Put on the Armor of the Holy Trinity

In his letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul told us to put on the armor of God (6:10-20).  Saint Patrick, whose feast we celebrate today, sublimated beneath the celebration of Passion Week (on the old Roman rite calendar), gave us a beautiful prayer called his Lorica, the Latin word for breastplate.  His prayer is indeed a fitting spiritual breastplate, for it is putting on the power of God.  There is no greater power than Christ.  Let us place Him today then upon us, praying with Saint Patrick through an invocation of the Holy Trinity.

Seven years ago, I shared a bit of that prayer through the version in my hymnal and reflected upon how this prayer was written in imitation of the invocations of the druids: In Honor of Saint Patrick.  Today I want to share with you all the verses to the best of my ability, sung for you as a prayer for His protection upon you.

You Are Church: Consecrate Yourself to the Immaculate Heart

Happy Hypostatic Union Day!

(Otherwise known as the Solemnity of the Annunciation.)

"Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum."

The Annunciation by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Our Holy Father out of his devotion to our Blessed Mother has sought to answer again the request of Our Lady of Fatima for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.  I have seen many debates regarding whether her request was satisfied by any of the previous consecrations that have been made.  I have heard specifically that it cannot be satisfied until every single Bishop throughout the world in union with the Pope makes this consecration.

The debate around private revelation often seems to me to wander far too near the realm of superstition for my comfort.  However, I do want to bring your attention to one important point regarding that stipulation for the request to be fulfilled: think of the state the Church would be in if all of the Bishops were in that kind of union with the Bishop of Rome.  What then would the Church herself look like?

Remember, though, that every baptized person is part of the Mystical Body of Christ.  If you belong to the Church, you are in a sense Church.  For the Church is not some abstraction beyond us, but a physically enfleshment of a spiritual reality, which is the gift of Christ to us and to His Father: we are Church.

Therefore, it is on my heart this day to ask you, if you have not already done so today, to consecrate yourself as Church and on behalf of the Church, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  All that you give to her she will give to Christ and He will accept most graciously this fiat of your heart as He did that of His Mother, allowing Him to become Man in her womb: by your consecration, then, you invite Him to reside more fully in your soul.

For that consecration, I propose you use first the words of the prayer given by our Holy Father, and then a personal consecration of yourself, which follows:

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

by Pope Francis

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you.  As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you.  Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence!  You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace.  We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars.  We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations.  We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.  We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.  We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons.  We stopped being our neighbour’s keepers and stewards of our common home.  We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters.  We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves.  Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life.  He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for all humanity.  By God’s gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart.  We are your beloved children.  In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion.  At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.  Say to us once more: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”  You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times.  In you we place our trust.  We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs.  To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).  Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded.  We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace.  We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness.  How greatly we need your maternal help!

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.

Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.

Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.

Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world.

Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.

Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.

Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.

Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.

Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts.  May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew.  Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace.  May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs.  May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land.  May your Sorrowful Heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: “Behold your son” (Jn 19:26).  In this way he entrusted each of us to you.  To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: “Behold, your Mother” (v. 27).  Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.  At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ.  The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.  Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love.  Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world.  The “Fiat” that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace.  We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more.  To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

Through your intercession, may God’s mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days.  Our Lady of the “Fiat”, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God.  May you, our “living fountain of hope”, water the dryness of our hearts.  In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion.  You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace.  Amen.

ACT OF PERSONAL CONSECRATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

Once more I say to you, Holy Mother, to whom it was announced by the Archangel Gabriel that you would bear the Son of God in your womb, that I consecrate myself today to your Immaculate Heart.  I make this total offering of myself to you as part of the Church and on behalf of the Church that my life may serve to build up the Kingdom of God in this world and draw all souls to heaven by His mercy.  Receive, Loving Mother, this consecration for the glory of God my Father, as I trust my life entirely to His providence in union with Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit through your intercession this day and forever.  Amen.

Gethsemane

I discovered this beautiful song a short time ago.  It is meant for children, but it is nice to have something in a range I can sing.  Also, our Lord told us that we must become like little children if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Despite trying to become like that little child looking up to my Father to provide all that I need, I am finding the quarantine begin to wear on me, as I expect you are also.  Today I am thinking especially of all those struggling with it, of all those dealing with heartache, of all those who are lonely, and of all those feeling hopeless.  I am thinking also of Christ in Gethsemane, aching for consolation, crying out to the Father and yet remaining so alone in His agony.

Music is helping keep my eyes turned toward Him, so this song is as much my prayer as my song.  It is my prayer for you in whatever you need right now:

Gethsemane

Father, let this suffering pass from us; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.

Jacob's Well

Famine strikes deep the land, rending dry
Hearts aching with thirst.  No rain falls.
Wells bear muddy water rich with slime.

A few souls struggle up the hill
Outside the city to Jacob's well.
Bucket after bucket is lifted and gone.

Voices clamor for more, but no more
Lies within the emptied well, and still
No rain falls.  Dry, useless, cistern waits,

Cut off from the deep springs by stone
Well-laid long time hence, a tribute
To the cunning foe that placed it there.

The strong one cannot roll away the stone
Blocking the spring of Father's gift
Trapped in mother earth, life tight-sealed.

Seekers drift away, foiled, deluded
By hopes laid in distant mirage. One
Remains, knees bent, head bowed, lost.

If the Father's spring flows not again,
Bursts not through earth and stone to quench
Thirst, give life, then well becomes a tomb.

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."

Give Me This Water

An image came to me today as I was praying, arising subconsciously perhaps from the Gospel of the Samaritan woman asking Jesus to give her the living water of which He spoke.  It seemed a fitting image to share with you.

The image was of a small child holding out a thimble, asking God to pour all the waters of the sea into it.  It seemed as if the child was oblivious to the fact that such a feat was impossible.  It did not seem to matter to the child how tiny was the thimble to try to hold so great a quantity of water.

Perhaps you have seen the analogy already: the thimble as our souls and the waters of the sea as God's ocean of grace and mercy.

Let us take it a step further then.  How do you hold out your thimble?

Few of us dare hold it out as boldly as that little child.  More often we hold it out tentatively, saying to God: "I know my little tiny thimble can't possibly hold all the waters of the ocean and I don't deserve too much grace anyway and I don't want to ask You for too much or what isn't Your will, so just fill my thimble halfway, or just a little bit, or maybe even just a drop.  That's all I really need.  I'll be content with that."

It doesn't make nearly so lovely an image, does it?

I wonder what might happen if we came to God more like the former image—coming to Him like little children—and asking Him to pour into it all the waters of the sea.  Would He pour until it was overflowing and the waters burst up like a little fountain and ran down the sides of the thimble and over our hands and arms and onto the stones below?  Would we then watch as the trickles ran through the cracks of the stones, running on and on we know not where as we laughed with delight?

Or would we complain that the water was cold when it fell on our arms?  Would we feel guilty that we had spilled it?  Would we cry watching the water run away because our thimble could not hold enough?

Yet what if instead we looked up and saw Christ looking back at us, smiling, His eyes so full of tender love?  Then I think we would have the courage to hold up our thimble and ask Him to pour into it the entire sea.

Wait Here and Watch

Think of Saint Joseph at work with Jesus beside him no more than a boy.  It is easy to imagine him saying to Jesus, "Wait here and watch," as he showed Him how to work some tool or carve a bit of wood.

Today's great solemnity honoring Saint Joseph rises amidst the bustle of daily life and the desert of the Lenten fast like a great shining jewel, reminding us also to take a moment to watch and wait.  Perhaps in that moment's silence we may learn some great secret of the inner life.  Perhaps Saint Joseph will teach us how better to serve our Lord.

As we continue on through Lent, we can think of another time when those same words were used: Wait and watch.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Christ spoke in those words to His disciples.  "Wait here and watch with me," He said to them, and not "Pray with me."  He only asked them to watch and wait, the simplest of actions, even if sometimes the most difficult.

Why?

Did He know it would be too much for them to attempt to pray?  Did He know that they scarcely understood yet how to pray?  Or did He merely want them to watch how He prayed in the face of temptation and His coming death that they might learn how to act in the face of trials too?

A disciple is one who sits at the Master's feet and learns from Him, as Saint Joseph must have done in his silent way.  We too can sit and watch there, listening to His voice, soft and full of love for us.  Watch and wait.

Break our Pagan Hearts

Perhaps on this feast day of Saint Patrick who converted the pagans in Ireland it is fitting to talk about the paganism in our own hearts.  We tend to think of paganism as a thing of the past, but often we incorporate it subtly into our spiritual lives without realizing it.

To speak in general terms, the pagans saw the gods as beings to appease.  They spoke of submitting to the will of the gods when circumstances turned against them.  They gave the gods what was demanded of them and begged for only what they absolutely needed, making sacrifices to obtain it.  They tried not to make the gods angry at them.  They had their favorite gods and their favorite rituals.  Yet even when they kept statues of household gods and burned incense to them, they never really wanted the gods to be part of their daily lives.

Don't we often act the same way with God?  We try to appease Him.  We speak of accepting His will when things don't go our way.  We try to fulfill His demands and not to ask Him for too much and try to bribe Him to say yes.  We try not to make Him angry at us.  We have our favorite prayers and devotions.  Yet we don't really want Him to be part of our daily lives and ask us to change our lives and convert our hearts.

We don't speak to God heart to heart as to our dearest friend.  We scarcely even know how to talk to Him at all.

One of the great examples of prayer is Abraham.  Think of him beseeching the Lord not to destroy Sodom.  He started by asking Him to spare the city from destruction if there were only fifty righteous men.  When the Lord agreed, Abraham talked Him down to forty-five and then forty and then thirty and then twenty.  Finally, he asked for the city to be spared even if there were only ten righteous men within its walls.

Yet in the end his prayer was in vain.  There were not even ten righteous men and Sodom was destroyed.

So what do we learn?

God's will was done as it would have been if Abraham had said nothing.  So do we just say: "Stupid Abraham, you should have just accepted God's will in the beginning because He always knows what He is doing?"

No.  Of course not.

We respect Abraham's dialogue with God if for no other reason than that God Himself respected it.  He could have told Abraham it was futile to bargain for He knew already that there were not enough righteous men to warrant saving the city.  Yet instead He allowed Abraham to continue asking.  By doing so, He confirmed Abraham in his prayer—a prayer that came from a heart moved with love for others and a heart that loved his Lord and would accept His will however it came.

Do we have that same courage?  Don't we rather shy away from asking God too intensely for what we want lest it not be His will?

Let us not be afraid to enter into that dialogue with Him, to ask Him for whatever we need, trusting that He will provide according to His far-seeing wisdom.  For if we avoid that conversation with our Beloved Lord, on whom do we rely?  Merely upon our own strength?  And is not that precisely what the pagans did?

As we journey through the desert of Lent, let us dare ask Him to break our pagan hearts and to give us hearts soft and docile to His voice and leading.

"And where sin abounded..."

"...grace did more abound." (Romans 5:20)

My heart grieves the scandals that have recently come to light within the Church, but also for some of the responses that reveal a similar issue.  If the bishops have been remiss in not bringing sin to light and have tried to cover it up for the sake of what the world may think, the faithful may also care too much for the world's opinion and therefore attack vociferously those who stand in the place of Christ who have failed us.

We too fail.  We too are sinners.

It is easy to stand outside and say what must be done.  It is easy to believe that we would act rightly in their situation.  But would we?

There but for the grace of God go I.

How do we know until we have faced the pressures that have worn them down and twisted them into believing they did what they must?  For rarely do people act wrongly for reasons that they do not themselves perceive as good in some way, even if only by the twisting lies of the enemy.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone. (John 8:7)

By all means, let us call for an end of silence, but let it be without condemnation.  Our bishops are already under so much attack for their positions from within and without.  If the devil tries to come after us and turn us away from serving our Lord, how much more do you think he goes after those who shepherd so many souls?

Let us not forget in our outrage against the unthinkable evils committed that these were done by part of the Body of Christ.  I think of the words of Father John Corapi that touched my heart so deeply before he too wandered off the path: "Never abandon a fallen comrade." These men are our fallen comrades. They are our brothers. Let us never abandon them. Let us rather pray and sacrifice for them until they repent of their sins and turn back to God.

And when we call upon the Church's hierarchy to take a strong position against those who have committed these grave sins, let us not stand outside as an angry mob or treat them as merely worldly leaders who must fulfil administrative responsibilities.  Let us remember that this is a spiritual battle.  Let us assure them that we will stand with them in the brink.

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. (Ephesians 6:12)

We must therefore fight with more than earthly means.  We must take to our side all the spiritual resources at our disposal and beg our Lord for the grace He wishes to bestow upon us.  Then we shall be more than conquerors, for:

...in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us.  For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

The Prayer Battle

Do you ever struggle to pray?  It is far easier not to pray, to do the thousands upon thousands of things, duties and otherwise, that demand our attention.  We might even justify it as fulfilling the duty of the moment.

Prayer seems like such a simple action.  Yet somehow it demands more of us than anything else in our lives.

Lately, prayer and its various manifestations has been very much on my mind, but more on the subconscious level.  Scripture tells us to pray always.  In times of consolation that seems easy and prayer seems to flow as naturally as breath.  Yet in times of desolation it seems impossible to pray at all.

It is not only in the modern world that we experience the battle of prayer, however.  It is not because of the distractions of the computer and other technologies (although of course these don't help).  It really is part of the fundamental nature of the spiritual life that is so much a battle.  This fact came clear to me when I ran across a saying from the desert fathers that illuminates the reasons behind the battle of prayer that has gone on for centuries:

"The brethren asked him [Agathon] "Amongst all good works, which is the virtue which requires the greatest effort?"  He answered, "Forgive me, but I think there is no labor greater than that of prayer to God.  For every time a man wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him, for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey.  Whatever good work a man undertakes, if he perseveres in it, he will attain rest.  But prayer is warfare to the last breath."  

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Clearly little has changed in regard to the struggles for prayer.  Perhaps the only change lies in the softness of our wills: we are little used to battle in these days of enlightenment and innovation.

We want what is easy and what feels good.  We imbibe from our culture the sense that what is right really does depend to a large extent upon what soothes our appetites.  We build up all these subtle machinations within ourselves to justify what we want to believe and to forget that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him.

But prayer is warfare to the last breath.

Flesh to Flesh

In the afterglow of that great solemnity of the Annunciation in which we celebrate the singular most important event in the whole course of history, the Incarnation, it is the flesh that provides food to ponder (no pun intended).  For it is to our mortal flesh that Christ draws our attention by the hypostatic union—God uniting Himself with mankind.

It is so easy to forget what a good thing the flesh is.  However, when God created the world, what He said of it was that it was good.

Yet we experience such suffering in our flesh that we forget its goodness.  Whether we suffer the emotional pain of the loss of someone dear to us, the physical aches of growing old, the daily weariness of our monotonous work, or simply a seemingly source-less depression, we naturally fall back on a response of hope.  We are made to be creatures of hope.  Thus we long for the day when we shall no longer suffer these things.  We may thereby begin to look condescendingly on this mortal coil that keeps us from the glories of heaven, especially if we struggle with the concupiscence of the flesh.

Despite a hatred of the body that can arise subconsciously in a thousand different ways, one startling fact remains: God waits for us physically in the Blessed Sacrament.  We may forget the great privilege of that Presence with us when we cannot see Him face to face as we long to.  Yet so blessed is that Sacrament that the angels envy us for being able to receive It.

God didn't become man so that He could fill the gap between now and heaven.  He became man because He wants to be united with us now, today, through our bodies and His body given up for us upon the cross, but first given to us through the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

Henri Nouwen speaks beautifully of our desire for that meeting of God through our flesh: 

You are looking for ways to meet Jesus.  You are trying to meet him not only in your mind but also in your body.  You seek his affection, and you know that this affection involves his body as well as yours.  He became flesh for you so that you could encounter him in the flesh and receive his love in the flesh.

Somehow I am finding this message come to me in so many different ways lately. Its ubiquity inclines me to consider its importance for a society so pleasure-oriented as ours, for pleasure is focused ultimately on satisfying the needs of the body. Of course no pleasure satisfies. Always we need more. The desire remains and grows for more and more and more and more.... Because the desire is for something deeper. The desire is for God. It is a desire to meet Him in our flesh.

But something remains in you that prevents this meeting, Henri Nouwen continues. Somehow there is always something that keeps us back. We throw up all sorts of walls to avoid that encounter.

Several weeks ago, I went with a friend to an empowering workshop for prayer leaders. The workshop leader demonstrated the power of intercessory prayer by asking someone to come forward who wanted healing. A man came forward who had one leg shorter than the other. As they prayed over him at first nothing happened. Then it was that the leader asked whether there was something that might prevent him from receiving that healing and so they prayed for his intentions for spiritual healing of pride for which he had asked initially. Then—I heard, although I did not see it with my own eyes—his leg became as long as the other.

So often we want healing. We go to doctors wanting to be cured, trying every treatment. Even if we come to the Divine Physician we may not receive the healing we desire. The question is always: why?

I found an answer at that workshop. I can't say that it is always true, but it may very well be so. For we mortal creatures are not mere bodies like cars to be fixed at the mechanic but a complex union of body and soul with the physical and psychological impacting the spiritual and vice versa. Every act has its effect for better or for worse.

There is so much to say on this subject, but I will end with a simple injunction from Nouwen:

Do not despair, thinking that you cannot change yourself after so many years. Simply enter into the presence of Jesus as you are and ask him to give you a fearless heart where he can be with you. You cannot make yourself different. Jesus came to give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, and a new body. Let him transform you by his love and so enable you to receive his affection in your whole being.

XIV. Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre

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

Somehow death always feels like the end.  Even though we say that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, it is hard not to face a parting as if it were forever.

Think of how the apostles must have felt to see the body of Jesus laid in the tomb.  The finality of it must have struck their hearts with numb terror.  Everything they had given up to follow Him must have seemed in vain.  They had followed Him, believing that He was the Messiah, the Christ, the One who would set them free.  Instead, He had died the most horrible death of a criminal and now His body lay in the coldness of a sepulcher intended for another.

Our Lady must have sustained them by her presence, by her faith in God, but still what consolation could she give them?  How do you ever speak words of comfort to one who has suffered loss?

When one is in the darkness of grief, no light seems possible.  In the face of death, how can one believe in resurrection?

Yet it is precisely through that death and darkness that God crashes with His tremendous power, destroying all our expectations of gloom and doom.  What of the sealed tombs in our own lives?  Do we close off our hearts at the loss and turn our back on all that was good when it turns out wrong?  Or do we linger, waiting for the moment when the angel will roll back the stone?

Oh, my buried Jesus, I kiss the stone that encloses Thee. But Thou didst rise again the third day. I beseech Thee, by Thy resurrection, make me rise glorious with Thee at the last day, to be always united with Thee in heaven, to praise Thee and love Thee forever. I love Thee, and I repent of ever 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.)

~

As we descend with our Lord into the darkness with the beginning of the Triduum tomorrow, I pray that each of you will deeply encounter the Paschal Mystery.

Please share any more particular prayer intentions with me if you wish.

Blessings to you this Holy Week!

XIII. Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

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


What a terrifying experience it must have been to have stood beneath the cross on Calvary as the Savior of the world died, the earth quaked, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.  Then to receive His body....

Our Lady must have thought of the first time she held her Son in her arms when she held His broken body.  Then she must have marveled at how God could rest in the fragile flesh of an infant.  Now she grieved at the tortured body of that Son who had borne incomprehensible sufferings by taking on the sins of the whole world.

Her own heart had been pierced by the sword of sorrow foretold by Simeon in the temple.  Thus her suffering too became a well of love united with that of her Son, earning her the title Co-Redemptrix.

Although her heart must have broken as she pressed the body of her Son to her heart, still in the depths of her heart she uttered still that simple word of love: "Fiat."  Whatever she willed, she knew that God's will must be done.  She knew that no matter how cruel it seemed, no matter how dark the path that she must tread forward, that the Father's Providence would bring good out of evil.

Now by her prayers she seeks to obtain for us that same grace.

O Mother of sorrow, for the love of this Son, accept me for thy servant, and pray to Him for me. And Thou, my Redeemer, since Thou hast died for me, permit me to love Thee; for I wish but Thee, and nothing more. I love Thee, my Jesus, and I repent of ever 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.)

Maybe You Would Do It?

There's always something more you want, isn't there?

Thus the mortal coil.

There's always something we want—something we need—for ourselves or for those we love.  Sometimes we can pray desperately for that thing, whatever it is, convinced that if only God would grant us that then everything would be okay—not perfect still, but good.

That's a lie of course.  As soon as He granted that one thing there would always be something else we needed to make us happy or holy or whatever adjective reared its masked head.

I can hardly help but marvel at how universally true that seems to be.  Whether I am in the midst of trials, struggling along by force of stubborn will, and think if only I had some bit of clarity, I could bear the suffering; or whether I have had a most amazing weekend full of good connections and bits of spiritual insight and think there is this one thing that would be awesome if God would do: that something is there, impossible to forget, and as changeable as our fickle emotions.

In one such recent moment, there came to my mind a delightful analogy, which I would like to share with you.  I shall embellish it for you in dramatic form, as a playwright must, even though the imagery my mind conjured up was much better than these few paltry words woven more for comic effect than realism:

ME: I know You probably aren't going to do this thing, and I don't really need it, but it would be so amazing and I know You could do it if You wanted to.

GOD: Why would you want that? Because you want to be a puddle for the devil to come and drink up? I want you to be a warrior in armor when he comes to attack you.

ME: Well, no, I don't want the devil to drink me up like I'm a bunch of liquid, but—

GOD: That's what you're asking for.  If you're saying please give me whatever I want so all I have to do is sit here and bask in the light reflecting off me, then in essence you are saying don't give me all of these opportunities to train myself and become strong enough to carry the armor that will withstand the enemy's straw.

ME: I thought I'd have to worry about more than a straw in the enemy's attack.

GOD: Only if you have armor.

ME: Then what will he come against me with?  A toothpick?

GOD: Probably more like a vacuum cleaner.

ME: So my armor has to be heavy enough that I can't be sucked up?

GOD: Now you've got the right idea.

ME: What if I had heavy armor?

GOD: You don't need to worry about that when you're still at the try-not-to-be-a-puddle stage.

A Man of Deep Love

I have little enough to add to my words of last year upon this date, December the 22nd, the feast of my patron and namesake, Blessed Jacopone da Todi.  (If you would like to read those words, you may find them here.)

Although there is so much I might reflect upon from the greatness of this man I know best through his poetry, now does not seem the time.  Therefore I shall simply share with you a poem I wrote in the spring of 2012 as I sat beside his tomb in the peaceful stillness—a poem that is also a prayer.

The tomb of Blessed Jacopone da Todi

To Blessed Jacopone at his tomb

To pray and go—should be enough;

Yet still I linger here and wait

For what I do not know. Perhaps

I hope some miracle will appear—

Some sign of grace to take my heart

And convert it to His love.

Pray for me—that is enough

To ask. Pray for me that I may bow

My will to His and serve not myself

But Him alone in those I meet—

Through His power then may my heart

Witness to the world of His love.

O Blessed Jacopone, is this enough?

To lay my prayers before thy tomb,

That what I cannot do alone I may yet

Accomplish through thy prayers for me,

For His grace poured out upon my heart

To convert all to His love.

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!

Speak, Lord, Your Servant Is Listening

Thus said Samuel according the advice of the priest Eli: "Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening."

It is such a simple and powerful prayer.  It is also a prayer of vulnerability.

We mortal creatures don't like vulnerability.  We flee it like the proverbial plague.  Of course we say we want to hear the voice of the Lord, but we rarely allow ourselves to wait in silence and darkness to truly hear what He might say.

The story of Samuel has great comic potential.  It follows the formula for a comedic routine: he hears someone calling his name and immediately hops up to go ask Eli why he called him, but Eli tells him he must be imagining it and sends him back to bed.  The same exact thing happens the second time.  There you have your context set up.  The third time when it happens, it starts out the same way, but all of a sudden Eli realizes that God is calling Samuel.  If it weren't such a serious matter (and we hadn't heard the story a few too many times), we would laugh uproariously at this sudden upturning of our expectations.

It is easy to laugh at Samuel for not knowing that God was calling him because of course it is obvious to us.  Somehow, though, it doesn't seem that obvious in our everyday lives.

Perhaps we don't follow the Rule of Three in our lives, but I daresay there is enough material for humor there nonetheless.  We say we want to hear God's voice and so we start telling Him everything we need Him to do for us and how He ought to answer us and what our requirements and needs are and so on.  Then, before we have bothered to so much as ask Him what He thinks of all that, we hurry on to our duties and responsibilities and get all weighed down by what He isn't making clear for us.

Do you see the comic potential?

Offer It Up

Have you ever been told to offer something up? Chances are, if you are like most Americans, your immediate response is resentment at being told what to do and a mental block against the idea—especially if it came from one of your parents.  It matters little whether you may have told others precisely the same thing when you had nothing to suffer.

Well, despite whatever emotional baggage you may carry regarding this idea of offering something up, it does have the power to transform your life. But the enemy will do his best to prevent your realizing it.

“Offer it up,” is such a vague thing to say anyway. We humans do not deal well in vagueness, even when it presents universal truth. We need the concrete specifics that turn that universal truth from something out there into something that penetrates to the deepest recesses of our hearts.

As I mentioned in my last post, sacrifice is a part of our baptismal priesthood. That means that we are called to offer sacrifice to the Father on behalf of others. Unlike the ministerial priest who offers the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross through His role in persona Christi, acting in the person of Christ, we have only the substance of our lives to offer in sacrifice. However, there is certainly enough substance there and it too may be transformed by Christ, if not transubstantiated.

In the sacrifice of the Mass, the priest has the tradition of centuries behind the weight of his words directed toward a specific offering. We need that same specificity in our lives. Although we can simply sacrifice in general for souls or for the world, unless we have a burning zeal like the great saints, we will soon grow lukewarm in our efforts.

We need specific intentions. We need to pray for particular people, for particular situations, for particular healings.  If I say in a moment of suffering that it is for my friend who is struggling, for my godmother, for someone who is going through surgery, or for anyone else for whom I have promised to pray, I have somewhere to direct my pain.  Instead of struggling within myself and wanting to escape, I have a means to bring fruit from my suffering because it is for another.

Even when the suffering seems impossible to offer up because it is too much to endure, we can make that effort of the will.  Then offering it up means transforming it into a prayer moment by moment. Instead of an obstacle to remove, it becomes a sacrifice of love as we lift up to the Lord the name of a loved one, repeating again and again that the suffering is for that one so dear to us.

The Power from on High

Today begins the original novena—the nine days of prayer leading up to the great feast of Pentecost.  As I join with so many others in praying this novena, I pray for an increased outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all of you, upon all artists, upon the Church, and upon the whole world.

If you would like me to carry your intentions specifically, please send them to me.  I will lift them up to our Lord, carrying them in my heart during these days.

Please pray for me.

To Continue or Not to Continue, That is the Question

After spending Lent in various daily practices it seems strange to discontinue them, particularly the writing each day upon this blog.  As I ponder whether to continue, my inclination is to ask you, my readers, whether it is valuable for me to keep writing daily meditations to pass to you through the pixels of your screen.

Is it folly to thus ask for visible fruits?

We are called to give of ourselves, to give without counting the cost, to give without asking for any reward.  Surely then it ought to be unnecessary to consider whether my efforts draw you, dear seekers, any nearer to our Lord.  Yet I must needs dispense of the time given me wisely.

Discernment of this small piece of the time given me requires thought and prayer just as does every decision of our lives (although the quantity may vary substantially according to the weight of the outcome).  Sometimes we are given a clear answer in exterior circumstances or conviction that strikes our heart.  Sometimes, though, we have no illumination, but must choose to step forward in faith, hoping that in abandoning ourselves in the darkness we choose the right way, trusting that our Lord will guide our steps.

So I step on, pondering and seeking....