Nearly a third of my life ago it was. My mind orbits much around the singular event of that epic pilgrimage and therefore you, my dear readers, must bear with me as I indulge myself once more in reflection upon it.
Ten years ago today I set out with my companion, my heart uplifted in joy of abandoning everything to God's Providence. I felt in that moment that I was free—that I was who I had been created to be.
The feelings did not last long. They never do.
Today it is gratitude that fills me: gratitude to my past self for having the courage to undertake something so crazy as a three-hundred-odd-mile pilgrimage relying entirely on God to provide; gratitude to my friend for being crazy enough to go with me; and gratitude to God not only for bringing us through the joys and trials and loneliness of it, but for teaching me so much through it. Now I have gratitude even for those darker moments.
It is gratitude that has begun to unpack the rich gifts of that experience—gifts that continue to unfold in my daily life without my even realizing it. That is how it seems to be with those defining experiences of our lives no matter how great or how trivial they may appear.
How strange is the wandering course which we mortals follow. Somehow a steady routine of tutoring, studying psychology, and handling the minutiae of daily life seems as far as possible from what I imagined for my path as I stepped forth on the first few miles of that pilgrimage. I was young and dreamed of adventure and daring deeds in witness to the Faith as we journeyed. I expected that God would do amazing things if we gave ourselves up to be entirely at His disposal. Perhaps these thoughts were not fully conscious, but still I thought that marvel after marvel would unfold.
There were certainly marvels here and there. Mainly, however, there was the steady routine of walking, reciting the rosary to keep our spirits up amidst the tiredness and discouragement and inner assaults against our hope. Perhaps it was not so very different from my life now after all. Perhaps it was not so very different from your own path.
For we are all pilgrims. Day by day we walk, moment by moment we step forward, following the narrow path toward the Eternal City.
It is very much an inner pilgrimage—a pilgrimage of heart and mind and soul. The marvels are not the miracles we expect, but rather those poignant moments when we crave our own security and our own comfort and want to shut out a God who demands we give up everything and follow Him, and yet we choose to invite Him in to our suffering. Our deeds of daring are enacted in the quiet corners of our hearts. Hope flames up a little brighter each time we abandon everything to the God who holds everything in existence. Joy ignites every time we listen to His still small voice within.
Coraggio, dear pilgrim, courage!
Showing posts with label Miracles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miracles. Show all posts
Friday, October 4, 2019
Sunday, April 7, 2019
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."
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."
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