Pilgrimage During the Pandemic

Many people have been criticizing our leaders in the Church for cancelling all public Masses while we quarantine for the pandemic and many complain of not being able to receive the Sacraments.  I must admit hearing those things does trouble me.  It makes me wonder what the Church should do.  Is She merely pandering to the government decisions to avoid outright conflict?  Is She thus abandoning Her mission to nourish our faith by treating the physical health and well-being of the most vulnerable as more important than our spiritual health?

Perhaps She might be rather calling us to enter more deeply into the mystical reality.  I have written already of our being called to receive the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  Now, however, I mean far more than that: I mean the eternal reality.

For the Church as we know Her will not endure.  The Sacraments will pass away.  The Eucharist, as precious a gift as It is, will no longer be needed.

When we come to the Eternal City, we shall be face to face with the living God, with I-Am-Who-Am.  We shall no longer need to receive through Sacraments, which make visible the invisible, providing grace to sustain us in our exile here in this valley of tears, for we shall then be in intimate union with Him.

All the grace we receive is meant to prepare us for that.  Reception of the Eucharist in particularly brings us into intimate relationship with Christ, our crucified Lord.

Does it?

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Exodus 20:2-3

Despite this commandment, we often allow our minds and hearts to turn to idols without realizing it.  Even our spiritual practices may become idols.  It is far easier to cling to devotions and the practice of the spiritual life than to come into a deep and intimate relationship with the Unknown God—the God we can never fully understand because He is infinite and we mere finite creatures.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:8-9

The moment we believe we have understood the mind of God is the moment we have created God in our own image.  If that's not an idol, I don't know what is.

Perhaps that may sound extreme to you.  Perhaps you may wonder why I mention this possibility.

I will tell you: it is because I am trying to take seriously the call to conversion in this time.  I don't want to fall into criticizing our leaders in the Church or in our government, placing myself on the high pedestal of godhood in dictating what ought to happen in these present circumstances.  I don't want to fall into that trap even in the hidden corners of my heart.

Rather, I want this time of quarantine to bear the same fruit that grew from that of the Desert Fathers who chose isolation as a way to encounter God.  I want to see the harvest like unto that of those who seek a life of contemplation in the cloister.  I want my heart and mind to be converted.  In short, I seek and pray for that true metanoia that is to be transformed by Him who is leading us from glory to glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:18) that I may be purified of all attachment to sin or self-seeking, ready to see Him face to face.

I don't want to fall into desolation or despondency or frustration at being deprived of what I deem necessary.  I don't want to believe I am merely in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the virus to end.

Rather, I want to see these days in the desert as communion with the Father.  I want to see them as time to give Him my fiat as our Lady did when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would be the Mother of the Messiah and as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane when He asked that the cup of suffering should pass Him by:

"Nevertheless not what I will,
but what Thou wilt."

Luke 22:42

Pray for that for me.

I will pray the same for you.

Receive the Blessed Sacrament

In his homily at Mass this morning, Pope Francis spoke of Saint Joseph as a just man, a man of faith, a man who recognized that he was not in control.  He lauded Joseph for his ability to enter into mystery.  At the same time, he warned that if the Church forgets how to live in mystery, She forgets how to adore.

Our life most particularly as Christians is to enter into mystery that we may adore the Lord by our daily lives.  That is what it means to belong to the Mystical Body of Christ.

In these days of social isolation and the cancellation of public Masses, we are called to a deeper recognition of that truth.  We no longer have the distraction, if you will, of the sensory elements of our faith that make visible the invisible.  Instead we have only the living reality of our own union with Christ through the gift of His grace made possible by the great mystery of the Incarnation which we will celebrate in only a few days.

Although most of us cannot receive Christ physically in the Eucharist, we can still receive Him.  Thanks to the benefits of modern technology we can still assist at Mass and we can make spiritual communions not just then but throughout our day.

Even more, however, we can receive Christ in every moment of every day.  Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade calls this reality the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  He traces this idea from the life of the Blessed Virgin and of Saint Joseph in his book Abandonment to Divine Providence:

"There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith, is no less than God operating very great things. O Bread of Angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! thou givest God under as lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give Him? “Esurientes implevit bonis” (Luke i, 53). God reveals Himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sent empty away."

In these days there shall certainly be few extraordinary characteristics in our lives.  Our exterior life becomes simpler and simpler.  We suffer the same things as do others across the world.  We are called to reach out to those around us and to live supporting ourselves by the work of our hands.  Yet in all these things we likewise can receive treasures of grace.

If we are humble enough to accept what the Lord wants to do within us, it may be a powerful time of sanctification for us.  We must shed the false mask of pride, however, that seeks to control—that believes it can be in control—and recognize that to God alone belongs that power.

Our role is rather one of receptivity as both our Lady and Saint Joseph model for us so well.  The words of Father de Caussade on this point resonate well with our current situation:

"The passive part of sanctity is still more easy since it only consists in accepting that which we very often have no power to prevent, and in suffering lovingly, that is to say with sweetness and consolation, those things that too often cause weariness and disgust. Once more I repeat, in this consists sanctity. This is the grain of mustard seed which is the smallest of all the seeds, the fruits of which can neither be recognised nor gathered. It is the drachma of the Gospel, the treasure that none discover because they suppose it to be too far away to be sought. Do not ask me how this treasure can be found. It is no secret. The treasure is everywhere, it is offered to us at all times and wherever we may be. All creatures, both friends and enemies pour it out with prodigality, and it flows like a fountain through every faculty of body and soul even to the very centre of our hearts. If we open our mouths they will be filled. The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear them on."

Today, as always, that great treasure awaits you wherever you look: in your prayer and in your work, in your frustration and isolation, in any little joys that come across your path, in your gratitude for what you have, in your fears for the future, in your sorrow for those who are sick....

In all things, Christ is there, giving Himself to you in as true a fashion as through the Holy Eucharist.  He cannot help but give Himself, for He is love, and it is the nature of love to give itself until it has nothing left to give.  That love pours itself out into our hearts to the measure that we open them to receive it:

"Divine love then, is to those who give themselves up to it without reserve, the principle of all good. To acquire this inestimable treasure the only thing necessary is greatly to desire it. Yes, God only asks for love, and if you seek this treasure, this kingdom in which God reigns alone, you will find it. If your heart is entirely devoted to God, it is itself, for that very reason, the treasure and the kingdom that you seek and desire. From the time that one desires God and His holy will, one enjoys God and His will, and this enjoyment corresponds to the ardour of the desire."

Let us seek within ourselves for that desire and when we have found it, no matter how small its flickering flame, let us feed it that it may grow more and more.  The more we desire to receive God's love, the more we become receptive to it.  What we have received we can then in turn pour out in love of the Father's will manifest in every moment of our lives and in every face who turns to seek God in us.

That is the path to enter into mystery—into the mystery of relationship with the Creator of the universe who is Existence Itself—whose infinite nature must transcend our finite understanding.  As we live in that mystery, let us enter also into adoration: let us adore God in the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

Love Is Not Loved

I love joking with friends about how saints have a habit of stalking us.  When a certain saint takes an interest in me—take Saint Therese of Lisieux for instance—I will find her appearing through holy cards or quotations from her that particularly strike my heart or someone mentioning something about her that catches my attention.  Somehow or other she makes her presence known.

So too with other saints.

Not so with my dear patron, however: Blessed Jacopone da Todi whose feast is today.  Because he is not so well known it is difficult to run across him in as many places as one can find a more popular saint such as Saint Therese.

Recently my heart was a bit sad as I thought of that, wishing that he would reach out to me but thinking it would not happen.  I forgot about it, though, as happens with so many of the little things that pass through our minds and hearts.

Then I was reading the words of the day from the Spiritual Diary, a book that was my Nonna's, on the Solemnity of All Saints and in it were these words:

Blessed Jacapone could not bear to see people giving themselves over to sin, especially during the days of Mardi Gras, and he would repeat: "Love is not loved!  Love is not loved because He is not known."

That was a beautiful gift as I remembered my almost-prayer of wanting Jacopone to reach out to me, for I felt like he had.

It seemed like he reached out to me a second time when I was researching for my paper through my studies on how to help people be receptive to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  It seemed the most unlikely of places, as I read a book by a Mexican archbishop, Luis Martinez, on the Holy Spirit—a beautiful book called The Sanctifier.  There again I found those same words of Jacopone's:

"Love is not loved!"

Those words of my dear patron bring my mind back to the Baltimore question and the answer to what is the purpose of our lives: "To know, love, and serve God is this life and to be happy with Him in the next."

It is such a simple statement and yet so profound.  But why is it that we do not love Him who is love itself?

I would echo Jacopone's words: I believe that we do not love Him because we do not know Him.

Wherever we find doubt or fear or worry or anxiety or discouragement or any of those negative emotions within us blocking our relationship with God, it arises out of some wound or lie about who He is.  We do not truly know Him as the all-provident Father who can do nothing that is not for our greatest good and who can allow even the evil perpetuated by our free will in order to bring it to a good end.

I wish I had the courage to run through the streets and shout as Jacopone did about Love not being loved because He is not known.  I wish I had the courage to stand out there and offer to pray over any who would heed that message and wanted to allow the healing power of Love to transform them.

Yet in my little way I shall make that cry to the hearts of my friends and to my own heart.  Even more, I shall beg Love Himself to make Himself more fully known that He may be more fully loved.

Especially shall I beg Him, Emmanuel, God-With-Us, to make Himself known once again in our coming celebration of Christmas.  I will go to kneel at His feet, to adore the little Child who is King of Kings and the Lord of the universe, and I shall there beseech His mercy that He who is God may look with favor upon me who am not.  There too I will pray for you that you may be free in knowing your littleness before Him and rest with reckless, childlike abandon in the Father's arms.

The Heart of a Child

One of the most beautiful things about children is how much they let you love them.  Love doesn't scare them away.

You can just stare at them and smile and they don't find it rude or uncomfortable.  They don't make excuses about being too busy or needing to do things.  They want you to play with them and spend time with them and aren't the least bit shy about inviting you to do so in whatever way they want it, whether throwing a ball with them or climbing up you again and again to do flips in the air or asking to be carried on your shoulders.

They know how to receive.  It's a pity we all forget how as we get older.

It's so easy to start believing that you aren't worthy of love or that people are just pretending to like you because they are being charitable while secretly they're wishing you would just go away.  It's easy to get so focused on work and duty that there isn't really time for others.  It's easy to take to heart the idea that it is more blessed to give than to receive and so to build your life around giving to others so that you don't have to face your own internal need for them—your need to receive.

Perhaps that is why Christ told us to become like little children.  Perhaps that is why He wanted to come to earth as a little child Himself.

Today is Gaudete Sunday.  After hearing my pastor's homily speaking of how the Church commands us to rejoice this day, I found it a beautiful gift to see how my Father in heaven provided for such rejoicing as I played with many joy-filled children after Mass.  My reflection following that experience seems to me most suitable for preparing for the great feast of Christmas—the great celebration of Christ's birth—for I am pondering what it means to become like a little child and what it means to welcome the gift of the Christ-Child into my heart.

Gaudete!

Broken

It used to bother me that my statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary—which is quite lovely for being made of plastic—has part of the mantle chipped off on one side of her head.

It never bothered me as a child when my mom first gave me the statue to grace my little altar on my nightstand.  At least I have no recollection of it bothering me then.  It was only in more recent years that I found that imperfection annoying and considered finding a better statue.  Perhaps if money had been in greater abundance I would have done so; or perhaps it was more for sentimental reasons that I never sought another.  Either way, I kept the statue.

Then I ended up with a crucifix with Christ's left hand broken off.  I think the idea was that I might find a way to fix the fingers.

I never did.

Instead, the conjunction of the two broken religious items turned my mind reflecting upon my own brokenness.  Facing my imperfections has also left me frustrated.  Somehow I have an expectation that I must be perfect.

Scripture doesn't exactly help in that regard: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)

Yet there lies the problem with translation.  If we read the text in Greek we would understand from the word τέλειος (teleios) the sort of perfection that means essentially achieving its proper end.  Therefore we are called not to lack brokenness (as we wish we could; at least I do and something tells me you shan't mind my including you in that statement), but rather through it to achieve the end for which we have been created: to know, love, and serve God in this life and be happy with Him in the next to use the words of the Baltimore Catechism.

So the two broken items remain as a constant reminder to me of that fact.  Both still serve their purpose of reminding me of Christ's death and of our Lady present there at the foot of the Cross.

Were their imperfections gone they could not do more to achieve that purpose.  Yet because of their brokenness they have given me a deeper reflection on the nature of reality and through this profound insight drawn me deeper into the mystery of God's love and providence in the most ordinary of circumstances.

The Weight of a Decade

Nearly a third of my life ago it was.  My mind orbits much around the singular event of that epic pilgrimage and therefore you, my dear readers, must bear with me as I indulge myself once more in reflection upon it.

Ten years ago today I set out with my companion, my heart uplifted in joy of abandoning everything to God's Providence.  I felt in that moment that I was free—that I was who I had been created to be.

The feelings did not last long.  They never do.

Today it is gratitude that fills me: gratitude to my past self for having the courage to undertake something so crazy as a three-hundred-odd-mile pilgrimage relying entirely on God to provide; gratitude to my friend for being crazy enough to go with me; and gratitude to God not only for bringing us through the joys and trials and loneliness of it, but for teaching me so much through it.  Now I have gratitude even for those darker moments.

It is gratitude that has begun to unpack the rich gifts of that experience—gifts that continue to unfold in my daily life without my even realizing it.  That is how it seems to be with those defining experiences of our lives no matter how great or how trivial they may appear.

How strange is the wandering course which we mortals follow.  Somehow a steady routine of tutoring, studying psychology, and handling the minutiae of daily life seems as far as possible from what I imagined for my path as I stepped forth on the first few miles of that pilgrimage.  I was young and dreamed of adventure and daring deeds in witness to the Faith as we journeyed.  I expected that God would do amazing things if we gave ourselves up to be entirely at His disposal.  Perhaps these thoughts were not fully conscious, but still I thought that marvel after marvel would unfold.

There were certainly marvels here and there.  Mainly, however, there was the steady routine of walking, reciting the rosary to keep our spirits up amidst the tiredness and discouragement and inner assaults against our hope.  Perhaps it was not so very different from my life now after all.  Perhaps it was not so very different from your own path.

For we are all pilgrims.  Day by day we walk, moment by moment we step forward, following the narrow path toward the Eternal City.

It is very much an inner pilgrimage—a pilgrimage of heart and mind and soul.  The marvels are not the miracles we expect, but rather those poignant moments when we crave our own security and our own comfort and want to shut out a God who demands we give up everything and follow Him, and yet we choose to invite Him in to our suffering.  Our deeds of daring are enacted in the quiet corners of our hearts.  Hope flames up a little brighter each time we abandon everything to the God who holds everything in existence.  Joy ignites every time we listen to His still small voice within.

Coraggio, dear pilgrim, courage!

The "Little" Way

It always leaves me a little miffed when I find some reference to the little way of Saint Therese that suggests that she left us this easy way that we can all become saints.  My response is somewhat similar to the writing in many modern spiritual books meant to be relatable that sound to me rather flippant.

In my opinion, these things cheapen the reality.  They seem fake.

I was reflecting upon this matter yesterday as we celebrated Saint Therese's feast day.  Despite my reaction to those who would uphold her as a model—and consequently despite my reaction to the saint herself—she has consistently been working her way into my friendship.  In one way or another I keep bumping into her, one might say, as if she is trying to be my friend.  Most recently it was through a novena called "Joy in Suffering" that drew me deeper.

My favorite story, though, in her reaching out to me involves my family's kitten, Bella.  One day, Bella decided to play on my bookshelves and so she jumped up on top of the books and, as if intending to do so, kicked one out upon the floor.  It turned out to be the letters between Saint Therese and Brother Maurice which gave me deeper insight into our dear saint's life.

Now, before I give the wrong impression, I am not arguing against Saint Therese's model of the little way for all of us.  We are certainly called to follow her in sanctifying each moment of our lives.

My quarrel is with those who try to pawn off this path as easy.  "Stuff and nonsense!" I say to anyone who would try to propose that.  It is not in the least easy.  It would be far easier to allow oneself to be martyred in one fell swoop than to constantly choose what one does not want for the sake of God.  Even simply accepting with joy all the suffering that is our lot in this life can often prove quite the contrary to easy.

(Of course if any of you reading my words here truly believe it is easy, then by all means tell me your secret.)

Yet we are not called to the easy life.  Despite what our modern society (and our own concupiscence) would have us believe, we are called to the battle and not to lie at ease in our homes and stuff ourselves with comforts.  We are called to become warriors, to don our spiritual armor and fight for our Captain who leads us to the Cross.

That is the path that Saint Therese followed.  We can look to her not just as an inspiring example, but also as a friend who can aid us in the fight, for she has promised to help us:

"I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” 

Our guardian angels also shall aid us, day by day, in the battle, for they can see far more clearly than we ever could.