Diamonds in the Rough

Teaching teenagers is FUN. By fun I mean Frustrating, Unbelievably taxing, and No where I'd rather be. After all, it's the front lines. It's mission territory! And the grace and privilege of playing a part in forming young hearts in Christ is a treasure beyond words. Even when the treasures are diamonds in the rough.  

Back to the frustrating and taxing part. A high school teacher gets to empathize with the ancient prophets quite often. We feel like Jeremiah for instance, who was largely ignored in his instructions to the People. We say the same thing a thousand times. We "invite" the students to read the directions we so lovingly place at the top of the test, but alas, they often fail to see it. We'd love to give them more freedom, but too often it gets abused and we're forced to "take them by the hand" as God did in this Sunday's reading from Jeremiah. When the young "break the covenant" in the classroom we have to show ourselves the master, as in this first reading. Trust me, I'd rather have them drawn to the beauty of truth, and carried on the sweet aroma of Christ, than drag them along by the threat of "yes, this is on the test." 

But such is the human condition; we are out of sync. We're off key. Original Sin has caused the strings of our souls to go flat or sharp, and we need them to be tuned. That means we've got to be stretched (or loosened). We need music lessons again, because we've forgotten the original notes. It may take hours and hours of pounding those keys and getting our fingers calloused by playing the chords of the virtues over and over until they come as second nature to us. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews sees even Jesus, who was clearly without sin, as undergoing this stretching in order to teach us: "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered." 

Maybe that's why St. Augustine called this life a "gymnasium of desire." It's a real workout! I learn in every lesson I teach how I am called to be purified as well. One of the best lessons ever taught was by the outdoor classroom teacher, John the Baptist: "He must increase, I must decrease." 

The Gospel this past Sunday from John 12 echoes this theme of self-sacrifice and self-discipline. It's the lesson of Lent, essentially; "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat." Wow, so that's it then, and no escaping it? "Is THAT gonna be on the test?" Oh yes, friends, it's the final exam. But don't look at it that way; like it's just work. It's the art of virtue. Imagine the magic that can happen when we learn our lessons well and listen to the Master. Sweet music! Music that swells up from within, inspired thoughts, incredible symphonies of virtue and holiness! Jeremiah foretold this day! "No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the LORD. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD..."

The Holy Spirit and Babies

I was driving to give a talk a couple of weeks ago on Marriage, Family, and the Sacraments, praying and preparing as the road zoomed below. I was pondering on just how these three things relate when I got zapped by the following thought...


Catholics say every Sunday in the Apostle's Creed that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son." The Holy Spirit is the Eternal Fruit of the Love-Gift between the two Divine Persons of the Father and the Son. 


Whoa... If that sounds way too abstract, Augustine in the fourth century gave us a helpful image in saying that the Divine Love in the Trinity is "enfleshed" in the human love of Lover, Beloved, and the Love between the two. This image blossoms beautifully in Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body in our own time. Stay with me friends while I try and work this out!


The Father loves the Son eternally. The Son receives that Love forever, and forever returns that Love. Since the Gift of Love is Eternal, the Fruit of that Love is in itself Eternal! In fact, it is a whole and distinct Person! The Holy Spirit. Anyone ever in love can attest to this Third Party, this seemingly separate and distinct ocean of Love in which the Two suddenly find themselves immersed in right up to their hearts. In vernacular terms, and here quoting Schoolhouse Rock "A man and a woman had a little baby.... yes they did. They had Three-ee-ee in the family. That's a magic number."





Now to get to the thought that zapped me on the turnpike heading west... The Holy Spirit, the Eternal Fruit of the Love between the Father and Son, we believe, is God operating in our hearts, moving us, inspiring us to Love, and Goodness, and Beauty, because that's what Love does. The Holy Spirit makes us holy, if we allow Him into our hearts, minds, and bodies. Just so, the Fruit of the Love of the earthly Lover and Beloved (baby!) makes us holy. Babies are like the Holy Spirit.... in the flesh! THAT'S IT! Huh?


A child coming forth from the beloved and the lover, a husband and wife, becomes the operative agent in our hearts, making us holy and whole. Children, like the Holy Spirit, break us and remake us. They bring us out of ourselves, they push us out into the deep where we never thought we could go, and they are the "occasion of grace" that can make us saints. 


So the new revelation in the spiritual life of our little family is to say "Come Holy Spirit! Speak to us, Your servants are listening" as we discern in the cries, laughter, smiles, gurgles, giggles, and yes, the poopie diapers of this domestic church, just what is the Holy Spirit of our children teaching us? 


For the family, holiness and the path to perfection are ever-present. The bells of the monasteries summoning us to prayer are the bellows of the baby crying out "Change me Dada!" And shouldn't my prayer to God be the very same thing? "Come Holy Spirit! Change me!"

One Plus One is One

The same Love, the one Love

that filled the heart of Francis, with joy

that guided the eyes of Teresa, to the poor

that fed the mind of Thomas, with wisdom

that gave Philip his laughter, for sorrow is a passing cloud

and Edith her conviction

and Maximilian his courage

and Therese her smile

is the one Love, the same Love

that looks at you and I

and knocks soft upon our hearts

and seeks and hopes to find

the one thing, the same thing

of us as of them:

an open door

to enter as a Guest

and let fall from arms immeasurable

gifts innumerable.

Saint du Jour - The Porter of Paradise

How often do we stop and really look at one another? How often do we really listen to each other’s stories, as opposed to waiting for them to stop talking so we can “one up” them? Do we notice the face of the person at the pharmacy, the Wawa cashier, the drive-thru window as we drive through our lives at often break-neck speeds? Our fast-paced culture is almost conditioning us to miss many face to face encounters, and many souls are slipping through the cracks. Enter Blessed André Bessette, born in 1845 near Montreal, Canada. His story as it pans out would appear to be one of total insignificance. He could have gone unnoticed, could have felt unwanted, lost in the shuffle, just another number… but it was not so. André is the voice of the Invisible Man, he is the shadow cast by the little ones who seemingly don’t matter in this culture. The eighth of 12 children, he was weak and sickly from birth. When both parents had died, he was adopted at age 12, worked as a farmhand, then slipped into a variety of unsuccessful trade careers: shoemaker, baker, blacksmith. He was a factory worker in the US during the Civil War. At 25, André tried to enter the Congregation of the Holy Cross. He was rejected at first because of his poor health, but at the request of a kind Bishop Bourget, he was finally received into the Order. He was given the obscure job of doorkeeper at Notre Dame College in Montreal (with some additional duties). “When I joined this community,” André once said, “the superiors showed me the door, and I remained 40 years.” A listening heart, a prayerful demeanor, and a deep compassion for all he encountered at that door is what changed things. André had a strong devotion to St. Joseph and would visit the sick, applying oil for healing to their bodies. When an epidemic exploded at a local college, he nursed the infirm. Not one person died in his care. A stream of sick people began to move towards his door, and soon it became a gushing river of souls. “I do not cure,” he said. “St. Joseph cures.” At the end of his life, four secretaries were hired to handle the 80,000 letters he received every year! André saw people by the hundreds and he listened. He was a magnet whose holiness and compassion were the main attraction. With 65,000,000 Catholics in the USA alone, what would happen if just a handful of us had that listening heart? That attentiveness to the needs and the experiences and the stories and the sad news and the joyful news of the other? What if we really looked and listened, like the children’s books always told us? What would we see? André, the 8th child in a dozen, the weak one, the uneducated porter who held the door open for people, died at the ripe old age of 92. And I’m sure at his death a Door was opened for him. The Door to Paradise. Blessed André Bessette, pray for us, and at our death, may we see you at your post again, with the light of the Son streaming through that Open Door that leads into Life Eternal!

Fire in the Hole

How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart, where in secret you dwell alone; and in your sweet breathing, filled with good and glory, how tenderly you swell my heart with love. - St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love I seriously doubt that God's dream for us, the reason He created us male and female and called us into a life-giving, ecstatic union of soul, mind, and body in a Garden Paradise at the beginning of the human story was so that He could eventually "lord" it over us with a list of oppressive rules and commandments. We were not made for law, we were made for love. However, when it comes to living out our eros, our God-given passion for all that is good, true, and beautiful, it seems many of us don't even equate it with Christianity anymore. We feel that eros is less than holy, and are content with continence not consummation - so we divorce passion from purity and just tough it out, trying to stay clean, in a kind of legalistic contract with God that will keep us on the "Big Guy's" good side. This is a sad existence to say the least; a life lived in quiet desperation. Truth is, we are here in this visible world to make the invisible, incredible love of God manifest! And until we open up heart, mind, and body to the power of Divine Love and let God have His way with us, the Kingdom of God is not within us. The dream of God for humanity is unrealized. Until we learn to break out of the paradigm of niceness, of merely following the rules just enough to stay out of hell, there will be no revolution. God does not want us to be nice. God wants us to be madly in love. "We who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Savior of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead. The great mystical tradition of the Church of both East and West has much to say in this regard. It shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart..." - Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 33 Wow. I never heard that one in Sunday School! The pinnacle of our prayer life is possession by the Divine? Amazing! And this is in a letter written not only for cloistered religious, but for all Christians! "It is a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the "dark night"). But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as "nuptial union". How can we forget here, among the many shining examples, the teachings of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila?" - Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 33

The spirituality of Carmel has its roots deep in the Old Testament. In figures like Moses and Elijah, Hosea and Isaiah, we see souls climbing up the holy mountain, not content with living a kind of suburban, comfortable distance from the City of God. These mystics plunge into the Mystery of the Heavenly Jerusalem, and they toss out ropes and life-lines for us to scale the holy mountain too. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Edith Stein... all invite us beyond mere legalism into the Love that fires the heavens.

Carmelite spirituality influenced the work of Pope John Paul II. It's fragrance broke into his heart and he has allowed that odor of sanctity to permeate his letters, addresses, and most especially, deep into his teaching on the Theology of the Body.

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine "schools" of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love."

- Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 33

A famous and very learned Catholic theologian was once asked about the most profound thought he had ever had. He said it was simply "Jesus loves me."

I think I'm just starting to see the real Jesus and to feel His love for me. According to Pope Benedict XVI (God is Love, 10), this Sacred Heart, this Bridegroom, in fact has an eros for us, for me! Sometimes the thought comes like a blast of wind through the old dusty alleyways of my own interior castle; Jesus loves me. I get the sense that He is knocking on more doors than just one. That from the moment that I first let Him in, He's been exploring other rooms; deeper levels of me than I ever knew I had. Jesus comes to love us in every one of them, and always as a gentlemen; He knocks first. I think this love then, elicits our response.

Will I let Him in? And how far? Beyond the foyer, past the pews of our Sunday "obligation?" Right into the tabernacle of His Presence among us? St. Edith Stein, a Carmelite, knew the passion of our God for her heart. She found the flames burning brightest in the Eucharist. She said: "In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts... It draws us to itself with secret power, it conceals us in itself in the Father's bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host." This heart has become our food! And why? The Carmelite mystics knew why; because this is the very nature of love, to be poured out, to be consumed and to consume! Many of us have grown up hearing that God loves us, but have we heard that God wants to consume us? Be consumed by us? For many of us, I fear, that kind of love doesn't fit with our image of God. Perhaps those old images we have need to be smashed at the base of the holy mountain...

Giving a talk this summer, I was approached by a woman in her late 50's. "I'm really struggling with the image of God as a lover." But this is Who He Is. He is an "eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange." (CCC, 221)

God is More than a Lawgiver, or a Judge, or a Friend.... "Our God is a consuming fire..." (Hebrews 12) He wants to be the Burning Bush at the center of our interior castle. Will you let Him in? Will you give Him your heart?

______________________________

Originally published on The Publican

Visit the online journal here.

Wanna Be

Do you wanna be happy, whole, integrated, joyful, successful, at peace, part of something amazing, purposeful, powerful, confident, loved, loving, redeemed, relaxed, realized, real? Then you wanna become a saint.

Do you wanna be a person in touch, in truth, inspired, desired, magnetic, magnanimous, moved, and moving? Then you wanna become a saint.

There is only one tragedy in the end - not to have been a saint. - Leon Bloy

So save yourself all the yogi guru self-help hullabaloo. Wholeness is simpler than that - it's found in holiness! Let's cut through all the plaster cast, plastic past, Campbell's Soup Kid lookin' holy card pictures of saints for a moment. What does it really mean to become a saint?

It means to become vulnerable. To be open. To receive all things from the Hand of God in trust and in love. A saint is synonymous with what's sane. A saint is the ultimate realist, for there is nothing more real than the Cross and the Broken Body stretched upon it. And there's no place for vanity. The hollow of the heart is open to the Mystery, the metal of the mind is sharpened by this Truth.... We are small, we are creatures, but we are made for the Infinite, and nothing in this finite world can satisfy us. And our deepest dignity lies in this longing...

I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Flower Power

"I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul."

Thérèse Martin was not a sissy saint. It wasn’t all roses and buttercups for this young women of 19th century France, though the language of early writers, and her own words at times, can seem like sweet saccharine. She was a rock of faith, broken and remade by the reality of suffering. All of her life… from the death of her mother at the tender age of 4, through the fits of delirium, fever, prolonged fainting spells, the ravages of tuberculosis, and in the end a total deprivation of the consolation of the Presence of God, she was faithful. She entered the convent at the age of 15, boldly asking permission from the Pope himself to do so, and spent 9 years in a cloister, working long and hard at domestic chores, to the humdrum daily tick of the clock. Nothing extraordinary, seemingly from the outside. But on the inside she was a powerhouse of prayer and an icon of burning union with God. She taught us how to make the ordinary extraordinary. So take your crazy 4th period class, or that business meeting, or the price of gas, or that cranky baby, or that back pain, or those pesky telemarket’ers today, and smile, and give them up to God. Suffering need not be wasted or in vain, pain can become priceless when offered up for another. Thérèse died in 1897 at the age of 24. She felt the vacuum of atheism in her soul in the closing days of her battle with tuberculosis, but still she held on to her faith and trust in God. Like Mother Teresa in her final days, they each took on the post-modern aftertaste of nihilism, and offered its seemingly meaningless despair up as a sacrifice for souls. That’s flower power, that’s the power of this Rose of Jesus. St. Thérèse, Little Flower of Carmel, pray for us!

Wicked Good

Good and Evil. Remember them? Many believe they were invented by theologians in the Middle Ages and later popularized by animated angels and demons on the shoulders of cartoons and comedic actors. But check this out: they are really real, and really old, and always present to the soul in every choice.

But we live in an age where words like Good and Evil just sound so.... awkward. They are so glaringly crisp; their edges so.... sharp. We prefer a nice dulled handle on things today, don't we? Something curvy and cushy; kind of like a "sport grip" that contours to our particular touch. "Oooo, nice. This works for me!"

This talk of things being objectively Good or Evil just feels so heavy in the hand, so cold to the touch, like the hilt of a sword. We like things to "give a little" today. Now call me crazy but I have this sense that we're dead wrong here (oops, another awkward word... I mean non-right). I think western civilization is up to its neck in a quicksand of relativity. We're just looking at each other saying "Isn't it nice and warm in here? So niiiice!" as we slouch deeper into a Quagmire of Comfortability. Soon we'll completely lose our heads in this quicksand. Many already have it seems.

Am I being judgmental? Heck yes I am. We have to make judgments all the time. It's not a dirty word. When approaching quicksand my reason dictates that walking on it would be a poor judgment, because we're made to walk on solid ground. The solid earth, like everything in nature, is meant to remind us of its supernatural counterpart - the moral universe. Right and Wrong, Good and Evil.

We must do the Good, we must walk in its Way, and trying to negate it only creates dead air. It removes the bridge and leaves an infinite abyss. We must make solid choices again, simply because they are Good. They are True. We must steer clear of certain places and situations today because they are Evil or Wicked. Decisions must be made not just because they "make me happy" but rather because than make me holy. Not just because they feel good, but because they are Good.

At the end of the day, let's remember (or discover) that this objective truth about the Good is not an enemy, but a remedy. Objective truth actually corresponds to the deepest yearnings of our subjective experiences. And although it may take awhile to get our "land legs" back after living on this sea of relativity, every solid step we take takes us closer to the deepest peace. And that peace is a GOOD thing.

The Power of a Word

Today we celebrate the YES of one woman that changed the course of history, that turned the tide of Death into a sweeping Song to Life! Mary's passionate YES is the model for all of us, who have also been given a marriage proposal by the Divine Lover of humanity. May we too give that active, eager YES in each moment, in each encounter, that we engage in today. The Chanticleer version that I first heard (thanks Mike!) And a beautiful women's choir version as well.

Fire and Reign

There’s good fire, and there’s bad fire. “Our God is a consuming fire” says the Letter to the Hebrews. That’s good fire. Hell is the flipside, the outside of the Heart of God, and it scorches us. That’s bad fire. We’ve all had a taste of both fires, I’m sure. But the Fire we’re made for is the fire in God’s own Heart, the fire we see atop the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When we give ourselves to it, making a gift of our life and leaping out of the pit of selfishness, we dance in the fiery furnace of God’s Love. We burn with the same Passion that filled the dark void in the beginning, that spilled stars and planets and a plethora of forms into being. When we let His Fire burn us, we are purified, made clean, whole, and happy. We are in the Light, so to speak. We are on fire. But when we reject this idea of superfluous, self-giving, self-sacrificing love, we grow cold. Talk of God might in fact singe us, embitter us, and cause us to “simmer” and resent the idea of total self-giving as a bit extreme or even “fanatical.” Jesus said in the gospels that he has come to spread a fire on the earth, and how he longs that it be kindled! Selfishness puts us on the outside of the flame where it reduces us to ashes. Love puts us in the flame, and we are purified like gold. We all discover our passion in life sooner or later, and aren’t they always things that get us outside of our own heads for a change? I think that’s part of the Divine Design, and why God stamped such passion within us. Pope Benedict XVI has written recently that “eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing."(Deus Caritas Est, n.2) “Ascent, renunciation, purification and healing”… Sounds like Lent to me. It’s a season that’s meant to purify our eros, our passion, not stifle it or smother it. It’s meant primarily to be a wholehearted YES, not a list of NOs. It’s a YES to love; the real love that transforms our lusts; lifts them up and redirects them to their proper end. Lent is a journey into God’s Fire.

Jesus Loves Me

A famous Catholic theologian, whose name escapes me right now, was once asked about the most profound thought he had ever had. He said it was simply "Jesus loves me."Isn't it crazy to consider that in the whole visible creation, you are the most priceless work of art to him? Even when we take the brush of self-determination he's given us and deface this work of God, smearing the paint of pride in garrish colors across the canvas of our lives, the Master still sees the good in us, and our potential for reaching our purpose: finding our home in his heart again. I think the Father sees with "Jesus-colored glasses." I think from the beginning He knew that Jesus would be that bridge for us, that "human face of God" so that we could remember the "Divine face of man." St. Paul says this was always the plan, that in the fullness of time, all things be summed up in Christ, brought to completion, recapitulated! The Father always knew that our Ring of Power and self-absorbtion would be broken, undone, and remade into a Cross with beams that could reach out to all the world (thanks Peter Kreeft for that analogy!)Jesus loves me. Not like my aunt or my grandpa, or Sr. Nativitas from grade school (that brief year or two in Catholic school, and I still remember her name!) Jesus loves me with a wild fire in his eyes, with a burning torch atop his sacred heart. His love is a blazing inferno! What a tragedy that he is pictured as an anemic, pasty "nice man" in so many insipid cartoons and films today. Scripture and human experience have painted him quite differently - a Lion, an Earthquake, a Hound of Heaven, a Thief, a King, Hunter, Husband, a Living Flame of Love. I am nearly 40 years old now, and I am just starting to see the real Jesus. It's a bit scary to be loved this much. It's actually shocking. I sit there in my chair drinking coffee every morning, reading those gospel stories, and sometimes the thought comes like a blast of wind through the old dusty alleyways of my mind; Jesus loves me. And I sometimes get the sense that he is knocking on more doors than just one. That since I let him in back at the age of 15 or so, he's been exploring other rooms, deeper levels of me than I ever knew I had. St. Theresa of Avila spoke of these rooms in our "interior castles." Jesus comes to love us in every one of them, and always as a gentlemen; he knocks first. I think this love then, elicits our response. Will I let him in? And how far? Let's go beyond the foyer, past the pews of our Sunday "obligation"... Right into the tabernacle of His Presence among us! Into that heart of fire!Let's ask ourselves: Where is he knocking today? What door can I open to this God of love?

Barnabas: The Patron Saint of Sidekicks

So the Year of Saint Paul has dawned upon us! Pope Benedict XVI has announced that from this month of June until June 2009 (when summer rears it's perspiring head again) the Church will be focusing on this Dynamic Disciple, this Super Apostle, this Tower of Power who was beaten, stoned, ridiculed and practically barbecued (wait, that was St. Lawrence) all for the love of Jesus and the blossoming New Way known to us now as Christianity!

But what's a Super Apostle without a Sidekick? What's Batman without Robin, Woody without Buzz Lightyear, Captain America without Bucky? (I don't know who this is either but it was on Wikipedia).

Well.... not a heck of a lot friends!

Because, truth is, behind every Super Apostle there lies a “son of encouragement.” And that's our man Barnabas, who's feast we celebrate today! He introduced Paul to Peter and the Apostles. He was present at the miracle in Lystra that led some of the people to claim he and Paul as gods - Barnabas being Zeus, and Paul, Hermes (how cool that Barnabas gets called Zeus, King of the gods, and Paul gets his son Hermes who was just a herald! I can just picture them years later, sipping goat's milk, telling stories... "They thought you were Zeus! Bah hah!" Goat's milk sprays all over.)

Barnabas was the great Encourager, the Right Hand Man, the Patron Saint of Sidekicks, and yet so much more! When doubt surfaced, he floated his faith. When tension knotted the air between Gentiles and Jews, he unraveled it with peace. When Paul went out on a mission, Barnabas made the sandwiches... and he did his own fair share of preaching to boot. Good 'ole "Behind the Scenes" Barnabas... He was a man of humility, filled with the Spirit.

THUS SAYETH THE WEBSITE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA:

With the exception of St. Paul and certain of the Twelve, Barnabas appears to have been the most esteemed man of the first Christian generation. St. Luke, breaking his habit of reserve, speaks of him with affection, "for he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of Faith". His title to glory comes not only from his kindliness of heart, his personal sanctity, and his missionary labours, but also from his readiness to lay aside his Jewish prejudices, in this anticipating certain of the Twelve; from his large-hearted welcome of the Gentiles, and from his early perception of Paul's worth, to which the Christian Church is indebted, in large part at least, for its great Apostle.

So you see, you don't have to be a superstar, or a Super Apostle, to be a saint. You just have to love, tremendously, and do the task at hand. Different gifts, the same Spirit.

There are countless Barnabasessess in our Church's history. Find St. Francis and there was Brother Leo in his shadow, St. Dominic and there were two nephews of his who were pretty dang saintly themselves. Mother Teresa was surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who still touch countless lives today all over the world. Behind the scenes of every parish, there are the sidekicks: kneeling in pews after daily Mass, praying countless rosaries, clutching rubber-banded novena booklets chock full of yellowed holy cards, passing baskets around the church at collection time, running the Bingo, baking casseroles, stuffing envelopes... there are thousands of "encouragers"... doing little things with much love; and these are the makings of Great Big Saints.

Today, our smallest word of encouragement is exponentially greater because of the benevolent benediction of St. Barnabas. So power to the Sidekicks, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Why This Friday is So GOOD

From an Ancient Homily...

"What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'My Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise. ‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden. ‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image. 'See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one. `I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God. "The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages."

- author unknown

What's Wrong With You?

There is a moving scene (among many) in the film The Fellowship of the Ring where the character of Aragorn, known as Strider, struggles with his own mortal weakness. In the quiet of Rivendell, in a dimly lit chamber where ancient memories are held sacred, he gazes on a painting of his ancestor, Isildur. It was he who in ages long past cut the Ring from the Dark Lord's finger and saved Middle-Earth from defeat. But it was by that same Ring that Isildur himself fell into weakness and death. The memory of that fatal flaw has haunted Aragorn his entire life.

As he turns to the shadows in this fog of fear and shame. He sees his love, Arwen approach and she speaks a word of confidence to him. "Why do you fear the past? You are Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself. You are not bound to his fate."

The future King replies "The same blood flows in my veins. The same weakness..."

What is it that "leads us into temptation"? Why do we so often do the evil that we hate, and not do the good we know we should do? The answers to questions about sin, suffering, death, neuroses and psychoses are all bound up and tightly packed in the simple phrase "Original Sin." The sheer density of this reality is like the weight of galaxies. It's like our collapsed star, a black hole in the human universe.

Original Sin is the sin at our origins. And it's real. Painfully real. Other dogmas and doctrines in the Church sometimes need more expounding, more unfolding for us to see them more clearly. For the doctrine of Original Sin, we only need to look in the mirror, or to read a newspaper. Before we are tempted to dismiss it as something irrelevant to our everyday lives, another doctrine of the Church that's all "spiritual and stuff," let's pause.... if we miss this, it will be impossible for us to ever truly know ourselves, others, or this beautiful but broken creation that has been dying and rising with us all our lives.

In the beginning, with the sin of Adam and Eve, there was a terrible break, a mortal wound that caused four major fractures in our relationships as human persons. These four Original Wounds are still experienced by every son or daughter of Adam and Eve. They are breaks in our relationships with God, within ourselves, with each other, and with creation. We all feel them, we all experience them in some fashion every day. They are our ancestral heritage. They are in the blood (which is why we need the blood of Jesus to be poured out for us in a Divine transfusion - that's the Mass).

Think of your life. It's a good examination of conscience every day to look at these four areas and to ask the question, "Have I been healed?" The good news is, we have the cure today. The blood of Jesus is with us. His Sacred Heart is here! The organ is ready to be transplanted within the hollow of our chest. New life, a strong heart, and reconciliation.... finally!

In Jesus ALONE is this reconciliation made… In Jesus ALONE is real union and communion. Has this truth really sunk in for us? Peace and reconciliation will NOT come from politics, the Republicans, the Democrats… economics, a new haircut, or a new job… a new car, a new relationship… It's Jesus. It really is.

How strong a reaction are you having to this statement right now? Is it an "amen" or a whimper? A shrug of the shoulders or a surge of the heart? For me, it's getting easier every day. I'm getting acclimated to this new heart and this new blood that comes to me every time I go to Mass. Sometimes it cuts. He's that divisive. He's a two-edged sword that slices us through like a surgeon's knife. But this is the open heart surgery we need, or we'll die. If we don't have His Heart, than we suffer those mortal wounds and we'll never accomplish our own mission or finish the journey...

Arwen the Beautiful held Aragorn's weathered face in her hands. He was a Ranger and had seen many dangers in the wide world. She whispers "Your time will come. You will face the same evil, and you will defeat it.... The Shadow does not hold sway... Aragorn. Not over you and not over me."

Mary's Open Heart

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. It actually fell on Sunday, but that's Resurrection Day, so it got the Biblical Bump. Fine by me... because a solemnity in Lent means all fasts are off! Woohoo! Bring on the snacks! It's cool to be Catholic!

Just shy of nine months from now, we'll celebrate the fruit of the womb that was conceived this day; the Word Made Flesh! Miracle of Miracles!

Now sometimes we can see Mary's yes as such an easy thing, all roses and sweetness. Really, how difficult would it be to raise the Perfect Son? But let's remember that Mary was a true Hebrew, and as such she would know the prophets and the prophecies by heart. She knew her people were searching for the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Mary had the tender heart to see that the Messiah would be this Suffering Servant that Isaiah alluded to, not a military man that the militant were hoping for.

So the shadow of the Cross fell over the cradle Joseph had built. In the light of this truth, Mary's YES becomes so much more powerful, so much more of a sacrifice and a death to self. Her openness to God and to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit was closer to the openness of the wound that Jerome Miller describes below (After all, it was her heart that Simeon the priest said would be pierced through even as she cradled the newborn Messiah in her arms that day).

This is a reflection I've had for years, stashed in my files of Spiritual Gems. I don't know where I first found it or who it was who first gave it to me to ponder. But hear it now with the vision of Mary behind it all. Sweet Mother of Sorrows, pray for us! The path to wholeness and holiness, I believe, must begin with this radical vulnerability before God and the mystical movements of life....

"A more essential condition is the willingness to be devastated, by which I mean the willingness to let the mortal wounds penetrate one's heart so deeply that it is broken completely open by it. This is, I think, a pregnant image. For it suggests that the deepest lessons the heart has to deliver to us become accessible only when it is ruptured. It is anguish that makes the heart an open book because the wound it causes pierces all the way through to the core. These are terrible lessons, the kind that fill one with nausea. We like to think our lives would be happier if we could find a way to avoid learning them; but the only way to do that is to close one's heart and keep it closed, so that nothing gets in or out of it - to make oneself a heart of stone. It is terrible to put into words the one real alternative to this avoidance. But I see no way to get around what seems to be the harshest, the most merciless truth about the human heart - I mean the fact that, to keep it open, once it has been pierced, one must allow it to be an open wound."

- Jerome Miller

Spring Cleaning

Are you a back roads kinda person, or a main roads kinda person? Maybe a bit of both?

I had a great commute when I was studying for my associates degree. I'd stick to the back roads for as long as I could on that almost hour long drive; Georgetown to Sykesville, Chesterfield to 130, and sometimes Route 68, in the days before it was cluttered by golf courses and condos.
You see more life on the back roads. More trees, more fields, more bizarre lawn art. And there's always the added bonus of those little mom and pop convenience stores (the ones that carry "Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies"... deeeelicious!).

I was on such a back road drive one day, in my classical-music-and-opera-are-actually-amazing phase, when I was seized by a flash of beauty. At the exact moment that Puccini's "E Lucevan Le Stella" was roaring from my radio, I was passing a farmer's field where soil was being peeled back by a rusty old tractor. It was the springtime of the year. The smell of earth lifted up like incense, just as a flock of white gulls hovered above the farmer in an earthy paraclesis. What a sight! The music was deep and mournful, the earth open and naked under heaven, and the mystical attentiveness of the birds over it all; the scene breathed like a sacrament.

I think we have seasons, like Lent, when Jesus wants to stir things up in us. Perhaps we've gone fallow as a field and the fruits of our labors have become a little scattered. Maybe the soil of our souls has grown old and cold from a winter away from Him and we need tilling.

Christ is the Divine Gardener, the Tiller of the Soil of our hearts. If we let ourselves be open to Him, then He can literally plant new life in us. He cares so deeply for us. He will show us the roots and stones that are causing us trouble. Sometimes we can move them together, sometimes He asks that we move around them. It takes patience. But the Holy Spirit will be working in us as well, hovering just above us, carefully removing the sin and the roots of sin, as the birds clear fields of what does not belong.

If we let Him have His way, what a fruitful harvest it will be!

Saint Patrick's Day

“St. Patrick suffered mightily at the hands of the Irish,
but rather than seek revenge, he came back to share his faith.”
- Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, O.F.M.Cap.

From the Confessions of St. Patrick:

I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly despised by many. My father was Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest, of the village Bannavem Taburniæ; he had a country seat nearby, and there I was taken captive. I was then about sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people and deservedly so, because we turned away from God, and did not keep His commandments, and did not obey our priests, who used to remind us of our salvation... And there the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance, and watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil, and guarded me, and comforted me as would a father his son.....

And there I saw in the night the vision of a man... coming as it were from Ireland, with countless letters. And he gave me one of them, and I read the opening words of the letter, which were, ''The voice of the Irish'' ... and as I read the beginning of the letter I thought that at the same moment I heard their voice - they were those beside the Wood of Voclut, which is near the Western Sea - and thus did they cry out as with one mouth: ''We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more.''

It's Time for the Spiritual Olympics!

(The sound of trumpets, booming drums...)

In a world locked in laziness, on a people weighed down by cookies and creme-filled donuts, a light of hope dawns. Yes, it's LENT, otherwise known as... the Spiritual Olympics!

That's right America! The 40 days of You-Know-What are glaring up at us from our crumb-covered, soda-stained desktop calendars. The opening ceremonies have already begun, we've been stamped (on the forehead) and now we have complete access to the Olympic stadium. Here are some suggestions on how to secure a * medal for yourself:

BRONZE IS STILL BEAUTIFUL
It's basic but bold. Try cutting some of those ties, those seemingly thin cords that might actually be holding you prisoner to yourself. Is it always ME first? Do I ALWAYS have to put in my opinion, seeming to listen to others but actually just waiting until they're done talking so I can talk?

SETTLE FOR SILVER
Try letting go of the preciousssss, the one thing you feel you're entitled to every day without thinking. Unplug it, turn it off, clear it away. (Is it TV? Constantly checking e-mail? A latest news fixation? Radio crowding out the silence?)

GO FOR THE GOLD
Now we're talking... If you want this Spiritual Olympiad to be a real life-changer, then step up to the plate for this one. In the midst of all of the activity of this season, the "stuff" we hope to work on, the extra prayers, stations of the cross, fasting, blah blah blah, this one shines above the rest. The secret to getting the GOLD? Do nothing. Stop. Surrender. Put your hands up in the air and let yourself become vulnerable before the Mystery of God. Be open and barren as a desert. This is the toughest event by far; the great emptying of self. The letting go, even of the idea of doing lots of good things. In the words of the late, great Pope John Paul II, "Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of "doing for the sake of doing". We must resist this temptation by trying "to be" before trying "to do". " (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 15)

You may get the jitters for a time, but hang in there. The desert of Lent is detox for the soul. It's main purpose is to allow us to finally loosen our tightened fists and let Love in. “From the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts. He must wait for the gift of love, and love can only be received as a gift... And one cannot become wholly man in any other way than by being loved, by letting oneself be loved..."
- Pope Benedict XVI

So there it is. The greatest challenge in this season is for us to be able to say to God, not "Look what I have done for You!" but to say with Mary "Be it done unto me according to your word."

Happy Lent!


_____________________________________________
* DISCLAIMER: None of the dynamic Lenten Olympic events listed above would be possible without the sweet influx of grace. We can't do it alone, but God won't save us alone either. It's the Catholic combo of a grace-inspiring, person-perspiring, human-divine collaboration. Grace inflates, inundates, inspires and builds on our human nature. God takes our yes (and even our half-hearted maybe) and makes it something extraordinary.

Just Passin' Through - Ash Wednesday Meditation

It's not by coincidence that our ancestors in the faith were a Pilgrim People, wandering for 40 years through the Sinai Peninsula. Their journey through the desert, both literal and historical, is relevant to us today, as a parable that's allegorical.

All of life is a kind of purification; a breaking of the self that's meant to blossom into selflessness, a stripping away of all encumbrances. Life is meant to be a walk that turns into a run, the crossing over of a Red Sea of suffering and slavery to a new birth; it's a darkened and dangerous path that breaks open into fertile fields of supernatural milk and honey.

As the great sculptor Michelangelo once said, "beauty is the purgation of superfluities." The desert has a way of cleansing us of excess clutter. We must travel light or trudge behind! The nomadic life and the daily manna of the Children of Israel are all reminders for us not to settle down in this world. Even the Presence of God, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, was always on the move, never stagnant. Today the very word we use to describe ourselves as members of a parish, "parishioners," retains that ancient meaning of movement and unsettledness: "paroikos" is the Greek word that translates as pilgrim and\or exile. We're strangers in a strange land, or at least we should feel so.

Enter the Evil One....

If the truth about our destiny is that we are meant to pass through this world on the way to the next, what would the devil's strategy be? To nail us down to earth, of course! Cut the strings to Heaven. To cloud the mind of any metaphor, musing, or memory of that Other World and get us down to the serious business of busyness here and now. Such was the advice given by Screwtape, C.S. Lewis' senior devil who trains his nephew in the art of tempting humans (read the book "Screwtape Letters" for some amazing insights into these murky waters).

"Prosperity knits a man to the world," says the demon, "He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it,’ while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home on Earth, which is just what we want."


The Antidote

In short, the key in life is to "keep on keepin' on." Walk the walk! When the fiery serpents bit the People in the wilderness, it was because they stopped walking and started whining. If we are to remember our destiny, keep a clear head about us, and not settle too deeply into the soil of this world, we should keep our minds on things of heaven. We should look up! Look to those things that are above, as St. Paul says. The Devil hates that, hates every breeze that flows from heaven.

"Even if we contrive to keep them ignorant of explicit religion," Screwtape continues, "the incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry — the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon — are always blowing our whole structure away... The Enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else. That is why we must wish for long life to our patients; seventy years is not a day too much for the difficult task of unraveling their souls from heaven and building up a firm attachment to the Earth..."


Let's take fair warning from these words. Let's look up! Keep moving! Never settle only for earth when heaven is offered! Look up and see your redemption near at hand in every sweet sacrament and sign here below; in music, poetry, prayers and the people who point us up! But don't stop just yet. The journey of Lent is about reading the signs rightly, and nothing says "Home" but Heaven.

Theology of the Body in 60 Seconds or Less

I'm preparing for a talk in Kalida, Ohio set for tomorrow on the Theology of the Body. So tonight I'll be sitting on the plane for a few hours, yippee!

Who knows, maybe some fellow traveler will look over at me reading a large book with Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on its cover, as they pass the thimble full of ginger ale and the nano-sized bag of pretzels (are pretzels still legal on planes?). Maybe they'll ask "Tall man, what are you reading?" And I could say something like "It's Pope John Paul II's theological reflection on embodiment, conjugal love and the escatological realization of humanity."

But I won't say that. I'll say "It's called the Theology of the Body... it's about God, sex, and the meaning of life."

"God, sex, and the meaning of life?" Now the strangers' brow may wrinkle, the eyebrows lift, but I got 'em. I just dropped the 3 biggies that every human heart has an abiding interest in. The curious traveler might step further into this mystery... "What's that about?" And for a brief window of time, a window in their mind will be open and ready. I will be challenged to slip in the truth of this incredible teaching of Pope John Paul II's before it's too late and they turn back to their Diet Pepsi.

So here's my soundbyte on the TOB, sandwiched into 60 seconds or less:

"Well basically it's a reflection on what it means to be human, male and female. Where did we come from and where are we going? It looks at the two greatest questions we can ask; "Who am I? And Who is God?" The starting point for getting to the answers is us. It looks at the human body not just as a biological organism, but as a theological reality. What is it about us that makes us so restless in this world, different from the animals, always hungry, always searching for More? And then it looks at love as a lead into the answer. It says that in our call to communion with each other as man and woman, in human love, there is something of the Divine, something touching on the Infinite. All human love is a sign, an icon, a pointer to Something Beyond ourselves.... and that's pretty exciting."

If the person keeps looking at me like a little kid watching the stars (the way I did when I first heard this teaching) I'll continue with "God has stamped right in our bodies a mystery that reveals Who He is! You see, a man is called to be a gift, in his very body, for the woman. And the woman is called to receive this gift right in her very body as woman. And this beautiful coming together of husband and wife creates new life! And the union, as beautiful, powerful, and wonderful as it can be, is really just the first sparks of the Love that we are made for beyond this world. The Church says that in the joys of their love, God gives spouses a foretaste of the joys of Heaven. Did you ever hear that one in Sunday School?"

And we'll see where it goes from there...