To a Soul Steeped in Shame

Dear Soul,

Is there some weight upon you?  Are you ashamed of something from your past that keeps resurfacing to drag you down into the depths of hopelessness?  Or perhaps something about who you are causes you shame?

Shame is a heavy burden to carry.  You are not meant to carry it.

Think of the woman condemned for adultery.  Jesus bent down and wrote in the dust—tradition says He wrote the sins of those who wished to stone her—and told her accusers that the one without sin should cast the first stone.  Each knew the burden of his own sin and departed, leaving her alone with Jesus.  He rose and looked at her with love, saying to her: "Neither do I condemn you." (John 8:11)

Jesus says the same thing to you today.

Saint Paul reiterates that point in his letter to the Romans: "There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

Who is it then who condemns you?

Another name for Satan is the accuser.  What your enemy wants is that you focus on yourself and your sin rather than looking to Christ and His mercy.  Every sin is the same old story: it begins with temptation, a draw toward the pleasure and immediate gratification, but as soon as you have given in, the devil turns on you, asking how you could possibly have been so stupid as to fall into that sin.  Frankly, he hates you and wants your destruction.  It is so easy to believe those lies of condemnation.

Think of the story of the man who had been lying near the pool of Bethsaida.  For thirty-eight years he had lain there, paralyzed, hoping someone would carry him to the pool when it was stirred up that he might be healed.

When Jesus comes to the man, He asks: "Do you want to be healed?"

Why does He ask that?  It seems obvious that a paralytic man lying near a pool of healing wants to be healed.  He has spent thirty-eight years of his life lying there hoping for that very thing.

Or has he?

It is easy to want healing, but not be willing to pay the price.  That paralytic said he had no one to carry him down to the water.  Could he have asked a complete stranger?  Was it only his pride that kept him from receiving what he needed?  Scripture does not tell us, but the question of Jesus makes me wonder.

All the paralytic does in response to that question is to make excuses.  Yet Jesus merely tells him to pick up his mat and walk. (John 5)

Similarly, He tells us: "Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me." (Luke 9:23)

Sometimes—more often than not I would say—that cross is ourselves with our sins and flaws and imperfections.  We desire so much to be good—to be perfect.  We want to make ourselves holy, as if we could achieve heaven by our own effort.

Stated in such explicit fashion that idea is clearly folly.  Yet it hides within us beneath layers of lies woven by our clever enemy, especially the lie that says our mistakes have ruined the plan God had for us.

Do you truly believe you are that powerful?  Could you, a mere mortal, possibly interfere with the plan of an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God who is Being Itself?

I sincerely doubt it.

If you have ever believed that your life is ruined because of any action or sin of yours, you may have fallen for that subtle lie of believing in a weak and powerless god who is certainly not the God who came down from heaven and died on the Cross to set you free.  When you choose to believe in His sacrifice for you—when you accept Him as your Savior—that truth will set you free. (John 8:32)

Often something stops us from truly believing and accepting that truth, however.  Often that obstacle is our own pride, disguised perhaps from our own eyes.

For many years, my idea of holiness was of being perfect.  Reading about saints who were perfect from a young age (at least according to their biographers, for they would never have described themselves thus) further cemented an idea forged in my own inner vicious cycle of believing that I had to be perfect to be loved.  In terms of relationship with God that would mean that my relationship with Him would depend upon what I did--i.e. what I call NeoPelagianism, or the idea that I could earn my way to heaven without grace.  Clearly untrue.

My intellect absolutely knows its falsity.  To convince my heart of that fact, however, is an entirely different matter.  Is it the same for you?

Consider the following phrase: "There is nothing you can do that will ever make God love you any less or any more."

Do you believe that?

It is true in a more profound way than you will ever know in this life.  It speaks to the mystery of God's overwhelming love for you.  Yes, His love for you, not merely for the you-that-does-the-good-things or the you-that-you-wish-you-were or even the you-that-you-will-be-someday-if-you-can-ever-get-your-life-together.  He loves you just as you are.

He loves your brokenness even.  Can you love it?

Whatever you have done, whatever you regret, He has allowed.

Think about that for a moment.

It can be a hard truth to accept.  It is far easier to embrace the active part of God's will: the part that wills good things and works miracles and brings healing.  It is far harder to embrace the passive part of His will: the part that allowed the Crucifixion and that permits all the sin and suffering in the world and in your own life.

Believing in the Crucifixion necessitates believing in the Resurrection.  So too does belief in the sin and suffering in your life demand belief in Divine Providence.

God allowed the Crucifixion to conquer sin and death that we might share in His divinity and one day see Him face to face in the glory of Heaven.  Saint Paul says that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)  The greatest evil possible—that men should kill God—leads to an unimaginable good.

If He can do that, He can surely bring great goods out of your situation, whatever it may be, beyond your imagination.  Trust means choosing to believe that truth.

Surrender to God and accepting His will often requires us most to embrace our own selves with all of our flaws and mistakes and sins.  Can these separate us from the love of God?  Only if they lead us to pride and self-sufficiency—to a rejection of God.  If they lead us instead to repentance and we cry out for God's mercy, we become more able to love.

Do you remember what Christ said about the woman who anointed His feet and wept over them and whom the Pharisees condemned?  He said that she loved much because she had been forgiven much and that if she had been forgiven less--—i.e. if she had sinned less—she would have loved less.

Have you ever considered that your sins might be the price for being able to love?

"O happy fault!  O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" we pray in the Exultet at the Easter Vigil Liturgy.  Those words speak of the fruit that came from God's response to original sin: Christ becoming Man to be our Savior.

What if each of us could take those words to heart after we have been reconciled to the Lord?  "O happy fault that has led me to the foot of the Cross!  O necessary sin that has purified my heart of self-love, washed away my pride, and opened my heart to the mercy of so great a Redeemer whose love is poured out into my heart?"

I pray that you are able to believe these words.  I pray that they can be the foundation of a new understanding of who you are in the sight of the Lord.

This truth shall indeed set you free.  Then the path that you are on will bear fruit, for your vocation is love.  And what is love except what Christ has shown us in letting Himself be nailed to the Cross and giving Himself breath by breath to bring us to life?

Whatever path you have left behind no longer matters.  Your loving Father calls you to respond to the new and changing reality before you.  His love meets you not on the roads you have not taken, but on the one you walk.  It is there He is doing something new.  The Lord says to you now, as He said through the prophet Isaiah:

"Remember not former things, and look not on things of old. Behold I do new things, and now they shall spring forth, verily you shall know them: I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, to my chosen." (Isaiah 43:18-20)

You are His chosen one.  Out of all the pain—out of all the darkness—He shall bring you to life again.

Be not afraid!

You have His promise:

"Behold I am with you all days,
even to the consummation of the world."

(Matthew 28:20) 

and

"Behold I make all things new." 

(Revelation 21:5)

Our Lady too is with you on your journey.  As you give to the Lord your fiat, receiving Him in His miraculous fullness given to you in every moment, she is interceding for you, obtaining for you all the grace that you need to hope in the Lord and in His promises.

Love and prayers,

+Jac

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 Looking for Healing?

There are so many ways we need healing.  Our bodies are a mess, our minds are in chaos, our souls are in tumult.  As Saint Paul put it: "For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do." (Romans 7:15)

So we look for healing.  We go to doctors, try to fix ourselves by eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones, and by taking a cornucopia of vitamins and medications and whatnot.  We go to therapy and psychologists and read self-help books and obsess over wounds from our past and ways we have been victimized.  We may even go to every retreat and healing prayer service and beg God to heal us.  When none of these paths work, it is easy to grow discouraged.

Now I would never denigrate the necessary taking care of oneself body, mind, and soul.  I would never deny the goods offered in the practice of medicine, psychology, and healing prayer.

Yet sometimes we need to look deeper.  Sometimes we need to question our motives.

I am reminded again and again how the devil's tactics turn us back towards ourselves.  The devil wants us to look at what we are doing, whether it is our virtues or our sins, and not at what God is doing.

Healing can become as much a part of those battle tactics as anything else.  We can get so focused on trying to achieve healing that we forget the purpose of it all.  After all, we are called to know, love, and serve God in this life and to be happy with Him in the next.  How important is it that we receive the healing we desire in order to be able to do that?  We can certainly fulfill this vocation to the fullness of our capacity regardless of how much healing we receive.

Now you can argue that it would be easier to love and serve God if you were healed.  However, if it were easier, would you grow as great in virtue?  Also, if healing increases your capacity to love and serve Him, then there is the old truth: the greater the capacity, the greater the responsibility.  Do you really want that much responsibility?

You can also argue that your lack of healing causes you to act in unhelpful patterns or even to sin.  Now clearly I would not argue that these are goods, but what if God allows these evils that you see in order to prevent you from giving into worse sins?

Certainly God wants you to be healed.  He wants it more than you do yourself, for He loves you more than you love yourself.

Therefore, if He has not yet healed you, there must be a reason—perhaps many reasons.  Or perhaps He simply is healing you, but not in the way that you expect.

Or perhaps your focus on healing may even be part of what is preventing Him from healing you.

So today I want to propose to you a question to ponder, a question that I hope you may allow to shake you to your core: what if you stopped looking for healing and looked for Christ instead?

"Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

What if you forgot about trying to heal yourself and sought Christ instead?

It is a radical question not because it means throwing health practices out of the window, but rather because it means shifting your mind, referred to in the Greek as metanoia, or in English as conversion.  You could abandon every doctor and medication and healthy practice in your life and still be looking for healing and not for Christ.  Or you could carry on with each good duty to care for yourself body, mind, and soul and there look for the presence of Christ, who is with you.  That would be a true transformation—a true conversion.

So again I ask you: what might happen if you turned your mind from seeking healing to seeking Christ?

"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)

Superheroes and the Spiritual Life

When the thoughts gyrating in my mind ran up against the experience of watching The Avengers yesterday, I found myself with a new frame of reference.  Now I don't usually watch superhero movies, partly because I dislike people doing stupid things and cities being destroyed and so on.  However, the mere fact that it was a Joss Whedon script was enough to draw me in with delightful quips such as Captain's America's comment: "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

So, as I mentioned, I can't stand people not doing the right thing and preventing destruction and that is basically the entire premise of any movie where enemies from outer space or elsewhere come with invading armies.  As a melancholic evaluating the situation, it is easy to ask how they could make such critical mistakes.

It is the same in our own lives.  Why do we choose to believe the lies of the enemy instead of believing in the love of God?  Why do we believe we are unlovable, unworthy, that we are destined to fail, that we don't belong, that we have to be the best at everything in order to be okay with who we are, that we must prove our worth even in the sight of God, and so on?  Why do we choose to believe things that make us miserable instead of accepting the glorious good news that we are children of the Most High God who has conquered death so that we can live in freedom?

Somehow the lies seem easier to believe.

Maybe we will never know exactly why that is.  However, we can look at it from the analogical perspective provided by The Avengers and indeed by any other story that we love.

We can say with this particular example that they ought to have destroyed the tesseract at the very beginning.  We can even say that they should have figured out a way to close the portal before so many of the bizarre alien creatures came down.  But why didn't they?  Dramatically speaking, it wouldn't have been as powerful.  If they had destroyed the tesseract at the beginning, there would have been no movie.  If they had shut the portal sooner, the potential devastation would have been much less, which means our relief when the good guys finally win would have been substantially less. Ultimately, it manipulates our emotions: the darker it gets and the more hopeless it seems, the more we appreciate the inevitable victory.

Perhaps there is a similar reason for the story of our own lives.  If we had everything handed to us on the proverbial silver platter and never had to work hard for faith or virtue, having the truth wouldn't mean much to us.  If we never had to struggle, how would we appreciate the victory?  If we never had to be saved from our own stupidity and sinfulness and shame, why would we care that we have a Savior?

The superheroes struggled because Loki was smarter than they and continually outwitted them, laughing when they fell into his traps.  The devil attacks us in much the same way.  Before we know it, we are trapped in a myriad of lies that make no sense when brought into the bright light of day.

Often we never know how dark it is until we quite blaming ourselves and surrender to God's working in our hearts.  We want it to be our fault, or we want to blame some person or situation for the evil in our lives, because then we know the problem and we can control it and what we can control we can change our way.  Yet that is only a shade of the Pelagian lie—the lie as old as Satan—that we can save ourselves.

We can't.

Only God can save us and He will as often as we turn to Him. He promises to save us from our sins and He is faithful. He waits for the climactic moment—the moment when we can no longer do anything on our own and choose to turn to Him—and then He acts beyond our wildest dreams. And all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed.

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.

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.)

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.

Eight Years Ago Today

It is rather surreal to think that eight years have passed since that feast of Saint Francis when I set out with only one comrade upon a pilgrimage of about two months and three hundred miles.  I marvel at the faith and daring I had then.  I wonder if I would still have that much courage and trust were I to feel the call pull at my heart now.

Many thoughts and feelings still surface as I reflect upon that time.  I am sure it was a time of much grace, but it was also full of so much difficulty and darkness—full of the cross.

For a long time afterward I found it painful to think of the pilgrimage despite the moments of beauty.  Yet time and grace have healed the wounds of things not turning out as I expected and the suffering caused by less-than-pure intentions, bringing me face to face with the mercy and providence of God.

Many times I wondered whether I had chosen wrongly.  It is so easy to think of our efforts being soiled by our pride, selfishness, vainglory, or other sins, and to therefore turn away from action.  That is true especially for those of us inclined toward perfectionism.  We see that we have acted for ourselves and not for God alone and consequently begin to imagine that we can never do anything good or that all our efforts are in vain, but there the enemy trips us up in the age-old lie of pride disguised so falsely as humility.

Peace comes when we unmask that lie.  We can rest serene in the arms of Providence when we know that we are not in control—that He is God and we are not.

We try to love in order to receive the results we desire or to help people to make ourselves feel better.  We try to witness to our faith or support some political agenda in order to strengthen our self-esteem.  So many things we do right for the wrong reasons. Yet whatever our flaws, whatever our sins, He is stronger.

If God can bring good out of something so horrible as the crucifixion, why should we doubt His power to bring good out of our good actions done with flawed intentions?  He does all the time.  We only have to surrender yet again, falling humbly on our knees before Him and letting Him work.

So I try to do now as I continue forward, step by step, day by day, going on into eternity, carrying the burden of my cross forged of my own sins.

I do not remember only the darkness or only the sinfulness.  I remember also the joys, the trust, the abandonment to Divine Providence.  I remember how He provided for us all along the way, often with overwhelming and delightful surprises.

Much has changed since then and much remains the same.  So it ever seems to be.

On pilgrimage 2009

On pilgrimage 2017

I am on a different pilgrimage now.  It is interior more than external, but it is a pilgrimage all the same.  With each passing day, I feel the power and weight of that immense decision made that day that feels so long ago.  I continue on buoyed by faith as I carry you and your intentions in my heart....

Faith is Easy When You Don't Need It

FAITH IS EASY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT

I passed this sign as I biked to Mass this morning.  It seemed particularly relevant in light of my recent experience.  Also its message is uncomfortably true.

When we see the winding paths of our lives wending into a straight course toward the heavens, we do not need faith, for we can see and recognize that God is at work.  We need faith in the darkness when we seem to have lost the path.

Yet sometimes in that darkness faith does not seem enough.  We can have faith certainly—indeed we must have faith—but we must also know how to act.

For example, I recently held auditions for a play to be performed in honor of the feastday of Saint Philomena.  I had been praying that Saint Philomena would bring the actors necessary and trusting that if she wanted it to happen she would indeed bring them.  So as I prepared to audition the fifteen or so people I needed along with my stage manager and designer there to support me, I found my expected cast reduced in the face of only one auditionee.

How would faith have me respond?  It seemed entirely unreasonable to have faith that the rest of the cast would miraculously appear.  Why would God make happen in extraordinary ways what He had chosen not to bring to fruition in the ordinary offered way?

Yet would faith have me turn back?  Certainly faith must be tested and tried and not give up when it meets the very first obstacle, no matter how great an obstacle it may seem.

Often through our lives we face this dilemma: faith gives no answer.  God's will seems muddied beneath our own efforts and desires.  We do not know whether to go on or to turn back.  Is it a roadblock that means we should take the detour or is it only a decoy put there by the enemy to make us lose hope?

So we stumble on in faith as best we can, step by step....

Filling the Void

It is amazing how many thousands of things we can use to fill the void.  What good is it to give up one if you replace it with any number of these?  It seems it would be better to give up everything.

I suppose this is why our Lord withdrew into the desert, fasting for forty days.  There was nothing there to fill the void and yet how could He have felt the void, for surely that is the result of man disunited from God?  Yet He suffered as we, so He must in some way have experienced it.  Elsewise the temptations of the devil would not have been in the least tempting to Him.  Clearly He would never have given in to them, but He must have found them alluring at least in His humanity.

The allurement of earthly pleasures is what draws us to them and keeps drawing us to them, even when ultimately we find them unsatisfying.  No matter how many times we indulge, we always want more.

Taking forty days to let go of one of those ways of indulging might mean only that we replace it with another.  Yet if we are able to replace that pleasure instead with prayer or good works, we may find a new habit that deepens into joy through the struggle.  That sacrificial practice forges our souls, forming us into a new creation, and allowing God to work within us.

Then too we take one small step nearer to the God who is already so near to us.

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.

When the Going Gets Tough

...the tough get going.

So goes the expression.  Perhaps it is a particularly fitting one as we enter this second week of Lent.

Discipline has always come easily to me—not always to the extent that I wish of course, but certainly far exceeding that of most people.  Thus it has always been easy for me to enter into the sacrifice of Lent, which seems of necessity to require the giving up of something; somehow I take that sacrificial aspect for granted as part of the season rather than it being a main focus.

Because of my self-discipline I often find it difficult to relate to those who fail at what they are giving up.  Intellectually of course I can relate, but not so much experientially.  If I say I will do something, I jolly well will do it.

Consequently, I have found myself able to enter into Lent with a spirit of joy.  Certainly there is an element of sorrow in meditating upon our Lord's passion, but how much more joy there is in recognizing His great love for us and in giving up some little things to become united with Him.  It is joyful not on account of the sacrifice, though, but rather on account of the freedom.  For I always find that when I am able to give up some little things I become more free and less weighted down by the chains of things I must have to be happy.  Because I can see so clearly the freedom it brings, the enemy does not even try to tempt me.

Already this Lent, however, I have come to a point of greater temptation.  The enemy likes to catch us when we are weak, waiting until sickness and our own efforts have brought us to a place of confusion and darkness.  Then he strikes.  For he knows that in the clear light and joy shining from the heavens he will have no chance.  It is only in failing strength that he has hope of victory.

Yet our victory is in the name of the Lord.  By His strength, we shall remain firm in our resolutions to live wholly for Him this Lent.  Pray for me in that, as I pray for you.

Deceit of Pride

THOMAS
But what is there to do? What is left to be done?
Is there no enduring crown to be won?

TEMPTER
Yes, Thomas, yes; you have thought of that too.
What can compare with glory of Saints
Dwelling forever in presence of God?
What earthly glory, of king or emperor,
What earthly pride, that is not poverty
Compared with richness of heavenly grandeur?
Seek the way of martyrdom, make yourself the lowest
On earth, to be high in heaven.
And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed,
Your persecutors, in timeless torment,
Parched passion, beyond expiation.

THOMAS
No!
Who are you, tempting with my own desires?
Others have come, temporal tempters,
With pleasure and power at palpable price.
What do you offer?  What do you ask?

TEMPTER
I offer what you desire.  I ask
What you have to give.  Is it too much
For such a vision of eternal grandeur?

THOMAS
Others offered real goods, worthless
But real.  You only offer
Dreams to damnation.

TEMPTER
You have often dreamt them.

THOMAS
Is there no way, in my soul's sickness,
Does not lead to damnation in pride?
I well know that these temptations
Mean present vanity and future torment.
Can sinful pride be driven out
Only by more sinful?  Can I neither act nor suffer
Without perdition?

---

So it is that growth in virtue often leads to spiritual pride, as demonstrated so powerfully in these words from T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral.  We begin to think we have done well and then that subtle temptation begins to undermine whatever good we have done, whatever virtue we have achieved.

Sometimes it seems hopeless to escape.  Yet that also is but a snare of the enemy who wants to use all for our destruction.

There is a way to counter it, a way that seems to wend its way into every aspect of my life and words these days: abandonment to Divine Providence.  For what is pride but a securing for ourselves control?  And what is spiritual pride but a confidence in our own abilities to achieve salvation and become holy?  The counter then is to let go, to seek humility by surrendering all, even the desire for holiness, to the One who is all-powerful.