Well, there it is. Day 2 of the 40 Days of Blogging began with a few sips of coffee, the daily readings (which are especially powerful today) and a sudden creaking door. A squinty-eyed boy appeared in the hall, roughly 5:04am Eastern Standard Time. He quickly dressed himself for school, then sat curled up in my lap (between the hot coffee and the iPad). Ah the best laid schemes of mice and men....
When I explained what I was up to, he said I should tell you all this: "God, we need to be more interested in You. We don't need to be doing other stuff. But you are the Son of God. You can do anything you want!"
- Seth, age 5
Perhaps I should stop there. Out of the mouths of babes...
After his words of wisdom, he snuggled deeper in. I realized what a gift the whole moment was, and this thought hit me (thanks Holy Spirit)... "Seth, do you know what prayer is?" "What daddy?" "Just this, me holding you is prayer. Prayer is letting God hold us just like this. We don't even have to say anything."
And he didn't. Thank you Jesus.
"The ultimate purpose of mission is to enable people to share in the communion which exists between the Father and the Son."
Friends, I haven't seriously blogged in thousands of years. Ergo, for Lent, this holy season that too many believe is a great "giving up" of stuff, I shall be "giving." Blogging. Every day, for 40 days, and if the Lord wills, for thousands of years after this holy season of Lent 2014.
I used to blog.... when the blogosphere was young and fresh and held no sarcastic com boxes. Just kidding, that time never was... THANKS ORIGINAL SIN!!!
But I was witty then, resourceful, appropriate. Occasionally.
Then children came to us, great gifts of the God of Love, and they stole my heart.... and 99.76 percent of my free time. But I'm BAAAACK! In these 40 Days I aim to please, to punch these keys and to puncture the heart and maybe even the conscience (my own first) of anyone who clicks in. To get back to the Heart of Things, as it were. My purpose? To the glory of Love, Hope, and Humor in these foggy days of the early 21st century. God knows we need all three.
Much has happened in these hidden years.... 3 children (Boy Wonder, age 5.... Princess Buttercup aka Clare Bear, age 3.... and our Sweetpea Sheila, 1+ years).
My beloved bride and I have been blessed and broken like a Eucharistic host in the daily mass of our family life, and at times we've resisted, reacted, and the old self got rekindled when our patience was/is pushed to the edge. But honestly, it's been an incredible ride. Wow. God continues to show us ourselves, our absolute need to rely on His Grace and the grace of our sacramental marriage, and these little souls.... these achingly beautiful treasures He's given us to steward. They have slain us with their wonders. And sometimes roundhouse sleep-kicks in our bed at 2:30am.
Back to the main narrative:
I shall attempt to "give" myself again to this digital diary of sorts, and I can only hope the gift is worthy of your 2.5 minutes of reading during the morning commute, or stoplight/traffic jam on (insert road of choice). In this attempt then of 40 Days of Blogging, I'm sure stories from the Crucible (aka our home) shall surface. Enjoy them, none shall be embellished. It's raw and real.
BREAKING NEWS THAT BROKE SEVERAL MONTHS AGO!
After 8 wonderful years, I made the leap out of teaching at a private boys school in Malvern, PA (what a blessing that was!!) I have transitioned this past summer into full time work for the Theology of the Body Institute (having taught and spoken across the continent for TOB for the past 8 years part time). Now I serve the job of my dreams as a curriculum specialist, faculty member and speaker for Blessed John Paul II's epic vision of the human person. Learn more here!
This vision has always permeated my thoughts, words and I hope actions, (and this blog in the past) and I know it shall do so again. Be warned!
The family is the authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint of human existence.
- Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
The thought of Pope Emeritus Benedict above is one that for millennia would have been quite easily accepted. It would almost be considered, if the expression had been in back then, a "no-brainer."
I often quote the great wisdom of that Saturday morning cartoon series that was sandwiched in between Spiderman and his Amazing Friends and Dungeons & Dragons, "Schoolhouse Rock." The refrain from the song Three is a Magic Number sings: "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"
Sexual complementarity, man and woman, masculine and feminine... such cosmic mysteries are as pregnant with power and meaning as sun and moon, earth and sky, the seed and the soil wherein a giving dies and its receiving in the womb of mother earth becomes new life. But this blueprint is being torn apart by new ideas and new agendas. The attempted disunion of this original communion is one of the hottest items of the day throughout the secular press and popular media. The following may be fringe statements, too intense to make the CNN sound byte, but they are out there:
"Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society... We must keep our eyes on the goal... of radically reordering society's views of reality."- Paula Ettelbrick, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
"... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there - because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist."- Masha Gessen, journalist, during a panel discussion at the Sydney Writers Festival
We have come to a place of decision. It's a crossroads and I mean that in every sense of the word. A line has been crossed, and a boundary transgressed. Again. Do we hear the whispered words "Take and eat.... for you shall be like gods"?
As for me and my house, we will serve the Love that wrote those original blueprints; the Father in Whose house we dwell, and Who has given us so much. An almost limitless freedom has been given when we read our Genesis rightly. But to rewrite our code? To restructure our very relationships into something that can only bring forth life through technique? Through a science in a lab by a third party? That is, if new life is actually sought at all...
As Dr. Peter Kreeft has often pointed out, the ancients patterned their lives on reality and were more at peace with it. We moderns try to change reality to conform to us, and we are unhappy. I think it's time we go back to the drawing board. The blueprints are laid out for all to see.
"Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build."- Psalm 127:1
Van Morrison is a master of sound and soul and I think it all comes from his courage to sit in silence. There's a silence that we feel in sadness and solitude and we feel it in the blues, we feel it in the spaces between Van's music. We feel it so strongly in a "hymn" like this one. Silence scrapes the soul clean of clutter; the clutter of the past of our own regrets and failures, and the future of fears and anxieties. Silence strips us too of comforts and security, the blankets that we tell ourselves to keep wrapped around us lest we feel the cold of isolation. But we all must at some time and often sing our hymns to this silence. It's the silence before the Mystery of Life, of Existence, of our own mysterious, broken and beautiful hearts. Blessed John Paul once wrote "To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence..." How few in the modern world, how few of us in this "Kingdom of Noise" allow ourselves to enter, to feel, to even embrace this cleansing silence. I love the heart of Van Morrison because I believe his is a heart that's allowed itself to be soaked in this silence. And with that courage the heart is solaced by the silence, by the Presence, by the One.
I wanna go out in the countryside
Oh sit by the clear, cool, crystal water
Get my spirit, way back to the feeling
Deep in my soul, I wanna feel
Oh so close to the One, close to the One
Close to the One, close to the One
And that's why, I keep on singing baby
My hymns to the silence...
I pray this new year will be for me a chance to return to that clear, cool, crystal water. To that place where the turbulence in my heart and in the world around me ceases for a time and that reflection of the Mystery, the Face of that Mystery (and therefore my own true face) will reappear.
"God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking is what prayer is meant to be..." - Mother Teresa
Pascal claimed that all of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit alone, to be in silence. So let's have the courage to create a place for this sanctuary of quiet. Let's sing our hymns and see what swells up in the response, the echo from the Other Side. It just may surprise us, and continue to invite us deeper in. And we may find ourselves both emptied of our feeble sounds and filled with His New Song.
This month's Sacred Art meditation is a real gem from the Swiss painter Eugene Burnand (1850 - 1951). He began his studies in his native Switzerland then moved to Paris, where he became best known for his landscapes. Influenced by the realism so vibrant in that period, he also had a gift for capturing human emotion. It's evident in his famous work, “The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulcher on the Morning of the Resurrection.” Let's do a little "Video Divina" on this image (which is the visual equivalent of Lectio Divina. Divine "Seeing." Gaze. Look. Enter in. Feel the "sacramental" presence of God (in a certain sense) through the canvas and the paint).
We see John with a face still fresh and young, but weathered by the events of the past three days. Anxious concern etches his brow, and his hands are clenched with a tremulous expectation. Peter, more rugged, bears a fisherman's face. It is sea-swept and soaked by his own salty tears from Thursday night's bitter betrayal. His eyes are wide open, dilated with hope.
This Resurrection scene does not put us before still figures near a stagnant stone, nor figures standing with stony faces in a contrived, plastic posture, pointing to an empty tomb. This scene is dynamic; we are in motion. We are full of a host of wild emotions: fear, concern, hope, wonder, and pregnant joy on the verge of giving Life to a world waiting so long for One Who could "undo" death. And He has done it! His New Light shines already on their faces, and on the world's edge in glimmering golden-edged clouds.
This painting must be our posture for the New Evangelization, but renamed as we now are "Running FROM the Sepulcher on the Morning of the Resurrection.” What we are taking along for this journey is just what The Lord commanded: our own hearts, impressed by the power of this Love that we've encountered, awash with the Mercy of the Father and the light of the Son, filled with the enthusiasm of being able to name and claim that ache within all of us for meaning and purpose and Love. He is risen and through Him, with Him, and in Him, so are we! This is what we must bear witness to, not only in the preached word but in art and music and film, poetry and dance and most especially, through the sculpted masterpieces of our own unique humanity.
Bill Donaghy is an instructor and speaker for the Theology of the Body Institute. Bill holds an Associate's Degree in Visual Arts and received his Bachelors in Philosophy and a Masters in Systematic Theology from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.
Picture this: A sacred space, with ample seating, filled with men and women, circled up, slightly sheepish, quiet, staring at each other, waiting for something to happen.
Every day they come. They sit. They wait. Dutifully. Sitting, sometimes standing. Sometimes kneeling, waiting for something, or Someone, they're not sure, to come and fire them up.
They have been disheartened by their leaders swift departure. Feeling a bit abandoned, cheated even, they have been further scandalized by the actions of fellow believers. And these women and men, who've been gathering in this same space for sometime now, are at some level conscious of their own inability to act. To move. To do something. So they do nothing but wait. And pray. Holding on to a promise that all would be well.
They've circled the wagons. They're nursing their wounds. Waiting for something, or Someone to come and fire them up.
They look around at the other faces and wonder secretly to themselves, what do we have to offer the world anyway? What difference would we make? What can we do to change things? We're just as broken, full of longings, with just as many questions and not enough answers.
Then, suddenly, a gust of wind. A sea breeze. A change. A terrible trembling. He is coming. The Ancient of Days, the Youth of Eternal Summers, The Fire that fuels the sun and all the stars enters their sacred space. A holy fear, a wonder, a terrible beauty grabs hold of every heart.
The writer Annie Dillard once wrote:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."
I love Pentecost Sunday, and though we are now in the "green" again of Ordinary Time, I'm still seeing red (well, orange I guess). Pentecost is rich with the undiluted power of God: fire, wind, and wine. The apostles and the holy women were burned, blown about, and bedazzled by the Wine of God's Love. They were accused of being drunk on new wine. Their once timid lips suddenly exploded into a flurry of foreign languages. They became fearless.
The question remains for us, in this "ordinary" time, "How do we get some of that wine!" And what lights the match that kindles this New Fire? We need it now more than ever. Well, how did the holy women and men, the first to be singed by the Spirit, "get it"? For one, they kept showing up. They were the faithful, even when they didn't feel like it.
Now, you and I....we're the new faithful who have showed up. For a deepening in faith. For a deeper formation and education in this incredible gift of truth and beauty. This splendor of Truth that is more than a program but an encounter with Divine Persons. Our mission now, by the sweet grace of the Holy Spirit, is to draw others into this embrace. Blessed John Paul the Great in Redemptoris Missio, 23, wrote "The ultimate purpose of mission is to enable people to share in the communion which exists between the Father and the Son." So the mission is love! That's what we're giving to the world! The greatest romance novel ever. A best seller. "The greatest love story ever told is contained in a tiny white host," penned Bishop Sheen. We are not bringing a list of what to do and what not to do. We are not offering a self-help program. A "philosophy of life" or a technique to try out and see if its "works for you."
We're bringing FIRE. THE FIRE OF LOVE THAT'S BEEN BURNING IN THE HEART OF THE FATHER SINCE THE BEGINNING.
Pope Francis said just a few weeks ago...
"The Church begins there in the heart of the Father, who had this idea . . . of love. So this love story began, a story that has gone on for so long, and is not yet ended. We, the women and men of the Church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is...." “How would you feel,” the Pope asked, “if someone said: she’s a domestic administrator? 'No, I am the mother!' And the Church is Mother. And we are in the middle of a love story that continues thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit. All of us together are a family in the Church, who is our Mother." The Pope concluded his reflection with a prayer to Mary, asking that she might "give us the grace of the spiritual joy of participating in this love story... - Pope Francis, homily, April 22, 2013
So how do we live a dynamic Catholic life? How do we pour out to a thirsty world this intoxicating wine of the Love of God which he has poured out into us? Keep open. Stay thirsty my friends. Eat, Drink, and Be Mary.
Eat the Eucharist (consume and be consumed by Him).
Drink in the love of the Holy Spirit. Do so passionately not coldly. Not through obligation but more akin to a consummation. The consummation of a marriage. Your heart and Gods. Christ first miracle was water into wine. Turn the bitter waters of modernity into the wine of Divine Mercy.
Be Mary. Keep open, receptive, humble. Be present. Wait. As vulnerable as the. Irvin Mary was on that fateful day when the world changed, and He came tiny and vulnerable Himself. He still comes and fills us up and He sends us out to fill the world.
"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire." - St. Catherine of Siena
Jesus, "though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself..."
- Philippians 2:6-8
One of my favorite images that speaks to the Divine Mercy of our God is this work by the French artist Gustave Dore. It captures that stupendous act of self-emptying, of kenosis, that St. Paul speaks of in the letter to the Philippians. This is what mercy looks like; misericordia, literally "the heart that suffers with." Mercy touches us, embraces us, especially in our brokenness, our shame, our wounds. The Hebrew word is "hesed" - God's merciful, loving kindness. This tender compassion of Jesus for us all is amplified all the more in Dore's image by the stoic detachment of the Pharisees, whom one can imagine are the men standing in the background to the right of Jesus. Cool, aloof, perhaps even annoyed at what the Christ is doing, they stand in judgement. They have "set themselves apart" (which is what the term pharisee means) from these "unclean" people in an attempt to be holy, to be "kadosh" or different from sinners. But is this the kind of love Christ calls us to? Is this even love at all? To love is to suffer with another, to rejoice with another, to be present to another, and to put their needs ahead of ones own. And this was Christ's life. This is the Divine Mercy! Mercy is to move into the heart and experience of another. To pour oneself out and to become the gift to another. As we gaze on Christ the Healer in this beautiful woodcut, let us plead for the grace to make this leap of love and mercy ourselves. Out of our own heads, and into another's heart!
When I explained what I was up to, he said I should tell you all this: "God, we need to be more interested in You. We don't need to be doing other stuff. But you are the Son of God. You can do anything you want!"
