“A priest must be a reservoir before he can become a conduit.”
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Tomorrow I will begin co-teaching with Fr. Brett Brannen a unique course on the Theology of the Body and the Priesthood. It's focus is on priestly identity.
What does it mean to be a celibate man, and still a true father in the deepest sense of the word? To be a man set apart and yet at the same time to be a part of every family, connected deeply to evey heart?
We will mediate on the priest as son, brother, spouse, and father. With the insights of Blessed John Paul the Great, as well as the scriptures, the saints and the mystics, we will clarify what is in fact not an outdated and irrelevant vocation but an essential and irrevocable sign of humanity's ultimate call: the call to become a gift.... a fruitful, life-giving gift for the world. Prayers are appreciated as we begin this 5 day course, and prayers for the class of men coming from across the country and beyond. Please pray for a renewed vision of this most beautiful of sacraments!
"A priest is mysterious, he lives in two worlds. He is at his best when he leads a double life, at once both human and divine. No life is more adventurous, for at every moment, like the trapeze artist, he is swinging between time and eternity.”
I remember these ads. And I remember what a heartwarming feeling they conveyed. There's some good marketing there; tapping into the humanity of the consumer. Our longing for connection, for communion and for intimacy.
"Reach out and touch someone."
Today, living in such a hyper-sexualized culture as we do, with sarcasm and cynicism always a hairs breadth away, a phrase like that has a whole different feel to it. But honestly, the Pharisees in Jesus's time had their own converse fears about touching others.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus said to them in reply, "Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."
- Luke 5:31-32
So here we are, caught between two extremes. Touch without even knowing a person (an anonymous culture of sexual encounter) or never touch because of the KIND of person they are.
What does Jesus do? He touches the heart and soul of every person. And so should we in our love and charity.
"At the end of time, those who will be allowed to contemplate the glorified flesh of Christ are only those who were not embarrassed to touch the flesh of their injured and excluded brothers and sisters."
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.
“A priest must be a reservoir before he can become a conduit.”
