There Is No Condemnation

The idea of needing to earn God's love keeps rousing its ugly head here and there in various ways, revealing an insidious monster that penetrates souls and prevents them from receiving the abundant life Christ promised.  Of course, spoken in such clear fashion, the idea is laughable.  Who could really believe they needed to earn God's love?  If you ask people, likely most if not all would know in their heads the right answer.  Yet, as the prophet Jeremiah put it, "more torturous than all else is the human heart" (17:9).

This false belief that we need to earn God's love appears beneath the visage of everything from scrupulosity and perfectionism to affected piety and hypocrisy.  In each case you can trace back the problem to the root sin of pride.

Diagnosing pride's sinfulness in this case, however, merely returns us to the need to be humble enough to receive God's love and hence back to the beginning of the vicious cycle of needing to earn God's love.  Yet, as Saint Paul said: "There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1).  Also, Jesus Himself says: "Is there no one who condemns you?  Neither do I condemn you" (see John 8:10-11).

Certainly pride exists within our hearts, but let us look beyond this sin to other forces at work in our subconscious minds and hearts.  As Americans, we live in a country founded on a principle often known as the "Protestant work ethic."  That idea essentially amounts to the need to work hard that we might achieve everything by our own efforts (and hence extends easily to spirituality with the idea of needing to earn even God's approval and love).

Furthermore, American ideals arose out of the principles of the Enlightenment whose thinkers essentially eschewed Christianity for Secular Humanism.  Instead of God being responsible for all that was good and the sole arbiter of goodness, mankind took that role for these thinkers who believed in the supremacy of reason and science.  Isn't it ironic that such a perspective would then invade Catholicism itself which Enlightenment thinkers had rejected?  Yet to me it seems it has: we have somehow absorbed this false idea that we of our own power must achieve human perfection.  Yes, that is what it means to believe that we must earn God's love: it means to believe that we are responsible for our own sanctification rather than merely accepting His free gift to us.  Take that to its logical extreme and it means that we believe we do not need God; we essentially make ourselves our own god.

Before you find my perspective too cynical, however, let us look even deeper into the human psyche.  As intelligent beings, we naturally seek the cause for every effect.  Consequently, when some negative emotion assaults our hearts, we immediately want to know the purpose.  If we feel bad, we want to know why.  We want to know whose fault it is.  We are not content to remain ignorant.  Hence we either look outward for a scapegoat, blaming someone or something else, or we look inward, blaming ourselves.

The latter perspective, seen in the light of religious tradition, becomes that much-referenced catholic guilt.  The phrase is suitable because of the meaning of the word catholic: universal: we all feel guilt when we know we have transgressed our moral code.

One common response to that guilt is to lower one's standards to the point at which one can no longer transgress them and thus cannot experience that negative emotion.  For this reason, many believe that we ought to repudiate religion, and specifically Catholicism, because it causes people to feel guilty, which leads to a vicious cycle of psychologically-unhealthy responses to spirituality.  Now I would argue that by that same logic we ought to outlaw food because it causes people to feel cravings, which lead them to overindulge and become gluttonous.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, someone might become so focused on pious practices as to be rigidly bound up in them and demand that all others abide by the same rules.  Everyone else thus must be wrong in order to preserve that fragile shell of security formed by legalism.

As Aristotle so aptly pointed out, the virtue must lie between the two extremes.  What, then, is the answer?

Love.

Perhaps that might seem too simple an answer.  Let me put it another way:

God.

Yes.  God is Love.  Therefore, we can say also that Love is God.

Consequently, if your encounter with the Truth has been anything less than an encounter with Love than you have not truly found God.  Furthermore, I'll wager a guess that if you find within yourself on some level the belief that you must earn God's love that it is because you believe also that you are unlovable.

Do you recognize that lie within yourself?

That is the lie masked by the belief that you must earn God's love along with all its various permutations.  If you believe that you must do something in order to be loved, whether by God or by anyone else, then you believe that you are lovable based upon what you do rather than who you are.

Modern psychology will happily point out to you the importance of your childhood development for the formation of your image of God.  Now before you happily blame your parents so you don't have to feel guilty about having a false idea of God (as you do if you believe you must earn His love), let me point out to you that they could not give you what they themselves had never received.  How could they show you that you were loved unconditionally if they had not themselves believed in and received unconditional love?  In this fallen world few of us have received that love.  Perhaps we flee it because it is too much for us.  Perhaps we flee it because we are afraid.

Fear.

If you look again at those two responses to guilt, you might see fear operating beneath them both.  The same is true for the idea that we must earn God's love: for if we can earn it, then we are in control of it, and it is far more comfortable to think of being in control than of facing the infinite God who is the Unknown who yet stoops down to us that we might know Him.

 "Perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18)

Only God's infinite and unconditional love can cast the fear out from our hearts, but we must let Him, and that letting Him seems to be a life-long process.  It seems to take so much to unravel the knots we tie about ourselves.  Sometimes perhaps it may seem futile and we may wonder why He allows us to tangle ourselves so deeply in the lies of the enemy, but there we are left with the mystery of iniquity, the mystery proclaimed in the Easter Exultet as "O Happy Fault!"  Only a God of infinite love could bring good out of the dark shadow that sin and shame cast over our hearts.

Take courage, then, in whatever darkness you walk and listen to the wisdom of Saint John Paul II whose feast day we celebrate today: "I plead with you — never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged.  Be not afraid."

It takes great courage to open your heart to God and to allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to encounter Him in the depths of your being where He speaks love through His silent presence, imperceptible to your senses.

Will you let yourself be loved?  Sometimes I think that is the most difficult thing in all the world.

Thus I leave you with the resounding words of Saint John Paul II, taken from Christ's own words in Scripture:

"Duc in altum!  Put out into the deep!  Be not afraid."

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.

Why Don't We See More Miracles?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is God's Will?

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

Would you, though?

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

“What does God want me to do?”

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

Take a third look at it:

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

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

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

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

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

I somehow doubt it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What about our passive will, however?

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

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

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

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.

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!

XII. Jesus Dies on the Cross

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

When Nietzsche wrote, "God is dead," doubtless he intended it to be a startling statement, but surely it is far more startling to say that "God has died."  Even more powerful is to say: "God has died the most excruciating death to show you how much He loves you and wants you to live with Him forever, freed from the pain and suffering you inflict upon yourself by your sins."

Death cleaves soul from body, but also destroys all earthly hopes for glory and power.  In the light of death none of these paltry things to which we cling so strongly mean more than the dust that covers the earth.

Our Beloved Savior knew better than we what truly matters.  He knew that in the end all that remains is love.

It was love that carried Him through the torturous journey that brought Him to the place of execution.  It was love that filled His heart with every breath He took—every painful breath to draw in voice to speak His last words of love upon His enemies and those close to Him alike.

O my dying Jesus, I kiss devoutly the Cross on which Thou didst die for love of me. I have merited by my sins to die a miserable death; but Thy death is my hope. Ah, by the merits of Thy death, give me grace to die, embracing Thy feet, and burning with love for Thee. I yield my soul into Thy hands. I love Thee with my whole heart; 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.)

And every word He spoke while He hung upon that cross carries such a weight of love:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what we do."  For we never know what we do: we never know how deeply we offend Him not just by our sinning, but by failing to turn to Him with the loving tenderness in each moment that He deserves for His goodness to us.

"Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."  All it took to gain Saint Dismas this promise was one act of love.  How overwhelmingly our Lord responds to any act made for love of Him!

"Woman, behold your son.  Son, behold your mother."  He wanted even to share His Mother with us, to share her pure and loving heart with us, knowing that she would intercede for us with all the power of her being.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?"  Crying out in union with our torment, He shows us that He too knows the depths of despair that sometimes threatens our hearts' peace.

"I thirst."   How greatly He thirsts for our love!

"It is finished."  When He had reached the end of His strength, He knew that His sacrifice was complete, ready as if a gift to be wrapped and handed to those He loves.

"Into Thy hands, I commend My spirit."  In the end He gave Himself back into the hands of His Father whose Providence had guided each moment of His earthly life and which directs also each moment of ours.

Three hours of agony it cost Him before He had expended all the strength of His mortal body in an outpouring of love.  Even then He had more to give: when the soldiers pierced His side, blood and water flowed forth like an ocean of mercy for the whole world, preparing the way for the most beautiful prayer given to Saint Faustina and known as the Divine Mercy chaplet and which begins thus:

You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.

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...

Mirror of the Soul

Sometimes it is far too easy to question the purpose of being an artist.  Why put hours upon hours upon hours into creating some flawed piece of writing or theatre when there are so many people starving to death across the world?  Why should I expect spending years of my life on a novel about pirates to be worth anything if I could have spent that time helping the poverty-stricken?  Why would people come to see a play I've written and produced when those in other countries are dying from martyrdom or disease?

Blessed Albert Chmielowski struggled mightily with a similar question.  He ultimately decided in favor of poverty, living with the poor in order to show them that they were loved.

Karol Wojtyla found inspiration in Blessed Albert's decision for his own journey from the arts to the priesthood and even enshrined the memory of that holy brother in a beautiful play titled Our God's Brother.  His decision led him down the path to become the much-loved Pope John Paul II.

With such mighty giants striding before, is there not great precedent for abandoning the arts for a greater call?

Yet the Church has ever encouraged the arts throughout the centuries.  If there is reason for the Church's support of art then it must be more than mere frivolity.  It must have an essential purpose—a teleological reason for existing.

It may seem odd to turn to a man who proclaimed himself an atheist for many years and whose later belief in God—if belief it was—seemed a peculiar cross between his Protestant upbringing and a study of Eastern religions, but truth is often found in strange places.  One may see the light and speak the truth without yet knowing it fully.  Without further ado, a quote from the well-known playwright:

"You use a glass mirror to see your face;

you use works of art to see your soul."

~George Bernard Shaw

There Shaw succinctly describes the reason we need art.  If we are to come to know ourselves in order that we may come to know God—the very reason for our existence—we must find somewhere a mirror to reflect back to us our very souls.  For there is found the image of God.

The artist then must delve deep, deep, deep into the darkest depths of the human heart.  If he would produce that glass that tells no lies, then he must fear nothing as he searches out the wounds of his own heart, sweeping out all the pains and evils into the light of day, hiding nothing in his creative effort.  No coward would face the discomfort of unveiling the reality hidden there.  Only a brave soul can stand face to face with the Truth.

The Way to the Heart

Today I find myself with few words, but I found a reflection I had recorded from a book I ran across somewhere by Henri Nouwen.  It offers a beautiful perspective on the little things of life that are so important even when they seem so trivial:

Small signs of friendliness can create much joy, and small disturbances between people much sadness, while the "great events" of the day often do not touch us so deeply.  An unexpected note from a friend or the passing remark from a neighbor can make or break my day emotionally, while inflation and recession, war and oppression do not touch my emotions directly.  A distant catastrophe has less effect than a nearby mishap, and an interpersonal tiff raises more hackles than a world-wide calamity....

But how little do we use this knowledge?  What is easier than writing a thank-you note, than sending a card "just to say hello," or to give a call "just to see how things have been."  But how seldom do I do this?  Still, I realize that every time someone says, "I liked your talk" or "I appreciated your remark" or "Your note really helped" or "You really seem to feel at home here"--I feel my inner life being lifted up and the day seems brighter, the grass greener, and the snow whiter than before.  Indeed, the great mystery is that a small, often quite immaterial gesture can change my heart so much.  The way to the heart always seems to be a quiet, gentle way.

-Mornings with Henri J.M. Nouwen: Readings and Reflections

Never Give Up!

"The greater the struggle,
the more glorious the triumph!"

-Mr. Mendez

Have you ever felt like giving up?  No matter what your struggle, no matter what your pain, I hope these words will inspire you to rise above the petty circumstances of your daily monotony or the anguish that weighs you down.  I pray that you will learn to soar like a butterfly above all that wearies you.

Of course doubts and difficulties will never cease to trouble you entirely, but neither need they prevent you from being the shining light you were made to be.  Light a candle in this dark world!

If you do not recognize the above quotation from Mr. Mendez, then you must see the short film, Butterfly Circus.  One of the most inspiring and encouraging pieces of art I have ever encountered, it speaks powerfully against the lies of the enemy that seek to bring us down and make us hide our light under the proverbial bushel basket.

Let it speak to your heart also....

Your Pain for the World

"I feel very powerless.  I want to do something.  I have to do something.... I have to act in any way possible to alleviate the pain I see.  But there is an even harder task: to carry my own cross, the cross of loneliness and isolation, the cross of the rejections I experience, the cross of my depression and inner anguish.  As long as I agonize over the pain of others far away but cannot carry the pain that is uniquely mine, I may become an activist, even a defender of humanity, but not a follower of Jesus.  Somehow my bond with those who suffer oppression is made real through my willingness to suffer my loneliness.  It is a burden I try to avoid, sometimes, by worrying about others.  But Jesus says: "Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28).  I might think that there is an unbridgeable gap between myself and the Guatemalan wood carrier.  But Jesus carried his cross for both of us.  We belong together.  We must each take up our own cross and follow him, and so discover that we are truly brothers who learn from him who is humble and gentle of heart."

These words of Henri Nouwen, set under the heading "Willing to Suffer My Loneliness," which I copied down months ago, speak so powerfully to how I feel now as I think of the world around me.  There are the incomprehensible sufferings of all those losing homes and loved ones in natural disasters and genocides.  There are friends close to my heart struggling with loneliness and broken relationships.  So much pain.  So much heartache.

Then there is the pain in my own heart.  No matter how beautifully things fall into place, no matter how many meaningful conversations I have, no matter how much I accomplish, still it is there: the pain of separation.

For we are made for more than this.  In the words of Chesterton's Poet in The Surprise: "This is good, but something is better."

That longing for something better—that longing for union—pulls at our hearts.  Often we experience it as a deep chasm of loneliness.  We try in so many ways to fill that chasm.  We even go so far as to disguise our need to assuage our loneliness as love for others.  Yet God knows our hearts.  He knows—as do we, when we are honest with ourselves—whether we reach out to make ourselves feel better or to bring love—to bring Christ—to others.

Sometimes there is nothing we can do.  That is when the pain is greatest.

In those moments, perhaps then it is enough simply to embrace the cross that is so much ourselves and our own loneliness, our own powerlessness.  There in the bearing of that cross we can do more for the world than  could any humanitarian aid group or charitable organization, for we can unite our sufferings with Christ's passion.

As we are taught in math: what is greater than infinity?  Nothing.

God Himself is infinite.  If we unite ourselves with Him, then we are greater than anything we could sum up of our own selves.

Whatever it is then that you must suffer today, may you have the strength to bear it as your own particular cross.  For in the carrying of that cross, you can come to a mystical union with Christ and with His body, the Church spread throughout the world....

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.

The Liturgy: Boredom or Wellspring?

Sometimes the liturgy can seem boring or empty.  Maybe the music is dreadful, the people about us talking, the church architecture modern and ugly and meaningless, the words repetitive, or our minds merely distracted.

In response, many have tried to update it—to make it more exciting.  They shortened it, demanded our verbal participation, and cut out repetition.  Now they add drums and rock music.  Sometimes they diverge from the rubrics laid down for the liturgy, trying to make it more relaxed and inclusive, trying to make it more welcoming.

Yet do they succeed?

I think of theatre.  My professor often repeated this phrase: "If something is boring, slow it down."  It seems counter-intuitive, as he explained, but actually something is not necessarily boring because it is too slow.  It might be boring because it was shabbily done or because the important moments were skipped over.  Good acting requires slowing down in rehearsal to go back over each moment's transition and each moment's experience of crisis or choice.  The performance then will contain those crucial details even at a regular pace.  The audience may not catch each moment, but will certainly judge the performance by it, even though only at a subconscious level.

Theatre springs in some fashion from liturgy, so why should liturgy be any different?

If the priest leads us in the worship of God, taking into his hands God Himself, then how could it possibly be boring?  If we recognize that we are in the presence of God and we worship Him in each moment of our presence at the Mass, how could we be bored?  Is it because we have rushed over each moment of importance?

Before I leave you only with these questions to ponder, I would like to add one more thing: a beautiful paragraph on the living water that is the liturgy:

"The coming of the Word of life into our flesh and into the very abyss of our death alone deserves to be called an event, because due to it all the walls of death have collapsed, and life has sprung up in their place. The hour in which the Word with a loud cry handed over his Breath of love so that men might live is no longer in the past; it is, it abides, it lives on through history and sustains it. This unprecedented power that the river of life exercises in the humanity of the risen Christ - that is the liturgy! In it all the promises of the Father find their fulfillment. Since that moment the communion of the Blessed Trinity has ceaselessly been spreading throughout our world and flooding our time with its fullness. In the living Christ who 'is not here' but is risen and who fills all things and holds the keys of death, the heart of God and the heart of man are as it were the two heartbeats of the heart of history. There the wellspring flows." ~Father Jean Corbon, The Wellspring of Worship

Is Jesus Following You?

There is an image of Christ that has been drawing my attention in various ways as I travel about.  One painting in particular—the one above—started the trend.

Since then, I have seen that painting and at least two others with a similar presentation.  In all of them, Jesus is holding out His heart and staring right at me, offering His heart with no conditions save that of acceptance.

In one of the images, He extends His hand, as if to say: "Here is My heart.  Will you give Me yours?"

On this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, that is exactly what He is asking us, just as He does every day of our lives.  He longs so much for our love that He has given Himself to the last drop.  Now He asks the same of us.

Will you give Him your heart?

Reaching Out

So often fear binds us in our interactions with others. We find ways to shield ourselves: alcohol or virtual communications or certain attitudes and ways of presenting ourselves to the world that hide our true selves.

Of what are we so afraid?

We are afraid of rejection certainly. We are afraid of misunderstandings. Yet perhaps we are even more afraid of vulnerability.

What if we are more afraid that others will see us for who we really are instead of seeing the facade we present to the world? Do we fear more that they shall see the face behind the mask and the heart aching for love when we want to pretend that we are indomitable?

There is fear too of forcing others to respond out of politeness. Do we dare reach out to another who may feel himself bound to answer even when he does not wish to? If we make the initial effort, we never know if the other cares to deepen our relationship. So sometimes we wait, hoping that the other will make the first move. Yet what if we then wait forever?

Deep down we are all afraid. It is not fear that matters, but our response to it.

Day by day we form ourselves as cowards or as great warriors. It is not fear that distinguishes the two; it is action. The cowardly soul denies himself the will to act because of his fear while the courageous soul steps into the breach in the face of fear.

Verso l'alto!

'Til Death Do Us Part

“Because our expression is imperfect
we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.”
~G.K. Chesterton (Illustrated London News, June 6, 1931)

Friendship remains one of the deepest longings of our hearts.  Shallow permutations thereof seem to arise more and more with the rapid advances of virtual technology, but none of these can satisfy that deep longing.

In this virtual world, I find myself pondering my old-fashioned views of friendship.  Those views I might summarize in one simple expression: 'Til death do us part.  Although that phrase comes directly from the marriage vow, it can reflect a similar truth for platonic friendships.  Those of us with an absolute sense of loyalty believe that once we give our hearts in friendship, it truly is until death.

I think of a homily I heard a while back where the priest spoke about this very idea of friendship, expressing so beautifully my own perspective on it.  In that context, he mentioned the three musketeers and their motto: All for one and one for all.  How beautiful a description of faithful friendship that is, not to mention the delightful imagery of swords drawn in defense of one another....

The priest also spoke of another phrase I had never heard before: Friends to the altar of God.  One might take this in several ways.  For instance, it might describe the division that arises from differing beliefs, as it does seem nearly impossible to be close friends with one whose heart does not adore at the same altar.  That is a sad and painful reality that we may have to face.  Yet even if we cannot be true heart-friends because of differing beliefs, it does not mean that we cannot still accompany one another in friendship through our lives; nor does it mean that we should allow our differences to drive us apart, as our nation becomes more and more divided on this score.

The other way to look at that phrase would be to consider it in light of the purpose of friendship: to lead our friends to the altar of God.  Just as the Greek word for "until" implies nothing about what happens afterward, so too it does not mean that our friendship ceases at the altar of God.

Indeed, there we find true friendship.  For where we will one another's good we become truer friends through the power of grace.

There also we find a God who has stepped down to earth because He longs so much to be our friend.  There we find the One who never ceases to give Himself in love, whose loyalty surpasses even my own ideals, whose desire transcends all that I can imagine.  Each moment He waits for us to come to Him, to speak to Him in deepest confidence, and to open our hearts to a love He can scarcely contain.

"Greater love than this no man hath,
that a man lay down his life for his friends." 
~John 15:13

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....

O Glorious Day of the Lord's Resurrection!

A blessed Easter to you and yours!

On this glorious day, I would like to share with you two things.  First, a beautiful Easter hymn of which so few people are aware and that I know thanks to my Anglican heritage.  The hymn is called "Hail Thee Festival Day."  It is difficult to find a good version where you can hear the words and the glory and power of the organ music, but here is one of decent quality so that at least you may become familiar with it:

The second thing I would like to share with you is one last meditation from the aforementioned character:

Dawn springs at last for the empty heart, setting free those bound in slavery to themselves and their own sins chaining them in misery. Only one who has tread the paths of self-servitude can understand what it means to be gripped suddenly by the light, to be pierced to the heart with truth and to dance with joy in the new day.

In that morning, the soul leaps up to the Lord to praise Him with song and all darkness has been banished. For the Lord has called each by name and now they have heard His voice. Each soul listens in the radiant glow of freedom and knows that he belongs to the Lord, that he is a wondrous work of creation, and that the Lord thirsts for his love.

Fear may strike the heart that first hears the sweet voice of love in his heart. Those bound in sin and servitude and accustomed only to the voices that drag them deeper in their misery do not know how to respond to such love. The light of freedom seems as darkness to them and they prefer to cling to their own misery rather than step forth on a path that leads to the heavens, on a road that stretches beyond their knowledge and understanding.

Yet somehow grace is at work, converting everywhere resistant hearts bent on their own destruction. Those most opposed to the light find themselves suddenly wrapped in it, reveling in a freedom and joy they never knew existed, tasting what one day will belong to them forever.

Somehow, too, each soul becomes mystically one with the Risen Lord, receiving Him in the most holy Sacrament. Lifted high above all creation, they themselves shine with the same light.

Blessed be the Lord who rose in glory that He might draw all men to Himself!

Blessed be the Lord who lifts the darkness and sets the sinner free!

Blessed be the Lord who has called me to be His poor unworthy servant!

Holy Saturday

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

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

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

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

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