Arise from the Dead!

"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead."

These words come from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday read as part of the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday morning.  This beautiful homily that comes from some great unknown preacher pierces with the sword of truth, weaving out in poetic language the Paschal Mystery we celebrate, demanding a response from our own hearts.

It also seems to demand my response as a writer.  I might speak to it in a thousand different ways so rich is it in content, but I will give you one of them for what it is worth.

If you wish first to read the homily, or to read it after you have read my own poor words, you can find it here.


Although I emphasized the reading's use for Holy Saturday, it provides fitting fodder for meditation at any time, perhaps especially in our celebration of Easter when our fallen nature prevents us from delving fully into the Paschal Mystery.  We base our faith on the fact that Christ has risen from the dead, but do we understand what that means?  Certainly we understand suffering.  We understand at least the reality of death.  We understand life.  But how can we understand that which transcends even life?

So often we lie dead within.  We need Christ to descend into the depths of our own hell and to call to us to arise from sleep.

"I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld.  Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead.  Arise, O man, work of My hands, arise, you who were fashioned in My image.  Rise, let us go hence; for you in Me and I in you, together we are one undivided person."

Not only does He call us to life and to life in Him, but He makes us one with Him.  The eternal King, the Creator of the universe, our God who is existence itself invites us to union.

"But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven."

Although He speaks to Adam specifically, He also speaks to us as descendants of Adam, promising us a joy above that of the Garden of Eden which we, in our fallen state, often lament having been lost.  It is not enough for Him simply to give us the good that we lost, but He must give us a greater good.  Rather than restore us to the Eden, He will bring us to Heaven where we may see Him face to face.

These words apply equally to our struggle through this pilgrimage of life.  We look back at good times in our lives lost, seeing an angel with a flaming sword guarding us from returning to that which we desire, and we lament.  We sink down with deadened hearts.

Yet Christ calls to us to arise and go forward, not to lament that which lies behind, but to go forward toward that which is yet to be.  Always when He takes away that which we hold dear, He offers us a greater good, even if He calls us to walk through the shadow of death for a while before we glimpse it appear before us like the rising sun.

Another One Bites the Dust

Perhaps mainly because I have rather a morbid sense of humor, I found it amusing when I heard that performing CPR on someone ideally should be done at about 100 beats per minute and that in order to count those beats it helps to use a song that keeps that tempo, such as "Another One Bites the Dust."

Who would ever think of using such a song to save a dying person?

I mean do you want those in danger of death to think they might be about to bite the dust?

And yet it can achieve precisely the opposite result: instead of biting the dust and dying, the person can live to face another day.

In the spiritual life, it is much the same.

Die to self.

We are told again and again that we are to die to ourselves.  Yet we hear it as if we were that person lying on the ground receiving CPR and hearing a song about biting the dust.  It makes us think that we are going to die.

Is that true?  Or is that a lie sown by the enemy?

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.

Those are the words of Christ.  And why would our loving Savior demand anything of us unless it was for our good?

I recently had another project of mine bite the dust.  It followed on a succession of other various happenings that I could describe as things biting the dust—my hopes and expectations mainly.  When this most recent project bit the dust, its death at first seemed to mean the death of much more.

However, I was not left in that place of despair.  Instead, I began to be led along a path that meant a new way of thinking that follows in the same vein as Christ's call to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him.

This perspective also places the words of the aforementioned song in an entirely new light.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust.
Another one bites the dust.

Each time these words ring in the happenings around us, we too can receive spiritual CPR.  Each time something we hold too dear bites the dust, the Holy Spirit can compress grace into our spiritual lungs, restoring us to new life.

The Tenth of February

The Web of Life

For Grandma

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Requiescat in pace.
Amen.

How swiftly death strikes silent

The certitude of tomorrow

For her, for you, for us all

Who strive with grasping hands to hold

What life gives freely, to store

Treasured gains that never last.

Swiftly death uproots the heart

From soil of expectation, melts

Blinding judgment's bonds.  The seeds

We sow we may never reap; flawed

Words may seem to do more ill

Than good. Yet Love shines through the mask.

Swiftly death shadows our days,

Divorcing heart from hope that claims

Neat-tied perfect denouement.

The unfinished must go beyond

The grave, her untied strands weave

Into the web that you and I still spin.

Incarnation

Carved wooden altar—wood of manger;

Gold glimmers tabernacle—golden straw.

Stare anew: the sight becomes a stranger

As the piercing star the shepherds saw.

Breath of oxen—breath of God's own life

Exhaled in layers of dust and grime—

There daily work and pain and strife

Did long await His bursting into time.

His two bright eyes stare, imploring

Hearts sheltered, cold, and dim,

Even as we come to kneel, adoring

God in flesh—blind to sight of Him

Who comes to break our shroud of fears,

Of dreams too small, to catch our tears

In tiny hands outstretched. He smiles

To see those weighted down with trials

Stop for one brief moment, darkly gaze

With blank stare at the brightest blaze

Hid in swaddling clothes, flesh to give

To all: to teach us, newborn, to live.

 

Mirror of the Soul

In honor of a certain obscure Franciscan dear to my heart whose feastday happens to fall today, my patron Blessed Jacopone da Todi (to learn the story there read the post from two years ago here and for last year's post go here), I want to share with you a few stanzas from one of his poems:

HOW THE LIFE OF JESUS IS THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL
(Lauda xxxix)

Life of Jesus Christ!
Mirror of Verity!
Mine own deformity
I see in that clear Light.

Somewhat, methought, I was;
Somewhat, methought, I seemed;
The Self of which I dreamed
I gladly did survey.
But gazing on that Glass,
The light thenceforth that streamed
On my true nature gleamed:—
Down in the depths it lay!
Needs must I weep and pray;
For, far as earth from skies,
Seeing from Being lies—
Distant as day from night.
…

O false esteem of self!
How couldst thou dare to bring,
As offerings to thy King,
These worthless works of thine?
Thy nature, all deformed,—
Ah, what an evil thing
To urge it, tottering,
Before that Light Divine!
These errors that are mine,
Must loose me from their sway;
Disorder must away,
Ere God with man unite.

...

I cannot be re-born
Till mine own self be dead;
My life out-poured, out-shed,
Sheer essence to renew: 
On glorious Nothingness
He only can be fed,
Whom God Himself hath led;—
Here man hath naught to do.
O glorious state and true!
In Nothingness to cease.
Desire and mind at peace
In calmness infinite.

May that light of Christ be mirrored in your own soul as you prepare for the celebration of His coming only a few days from now!

"We hold these truths..."

As I reflect upon life, psychology, and our modern society, I realize more and more how much we are influenced by the culture around us without our even being aware of it and without our willing it.  So also the past shapes our thoughts and feelings.

Today we celebrate some of that past: we celebrate the history of our country, the courage of our founding fathers, and the risks they took to secure our freedom.  Their choices then—more than two hundred years ago—inform our lives today. We are very much who we are today because of who they were.  That bold Declaration of Independence announcing to the world the formation of the United States of America still bears fruit in the little ways we too declare our independence from those in authority.

We like to think of ourselves in isolation from others.  We like to believe that we are unique individuals (as we are) with no need to credit anyone else for who we are (which is of course foolish).

For instance, I have in the past ten years developed a strong devotion to Divine Providence.  Now it is quite tempting to want to own this devotion for myself, to consider it almost as if it were my own conception, my own special revelation, my own gift to the world.  Yet it is, contrarily, something I have received, not only by virtue of my Catholic heritage, but also by being born into this great and free nation we call the United States of America.  For what are the ending words of the Declaration of Independence?

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor."

A Prayer for the Weary

I want to share with you a beautiful prayer I ran across somewhere in my research for my latest theatrical project.  As I find myself awash now in the weariness following the intensity of preparing for said project, these words credited to the great Saint Augustine lift my heart a little.  May they lift yours also in your journey, especially if feel your steps dragging with reluctance as you go forward in the great battle of life.  Here is his prayer:

"God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to your honor and glory."

And may Saint Nicholas of Myra intercede for us upon his feastday today!

The Crux of the Matter

"It is true, and even tautological,
to say that the cross
is the crux of the whole matter." ~G.K. Chesterton

So it is as we walk through this weary vale of tears: the Cross stands ever before us.  No matter how we flee it, dashing through the numberless pleasures that society advertises and thrusts upon us, no matter how we turn our backs and pretend we can live without it, no matter how we pursue the right course and seek the perfect solution to every problem, we cannot ever escape it.

Our failure to wipe it from our vision is as simple as its existence is omnipresent.  We may think we can close our eyes to the tortured body of Love upon it.

Yet we cannot escape its form.  So many times I catch myself half-consciously tracing its form in patterns on the floor or on a wall while my mind wanders elsewhere.  Wherever we look, it stares back at us, for it is the very basis of architectural structures that we take so much for granted.

Whenever we stare through old windows, it greets us, framing the landscape with inescapable significance: life is suffering—life is bound by the Cross.

We cannot escape its reality any more than we can escape death and taxes.  Whether we flee or turn to face it in the great trials or petty annoyances of our lives, whether we carry it willingly or drag it like a chain behind us, whether we are crushed beneath it or let it lift us up to the heavens, we will feel the weight of its rough wood.

What matters then is how we will face it.  When we come to the end of our lives will we be able to say that we have let it mark our steps with love and courage?

We have the choice before us in every moment of every day.  We may not be called to give our lives in military service (as the above graves attest) or die as martyrs, but of course we can die to ourselves in little ways at every moment of every day.  We can give up making sacrifices to our idols and turn instead to the God of love whose Cross lies in the very form of our bodies.

When you see the Cross like a dragon rear its ugly head before you, what will you do?  Will you let it remain only the means of your cruel execution or will you be transformed by it into a beautiful new creation?

It is your choice and your choice alone.

Fool for Christ

"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."

This quote resurfaced and I have no recollection of who spoke it or where I heard it.  That matters little enough, though.  It is the thought contained in the quotation and not the speaker to which I wish to draw your attention.

I will digress for a moment first, however.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a spontaneous adventure with a couple of friends.  Having decided upon hiking in the forested park in the middle of the city, we had no expectations of unusual adventure; considering our limited time, it seemed reasonable to enjoy a tamer sort of adventure.  After a brief stop at another friend's house and a dishtowel prophecy—"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson—we continued on to the trailhead.

As we started hiking up the hill, we soon found ourselves scrambling up a ravine with a few pools and trickles of water left within it.  The trail lost its façade of officiality and turned into no more than a deer path.

We might have turned back to find the actual trailhead, but instead we continued on, scrambling over fallen trees and crawling through brush and ferns, following the rocky bed of the ravine in what seemed like a tropical adventure.  The faint trail grew fainter, twisting back and forth across the ravine, sometimes disappearing entirely.

In retrospect, it would have made much more sense to find the trail proper and likely we would not choose that path again knowing what it held.  Yet that makes us all the more grateful for the experience.

You can extrapolate from this story to the adventure of life.  So often we choose to follow the well-beaten trail.  We give in to the pressure of society or the expectations of our friends—or what we imagine them to be—and find ourselves trudging on doggedly, clamping our jaws in the face of the monotony that drags us down.

Let us return now to the quotation with which I began:

"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."

It speaks to the heart of what it means to be a fool for Christ.  When you fall so deeply in love with Him—when you learn to trust Him so entirely—you no longer care so much for the security the world offers.  You learn to leap out in faith, knowing that He will catch you.  You embrace every cross and every trial because you know that behind it lies the Providence of the One who loves you more than you love yourself.

Go my friends and be fools for Christ!

Death Comes for Us All

Death has been on my mind increasingly of late, and not merely because we have just come through the intense commemoration of Christ's death in the Easter Triduum.  That mystery, however, casts its shadow upon every experience of death and every pondering thereof.  For where our Lord has conquered death by His death there must also be life.

The reality of death never affected me much as a child.  Even now I can count on one hand the times that death has touched me closely, butchery of chickens and viewing of murder mystery shows notwithstanding.

I think of a priest I met who shared with us words his mother had repeated to him about how where there is death there will come life.  That priest knew a couple who received a newborn boy after they had longed eagerly for a child they had been unable to conceive on their own and had prayed through the intercession of the priest's mother.  Their new child was born on the same day that the priest's mother had died.  Where there was death there came life.

I think of tulips planted in rocks beside the ocean with their roots sheltered by soil carefully patted around them.  As their bright colors caught my gaze, I found my heart reflecting on death contrasting with their bright and vibrant life, for I thought perhaps the tulips stood as testimony to some lost love.

Before the mystery of death I have no words, writer as I am.  Still, writer as I am, I must strive to put words where only silence can adequately respond.  I must speak out from my heart what I know in its quiet beating, even though in the end I will say nothing of what I know with all my many words, but speak only of all that surrounds it, of all the little petty details that seem to mean nothing.

Perhaps it is best to rely upon poetry whose imagery speaks what prose cannot.  Here a little piece from G.K. Chesterton:

The Skeleton

Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No; I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully.

Good Friday

I continue with the aforementioned character's meditation for Good Friday:

A sacrifice that goes beyond life—beyond death. Who of us can fathom such an absolute self-giving, a gift of love that holds nothing back, that suffers all for love, even the gibes and scorns heaped upon His head. They called Him a lamb because they thought He did nothing, suffering Himself to be led wherever they desired, and yet there was nothing passive in this, for it was a most active gift of self from the Lord who rules the universe.

With His death the world as we know it was rent asunder—is still rent asunder—because the veil that hides the mystery was torn away. We can no longer pass our lives outside the temple, awed at the mystery, gazing toward things beyond us as if they meant nothing to our lives, marveling at a God who reigns over us, ruling from the heavens above.

Nay, now we find ourselves face to face with Him, our Lord and Brother. We see His face, bruised and bleeding, disfigured almost beyond our recognition, a criminal. How oft we turn away! For who could bear to gaze long on that much love concealed in blood and grime? Who could recognize the King of the Universe in a man condemned to die?

And so it is, we turn away, seeking a God who better fits our mind, whom we can bind within the chains of our expectations. And so it is we find ourselves hiding from His face, ignoring the love with which He gazes gently upon us and speaks our name, calling us to Himself. And so it is we find ourselves taking charge more and more, forcing all circumstances to conform themselves to our will, and in the end trying to become God unto ourselves, not only to rule our own destinies, but also that of all the world.

Yet somehow His love will never bear that we escape Him for ever. Somehow whispers come to us, so gently it is easy to ignore them, to forget, but never to escape forever the gentle touch upon our hearts.

In the end we have to face Him. Something comes to bring us to Him and we can no longer avoid the searching judgment of our lives. At that moment we are taken into His death. It is then that we must humble ourselves and unite our pain to His or else spit upon His face and turn away, knowing that His gaze of love follows us still and if we will allow it, converts our hearts and brings us back to Him at last.

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!

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!

It's a Wonderful Life

The other day—the very eve of the current year to be precise—I suggested casually to my family that we spend the evening watching It's a Wonderful Life and eating cheese because that seemed to be our New Year's Eve tradition insofar as we have one.  It was a casual suggestion I say with plenty of room for anyone to propose an alternative—though none came.

When I suggested the film, I had not the least idea how much it would speak to me.  I was neither depressed nor frustrated with my life, but rather quite the opposite: hopeful for the future and eager for some current projects in the works to come to fruition.  Still it hit home.

Somehow we all need to hear its message.  It is an integral part of our wounded human nature to question our existence in the world, to feel as if we do not belong, as if it might have been better if we had not existed, to feel that all we do brings ruin upon ourselves or others, that all our decisions are faulty, and that we are failures.  The enemy subtly weaves that web of deceit to catch us even in our most joyous moments.  Always that dark doubt lingers, undercutting the good that we might do.

Yet the truth is so powerful.  The good that we do ripples out through the world in ways that we will never understand, much like the scientific principle known as the butterfly effect.  Merely a smile might change the whole course of a stranger's life.  And when it comes to those whose lives we touch on a daily basis: think of what fruit our love for them can bring forth!

The world needs you.  For you can touch people in a way that no other can.

Of course I cannot help but think of the corollary: not only does the good we do affect others, but also the evil.  If we speak negatively of others, if we complain, if we avoid contact with others, if we speak impatiently...

Sometimes I find myself weighted down beneath the thought of what those little seemingly-insignificant deeds might do.  I feel so powerless.  I wonder if I can ever love enough to make up for all the evil that I might unwittingly have done.  How can it possibly be true that the good I do can outweigh the negative?

Yet it can.

...for charity covereth a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

Somehow, miraculously, our deeds of love can make up for a multitude of evil.  So much hope lies in that truth.  Let us choose then to step forward each day of this new year with hearts open to others, with arms reaching out to those around us, and with courage to risk loving at the expense of hurt!

Be not afraid that it may be too little.  I will leave you now with words from Saint Andre Bessette: “It is with the smallest brushes that the Artist paints the best paintings.”