Is Anybody Thirsty for This?

Would that all God's people were prophets! (Num. 11:29)

Catholics who find it normal to invoke the Holy Spirit to activate spiritual gifts in them, to move in power, to be real, also seem to find it normal to incorporate a musical setting that looks like this: 

Or maybe this:

Or, if they are high-budget and not in church, this:

I play guitar. Guitars transport easily and this one instrument can support a soloist or a whole group or congregation of singers easily. I relate the guy in the first picture, and in fact I lead a group that is not too terribly different from the second picture.

But I'm so, so tired of the spiritual cliche that those who are actively seeking the presence of the Lord have guitar music. I'm tired of it from two directions: from those whose spiritual hunger makes them gravitate toward the guitarists, and from those who seemingly wouldn't know the Holy Spirit if He bit them on the nose, but see a guitarist in church and think: that's a charismatic. Charismatic is, after all, a term to define a certain musical style. Isn't it?

My heart longs to see worship groups who have a fresh fire in their hearts to seek the Lord to fill their freshly activated wineskins that have a look something like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or maybe even this:

And this isn't a rant about musical style. I play guitar in church every week and I wouldn't do that if I didn't think one could worship well this way.

This is about a thirst in my heart for New Wine. I want all God's people to prophesy, and I want God to encounter people, open up the dormant gifts within them they received in baptism, and I want the Holy Spirit to rush upon them with power for them, the Church, and the world to be made new.

Is anybody else thirsty for this?

After Reading the Report

I combed through the Pennsylvania report yesterday. I feel like vomiting. I also found it very appropriate to hear the beginning of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as the prelude before Mass this morning.

But I am not writing to connect with my feelings about this, nor to offer commentary on the situation or the like. I am writing to pray and to connect this present moment with past moments in my journey of faith, to see what I can see. I write to understand.

I made my way into the Catholic Church in 1992 and 1993 in Milwaukee when Rembert Weakland was Archbishop. Catholics I knew had no respect for him, preferring to rearrange the letters of his Benedictine order's designating abbreviation. He eventually resigned, the day after being public accused of date rape by a man who had been part of his life decades before.

The Church in Milwaukee was a total mess when I entered, and I felt it keenly on a spiritual level. I felt the moral topsy-turvy. Learning who to trust felt like navigating through land mines. I did not believe that most priests were following Christ, and when I found one who spoke of Jesus' passion I was pleasantly surprised. My primary response was arrogant judgment and the assertion within myself that I, clearly, was far superior. Just ignore the fact that my faith, hope, and charity were as strong as a wet garbage heap. I certainly did.

And yet, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God had called me. To be honest, the Lord bombarded me with mystical graces in those days. As I look back, I had no one else but Him, and that is not the normative path. We need other human beings. I did frequent the Carmelite shrine of Mary, Help of Christians (Holy Hill) in Hubertus. I remember a particular healing Mass, one of their monthly such Masses, at which they had, stationed around the church, teams of lay people to whom we could go to pray with. To this day, I am not sure if they were members of the local OCDS community or not. I don't remember which of my concerns I brought to this particular woman to pray over, but I remember crying copious tears, and I remember her telling me to continue to pour out my prayer to Jesus. She asked me, "Do you know where you can find Jesus?" Struggling as I was at that point to break through the entanglements of doubt and confusion and muck, while reaching out for the glory, I answered with a tremulous voice, "He's .. in my heart?" Yes, she affirmed. Jesus is with you, and lives in your heart.

I made about an 18-month sojourn until I received confirmation in 1993. And a few weeks later I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Rome with a group led by John Michael Talbot and Dan O'Neill. One such mystical experience happened during that pilgrimage at the Church of the Tomb of Lazarus. I've written about it before. But it strikes me again. I was spending time in close quarters with Catholics for the first time in my life, and I was struggling hard with how physical everyone was making their prayer. To me, God was a spiritual being, and all this claptrap of touching holy objects or holding rosaries or wearing medals -- or even, really, bothering with all these physical places around Jerusalem -- was just getting under my skin. I was beginning to fear that I had entered a completely dead church where no one knew God and the religious people were following empty rituals. One night in the Garden of Gethsemane church, as we left, the priest with us suggested we might want to touch the rock on the way out. That was the last straw. I cried out in interior anguish, "Lord, I don't want to touch some stupid rock. I want to touch You!"

The next day I prayed an agnostic's prayer about these things. I told the Lord I didn't believe any of this stuff about grace coming through stuff or places, but that if He wanted to convince me otherwise, He could be my guest.

Later we had Mass at that church commemorating the spot where dead Lazarus had been buried, but Jesus raised him to life. As that Mass progressed, God gripped my heart with such power that I was shaken to the core. I barely had the strength to join the communion procession as I sobbed violently the whole time. I was hearing these words of the gospel roar like a hurricane through my soul: "He who believes in me, though he were dead, YET SHALL HE LIVE."

And I knew that I, small created entity that I was, was receiving into my body the very life of Jesus Christ. And that I was called right into the midst of the deadness that Jesus knew completely, to bring his life to the Church, that would yet live.

It was May of 1993.

I have come face to face with the dregs of my own sin and my own utterly worthless self-righteousness. I have come to know to my core that I am loved and graced not as a reward but because of who God is: a lover and a gracer, and because of who I am: His creature, His daughter, made in His likeness and for His life. I have learned to have compassion by being shown compassion, and I have also learned the sting and the difficulty and the utter necessity-for-life of forsaking the not-God in my life.

And now, this.

I'm not going to draw any conclusions because the words aren't here yet. I'm just looking, remembering, and taking up my daily position of calling down the transforming fire of the Holy Spirit to make me like Jesus, an offering to the Father in love, trust, praise, and joy.

With groans that words cannot express.

The Brokenness of Jesus

We hear it at every Mass

He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body..."

What struck me today in a fresh and new way was this reality that Jesus intentionally gave his disciples that which He had broken. And what He had broken, sacramentally, was Himself.

He wanted the bread into which He would speak Himself to be broken.

He later became broken on the cross because He wanted to be broken on the cross. Or, rather, he became broken as an act of love. He didn't desire brokenness, He desired to act in love.

I am broken because of sin. I am broken because of my own sin and because I was born into a sinful world with sinful forebears and sin-in-action and sin-in-residence. Somehow it is part of this world.

He is broken not because of sin. He was born through the new order of grace, through her who was herself immaculately conceived.

I don't understand all that. But I know it means that when we are grafted into Him, we receive the capacity to be healed of sin and for it to dry up, that sin-in-action. Sin-in-residence loses its power.

But we remain broken, so that we can be like He became, for the salvation of the world. We remain broken so that we grow love.

I have thought that my brokenness meant that I was still so far away from God, from goodness, from change, from grace. I thought my brokenness meant disqualification for being with God. I thought it meant being not as valuable as I would be if I were not broken. Apparently I also thought it was something one could overcome, now, in this life.

But what struck me today was that Jesus broke the bread.

It was no act of malice. It was no act of blame. He saw us broken, and became like us, so that we could become like Him. Accepting the broken piece is that turning point in receiving transformation and transmitting it.

When I can accept the reality that I am broken at the same time that I receive this tremendous outpouring of love and grace and transformation, a corner has been turned. Ironically, it is in accepting utter weakness and helplessness in the presence of Love that we become agents of healing. We become one with Jesus in His self-offering, in His bread, in His body.

There's no earning of a better condition, and there's no striving to fix myself.

There is a two-way total self-gift.

The Church as Mother

Today is the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, apostles. As I read the entry for the feast in Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen I was struck by two oft-repeated quotes: "He cannot have God as Father who does not have the Church for Mother" (St. Cyprian, † 258) and the dying words of St. Teresa of Jesus, reformer of my Carmelite order: "I am a daughter of the Church."

I don't feel like I'm going far out on a limb to say that in this generation, we are undergoing a shift in what it means in lived experience, and subsequently in Christian understanding, to have the Church for Mother. At the time and context that Fr. Gabriel wrote (as a Carmelite priest and academic in Rome in the 1940s), one gets the distinct flavor that to have the Church for Mother involves being a faithful, fully-initiated member of the Roman Catholic Church. And he is not wrong.

The Second Vatican Council had not yet happened, but when it did, it also did not pronounce Fr. Gabriel wrong is his view. But it certainly did bid faithful, fully-initiated Roman Catholics to lift up their eyes and take in a broader view of what it means, that we do not have God as Father who do not have the Church for Mother.

If we understand "church" as a juridical, political term that specializes in the observable external conditions that result in belonging, we miss dimensions of the words Father and Mother. I am a mother. My older child entered our family through the legal process of adoption, after he had called me Mama for three years. My younger child grew within me in the natural way. When the midwife handed her to me, her gaze penetrated mine with a knowing that was expanding, not new. Interestingly, we had finalized my son's adoption 15 hours before the midwife handed me my daughter. Legally, in one 24-hour period, I suddenly was the mother of two children. Strip away the growth dynamic, the nurturing, the bonding, the healing, the life of the matter, and this legal statement is what you are left with.

Drop a newborn and an almost four year old child into a new juridical arrangement with strangers (who may or may not have the wherewithall to provide for their human needs), and what do you have?

You have the the vision of the Church that the Second Vatican Council saw was in urgent need of expansion. It calls us to take a deeper look at what happens when being a faithful, fully-initiated Roman Catholic goes right.

There is a community where the love of God is made manifest. The truth of the gospel is spoken. We are told from Divine Revelation the truth about who we are, about who God is, about how sin is the cause of our brokenness, about how God's love is the cause of our salvation, about Jesus as the price of our redemption, about His act of love and obedience that opens heaven and that calls all people to follow Him and to share in His mission to announce this plan of salvation. The very dynamism of the gospel preached and responded to creates missional communities. And miraculously, because the source of these communities is the one life of God there is unity as each is united with the Lord who calls and empowers and sends and is preached. Those who have answered the call of Jesus share the call. They reproduce. There is a life dynamic. It nurtures, bonds, heals. This is why we call the Church our Mother when God is our Father. We receive new life.

Roman Catholics who get uptight about juridical belonging tend to have forgotten or ignored the life-giving dynamics of the Church's maternal nature to their own detriment, and the detriment of those they affect. It's a messy process for uptightness to decompress, recognize its own need, acknowledge the need of others. It's a death to self that can feel like the world, safety, right and good being destroyed before one's very eyes. But in truth, it is salvation. It is the love of God breaking through. It will be messy. Motherhood is messy. Family life is messy. Messy is necessary for real life and healing, and varying levels of messy can all be endured.

Enough of "failure to thrive" Christians. Enough of orphaned believers weighed by a sense of lacking belonging, siblings, nurture. Enough of harsh, one-sided law lovers.

I am a daughter of the Church. I draw my life from her. Let us drink deeply from the purity of Christ so that His living water wells us within us for the salvation of all.

A Word to Steubenville's Intercessors

Yesterday during worship a phrase and image came to my mind that I have been praying with, and feel I should share with others, particularly others who are intercessors in and for the community of Steubenville.

Namely, that we need to pray for the conversion of the kingpins in our community.

In craftsman's terms, a kingpin is a main bolt in a central position. Other things pivot (or not) only because of the kingpin. Of course, it also refers to someone who acts like a boss who is essential to the functioning of any kingdom. 

Spiritually speaking, these are the people who are not only in bondage, but who are also in a significant position to hold others back from going forward with the Lord. 

Can we agree to pray for these people? (God knows who they are; we certainly cannot.) Let's pray injections of grace all around them and their lives, that the strongholds operating through them would be weakened, then broken, and that those whose lives they affect would be freed from the power of this bondage. Pray also that those in positions to minister to those being freed would get ready and attuned to what the Lord desires to pour out.

Formation of a Prophet

Frieze of Prophets, East Wall. John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Boston Public Library.
Depicts Micah, Haggai, Malachi and Zechariah

For several weeks, I've had this passage from First Kings reverberating within me:

Acting on the word of the Lord, one of the guild prophets said to his companion, "Strike me." But he refused to strike him. Then he said to him, "Since you did not obey the voice of the Lord, a lion will attack you when you leave me." When he left him, a lion came and attacked him. Then the prophet met another man and said, "Strike me." The man struck him a blow and wounded him. The prophet went on and waited for the king on the road...    

 1 Kings 20:35-38

It goes on to say that the prophet who was struck essentially needed to appear before the king he was to meet in a wounded fashion in order for his message to be complete.

The wisdom to draw from this passage pertains to the prophetic dimension of Christian life, what it looks like, and how we are formed in it.

Step one is always God's word coming first. Prophets don't act prophetically because they come up with a creative idea that they want to try out on someone. They act prophetically in response to the word of the Lord. Perceiving the word of the Lord has to be by faith, so there is this element of being willing to make mistakes and to look like a fool. Prophets need to be able to take themselves lightly.

Prophets' sense of personal belonging within a group of other prophets is a tricky thing. When someone shares in your mission and you both get the delight that this brings, it can be a temptation to get attached to being in the other person's good graces, or honoring them in a way that builds monuments to them in your mind that God has not commissioned. Keeping your distance physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually isn't a viable option, either, if the community of prophets is to thrive. Therefore, clear speaking of one's mind is in order, so that everyone's mind may be brought continually into the light, purged and purified is necessary. It is also necessary that everyone remained fixed beyond themselves to the One whom they serve, which is the Word of God.

The prophet who refused to strike the other prophet probably thought, "Oh, good Abba, I could never raise my hand in violence against one who has taught me so much of the Lord." And the good Abba probably thought, "Oh, crap. He really hasn't learned much yet, has he." The lion refocused the second prophet's attention on what was ultimate: obey the Word of the Lord, regardless of even feeling you are wrong, or making life hard for someone else. Detachment is needed here. If you really so greatly and legitimately honor that prophet you don't want to hit, it will be because of God -- you know he hears accurately from God and walks in His way. But if you believed this, you wouldn't refuse when the demands went against your grain. Therefore, you aren't refusing to strike him because of how holy he is or how holy you are; you are refusing to obey because you are rebellious and full of yourself.

But that prophet did teach the rest of the community a lesson, and so he served them well, after all. (Sometimes we succeed most in teaching others because of, not in spite of, our failures.) The Lord, He is God. They all knew, or were learning, what it was to experience the word of the Lord coming to them. God's supernatural presence is real. They were learning to walk in relationship with His power and become transformed into partners with Him.

Don't you think that the prophet who requested to be struck and the prophet who struck him formed a bond over this experience? Both were valuing the Word that had come among them more than their own comfort. Together, they advanced God's mission. The wounds were temporary; the bond lasted their lives. The first prophet knew he was no lone ranger; he could not wound his own face. He needed this offensive ministry from his brother prophet.

Epiphany 2018

I'm going to try to write part two, following on from the Encounter Ministries conference.

I decided in advance to leave the conference early because I knew that today is Epiphany, and I felt it important to be back in my parish, and dutifully in my choir spot for this feast.

It was Epiphany Sunday in 2009 when I first sang with this choir, and it suffices to say that I captured an authentic experience of God in that blog post. In fact, next to the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass which sparked my conversion to Catholicism, that Epiphany Sunday was one of the single most significant moments in my Catholic life.

Just like Christmas coming around yearly was a true and dramatic re-meeting of the grace I experienced on the night of my conversion for years and years, I have found that Epiphany has been the same for this other experience of God. I didn't want to miss being where God could reveal something more to me.

Snapshots:

I remember the moment in Japan when I was at a parish Bible study, unable to understand much of what was going on, but having a burning sense that God's call to me had to do with parish life.

I remember despondantly watching people go up to recieve communion when I was not yet confirmed as a Catholic. I wanted so much to do what they were doing, but I also judged them for not loving God as much as I did. God impressed on me: "These are the people I have called you to love."

I recall hearing at Christmas that the shepherds who watched their flocks were those who were raising sacrificial lambs for the temple, as we sang "The First Nowell" as a prelude. Suddenly, I felt like I was filling in the blank form I saw last year at Epiphany, about how Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost all lead from one into the next. As we sang the opening hymn, We Three Kings, it made complete sense that the gifts the Kings brought spoke of Jesus' death, and burial. Epiphany does announce the whole Paschal Mystery.

And in this grace that the Lord has led me into, I have had the cycle of joyful mysteries, the cycle of sorrowful mysteries, and the cycle of luminous mysteries. I heard the bells ringing years ago, announcing Pentecost. I heard them ringing again months ago, announcing Pentecost. I saw it happening over the weekend. It is dawning; it has dawned. The glorious mysteries. God is not done.

And where it happens, the glorious, mysterious, unfolding of my very own vocation, is right there, right here, in my normal life, and in my parish. That which leads is mysterious, but my need is daily to seek and ask and look for Jesus, to plead to see Him more clearly, to plead for clear revelation. The glory is Jesus, and only Jesus. It is a perilous, dangerous moment, when Herod seeks to destroy, and utter discretion, mature wisdom, complete mistrust of evil intent must prevail.

I suppose none of this makes a shred of sense, but this is because it is alive.

I came back from the conference early because the place where God speaks powerfully into my life is in my own parish, and in the ministry I'm a part of there. That part is easy. What God speaks and how I respond... that part has never been easy, and it is always simple, because it is about one thing: Seek Jesus, Follow Jesus, Trust Jesus, and Only Jesus.

One thing the conference reminded me of is to constantly seek more. I think this was hard for me, because I can habitually ask more of myself always, and it wears me out. In fact, I've been learning not to ask so much of myself. I need to put into practice the reality that asking more of God is not to push myself into work mode, or to expect more "output" from me. It is to desire Him. Maybe I am a bit afraid of, as Teresa put it, "I die because I do not die." To desire -- ah, it can be so painful. And to desire without picturing how God is supposed to answer. Oy!

I think there is something here. I think I fear the pain of desiring, of longing. But this really was what Fr. Riccardo spoke of. I also intuit that there is more purification to be had.

"More, Lord. More." How many times did someone pray that over the weekend. At one point, I think it was Fr. Matthias who asked everyone to pray that, like a small child. Praying from the place is a purifying thing, too.

I think all this is another reason why I feel frightened to be losing my spiritual director, even if I never really sought his help as one to show me where to go. But I knew I had a safe port, and accountability, and someone knew.

What the Lord showed me was that running into the Lord's embrace, I drop the worries, even the fear of the pain, because the embrace of the Lord dwarfs all that.

And, that really is what Epiphany tells me today, too. It is all about pointing out Jesus, and going full throttle to seek Him.  Sometimes I get stuck standing with amazement staring up at the star.

Just like I was getting grumpy at those folks for being to amazed and excited and all that, I see that it is really that I need to deal with my own over-amazement, or having mercy on myself in it.

Or just bring it to Jesus like everything else.

Encounter Ministries Conference 2018

I spent the last few days at the Encounter 2018 conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am writing this to help digest my own experience of it.

I almost ended up not going because of a glitch which I admit I had a hard time letting go of. I registered very early on, following a sudden impulse, in a way I rarely do. Because of family logistics, I knew I'd be needing to bring my daughter along. As I went through the registration, I found that there was a registration for kids under 13, and that they were admitted at no charge. Great! I was ready to pay for her, regardless, but this was even better.

But the night before the conference started, I was told my daughter had no registration, free registration never existed, the conference was full, and that was that. Previous communications had not helped one bit.

So, up until about two hours before we had planned to leave, I was no longer certain I would go, or what my daughter would do. Then, I was told a space had opened up, and I could bring her. My daughter (who can become completely unreadable when faced with circumstances like this) was evidently pleased that she was not being left behind or forced out. We went, I payed her registration, as I was happy to do. But it bugged me to no end that my assertion that I was not lying about free registration went unanswered. In between time, the venue had changed to another state, and everyone's registration was help open to refund if needed. I have a feeling the website was re-done at that point, eliminating the option. It just really, really bugged me that I was left to feel like a liar that was being mercifully accomodated instead of someone whose registration was unjustly cancelled.

It is a little unusual for me to get bugged by things like this, but it didn't completely end there. When we arrived, I realized that basically all the staff of the conference was young enough to be my children, biologically speaking at least. I realized I have issues with this generation. There, I said it. As we walked into the church building, I noted people with staff t-shirts shouting and squeeling to each other, hugging, laughing, chatting, singing with each other -- but not really attentive to the people they were there to greet and welcome at all. I questioned one young man about something; he didn't know the answer, but walked off to a seperate room (passing 6-10 other staff) to find someone who knew. He gave us an answer, which we pursued, only to find that we had been incorrectly directed. It worked out, but my frustration grew. I really value competence and serious mindedness. I realized I was in sanguine happy land. Isn't administration a spiritual gift, too?

To be honest, this was not an easy conference for me to settle down into, but this wasn't for any of the reasons that those who know what this was might guess. The whole thing was focused on welcoming the supernatural experience of God into average Catholic life. I am 100%, wholeheartedly in agreement with this premise. Signs, wonders, healing, miracles, words from God: it is all normative Christianity, and it is clearly a way which God is opening up all around us, through a multitude of avenues. God is coming on the scene with Pentecost.

But, I struggled to settle down into it all. I'm writing to understand this.

I think first I need to just write about what happened there. Then, I think I need to write about what happened at Mass this morning. (My daughter and I left yesterday afternoon before the Vigil Mass in order to be home for my parish Mass this morning, for reasons I'll have to write about later.)

First, there's the praise and worship. I've realized for a few years now that I have a hard time with this form of prayer these days. It is what I cut my teeth on in my 20s, and it was a huge staple in my life for decades. Musically, I am not opposed to guitar, drums, or any of that. What I find I struggled with was two-fold. Musically, modern praise and worship is insipid. Forget three chords; these songs are comprised largely of only three notes. Second, lyrically, almost none of it was Scripture, but vapid rhyming phrases about God. Occasionally, there was a nugget of something that could be meditated on. In some of the worship sessions, I knew none of the songs; nevertheless I could sing the whole thing after hearing half a verse, because it was that predictable. It was very, very difficult for me to focus, worship, and pray with this as my platform. There was nothing to lift mind or soul. For one group, I had to go into distracting-voice-deflection mode, but fortunately I've honed that skill in 25+ years in Catholic parishes.

The talks were awesome, and by that I mean they reflected normal Christianity, and by that I mean they were designed to build faith in the love and the action of God in our lives. The buzzword is "activation," and clearly that is something we all need; we need to stop and pray for God to come and draw us in as active participants into the things the speakers spoke on.

I had no idea, honestly, that so many people carried so much physical pain and brokenness. There were 1,000 people present, and I think it is fair to say that hundreds of people reported healing of significant physical issues. For this we rightly give God thanks.

At this particular point in my life, thanks be to God, I do not carry physical pain. I did stand up at one point, to receive healing prayer, because I told my daughter the night before that if they offered prayer for this certain thing, I would receive it. Two things, actually, although for the second I was standing to pray over someone else, too. It fitting the irony of the whole experience: the circumstance when I asked for prayer, people were instructed to come around and pray over those who stood. Not a single person came to pray over me, even though I must have been in eye shot of at least 50 people. Still, I felt the embrace of God's healing heat. I can't tell you if anything changed, because these are genetic things I know I am predisposed to, and I was really praying into the future.

There was plenty of time for prayer and soaking in God's love and receiving His powerful presence. In the midst of these, I was able to acknowledge the sadness in my heart over the fact that my spiritual director is at death's door. He is 87 years old, and very ready to meet the Lord. For my part, I think of the bittersweetness of laying bear one's soul to another human being, and then being left alone by that person. I have gone through this is various ways multiple times over the last decade, and while God has never left me abandonded and without help, a series of experiences like this is simply not easy. It hurts. This hurts.

The one moment in the conference when I really felt my spirit dance was on Friday evening, when Fr. John Riccardo delivered a word he called a scalpel. Essentially he called us to receive God's gift of a broken heart, so that we would love as God loves, including suffering the pain His heart feels. He spoke of St. Francis and St. Faustina, but in them I heard echos of St. Therese's Oblation of Merciful Love, and my Carmelite vocation, to be love in the heart of the Church. Ironically, when he spoke of suffering love, my heart wanted to dance. It is not that I enjoy suffering. The Lord knows that if I could feel only pleasure for the rest of my life, I would be delighted. But in this I heard my vocation that God is already teaching me to live. It is not the delight of suffering; it is the delight of hearing God call my name. And I realized that my Carmelite vocation, my vocation to be a hidden, contemplative lover of God and one who lives a life of prayer, never knowing exactly what the fruits are: this vocation is vital to the Body of Christ.

I was also reviewing some notes that I had actually recorded in this blog, about the Carmelite Congress I attended in November (complete, night and day difference from my response to this Encounter conference in terms of ease of communion with God). One thing that struck me was the thought of peaceful confidence. The Carmelite vocation is one of inner peace, of confidence and courage arising from affirmation of the one we know loves us. Peace.  Frankly, I did not feel peaceful at the Encounter conference -- not because of anything not of God, but because everyone was so dang excited, amazed, astounded. I get it -- these are signs of the Holy Spirit being present. It's in the Scripture. I have been there. I've been there in living my Carmelite vocation. But, there is a process by which we come to accept the glorious move of God as commonplace to our lives, or normal. This was something God spoke to me way, way back, when I was about two or three weeks into my call to become a Catholic. He told me, "I want the glorious to become commonplace in your life." To be at peace, and to radiate peace, communicates God in a certain way. To radiate excitement is necessary, mind you, to wake people up from sleep and to announce a new day.

Really what I am left with is a realization that God has actually called me to a vocation, and that this vocation determines how I respond and interact with other members of the Body. It helps me, but sometimes it helps me in a backhanded way, precisely because we are not all the same. Yet, we all need each other. I need them; they need me.

I have a desire to discuss these things with some of my Carmelite community members who have spent long years in the charismatic renewal. (Fr. Matthias, however, made the point-well-taken that he does not like to associate himself with the term "charismatic," due to all the baggage is has accumulated over the years, and because he prefers to think not of a group but of the reality of God. This I applaud and I feel the same.) I will never forget that one of my first exposures to Catholicism was at the Carmelite parish in West Milwaukee where for some reason I stumbled into some discussion. I asked the priest something about the charismatic movement, and he responded with something like, "That's very nice for beginners in the spiritual life. If you want something more substantive, check out Carmel." I was so, so, so offended and thought he was incredibly arrogant, which I'm sure was simply me looking into the mirror.

But, I guess the point I'm getting to is that God does many good things, and He uses all His people, but not in the same ways. I am responsible for living what He has given me.

And I guess that's why I need to write about what happened at Mass this morning, next.

Wholeheartedness

Everything I've ever needed to know, I've learned by singing.

Well, no, that's not quite true. Half I learned by singing, and half I learned by writing. Singing means living, and writing means relating with God, myself and others. There. Everything covered.

Seriously though. While I was cantoring for the Mass on January 1, the feast of Mary, Mother of God, I had one of those "word of the year" moments. There are a lot of these "word of the year" memes that go around social media. It never, ever works for me to choose a word of the year to work on or be mindful of, because I think I'm just not built that way. So, what I'm about to say might sound quite contradictory. I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself."

This word of the year (or month, or season, or whatever -- the future I do not tell) seemed more to spring out of my spirit into my consciousness, fully formed, clearing its throat, asking for attention. I am not choosing this; I am acknowledging it.

Wholeheartedness. I need to choose it daily.

This came about because of the dratted microphone at the cantor's ambo at my church. For some time, there has been a debate and kerfluffle, mostly in my own head, about the use of this microphone. The director had stated that the cantors were not to use it any longer to lead the congregation, except in certain circumstances, and those eventually became somewhat non-defined. At first I had a viscerlly negative reaction to this, mostly because I felt strongly that cantors should lead. The counter claim was that our parish actually sings decently, and it is not necessary, and perhaps even a distraction, to have a cantor in front, bellowing a familiar hymn into a microphone.

So things went. And partly my various concerns remained, and partly I appreciated not having to sing into the mic all the time for various reasons. But what remained in me, like an old sock that didn't hit the laundry, was a new sense of ambivalence and uncertainty of what was best. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, right? But so things went.

So I stood at the mic on January 1, singing the Gloria, because my written directive clearly stated "cantor intones Gloria." I am built to follow the directives I am given, which is another issue when I have ambivalent socks hanging about.

I was singing, but I was thinking about how close I was to the mic, how loudly I was singing, and whether I was helping or hindering. And then I did it. I lost my place, and I sang the wrong words. (And others followed my lead, including the priest!)

By the end of that Mass, I realized my struggle was with wholeheartedness. Not just with this mic detail, but in general. Worshipping God (i.e., living; singing if you will) is a response of an undivided heart, or it needs to be. That is the path I pursue, and it is the path that leads me surely. And I wasn't on it. Thinking about this, that, him, her -- which all boils down to thinking about ME -- is a huge distraction from worship.

There is thinking about me that needs to happen, and it is the thought that says, "Lord, I deposit myself 100% in you, in whom I live and move and have my being." And then I need to live from there.  But you know what? There comes that moment when living from there hits a cross road with something outside me that requires a response from me that I wasn't planning on. Living from 100% deposit in God means I'm not in control mode. I'm in response mode. I'm in take courage mode. Otherwise, my heart and mind are divided.

Today as this continued to resonate with me, this passage from James 1 came to mind:

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord (1:2-8)

I asked, faith in what? What is it we are not supposed to doubt? I've heard people use this passage for all sorts of weirdness, like the pastor who got dressed in a suit to walk on his swimming pool because he was asking in faith for the ability to follow Christ like Peter, and he was "without doubt" it would happen.

I don't think this is it at all. As 1 John 4:16 puts it, we are to believe in the love God has for us.

See, for a long time, I think I thought that to be wholehearted, gung ho, all in, had to mean I was sure of myself, I was right. I knew what was real and true; it was my possession. Or, I had to be sure of another person, sure of our relationship, our friendship. I could grasp something solid in my hand, and then I could be wholehearted. But this is all self. It's all pride. At best it comes forth as well-intentioned arrogance, and at worst it sets oneself up for a depressing and crushing fall. Or perhaps, really, at worst it creates a dull, chronic atmosphere of meh. Indifference. Staleness. Meh.

To be sure of the love God has for us is a completely different thing that being sure of myself. In fact, I think the only way we can get sure of God's love for us is to embrace how flawed we are, how needy we are, how unjust we are, and how incredibly gratuitous God's love is. The more deeply I see my schnee, the more blown away I am at God's desire to embrace me. When I know that it is precisely like this, needy and weak and mercy-pleading, that God loves me like mad, the more my whole heart is free. I'm love. What else do I need?

When I know I'm loved by Him, my little bitty wobbly heart is going to respond with a resounding "yee-haw"! That's worship. It's an on-going conversation, so it's going to purify me. It's going to refine me. It's going to change me. It's going to reveal stuff that will need to go into His love, and sometimes that process is going to hurt. Sometimes it's going to burn like hell. But it is all about moving in faith, faith that I am loved because God is love. It is faith in Love.

This Love is the only source of courage, of living response-ably with God and people.

This is a key discernment question for me: what is tripping me up in wholeheartedness? What needs to be addressed? What am I afraid of? What is the next step onward? And the need is always to soak deeply in God's love, and then respond from that to the reality around me.