God is the Redeemer, Even of Scary Childhood Art

The Lord has been doing some major excavations in me during Lent. And I realize it has been awhile since I have freely written about this type of thing. I've never regretted being raw before, so why should I stop now.

Today at Mass, I handed over to the Lord for His redemption a piece of artwork I created when I was 6 years old. It feels like lifting up an old concrete slab, complete with the escaping swarm of creepy-crawlies. But life will grow there, now.

I remember this piece of artwork not because I still have it, but because I looked at it regularly into my teenage years. And I suppose because I saw frequently and because of what I will now describe, it burned its way into my memory.

Supposedly, a drawing by a typical 6 year old looks something like this:

It looks a little too neat for me, but then again I have never claimed to have any artistic talent.

The picture I drew, however, was actually frightening. It showed a child holding balloons, a house, a sun, and a grassy lawn. But everything was drawn with jagged edges -- the grass, the body, the feet, the balloons. The colors were dark: black, purple, red, dark green, with splashes of orange and yellow buried underneath. And the most striking thing was that every image -- the child, the house, the balloons -- were all divided down the middle with a jagged, black line. The child looked a lot more like a monster.

That was my view of myself and my world in the year my parents were divorced. The reason I saw this picture so frequently was that my dad had it hanging on the wall of his house. But how it got there is what I have been thinking about afresh recently.

I remember bringing it home from school and showing it to my mom. "You show that to your father. He should have that. You give that to him," she told me.

It hasn't been until now, when I am older than my mom was then, that I have thought about what was in her statement that resulted in me remembering this picture. Anyone who looked at this picture could realize there was something wrong with the child who drew it. And I can see now that she felt that whatever was wrong with me was to be blamed on my father. And by giving him the picture, she hoped he would wake up and take responsibility for me emotionally, or at least feel the weight of this scary thing coming out of the mind of a little girl.

My father was a man with many issues of his own. Her hopes did not come to fruition. That I have known, and I long ago addressed it.

What I have not fully seen until now was the depth of my emotional need at that age (and beyond), and the simple fact that it was not met by anyone. My mother saw something was wrong, and simply did not address it beyond trying to pass it off onto my father. Later, there wasn't even that attempt. I very quickly learned to stop making my needs known to anyone.

All my life I have struggled with whether it is right to say things that sound accusatory about my own family. But I realize that stating objective facts about what happened is simply facing truth. Facing truth is always a good thing, and I can leave intentions and motives aside, as they are not mine to judge or to fear.

I've also learned that a name has been given to this lack of parental emotional response: Childhood Emotional Neglect. And there are a whole slew of emotional attunement issues related to this missing piece. For years I've worked on addressing many of them, including the difficulty I have getting angry, and taking my own feelings seriously.

A while back, I had a friend in her 80s confide to me that God was healing her of issues with her childhood, so I guess I'll just accept that life is always this way.Whether we seek truth and healing, or we hide in the dark, something won't feel good. I would rather cry over an old pain and receive healing than live adult life numb to others and my surroundings.

It takes courage to seek healing. But God really does heal. Seeking wholeness is worth facing the pain involved.

From The Heart

This morning at Mass I was struck by hearing the gospel highlighted in a markedly different way than past hearings.

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had him put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

That's Matthew 18:21-35.

The first thing that stood out was "the servant fell down, did him homage, and said..." And then, the master's response, "moved with compassion, the master of that servant let him go."

Then after the report of this man throttling a peer, he tells him he is wicked and says "I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to." And Jesus summarizes the point of the parable as the need to forgive from the heart.

Now, God is speaking to me the same way He speaks to any of us, and that is in the midst of my own circumstances. And my circumstances, my tutelage from God in this stage of Lent seems to be focused on getting in touch with the well-spring of human feeling that arises from my heart. To really notice what goes on in my emotions. I'm becoming aware of how frequently I am unaware of my emotions, due to long-time habit and conditioning.

So I found myself being able to relate to the experience of this guy who receives mercy and then throttles his peer. He falls down at the master's feet and begs for patience from him. And the master is moved with compassion. As a result, he gives far more than patience; he forgives the whole debt. That shows that the master's heart can experience the servant's vulnerability and respond from his moved heart, from his aroused emotions. And while the servant took the news, he did not receive the compassion. He couldn't, and he proves it by not being moved by hearing the same plea from someone else. His heart could not be moved with compassion, because compassion had never registered with him. When he met vulnerability, even just a little bit, he lacked the heart to respond. He could have cultivated it by meditating on his own pitiful state, or at least at the state of his wife and children who were going to become slaves. He could have faced it, had his emotional center torn by it, and then when he was offered compassion, it would have filled him with mercy. Instead, he went through mechanical motions.

The homily I heard mentioned the rabbinic tradition of offering forgiveness to someone who offended you three times. And Peter thought he was being generous by stretching the rabbinic limit to be more liberal. Jesus was trying to move Peter out of notions of liberal mechanics out into a life lived from a changed heart. To be moved with compassion at the suffering of another and to give mercy is really a fruit of the cross. It is not logical justice. It is not what someone is "entitled to." It is the echo of God's way.

In order to really understand what mercy is, you need a visceral experience of your wretchedness. And you need to not turn away from the sight for any reason, including boredom, indifference, shame, fright, despair. Look at it. Then see Jesus on the cross, sharing it. Then know he shares it because of irrevocable love for you. That's the moment when mercy breaks in.

On Confession, by Fr.Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD

This is the best thing I have ever read about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD, in Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year

"Penance is the sacrament of Christ's Precious Blood in which God -- according to the eloquent words of St. Catherine of Siena -- "has bathed us in order to cleanse the face of our souls from the leprosy of sin." If mortal sin only is the necessary matter of this sacrament, venial sin is sufficient matter, since all Catholic tradition insists on frequent confession, even when one has only venial sins to confess. However, those who confess weekly must take great care lest their confessions become a mere routine, instead of the really vital acts which would enable these souls to profit fully from all the graces offered by the sacrament.

" 'Do not despise the Blood of Christ!' exclaims St. Cather of Siena. Certainly anyone who appreciates it will not approach the sacrament of penance lightly. To this end it is useful to recall that absolution is truly the pouring forth of the Precious Blood which, inundating and penetrating the soul, purifies it from sin, and restores sanctifying grace if it has been lost, or increases this gift if it is already present in the soul. The remission of sin and the imparting of grace are the fruits of the action of Jesus, expressed by the formula the priest pronounces in His Name: 'I absolve thee.' At that moment it is Jesus who is acting in the soul, either by remitting sin or by producing or increasing grace. It is well to remember that the efficacy of the absolution is not limited merely to sins that have already been committed, but that it even extends into the future. By means of the particular sacramental grace, the soul is strengthened beforehand against relapses and it is offered the fortitude to resist temptations and to carry out its good resolutions. The Blood of Christ is, in this sense, not only a remedy for the past, but also a preservative and a strengthening help for the future. The soul which plunges into it, as into a healthful bath, draws from it new vigor and sees the strength of its passions extinguished little by little. We see then the importance of frequent confession for a soul desirous of union with God, a sould which must necessarily aspire to total purification.

"When the soul in the tribunal of penance has only venial sins to confess, it is not necessary that it preoccupy itself with confessing all of them, either as to their number or their kind. This completeness is necessary only when there is a question of mortal sin. In other cases, however, it is much more profitable to fix the attention on deliberate faults first, then on those which are semi-deliberate -- even if they are only simple imperfections -- telling not only the faults themselves but also the motives behind them. Although this method is not required for the validity of the confession, it is certain that the soul will draw much profit from it since the accusation will have exposed the root of the evil. The soul will benefit too by its act of humility, which will be a stimulus to deeper repentance and will arouse in it a more ardent desire to amend its life, for this is the logical result of considering the motives -- usually not noble ones! -- from which our faults arise. Furthermore, an accusation of this kind helps the confessor to have a better knowledge of the penitent's weak points, and to suggest the most suitable remedies, a matter of special importance when direction is given with confession.

"In addition to its accusation, the soul must also occupy itself with sorrow for its sins because they offend God, who is infinite Goodness. This should be a sorrow ex amore, springing from love, the repentance of the child who is more disconsolate over the displeasure given to a father who loves it so much and to whom it should return love for love, than over the thought of its guilt and the punishment it deserves. For the validity of the sacrament, sorrow is necessary; if it is lacking, the absolution will be null. However, the more perfect the contrition, the more effectively will the absolution erase not only the sin but also the temporal punishment which it has incurred. The Blood of Jesus will purify, renew, and enrich the heart of the penitent with fortitude, charity, and grace, in the measure of his contrition.

Time to Stop Being a Baby

I don't generally make big penitential plans for myself during Lent. It seems the Lord likes to introduce His own program for me, and for my part I try to enter that. Right now it seems a big theme is to examine why I interact with people the way I do. This post is not a report; it is a dive. I'm going to dive into it and see where I end up.

Recently I heard a news report about the rising percentage of kids who show up in college and have significant difficulty dealing with stresses. Everything just seems to be "too much" and they don't have the coping skills to handle things and they come unglued.

Since my son has entered high school, I have thought to myself repeatedly how stress and anxiety became my motivators. When I didn't understand Algebra-Trig, it actually kept me awake at night with worry. I remember getting tears in my eyes with anxiety over my first physics test. It was enough to energize me to struggle and try hard, and it also taught me the joy of doing classwork that came easy to me and allowed me to express myself, like literature and writing. Anxiety would push me over the hump of Impossible to at least fall on my face on the other side.

Academic work was not the origin of my anxiety. I was a good student and for the most part got good grades without putting in much effort (which is a seperate problem). My anxiety was more a response to my sense that my world had gotten ripped to shreds through my parents' divorce and the alcoholism and mental illness in my family. Talking these things through was not yet fashionable when I was young, so in a terrible anti-Marian sense I kept all these sadnesses and pondered them in my heart. And I quickly learned that one of the less destructive ways I could deal with anxiety was to go about trying to solve all the problems I saw, especially the ones that weren't mine. I would take on more and more responsibility for things as a way of keeping chaos at bay.

This made me popular with employers, because when I finished my work, I would go looking for other unfinished work to help with. I would use spare time brainstorming contributions to others' projects. As a child, I would clean the house instead of worrying that the visitor my mom was expecting would have to see it as it was. When I wasn't sure she would be home on time to take me to my school concert, I would throw myself into a flurry of activity to make the time go faster.

(The interesting thing is that even though doctors pointed out to me that I was extremely tense and didn't seem to know what "relax this muscle" meant, it wasn't until I started cantoring for Masses that I realized I had any issues with anxiety. That's how natural it was to me.)

So, back to the kids in schools. Lots of them have Gen X parents. Lots of Gen Xers have stories like mine: lives ripped apart, coping skills often had to be on steroids. What is the natural expression of "love" in this environment? Here, let me do that for you. I'll take care of it.

Guilt says that kind of stuff. One feels at fault, so one tries to make amends -- for everything. And the offspring of such over-carers remain infantile, unable to cope with stressors.

Recently I found myself with a pain I didn't expect. I've been struggling with one of my kid's morning rising patterns, but have set a deadline by which time a goal has to be reached for a desired outcome to be possible for him. And to work towards it, I recently announced I would only issue at maximum one wake up call to him, and then if he was late to his classes, it would be on his head. My first day of working with this, I suddenly saw that even though I hate repeatedly nagging him, pledging to stop filled me with great anxiety. Somehow, my personal sense of safety and peace was shaken when I just left his responsibility to him and let him bear the weight of it.

But you know what? He did it. I had to sweat for awhile, but he hasn't been late yet. Oh, it's only been two days, but, you know...

Facing this in myself does not make me happy, that's for sure.

I've been thinking about all the references all over Paul's letters where he talks about Christians' need to grow up, to stop being mere babies, to go on to maturity. And for me, yeah, I'm down with that. I want to be super-Christian. Sure. But I realize that no one is ever super-Christian off in their own private world. Not even a hermit. By penance and by teaching and by interacting with people, Christians are to exhort others to grow up and stop being babies. And you know what? That provokes tantrums and hurt and accusations and bad feelings, and just a whole lot of loud complaints that growing up just is too much to ask. Provoking that is about as much fun as a room of noisy, crying toddlers. The good thing about toddlers is that you know in 20 years they'll be chronological adults. We have no such guarantee about Christians.

Love does not mean swallowing up all hurt so that other people can be indulged. I could swallow until I burst and it would never please or satisfy another person, and I'm left with an aching, hurting belly. Love means speaking the truth and letting Jesus fill both of us, even if it hurts both of us.

Well, I guess all that Scripture is the next thing I need to dive into.

The Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Presentation in the Temple

 Photo from this blog

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God... (Luke 2:25-28)

When I pray the fourth joyful mystery, my mind gravitates towards Simeon. Scripture does not tell us that he was an old man, though he is generally depicted as such. We are told he had been waiting, at the Lord's promise, to see the Messiah.

My experience is that when the Lord personally quickens me to trust in a promise of something that is to happen in time, He does so to hollow me out. This stands to reason, because everything about our life in Christ is about being conformed to His death and resurrection, so that death may be at work in me and life in those God calls to whom God calls me to serve (2 Cor. 4:12).

I think of the perseverance Simeon exercised in waiting. Impatience boils over in us because waiting requires us to bow our control to the unknown factors of timing. You get up, you go through the day; your thing did not happen. You have another birthday, another anniversary; you remember your thing did not happen. You are called to faithfully, joyfully, undertake your daily duty despite the fact that your thing did not happen. This is perseverance.

But there is another aspect that comes into my meditation. Getting hollowed out means we are detached from our own desires, our own plans, our own sense of control. But this is not so that our souls fade into nothingness. No, Christianity does not beckon us into some kind of void. It prepares us for encounter. It frees us for union. It emboldens us for that moment of embrace.

Because one day, the waiting is over. Simeon has not become a placid zombie who just doesn't care anymore about his desires. He knows that the promise of the Holy Spirit will fulfill his life's desire totally. His desire has not been killed, it has been awakened, honed, sharpened, purified. On this normal day, Mary and Joseph enter the temple. They usher in the most profound miracle God has yet brought to earth: His only begotten Son, now in flesh appearing. And Simeon knows it.

He embraces the child. He sings to the Lord the song he was born to sing. He prophesies over Mary's future. He is now ready for dying and entering the next stage of union with God.

So don't let your perseverance lose its purpose. We don't persevere, nor do we exercise or pursue any virtue except love itself, for its own sake. They all find their end in union with Jesus.

Christian Unity Comes from This

It is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., describes very well what is necessary for Christians to experience the unity that Jesus prayed for:

The intimate dispositions of Jesus toward God and His relations with Him are of the utmost importance to us. Jesus is the Son of God; herein lies all His greatness and holiness. By His very nature, He is the only Son of God; we who are made to His image, have become children of God by His mediation. This divine sonship, which belongs to Him by nature, is communicated to us by grace; hence, like Him, all our greatness and holiness consist in our living as true children of God. Therefore, as far as is consistence with our human nature, we should try to reproduce in ourselves the interior attitude of Jesus toward His heavenly Father.

First of all, we note an attitude, or rather a state, of intimate union. It is as the Word that Jesus declares, "The Father is in Me, and I in the Father" (Jn. 10:38). He is referring, of course, to the substantial, incommunicable union of the Word with the Father, which no one can ever imitate; this union is the prerogative of the Son of God alone. But He also made the statement as Man, because, as Man, all His love is concentrated on the Father and dominated by the Father. His whole mind is directed toward Him in an effort to please Him. This union of Jesus with His divine Father is the mode for our union, precisely because it is a union of grace. Grace in Jesus is "infinite," in the language of the theologians, and in this respect it differs from ours; yet even the grace we possess enables us to keep our souls directed toward the Father and our affections centered in Him. Jesus gives us the example Himself, and asks of the Father this close union for us: "As Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us" (Jn. 17:21)....

O Jesus, what great treasures are hidden in Your words: "As Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us!" It is not enough for us to imitate Your exterior life; You want more than that. You want us to imitate, as far as mere creatures can, Your interior life, Your intimacy and Your unceasing union with the Father! It would be folly and arrogant temerity even to think of doing this, had You not commanded us to do so. But You have commanded it, and these words of Yours are particularly sacred because they form part of Your last prayer to Your Father, a prayer which contains Your spiritual testament.... (Divine Intimacy, pp. 169, 171)

The key to Christian unity is the all-consuming desire for union with God our Father. When our desire is fixed on God, seeking only Him, and giving Him permission to go into those areas where we can't even discern our own intentions and desires, and mess with us, then we are on the path of being one in Christ with other believers who also are inflamed with this same desire. And those believers who are not yet aflame, but who struggle with weeds and rocks and beaten-down paths? Jesus calls them too and we all journey up the mountain of holiness. Who desires God wholeheartedly who once did not desire Him but half-heartedly?

In this week of prayer for Christian Unity, let's allow ourselves to be caught on fire by one another, with the fire of desire for God and God alone.

Great Patience with One's Own Humanity

I've had a life-long struggle with separating, in my mind, what is human from what is sinful.

My religious formation growing up emphasized that "all our righteous acts are as filthy rags (Is. 64:6), that all persons were made totally depraved by the sin of Adam, and that Christ's righteousness imputed to us is everything we must hope for. In and of ourselves, we are sinful, unclean, and worthy of condemnation.

The theological corrective is that the image of God in us was broken and damaged, but not destroyed. When God created the world, He said it was good, and when He created human beings, He said it was very good. Grace does not only cover us; it really does purify what was broken and damaged, and elevates our nature, and infuses God's very life into us. Sanctity really is a possibility in this life for human beings, and our our willingness to cooperate with grace is a significant factor there.


The theology is indeed dreadfully important, but when you live life, the theology has to get practical.

And when I read this quote this morning, it all got practical.

"Because the Lord wills to reveal His power in our weakness, growth in contemplative prayer requires great patience with one's own humanity, a patience that comes not from surmounting one's frailties, but rather in offering those to God in love. This means that mood swings, fluctuations in pious affections, boredom and even struggles with distractions do not ultimately define our prayer, if through it all we never lose trust in God"

See, I have frailties. Another word for that is needs. I am incomplete. I feel my humanity, my needs, my vulnerabilities, my drives, my desires. And somehow I used to think that I would serve God best by killing these off. I've written a few posts about times that I went for really long without water or food, not on purpose, but because I was too timid to tell anyone that I was thirsty or hungry. I was too afraid of my need putting someone out. I saw my humanity as a nasty bother not just to myself but to the entire universe.

My son as a toddler started pointing me to liberation from that. He would feel a need and immediately start insisting it be met. I remember one night blurting out "I wish I felt like I could just demand my needs to be met like that!" And slowly, I began to realize that this is part of what it means to have a heart of a child. To freely admit needs and seek to have them met.

Sometimes we have needs that are more complicated than a glass of water. Sometimes we have frailties we don't really know how to handle. Having patience with them is part humility to recognize the need, part trust to know God cares and is powerful, and part detachment from the urgency of having it all resolved NOW. It is about accepting that I am a work in progress, and that since I did not make me to begin with, it is ok that I can't see how it will all turn out just yet. Just because two notes clash doesn't mean they don't both belong in the song.

So I don't like it when people use the term "human" as a synonym for sinful, messed up, wrong. It should be a synonym for weak, but with potential to be filled with grace; incomplete, but able to be raised to sonship. To be human is to be one in whom God wills to reveal His great power.

Onething2015: My Initial, Personal Report

I have just returned from the Onething2015 conference where for the first time ever there was a Catholic track. And here I am in my very own verbal workspace to try to start to share what is in my heart about this. This may not turn out neatly.


So, I was there to intercede and to gather intercessors. During the course of conversations before the event, I realized that I had an aversion to going basically because I have an aversion to suffering. From the promo ad copy I had my sense that there was something about this I just wouldn't like. And I can't say I was mistaken. It wasn't a dislike in the sense of "oooh, bad," just in the sense of "this really isn't my personal preference." I don't like loud music that I feel in my chest (for more than about three minutes). I don't like my ears to ring and I don't find that particularly healthy. And as much as I love music and I love to sing and as much as worshipping God in song is central to my life, I just don't like praise music that much anymore. I used to love it, love it, love it and found myself instantly at a fountain of overflowing healing. And I just don't, anymore. That was actually something I began to find happening just a bit when I first left my non-denom fellowship. It began to be the sort of thing were I had to fix my mind to really dig into the words being sung to meditate and suck the marrow out of them, and often it felt I was sucking dry bones. Sometimes it could be easier, especially if it was a song I knew and had developed a "meditative history" with. But I realized I have as much difficulty really praying with praise music as others do praying with the rosary and its repetitions.

I was also reminded, before and during, of things I experienced in my exodus from the charismatic fellowship world into the Catholic Church. I remembered how shocked I was when I first started attending daily Mass, which lasted 20-30 minutes, when I had been used to a 3 or 3.5 hour service. On the one hand, I realized I had to walk in to Mass ready to concentrate and pay attention to everything. Before, I was used to a lot of "warm up" time and a generally less intense approach. But on the other hand, I was stunned and amazed in those days, day after day, of how efficient God could be. Like a laser beam, He penetrated my soul with far deeper spiritual experiences in this short time than I had ever experienced in those long church services (although I had lots of powerful and needed emotional experiences in the former days, and these required more time. Sometimes I really needed to cry through 75 minutes of worship music.) So when at Onething, the sessions or preaching went on for hours, I sometimes longed for them to discover this efficient nature of God. :)

But the important lesson in all of this for me is that I do not live for myself. Sometimes I really want to. But if I live for God, I must also live for His people. Jesus lived for His people by serving them, not to expect to be served. Sometimes serving someone means to relent and do it their way, when it is really a matter of preference. Preferences can become passions pretty easily, and we start to think we can't live without our passions being fulfilled, that our passions are really divine urgings, when really they are just our desires with a strong upper hand in our soul's functioning. And sometimes that putting to death of our passions is exactly the type of service, and living for God and neighbor that God asks of an intercessor who feels interior things deeply. I was a little surprised at the intensity of the death and the struggle and the temptation I felt surrounding all this. Which shows me how weak and inexperienced I am at serving this way.

So, there was this big huge thing that happened about unity. I mean, it was big and huge on a spiritual level. I kept saying to our host friends how this type of gathering with Catholics just probably wouldn't have happened back in my charismatic days, at least not in the circles I moved in. My evangelism training had a slide that depicted non-Christian groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, and there was a significant point made about how the guy just couldn't decide whether to add Roman Catholics to that list, and his hesitation about it seemed almost scandalously generous to some people. That was my world. So for Catholics to be welcomed as equal Christians, and for one speaker to publicly (though he didn't use the name Catholic) apologize for past statements of arrogance to a particular Catholic present, it was profound. And there were other profundities.

I know I experienced something of a personal call, although I can't articulate all of it, or maybe even much of it, in any meaningful way right now. The first order of the day is in my own family. The second order of the day has to do with me being a Carmelite. Each day I always ask my prayer team of saints to intercede for me, and one morning I had forgotten to do so until a certain point during one of the sessions. Immediately I remembered, as if St. Teresa spoke it to me, "Four centuries ago I sat in my convent and prayed for a return of the 'Lutherans' to the Church. Yes, of course you are called." (See the very end of The Interior Castle).

From my young childhood, even what I count as my pre-following-Jesus childhood I have had a sense that my life is oriented towards a Church that would become pure and serious.

When I was a brand new Catholic, I had a profound blow-me-away experience of being called by God into His plan to raise Catholics, and me with them, from the dead. Read it here: When Confirmation Received Me. When you read it, you see this experience had to do with John Michael Talbot. A few years ago during a new season in my life I went to a mission of his in Pittsburgh. Now, JMT has very piercing eyes. And as he preached through the crowd, his piercing eyes made contact with mind as he said "Fan into flame the gift God has given you." BAM. It resurrected the earlier experience and, though I couldn't understand it at the time, that moment alerted me to the fact that I was stepping forward in this plan. Now, just when that thing from years ago makes some sense, I have this new thing that is just as persistently urgent and just as inscrutable. I guess I really aught to get used to this and realize that not knowing is part of how I get to know things.

So, there you have it. I have returned from Onething2015 with a heart full of something I can't explain or understand, and I know that today and tomorrow I need to pray and live faithfully, just like every day, but I also need to intentionally forsake the vast tracts of selfishness and misery I yet find within.

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.

All the Way My Savior Leads Me

I was baptized as an infant, had an early childhood of religious indifference, and after a short flirtation with threatening God I'd become a satanist, I gave my life to the Lord at age 10. I was once an anti-Catholic Protestant, and currently I am becoming a lay member of the Carmelites, an ancient order of the Catholic church, devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and dedicated to prayer and the mystical life. How does that happen, you ask? By the grace and mercy of God, I've had to learn to recognize the difference between my sin and God's holiness, and to seek Him alone.

First, let me summarize for you how I see the core of what God is teaching me today. Then let me try to trace out for you some of how I arrived at this conviction.

I firmly believe that the Christian life means living a continual state of conversion unto Jesus Christ, after we have accepted the salvation He won for us, until we reach perfect union with God. This work of conversion is a work entirely of grace, entirely a gift, but it is a grace and a gift with which a soul can and must cooperate. We have to say yes to God and do what is ours to do. This perfect union with God is something that we can and should enter into during this lifetime, but not all the saved do. We enter into it by a gift of God I'll call purgation. Scripture tells us that nothing impure can enter heaven (Rev. 21:27) and that our works will be tried by fire to remove what is worthless (1 Cor.  3:15). But we can't control or command our own purgation; God has to do it. We can either let Him do it as He wills in the course of our earthly lives, or we will have to experience it after this life is done and before we enter heaven. People call that purgatory. Everything I want is summed up in seeing the face of Jesus in heaven. Everything I hope for on earth has to do with living out the fruits of purgation and the holiness God works in me. Nothing is worth anything in comparison with the glory of being united, with all the holy ones, with the Blessed Trinity for all eternity. And the quest for eternal glory has already begun now. So Lord, whatever it takes, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I give you my yes.

Now, every church I have belonged to has been somewhere on the scale from diametrically opposed to what I just wrote, to uncomfortable and uncertain about how to teach it and train believers in living it. And I've been right there in the midst with them.

My first religious formation, after first giving my life to the Lord as a child, was in an ultra-conservative Lutheran setting. Here I learned to honor the Bible as the Word of God, to read and to memorize it. While I did this, though, I had a lot of sin in my life. I've always been an interior-oriented person, so these sins were the seething sort, like hatred, bitterness, pride, arrogance, judgment, grudges, and the like. The Lutheran teaching on sin did not help me repent or be cleansed of these sins. The emphasis was that all we do is like filthy rags, but that the Father imputes Jesus' righteousness to us. Sin was all handled in the eternal perspective and we simply lived with our inevitable corruption while in heaven God had a clean tally sheet with our name on it, our bill paid by Jesus. And I went on hating, being bitter, and so on. Occasionally in those days, Bible verses such as 1 Jn. 4:20 ("Whoever claims to love God but hates his brother is a liar") jumped out and startled me. But the conflicting theology left me more confused than convicted.

One summer during college, I met Christians who witnessed to me that the Holy Spirit could personally enter my life and empower me with Himself. They called this being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Once I cautiously read through all of the Scriptures and decided that they had the Bible on their side, for the first time I had to face down this entirely passive notion I had that God did everything for me. When I was convinced from Scripture that God would baptize me in the Holy Spirit, I simply got depressed that apparently He hadn't. I figured it must mean He didn't love me or I wasn't important enough. I sadly moaned prayers in the self-pitying and despairing style that was common to me. Then, a revolutionary thought came to mind: Ask Him. Maybe you don't have because you don't ask. I had to make an elaborate ritual of it that included meticulously finishing all of my schoolwork, buying a book and setting aside an entire evening to read it, but I accomplished all that within 8 hours of this revolutionary thought that I could ask God, and I asked. And when I asked, BAM, the floodgates opened, and I had a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit.

Immediately I sought out a new church to be among people who could help me understand what happened to me. The primary grace I experienced here was the release of years and years of hurt and sin during praise and worship. I learned to open my heart to God in the midst of other people, and I also began to be aware that God would speak to my heart. Gradually I learned to recognize the difference between His leading and my own confusion. This was something I could not do when I was isolated.

While still in a Lutheran college and attending that charismatic fellowship, God planted a seed that has had far-reaching effect. I had to write a paper for a very difficult class that was to count for 50% of my grade, and I had no idea what to do. The class was on Medieval and Renaissance philosophy. One day I paced the library stacks and begged God for some insight as to a topic. He answered with one word: "mysticism." I responded happily, "Ok, Lord! But, what is that?"

I researched St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, the Cloud of Unknowing, and others. I was captivated. Yes, I was a bit put off that these were Catholic authors because everything I'd ever learned about Catholicism concerned how it was wrong.  But these people... they wrote from an experience of loving God that left me with a pounding heart and breathless. At one point I just dropped my book on the library table and told the Lord, "If there is anyone left on the face of the earth who knows you and loves you like these people did, Lord, that is who I want to be with."

A few years later, the memory of that day in the library was the only thing that kept me from losing it as I talked with a friend I had deeply respected who had shocked me by becoming Catholic. I later had to face lots of ugly judgments, pride, and arrogance as I finally admitted to myself I had never once in my life read anything about Catholic doctrine written by a Catholic. My friend told me, yes, there are indeed people who love God like St. Teresa of Avila. They are called Carmelites. He gave me a little book about how to pray like a Carmelite. And I was amazed all over again.

I became a Catholic in 1993 in order to enter the world of mystics and saints, and I found the world of bingo, indifference, and sometimes outright scandal. Jesus had called me, though. The first time I had gone to Mass to actually be open to Him, He stunned me, shocked me, overwhelmed me, by revealing His presence to me in the Holy Eucharist. I knew I could not walk away from the Catholic Church without walking away from Jesus. He also spoke to me the promise that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and that all who believe in Him, though they die, yet shall they live. I wanted mystics and saints, but felt nothing but death in me and around me. But Jesus promised me life.

In the last two decades I've known purgations both slow and steady, and sharp and painful. God has also blessed me beyond belief with joy and the utter certainty of His love for me, and I've always seen Him provide everything I need, especially when I hardly realized what I needed. Together we have broken open and laid flat my hard crust of a heart, and He has indeed given me a heart of flesh.

It takes six years to become a Carmelite secular, and I have three years remaining in my initial formation. Part of the mission of a secular Carmelite is to teach God's people the wisdom of the saints I've mentioned, to help ourselves and others to grow in holiness and unto union with Christ. Every day I renew to God my desire to become His instrument, that He may teach His people holiness both through our words and hidden prayer. What other response can I have but to give all that I am to Him who has given me everything?


This post also appeared at MajorChange as Draw Me After You... 

Intellectualizing and Moralizing, or Misery and Mercy?

When I was an ardently practicing Lutheran (an era that concluded when I was about 20), my public formation was largely along the lines of right doctrine. A lot was made of adhering to a right set of beliefs and of learning these beliefs thoroughly.

Now as a Catholic I often feel that my public formation (by way of homilies) has a strong emphasis on right living. We need to do the right things, especially the right daily things such as prayer, service, faith sharing, and acts general goodness.

Both of these are necessary and good, or at least they are when one's conceptualization of rightness actually accords with truth.

But in both of these formulations, the most important Christian thing is missing: the how question. How am I supposed to live this way? How is it I am supposed to believe? How am I to interface with God? Not what do I do or what do I believe, but how do I do it?

How do I do it is, I think, the question of the heart of Christianity, because it hinges on lived experience, not on doctrine or moralizing. And the human heart is indeed key to the heart of Christianity. For one person to teach another how, one must have experienced heart change. (I do not deny that Jesus teaches coaches many people through to conversion interiorly through prayer, but I imagine that this is often a much longer process than being able to be directly discipled by another.)

And I believe that the key to the necessary heart change necessary to teach another is not mere intellectual enlightenment or moral exercise, but the encounter of my misery with God's mercy. Even more than that, our hearts need more than our own experience, we need the encounter with human misery in general. We need real experience with sin and degradation encountering the life-giving love of God. We need to know and experience God's forgiveness and healing for us and for others. This grants us a capacity for compassion. It allows us to realize that sin, suffering, degradation, and the need for God's merciful love is the universal human condition, regardless of what a person may present to our eyes.

The compassion capacity that opens in us is not only to give physical relief to suffering, though of course that is included. Even more it includes lifting souls from shame, shadows, and rejection into the light and solidarity and love of Christian community, of having belonging within the people of God.

Without this dimension, without being able to operate on this level of recognizing both within myself and within you our shared misery and our (at least potentially) shared experience of God's mercy, and addressing the reality, actually talking, teaching, and preaching about it, we are trapped in the intellect or in moralizing. Sharing experiences forms a bond. Human beings finding God's mercy need to rejoice with others who know this same joy or they will spiritually suffocate.

We need to be able to know, touch, courageously face, and articulate our realization of our misery, our utter need for God in every way. To do this, we need humility. We need time spent in silence so that we have the opportunity to meet ourselves. We need courage to face the truth we meet. We need the ability to be present also to another person and his suffering without trying to mute him when we dredges up what we'd rather not face in ourselves. We need frequent confession.

We also need penance and self-denial, but not the kind I do to impress myself with how much sacrifice I can bench press. We need penance that opens us to experiencing and accepting weakness. By this penance I intentionally touch my misery. And touching it, I turn in trust once again to God's infinite  mercy and realize that that, and not my capacities, is what is awesome.

The Words we Speak, and the Silences We Keep

Over the last four days, I participated in the 2015 OCDS Congress in Milwaukee. I took copious notes, but now is the moment where I go back over them to see if I can translate them into consumable language so that others can catch at least the gist of the talks that I did, if not the actual intent of the speaker.

The talk that hit me the hardest was by Fr. Marc Foley, O.C.D., so I'm going to start there with transcription. The title he was given was:

Mary and Martha

Carmel: Contemplative and Apostolic

Personal Transformation and Society Change

 but he kind of ditched that and went for a laser-focus instead on the apostolic weight of the words we speak and the silences we keep.

The following is what I captured:

Mary is a symbol of attentive listening. The inflow of God into the soul instructs us in the perfection of love. Peaceful attentiveness to God is contemplation.

St. Therese said that Jesus teaches without words, and that we have no absolute need of teachers and books.

The most important place of this attentive listening is not even so much in our set times of prayer as during our daily occupations.

We have two forms of choice: the words we speak, and the silences we keep. These are deeply significant in our response to God. Essentially all of life can be understood within these two choices. Listening to God's voice and speaking forth what we hear is the core of the apostolic intention.

We tend to think of apostolic activity as answering the question "What do you do?" Do you do parish work? Do you work in a soup kitchen? Do you protest injustice? If you are called to do these, by all means, do them. But the most apostolic of actions is what we hear God instructing us to say. When there is congruence between what we hear God instructing us in and what we do, then Mary and Martha are working together.

When our speech is rooted in the indwelling presence of God, then the Word becomes flesh.

Contemplation and apostolic action in St. Teresa's focal gospel, the first gospel choice for her feast day, the woman at the well: "Spring of water gushing up to eternal life." There are two words here in the Greek. The "well" is man-made. "Spring" is underground, and natural. In the optional gospel, we have Jesus saying, "I am not the source of my words." And this raises in us the question, What is the source of my words? Is it the cistern of my ego, or the wellspring of God's Spirit?

D. W. Winnicott, a psychotherapist, stated that he knew freedom when he no longer had the need to be clever for his clients. This is freedom from self-absorption. No longer needing that psychologically astute response was freedom.

St. Teresa writes in her Meditations on the Song of Songs that "Martha and Mary never fail to work together in a soul in the state of union. When the soul is working interiorly, active work arises that is like lovely and fragrant flowers, spreading from the tree of God's love. No self-interest. Fragrance for the benefit of many, lasts, and has great effect.

When the soul is working interiorly, there is a congruence between what we hear and what we say.

As St. Therese lay dying, a door and a window had been left open in her room, creating a draft. Mother Gonzaga came in and insisted she tell her who did this. Therese knew it had been the infirmarian. And as she was speaking to tell Mother, she said it came to her mind a more charitable way to tell the truth she knew. She followed that way and was rewarded with great peace. Is anything more important, more apostolic, than following such inspirations?

St. John of the Cross teaches that the first movements toward sin and the first movements of inspirations come to the conscious mind, and so we must be alert to them with vigilance as we stand at that threshhold. What will be born into this world?

What is the heart of Carmel? Inner language and outer speech. And yes, it is hard to speak. It is hard to be silent. Our pride, envy, anger, etc want to rise. But this is where detachment and purification comes in.

Writing in a spiritual discipline (it is the speaker's gift, and also something that has made him realize his egotism). It is all a practice of detachment, allowing God to edit our speech. It is necessary for spiritual growth and for fruitfulness.

St. Teresa's words again: If words arise from the deep spiritual root, fragrance spreads, lasts, and has effect. We all ask this question, especially as we get older: Will my life have mattered?

In Night Prayer, we ask that our work may bear fruit for eternal life. This is what we mean.

St. John of the Cross says that for a preacher to benefit people (and, more broadly, one who speaks), it is a spiritual practice and not a vocal one. And it comes in conflict with our fears, with our desires to manipulate, please, or flatter others. We may preach with the intention for spiritual benefit for others, but still have no detachment from pleasing people. And this need to please or flatter can influence what we say and don't say. The need to flatter gives people power over us. When we have detachment, we don't need them.

Silence and its impact on spiritual growth and fruitfulness. Chapter 15 of the Way of Perfection

Being silent in the face of criticism, but with discretion, in the bounds of common sense (would my silence cause anger, guilt, scandal? then don't be silent).

No desire to be held in esteem. Release from fear of what people think of us. Time will be witness of the benefit you see of this silence in yourself. Come to the point where you don't care if people say good things or evil about you. Hear people's talk as if it is another person's affair (with that much detachment). Be present to what is said, but no enmeshed in the emotions. Then you can respond, and then you have PEACE.

From the Councils of St. John of the Cross:  You will be chiseled by people's words, deeds, or temperament. You ought to suffer the mortifications with patience being silent for the love of God.

Essentially, don't over react.

If I don't practice being patient, what will happen? St. John says, profoundly, "They do not get along well with others!" This is huge. People are our world. We become nuclear reactors. People won't want to deal with us. Patience, on the other hand, brings us peace and connects us to others.

Romans 12: "Do not repay evil for evil. Do not avenge yourself but leave room for the wrath of God. Feed and give drink to your enemies, and in so doing heap burning coals on their head." What is this leaving room for the wrath of God? You give opportunity, create enough psychic space for the person to hear their own words. Don't fire back. Allow their own words to echo in their own mind. When they hear what they've said, a work of grace can happen, a moment of revelation.

The silence of pure innocence persuades when words fail.

Words are the most powerful things we possess. God creates by words, and when we speak, there are consequences. Words of kindness heal, and words of hate and evil wound.

St. Edith Stein says (in Vol 5 Essays on Women, The Problem of Women's Education, pp. 231-232). When one has grasped the importance of speech, it brings a responsibility upon oneself. Words reveal the soul. It's inner activity is revealed. Thoughtless speech reveals superficial dealings. Speech has repercussions on others souls: they can guide, or leave injury, cause retreat, or leave a deadly mark.

Milton attempted to show what the world would have been like in the world before sin. He states that paradise is where all language is pure and innocent.

What would the world be if all speech was pure, if all speech and silence came from the tree of God's love?

Thoughts Before Bedtime...

I'm stealing a few moments from my sleep to write about a dream I had last night.

Somehow I was time-traveling to the era of the US Civil War. There were several people gathered together, President Lincoln among them, and they were all agitated and worried about the possibility of impending assassination. I walked among them and could feel their concern. As I walked away, I was passed by two different versions (in that bizarre way that can only happen in dreams) of John Wilkes Booth, headed toward them.

From my omniscient stance, my calm reaction to all of them was, You know what, not all of you will be assassinated just now, so don't worry. But I'm from the future, and I can tell you for a fact that you will all die.

And I woke with a very clear sense that reality can only be one of two things: Either human life has no meaning at all and a bit of momentary pleasure is all that can be had, or, the only thing that really matters in this life is the drama for each individual human soul's preparedness or lack thereof to approach and enter the life of eternity.

Clearly, I believe reality is the second of these options. But I just as surely hold that there is no middle ground.

There is a lot more to life than dying, but there is nothing else that should give meaning to our life than what our death means.

Just a thought.

Spiritual Violence and Ferocious Love

At my last Carmelite formation small group meeting, I talked through a topic that has played a pretty big role in my spiritual development for my whole life: this notion of spiritual violence. Included in this notion are many questions, such as, how harsh should be we with ourselves? How far should self-denial go? How do we go about it? How do I understand God in terms of His harshness with us? What does "take up your cross and follow me" imply?

People tend to see Carmelites, and especially St. John of the Cross, as bastions of austerity. And it is true, right, fitting, and proper to associate austerity with this spirituality. But austerity is easily misunderstood and made horrific without a correspondingly deep grasp of the intensity of love that is the ground from which this austerity springs.

I decided there's a word I like for love's characteristic: ferocious. God's love is ferocious. And yes, I realize the definition of ferocious is basically violent. But there is also a connotation of strength, intensity, fierceness, a raging love that stops at nothing. It is complete, all-consuming, driving, penetrating, wanting everything. There is energy. And yet, it is love, so it does not violate or destroy, nor is there any lack of order or spinning out of control, like some kind of a rampaging mob. This word gives me a handle on all that.

Twenty years ago, if you had asked me about the intensity of God's love for me and how this relates to His call to leave everything and take up my cross, to lose my life for His sake, I would have told you in some formulaic way how God's intense love calls me to self-denial. I believed the theory that God was worthy and that I had to pray for the grace to be willing to leave aside what was dear to me and put God first. And my words and my demeanor in that conversation would have betrayed my anxiety about it.

Like many of my generation (and doesn't every generation have something like this?), I have struggled with disrupted attachments. As a child of divorce, a child of an alcoholic, and a child in a family with mental illness, comfortable, reliable, and trustworthy relationships were simply not part of my life's foundation. As a result, I have come towards healthy attachments by way of some fairly intense interior problems of over-attachment. And I have come towards holy detachment by way of experiences that have felt like death, and have put me face to face with the terrors I had tried to avoid through over-attachments in the first place. I was not free to give up everything because I hadn't strongly experienced receiving. I was locked into a fearful survival mode.

But along the way of the three ring circus of my interior life, I have tried to figure out what a holy normal really is. When I was in my early 20s and under the influence of a certain teacher, I decided that the music I loved was worldly and I had to abandon it. I took a record collection that held powerfully positive emotional associations for me, put it in a dumpster, and walked away. I did it solely because I felt I had to take a violent stand against myself. It hurt, and I thought hurting myself this way would please God.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3

 Close relationships for me have often been fraught with issues of control, feelings of desperation, and all sorts of powerful yuck. It has been very hard for me to discern the difference between healthy closeness and a closeness for which I was paying with my dignity. It wasn't until I started having experiences of people showing they could get upset on my behalf (not at me, but for me, because they wanted to protect what they valued in me) that I began to realize there actually was a value in me worth protecting. It often made me laugh with a spontaneous and surprising joy, which struck me as strange because generally the other person was being dead serious and stern. (Come to think of it, sometimes it irked the other person, too.)




Sin violates personal dignity. We are made for holy union with God, but every time we sin, we turn away from love. When we are sinned against, we are hurt and we run the risk of enshrining that hurt in bitterness. God longs for us to repent, to live with Him and to be pure not because He's obsessed with behavioral standards but because He is ferocious love. It is amazing to think of a God with desire for a creature. Why? How? How can it be?

God sees us as we are and knows that because we are fallen we need ever deepening grace and we cannot bear the full brunt of His intense love straight on, without dying. So gently, and according to our nature, He patiently heals us, walks with us, forms us. He frees us to open ourselves, and to choose Him. He frees us to love Him in return. We cannot give Him anything that He does not give us first, and that is true of love more than anything. We love because He first loved us.

And according to our capacity and our desire, God knows how and when to touch us with more love than we can hold, the love that brings us to our knees, to fall on our faces, to cry out, our supposed breaking point far behind. Those moments reveal God to our souls. They reveal our sin to our souls. They reveal truth. Reality is clear and everything pales in comparison to this Love. Nothing temporal is worth clinging to in light of eternal, ferocious love.

And in that moment, those austere calls (taking up one's cross, denying oneself, and renouncing things) show their true characteristic: they are the invitation of Love. Love draws out love in return. And only love can generate and sustain a life of this kind of response.

God does not respond to my offerings; I respond to His invitation. My efforts -- to sufficiently injure myself, to work for His approval, to try hard enough, to be good enough, or to do anything -- do not draw down His invitation or His initiative toward me.

God calls. He is calling. With ferocious heart and gentle, intimate whisper, God calls. He invites. I love you. Come to Me.

Our response? Yes, Lord. I am here. Love me. 

The Importance of Being Human

There's a lot of talk going around right now in the Catholic Church, because of Pope Francis and the general agenda of the Holy Spirit, and common sense, about how we need to stop being so self-referential and actually change our minds (aka be converted) about how we deal with those with distant, loose, or no ties to the Church.

So it was interesting to me to just experience something very similar in a different context: the public school system.

My son wants to try going part-time to the public high school this year. I made a call today for the information. It went like this:

Me: I'm considering enrolling my son as a part-time student. He has been homeschooled in the past. Is there a list available of which classes are offered at which time?

She: My guidance counselors have that list.

Me: (after a brief pause in which I thought I would hear more) Is there a way I could have access to that list?

She: None of them are available right now. They leave at 2. Eight to Two!


Me: When I call back tomorrow is there another number I should call, or whom should I ask for?

She: What's the kid's name?

Me: (I tell her, even though I have no idea what it could matter since we've had zero past dealings with the school)

She: Mrs. [Thing]

Me: Mrs. T-h-i-n-g?

She: Yes, Mrs. [Thing.]


What the exchange taught me is that the woman to whom I was speaking had every expectation that I should simply already know the who, what, and when pieces I was missing. She knew. Everyone in her office knew. So should I. Silly, irritating potential student parent.

But I've never been in this system. It is brand new to me.

It is amusing to see how this plays out, and does not speak well of the humanity of the "system" I am reluctantly entering.

But when this sort of thing happens in a Catholic context, or Christian context, where we are not naturally positioned to respond in the most helpful and welcoming way (without going gushy-overboard, you know) it doesn't speak well of the humanity of the Christian system either. And that is a scandal for which we need to do penance. Because, yes, unfortunate things happens with those initial contacts, too. People leave a phone number and never get a call back, or get a call back with no knowledge of why the original call was placed, or get a terse message to "call so and so to sign up for RCIA" (wait, what?), or get intrusive guesses about why the person wants to become a Catholic. Or they are even met with statements about how they don't really want or need to become Catholics! Don't believe it? I've heard stories about every single one, and have had three of these happen to me, four if you take it out of the calling-the-rectory scenario.

Evangelization skills start with humanity skills. It's as easy and as difficult as that.