"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....
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
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.
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.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
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
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
Monday, July 31, 2017
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:
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.
O Christ Jesus
When all is darkness
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!
Monday, July 17, 2017
Fool for Christ
"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."
This quote resurfaced and I have no recollection of who spoke it or where I heard it. That matters little enough, though. It is the thought contained in the quotation and not the speaker to which I wish to draw your attention.
I will digress for a moment first, however. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a spontaneous adventure with a couple of friends. Having decided upon hiking in the forested park in the middle of the city, we had no expectations of unusual adventure; considering our limited time, it seemed reasonable to enjoy a tamer sort of adventure. After a brief stop at another friend's house and a dishtowel prophecy—"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson—we continued on to the trailhead.
As we started hiking up the hill, we soon found ourselves scrambling up a ravine with a few pools and trickles of water left within it. The trail lost its façade of officiality and turned into no more than a deer path.
We might have turned back to find the actual trailhead, but instead we continued on, scrambling over fallen trees and crawling through brush and ferns, following the rocky bed of the ravine in what seemed like a tropical adventure. The faint trail grew fainter, twisting back and forth across the ravine, sometimes disappearing entirely.
In retrospect, it would have made much more sense to find the trail proper and likely we would not choose that path again knowing what it held. Yet that makes us all the more grateful for the experience.
You can extrapolate from this story to the adventure of life. So often we choose to follow the well-beaten trail. We give in to the pressure of society or the expectations of our friends—or what we imagine them to be—and find ourselves trudging on doggedly, clamping our jaws in the face of the monotony that drags us down.
Let us return now to the quotation with which I began:
"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."
It speaks to the heart of what it means to be a fool for Christ. When you fall so deeply in love with Him—when you learn to trust Him so entirely—you no longer care so much for the security the world offers. You learn to leap out in faith, knowing that He will catch you. You embrace every cross and every trial because you know that behind it lies the Providence of the One who loves you more than you love yourself.
Go my friends and be fools for Christ!
This quote resurfaced and I have no recollection of who spoke it or where I heard it. That matters little enough, though. It is the thought contained in the quotation and not the speaker to which I wish to draw your attention.
I will digress for a moment first, however. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a spontaneous adventure with a couple of friends. Having decided upon hiking in the forested park in the middle of the city, we had no expectations of unusual adventure; considering our limited time, it seemed reasonable to enjoy a tamer sort of adventure. After a brief stop at another friend's house and a dishtowel prophecy—"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson—we continued on to the trailhead.
As we started hiking up the hill, we soon found ourselves scrambling up a ravine with a few pools and trickles of water left within it. The trail lost its façade of officiality and turned into no more than a deer path.
We might have turned back to find the actual trailhead, but instead we continued on, scrambling over fallen trees and crawling through brush and ferns, following the rocky bed of the ravine in what seemed like a tropical adventure. The faint trail grew fainter, twisting back and forth across the ravine, sometimes disappearing entirely.
In retrospect, it would have made much more sense to find the trail proper and likely we would not choose that path again knowing what it held. Yet that makes us all the more grateful for the experience.
You can extrapolate from this story to the adventure of life. So often we choose to follow the well-beaten trail. We give in to the pressure of society or the expectations of our friends—or what we imagine them to be—and find ourselves trudging on doggedly, clamping our jaws in the face of the monotony that drags us down.
Let us return now to the quotation with which I began:
"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."
It speaks to the heart of what it means to be a fool for Christ. When you fall so deeply in love with Him—when you learn to trust Him so entirely—you no longer care so much for the security the world offers. You learn to leap out in faith, knowing that He will catch you. You embrace every cross and every trial because you know that behind it lies the Providence of the One who loves you more than you love yourself.
Go my friends and be fools for Christ!
Friday, July 14, 2017
Faith is Easy When You Don't Need It
 |
| FAITH IS EASY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT |
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....
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Life is a Storm
"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment,
be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man
is what you do when that storm comes."
~Edmond Dantés
This quotation comes from the protagonist of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It illustrates beautifully the tossing waves of our lives in this world and the peaks and valleys of our emotional experience. Even more than, that, however, it points to our responsibility to respond to the storm.
Often we try to extend the sunlight as long as we can. We seek to avoid at all cost begin shattered on the rocks. Yet we cannot maintain that control.
Sooner or later the sun will be hidden by the dark storm clouds blown by heavy winds, threatening to swamp us and break our ship apart upon the rocks. We take in sail and strain at the helm, but the current rushes us onward.
As Edmond Dantés said, what matters is not that these things happen, but what we do when we must face them. Will we throw ourselves overboard to perish in despair? Will we curse and blame those about us for our peril? Will we jump into the lifeboat and row away with all our might in an attempt to save ourselves, leaving the rest to their fate? Or will we entrust ourselves to the One who has power over the storm?
And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?
Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea,
and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying:
What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?
Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea,
and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying:
What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?
Matthew 8:27
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)