When Everything Goes Wrong

The other day I finally listened to Bishop Robert Barron talking with Dr. Jordan Peterson on the latter's podcast.  There were several good things that struck me from it and I would certainly recommend listening to it (you can find the video here), but there is one thing in particular upon which I want to reflect at this moment: the idea of right praise.

Bishop Barron mentioned the liturgical nature of the writing of the creation account in the book of Genesis and the reason for its structure: "The end of a liturgical procession is the one who will lead the praise."  Of course it was man that was created last of all the animals.  Therefore, when God gives Adam and Eve dominion over all the creatures there is far more to it than most of us would think when we hear the word dominion.  The dominion indicated is a lordship over the animals, but in order to lead them to praise of the Creator.  "All of these things belong in a chorus of praise of the true God led by us," said Bishop Barron.  It is our duty to praise God.

When we fail in that duty, much as when the Israelites turned to idols, everything goes wrong.  They became enslaved and began to lose their battles and suffered plagues and droughts and so on.  It is little different for us.

Right praise is essential for our daily lives.  Christ taught us that in the prayer He gave us, praising our loving Father in heaven: "Hallowed be Thy name."

Our daily lives often teach us its necessity in other ways.  I have certainly found it so.

Praise began to become a necessary part of my daily life through indirect participation in the Charismatic Renewal.  Listening to praise and worship music taught me to raise my eyes above my own struggles to look toward God.  One of these songs in particular seized my heart in the midst of some personal darkness and confusion: the song Blessed Be Your Name, which beautifully proclaims a decision to praise God no matter whether things go well or ill from a human perspective and which references the book of Job.

I keep being reminded that the devil's tempting revolves around one primary tactic: to make us look at ourselves instead of at God.  Praise powerfully counters that temptation by turning our gaze away from ourselves and toward God.

When I become focused on my struggles, my failure to achieve anything worthwhile, my inability even to accomplish the little duties I see before me, and so on, it is easy to become discouraged.  It is easy to feel hopeless.  Yet such feelings merely reveal disorder in the hierarchy of my life.  I was created not to establish my own little safe world of accomplishments and perfect order, but to give God right praise.

If there are places in your life where you are struggling perhaps you might dare to ask yourself whether the cause is the same.  Are you looking at yourself or are you giving God right praise?

God's Providence allows all that is.  By His will, including His permissive will, He has brought everything to this moment exactly as it is.  Thus no matter how dark the moment it is part of His plan.  And we also are part of that plan.  We take our rightful role when we choose to fulfill our vocation of leading all creation in giving praise to God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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?

Love Is Come Again

I want to share with you a beautiful French carol for Easter that happened across my path a while back called "Love Is Come Again" or alternately "Now the Green Blade Riseth."  I wanted to create a perfect arrangement of it first, but, as I reflected upon the fact that it might never happen due to the other projects on my proverbial plate, there came to my mind the phrase oft-repeated by my drama professors

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

So this version is by no means perfect.  I hope at least you will find it good.  And I hope you will enjoy this beautiful and moving hymn as much as I do.

Love Is Come Again

1. Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,

Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; 

Love lives again, that with the dead has been: 

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

2. In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain, 

Thinking that He never would awake again, 

Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen: 

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

3. Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,

Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain; 

Quick from the dead the risen One is seen: 

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green. 

4. When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Jesus' touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Are You Clinging to Your Teddy Bear?

Have you ever seen the above image or one like it?

It is quite a good illustration for how God works in our lives.  Although sometimes it seems like He is not quite so gentlemanly about asking us to give Him whatever teddy bear of comfort we are clinging to in our lives.  Sometimes He simply takes things away from us, leaving us in confusion and doubt.  Then we feel lost and abandoned.

He could of course show us the bigger teddy bear first to win our confidence.  Yet He rarely does.  In fact, He rarely even gives us the greater gift immediately after taking something from us.  Perhaps He gives it sooner if we surrender readily to Him whatever pleasure or security He is asking us to give Him.  Perhaps it is only because He is forced to take away the teddy bear that has become a danger to our spiritual health that He waits for us to turn to Him before He gives us the bigger one lest it should become an idol as well.

So many times I find myself wondering why He seems to deprive those dear to me (and myself as well) of things that seem necessary.  Surely if He truly wanted us to live life more abundantly He would provide us with the support and healing we need in order to be able to do so?

It is easy to allow the enemy to work here—so easy to believe the devil's dastardly lies that seem so much more consonant with the reality we experience and to believe them in such subtle ways that we scarcely even realize it.  We end up relying on our own strength.  We believe that God does not wish to answer our prayers and therefore we must accept His will—a truth certainly, but one that so easily becomes rather a lie lived in bitterness because it taints our view of the Father's love and goodness rather than uniting us with the passion of Christ.

"God alone suffices," said Saint Teresa of Avila.

Is that not the only answer to the taking of our teddy bears?

We think we need them.  We think we need to hold something to give us comfort and security and we can't bear the thought of facing Him with empty hands.

Yet His hands were empty as they hung on the cross for us, as He poured out His love for us, a love that would soon be transformed into glory in His resurrection.  He had no teddy bears.  Everything had been taken away from Him by the Father's will to which He surrendered absolutely.

God alone sufficed for Him as Man because He wanted us to know that it is true for us as well.  He really will give us everything we need.

Of course it may mean we need to change our hearts.  We may need to change our prayers.  We may need to quit telling God what He needs to do and asking Him what we need to do and how we can fix things and simply enter into His presence open to receive His love.  Why not come before Him with empty hands and empty hearts and say to Him: "Lord, here I am; I come to do Your will.  Heal me in whatever way you wish."

Arise from the Dead!

"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead."

These words come from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday read as part of the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday morning.  This beautiful homily that comes from some great unknown preacher pierces with the sword of truth, weaving out in poetic language the Paschal Mystery we celebrate, demanding a response from our own hearts.

It also seems to demand my response as a writer.  I might speak to it in a thousand different ways so rich is it in content, but I will give you one of them for what it is worth.

If you wish first to read the homily, or to read it after you have read my own poor words, you can find it here.


Although I emphasized the reading's use for Holy Saturday, it provides fitting fodder for meditation at any time, perhaps especially in our celebration of Easter when our fallen nature prevents us from delving fully into the Paschal Mystery.  We base our faith on the fact that Christ has risen from the dead, but do we understand what that means?  Certainly we understand suffering.  We understand at least the reality of death.  We understand life.  But how can we understand that which transcends even life?

So often we lie dead within.  We need Christ to descend into the depths of our own hell and to call to us to arise from sleep.

"I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld.  Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead.  Arise, O man, work of My hands, arise, you who were fashioned in My image.  Rise, let us go hence; for you in Me and I in you, together we are one undivided person."

Not only does He call us to life and to life in Him, but He makes us one with Him.  The eternal King, the Creator of the universe, our God who is existence itself invites us to union.

"But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven."

Although He speaks to Adam specifically, He also speaks to us as descendants of Adam, promising us a joy above that of the Garden of Eden which we, in our fallen state, often lament having been lost.  It is not enough for Him simply to give us the good that we lost, but He must give us a greater good.  Rather than restore us to the Eden, He will bring us to Heaven where we may see Him face to face.

These words apply equally to our struggle through this pilgrimage of life.  We look back at good times in our lives lost, seeing an angel with a flaming sword guarding us from returning to that which we desire, and we lament.  We sink down with deadened hearts.

Yet Christ calls to us to arise and go forward, not to lament that which lies behind, but to go forward toward that which is yet to be.  Always when He takes away that which we hold dear, He offers us a greater good, even if He calls us to walk through the shadow of death for a while before we glimpse it appear before us like the rising sun.

Let Us Become Like Palms and Olive Branches

Chanting the Liturgy of the Hours must be the most beautiful way to enter into Holy Week.  I am much grateful for that gift Luke is sharing with our parish.  Because of it, I found myself reflecting on the second reading in today's Office of Readings which comes from a sermon by Saint Andrew of Crete.  Its words struck deeply into my heart, reflecting there some thoughts stirring there of late.  I want to share some of them with you:

"Let us go together to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives.  Today He returns from Bethany and proceeds of His own free will toward His holy and blessed passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation."

What a beautiful phrase: to consummate the mystery of our salvation of His own free will.  Yes, His own free will.

Sometimes perhaps we forget—or merely do not understand—how willingly He goes into the suffering of His passion. It is easier to think that He did it because He had to do it. For who could possibly choose to suffer so much pain by His own free will? Who would choose to embrace the Cross? Surely only the One who loves more deeply than we can understand—who loves more deeply than we can bear.

How then do we respond?

"Let us run to accompany Him as He hastens toward Jerusalem, and imitate those who met Him then, not by covering His path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before Him by being humble and by trying to live as He would wish.  Then we shall be able to receive the Word at His coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us.

"In His humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world and He is glad that He became so humble for our sake...."

Humility.

It is the foundation of all the virtues, the foundation of freedom, and the foundation of joy.  Yet somehow it is the most difficult of the virtues to embrace in more than mind's intellectual assent.

Why?

I think it is because we fear our own vulnerability—our own woundedness.  We try in every way possible to shore ourselves up lest we fall crashing to the ground, lest we become a hopeless mess, lest we do what we would never wish....

Vulnerability.  It is a word that has haunted me whatever path I have taken: it drew me to theatre, to charismatic prayer, to friendship, to psychology, and again to prayer....

Yet still the word looms like an insurmountable tower, its gates impregnable against my weak-willed assault.  I gaze at it like a puzzle, wondering how to unlock it.  Yet in truth I am made ungainly by my own weighty mail with all its interwoven rings of steel, my own walls of protection stacked stone upon stone over the years, and cannot grasp with my armored claws something so soft and simple and small.

Of course we need our gates and walls to keep out the evils of the world.  The problem is mainly that we forget to let down the drawbridge when the King comes knocking, especially because He comes without fine array, riding on a donkey.

"So let us spread before His feet not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in His grace, or rather, clothed completely in Him.  We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him."

When we admit our own vulnerability—that we are naked before Him—then we know that we must be clothed in His grace and in His very self.  That humility allows us to throw ourselves before Him to tread upon as He enters the heavenly Jerusalem in glory where one day—after our own journey to Calvary—He will raise us up to reign with Him and to enjoy our own resurrection.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!

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."