"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)

IX. Jesus Falls the Third Time

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

"Third time's the charm," as people say.  There is something significant in the number three: a powerful expression of finality.

When Christ fell the third time, how weak He must have been, how near unto the place of crucifixion and yet how far.  In His weakness He must have lain for a moment, trying to draw strength to rise, His will bent still toward our salvation, loving us with every moment of the immense torment He suffered as He lay against the rock-strewn ground.

Think of what the devil whispered into His ears.  For He was not left alone in that moment of weakness, but laid bare to all the snares of enemy.

What about your own falls?  It is when we are weakest that the devil likes to strike, for he cannot get us when we are wrapped about with the power and love of Christ.  It is only when we lie prone in our weakness and do not wish to go on that he can tempt us not to go on.  Then he can make us feel that all is hopeless, that we are powerless, and that we shall never rise from this darkness.

How much more must Christ have been tempted as He lay there.  Was it because He was God that He did not give in?

Rather it was love.  For only love can carry one through temptation.  Only love can make us so little heed our own darkness that we will to suffer it so long as God wills it.  Only love can raise us up when we have fallen.  Only love can give us hope in a brighter dawn.

And our Lord did not remain on the ground.  He struggled to His feet again, the cross still upon His shoulders.

Perhaps His entire human nature cried out that it was futile and that He would never have the strength to reach the place of crucifixion.  The enemy may have whispered of our infidelity, our lack of care for Him, our turning away and complete disdain for all that He was doing for us.  Yet He loved us still.  He went on because He wanted to show us that love in the most powerful way He could: by dying for us.  That death He had already begun, dying for us in each moment, and dying to the temptations that assailed even Him.

May He grant us the grace to rise from our hardest falls and to go on for love of Him.

Ah, my outraged Jesus, by the merits of the weakness Thou didst suffer in going to Calvary, give me strength sufficient to conquer all human respect, and all my wicked passions, which have led me to despise Thy friendship. I love Thee, Jesus my love, 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.)

VII. Jesus Falls the Second Time

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

It is harder the second time that you fall.  The first time it is easier to get up and go on, thinking that you will not fall again.  The second time you may not be able to bear the thought of the pain that you know will ensue when you fall again and the more you fall the more likely you will begin to think with trepidation about the likelihood of falling again.

Christ's second fall must have caused Him so much pain, shaking His entire body with excruciating agony, crushing Him to the ground.  He must have known that He would fall again in His weakened state.  Yet for love of us He got up again and went on.

We must do the same.  When we confess our sins, we might like to think that we will not fall again, but we know also that we are weak.  Our crosses weigh us down so much that we cannot always stand strong beneath them.  No matter how we struggle onward, we fall again.  In those falls we can find humiliation, but then also we can find humility.  We can separate our image of ourselves from our falls and remember that we are children of God, that we belong to Him and that our sins can never mar His image in us so long as we keep turning back to Him.

My most gentle, Jesus, how many times Thou hast pardoned me, and how many times have I fallen again, and begun again to offend Thee!  Oh, by the merits of this new fall, give me the necessary help to persevere in Thy grace until death.  Grant that in all temptations which assail me I may always commend myself to Thee.  I love Thee, Jesus, my love; 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.)

VI. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

Do you think Veronica knew what she would do when she stepped out of the crowd to come to Christ as He carried the cross, His face disfigured by blood and grime?  Why did she not hide behind the others, expecting someone else to do something if anything could be done?

Perhaps Christ Himself caught her eye.  Perhaps she saw in that look such a longing for her love that she no longer cared what others would think and no longer cared what would happen if she stepped out.  His love has given so many the courage to die as martyrs.  It certainly would have been enough to compel her toward Him, His look answering the longing in her own heart.

When she reached Him, she must have wanted desperately to do something for Him.  She had nothing to give Him, no way to save Him.  Surely she must have felt powerless and hopeless in the face of such suffering.

Yet she did not let her powerlessness stop her.  She took off her own veil to wipe His face.  She did not lament the fact that she could not do more or that she could not remove His suffering, but she contented herself with making her own small act of love by wiping His face.  With her love, she brought Him consolation and at the same time accepted the Providence of God and the sacrifice of Christ her Lord whom she could not yet have fully known.

She expected nothing in return, but He gave her the image of His face impressed upon her veil.  What a great gift for so little!

Is it not so in our own lives as well?  We have nothing to give.  We are like the widow who can only give two pence.  Yet when we give what we do have in all of our weakness we find that God repays us with unfathomable generosity.

How can He love us so much?  And all He asks is that we love Him, thereby opening our hearts to His love...

V. Jesus is Helped by Simon

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

And they forced one Simon a Cyrenian who passed by, coming out of the country...to take up his cross. (Mark 15:21)


Why was Simon of Cyrene chosen to be the one to help Christ when He grew so weak that the soldiers feared He would die before He reached the place of crucifixion?  The man was chosen apparently at random from the crowd.  He did not wish it.  Perhaps he even averted his gaze and tried to hide behind others to escape notice when the soldiers sought a man to help this seeming criminal.

Yet our Lord had chosen him from all eternity.  By His will, Simon came forth from the crowd, forced by the soldiers, to help Him with the weight of the cross and thereby with the weight of all our sins.

So too it is with our own cross.  Although we may hide or avert our eyes, we are forced to bear the weight of suffering whether we recognize in it our Lord's cross or mistake it for a punishment or something to avoid at all costs or to remove at the earliest opportunity.

Did Simon grudge those moments carrying the cross with Christ?  Perhaps He saw in Christ's gaze a look of such gratitude that he felt embarrassed for his reluctance.

If only we could see Christ look at us as we shoulder our burdens and bear our sufferings.  Then it would seem a light yoke indeed to lift our end of the cross and spare Him some pain by our loving gift.  If only we desired more the salvation of souls—if only we desired it more than our own comfort.  If only we loved Him more than we love ourselves.

My most sweet Jesus, I will not refuse the Cross, as the Cyrenian did; I accept it; I embrace it. I accept in particular the death Thou hast destined for me; with all the pains that may accompany it; I unite it to Thy death, I offer it to Thee. Thou hast died for love of me; I will die for love of Thee, and to please Thee. Help me by Thy grace. I love Thee, Jesus my love; 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.)

II. Jesus Takes Up His Cross

(If you missed my introduction to these meditations on the Stations of the Cross you can find it here.)

The Second Station

Jesus Takes Up His Cross

If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. (Matthew 16:24)

Imagine Christ, having been scourged and crowned with thorns, wearied unto death and then they hold out the cross to Him.  Would you rush forward to embrace the cross in such a state?  Would you in any state?

Yet our Lord, with the fire of love burning so intensely within Him, embraced that cross as had never done any criminal before Him.  He chose to take it up.  He did not require the soldiers to force Him to carry it, even in his extreme weakness, even though He had already lost so much blood He could easily have been near to death.

Do you think He thought of you in that moment?  Why did He take up the cross except for love of you so why should He not have thought of you?

Perhaps then by thinking of Him we too can take up our crosses and follow Him.  We can embrace the cross that is so often our own selves with all our flaws and failings.  There are few things more difficult to bear than our own inadequacies.  Perhaps it is no accident that we were created in such a way that we can extend our arms to form a cross.

Yes, you are your own cross.

Be patient with yourself, be willing to suffer, and with that cross that is yourself step out following Him.  Imagine Him turn as He carries His own cross and smile at you in gratitude.  Seeing you follow Him makes His journey that much more bearable.

My most beloved Jesus, I embrace all the tribulations Thou hast destined for me until death. I beseech Thee, by the merits of the pain Thou didst suffer in carrying Thy Cross, to give me the necessary help to carry mine with perfect patience and resignation. I love Thee, Jesus my love; I repent of having offended Thee. Never permit me to separate myself from 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.)

Open the Doors of Your Heart

"Beauty will save the world," said Dostoevsky.  His words may be taken in a general fashion or referring to the Creator Himself.  Either way, he speaks to a deep truth.

Gregory Wolfe supports the power of this statement in his beautiful essay titled "The Wound of Beauty" in which he defends the need for beauty.  He also writes of the power of beauty to strike us to the very depths of our being: "Beauty itself wounds us, pierces our hearts, opens us up."

If beauty wounds, then where shall we find healing?

Ultimately the source of our healing can only be found in the Incarnation.  For there the great rift between God and man is healed by the Creator becoming His own creation.

All of us are called to participate in that great work of healing through incarnating truth in our very selves.  Those of us called to be artists must take that incarnation a step further, revealing the depths of God through various mediums that reflect the core of our very selves.

Yet we artists are no less broken.

Unless we participate in the great work of redemption—the great work of healing—we fail in our vocation.  Our art becomes worthless, a merely shameful display of our talents and self-worth, an excuse for pride and vainglory.  Yet when we allow ourselves to collaborate in Christ's redemptive sacrifice, our handiwork has power beyond what we can imagine.

The question I would propose for you to ponder is this one: how does healing come through art?

I would argue that it comes through much the same way as when Christ healed.  He looked for an open heart—a heart of faith.  When He healed a man who was deaf and dumb, He said: "Ephpheta, which is, 'Be thou opened.'" (Mark 7:34)

It is through being open that we are healed.  Returning again to the theme of the wound of beauty, you can understand how it ties in here: the act of wounding is a means of making an openness.  Whether we allow that wound or whether beauty strikes us without our awareness, opening up our brokenness, we find ourselves in a perfect position to be healed because we have that openness—that vulnerability.  In so doing, we may find ourselves becoming channels of God's grace as well.

Sometimes I think our greatest challenge as artists is to embrace that vulnerability and not to flee from it.  We are often masters of flight.  We disguise our cowardice as perfectionism or scorn or pride or any manner of things.

In the end, when we allow ourselves to be powerless, we experience the freedom of true creation.  That is the paradox.  As Saint Paul said: when we are weak, then we are strong.

That experience of freedom—whether through creative work or through some other means—touches the very depths of our being.  It fills our restless hearts and we want nothing more.  For where we open ourselves to His working, we become one with Him, and He brings healing.

The presence of God hurts.  Beauty wounds.

Yet just as sometimes a bone must be re-broken to set aright or a wound opened to be drained, pain precedes healing—it opens the way.  So God sometimes hurts in order to heal.

All we need to do is open the door of our hearts.  When we have the support of those around us and see their own battle-wounds, we may find the courage to choose the glory of what feels to us like death.

For ultimately the battle for openness lies within the boundaries of our own hearts.  We must go into the desert there and wrestle with ourselves.

A seed must die to bring forth fruit.

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!

Come Holy Spirit!

Joining friends in prayer for the Pentecost vigil stirred up for me so many thoughts and feelings about this pilgrimage that is the spiritual life.  It is amazing to me how powerful and yet how intangible is that interior battle.

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak." - Matthew 26:41

Sometimes it seems incredibly tempting to turn away from the battle and follow the easier path of doing my own will since I seem to keep trying to do that anyway even when I disguise it as trying to surrender to God's will.  I hear that those who choose to follow that path do not have to face temptations.  After all, if they are already doing what the enemy wants, why would he bother with them?

I used to think that once one followed the path of holiness, it would become easier to choose the right.  Yet the opposite seems true: those who choose to face that battle find it grow harder day by day.

As my grandma has reminded me, the closer we go to the light, the deeper are the shadows.

Although the battle grows harder day by day and the shadows deeper, there is no surrender, however dearly-bought, that does not allow the Lord to work.  Opening one's heart in surrender and trying to empty out the desire for anything but Him alone may allow the enemy to attack with all manner of doubts and the heart to rise up in rebellion, but grace remains.

"For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want." - Galatians 5:17

Saint Paul was a man of great wisdom, as is my friend who gave me this scripture verse in answer to my questioning about this interior battle and the heart's rebellion.  I tend to think that any sin—or even resistance to God—spoils the good that I wish to do.  Yet I must realize that is the attitude of pride: it comes from the self who wishes to be perfect and to do great things for its own glory.

The sword of truth cuts deep.  It must, for it must pierce between our illusions and the reality of God.

So long as we form our own ideas of God and what it means to please Him and belong to Him, we rush toward a fearsome precipice.  This is to build our own idols in the place of God.  We may find ourselves creating schemes of grandeur for our service in His sight also that we may find our worth, but our true value lies in belonging to Him alone.

We are already His.  We need to prove nothing to become the children of God.  For He has already purchased us with the price of His blood.  All we need to do is learn to accept that reality and open our hearts to being His in all our apparent weakness and uselessness.

Otherwise, we risk losing our very selves.  In the words of Father Thomas Merton (shared providentially today by another good friend):

"Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self.

"This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy.

"My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love - outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.

"We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves - the ones we are born with and which feed the roots of sin. For most of the people of the world, there is no great subjective reality than this false self of theirs, which cannot exist. A life devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin.

"All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge, and love, to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real. And I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.

"But there is no substance under the things with which I am clothed. I am hollow, and my structure of pleasures and ambitions has no foundation. I am objectified in them. But they are all destined by their very contingency to be destroyed. And when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own nakedness and emptiness and hollowness, to tell me that I am my own mistake."

In that void—when we are emptied of all our illusions—we come to the feet of our Lord and Master.  There we begin to receive true love: the love that counters all the deceits of the enemy and reveals how irreplaceable we are in the eyes of Christ, who longs for our friendship more than we can ever imagine.  When we allow that love to fill us, then our emptiness becomes transformed into something beautiful.

May the Holy Spirit bring us to that emptiness, and to the shores of mercy, by our own consent!

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

The Spirit is Willing but the Body's a Mess

“When I feel better, then I will be able to...”

Have you ever caught yourself saying something like that? Or perhaps you have repeated such phrases countless times without being aware of how foolish it sounds from an eternal perspective.

After all, if you gave a cursory glance across the list of canonized saints you might well believe that all it requires to become a saint is to get tuberculosis and die at a young age. You can bet your buttons none of them were going around planning for all the things they would do once they got better.

Although you may take my comments on the saints and tuberculosis merely as a joke (and I hope they at least make you smile), they contain an important truth as well: the reality of suffering in a life of sanctity. I think I can safely say that all of the saints suffered—some of them more than others certainly. Suffering, after all, is a part of the human condition. It is also a part of becoming holy.

So, as we put one foot in front of the other on the slow path to sanctity that we all follow, we pilgrims toward the Heavenly Jerusalem must learn to transform our perspective. Instead of seeing our pains and suffering as an obstacle to all the good that we might do, we must see them as the forging of our holiness. Pain gives us the opportunity to develop virtues such as patience. It is in suffering that we are tested like silver and have all our impurities burned away.

Yet this clear light of truth that shines upon the reality of suffering breaks apart into shadows and deception when it comes to the mind. It is one thing to endure pain of the body from some physical illness or even emotional pain such as the hurt of being misunderstood or rejected by others or any such suffering where your intellect functions as it was meant to do. However, when the body is such a mess that the mind is seriously affected—call it insanity, mental illness, or what you will—and it is no longer possible to reason acceptance of suffering against the sea of dark and self-condemnatory thoughts, what is one to do? How can any good fruit come of enduring an inability to love oneself or others?

I must maintain that in that dark place God remains. That is all I know.

What mysteries He works within those shadows and labyrinths of deception I cannot fathom, but I must believe that He does. For if He is all good and makes all things work together for good, then His power must be enough to transform these seeming evils into bright gems that one day will reflect the light.

Still, how are we poor mortals struggling along to handle those moments when the body is such a mess that the mind and will no longer strive for good?

It seems callous to say offer it up or that we must abandon ourselves to it as part of God's Providence. Yet what else is there to say? If suffering truly matters and if we are to sacrifice our lives according to the nature of our baptismal priesthood, then why should we shy away when it becomes difficult or even when it seems impossible?

Christ on the road to Calvary fell many times in His weakness. His body must have been the worst mess ever. We can only imagine how that must have affected His mind and will. Yet He got up and went on.

So we also can do even when the body is a mess and the brain feels like a refuse pit. If rising in the morning seems an insurmountable obstacle and it takes ninety-nine attempts before achieving success, or if it requires three hours to draw up the energy necessary to look someone in the face, there is merit there. If prayer becomes impossible and all external acts of charity and virtue cease to exist, God is still working.

Those little things that so many of us take for granted may be someone else's battleground. It is there in that epic tussle with the minutiae of daily life that some of us will achieve that ultimate union with God. Although the dragons may seem to gain the victory with their lies and oppression, their dominion will not last forever: all that is not of God will cease to exist. Then His light will shine fully upon His faithful warriors, revealing all their wounds and scars that tell of countless battles fought for love of Him—battles that may have been lost in order to win the war.

Santa Chiara, prega per noi!

Since I am staying tonight at a convent of Franciscan sisters in the guest apartment in a room named after Saint Clare, it seemed fitting to reflect on some of her words.  These were the ones God provided:

"We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.  If we love things, we become a thing.  If we love nothing, we become nothing.  Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation.  This means we are to become vessels of God's compassionate love for others."

All I can think of tonight is how impossible her words seem—how impossible it seems to ever become a vessel of God's love for others.  For always the time comes when the forces of daily life grind us down and the enemy's subtle whispers drag us into the depths of our own murky pond.  In those moments any good seems impossible.

Exhaustion is bound to come upon us all sooner or later.  Frustration, failure, and regret for the past will have their way also.

Yet despite all these things, we still can become that image of Christ, not by our own power, but by His.  No matter our weakness, no matter our sinfulness, if only we turn to Him in humility, He will raise us up from the dust.