To Be Inspired and Inflamed

This July 9-11, there will be a gathering in historic Philadelphia, PA, of renowned experts and enthusiasts on the incredible thought of St. John Paul II. He devoted the first major teaching project of his pontificate – 129 short talks between September of 1979 and November of 1984 – to providing a profoundly beautiful vision of human embodiment and erotic love. He gave this project the working title “Theology of the Body.” Far from being a footnote in the Christian life, the way we understand the body and the sexual relationship “concerns the whole Bible” (TOB 69:8). It plunges us into “the perspective of the whole Gospel, of the whole teaching, even more, of the whole mission of Christ” (TOB 49:3). Christ’s mission, according to the spousal analogy of the Scriptures, is to “marry” us. He invites us to live with him in an eternal life-giving union of love. The repercussions of this teaching, in essence of the Gospel itself, are boundless, touching every person in every walk of life with the positive, hope-filled joy of the Gospel that truly sets women and men free to love. Our three days together in July includes:

• More than 30 seminars, roundtable discussions, expert panels and keynotes;

• Sharing and collaboration between key Theology of the Body leaders, catechists, Church leaders and teachers from around the country;

• Catholic vendors specializing in Theology of the Body-related products;

• Two breakfasts, a luncheon, two dinners, and a special awards presentation;

• Eucharistic adoration, reconciliation, and daily Mass celebrated at the Basilica Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul

- See more at: http://tobcongress.com/program/#sthash.I6PmyrLb.dpuf

The Pope Saint and Fatima

Taken from Jason Evert's excellent new book, St. John Paul the Great: His Five Loves

"May 13, 1981 was a typical Wednesday in the Vatican. As was his custom, John Paul invited guests for lunch, hosting the renowned French geneticist Jerome Lejeune and his wife to discuss Natural Family Planning and other pro-life matters. After the usual course of afternoon meetings and prayer, he descended to Saint Peter's Square to participate in his weekly Wednesday audience with the faithful. He was approaching the halfway mark of his lectures on the Theology of the Body.

He climbed aboard the Popemobile and crisscrossed through Saint Peter's Square, kissing babies and blessing the 20,000 pilgrims who had gathered to see him. At 5:17 P.M., moments after blessing a two-year-old girl and handing her back to her elated parents, blasts from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol rang out. Pigeons throughout the square scattered skyward as John Paul fell backward into the arms of his secretary, Monsignor Dziwisz.

One bullet fractured two bones in his left index finger and passed through his abdomen before exiting through his sacrum and coming to rest in the Popemobile. Another bullet grazed his right arm, and two American women in the crowd were injured. His assailant, Mehmet Ali Agća, was a trained twenty-three year-old Turkish gunman who had been incarcerated for murdering a journalist. Three days before the Pope's visit to Turkey in 1979, Agća escaped from an Istanbul prison and sent a letter to the Turkish newspaper Milliyet, stating that if the papal visit is not canceled, "I will without doubt kill the Pope-Chief. This is the sole motive for my escape from prison."

Although the Istanbul daily paper printed the letter on its front page, John Paul moved ahead with his plans and safely made his apostolic pilgrimage. However, Agća was determined to follow through on his threat. He arrived in Rome two years later, on May 9, and stayed at the Pensione Isa hotel, a fifteen-minute walk from the Vatican. Over the next few days, he examined Saint Peter's Square and developed his strategy for murdering the pontiff. After the assassination attempt, police searched his room and discovered a note that declared, "I have killed the Pope."

After the gunshots were fired, the Popemobile fled the scene and John Paul was transferred into the familiar ambulance. Dziwisz climbed beside him and could hear him praying, "O Maria, Madonna! Maria, Madonna! Mary, my Mother..."

In Saint Peter's Square, as the faithful were praying for his survival, a group of Polish pilgrims took an icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa and placed it beside the empty seat that the Holy Father would have sat upon during his audience. A gust of wind blew it over, and a bystander noticed the inscription on the back of the image, which had been written days or weeks earlier: "May Our Lady protect the Holy Father from Evil."

After healing, John Paul desired to express his thanks to the Virgin Mary for protecting his life. He took one of the bullets that struck him and gave it to the bishop of Fatima, who placed it among the gems in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

Several biographers have noted that it was a perfect fit. Uno Zani explained, "To everyone's surprise, it was not even necessary to make a place for it, because there was already a hole in the crown into which the bullet fit perfectly, as if it had been designed that way." 

In Saint Peter's Square, he installed a mosaic icon of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, overlooking the Papal Apartments, with the words of his motto, Totus Tuus, inscribed beneath it. The image was installed in remembrance of the assassination attempt, but it also filled a need that the Pope realized before the attempt on his life occurred: of all the statues that surround Saint Peter's Square, there wasn't a single image of the Blessed Mother."

- Jason Evert, St. John Paul the Great: His Five Loves

When God Sleeps

Epic fail. It didn't work. He's dead at only 33. His own disowned him. Betrayed, his friends abandoned him. What a waste. Everything the Lord did in his life on earth was meant to be a kind of catechism for us. His every divine word but also his divine actions were an answer to the mystery of human life for us; after all, he came to teach us how to live. "Jesus Christ fully reveals man to himself, and makes his supreme calling clear." (Gaudium et Spes, 22) The birth in poverty. Jesus the toddler. Jesus the teenager. The blue collar work. The callused hands. The hidden years, all 18 of them. The lack of formal "education" and having anything written down for posterity. Then the false accusations. The criminal's death. The awkward silence of Holy Saturday. But we know now he was waiting. In silence. For a Jew, three days meant the soul had definitely left the body. He was dead. The "prayers" of the embalming perfumes set in, and soaked his dead flesh in the darkness of that tomb. One hundred pounds of oils the gospel said, enough for a kings burial. But a waste. Spilled over a dead man. Sealed and scented by no one. 

Have we felt the silence of Holy Saturday in our lives? The cold echo of prayers places in tombs? Have we learned nothing from the God of parables? The seed must die, buried in the dank earth, and wait. Time must tick. The Lord will respond in his time, not ours. The key is, keep showing up. Stay awake even when it seems Christ himself cannot "watch one hour with you." This tomb of hollow prayers must be visited. We must go through the motions, as it were, even when it appears as if death, silence, failure is all there is. Stay awake even when God sleeps. 

The Naked Christ

"It's scandalous to see this nearly naked Christ," some critics said, as the story goes, when an initial draft of Ford Madox Brown's Christ Washing the Feet of Peter was viewed. Brown lived through the majority of the 19th century as an English painter in a Victorian climate, where the sight of a woman's ankle might be seen as improper. It's ironic to think that those whom Christ stripped himself to serve would be scandalized, not by his act of love, but by his physical appearance. When Peter was scandalized, it was because of his interior unworthiness. The Victorians were shocked by his exterior "impropriety."   

What does this tell us? It tells us that we have issues, in every time and place, with the realm of sexuality and the body. Deeper still, with the realm of trust and vulnerability, of which nakedness is the physical sign. Nakedness is a spousal call to see the other, to enter into the vulnerable mystery of the other.  And it tells us that the Messiah, the Heavenly Bridegroom, will do anything to get our attention. He will play the fool, he will strip down and serve, he'll make himself that vulnerable. And he'll also make it clear that he wants us to see him, to know him. He will reveal himself to us, in all of the vulnerability of a lover to his beloved bride. He wants to come close. So close to us. 

I wonder how the Victorians would've reacted to the true history of Roman crucifixtion. The victims were too often left naked on those crosses, shamed and publicly humiliated. But for Jesus, as Augustine tells us, this was the moment where the cross turned into a "marriage bed." The cross is the crux where all horizontal earthly love meets the power of the vertical love of a God that rushed down in love to be with us! And this perfect love has no fear! Like the first Adam in the beginning, Christ the second Adam is "naked without shame" and he like Adam was called to "cleave to his wife, so the two could become one flesh"... 

Like Peter then, we must loosen our grip, let the blood flow back into our clenched knuckles and allow The Lord to love us. Totally, humbly, wholly His Way. 

The Clarity of Christ, the Muddiness of Man

"So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”"

- John 13

When I was "discerning" my vocation I was an expert in mental gymnastics. I could think myself into a million different moves, different scenarios, in and out of twists and turns, yet ironically ending up in the same place every time. In my starting position, on the mat. 

Gathering information is great. We all need to do a little recon now and then in life before a major leap. Like Caleb and Joshua in the book of Numbers, we gather our intel on our expedition into Canaan. But when they reported their findings, and spoke with their own clarity about the move (essentially they were the only ones saying "Let's do this!"), the muddiness of mental gymnastics began. The others spread discouraging reports "Well, uh, they're uh... giants. They'll eat us. Yeah. We need to reconsider this."

"Caleb, however, quieted the people before Moses and said, “We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly prevail over it.” 

- Numbers 14

"So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”"

- John 13

We can be our own worst enemy. Fear can sap the strongest heart. When we know the good, we ought to do the good rather than rationalize ourselves into a little corner of inaction. (PS - I really stink at this, which is why I'm writing about it right now.) This Holy Week the Passion dawns in its perennial newness, in deep blood-red hues spreading over the weak world. 

What shall we do as the great God descends? Run and hide? Deny even knowing him? Or follow along in his footprints like the beloved disciple? Time is of the essence. The hour is at hand. 

Our Tangible God

As Passion Week continues to unfold, let's pay attention to the exquisite details of the gospels: the whole drama of emotion, the full gamut of fear and faith, cowardice and conviction. This is the long awaited confrontation of the incarnate God and His rebellious creatures. This is the centerpiece of the triptych of human history: our redemption pulsating like a jewel of red fire between the two pillars of our origin in grace and our destiny. Our challenge is to stand in the gap, allowing Our Lord to right our wrongs in and through His sacred flesh. His body and soul. 

"Our culture has lost its sense of God’s tangible presence and activity in our world. We think that God is to be found in the beyond, on another level of reality, far removed from our everyday relationships. But if this were the case, if God could not act in the world, his love would not be truly powerful, truly real, and thus not even true, a love capable of delivering the bliss that it promises. It would make no difference at all whether we believed in him or not. Christians, on the contrary, profess their faith in God’s tangible and powerful love which really does act in history and determines its final destiny: a love that can be encountered, a love fully revealed in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection."

- Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei, 17

Perfecting Our Passion

Today the Passion narrative was read at Mass for this Palm or Passion Sunday. My thoughts always turn to those brilliant scenes in the film of the century, The Passion of the Christ. This still frame takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus, Peter, James and John spend an anxious hour of prayer, anticipating a new Passover. Temple guards approach with weapons and lights. Masterly woven together, three figures move past each other like dark threads in the cloak of the night: Peter, Judas, and a temple guard. Peter stands still, Judas is retreating, and the temple guard is pressing forward to lay hands on the Christ, the Son of God. All three have a passion that intertwines their destiny, but it's misdirected so that the result will be a frayed and inconsistent stitch.  

Judas' passion is for money (we know he stole from the communal stash), for success, and for the earthly power and authority he thinks Jesus can win for this rugged band of fisherman. 

The temple guard's passion is for peace and for order, but he will stop at nothing, not even innocence, to keep the Pharisees in control and the Jewish subculture alive under the shadow of the Romans. 

Peter's passion is purest but falters in the end. Why? Why deny him? Why run? Was he relying on his own strength? 

Only Jesus has a Passion that can carry him all the way to the conflagration of the cross, there to be lifted up to draw all men to himself. This is the proper goal of passion; the perfection of passion. This is what will be unravelled again this Holy Week for the world to see. For Christians hearts to meditate on. Passion must lead out and beyond, beyond ourselves, beyond petty pleasures. Passion must take us to the fires of Heaven, even as it passes first through the fires of suffering and death here below.