast would miraculously appear.  Why would God make happen in extraordinary ways what He had chosen not to bring to fruition in the ordinary offered way?

Yet would faith have me turn back?  Certainly faith must be tested and tried and not give up when it meets the very first obstacle, no matter how great an obstacle it may seem.

Often through our lives we face this dilemma: faith gives no answer.  God's will seems muddied beneath our own efforts and desires.  We do not know whether to go on or to turn back.  Is it a roadblock that means we should take the detour or is it only a decoy put there by the enemy to make us lose hope?

So we stumble on in faith as best we can, step by step....

Holy Saturday

Continuing with our meditations from said character, here is the one for today:

In silence, our Lady waited, perhaps in grief at the death of her Son and yet with great trust, for she who was conceived with no sin and remained without sin could not doubt the Lord's will. Surely she could not have known, nor understood, that He would rise from the dead any more than the apostles. Yet she trusted, waiting in the darkness of pure faith. What then did she expect? Did she wonder about the future, about what would happen? Her place was merely to accept and embrace all as the will of God, finding therein such intimate union that she needed nothing else. It was not for her to sit and grieve at her loss, at the dashing of all her hopes as some must have done, the apostles no less than the others, but rather she moved among them all with the same peace that had always graced her life, the same smile to encourage those who cowered in fear. Perhaps she spoke words to them of her trust in the Lord, but her presence spoke more than any words, and it was her presence that drew all she touched nearer to Him even without her knowing it.

Even then she must have been praying, pleading for those around her, especially those who seemed to be losing hope. As a mother it was her part to seek first the care of her Son, and so she did, even now in His death, for she served each person she met as if he had been her Son, as if he were indeed God Himself.

So it was that she found Him where no other could see Him, her heart ever the resting place of the Living God. So it was that she guided the Church in the pangs of its birth, when all seemed lost.

It was easy for others to forget her presence, to take for granted the peace she radiated. Few could have known the tremendous part she played in the salvation of the world; for her it was not enough to be the Mother of God: she had also to give her life for others in union with her Son, becoming the servant of all, and suffering all for love of Him, heeding only His will at each and every moment and never displeased that it was not her way, answering each temptation with the simple “fiat” that was her path to the heavens, leading across the sea to the glory of the risen Son.

Perfect Timing, Part II

After that lovely adventure the other day of everything working out just barely and perfectly on time for my flight (here if you missed it), I was not expecting the evening to go differently.  Yet we arrived to pick up our rental truck and the place was closed, as it had been for the past three hours.  There was nothing obvious to be done and we still had an hour's drive to the hotel.

Then a truck appeared and I thought perhaps here was the solution, but it was too small and the people driving it were not employees.  So that fizzled out.

We ended up going to a restaurant to get dinner and wait it out.

After reinvigorating ourselves with much-needed sustenance and exploring various options, there seemed only one reasonable possibility.  So we ended up taking a car service to our hotel and having it arranged that we would pick up a truck the next day from a different company.

Our Lord could have arranged it all differently.  He could have provided someone there at the service center who could have given us a truck for example.  For some obscure reasons, He did not.  Why He arranged it thus I have absolutely no idea.  Yet why should I consider this experience any less a matter of His perfect plan than my earlier experience of everything working out according to my idea of perfect timing when He is the one who knows all?

In Thy perfect timing, Lord.

Lord, Fire!

One more piece from Madonna House's Restoration newspaper on prayer comes to my heart to share with you:

There is another story about St. Cuthbert, an English saint from the holy isle of Lindisfarne.

One day he looked down the coast and saw great flames where a castle was located. He turned towards the blaze, held out his hands and cried: “Lord, fire!” The fire ceased immediately.

What a simple prayer! All he needed to do for the Lord to answer his prayer was to speak of it in one word. So when we do not know how to pray, we can remember this story and know that it is not how many words we use or how eloquently we beseech Him. Even one word can gain His answer swiftly.

When we lift up those we love, we need not know precisely what to ask for.  We need not pour out many words.  It is enough to call upon our Lord and speak to him the names of those we love.

Our Lord loves the simplicity of our prayer.  If we know not what to pray, we need only speak to Him in that simple trust of a child, calling out to Him with a name or word.  If it is a prayer from our hearts and is in accord with His will, then He will surely grant whatever we ask—even if we know not fully what that is.

Perfect Timing

As I sat in the plane on the runway, we were early, but waiting for a gate, directed from runway to runway, waiting—waiting as the minutes slipped by. Soon all minutes gained in flight were lost. Anxiety began to beat within. I had a tight connection and I began to fear I would not make it.

In Thy perfect timing, Lord, I said and let peace return to my soul. If He willed that I should miss the flight, I would trust that it was better that way and that He had arranged it so for a reason.

By the time we finally got a gate, it was still twenty minutes until departure time for my connection, so I was not unduly worried, even though it took a few more minutes to unload. Rather than push past the people ahead of me, I waited patiently, trusting that those few extra seconds would make little difference.

Then I came to the monitor with flight times and gates listed. I found mine and stared for a moment unsure what to do, for under boarding it said CLOSED.  And I did not yet know whether I might have to go to another terminal by which time it would surely be too late.

Still I had to try.  What else was there to do?

By perfect orchestration my departure gate was only two gates down from the one at which I had arrived.  It was only a few steps from where I stood staring at the list of departures.

Hurrying to the gate, I found no one ready to let me on, so I went up to the counter.  Others stood before me and I decided not to wait my turn.  Instead, I headed directly to the jetbridge, as if to board, meaning to ask those lounging about there whether boarding was indeed closed.

A woman came over and asked my name and then told me they had been waiting for me.  Of course they had waited.  No anxiety had been necessary.  As usual, the Lord had it all in hand.

In Thy perfect timing, Lord.

Things later that evening did not go quite so much according to plan and work out so conveniently, but that is a story for another day....

In Thy perfect timing, Lord.

Prayer for Mercy

In Your gentle mercy, Lord, guide our wayward hearts, for we know that left to ourselves we cannot do Your will.

That prayer comes from Lauds this morning. It is a beautiful prayer of humility in which we place ourselves completely at the mercy of God, knowing that we cannot do His will of our own strength or power.

We like to be self-sufficient. We want to believe that we can do anything we set our minds upon. We can thank the philosophers of the Enlightenment for increasing our belief in the capacity of man to become god unto himself. Yet, as I have mentioned before, this philosophy has born little fruit other than increasing mental illness.

In humility we find the counterweight to insanity. By admitting that we cannot do the will of God on our own and that our wayward hearts are not within our control, we discover what we can do through the power of Christ who strengthens us.

In Your gentle mercy, Lord, guide our wayward hearts, for we know that left to ourselves we cannot do Your will.

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.

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.