Seeking God, or Self-Harm?

This morning as I settled into my prayer time, I picked up Divine Intimacy and flipped to the entry for Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent. In a few pages, I realized I have found the key to something I wrestled with for years, and have struggled to put in to words, even after the struggle subsided.

The text asks, essentially, why is it hard to know God is present with me? The answer is that God hides. The method put forth to deal with that hiding is "to detach oneself, deprive oneself, renounce oneself, annihilate oneself, to die spiritually to oneself and to all things" (p. 32).

Leaving it at that is where I stumbled for years. As a teen, and even as an adult in some circumstances, I was pretty adept at things like going without food or water because I was too shy, hesitant, feeling-like-a-bother to ask for what I needed. Subtly I was firm in my opposition to my flourishing and even my existence. Is that the kind of detachment and self-deprivation that brings about revelation of God? Is that death to self? It never felt right to believe that was what Jesus was talking about, but my mind didn't know what else to do with that. 

The quote from St. John of the Cross there is actually this: 

It is to be observed that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is hidden, in essence and in presence, in the inmost being of the soul. Wherefore, the soul that would find Him must go forth from all things according to the affection and will, and enter within itself in deepest recollection, so that all things are to it as though they were not... God, then, is hidden within the soul and there the good contemplative must seek Him with love (Spiritual Canticle, 1, 6)

There's that huge, important missing piece: God is hidden in the inmost being of the soul. God is not hiding in a box or behind a garbage can somewhere. He hides within the soul, at least by His capacity to dwell there, if not through the indwelling presence given in baptism. 

The text goes on:

St. John of the Cross continues, "He that has to find some hidden thing must enter very secretly even into the same hidden place where it is, and when he finds it, he too is hidden like that which he has found. ... This is a new invitation to detachment -- to forget everything, to withdraw from everything -- in order to enter into the depths of your soul, the place where God hides Himself (p. 33)

I'm not meant to learn to deprive myself of food; I'm mean to deprive myself of what restrains me from eating. I'm not meant to go a day without water while staring for hours at a spare water bottle my friend has in the car (true story). I'm meant to forget the knots I tie myself into instead of caring for my need. The true physical, emotional, psychological needs I have are in fact needs because I am a spiritual being designed to seek and find God. They serve my ultimate end, which is union for God. They are meant to be met, and posthaste, but not for their own sake. 

Along with God being hidden in the inmost being of my soul, all the enemy territory is also there. All those lying beliefs about how it would be better if I didn't exist. All of those subtle motivations to pride and self-harm. This is why it can be such a battle to even go within in the first place. God hides among our mess.

But, the beautiful journey is to go within, and there to "forget all that is thine, withdraw thyself from all creatures, and hide in the interior closet of thy spirit" (Spiritual Canticle 1, 9). There it is that no one, and nothing else matters, but seeking the One alone, because He alone suffices. Finding Him, my spouse, my children, my friends, my achievements, my talents, my possessions, my health -- they all fade there. There I embrace the nada. There I flee what is superficial and external, and cling wholly and completely to what is God.

This actually sharpens our love for all persons and created goods, because we can see more clearly what they are all for, and their preciousness.

There God defeats our enemies and unfurls the flag of His love, now planted firm in territory fully ceded to Him. 

I Will Make You a Threshing Sledge

The reading from Isaiah in yesterday's Mass struck me, weirdly. Listen to this:

I will help you, says the Lord; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. I will make of you a threshing sledge, sharp, new, and double-edged, to thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff. When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off and the storm shall scatter them. But you shall rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

 What is God's activity here? He's there to help by making me into a threshing sledge. Ok, hold on one second. I thought I knew what this is, but here's an actual threshing sledge:

It's used to pull over the harvested grain to separate the kernal from the chaff. See, I hear sledge, and I'm picturing this: 

But no. I'm a threshing sledge, sharp and new, and double-edged. A sharp piece of board doesn't sound nearly as menacing as a sharp sledge hammer. (Why a hammer would be sharp, dunno, but we've got that cleared up now.)

And why is He making me a threshing sledge? To thresh... the mountains. See, what you do with that item is you drag it over the grain, drag it, drag it, drag it, until everything is broken down. Then you winnow it. Winnowing I at least recognize, even though I've never actually done it. You gather the grain, throw it into the air, and the wind takes the useless chaff away, while the valuable, heavier kernals fall back down to be bagged up.

Here's what struck me. God says I'm going to help you... and we're going to do a ton of hard work. How long do you think it would take to thresh a mountain? To wear that thing down, reduce it to winnowable chunks? 

I think my default expectation of Advent prophecies of the Lord's coming sound to me like, "Ok, just hold tight. The Lord is coming, and He's going to wave His magic wand, and everything that has ever troubled you is going to be transformed into light and glory right before your eyes, and it's going to take maybe a week or so at the very longest, and you'll never have to excercise faith or hope ever again because He's your serious Sugar Lord..."

Um, no. 

He says He going to help me by making me effective against what looks like impossible, insurmountable blockages. He'll send the wind and the storm to carry away all the yuck, and it sort of implies that He's going to be pulling the threshing sledge back and forth and back and forth over these mountains, so I'm going to be covering a lot of rocky territory again and again. And then I get to winnow, and participate in Him taking away the useless and keeping the nourishing. (Then, let's not forget that those nourishing grains still need to either be cooked, or ground for flour, then made into bread, to actually eat.) What the Scripture is talking about is absolutely not instant gratification.

Ironically though, I do find it immensely gratifying. This describes the reality of spiritual growth and progress. 

So, in today's drag across the mountain, I find that in the past, I had broken up something within me that used to be far too depressed and despondent to ever make my life and my time available to anything outside my own survival, really. I mean, I held a job and took care of myself, but interiorly I was semi-catatonic. That piece of Mt. Marie has been broken up. I have gotten used to a posture of, "Anything, anytime, anywhere, here I am for it." But I realize I am still the threshing sledge getting dragged across that. Sometimes, saying yes to things has been life-giving, but sometimes I have said yes to fool's errands and worn myself out.

I'm kind of in a new season of life. My children are adults, and need me in completely different ways than they used to. I slowly worked my way out of being a homeschooling Mom. I have plenty on my plate to do, and admittedly, my posture of "anything, anytime, anyhwere" has made me several people's "go-to" person. Today a lightbulb is coming on as I make another pass over this territory. If I don't manage my time and choose my actions, someone else will, and instead of getting freed up to be able to respond generously, I'm going to be resentful, and working at cross purposes to what I actually need and desire -- which is to seek to live (consciously) in the presence of God. 

If you aim at nothing you're sure to reach your goal, no? I started out buried under passivity, and now I see a new level where I need to be watchful, attentive, and gently active. I have long struggled with ignoring what I need and desire, finding it incredibly shameful to be found in the normal human condition. Poppycock. That's going out with the chaff. I also used to think that old people (like my age now) were all dreadfully lazy, because they weren't like manic workers with the zoomies. Being proud is like being unfamiliar with deodorant. No one wants to tell you how you seem, and few get close enough to you to do so, anyway.

All of this is an illustration of why the prayer, "My life is Yours, Lord" can be new every day. Because the Lord keeps moving my threshing sledge self around, even after I stop and winnow for a while. Then maybe suddenly there will be the instruction to walk forward, because that mountain that once blocked me simply isn't there anymore.

Let Advent In

Tomorrow I'm singing in a community choir Christmas concert, and today was our dress rehearsal. Somewhere along the line this morning I finally became present to the words we were singing. I mean, this is perhaps an unusual community choir, where, for Christmas at least, we are singing almost all sacred music, or traditional carols, so almost every single song is actually about Jesus Christ. I confess I really haven't been tuned into that fact at all.

I confess I've gotten fairly comfortable with distracting myself pretty heavily from my interior life. Did you know that an easy way to do that is to get really busy with church stuff? At least six days out of the week I am leading music in one way or another. I found myself this week getting really bothered and ever so slightly confrontational with the sacristans about small things I noticed that went awry at Mass. Standing around the coffee pot after Mass I suddenly realized there were cobwebs in a corner of the ceiling right there. I confessed aloud to my daughter and a friend who was with us that I thought occasionally I should go to a different parish for Mass so I wouldn't be so distracted with being such a Church Lady.

And we won't even discuss hours passing through my fingers like water as I watch mindless reels on Facebook. Geez. Every day seems to go so fast, and I keep thinking about how I'm never going to get any of these days back. And yet, if I stop to ponder, even sometimes if I think I need to pull out that blog and write so I can actually dig down into it, I reprimand myself with Other Stuff I could be doing. Something supposedly more important. 

Distraction. Everything and anything except...

Reality. 

It's Advent.

Once upon a time, on a Christmas Eve night, a shockwave of grace went off in my soul that reverberated for, oh, something like 20 years. This shockwave taught me that becoming a human being was good enough for the Eternal Son of God. It isn't that I didn't know the doctrinal tenet of the Incarnation. But it wasn't so real to me until then. I can't explain the revelation except to say that Jesus embraced my humanity and said, "It is good. I made this." It was that night that, in my heart, I became a Catholic (followed be being received into the Church about 16 months later), and my Christian identity shifted from Luther's "poor, miserable sinner" who would never change, to a daughter who is redeemed, restored, and healed by the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. 

But there was another shockwave that followed some 20 years later, and it was the Epiphany. Just search the blog for the word, and you'll see. 

And yeah, so here I am, in 2023, singing Christmas songs and just barely allowing the words to touch my heart. How did I get so controlling? What's the threat, here? 

There's a scary word in those Ephiphay posts: risk. I can't even write more about that right now, other than to say I need to bring my risk PTDS to the Lord. What I know to the marrow of my being is that God is good and there is nothing He cannot fill with His glory. The more cracked and broken it is, the bettter to showcase His glory. Honestly, I am eligible to be a massive, mighty showcase.

You know what? I don't want to be anxious and controlling. I know, better than I know my own name, that there is absolutely nothing for me to fear in God. I've spent my life feeling a fool to myself, so if there's new territory for me to scout there, hey, who doesn't love an adventure. I can set a daily intention to feel what is happening inside, and if I need to stop and smile, or stop and cry, or stop and write a blog post -- all are fine. All are just different verses I sing to the Lord, calling out, "Where have you hidden?" I can learn and I can change. I've been doing it for years. Any worthwhile endeavor takes some work, and I love work, as long as I also have hope and companionship.

This is the path of contemplation. How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv'n...

St. Ivo, pray for me.

St. Ivo

 I don't even remember how long I've been claiming a patron saint every year, on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, but it has been a good long time. I use Jen Fulweiler's Random Saint Generator. The nature of a saint is that we all have something to learn from them, something to gain from them in terms of the riches of God's love. But there have been many, many times when either immediately or as the year went on, my random saint's involvement in my life proved very fitting and helpful. A few times, they were people who left writings. Usually it was something about their lives that I reflected on, or that frankly came to do a jump-scare on me. 

This year my selected saint is St. Ivo of Kermartin. I had never heard of him, but a perusal of his biography has me just a bit up in my feels, as they say. 

Patronage: Abandoned People; Advocates; Attorneys; Bailiffs; Barristers; Canon Lawyers; Judges; Jurists; Notaries; Orphans. That's what came up on Jen's site.

Lately my prayer, formed by listening to the fourth pillar of the Catechism in the Catechism in a Year podcast, formed by a lesson in Becoming Who I am, formed by a blink-and-refocus look at my Carmelite vocation -- all these point me to my need to be authentic, real, raw with God. To try to do something else is futile and a waste of my life, and to be otherwise through laziness is reason to throw open the windows as I carreen down the highway of life and let in the blast of cold wintery air that sets me right again. 

This entails being honest with myself first about my felt needs. 

And I have felt such a need for an advocate. It's hard to put into words. There's a psalm that says, "Though I constantly take my life in my hands..," or another translation says, "Though I constantly put my life at risk.." My feeling of what an advocate does (or THE Advocate, the Holy Spirit) is to take my life in His hands. The Advocate knows me, knows all the ins and outs, understands it all, and is for me, to plead my case against the Adversary who comes to try to ruin my life with his claims. When I just let that scene sink in, I let out a huge sigh. The weight of things falls off. Without a doubt, I can trust the Holy Spirit. But so often I act like I have to defend myself against Him. It really is more like I need to humble myself before Him. 

Parts of me can relate to feeling like an abandoned child. If not because of actual life events, definitely because I abandon my own self regularly. I recognize in me the anxiety that makes it hard to relax, hard to enjoy things. It's an imbalanced overvaluing of my work and an impoverished eye toward the granduer, majesty, and love of God that actually holds me in life and, in fact, shows a feeling of having been abandoned as the utter lie that it is. 

My sense is that St. Ivo would say to me, "Nope, you aren't abandoned, and you don't have to do everything for yourself. Let me remind you to how the Holy Spirit actually operates for you."

Inflating my Christmas Hope

I admit it; Christmas has been going flat for me. As a small child there was, I suppose, glitz that even I managed to be excited about, and as an older child, there was plenty to weigh down my soul with sadness, and later I brimmed with cynicism as we approached the celebration of the birth of Christ. No one could do it right enough for me.

But all of that changed for me on Christmas Eve of 1991 when I went to a Midnight Mass with a guy I was very interested in, though I managed to be even more interested in finally taking the step of personally experiencing something of Catholicism with as open a heart as I was able to muster. 

I was two years out of college. My grandmother had just died, I was emotionally paralyzed over remaining unpursued by any romantic interest, I constantly whined to God about how He didn't love me, my employment was purely survival-driven, and in many ways I was still waiting for my life to start. I plodded through life but dreamed, rather despairingly, of possibly having a future with meaning. 

It all seemed perfectly normal and relatively stable at the time, but when I look back, I realize I was in a rather dark place. 

This morning at Mass I began to recall the importance of keeping my personal journey fresh in my mind. I've written about that Mass many times in this blog; here's a link to the full story. Suffice it to say here that God stepped into my history as with a trumpet, announcing that He had come to save me -- me, not mankind. He showed up. He called to me: Here I am! This electrifying encounter shook my life for decades. 

Just like a little baby showing up in a poopy stable, He burst upon the scene and changed everything forever.

(Oh my goodness, I just realized I am coming up on this being 30 years ago! How did I suddenly get so old?)

It really was like being born again, in the sense that a brand new life started for me that night, and I also had much to grow into. When God again burst into my life within the last decade or so, which ended up with me entering the Secular Carmelites, I learned that a Christmas Eve conversion is something I had in common with St. Therese. I learned how Carmelite-y Advent is. I learned that my call is to be the intercessor that invites the same grace of conversion I have received to be present to souls who, like me, searched without hope of finding, whined after love with a cold, closed, cynical heart, and doubted the value of my own creation. And I realize how it makes me weep when I encounter souls like I was! Oh dear God, I can't stand to witness that pain! It makes me feel so helpless, so powerless, so... desperate! I could wish I had a magic wand to take away this pain, but in this moment I realize I have something that is real, and powerful: I have my own history of God's action in my life. Don't forget, Marie.

The proof of the power of the love of God is now in me. It is my life. It is in my reality. It is in my faith. 

For whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers our world is our faith. 1 John 5:4

Faith is the realization of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Faith calls me, places me, into the community of believers. As a Carmelite, I know that my vocation is ecclesial; is of the Church and belongs to the Church. I also have long had the intuition that there were people of the Church praying for me -- I mean many more than the actually individuals who told me they were, or whom I experienced praying for me. Hidden people prayed for me. I know this.

And now I am one of the hidden people, and I pray for others. I have prayed for decades for the conversion of people's hearts. Some people "specialize" in praying for healing or praying long-term for those walking through difficult situations. My speciality has been to pray for the bottoms of people's hearts to open up to Love, and respond to Love's call to belong to Him. 

What I want most is to know that the people I love know and believe that God loves them, that they deeply respond to that love. This is my joy.

And I am going to keep on reminding myself that human pain is never the end of the story. Love is patient. The Lord Jesus Christ is powerful; He is present; He pursues our hearts and will never give up. Love is not desperate, nor whiny. Jesus is with us and is pursuing us for the long (or short) haul of our entire lives. His presence brings joy, life, peace, healing, truth, beauty. We have only to open to Him, and receive.

The Anawim of Advent: Infertility

I remembered it this morning during Mass.

"If you struggle with infertility and are already depressed, it's not a good idea to go to daily Mass the week before Christmas."

We discussed it in my infertility support group back in the day. Because, for several days, the Scriptures tell several stories of women who were infertile, and then got pregnant and had babies who grew up to be someone significant in salvation history.

And no one who is infertile and depressed about it so close to Christmas wants to hear yet another story about a baby.

My days of anguish are years behind me, ever since the positive pregnancy test I had in 2004. My daughter will be 12 next year. She was born the day after we finalized our son's adoption (when he was 3 1/2).

And I hear all those stories differently now, too. The problem is, we all need to learn to feel the anguish in them. What flies by in a few moments' reading needs to be something that hits us all in the gut.

An angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her,

“Though you are barren and have had no children,yet you will conceive and bear a son. The woman went and told her husband,“A man of God came to me;he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed. I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. But he said to me,‘You will be with child and will bear a son.  (Judges 13)

Both were righteous in the eyes of God,observing all the commandmentsand ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barrenand both were advanced in years. 
 “Do not be afraid, Zechariah,because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,and you shall name him John. And you will have joy and gladness,and many will rejoice at his birth,for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. 
“How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel said to him in reply,“I am Gabriel, who stand before God.I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talkuntil the day these things take place,because you did not believe my words,which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”

After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived,
and she went into seclusion for five months, saying,
“So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit
to take away my disgrace before others.” (Luke 1)

There is an awe, a fear, that descends upon the wife of Manoah, whose name we are not told. Zechariah, on the other hand, has grown old with the pain of barrenness, and the pain has gotten so crusty that he no longer has power to believe. His long pain needed a long rehabilitation -- even longer than Elizabeth's confinement. During that time, his fear of hoping is replaced by joyful faith, magnified in silence.

Longing for a child that cannot be conceived is the strange ache, not of a loss, but of something that has never been. It is a form of anguish, a sense of impotence, of deep inability, of powerlessness. In biblical times, if not now, it was the worst of social shames. One does not belong; one has no people, no future. The fact that God is "the Lord and giver of life" is of deep, distressing consternation. It seems one also has no standing with God.

And yet from the outside, no one can see this anguish. One carries on through a private, intimate humiliation, disappointment, and grief.

Spiritually, this is a place of incredible value, and it is the path along which God brought Israel, making it the anawim, "the poor who depend on the Lord for deliverance."

It is very difficult, especially for powerful, modern Americans, to be in the position of the anawim. It is painful. And like it did to Zechariah, the pain can make one crusty and quick to doubt.

To be brought to this place, and to cry out for strength and to cling in trust to God who is Good, is a priceless gift. We need to help others who are in this situation to persevere in hope and faith, not for the deliverance of their choice, but for their choice of Deliverer.

The message of Advent is: Our God will come and will not delay. He is the Deliverer.

Lord, grant us the grace to open our hearts and to receive You as You are.

An Advent Examination of Conscience

An examination of conscience is very important, but the term is not one I use much. I once thought it required me to mentally castigate and punish myself for everything I did wrong, and since as a child I had learned that I was incapable of doing good, I had a hard time getting past the need to accuse myself of the sin of existing. Bad theology really messes with the mind.

So instead I find it helpful to review my day and look for where I experienced God most profoundly, and how it changed my day, and how it needs to still change my day.

Today, that was fairly easy. The first whaabang was in praying the Office of Readings this morning, especially in the reading from St. Augustine. The readings about St. John the Baptist almost always strike me very profoundly, because God gave me a personal gift of a St. John in my life. This line especially: "We should take our lesson from St. John the Baptist. He is thought to be the Christ; he declares he is not what they think. He does not take advantage of their mistake to further his own glory." I could never really put into words how that made me weep, but consider how not only easy but common it is for one person to take advantage of another, but what an act of love and honor of God it is to choose to humble oneself rather than hurt another person. And how rare that is. For a person to put the honor of God even above how they wish to be received by another or what advantage they want for themselves -- that is a big deal. And when I could have truly been used, I instead encountered this witness of honoring God. Today I wept in gratitude for that. And I know that those tears washed yet clearer the true image of what I was spiritually perceiving.

The other moment was at Mass, while singing the communion hymn. I thought of how grateful, how content, how peaceful I am, not because everything is perfect, but because I was there with the Lord who has given me so much, has set so much at rights, has surrounded me, provided me with everything I need to be happy. I have no blind eye turned to what could be better, but that is so much my natural inclination -- seeing the problems, seeing the lacks -- that it is so beautiful to me to just say "I am here, and it is good." It is God's love that fills me and enables me to be grateful, satisfied, peaceful. And love bubbles from me and seeks others. That is not natural to me, and I know it full well.

I did other things throughout the day, I got tired, I began to take on other people's emotions. I had an interesting extended experience of thinking about who I was 20 years ago as I finished watching a video I took when I lived in Japan. Listening to myself talk (so sarcastic, so pain-sopped, so disconnected from other people) was deeply cringeworthy, as my son put it. I faced other aspects of my life that are problematic.

But then I thought, examination of conscience: go back to where I experienced God, not my own misery. With God, He teaches me to have mercy on my old self, understanding the pain that motivated me, while honoring the courage. It is a recipe for every day, and not only for myself. Have understanding for the pain that is behind others' actions, too, honor the courage with which they act nonetheless.

But mostly, nothing trumps being with Jesus. He gives the best gifts. Sometimes it takes us years to fully appreciate them. Every pain we pass through in pursuit of Him is worth it. He promises us the difficulties, but he also promises the hundred fold. I have been so silly, but He keeps being more and more generous to me. All I can offer Him is all of me, anything and everything that He wants. Just want He wants of me. I am convinced that no matter what it is, it will always be the best possible thing.

Loneliness and Christian Emptiness

Earlier this week, I came across this quote which speaks volumes to me:

God looked over the world for an empty heart -- but not a lonely heart -- a heart that was empty like a flute on which He might pipe a tune -- not lonely like an empty abyss, which is filled by death. And the emptiest heart He could find was the heart of a Lady. Since there was no self there, He filled it with His very Self.
~ Fulton Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary Mother of God

In a manner of speaking, one of God's goals for us is for us to become empty. This emptiness, of course, has to be understood, as Sheen's sense has it, in the Carmelite way. Empty means ready. Empty implies availability, and it implies purpose and community. One is available for something, or rather for Someone.

It speaks, of course, to the scene of Joseph and Mary journeying to Bethlehem, looking for available space where Jesus might be born. Is my house, am I, available? Not much is made of this in Scripture, but much has been made of it in meditations such as the custom of Las Posadas. 

The enemy of this kind of emptiness is loneliness. When I read this, the naru hodo alarm rang within me as my personal history instantly shot up multiple instances of proof of this. Oh my goodness how my nature has recoiled from self-emptying for fear of loneliness, of that sense of being left out of the life-stream that certainly everyone else was deeply enjoying. The voices that speak contrary to truth: the world, the flesh and the devil, scream that I must have things, people, experiences that fill me, things I can possess, things I must hold on to to stay afloat. For certainly life revolves around something I don't have but need, or something I don't have enough of, or something I might lose, or something someone else controls and I have to posture myself in order to receive. Certainly without having, I am nothing.

Right?

Um, no.

In the midst of frantic craving I lose sight of reality. Reality is that the God of the universe, the Blessed Trinity, created me for a purpose. My purpose is to love and worship God in a holy communion of persons. I worship God as I lay down my life, as I empty myself and empty from myself all lesser pursuits.

I do this not because I am a masochist and don't believe in or want good things for myself. It is not Christian to understand "empty" in the sense of "denude." I do this out of great faith in the One who reciprocates my emptiness with Himself. The availability we offer to God is always for communion. God's ultimate goal for us is union with Him, not for us to become simply a great void. As I relinquish my obsessive self-factor I see that God loves, gives, and is deeply merciful in response to enter into human misery and to be, literally, God-with-us.

To break it down and make it real simple: faith in Jesus calls me to abandon everything to Him in love. I long to be empty, I agree to be emptied, I move towards emptiness because I know, love, and trust in the One who fills. And that infilling is what every smidgeon of my being longs for.

Oh yeah, there might be long, painful gaps where there are no blissful feelings. Stuff of earth feels useless and the bliss of heaven is nowhere. You experience loss, dependencies will be broken, and temporal security will be shaken.

But I believe and trust in the promise -- no, in the One who made the promise. He is faithful. He is true. I love Him; He calls me. To wait for such a One in emptiness is not the death-filled abyss of loneliness. It is the strengthening and deepening of love. It is worth giving your life for. In fact, it is the only thing worth giving your life for.

Patron Saint of 2015

I wait for this day every fall. It is the last day of the liturgical year; tomorrow begins Advent. And every year I have this custom to basically pull out of a hat (actually, to randomly select by computer program) a patron saint for the year.

It is almost disconcerting how excited I get about this.

And every year almost the same thing happens.

I greet the day with great anticipation, I go to get my new saint, and my initial response is something like Huh? Who? But as the year progresses and I do what I can to learn about this saint and ask his/her intercession, I develop some kind of fondness for him/her, and I also see how whatever glory was in his/her life speaks to me in my concrete circumstances. Sometimes there is an prophetic tone to the choice that I only recognize as the year moves along. And almost always I feel the transition from one patron to another with a tinge of bittersweetness. Yes, I have issues with getting emotionally attached even to patron saints.

My new patroness of 2015 is St. Catherine of Sweden. She was the daughter of St. Bridget of Sweden, was married young but persuaded her husband to a vow of virginity and was widowed soon afterwards. She accompanied her mother on pilgrimages for years after that, and concluded her life as Abbess of the convent her mother founded.

I'm going with this picture of her, since I like the headgear she's wearing. Looks very Scandinavian.

A Meditation on St. Ambrose's Commentary on the Visitation

Have I ever mentioned that I love Advent? And have I ever mentioned how thrilling it can be to pray and feel your life standing in God's presence, yes, even despite Him allowing a few more things to be unhidden about the mystery, often the totally miserable mystery, one is to oneself? Because when you stand in God's presence, even though you realize what a miserable wretch one is in oneself, one is also aware of God's all-sufficient love and being which is at the ready to fill us. The timing, the process are His. We need not fear or fret or let shame swallow us; we need only stay aware of our need and of His bigness.

This morning I read the commentary by St. Ambrose on Luke that appears in the Office of Readings for December 21. This is what has inspired my little outburst of delight in Advent and prayer. I found myself stopping in the middle of reading to exclaim, "Gosh, St. Ambrose, I love you!" Here's the link to the full text: http://divineoffice.org/1221-or/ (you'll need to scroll to the bottom).

Stroll through this with me and let me show you what makes me so happy.

First it says: "When the angel revealed his message to the Virgin Mary he gave her a sign to win her trust." God really seems to like signs. He felt one was appropriate for Mary -- I want to say even for Mary, the sinless one, but perhaps it should be especially for the sinless one. What is it about signs that require purity to be received? In the next paragraph, St. Ambrose says "she does not disbelieve God's word; she feels no uncertainty over the message or doubt about the sign." And I think, wow. Mary knows very well the difference between God's message, God's promise, God's word, and make-believe, her own thoughts, her own desires. She knows the Word of God before He is even incarnate. And she trusts Him completely.

I wrote about my experience with a big sign in my life, back a few posts. My experience has been, uh, quite different. Actually, I've had many incidents of "signs" in my life and frankly most of the time I've hated this kind of thing. But I realize now this is a process of purification for me, and what I've hated is the pain associated with purification. Every time, this type of thing drags out vast tracts of impurity out from hiding into my awareness. And that can be, well, a little hard to deal with, shall we say. St. Ambrose says the Blessed Mother goes "eager in purpose, dutiful in conscience, hastening for joy." I have often been stuck with an inner sense of certainty (for example, the moment of my first encountering the Lord in the Eucharist -- I knew for certain that I was before the Lord Jesus) and complications in my soul that left me anything but eager, dutiful and hastening for joy in response to my certainty. This scenario has played out again and again in my life. But I think I'm learning. Mary had nothing to learn about getting freed from sin since the Lord accomplished that work in her by a special grace from her conception, as a living portrait of hope for the rest of us, so we would have someone human to look to and follow. Our being able to do that is super duper important to God.

Ok back to St. Ambrose.

"The Holy Spirit does not proceed by slow, laborious efforts." Oh, this makes me happy. Someone once was sermonizing to me about how conversion is a slow process. As I listened, my gut said a firm "no." But most people who sermonize are quite sure of their wisdom, and this left me in the common position of listening patiently to something my deep-down simply flat out disagreed with. Conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit, and it is more like lightning. What takes a long time is the lead-up to conversion and the follow-on from the change He brings about. This is of course especially slow the more resistance we throw up to God's work in us. When I met the Lord at St. Anthony of Padua parish on Christmas morning of 1991, I was changed forever, but it has taken decades for that change to unfold. We can cooperate to unfold what God gives, but we cannot give ourselves that moment of encounter, regardless of how badly we want it. When God comes to us, it is His work and His gift, period. We stand in utter need of Him.

Then St. Ambrose looks at the contrasts involved with the four people present at the Visitation. Elizabeth hears Mary's voice, but John is the first to be aware of grace. I can relate just a little to John the prophet, and how his disposition makes for awkward social moments (if awkwardness is something one is to worry about). Elizabeth is aware of Mary, and certainly she has a joy in seeing her. But John is responding on a completely different level. There have been times when I've felt like people are exchanging the proverbial social niceties, and I am leaping for joy. And of course, the response of those who are "dealing with reality" is like: (raised eyebrow) what's going on there? But St. Ambrose goes on to say that when St. John leaps in the womb, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. He responds to, and thereby points out and makes accessible for others, the unseen presence and reality of God. This can feel strange when it plays out in real life. It's like dancing to a melody others can't hear. And I realize this is one way to describe exactly the Carmelite vocation.

And then St. Ambrose talks about how Mary's soul is to be in each of us, in the sense that we are all to receive and bring forth the Word of God. "The Lord is magnified, not because the human voice can add anything to God but because he is magnified within us. Christ is the image of God, and if the soul does what is right and holy, it magnifies that image of God, in whose likeness it was created..." And thus we are blessed and exalted by God, purely as His gift.

And what he doesn't say is that this exaltation by God then draws others, enabling them to encounter God and enter into their own odyssey of faith. God is good. And He chooses to need us. To the degree one can grasp that, what other response can we give but to give our hearts to Him entirely in worship?

God's Answer to my "How To" Question

I wish I had a word for this mood surrounding me of late. I think of it as a sort of impotent intensity. I feel this great driving urge within me and also the inability of that drive to go anywhere. It's like a great desire to "pray hard" and then realizing that one can only stumblingly form words to lift to God let alone find any depth of feeling inside them.

Perhaps this is fitting for the great Advent wait.

Starting last fall, the theme that jumped out at me with my every approach towards Scripture was the theme of the anawim: the humbled remnant that has no power and can look only to God to be the Savior, the Redeemer. Last year had an Advent in it as I recall, and I heard the same readings then as I hear now. But then, it was all the call to become anawim.

This Advent, everything I hear is swirling around God the judge, the one Who arrives on the scene on behalf of the anawim. The one who takes evil out. The One with power.

So lately I've been asking God "how" questions: How do I relate to You? How do I draw near to You? What is it I'm actually supposed to do?

My problem with asking things like this is that sometimes I make nice little collections out of the answers I get. I get really happy with answers from God. The answer is a sign of God's love. But I don't always take it seriously, until the second or third or fifth time God reminds me to actually DO what He says. Geez, I sound like my kids.

Today I came across this from St. Irenaeus, and I realize it reads almost like one of those annoying "Five Simple Steps to a More Fruitful Spiritual Life" articles. But, I was asking, and I read this, so writing about it is step one in etching these things into my heart. First, the quote:

If man, without being puffed up or boastful, has a right belief regarding created things and their divine Creator, who, having given them being, holds them all in his power, and if man perseveres in God's love, and in obedience and gratitude to him, he will receive greater glory from him. It will be a glory which will grow ever brighter until he takes on the likeness of the one who died for him.

So, here's how I break that down.
Without being puffed up or boastful -- humility
Right belief regarding created things, etc. -- detachment
Persevering in God's love -- believing in, receiving, and returning God's love
Obedience -- to Scripture and to the Church
Gratitude -- for everything, towards God and people

The net result, says St. Irenaeus, is receiving greater glory. This is the same saint who says "the glory of God is man fully alive." The glory of God is really the manifestation of His presence. And St. Ireneus says that this presence will grow brighter until we actually seem to be like the Lord Jesus Himself.

So, my answer to "How do I draw near to God" is simple clear. Seek humility, seek detachment. Love God, obey Him, and be continually thankful.

All of these have given me quite a workout, but I must say the one that is left most loose and flapping on me is gratitude. I have the temperamental tendency to always see how things could be better, how they are not quite perfect. And I realize as I write that that I have some difficulty really owning that for what it is. A friend of mine who decorates our church was telling me recently how she has learned to use her own critical eye in her art to train more people to see as she sees, and to encourage others' talents, using hers to merely tweak their work rather than take the whole burden on herself. And there is a lot of wisdom in that. It isn't quite as easy to do in music, which is where I have the opportunity to train others to hear what I hear. Too often I settle for "ok, whatever" instead of helping others improve. This, too, is a lesson God has given me and I have not paid attention to.

But back to gratitude. Working to correct someone constructively is a far cry from simply crabbing and complaining about everything that's not perfect. Even if it isn't verbally articulated exactly that way, even a subtle tendency to moan over imperfect things can fuel a general direction into ingratitude. That is very easy for me to slide into. I have been making it a point to explicitly thank God for things I often take for granted. It will take some time before this becomes habitual or natural to my way of thinking, though.

Prophets, Prophets Everywhere

I have prophets on the brain of late.

Those Advent Mass readings, right? Even if I've heard the same thing every year in the past, I'm not hearing it the same way this year. 

Today, there's Balaam, the dude who is better known for getting so angry at his donkey that God gives the donkey speech to tell him off. Hired to curse Israel, eh? Well, we'll see about that. God makes it clear that He is the one who gives messages, even to asses like Balaam. I love, though, the eloquent intro he gives to his prophecy of the Messiah:

the utterance of a man whose eye is true,
The utterance of one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows,
Of one who sees what the Almighty sees,
enraptured, and with eyes unveiled:

 It's like you just want to tell him, ok, enough puffery, get on with it. And yet, it seems that almost in spite of himself, Balaam speaks the truth.

The Psalm: "Teach me your ways, O Lord." I heard that immediately as the prayer coming from the heart of one being discipled in the prophetic, in what it means to be a prophet. God's ways are prophetic; He is speaking forth. And the key there, as to the entire spiritual life, seems to be humility.

Then that gospel that just made me grin as I heard it. I wrote a post yesterday about St. John the Baptist, and how he speaks to me as a prophetic sign in my own life. And I love how Jesus interacts with these religious leaders. They are concerned that Jesus defend his right to, you know, exist and do Messiah-y things. They have clearly not grasped His divinity; at most they have considered it a theoretical possibility, but they are waiting for it to make sense to them before they are willing to embrace the idea. They live religion on the level of ideology. It is about the idea of a coming Messiah, the idea of religious authority, not faith, not the openness to experience that leads to the embrace of faith.

And Jesus simply will not meet them on that level.

What about John the Baptist? What about that whole experience? Was it from God? Or was it just another human thing. (Good golly, in reference to my post I wrote yesterday, how many zillions of times did I work through those questions?! Does this experience bear the marks of the work of God, or is it a simple human flash-in-the-pan?)

But these religious leaders weren't even really ready to wrestle with the question. They still worried about how the question made them look to other people. If they said it was from God, Jesus would "get" them. If they said it was all a human nothing, popular opinion would "get" them. And at all costs, they would not be "gotten" by anyone. They had to stay far removed from all that. And that's why they lived in their isolationary ideological ivory tower (oooh -- "i" alliteration; be still my poetic heart!)

No answer, Jesus. We'll stay with ideology.

Okees. You choose to stay there. Then I won't answer you, because you don't really want it and my answer will do you no good.

And right there is Jesus' prophetic lesson: this is how you talk about truth. Step one: you have to be all about the person in front of you -- understanding, loving, respecting, challenging, and then letting go.

And then I come across this homily of Pope Francis' today.

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-without-prophecy-only-clericalism
Commenting on the day’s readings, Pope Francis said a prophet is someone who listens to the words of God, who reads the spirit of the times, and who knows how to move forward towards the future. True prophets, the Pope said, hold within themselves three different moments: past, present, and future. They keep the promise of God alive, they see the suffering of their people, and they bring us the strength to look ahead. 

'Tis certainly the season to think about prophets, but there's something insistent here for me to pay attention to.

John the Baptist and The Sign

Sometimes, a picture is just worth a thousand words:

The Mass readings of today held many layers of personal meaning for me. But they are all summed up in the figure of St. John the Baptist.

This passage from St. Augustine in the Office of Readings also blew me away today:

From a sermon by Saint Augustine

John is the voice, and Christ is the Word

John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever.

  Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.

  However, let us observe what happens when we first seek to build up our hearts. When I think about what I am going to say, the word or message is already in my heart. When I want to speak to you, I look for a way to share with your heart what is already in mine.

  In my search for a way to let this message reach you, so that the word already in my heart may find place also in yours, I use my voice to speak to you. The sound of my voice brings the meaning of the word to you and then passes away. The word which the sound has brought to you is now in your heart, and yet it is still also in mine.

  When the word has been conveyed to you, does not the sound seem to say: The word ought to grow, and I should diminish? The sound of the voice has made itself heard in the service of the word, and has gone away, as though it were saying: My joy is complete. Let us hold on to the word; we must not lose the word conceived inwardly in our hearts.

  Do you need proof that the voice passes away but the divine Word remains? Where is John’s baptism today? It served its purpose, and it went away. Now it is Christ’s baptism that we celebrate. It is in Christ that we all believe; we hope for salvation in him. This is the message the voice cried out.

  Because it is hard to distinguish word from voice, even John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word. But the voice acknowledged what it was, anxious not to give offence to the word. I am not the Christ, he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. And the question came: Who are you, then? He replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord. The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way for the Lord, he says, as though he were saying: “I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him.”

  What does prepare the way mean, if not “pray well”? What does prepare the way mean, if not “be humble in your thoughts”? We should take our lesson from John the Baptist. He is thought to be the Christ; he declares he is not what they think. He does not take advantage of their mistake to further his own glory.

  If he had said, “I am the Christ,” you can imagine how readily he would have been believed, since they believed he was the Christ even before he spoke. But he did not say it; he acknowledged what he was. He pointed out clearly who he was; he humbled himself.

  He saw where his salvation lay. He understood that he was a lamp, and his fear was that it might be blown out by the wind of pride.

Here's my take-home pondering. A few years back, God placed someone in my life and a little bit later gave me to understand that this person had a John-the-Baptist-like role in my life. I really didn't understand at the time what that meant. But today I see with greater clarity. John the Baptist signaled the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new. His role was limited; he pointed to Christ, and then he was beheaded. And yet he was the greatest of prophets because he literally pointed not centuries ahead (see yesterday's post) but feet ahead to the present Messiah.

Now, it seems a little tricky for a person to be put in my life as a prophetic sign, but I think that's what I'm saying has happened. This person has been more than a prophetic sign, though. There have been other aspects ranging from the good to the bad to the very, very difficult in our relationship with each other. Today, though, it seems that the important thing for me to pay attention to is the meaning of the prophetic sign. Because of this person, God dug through some very old things in my life, pre-Catholic, even pre-conversion to Christ, and did away with them. Boom, gone. Well, that "boom" took a few years, but still. And also through this person, God has ushered me in to a new era of my life. As I look back now, it is clear-as-day undeniable. God has used this person to call me to a new and deeper life in Christ and the Church, which has a concrete name: the Secular Carmelites. My personal relationship with the Lord has been utterly transformed. And there's even been something like a beheading. Fortunately it has not been literal, but the whole ordeal was painful enough that it feels like it should have been. Just to drive the point home that it was a non-coincidental move of God, a certain division landed smack on the feast of the beheading of John the Baptist a couple years ago.

I can get really caught up looking at signs. It reminds me of the gospel scene of Jesus having ascended to heaven, and the disciples stand there staring up into the sky, probably with their mouths open, gaping and dumbfounded. The angel has to come and say "Yo, dudes. What are you doing? Close your mouths, and then go do what He just got done telling you. Shoo, go, make disciples!"

I have stood gaping at the sign God gave me. Signs are precious gifts. But signs exist so that we put our faith in the power of the One who has revealed Himself to us, not so that we can build booths and stay on the mountain top forever with the sign.

God is calling me onward. Onward, for me, usually means something interior. I have sensed this for at least one solid year, but "senses" never come just once; they build in layers of prayer and experience. But I know that this "onward" means this understanding: Love means giving myself for the other. Which other? Any and every other God puts in my path. It means loving and giving for the sake of the other, not for what I get out of the loving or the giving. My life is a blank check. Absolutely all of it is put at God's disposal for His purposes, which means it is at the disposal of the people in my life: "my neighbor." I am reminded how Bl. Teresa of Calcutta said that God does not command us to love the world because "the world" is an abstraction. He calls us to love our neighbor. That means the concrete person sharing our life.

But that person, those people, do not become my security. I do not lay claim to any person. Love with detachment, as the Father does and Jesus reveals to us. This does not mean God is aloof; it means that He does not love with self-seeking. He loves with complete self-giving, to the point of death.

My security, my attachment is to Christ on the cross: the sign of God's eternal love which becomes mine. May I love Him and come to imitate Him.

Prophecy, Reality, and the Done Deal

Under the category: Scriptures that Blow me Away
I was listening to the Seraphic Fire recording of Handel's Messiah today. Any average time I listen to the Messiah I am bound to be captivated by some Scripture or another from it, as I have written about on previous occasions. But this time, it was a completely new aspect that grabbed me and, to be honest, made me heave joyful but surprising sobs that I didn't completely understand.

It was the words of the very first definitive proclamation of the birth of the Savior as having happened.

And they are recorded in the book of the prophet Isaiah, and were penned some handful of centuries before Christ.

For unto us a child is born
Unto us a son is given
And the government shall be upon his shoulders
And his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor
The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father
The Prince of Peace

I heard this with completely new ears today. Imagine it. The prophet proclaims that something has happened, already. One who is called God has been born a child. This sent my mind and spirit tumbling in a sort of timeless free fall where faith is the only solid foundation. When the prophet wrote these words, were they true? Were they fact? Jesus Christ was born something like 500-700 years later, depending on how you date Isaiah. But the prophet did more than see the future. He saw the heart of God. He heard the promise of God, uttered in the moment of the eternal gift of salvation.

Then I imagined people who read Isaiah's words when the ink was still fresh. Ok, buster, where's this child? Nice poetry, but I don't see God ruling us. Why don't you go off in your little religious corner and daydream some more. 

Maybe people did have an understanding and appreciation of the prophets and prophecy back then. But then I remember what Jesus said about how all the prophets endured persecution. So, maybe my guess is fairly accurate.

I think perhaps my sobs today were because I was rejoicing with the prophet that His words were vindicated by the concrete event of history that was the birth of Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary. But it was more than that, too, for even the concrete event -- the truth of it -- can only truly be seen and known by faith.  I was sobbing because I realized I was standing in the same faith that the prophet had. He saw by faith something that was yet to be. I saw by faith something that had happened. And yet in each case, the Reality of the One promised was present, right now, by faith.

And if He is present right now by faith to me, then that means that all those things that I long for, pray for, sacrifice for, everything that actually originates in His heart and somehow makes its way into mine, all those things are completely fulfilled in Him, too. Right now. Done deal.

Just like the child spoken of centuries before He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin.

And I live to pray into being that which already is. Whoa. Was that mystery-induced dizziness that just struck me?

Feeling Guilty Because Your Advent is Crazy-Hectic?

Advent has grown on me every year. There is always something so heart-throbbingly beautiful about it to me; potent but elusive. One minute the longing of it all draws me up out of myself, and the next that wave crashes out of me into an infinite shore so vast that every longing I'm capable of from here to eternity feels like it can only culminate into a tiny speck of nothing.

Ah, Advent.

For lots of Christians in the Western world, the season comes at the traditionally busiest, bustliest, frenetic and frazzled time of year: The Holiday Season, or preparing for Christmas. For many other people in the northern hemisphere it is also a time of sadness, loneliness and depression, no doubt partly fueled by people's dark-days-induced lack of vitamin D. It is also fueled by a vague sense that at Christmastime, everyone is supposed to be happy. The depth of everyone's loving connections, the warmth and empathy that surround us are all supposed to be on display, caressing us and making everything bright and wonderful. Solving our problems. Giving us hope. But what often happens instead is that either our vague hopes get dashed, and we are sad once again, or the hearts we have turned to steel against all such soft feelings over the years get revealed for what they are, and we reject notions of warmth, love and empathy either outright (bah, humbug), or in more subtle ways that go mostly unnoticed, even to ourselves.

And in the midst of it all, we find Christians who feel guilty because they are so busy trying to prepare for Christ's birth that they hardly feel like they are living Advent at all.

I've been listening inside my own frazzledness, and I think I hear hope for us.

I draw this hope from my own lived experience of conversion which I've blogged about extensively, so if you'd like to read the stories, just follow the links.

I've written about the Christmas Eve midnight Mass 22 years ago which was the turning point in my conversion to the Catholic faith. The liturgical timing of that moment of conversion was absolutely prophetic for me; God chose it to teach and form me in a very deep way. I've also written about another major turning point in my life that happened only five years ago (almost) on the feast of Epiphany. Because that one is far newer I am still very much still writing the story, so to speak. But I know that it is about mission. And the mission is one God has taught me about in the context of Advent, but also in the context of my Carmelite vocation.

And because of all those experiences, it feels clear to me that my spiritual purpose in Advent is to pray and offer sacrifice for the conversion of souls. We like to give gifts to those we love at Christmastime, and we really like it if we can find a gift that really brings joy to another person. What greater joy does Jesus ever have than the conversion of a soul who has been cold towards Him? His nature is love, and nothing pleases Him more than to be able to have that love received and enjoyed by a soul who has been without. And when you consider the end-time focus of Advent, every Christian's thoughts should immediately turn toward the eternal salvation of those who have lost or who are in grave danger of completely losing sight of God's love. And we should also keep solidly before our eyes remnant Israel, humbled, anawim, waiting, expecting. Israel, which has learned that salvation comes from God alone. Israel, who has endured suffering and trial, whose hope is not in its own might but in the One who makes and will fulfill His promises.

So, I lay in to everything I want to do to be in Advent and prepare for Christmas, and I find, oh dear!, obstacles! Stress! A crazy schedule! A grumpy attitude! Doubts about whether it is worth it, and, if I'm honest, creeping resentment towards some of those people I'm supposedly wanting to make happy!

What is happening?!

It's just Advent. Welcome to your normal life, with all the potential for sacrifice highlighted.

It will get easier if you stop thinking you find a holy Advent somewhere else. Your holy Advent is in embracing the few extra weights in your pack as you climb this mountain. The weights, the stresses, are not evidence convicting you of failure. They are your share that you can chip in to give Jesus what He's always wanted: your heart, and a path to the heart of others.

Holiness does not come in feeling "together," or in being so in control that nothing ever bothers us. That's stuff of the flesh. Holiness comes only from union with the Lord, and feelings are no sure indication of that union. Holiness has a lot to do with simply showing up for duty, with no consultation with our sense of competence, let alone perfection. Perhaps it is when our feelings register "ain't got nothin'! but Lord, here I am" that Jesus can be biggest in us. When we are all offering, taking upon our lips and into our lives Christ's prayer to the Father, He can be all Gift through us.

That is Advent prayer and sacrifice. God does tremendous work through His Church. When we Christians humbly count ourselves members of Him, as we are, we become His outposts in this world through whom He achieves the salvation of souls.

So, back into the list of things before me today, and you too. If When it gets hectic, smile inside at Jesus, and tell Him it's for a present for Him.

Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Things Yet to Come

Advent has my heart about ready to explode. Truly, I have this spiritual throbbing sense that I imagine is comparable to what kids feel when they really hope for some wish to be fulfilled by a Christmas present on Christmas morning. Except that I know what my heart senses near and longs for is eternal, doesn't break or get boring. But I also have the feeling that the root joy is exactly the same.

What fills me with this throbbing sense of joy is the sense that events in my life converge with meaning. The biggest thing is always that I remember my conversion to the Catholic faith with such wonder. I hear the prayers of Mass and of Liturgy of the Hours these days, and I just know that these same prayers were offered for me, for my conversion, by people I didn't even know. They prayed and sacrificed for me so that I could experience a dramatic and total conversion on that Christmas Eve in 1991. God had led me to that point, but it was such a total surprise and shock, and so powerful. I'm sure it will only be in heaven that I will see the prayers that brought down those graces for me.

And now here I am, praying the same prayers, earnestly entreating God for graces of conversion for other people. Don't ever write off anyone when it comes to praying for their conversion. I had been anti-Catholic and had long wrestled with a kind of animosity towards Christmas that was born of a host of bad theology and sad memories. God instantly and completely changed all that.

I got this little note in a Christmas card from the Camaldolese Hermits today. It hits the nail on the head:

A good thought on Christmas comes down to us from Pope St. Leo the Great in the fifth century, via his successor Pope Benedict XVI. "That day has not passed away in such a way that the power of the work, which was then revealed, has passed away with it... All things therefore that the Son of God did and taught for the world's reconciliation, we not only know as a matter of past history, but appreciate in the power of their present effect."

In the liturgy, we do not just recall past events, we relive them. The spiritual excitement and gratification we feel are not imaginary. Rather, the saving power of the mystery becomes present to us today.

This is true of every experience of the liturgy, but for me it is particularly true of these days of Advent, and especially of the Christmas Mass. I experience not only a reliving of Calvary, but a reliving of that particular moment when Jesus first revealed Himself to me as present and real in the Mass, which prompted my conversion. Spiritually I go back to it, and it blows me away all over again.

It makes me stand in awe at where God has led me. More than that, it makes me stand in awe, realizing that it really has been God that has led me, even when I thought I was just floundering around, alone. It fills me with courage and faith. And I am aware that this is not from me; it is a gift from God. I am surrounded, enveloped, in gifts from God. I am freed, knowing that I'm not alone, that my spiritual excitement is not imaginary. God is real -- my life is proof! It makes me want to tell everyone everything that has ever happened to me.

Like a little child, my eyes keep gazing under the "spiritual Christmas tree" for a special gift I am asking for from the Lord. I've been asking basically the same thing for several Christmases now. This year, my request has special meaning, and a heightened sense of anticipation. Little children, even loaded down with gifts and lavishly provided for, can still have that special place in their heart for that one thing. So do I. Just as I'm writing this I'm wondering to myself how I might respond if Christmas comes and goes without my seeing there what I hope to see. I do see that each year my desire and request has upgraded. But it hasn't gone away. Maybe that's how it has been answered each year so far. What I do know is that my heavenly Father couldn't possibly be unmoved by my desire. And He certainly can move heaven and earth to give me what I desire, if indeed my desire has finally gotten grand enough for Him. Either way you slice it, I am excited. Jesus has told mystics and saints in private revelation all over the place that heaven participates in giving gifts at Christmastime, too. "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32) God certainly is not going to stop being generous with me any time soon. If only my heart can delight with Him in real time as He gives... and see what He is giving. Oooh, I'm happy already!

December 20, 2012
P.S. You know, Lord, I've been thinking about this. I do get excited about what I want. But I've learned something about your gifts. Sometimes their beauty plays to my weakness, and my distractable heart goes off after them. Lord, I'd rather not have your gifts if it could mean my heart moving off from you. What I really want is you, Lord. So, attach my wandery heart to you by whatever means works best. "Being with you, I desire nothing on earth..." If you give me a gift, please draw me up on your lap and hold me close there, first. I don't want to get scared of your gifts, but I'm gonna need a lot of help...

Some Profound Morning Thoughts about Hair

Yesterday I was on the phone with someone whom I apparently have met but can't quite picture. She told me she knew our neighbors, and added "You're the woman with that beautiful red hair!"

Other than the irony of having just that morning re-hennaed my hair so that it does almost look red again, I was really struck by her exuberance about this hair of mine.

See, there was an earlier time in my life, a long time actually, when I was also as regularly identified with/by my hair as I tend to be now, except in those days I was tormented and taunted about it. Even certain progenitors of mine drilled into my thinking that my hair was a "big, ugly bush" and often bought me gifts like "bad hair day" plaques or dolls with giant straw hair because they reminded of me. Every boy in high school who ever commented about what I looked like teased me about my hair. One older boy nicknamed me "Fuzzy," and to another I was "Brillo Head." Girls teased that they could look like me if they would just rat up their hair.

Those days are long gone, thanks be to God, and I admit that not until I was 40 did I really learn how to take care of my naturally curly hair in such a way that I could actually get it to look the way I wanted. I have never been particularly fashion conscious nor am I a visually-oriented person, so I have never obsessed over my looks. But regardless, I realize now how deeply these words wounded my soul.

I really like my hair, and to be honest I always have. I just haven't known how to get along with it. It strikes me to the heart every time someone comments to me about it, because I realize no one does so in a mocking way any longer. It is to me like a little message of the victory of the anawim every time I get a hair compliment.

Awhile ago, though, there happened in my life a moment that captures why I'm bothering to write about this. This was a little chit-chat conversation with my confessor, after having completed the sacramental part of our exchange. Even though he knew nothing of my hair history, I knew that between the lines he was communicating something deeper than the chit chat, though:

He:  How do you get your hair to look so pretty like that? Is that all natural?
Me:  Yes. It grows like that.
He:  Wow. Well isn't that a gift?

See, the fact of the matter is that, yes, my hair does look the way it does when I allow it to grow and help it to do what it wants to do by nature, which is to curl. When I work against my hair by brushing it, combing it, washing it with shampoo often (instead of conditioner), and not feeding it what it needs to stay in its shape -- in other words, when I treat my hair the way every "normal," straight-haired person does -- it suffers and loses its beauty.

Is this not the way our souls are? How often do we not take as our own identity the lies of the devil, which tell us we are worthless, ugly, useless, irredeemable? How often are we not made to feel guilty because we are unique? How often do we forget that each person is a unique miracle of God, whom God alone has the right to instruct as to our dignity, our beauty, and the right way for us to walk? God has no assembly line where He makes standard-issue souls. We must all be formed by the unique way of the cross that He designs for each of us. We can't copy what someone else is doing or hang our self-worth on their opinion or approval and expect to find our glory. Only God reveals that glory to and in us. We must look to Him and follow Him.

Advent, and my New Patron Saint

Advent has long held a deep attraction for me. Can't even say when it began, or why, other than the fact that God has been calling me, I guess. And every year I feel like I am understanding it for the first time. It is no different now. It is difficult to put this into words, but this year I am getting the sense of how Advent teaches us that God comes through, He is faithful, He makes good on His promises. (Such dull, lifeless words compared with what is in my heart...) It is the beginning of the liturgical year, and we begin with this meditation on how God fulfilled the thousands of years of yearning of His people with the Messiah. And from there we get blown away by how God decided to come through, the Incarnation. But that's another story...

Last Saturday I went to the Random Saint Generator for my long-awaited new patron saint of the year. You basically click twice and yet get a random saint's name. Oh, but I had been praying about this "random" saint, asking God to match me up well, and to prepare my heart well. I take this pretty seriously. Up popped the name: Bl. Alexandrina Maria da Costa. I confess, my first reaction was along the lines of "Gee, I didn't even get a full-fledged saint, just a blessed..." I had never heard of this woman.

I proceeded to read her short biography:

On Holy Saturday of 1918, Alexandrina Maria da Costa, a fourteen-year-old native of Balasar, Portugal, was sewing when three men broke into her home, threatening to violate her chastity. Resolute to preserve her purity, she fled by jumping out a window. The thirteen-foot plunge to the ground crippled her for life. At the age of twenty-one, she became totally paralyzed and permanently bedridden. Alexandrina accepted this affliction as God’s will for her and an opportunity to offer herself totally as a “victim soul” for the conversion of sinners. For a period of three and a half years, she received the mystical gift of experiencing each Friday the pains of Christ on the cross. For thirteen years, she was imbued with the mystical phenomenon of being nourished solely by the Eucharist. Out of zeal to convert sinners, Alexandrina requested for her tombstone these words: “Sinners, how much I want to tell you…Do not risk losing Jesus for all eternity, for he is so good. Enough with sin. Love Jesus, love him!” On October 13, 1955, before breathing her last, Alexandrina declared, “I am happy, because I am going to heaven.”

I read further and found this:  

She had a special calling to a life of suffering. It all began with her tragic escape while defending her chastity. Her via crucis began then and it involved extreme detachment and total sacrifice. The Lord said to her: “Rarely will you feel comfort. Very rarely, until the end of your life; your heart will live in pain [...] but you will have a smile on your lips.” And she willingly accepted this plan, both the pain and the witnessing of joy. One of her moving pleas was: “Put a smile on my lips, dear Lord, a deceiving smile!” In fact, visitors were struck by her joy and ignorant of how much she suffered. Only a few were able to fathom the suffering she hid behind her smile.

Now, I certainly know that I am not called to become my patron saint, but I have to say that after I read a bit about her I was shaking for an hour or so. I can't fully explain why, and I won't even partially venture it. All I know is that my response was a wholehearted, "Lord, I don't have to understand. But I am here, and You may have or do whatever You wish." This was not a prayer of sweet, tender affection, this was a prayer of being utterly terrified at the awesome presence and reality of God. It's all so hard to explain. That's why I won't try.

I might sound to a random reader like I was superstitiously freaking out over this. But, my dear random reader, I'm not really writing for you. I'm writing for me, so that I can remember the steps the Lord has drawn me through. I know that along with this moment that struck me like this was a completely new sense of hope, of promise, of Advent fulfillment of God's desires in and for me. But, as always, it is beyond my comprehension.

I was telling an acquaintance of mine about this episode with my patron saint the other day, and the quote about her life of suffering, and found myself belly-laughing with joy over it. And at the same time I realized that the struggle this acquaintance was relating to me from her own life was something that God has spent considerable time working with me on as well. Long and short of it: I realize God has given me something that other people need. It is His stuff. I think this means He will work out a way to move what He gave me, through me, to other people. He's got a plan. He's working His plan. And I don't have to understand in order to participate in it. I'll know in time those things that I need to know.

Man, sometimes it is hard to write meaningfully about ineffable things. But if I've learned anything, it is that some day it will all make more sense than it does now.

Advent 2011, Morning Prayer, and Feasting

I love Advent. A handful of years ago I really had no better clue than a church-going 8-year-old might why celebrating Advent was significant, but in recent years, the Lord has expanded my heart to hold more and more. This year I feel like I have taken a quantum leap, not so much in "understanding" Advent as being inside it, experiencing it, if that makes any sense to you. And this leap has been facilitated to a great extent by regularly joining some of my neighbors to pray morning prayer.

Here's how I can explain it. I've shared in another place about my conversion to Catholicism which had its apex at a Christmas Eve midnight Mass. I liken it to being invited to a huge banquet. The first year, all I could do was walk in the room and look at the banquet with my mouth hanging open in shock. The next few years, I came in and stood quietly in the back of the room. Year by year, in celebrating the banquet that is the feast of the Nativity, I was seated, pulled up a plate, ate some of the food, looked around at the other guests, began chatting, enjoying, and really celebrating. Even exploding with joy.

This year the image that fills my heart, largely growing out of my experience of praying the Liturgy of the Hours in community, is that I am witnessing, am in on, all of the feast's preparations. I see the prayers, the longing, the penances, the sacrifices, the seeds sown by God in and through His Church, that made that banquet something that I could "see," something that I could walk in on in shock 20 years ago. I realize that prayer that has been ascending through His Church for the salvation of my soul. I realize the gift that other Christians have given to me, someone nameless and unknown to them. The love, the longing, the sacrifices of others called down God's graces onto me.

Suddenly I feel myself as if in a kitchen buzzing with cooks and surrounded by mounds of potatoes and flour, raw meat, and ingredients of every sort. Advent is about the preparation of a feast of grace for the world, the poor, starving world. And picking up those potatoes to peel makes me want to weep with gratitude for being not only among those God feeds, but among those called to feed others with His life. None of this belongs to me. It is lavished on us by our Father who generously provides even for those who can only gape at Him in disbelief in return.

I've prayed the Liturgy of the Hours on and off for those 20 years. A breviary was the first thing I purchased after deciding to become a Catholic on December 26, 1991. But I've not regularly prayed it in community. For me, this is an incredible grace that surpasses anything about aesthetics. Our particular group was often made up largely of children. That probably sounds romantic to those of you who are not currently parenting children. Children teach adults so much about ourselves: one day one might say something spiritually profound, and the next might slap the one sitting next to him or be obnoxious in some other way. If we cannot see that until we learn to accept the Lord's discipline, we are all like this (only usually in more restrained, socially-polished ways that hide our obnoxiousness and suppress our profundity) then I think we never grow beyond a sterile sort of community experience where everyone is more concerned about being nice than being holy. Community life teaches us that we need each other and challenges pride which would have us believe we are better off standing alone, or with a group of me-clones. I cannot say why this community experience has been such a huge grace for me, other than to say that praying this way is simply God's will.

Here we are during one of our first gatherings.
My heartfelt gratitude to Keith and Iwona Major for opening their home and their family prayer time to all who gathered.