Some Thoughts on this Matter of Gouging Out One's Eye

Recently in the midst of some off-hand chatter, a friend made reference to a Scripture in a way that was quite jarring to me, like the proverbial needle ripped off the record. I've been turning over in my mind just why it struck me that way.

You see, there are the "hard sayings" of Jesus, and then it seems there are the "weird sayings" of Jesus. And to me, what my friend referred to was one of these weirder ones:  "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." (cf. Mt. 5:27-30)

I'll chalk it up to the fact that I'm not a man that I've not spent a lot of time meditating on this particular passage. But the way these words struck me put me in memory of the seasons in my life when I agonized over the meaning of "If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." (Lk. 9:23)

Let him deny himself. Gouge out your eye.

What in the world is wrong with Jesus, anyway? It sure sounds like He'd be quite pleased if we destroyed ourselves for His sake.

And you know what? I've tried that. I've tried a religion that was all about holding my stinky humanity at arm's length while I got out the gasoline and the torch, determined to get rid of the culprit, which was essentially me. I think of it now as simply a spiritualization of an emotional tendency I had some years earlier towards suicide. I think of it as the basic form of my struggle against grace, this idea that God made some sort of heinous mistake when He made me, and that to right the wrong He made, I should make myself go away. Salvation, Marie's way, is self-destruction.

Religion turns into a mess when I start with my own twisted self-evaluation and work from there towards making me right myself. This religion starts and ends with, and completely revolves around, me. Me, in all my wretchedness, still convinced I should be able to get myself happy. And always failing.

The ever-patient Blessed Trinity looks on, heart about to explode with love, waiting for me to just look upward toward heaven, where I think I'm propelling myself.

Let's go back to that eye gouging verse. I'm no Scripture scholar, but it seems to me that Jesus is trying to get folks to recognize the disconnect between a do-it-yourself, me-centered approach and a Father, madly in love with His creation who has sent the Second Person of the Trinity in the flesh to look them in those eyes and announce Himself to them and beg them to come home to Him. Note carefully to what Jesus says:  "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out." If... your eye causes you to sin. Another time when the disciples just don't get it when he talks about the law and defilement, Jesus makes it pretty clear: "For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy." (Mt. 15:19) It's pretty clear that it isn't your eye that produces sin, it's your heart. You want a program to save yourself? the Lord says, I've got a logical one for you. Here's a knife. Have at it. If you can't see anything, your sin will be resolved, right? Reading this, it sure seems to me the hearers are supposed to recoil from his suggestion, and say No Way!

But then what? That's the question I think Jesus is begging by His presence, by His Incarnation. But if you want to get at the root of the issue, if you want peace(Mk. 10:17), then know your eyeball is not at fault, it is your heart. And I am here because I'm calling to your heart! (Jn. 7:37) I'm saying, Come, follow me (Jn. 1:38-39). That tug that you feel when you hear me preach, (Jn. 1:41) that amazement (Jn. 7:21) you experience when you see me heal someone (Mk. 7:37) -- that 's divine in origin (Jn. 10:37-38). Answer the tug! (Mt. 11:28) Give me your heart! You want your heart fixed?(Jn. 14:15) Well, I made it. Give it to me, run after me (Jn. 7:37-38). Together, we'll go Home.

And what about this whole matter of denying oneself?  It cannot mean that God's desire is that I hate, mutilate, destroy, or kill myself, literally, or just hate myself a bit seasonally, like during Lent. Jesus teaches us that it is the evil thief who "comes to steal, kill and destroy," but that Jesus comes that His flock "might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). It's not just that God doesn't want us dead. It's that He really, really wants us to be fully alive!

As I see it, to deny myself, as Christ teaches me, is to forsake my privately produced program for salvation. God, I've had so many. They're like potions. Take this much religious stuff, pick this group of people and figure out how to feel two steps morally superior to them, interact with people in a way that makes me feel all smug, mix well and take two gulps daily. Feel terrible in these prescribed ways. Ignore that reaction your heart has to all this; it doesn't matter. What does it know? Measure up against a standard you have decided, whether impossibly high or ridiculously low. On and on, ad nauseum.

It's all idolatry. It's all the deadly religion of me and has nothing to do with Christ. And Jesus says, deny it. Leave behind all your attempts to save yourself. It's all a bunch of shit.(Phil. 3:8) Follow Me! I'm the one who made your heart, who knows your heart, who loves your heart. If you want your heart back and you want to live from it, then come, follow me. That's what I want, too. I want you to be you, to be happy, to be whole, to be alive, to be human. With two eyes, to see My face!


Today I was listening to a teaching John Michael Talbot gave his community a couple of weeks ago. He said, “When you die to yourself, you are not going to become nothing. You are going to become something new.” This is the promise of Christianity, and we each have to test it with our lives. The process, of course, is not instantaneous. John Michael went on to talk about how the Potter goes about fixing us (remember, it's His way, not mine!). When we are cracked, in a wrong shape, the potter will re-wet the clay by His Holy Spirit, make us malleable again and then take us down to nothing. We become like a lump. And then, He reshapes us, resurrects us into something new, and (this is my favorite part) nothing is wasted. Every single bit of us that is from God gets put back into that new creation that He makes of us when we give our lives to Him. God did not make a heinous mistake in creating me who I am. I just need to let it all go into His hand, especially the bits I wish I didn't have to think about putting into His hand because I hate them so much. As I give it all over, He makes of it something of His glory. Then I live His life here, and share in His life for eternity.

If we do not live as if glory is real, are we not living as Christian agnostics, and missing all the good stuff?

Pontifical Council on the New Evangelization

This is a three-part series on the recent establishment of a brand-new Pontifical Council on the New Evangelization, published on the St. Catherine of Siena Institute blog, Intentional Disciples.

part one
part two
part three


This is exciting stuff to me.

Unfinished Thoughts on Worship

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and never felt finished with it, but decided to post it as part of thoughts in process.
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I've been thinking lately about what the word "worship" had meant to me in the various contexts of my life. I suppose most recently I've landed on Romans 12:1 as the baseline for how I normally think and speak this word: "...offer your bodies, as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God -- which is your spiritual worship." Worship is the offering of myself to God the Father, in union and only because of the offering Jesus Christ made to the Father, and because He has taken me up into Himself. As a Catholic then, the Eucharist is clearly the supreme act of worship from which all the rest derives.


Ok, I've got the theology student in me satisfied for the moment.

I speak more than one dialect of Christianese however, and this makes me happy.
              
In another dialect, "worship" gets paired with "praise," as in "Praise and Worship." Praise and Worship has a contextual meaning of a certain form of prayer that is generally done in singing, with instruments, and with the body. I have almost always experienced this kind of prayer in the company of people who have experienced pentecostal manifestations of spiritual gifts, but I understand that in some settings it is simply considered a musical taste toward the modern. So perhaps I will nuance my use of this term by specifying charismatic praise and worship as distinct from praise music.

I was thinking about these things while at Mass today. We sang some great praise songs, including one that I had learned many years ago at Risen Savior Fellowship before I became a Catholic. During communion we sang one of my very favorite worship songs, Take Lord, Receive, which is the prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola. We closed with the Rich Mullins song Step by Step. And I thought, surely a Mass can be powerful and beautiful in the most rudimentary of settings, with the barest of liturgical flourish. Certainly priests have said Mass in dire conditions where they barely dared to speak above a whisper, if that. Certainly there is a very human element that comes into play in worship (for otherwise it would be no worship, just a form) and praise, and Praise and Worship.

God is not the one who needs our prayer. We are the ones who need to pray, who need to worship, who need to praise God, who need to find the way our heart can give itself and, for some, the way we can lead others into worship. Today I was musing on how I miss the way I used to praise God. Mind you, I still attend charismatic praise and worship now and then, but I have noticed that those who lead it (who are either younger or older than I) tend toward the gentle. Gentle is sometimes good; it is sometimes how the Spirit blows. But full-throated and energetic is also good. Sometimes gentle feels like timid, or unsure, and therefore hardly a stance that Christ has before the Father. Sometimes those of us with a melancholy bent need to simply "make a joyful noise unto the Lord" and dance and clap and all that. Now, I know it can get to be not much more than fun, and cease to really bring the heart before God, but let's be honest: so can any sort of worship. The most sublime liturgical celebration can seem like a boring routine, and lively praise music can feel like a bad concert. How do we pierce into the heart of it? How do we touch the heart of God in worship? Of course, we start with the desire to do so, the need, the Reality, and a heart that bows into the Reality.

Recently a friend of mine emailed me a link to this video. It presents very well the heart of the kind of charismatic praise and worship that I cut my teeth on some two decades ago, with all its associated strengths and weaknesses. To me it seems that both the strength and the weakness can be summarized in one word: submission. The strength I see is a tremendous desire on the part of these worshippers to submit themselves to the Word of God. The weakness I see is not the risk toward wild emotional expression, but rather the truncated understanding of the Word of God in the manifestation of word definitions in the original Hebrew. When one longs to submit (and I understand this desire from the inside out) sometimes one ends up submitted fully to something that is penultimate, or even not even close to penultimate, just plain old incomplete. I think the heart of a worshipper longs to give itself as a lover to the Beloved. But we must bear in mind that the One we long for is Transcendent, calling us out into the great realm of Mystery. God chose for the Old Testament to be written primarily in Hebrew, but as Scripture says, the highest heavens cannot contain the Lord, much less Hebrew words.

The Wrongness of Feeling Unworthy

Last night at a charismatic praise gathering I heard a talk given by a young neighbor of mine (young = early 20s) about this matter of feeling unworthy of the gifts God gives. The subsequent Scriptures and words shared all flowed into a theme of our need to embrace the reality of who we are in Christ.

I really appreciated his talk. He read from Psalm 8, "What is man that you are mindful of him?" but then boiled down the matter to this: Yes, ok, on the one hand, who am I that God should give me gifts, but more importantly, who am I to turn away from God the Father Almighty because I feel unworthy of His approach to me?

That nails it.

When God approaches a soul, all of the grace that is needed by that soul to stand before Him is made available. To turn aside is to refuse God's grace and cling to pride instead. Our self-absorption is revealed, brought to light. If, however, we acknowledge God's grace and praise Him for who He is (the One who approaches, Love, Light), then we can accept the gifts He brings -- not because of any evaluation of worthiness on our part (for that is not the economy in which God operates) -- but because clearly it is His will to bring a gift. To submit to God's will is to accept the embrace of His love which floods our hearts with joy and delight. This embrace cleanses us, purifies us, enables us to appropriately respond.

Then the question "Who am I, oh Lord, that you are mindful of me" becomes not one of self-reproach or even of trying to coax oneself into believing that one is acceptable by God. It becomes a question of wonder. The wonder originates with God. I am nothing spectacular, nor are you, per se. There are billions of humans pretty much just like us. And yet the wonder arises because of the One who has made you. His love makes you, in His mind at least, unrepeatable, captivating, priceless, precious.

So accept what He brings you.

What Does "Poverty" Mean?

One of the things I love about social media like blogs and Facebook is coming across quotations that friends (or strangers) share. I come across several that I like, and every once in a while I come across a treasure that really lends itself to contemplation or further reading.

I came across one such quotation last week, from Lewis Mumford, a 20th century thinker of whom I'd never heard before:

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.

I think this quote struck me for several reasons, but where I plunge my thought most deeply in this short sentence is into the phrase "poverty-stricken day."

Poverty.

I have thought about that word often, but never did so much before encountering the Catholic Church. It was something I noticed quickly when I started attending Mass in Milwaukee; there was much more use of this word poverty than in the churches I had belonged to previously. Regardless of how it was used, I had a hard time getting comfortable with the word, with figuring out how to incorporate this word into my new Catholic vocabulary. I got that there was a spiritual dimension to poverty. But mostly I observed middle class suburbanites talking about the terrible plight of other people -- those in poverty. Something in the equation seemed off. At the time, I was living in what a co-worker had described (with some shock when we had discussed my plans to move there) as poverty-level housing. And I guess it was. But I could afford it, and I loved it there. I've never cared what things look like.

In fact, my whole relationship to economic prosperity has always been rather indifferent. With the possible exception of my time in Japan, where I earned far more money than I was expecting to (I went with the understanding that I was a volunteer receiving room and board), I've never lived with lots of means. But I have felt oftentimes like a material glutton, that I have much more than I need. I spent a short time doing mission work in Jamaica in my young 20s and witnessed families who lived in tin shacks the size of a closet and who drew water whenever the pump happened to be working that week. It was laughable for me to think of my "poverty-level housing" as any sort of deprivation after that.


Again this idea of poverty comes to mind these days because we've been living without my husband having a job for a couple of months. Lots of families are in this boat right now. It has been useful for me to shift out what truly we need and what we do not. I have struggled in the past with simply shifting into a "get tough" mode where I refuse to need anything. This is a self-martyrdom problem where I think I will make everything better my killing myself off. I see that this stance does not demonstrate trust in God nor respect for His love for me.

So, what of this thing of poverty? Mumford strikes it on the head. Poverty consists in being deprived of the sight or sound of beauty. Poverty consists in forsaking the contemplation of mystery. Poverty consists in giving up the search for truth and perfection. Beauty, Goodness, Truth. The Catholic Catechism states: "God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory. That his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty - this is the glory for which God created them" (CCC 319). Sharing in the glory of God is all the riches the soul actually needs and desires. A life spent in this pursuit is rich, it is pleasing, it is life-giving. If we lack these things, as Mumford points out, especially chronically, we risk a fatality, the demise of our humanity, our souls.

The deceiver of our souls would convince us that Beauty is ugly, or meaningless, or superfluous -- to be sacrificed. He would convince us that there is no Goodness, there is only expedience, there is only what makes the opportunity before worth grabbing, despite what it means for my own soul or for another. He would convince us that the only Truth is what brings me momentary satisfaction. Got my goodie, gonna get my next goodie; there ain't no more to it than that.

It truly doesn't matter whether we have lots of money or little; either way we can live in poverty. Ironically I think it can be dreadfully hard to alert those in affluent poverty to the state of their souls. It sounds like a bunch of hippie nonsense to tell people their souls are dead. So maybe that's not the approach. Perhaps the approach is to pray folks into a wrestling match. Truth? Beauty? Goodness? Does it matter which facet grabs us, which of our lacks, which of our longings stabs out of our hearts and refuses to shut up? God knows the embrace each of our souls most needs today. Let us pray for each other that we will not shout down God's approach, not drown it, not turn Him aside, not try to stay "comfortable". Not try to stay in poverty. Allow Him who became poor for our sakes to make us rich.

"Experience each day the grace that you are urging others to accept."

On the first of every month, Our Lord gives Anne a new message about His call to service. 

July 1, 2010 

Jesus

My beloved apostles, I send many graces into the world through your commitment to Me. You do not see the graces but sometimes you see the effect of the graces. When you see the effect of the graces I send through you, rejoice. Thank Me. Your gratitude expressed to Me gives Me consolation. Also, your gratitude expressed to Me, gives you a disposition that is joyful. I want you to be joyful, dear apostles, because I am giving you so much. You are cooperating with Me and working hard, it is true, but you are also benefiting because My heart is so grateful to you for your fidelity that I hasten to answer your prayers, both for your loved ones and for the whole world. When a traveller goes a short distance, he can become a little tired. When a traveller goes a greater distance, he can become a little more tired. When a traveller travels a distance that stretches out for the remainder of his time on earth, as in your case, that traveller understands that fatigue will be his companion. This companionship should accomplish two things. One, it should provide a bond between the saved and the Saviour because I, too, experienced fatigue and I, too, devoted My life to the Kingdom. The other thing fatigue should provide for you is a compelling need to adapt your service to My pace which is a steady pace, as opposed to a hurried pace. I ask for steady service. I do not want hesitation in My service, no, but neither do I want irresponsible treatment of either your physical wellness or your spiritual wellness. If you are standing next to a well and do not drink, you will become dehydrated, regardless of your proximity to the well. Drink, dear apostles. Experience each day the grace that you are urging others to accept. I am with you and I feed you steadily. You have the grace for today. You will have to return to Me tomorrow to accept the grace for that day. I want My beloved apostles to be sustained and I offer them sustenance. Dear friends, all is well. You are working hard as I worked hard but you will be given all that you need. I am so grateful to you. I am so pleased with you. Believe Me when I say this. It is very important for the world that you accept My gratitude because if you do not accept My gratitude, truly, the world will not understand Me and the world will not understand service to Me. People must look at you and see that service to Me brings blessings. I am with you and My gratitude to you will be evident for eternity.

Of Bicycles and Resurrection

This week I had an experience that leaves me in awe at the One who orchestrates my life. I couldn't dream this stuff up or try really hard to suck a good lesson out of a bad turn. This is the real thing.

On Wednesday afternoon, my daughter went outside to ride her bike. We bought this pink Disney princess bike in the early spring at a thrift shop in town, and though she had never ridden before, it quickly became one of her delights. She could take herself places! Her friend down the street has a purple Disney princess bike, and riding together was how they came to be friends.

But Wednesday, her bike was nowhere to be found. Not on our porch, not in the yard, not left on the sidewalk or in front of a neighbor's house. I knew she had ridden it the day before, and I know she has an excellent memory and thrives on the routine of putting things like this back roughly where they belong. We looked at her friend's house down the street; did she leave it there and they tucked it onto their porch? No. I asked the neighbor boy who was mowing their lawn, Did you see Felicity's bike from when she was here yesterday? No. It was nowhere. After I pronounced the sad conclusion to my daughter that someone obviously took it, I found her with her head sadly hanging down, crying her little eyes out.

I held her, and I cried too. But along with my tears I became very angry.

I took a whole hour to calm down (we had a previous engagement which we followed through on, though we were late) and then to select printable language before posting on Facebook the question: What kind of a shameless SOB steals a little girl's bicycle?

Truth be told, I did not realize until this morning how much of a impact this event had on my soul. I was ripping mad at the selfish whim of whomever it was who didn't care about the tears and heartbreak of a 5-year-old. Even if a girl young enough to ride it was walking through the neighborhood without someone with the brains to tell her not to walk off with other people's things, surely eventually an adult would notice the acquisition and demand it be returned to its rightful owner. That's simply justice. Everyone understands you don't steal from children. Right? Then why the &%$(! did this happen?!

Compounding matters of course is the fact that my husband is still out of a job and we are pinching our pennies tighter than this penny-pincher ever has before. Simply going down to WalMart and buying a new one was right out of the question. That's reality, and that's fine. But it sure added to the sting.

I had been bearing up under the stress of unemployment acceptably well. We've had some set backs and unforeseen expenses during this time, but at this point in my life I'd be an idiot if I doubted God's constant presence and fully loving, aware concern for every need we have. But to be honest, after this bike episode I began to lose it. I tend to lose it rather quietly and internally, and the soft spot for the enemy attack has to do with very basic drives for staying alive, for example, the desire for food and water. I simply lose interest. And after the weight of this bike episode sank into me, I quickly began to suffer the physical consequences.

I'm saying all this from hindsight, because the episode is now resolved. But I did also quickly rally to address those physical consequences. So I was feeling pretty good physically, when last night, as I was bringing my daughter downstairs from her bath, I was shocked to see her bicycle laying on our lawn. We both saw it together, we were both shocked together, and her bed time was shot as she was now far too excited to lay down. I thought of what my husband had said: Let's give it a few days. Maybe it will turn up.

Yeah, right. This morning I couldn't help but think of a song our choir sang at Easter time with the line: "The dead do not rise." Isn't this exactly what the disciples thought? What any sane person would think? Why hope? Why delude yourself with vain dreams of things working out? Either get cynical or get crushed: The dead do not rise, and little girls do not have things restored to them that were stolen.

Ok, take a deep breath and dive down into this with me. But first let me tell you what happened with the bike. My daughter had gone to the next-door neighbor's house on Tuesday and they decided to play dolls with it inside the house. This neighbor girl is nearly 10 and had no problem bringing the bike in, but apparently Felicity forgot all about it when she came back home. Even though I'd inquired with that neighbor, no one thought to check inside the basement, where they'd taken it. My son then returned it, muddy from his transport, and left it sprawled out on the lawn, looking like it had been dumped. He told me all about this a few hours after we discovered it.

Let me tell you something else. A year ago, if the bike would have disappeared without a trace, I would have been incapable of the type of anger I felt Wednesday. I would have thought things like "easy come, easy go" or "well, it's only a bike" or "I'm sure whoever took it had some reason, some problem to explain why." I wouldn't have been able to look at my daughter's tears and simply say "This is wrong! Stealing from children is wrong!"

But last year, crescendoing in the fall, I experienced something else that had a profound impact on me. God reached down into my heart, into an area in my heart that had gotten locked away until He found a particular person to whom He could give the key. The key had to be in a musical shape, and in that part of my heart I confronted many things I had lost, had thought were stolen from me, had thought were dead, never to rise again. My father figured largely into all of that, his presence, his meaning in my life. There are many parallels there to a bike that was missing, but not stolen. But even deeper than all that I found locked away another piece of my own humanity. In the bedrock of my soul God corrected me, and healed in me, a sense of justice toward myself. He taught me that it is no longer acceptable for me to think: "It's only me. It doesn't matter."

And this bike episode has taught me that the change in me is real, solid, complete.

I have spent a couple hours this morning with eyes wet with tears of joy. I'm grateful to have had this test case that in the end was nothing more than a misunderstanding. I'm grateful that God once again shows Himself as the faithful orchestrator of reality that is more complicated than fiction. I'm grateful for the "fire drill" that teaches me again to be vigilant about caring for my own physical needs. I'm grateful for the people God gives me to show His face and sound His voice.

As a friend said last night: Life is good. God is great.

Father Elijah

A couple of weeks ago, a friend stopped me after Mass to chat about the state of the world and politics, something that has tended to happen to me a lot within this last year. She went on to relate how a friend of hers felt compelled to get this book, Father Elijah by Michael O'Brien, from the library for her. She said she'd read it years ago, and was starting in on it again. She encouraged me to read it as well, promising fruitful discussion for us afterwards.

This might have been the sort of exchange that I just walk away from and say "OK, whatever." But I've been practicing taking the events and people in my life a bit more seriously than that. So, I put in my library request, and a week later, the book was in my hands. I was a bit daunted by the size of it -- almost 600 pages. But when I started to read I found very quickly I had a hard time putting it down.

It is a work of fiction, but it is Catholic fiction. In other words, the characters and their journeys resonated with me so deeply that when I finished I honestly felt lonely, like a good friend had just left. The main character, Father Elijah, is a Carmelite priest of Polish birth and Jewish ancestry who, after the death of his wife, had converted to Christianity and subsequently become a priest. It is apocalyptic fiction, meaning it deals with life at the end of the world, which is set basically in contemporary times. (Written in the late 90s, it was interesting how conspicuous the lack of cell phones and Internet was in the story. Already dated!) Father Elijah is called to the Vatican on special assignment to develop a relationship and bear witness to the man the Pope believes to be (or will become) the anti-Christ. Along the way he interacts with other saints and sinners, and we see the inner workings of his soul in the process. It is absolutely fascinating to me.

It also sets me again to contemplating how Christians are called to be involved in society, in politics, in the countless "crusades" for good and decency. I get so many emails asking for my action on this, that, and the other issue that frankly I get bewildered. Top that off with the various news articles I read from many different and usually contradictory points of view. I am not one to throw up my hands and say "It doesn't matter." This world does matter. This is where we bear witness to Christ. But, what does it mean to bear witness to Christ? What is most important?

Though it is a work of fiction, Father Elijah reminds me that of utmost importance is to maintain relationship with Christ. Not "stay comfortable with the religious surroundings I've gotten used to," no, constantly follow where Christ leads. There's a dynamic. Movement is called for. And then, do what is in your hand. There are no magic answers. Discerning Christ's call is not an excuse for laziness or apathy. But activism does not equal holiness, either. It's about Christ.

I remember years ago being at a farewell party at the home of a woman (also) named Marie. At the time I knew her to be a prayerful woman, hot on the pursuit of holiness, but she also struck me as a bit odd. Other-wordly. She didn't laugh at my impious jokes, and I had a sneaking suspicion she prayed for me instead. At this party we were praying for this family that was moving away, and most people prayed for things like safety, friends in the new place, health. All good things. Suddenly Marie pipes in with asking for all the graces they would need to end the journey of their lives in heaven. I was so stunned by that, because once again, I saw that Marie had her eyes fixed on the Ultimate. Father Elijah reminds me that right now, in the midst of world turmoil, if I love the people around me I will have my desires set on the Ultimate for them. And that's not just saying "yeah, great, heaven is where we'll all be when this life is done." But it is realizing that we are in a spiritual war, and that it is not for nothing that St. Paul tells us to be diligent, train, be wary, have each other's backs, and spread and deeply root that which is holy in our lives and the lives of others by the grace of God.

Why I Go to Daily Mass

Going to Mass this morning put me in memory of those early days of my sojourn into Catholicism when I first started attending daily Mass. Very early on in my process of conversion, after I had experienced Christ's call and tremulously responded, I was complaining to the Lord one day abut how scared I was and how hard this would be for me. The Lord responded by telling me "Be going to Mass." I knew that He meant daily Mass, and on an on-going basis. This felt like tough love to me, and like He was completely not indulging me in my nervous complaint. In hindsight I can see the Lord was holding out a precious gift to me, one I'm sure I'll never value highly enough this side of heaven.

But one thing that always struck me when I was new to daily Mass going was how miraculous the whole thing was. And not just in the "technical" sense in which the miracle of transubstantiation takes place so that Jesus is really present with us in the Eucharist (as if that isn't super-abundantly more than enough right there!). But personally, for me, the Mass often felt like an intimate communication, a lesson, a teaching, advice, even, for me in the particular need I had at that particular time, on that particular day. It felt like the Lord was personally weaving together, stitching up, the loose and flailing bits of my life, my thoughts, my prayers, and making something reasonable from them. It was in this way that I fell in love with the liturgy and absolutely could not wait for Mass each day. It helped that I was learning so much at the time. Everything seemed new. And I was so thankful for Fr. John who offered the Mass I attended most of the time. He was one who had a cadence to his prayer that was absolutely predictable and yet never sounded like he was "just saying" prayers. And I loved him so much to boot. His presence subtly taught me so many things, but I think most important among these was that these profound experiences with Christ happened for me within the context of the church community. I loved Christ, I loved Fr. John, and those loves washed over and gathered up all the rest of the community gathered there. It reminds me of CL parties at my friend Suzanne's house. I'd just love anyone who came in those doors, because they were part of who gathered. At the time, I struggled with this at Sunday Mass because it felt so anonymous, and truth be told I struggled at daily Mass as well. But it was in the daily Mass context that I apprenticed in this love.

Today at my parish I was put in memory of all these things. My head was the typical jumble of half-awake thoughts and concerns as I entered Mass (a few seconds late), but from the opening prayer, I heard words designed to perfectly heal my soul. To do that stitching. The Scriptures spoke their living word to me. The love I have known in that community beamed its memories and reality brightly into my soul. And Jesus, my Lord, came again, just for me. Oh Lord, I am not worthy, but only speak the word and I shall be healed! This is good, rich soil, and the Lord gives me all I need -- for me, and for those He gives me.

How shall I make a return/ for all the good He has done for me?/ The cup of salvation I will take up/ I will call on the name of the Lord/

Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given

Many years ago, when I was a new Catholic or about to become one, I was impressed one day in prayer with this series of words: taken, blessed, broken, given. To Catholics it is somewhat obvious that these words have strong Eucharistic overtones. I was really new to Eucharistic spirituality at the time. Yet I understood that God meant these words to somehow apply to my life. As I meditated on them, I could readily identify how God had "taken" me: He had intervened in my life, He had called me, He had claimed me as His own. I could see that. I could also see how God had blessed me. I saw His favor poured out on me in many ways, through friends and material blessings, favorable circumstances, and His faithful, providential care that all didn't have to be that way. I also was quite aware of being broken. In fact, that's what I was most aware of at the time. Now I would phrase it that I was becoming aware of my need for God. Some of that had to do with trusting in Him more than in the blessings He'd given me. I was in a transition time: leaving the church where I felt secure and going to where He called. It was a time where trust was all I had to go on. God was still faithful, but it was scarier than I was used to.

I remember telling this to my spiritual director. My sense was that I had been taken, blessed, and broken, but I couldn't bear to just stop there. The dynamism of the whole thing pointed to the last word... given. What I didn't know, though, was what that exactly meant. I mean, I knew what the word meant, and I knew it meant that what God did in me would go out from me to others. But I didn't know that I knew that I knew what it was from experience. In fact, I knew I didn't know from experience.

Today, the whole thing became clear and simple. I think this is how God converses with us (me, at least): suddenly, it all becomes simple. It is the feast of Corpus Christi, The Body and Blood of Christ. It was our last choir Mass of the season (I can't stand it when people say "year" when it is June and we'll sing again in three months. We are not in school!) At some point during the Mass, can't even say when it happened, I realized that I knew what it is to be "given" in this Eucharistic sense, and therefore, what all the rest means and is for as well: it means simply to love. I am taken up by God's love, I am blessed by God's love, yes I am broken by God's love so that I can be given in God's love to someone else, as love -- as God's love, to restart the cycle in them. And I know that I know that I know this from experience.

Simple, but profound.

As if to solidify this thought in my mind, a friend of mine posted this article on Facebook: A Requiem for Friendship. It is a bit long and circuitous, but it discusses how the cultural acceptance of open expression of homosexuality among men has caused boys problems when it comes to forming or expressing ardent bonds of friendship among themselves. The point can be expanded to embrace friendship-love in any context, and I would contend that it isn't necessarily only homosexuality but the sexualization of society in general which causes us problems. And, I contend, in Christian culture, we sometimes get this reactionary "luv" about which there is nothing human nor ardent nor Christlike. Everyone luvs each other. But my question is, will you die for me? Will you suffer for me? If not, keep your luv, and buy a puppy or some other object that makes you feel happy now and then.

The love God calls us to is not about enjoyment or happy feelings. It's not about eroticism either. It is about expressing an ardent desire for the other to know the fullness of God's gift, and going to the point of my willingness to sacrifice, to suffer, to die to make it so. Not so that I can admire what a great martyr I am, but given, freely.

Just as Christ gives Himself to me.

Random Morning Ponderings

I get up very early on Friday mornings, so I've already had many rounds of pondering going on. Here's a little bouquet:

I was remembering a couple of exchanges I had with Viola Talbot during the short time I stayed at Little Portion Hermitage, discerning. One of these happened my first morning on work detail. It was dreadfully early in the morning, and I was with a group of women preparing the grounds for the upcoming celebration of the feast of St. Francis. We were ripping overgrown grass off of a brick walkway. The task was simple enough on the surface, but I felt completely and totally bewildered. This was about 6 months after I'd become a Catholic. I had no clue whatsoever what this task had to do with monastic life. I didn't know how to pray this way, much less how to be with people I barely knew.

At one point, one of the Sisters near me uncovered a mound of nasty ants and recoiled. She said quietly (they have a rule of silence in the mornings) "Does anyone want a good penance?" Without a word, Viola, who was also nearby, reached into the mound of ants and really dove into tearing the grass out. Her strong response to the Sister -- really, to the Lord in this circumstance -- spoke volumes to me.

Later, when it was time for me to have "my official talk" with Viola about what where my discernment had taken me, I remember her telling me (after I told her that I worked in an office) that when she first took on working in the Hermitage business office, that she didn't even know how to go into the room or do any of the work. I also remember not understanding why she told me that. I've since figured it out! She realized far better than I did how clueless I was about their life. What I remember this morning is her patience, her complete lack of judgment, and a very quiet charity.

Next random pondering:  At Mass this morning, we celebrated a votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At communion, I thought of how, at the many Eucharistic miracles that have been scientifically verified, hosts which have turned to flesh are always found to be heart tissue. A text I'd read recently came to mind, talking about how the true center of what we call "the heart" metaphorically speaking is the will. "The heart" includes our affection and our feeling or sentiment, but the core of who we are is our will, which certainly does not preclude but raises up our affections and sentiments. So, I receive Jesus, His Sacred Heart which is filled with love for me. And this love is expressed in His will -- His will for me, which includes all the circumstances of my life right now, and indeed many things of which I grasp very little. I receive, and with my little love, I say yes. My will says yes to His will. This is harmony!


Last random pondering: Recently the organist at one of the local parishes passed away. He was a gifted musician but a surly man, known for being rashly rude. He was not Catholic, which I mention simply to highlight that he seemed to be drawn to be on the outside of things always, never a part of the people he was with. Some months ago, one of my husband's friends explained to me that this organist had lost someone very close to him, a child I think, and that in his sorrow he was never quite "right" after that. I was sad to learn from my husband today that he had opted for no obituary, no funeral, and an anonymous cremation. He had been in a coma before he died, so perhaps he never realized that two of my husband's friends were at his bedside praying just before he died. It really is a sadness to believe that our meanness could really banish all love from our lives.

Ask for the grace of perseverance

On the first of every month, our Lord gives Anne a new message about His call to service.

June 1, 2010    Jesus   Dearest apostles, are you weary? Do you wonder why My service requires such holiness? I know that you do not always understand the relationship between your suffering and the graces I am sending to others. This is not clear to you when you are carrying heavy crosses that require great trust. When you are with Me for eternity, you will understand this connection and you will rejoice that you were willing to remain in My service despite the demands made upon your will. I ask and I ask and again I ask, and you answer, and you answer, and again, you answer. My dear apostles, you are in such a habit of saying yes to Me, that you continue on, day after day. The days are passing, are they not? One after another, days are completed and you have claimed grace for the world. This is how it has been arranged for you, dearest children of the Father. You are asked to be good and holy and in return, the Father cooperates by keeping your intentions close to His heart. In this moment, where you have been placed, there is grace. Do you feel it? Do you trust Me? I am with you. I have not abandoned you. Will you resist the temptation to leave Me when I press on your commitment? If you ask Me for the grace of perseverance, I will give this to you. This is My gift. But you must ask for and then accept this gift. If you feel like you are failing and yet you are trying to serve as best you can, then you must spend time with Me and examine the concept of failure from heaven’s view. You may find that you are a success in My eyes, even while the world dismisses your contribution. All is well. Do not fear fatigue. Only fear a decision to abandon Me. Remember, I will never leave you. Never.

John Michael Talbot: Mission in Pittsburgh

This week I had the completely unexpected pleasure of taking part in a two-day mission led by John Michael Talbot at a Pittsburgh parish. The pleasure was unexpected because I learned it was happening only about 30 hours before its beginning. But it was also unexpected in the sense that one can never anticipate exactly what the Spirit of God has in mind in this sort of encounter. We can imagine what we will, but God always seems to have a better surprise up His divine sleeve.

I am left with a burning sense in my heart, and yet another occasion where I feel the need to put words to the ineffable. Let me try running at it this way:

At one point in the mission, John talked about his community, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, in both its monastic and domestic expressions. He talked about its charism, and the charism of the larger movement of God of which he sees them as a part: the New Monasticism. He said there are many new monastic communities emerging primarily in Western Europe. His was the first in North America. These are not the Benedictines or Cistercians of the past, but new expressions of monastic life, and they are drawing people in large numbers. He stated that a primary characteristic of this New Monasticism is integration of expressions that some in the past might have thought could not blend together, for example, charismatic and liturgical worship; marrieds and celibates; Catholics and Protestants.

I have to admit that as he spoke I was filled with the same kind of longing that I felt 17 years ago when I made up my mind to explore joining his order, in the monastic expression. I don't at all regret my week or two at the monastery, but God did make it very clear to me that that wasn't where my life was headed. Not even the domestic expression of the order seemed... in order for me. I think this probably isn't the only time that I've mistaken the glimpse of something very valuable to me, a charism that awakened something in me, powerfully, with a specific and immediate call of God to my life. In some degree of a like manner I have met the Militia Immaculate, the Discalced Carmelites, a charismatic covenant community, and most recently Direction for Our Times and Communion and Liberation. All of these have given specific and needed formation for my life.

And yet. And yet... what?

John Michael gave a bit of his testimony, a much abbreviated version of the testimony I have posted here. He recounted an experience in which the Lord told him (this event was essentially his conversion to Catholicism, in the 70s) that the Catholic Church was His original Church, but that it had been sick and had almost died, but that the Lord was going to raise it up again, and He wanted John Michael to be a part of it. I had heard him recount this in the past, but when I heard it this week, I was struck with the memory of my own most intense personal interaction with JMT from the 1993 pilgrimage. As a brand new Catholic, I was struggling with the deluge of "Catholic stuff" I was experiencing on this trip: rosary beads, holy water, statues, genuflections, holy objects, holy places.... I didn't get it. It was painfully foreign. I was in culture shock. And it all felt like deadness. I knew that somewhere the Catholic Church had amazing springs of life, but I couldn't see them and I couldn't feel them, and I didn't know who to believe or where to look. I prayed an "atheist's prayer" about it, telling the Lord I didn't believe in holy places or holy objects or special graces connected to them, but if He wanted to convince me otherwise, He was free to go ahead. It was in Bethany, at the Church of the Tomb of Lazarus, that I was completely... I don't even know what word to use... completely undone by the Lord. His grace just came and dismantled my heart, and He reached right down into my doubts and my fears and proclaimed boldly to my entire being "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who lives and believes in me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." It was also the only time on the pilgrimage that John Michael served as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. I was literally hardly able to stand as I took the chalice from him. He spoke afterwards to the assembly in a way that helped me grasp what was happening to me.

I recount all of this simply because I saw only this week how that pivotal moment in my life whose impact has stayed with me, not just as a memory but as a constant reality, was very much a re-echoing of the call Jesus gave to John Michael. What I mean is, even though I knew God had called me to be a Catholic, I experienced the Church sometimes as dead, as frustrating, as sick. But what really shook me to my core and made me feel so terribly small and even unable to stand in that Mass was this overpowering awareness that God had called me here, (me, the experiential atheist!) to the Church, to share His life: to bear it to others. That is, after all, the only call there is from Christ.

And yet... and yet... what?

The same eyes that met mine in Bethany met mine again Thursday, and John said "Fan into flame the gift God has given you."

I want to say that I don't even know what that is. But I guess perhaps the closest I can come to capping this all off with some closure is that what I took away from this two-day mission is that everything that has happened in my life thus far is of one weaving, with meaning. But again, this isn't a meaning I give to myself; it's not a calling, a way, a path that I like and therefore I choose. It is what the Lord brings about and the Lord calls me to. And it seems to me the Lord wants me paying attention to Him.

Testimony of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa

This testimony was recently shared with me by a friend. As a side note, I have met a few people from different backgrounds who were at the 1977 Kansas City meeting Father mentions, and all recalled the event he recounts as one of the most striking of their spiritual lives.

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM, CAP

Fr. Cantalamessa is the preacher to the Papal Household. For the last 21 years he has preached for Pope John Paul II on Fridays during Advent and Lent. He leads numerous formation sessions and retreats throughout the world. Fr. Cantalamessa is a prophetic voice speaking to many people throughout the world. He has a deep passion for Christian unity.

In 1975, while I was a professor of Ancient Christianity at the Catholic University of Milan, I began hearing about a new move in the church, a new spirit, a new way of praying. In the beginning I was very "anti." I told the lady who described this activity to me: "You should never go again to that particular retreat house." I was surprised to see that these people, whom you already realize were part of the charismatic renewal, were not
offended by my criticism. They loved me and even asked me to give them teachings.

I once gave a university course about the charismatic and prophetic movements in the early church just to try to understand what was going on now. Some manifestations were exactly like those which had occurred in the first Christian communities, in Corinth, for instance. But, as you may imagine, I was unprepared to accept other things, like speaking in tongues.

In 1977, a lady from Milan received four all-inclusive tickets to go to America to attend a conference in Kansas City. This was to be a large interdenominational gathering of 40,000 people, half Catholics and half other Christian denominations. I was given one of these tickets because I was coming to the States to start learning English. I thought to myself: "After all, in a week I shall be over all this annoyance."

In Kansas City, there was one thing which particularly impressed me and I must share it with you. At one moment during the conference someone began to speak prophetic words. Prophetic words are authoritative messages spoken in the name of God: "You bishops, mourn and weep because the body of my Son is broken. You priests, mourn and weep because the body of my Son is broken. You lay people, mourn and weep because the body of my Son is broken." One after another, almost all the 40,000 people fell to their knees. This huge crowd in Kansas City was crying out as one in repentance. And above the stadium a huge sign proclaimed: "Jesus is Lord."

I was looking at all this as an outsider but I couldn't help being moved. I said to myself: "This is a prophecy for the future of the church. One day the church shall be reunited in one single visible body. This is how it will happen; through all of us repenting, praying and weeping together, under the Lordship of Christ." But can you imagine, I was still very critical and said to myself: "This is very beautiful. No doubt this comes from the Lord, but I cannot accept it." I was unprepared to understand the expressions of other Christian denominations, especially Pentecostals.

Choose Jesus as Lord of your Life
One of the hymns sung on this occasion said: "Lift high the banner of  love; Jericho must fall." It's the story of Jericho falling before the sound of the trumpets. When the crowd sang the refrain, "Jericho must fall," my fellow Italians (there were five of us) nudged me and said: "Listen carefully, because Jericho is you."

And Jericho did fall. It was a spectacular fall that began in Kansas City, Missouri, and ended in Convent Station, New Jersey. There was a prayer meeting to be held in New Jersey and someone invited me to attend. A priest said: "Stay with us this week." I remember thinking to myself: "This, after all, is not a house of perdition or prostitution. It is a house of prayer, and staying there won't do me any harm." I decided: "Lord, I will stay. I will give you another chance to speak to me."

After this decision everything went smoothly, even though I resisted with all my strength. You must realize that I did my best. There was a moment during the prayer meeting when we were in the chapel praying, and I remember saying to myself: "I am a son of St. Francis of Assisi. I have a beautiful spirituality. What am I looking for among these lay brothers?" At that moment a lady opened her Bible and started reading. It was the passage where John the Baptist said to the Pharisees: "Don't say in your hearts, We are sons of Abraham, we are sons of Abraham."'

I assure you, this is the way the Holy Spirit builds when he is present in a gathering. He speaks in a simple but very, very strong way. So I stood up (speaking Italian because I did not know any English then) and everybody seemed to understand my Italian. I said: "Lord, I don't want to say any longer that I am a son of St. Francis of Assisi. I ask you to make me a true son of St. Francis of Assisi. Baptize me with your Holy Spirit." Then they prayed over me. I recall somebody saying: "Choose Jesus as Lord of your life."

The Cross of Jesus Christ 
Why am I mentioning my experience? Because if we are to receive the Holy Spirit in this new, dramatic way scripture says that we must be baptized. But if we have already been baptized, there is need of a new baptism or a renewal of our baptism. For me, baptism in the Spirit was precisely this-a chance the Lord gave me to ratify and renew my baptism.

For most of us, baptism is a bound sacrament. That means that while we have received baptism in the church, the church gave it in the hope that at some point in our adult life we would confirm our "I believe" in a personal, free act of faith. Until there is this act of faith in the life of a Christian, baptism remains a bound sacrament. Baptism allows us to receive Holy Communion but it also reveals why there are so many inactive Christians, passive and lacking any power. Jesus promised power to his believers, power enough to cast out demons and convict the world. Why, then, are we so powerless?

Coming back to my experience, my perception was that I was simply renewing my baptism, choosing Jesus as
my Lord, and renewing my ordination-my religious profession. There was a moment when somebody said: "Choose Jesus as your Lord." At that very instant I lifted up my eyes and saw the crucifix. It was as if Jesus was waiting to tell me a very important thing. "Careful, Raniero." Of course there was no audible speaking by Jesus. Nothing visible-only a deeper communication.

This is the way God communicates something without verbal expression, without visible images. He speaks
directly to the heart. He was speaking to my heart. "Be careful. This Jesus you are choosing as your Lord is not an easy Jesus. Not a rosewater Jesus. This is the crucified Jesus." This was when all my doubts fell away. If I was still wondering if the charismatic renewal was something superficial and emotional-just a lifting of our arms to impress each other, I was convinced at that moment that this renewal goes straight to the heart of the gospel, which is the cross of Jesus Christ!

A Love for the Word of God 

Nothing spectacular happened during this moment of my baptism in the Spirit. Nothing. But there was prophecy. Somebody said: "You will experience a new joy in proclaiming my word." At that time I was more a professor than a preacher. For a while, this remained for me a kind of question mark. Now, after seventeen or eighteen years, I can tell you that this prophecy has come true. I have experienced a new joy in proclaiming the word of God.

On the plane from Newark to Washington I had one of my first experiences as I found that in just praying my breviary the scriptures came alive. The psalms were not just words I knew by heart; no, they came alive. I was astonished. I read: "One generation proclaims to the other the greatness of the Lord." And a whole world opened in front of me. I remembered what is written in the New Testament: "Then at that moment Jesus opened their minds so that they were able to understand the scriptures."

This is what the Holy Spirit does. One of the first actions of the Holy Spirit is to open our minds to understand scripture, to see how true it is and that it is the word of God-the passionate word of a father to his children, for use in very personal situations. The love of scripture which results from receiving the Holy Spirit is unbelievable. I know people who cannot separate themselves from the Bible.

For example, I know a young widow who, after she lost her husband, was lost in fear. The first months were terrible. Then she discovered the Bible, so much so that sometimes when she went to bed she placed the Bible on became a woman filled with an understanding of scripture which sometimes enriches and instructs me.

When I came to Washington, I realized that I had a new desire for prayer. Something was attracting me to the chapel, and prayer opened to me the world of the Trinity. The Father spoke to me about the Son; the Son spoke to me about the Father; the Father and the Son about the Holy Spirit. I discovered the law of love which is the law of the Trinity. Do you know what the law of love is? The law of love consists of not speaking of oneself, but speaking always of the other person. This is why the Father reveals the Son. The Son doesn't speak very much about himself; he speaks about the Father. When the Holy Spirit comes, what does he say? He doesn't start revealing his name; he doesn't proclaim ruah, ruah (r~cah is the Hebrew name for the Holy Spirit). When the Spirit comes, he says: "Abbe, Abba." This is the law. Imagine if this law of love were to be applied in a family. Imagine a father speaking to his children always of the good of their mother, and the mother always telling them of the goodness of their father. Oh, this would change many, many things.

Leave Everything and Come

A few months after my return to Italy, something happened which visibly and practically changed my life. One day as I was praying in my cell in the friary, I prayed for the first time in a manner vaguely like speaking in tongues; not exactly the same, but somewhat similar. For a moment there was a very deep-down communication-nothing verbal or visible-but I sensed that Jesus was passing in front of me. It was the

same Jesus who came back from the Jordan after his baptism in the Spirit and he was saying to me: "If you want to help me in proclaiming the kingdom of God, leave everything and come. 'I understood that he meant that I was to leave my teaching position. At that time I was head of a department at a huge university. I felt an instant of panic. This university had established this chair especially for me. But I understood that Jesus was inviting me-a man who has many things to do and is always in a hurry. I was afraid that I would not be ready to answer "yes." At the end of this hour of prayer, however, by the grace of God, I found in my heart a full 'yes, Lord, I can." The Lord called me to leave my professorship and become an itinerant preacher of the gospel. Because I am a religious man with a vow of obedience, I went to my superior general and told him: "Father, I think the Lord is asking me to do something completely different." He said (as any good bishop or pastor would), "Let us wait one year more." So I went on teaching for one year. At the end of this time I went to my superior general in Rome.
We both prayed and then he said: 'yes, it is the will of God. They will say that you and |I are both mad, but in ten years maybe they will change their opinion."

On the very day when the superior general gave me permiission to start a new life, the breviary contained this beautiful passage from the prophet Haggai, in which God sends Haggai to encourage the people. The people stopped rebuilding their own houses and started rebuilding the temple of God. God was pleased and sent prophets to encourage them. Haggai said: "Now take courage you Joshua, son of Jehozadak; take courage Zerubbabel: take courage, you people of the land and work, because I am with you, says the Lord" (Haggai 2:3-5).

Do you know what the law of love is? The law of love consists of not speaking of oneself, but speaking always of the other person. This is why the Father reveals the Son. The Son doesn't speak very much about himself he speaks about the Father.

After reading this in the breviary, I went to St. Peter's Square to ask St. Peter for a new gift
of faith for my new ministry. It was a rainy October day, and St. Peter's Square was completely empty. Something compelled me to look at the window of the Pope-you know, where the window of the Pope is in the Square. It was as if the word of God were crying through me: "Take courage, John Paul II; take courage, you cardinals and bishops of the
Catholic Church; and work, because I am with you, says the Lord." So far so good. Except that three months later I was appointed preacher to the Pope!
 

 Maybe it would be worth while to say a little about what this means. Many Catholics don't know that every Friday during Lent and Advent the Holy Father takes time to listen to a sermon, a meditation given by a priest of the Catholic Church, which, for the last sixteen years, has been me. He never misses a sermon. Once when he was traveling around Central America, he missed two Fridays. When he returned he came straight to me, apologizing for having missed two sermons. It's really he who gives the sermons to me through his humility, his example.

The first time I was in front of this very unusual audience I couldn't help telling what had happened to me in St. Peter's Square, just below the Pope's window. So again I quoted Haggai the prophet-not just as a quotation but as a living prophecy. I heard him say to this audience: "Take courage, John Paul II; take courage, you cardinals and bishops, you people of the land, and work, because I am with you, says the Lord." And I could see in the eyes of my listeners the word of God becoming an active reality at that very moment.

Very often when the Lord sends me around the world to proclaim the word of God, I repeat this prophecy of Haggai. Now I have the pleasure, the joy, of proclaiming it for you: 'Take courage, you bishops of this country; take courage, you priests; take courage, you lay people, and walk, because I am with you, says the Lord."


This first appeared in The Word Among Us, A Daily Approach to Prayer & Scripture, and
is used with permission.

Attraction

Lately I have been thinking on the matter of attraction. Three different strands of awareness have sort of joined in chorus to get my attention on this. First, I've been re-working a paper I wrote during my graduate studies. My professor suggested that I cut it back a bit and submit it for publication, and I'm just now revisiting that idea. It is interesting to me to re-read this paper. It's not like re-reading my blog or journal, because I'm well aware of the hard work I did to synthesize thoughts that were not my own. The paper is on St. Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Law and the New Evangelization. So, I'm learning all over again, but with several years' greater Christian experience under my belt. So this time it actually feels like learning.

Ok, all that said, the point in the paper about attraction is basically this: "The New Israel is to be the embodiment of hope on earth, witnessing to the availability of God's transforming power for everyone who embraces the obedience of faith. As we are beacons of hope to the world, we are to have the effect on others that the law was to have on Israel -- to render people open to God's gracious action in their own lives." In other words, part of God's plan of salvation is that people are to be able to look at the Body of Christ and say "Holy Cow! I want what they have!" That is attraction.

A few days ago I attended Mass at Franciscan University, and it was a particular Franciscan feast day. The reading was from Revelation 21: "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." This immediately sent me pondering the experience of the beauty of a woman and the attraction of a man to her. Attraction. If you have experienced this kind of attraction you know any elaboration I could make on this point would be but irritating noise. Unless of course pondering this attraction leaves you feeling dirty, used, or guilty, and therefore with a disconnect between the notion of attraction and the purity of heaven.

Now, for a bold assertion on my part: I believe all attraction, all of it, is an attraction to God. God is the only One in the universe who is attractive. Everything we experience as attraction is a call from Him. If we can believe that and own it, then the fear in attraction dissipates. When we do not believe it, we are open to seduction by the Evil One, who cannot himself produce anything to lure us away from God. He can, however, inject our attractions with our guilt, our unconfessed sin, and our woundedness and resulting fear -- anything we leave around us that is his domain -- and he can blind us, drown out God's call to us with the clamor of our own pain, convincing us that we are alone in a closed universe. That God is not bothering to call us. That our attractions are useless, or evil, or such a pile of disintegrated mess that God could not possibly be in any of it. Lies, lies, all lies!

Let's go back to that bride and groom for a second. Perhaps you also have seen two people so attracted to each other that it is clear neither of them sees or knows anything else going on around them just at that moment. Perhaps you've also then had the experience of looking at such a couple and then looking at other people around them, and sharing a smile, because everyone realizes that wild horses couldn't separate these two. This is the sort of gaze of attraction, I think, that Christ has for us, and we return to Him, that causes that cry of "Holy Cow! I want what you have." It need not be romantic or sexual attraction. I recall once soon after my return from living abroad being introduced by a mutual friend to a man who had been a missionary in the Philippines. He spent some relaxing time in Japan and had loved it there. I had the inverse experience, having roughed it out in Japan and loved my month spent in the Philippines. As we both processed our experiences and pain as the three of us had dinner, our mutual friend sort of cleared his throat and commented "Ok, I'll leave you two love birds for a minute and go over there..." I remember being jarred by that comment, because I certainly did not see the exchange as romantic, but it was only his noticing of the intensity of our exchange that alerted me to the amazement that we had found such a mutually needed sense of shared experience in each other.

I've also had the experience of being "within" the dynamic of the gaze of attraction, too. I saw a friend interacting with other friends and smiling. Watching his face made me smile, and then he saw me smiling at him smiling, which made me smile all the more, which brought out a sort of "next level" smile of amazement from both of us that what each of us saw was coming from Someone else. This happens so frequently with my children that I sometimes fail to notice it. I think of this kind of smile as a true release of joy from my soul, because it is taken up only in consciousness of the one I'm looking at, and not myself.

I'm asserting that attraction, this thing of God calling to us, is self-understood, if pondered. The Love of God is the underlying Fact of the universe, and most of us can recognize its tug on us, if but only in our disconnect from it. Those who cannot say "my heart is drawn" still understand "I feel dead inside. I feel nothing." How could we feel that "nothing" if we did not intuit a place meant for Something?

Ok, third point. The other day I was praying for my kids and my interior struggles birthed from our life of not participating in institutional education. I was reviewing, rehearsing in my mind, how force is no way to "teach" and no way to parent. And yet there are so many good things that I want for them, and it can cause me some pain to me to want these for them and for my children to be oblivious! As I prayed this word came back to me: attraction. My prayer then turned to becoming alert to how they are attracted. I admit, so often they are attracted to me, or need me for something they are attracted to, but I'm busy, and so they settle for something else. This sobers me. Whose voice do I wish to echo? "I am calling to you, to your own soul, in a way that is precious, intimate, made just for you. Respond to me" or "Your attractions are useless, evil, or such a pile of disintegrated mess that I don't want to waste my time on them"?  Because I am no longer a child, nor have I ever been any child but myself, it takes a great act of trust and humility to both observe how my children are attracted and to try to discern when they are merely complying or "zoning out" and not engaging any attraction at all. To propose the kingdom of God to my children may be a simple as digging in the dirt together, or hanging up laundry. It used to drive me mad to hear Catholics saying that very kind of statement . It's not about digging in the dirt! It's about preaching and teaching the gospel! and prayer! and discipleship!  Well, it is first about love. It presumes the Gospel, the Church, but it requires the Gospel, the Church to be lived. And sometimes living with someone means digging in the dirt with them.

Which brings me to yet another thought, because of the memory of the (seemingly) utter impossibility of my becoming attracted to Catholicism or Catholics at one point in my life. We have a word, for women especially, who go all out to try to make themselves attractive to others... and it's not a nice word. Desperate is a nicer word. At the heart of all that hard trying is disbelief. I will never be attractive... unless maybe I try really, really, really hard! No, at heart is the belief I will never be attractive. Ok, fine. Accept that you will never be God, if you need that step. But accept that God made you for Himself, to be attracted by Him, and that as you respond, you will be imbued, bathed, flushed with the light of his countenance, radiant in the glory uniquely designed to be reflected through you. It is not about trying and striving; it is about letting go and receiving. It's not about passivity, either, for receiving does take hard work, but it is work oriented toward opening to the Other, and not "improving" myself. For my children, it is not about pressuring them, it is about responding to them. Providing formation of who they already are, not designing them. For my heart it is about hearing the God who is always speaking, responding to the God who is always there, always working, always active. Always attracting me, always purifying me.