A Call for Mercy

The Lord Jesus Christ bent down and washed his traitor’s feet.

From the instrument of his torture and death, he said,
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).

Saint Peter writes to us, “Above all, let your love for one another be intense,
because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Our choice for every day, in every circumstance, with every person, is if we will imitate our Lord and “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). 

What right have we, O worm, O dust, O sinner and hard-hearted self-server, to do anything other than recognize that we are to hand on what we have first received: forgiveness?

Let us invite every man and woman to an encounter with Christ precisely in the mercy we share.

Let us strive, as Blessed Charles de Foucauld, to live up to the Christian vocation, where the world will meet us and say, “If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?”

I'm a Survivor

So maybe Destiny's Child is a little corny, but you'll have to humor me here.
The song "I'm a Survivor" came into my head today, and it certainly lifted my spirits. If you have been feeling in any way exhausted, used, abused, abandoned, worn out, ignored, unappreciated, etc... you may want to think about what it means to say you will survive, that you will fight, that you will work harder.

My friends, life is a struggle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has been hidden away with fairies or something. But I would argue that the reason I acknowledge it as such is probably not the same reason that is generally considered. Not to cut out the obvious fact of the struggle to survive and all of its sharp teeth, but more importantly it is the struggle to be whole, to be pure, to be good, that is the true task at hand.

There is much to consider about these terms, even just about the ideals. To be good, what is that?

Aristotle would tell us that as humans, we naturally seek the good that we see for ourselves. St. Thomas Aquinas would add that this natural good is our ultimate fulfillment in God, who is our source and end. Many various wise people (who I am not at liberty to cite here, being that my memory is not so strong) have expounded on these points and discussed (at ridiculously great lengths) what it means for man to desire his good, and how man can know what his good is, and if there is a universal good for all men or if each person's good is specific to his own being.

Today is not the day for philosophy (we started with Destiny's Child) so I will skip over those many arguments and discussions. Those are certainly questions worth mulling over, so take time to consider them. The Church would tell us that our purpose in existing is to "know love and serve" God (timeout to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1: "God, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life...God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life"). So if our end is to know our Creator, that means a lot about our everyday. The beautiful thing here (though there are many) is that our Creator (whom we are to come to know) is a loving one.  He certainly is beyond and above our littleness, and yet he stooped to come amoung us and rescue us from our brokenness. Not only that, but he left us with a rather useful and sound map and compass (the Church) to lead us ever-more away from the brokenness and into his marvelous light.

So our good is to be fulfilled, to become who and what we were meant to be, to discover the glory that dwells within ourselves that we may have been unaware of. For us to pursue this, we need the tools given to us by the Church. We need the Sacraments. We need Baptism to irradicate the stain of original sin from our souls. We need the Eucharist to purify and sustain us, to transform us, that we would be made "holy by the power of your Spirit" and that our humanity may paritcipate in the glory of the Word made flesh. We need Confirmation, that our lives will be under the counsel and love and guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need daily prayer and communal prayer to lift us up beyond the darkness of this world. We need Confession that we can be healed of our many sins and discover the mercy and grace that God so abundantly lavishes on his children when they ask.

To learn habits of good, to develop virtues in place of vice - this is the ever-present task. Every action and thought and word we participate in will lead us further down the path of wholeness or further down the path of division. We are either fulfilling some potential for good in us or rejecting some potential for good in us. Certainly there are many things which in and of themselves are rather neutral (picking up the phone, eating an apple, smelling some cookies, going to the bathroom...) but when one begins to really examine this life, everything truly does take on some level of meaning in the greater picture. The battle is a life-long struggle. Every smaller battle trains us and strengthens us so that the greater challenges are not impossible to face. If I eat my apple and I'm enjoying it and I am grateful for its existence and then for its new existence in my stomach, I am certainly appreciating the gifts of one who loves me (God) and I am a happier person because I have received that which I did not deserve. Meanwhile, if I am eating out of functionality, or even bitterness because I would rather eat a cookie but I'm dieting, I am not finding praise or worship or gratitude in my heart but self-righteousness and maybe pride. Now certainly we can't go crazy being scrupulous about every little detail, but the idea is important because it does imply that we acknowledge God as Lord of our entire lives and our whole selves and not just a God who we visit on Sundays or think of occassionally.

For our persons to every be united as we are meant to be, to really understand our souls and bodies as a whole, as the true one being that each individual is, than we need to recognize both the divisive effects of sin on our lives and the unitive effects of virtue and grace on our lives. They stand in stark contrast...to discover oneself in an even deeper way it is required that we live (to our best ability, which can be very great with the aid of grace) in harmony with God's laws, and the natural law, which is given by God. We must understand that we are more free and more able to be who we are called to be when we not only obey the laws given to us but love them. They bring peace. They stir up a sense of self that is profound. They allow us to know our hearts, to see our inner selves, and yet to love and respect our bodies and how all of our person is intrinsically and intimately united. Just in the same way, every sin taps a wedge into the bedrock of our person. Every sin, whether purposeful or omission, leads us out of love and into darkness. Every minute spent thinking over the offenses of another is a minute not spent loving in this world. Where we might have forgiven and found healing, we are wasting ourselves on bitterness or malice. There are so many things that can lead to our bedrock breaking into pieces!

Sexual sins, or sins with our bodies, are perhaps the most dangerous. If we are willing to treat our very selves as a tool or function for accomplishing some good feeling or "act of freedom" or proof of our self-control or self-possession, what we are truly doing is proving how lost and blind we have become. No one who loves himself would harm himself. No one who is proud (in the good sense) would abuse himself. No one should seek what they think is "good" when it isn't good for them! But how often we are subject to that! How often we think that if we can only impress some person, we will have a better life. And so we wear things we would not normally wear, or say things we would not normally say. Or how often do we believe that the person we are is simply not good enough for whatever we secretly yearn for in the depths of our hearts, and so we settle for far lesser dreams and far more tragic treatment because we have forgotten who we are and who we were made to be. Just for the record, God never ceases to call us to be the beautiful and resplendent children he has made us. Never. We can spit in his face and the next moment he is still holding his arms out. Certainly it takes time and great effort (and most of all, real humility) for us to be reconciled if we have developed habits of sin that control our lives, but we are never outside of his mercy and love. Never!

St. Claude de Colombiere wrote this most beautiful prayer:
"Lord, I am in this world to show Your mercy to others.
Other people will glofiry You by making visible the power of Your grace by their fidelity and constancy to You.
For my part I will glorify You by making known how good You are to sinners,
that Your mercy is boundless and that no sinner no matter how great his offences should have reason to despair of pardon.
If I have grieviously offended You, My Redeemer, let me not offend You even more by thinking that You are not kind enough to pardon Me.
Amen."

That is something to chew on.

So this is our hope and our task - to desire the good (which is our being-in-love with the One who has first loved us!!!) and to pursue it with all of our selves, even in the tiniest of ways, every day, come what may. If we can strive to avoid sin, and beg for the grace to avoid it even more, and beg for the grace to be sorry when we do sin and for the grace to recognize the things which lead us to sin or our inclinations to sin, we will slowly begin to weed out those things that so deeply wound us and allow ourselves to begin the weight lifting and strength training that we need for this war!

(If you would like to read more on the Church's teaching on the beauty and truth of the gift man has been given in sexual love and its right-ordering, I highly suggest reading Humanae Vitae http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html and The Theology of the Body http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tbind.htm.)


Say it with me now,
"I'm a survivor
I'm not gonna give up
I'm not gon' stop
I'm gonna work harder..."

Yeah... :)

Death to the Temptor

I have very little expertise to share on temptation, but I can speak from experience and the few good homilies I have heard on the topic.

First of all, just read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Then you can read the rest of what I have to say.

Let's lay it out in the most straightforward manner - satan, the devil, the evil one.. he stinks. He's mean. He doesn't like you or me. He doesn't even like God. He thinks he's in charge. He has some wily schemes to convince us that we're "god" too. He can be very subtle and very convincing. He's a jerk. There are many inappropriate words that can also be applied to him, but it is not necessary to mention them now. That, too, is part of his "evil charm." Why should it matter to him that we apply those words to him, as long as he's managed to get us to a point of using them, right?

Anyway, you don't want this guy as a friend. He'll double-cross you, cheat you, lie to you nearly every time... he twists things and skews your views as much as possible. He wants you to lose.

Now, the thing that the devil forgets to mention to his friends and non-friends alike, is that he is a created creature. Yep. He was an angel, and then he allowed his vanity and pride to take him from the love of God for eternity. So, we aren't dealing with some "equal power" here who can give God a run for his money. Nope. Just as much as God can snuff me out at any moment if he so wished, he could do the same to the devil. So we should take that to heart.

However, it is both a reason to guard against him less and to do so even more. Being a created creature, he isn't as powerful as God by any means, and therefore our belonging-to-God should be our courage, hope, stength and assurance that the devil "has got nothin' on us." On the other hand, being a created creature, his tactics are so often those which we don't notice enough to throw up our guard. He blends in with our surroundings, works with the emotions other people bring out in us, allows our imaginations to be carried in the wrong direction, tries his best to make any truth seem just as truthful while actually making it quite a lie. It's almost unsettling. Almost.

But here's my favorite part. The devil messed up because of why? (Here is where you yell, "Pride!") And what did God do about it? Well, first, he cast him out of heaven forever. Secondly, he established a beautiful and wonderful situation. It entails the devil eventually being crushed/his evil being ended. Best part? Does it get better? Oh yeah. Mary, Our Lady.. she gets to do the squashing. Yep! The most humble, obedient, perfect woman ever created will triumph over the most prideful, disobedient creature. It's cool.

So what does that mean for us? Oh, it means we cling to Mary! We pray, we pray, and then we pray some more. We ask for grace, to assist us in our darkest hours. We ask for grace to assist us in the daily grid of life, where our eyes can become blinded to our failures and sins. We ask for grace to aid us in times of specific temptation, so that we have the courage to choose the Lord over ourselves. We ask for Our Lady's intercession for us, that we will be assisted by her love and spirit of humility and purity. And of course, it means we get back up after we fall, after we've screwed up for the hundreth time, and we go to Reconciliation, and we seek the grace to do better next time.

The truth is, when we lean on ourselves to resist evil, we will inevitably fall. When we accept that we are children in this life (children of the King), and ask for the help of a Father and Brother and mother in heaven, we are so much more sustained. And as a wise priest said recently at mass, (paraphrased here) "We never listen to the devil. Even when he works with truth. He is always lying. Never listen to him, at all."

We can especially appreciate this priest's words because we all know how we can justify our actions or thoughts sometimes, even when we know that they were/are wrong. "Little white lies" that build into a habit of untruth. This one I know for sure, because I love to tell stories "dramatically." This means I like to exaggerate a little, as if saying there were "18 billion" spiders instead of three. Now, clearly most listeners will recognize that there were not actually 18 billion spiders. However, since I am already used to speaking with some exaggeration, what happens is that I will then embellish the words or tones of others when I am relating a conversation or a story. Again, sometimes this is either not important to the overall meaning or obvious that I am making the story more dramatic. However, there are certainly times that after I finish explaining something, I realize that my memory serves me better than I wish I to, and I realize that I did not communicated the other person's words completely acurately. Please don't worry about my scrupulosity or yours right now, this is meant to be an illustration. Sometimes I will go back and correct myself. Sometimes I let it go. My intention was not to lie to anyone. Nor to mislead someone in how they understood the situation. But I think the point is evident... the comfortability I have with being over-dramatic leads to a comfortability with not-always-being-truthful.

This, once more, is a rather miniscule scenario on the scale of dangerously-close-to-letting-the-devil-lead-you-astray, but these truths that we discover through our personal experience directly relate and apply to a greater and wider picture. In this case, we could just as easily say "not entering your full income on tax forms" or "not registering your pet in your apartment" or "making up an excuse for why you missed class or work that didn't actually happen but sounds more legitimate than you wanting to sleep." See the point? It's a slippery slope. If you are trained in a habit in any area, it grows and builds inside of you. What is most dangerous is that you lose the ability to see when you are acting in this way. You do not take note of your fibs or lies anymore. You become accustomed to the benefits entailed with cheating, and you do not even register it as cheating anymore. Of course, if someone asked you if you would steal a car if given the opportunity, you might say "no! of course not.. that's wrong." But the truth is that you already treat others as if you have the right to take from them without any cost to yourself.

Anyway, that was somewhat tangental. Point being, that devil guy gets us stuck in the muck, and then he's the expert at keeping us trapped in our feelings of shame or lonliness or disappointment or anger, and we find ourselves lost in a vicious cycle.

So keys to kicking the evil dude's butt?
1. Pray.

2. Mary. Trust her, she's your mother. She'll take care of you.

3. Don't LISTEN to him. He's a poop-face. Tell him that! When you feel like you're going down that path, just turn around and run in the other direction. Don't try to be nice to him. Don't act politely. He won't be polite to you! Tell him he's a jerk and get out of there.

4. Try to become more aware of the areas or habits that you have created or are creating that may keep you away from the truth, away from God's love, and away from loving your neighbors around you.

5. Work hard at getting OUT of those areas or habits above.

6. Avoid areas of temptation... this seems obvious, but perhaps not obvious enough. This can include music with cursing, movies with explicit sex, friends who want you to make them feel good but don't actually care about your immortal soul, social idols whose lives are less-than-exemplary but who you still seem attached to, boyfriends or girlfriends who are unable to aid you in the battle for purity of heart, mind and body, family members who are unable to encourage you or who purposefully discourage you from seeking God with your whole heart, etc... The more we surround ourselves with things that lead our thoughts to the Lord, guess what?? The more we think about him! And the less room there is for satan to twist the truth. If your thoughts are constantly drawn to the one who is The Truth, you aren't going to be as susceptible to the "fake truth."

7. When you mess up (it is inevitable), do not let the devil trap you there. Be sorry. Be very sorry. Mourn a little. Go to confession and heap yourself up with graces. Truly desire to amend your failings! But do not begin the pity party. Don't invite him, or anyone else. Don't let him bring along his friends, because they're names are depression and despair, and they are not nice. So just don't give him the chance. Shake it off. Stand back up.

8. I know I said confession already, but the other sacraments are absolutely helpful too! If you aren't Baptized/Confirmed/ a member of the Church, consider that. It is a beautiful thing. For all who are, frequent reception of the Eucharist is the greatest prayer and gift you can participate in. Celebrate the Lord's victory over death and sin for all eternity every day if possible! If you're being united with The Truth each day, you probably won't be very willing to listen to the "fake truth", right? Yes.

9. Remember that evil personified in the devil is a creature, and that evil in general is a result of sin. These things do affect us, but they do not have any power over us when we refuse them entry into our hearts. They can cause sorrow and brokenness in our lives and the lives of those around us, but they cannot necessitate our falling from grace unless we give them the room. I think of the movie The Labyrinth (and it is kinda creepy, just saying), where Jennifer Connelly finally reaches the end of her rope and decides she's had enough of the cruel games she's had to endure. She just yells out, "You have no power over me" and that's it. When you say, "hit the road" and you mean it, that's basically it. Of course, the barrage of temptation could send the next wave upon you nearly instantly, but if you keep on denying evil access to your heart and soul, it isn't going to be able to hurt you.

10. Trust. In the end, as I said, we are children of the King. He has us. We must trust in him, and leave ourselves to his care. He loves us more than we love ourselves. If there is some good to be gained for us or others through our enduring hard times, then we must believe in his mercy and know he will keep us from harm. He is only Good.

Anyway, stay in the light, and keep the faith.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Amen.

Beatitudes, Part IX

Matthew 5:1-16

"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

This is the last of the Beatitudes Series.

Is there a reason the Lord saves the seemingly-worst for last? Why is it that these "guiding lights" for holiness begin with generally simple or positive challenges and then end on such a note?

First, I love the qualifying word here - falsely. We are to keep in mind that when we undergo sufferings such as persecutions or judgements or slander from others, we must not be worthy of their criticisms. This is also a challenge to human nature's instant desire for self-justification or revenge. How often when we are little do we consistently and incessantly inform our parents that what our brother claimed we did, was not actually how it went down at all? We do not want blame. We retreat from accusation, and if we are innocent we immediately seek to clear our name of any falsehood. Truly, it is not wrong to wish to be cleared of lies or false accusations - if they aren't true then we naturally want to reveal the lie. However, as usual, the Lord decides to give us a challenge akin to "be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." Our natural reaction to "just let their stupidity, lies, slander and hate roll off your back" is something similar to - "really? really? I mean... they're wrong. Shouldn't we say something?"
If nothing else, we would like to clear the air of the smoke from the lie. If something more, we would love to give the fibber a good kick in the pants - maybe return lie for lie, or rumor for rumor, or reveal a secret that should have been kept hidden. We aren't too slow to take up the fight when it's personal.

Yet, St. Paul says so explicitly in Romans, "Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Rather, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.' Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good" (Rom. 12:19-21).

Certainly there are appropriate times for challenging another in truth and holiness, asking them to consider their deeds or words in light of faith or natural human goodness, or opening their eyes to the ways they have done injury so that they may change their behavior. Yet, here first and foremost we find Jesus asking us to imitate him, so that we may imitate the Father. How often do we read through the Old Testament and discover the Lord reaching a point of threatening destruction and ruin for the people of God who have fallen away from Him, or have worshiped false idols, or have broken His covenant? Yet, every time we also find a God who opens his mercy and love to the people and spares them on account of those who repent, and simply because he is love. God the Father has infinite patience and fidelity. "This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. 2:11-13).

Jesus looks at his little lost lambs and his heart is moved. He is willing to teach us. He desires to lead us to holiness, to love, to peace, to joy in him. He yearns that we be united with him and the Father and the Holy Spirit. He therefore offers us these instructions that we might know how to live and love as he does. To forgive when the forgiveness is unearned, and even unasked for, or worst of all, is unaccepted. To still love, even when you are hated. To be still and peaceful when the accusations you know are false come pouring in. To find a way to lovingly point to the truth. To trust that the Father sees and knows what you are enduring and holds you in his hands through it all. To recall how often you have deserved his wrath and have been treated with such mercy and tenderness instead. To trust him and forget the faults of others.

We need each of the beatitudes to build up to a state of faith that assists us in this kind of mercy. We will be so much quicker to forgive and forget when we have learned the lessons of humility and patience and all the other virtues of the beatitudes. From there we can begin a journey of love of neighbor until, hopefully, one day we can say with our Lord, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34).

Beatitudes, Part V

Matt. 5:1-16

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."

Perhaps I will begin every one of these reflections with something like, "I know I said this last time, but this one must be my favorite." I just have to smile. Each one of these small "to-be-blessed" statements from Our Lord holds so much depth, heighth, fullness and freedom!

Very quickly I want to speak for a moment on what a "beatitude" even is. That probably should have come at the beginning, but here we are. The useful online dictionary defines this word as follows: "Supreme blessedness or happiness." What I take the Lord to mean here is that if one should choose to make these lessons a way of life, to take Jesus at his word, to believe fully in the truth he is, that person will inevitably inherit a fullness of life, both here on earth and in heaven after death. These are the sign posts on Imitation Road, where we can come to see the footprints of Jesus laid out before us, measure our feet against his... see how utterly impossible it is to fill those shoes, and then rejoice because he has given us a way to stand on his feet so that we can still walk with him on the journey. They direct us on how to stand on his feet, and how to balance when the road climbs up and dips down. As he is the truth and life, these are his way. They are aspects of his heart, chambers which we can enter into and learn from. Each is its own school and yet all work together to form the greater whole of a Christ-like life.

Now back to the merciful being blessed!

I cannot communicate, by any stretch or means, what the truth of mercy is. It is the active verb of love. God is love. Mercy is his action. Mercy encompasses every moment of our failure, our sin, our rejection, our hate of the one who has given us everything, and in that covering it not only washes all the sadness, hurt, brokenness and darkness away, but it brings newness as well.

The lines from this song help to reveal something of this truth:

"I give you my heart,

It was never mine at all.

So I don't mind if it breaks or falls,

You'll restore it to life after all.

Cause you never stop making us new,

More and more into the image of you."

Mercy is that we are alive. Mercy is that the world exists. Mercy is that we keep existing. Mercy is that I have been born into a family that loved me, that raised me to love the Lord, that provided for me, that was provided for by the Lord so that it could provide for me, that educated me in his ways, that enabled me to learn to read and write and to one day share some of that gift with you as you read this now. Mercy is everything. We do not have to have food, or clothes, or shoes, or a job, or a house, or a family. We do not have to have hope, or trust, or forgiveness, or joy, or peace, or excitement, or perseverence, or strength, or courage, or justice. We do not have to have life. We do not have to be. There could be nothingness. A lack. An absence. But the Lord, in his mercy, has filled it. There is. There are. We are.

Mercy is grace, it is love, it is truth. There is nothing more true than that God is love. There is also then nothing more true than that God is merciful, is mercy itself. Mercy, by definition, should be "the love of God poured out." That simple. The blood of Christ poured out during the Passion, the fire of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentacost, the ever-present gift of being poured out from Our Father in heaven! Everything is a gift, everything is his mercy.

So what shall it mean for us to "be merciful as He is merciful"?

I suppose the cliche answer (yet, completely valid answer) is to be ever-forgiving, ever quick to charity, ever living love, ever pouring out ourselves and our hearts.

As a beatitude, I would dare to say, as they all are, that this is a disposition of the heart, soul and will. Charity, in its fullness. To be merciful and thus blessed in that mercy, we have to seek and pray to always be "unmindful should our hearts break or fall" because of our love and trust in our Father. I have heard it called "holy indifference," but what I mean to say is that if we could always see all of life, including our very being, as a gift of generous love, we would have this response that immediately shouted "well, here, take it! It isn't mine anyway!" How often we are quick to pick up the thing someone left lying on the subway, or on the sidewalk... finders keepers or even more basically just a "its there and I picked it up" mentality. Yet, that isn't yours, it isn't mine. If someone came up to you after you picked it up and said, "I'm sorry, I dropped that, it is mine," you would understand that you have no right to it and quickly return it to its owner. If nothing else, you'd be embarrassed that you were trying to keep what wasn't yours. This is life! This is how we are. Borrowed in the generosity of God. Kept in being by his merciful love that exceeds all time and place, force and motion. It isn't ours. One day, or perhaps everyday, he will say to us (often through a family member, friend or stranger), "excuse me, that is mine, may I have it back." We aren't always so quick to give it up.

Be merciful. Be of the disposition that what is yours, isn't yours, and what you've worked hard for is still not yours. You've received the drive to work hard. It's a gift that you wanted to work in the first place. Everything is His generous love! So give it back.

Forgive the annoying man whose armpit you are stuck in on the crowded subway... he's uncomfortable too. Forgive your brother when he is short tempered and blames you for something you didn't mean to do... he is hurting and needs to be understood! Forgive your teacher who says "um" between, um, every syllable and drives you nuts... he's been embarrassed by that for years and it is only in great humility that he continues to teach when he knows how students mock him. Forgive your boss who decided to belittle you at your staff meeting... even if there is no good reason for it that you can discover, your life is a gift and so you have to take confidence that the Lord will use both your embarrassment and his unkindness to better form both of you into his image.

It is that simple. Find a way to reasonably forgive, and if there isn't one, then seek the grace to forgive anyway. Jesus forgives us every time, and it is never reasonable. Jesus died, forgiving us. Who can truly say they would let others beat them, bruise and mock them, insult and punish them, even kill them, when they were innocent of all crime, and then as they were being killed, honestly and genuinely forgive them? It's impossible, but for the love of God, the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts. But the power of the Holy Spirit can be a rushing river, and it can create new channels in our hearts for mercy to flow through, and it can lift up the silt and grime that has piled up, and it can rinse us of our anger, our disdain, our pride, and leave us with clearn hearts.

I know that many would say to "be merciful" is more an "active" beatitude, that it refers to charity-in-practice, to social justice, to the poor and needy. By all means, the Lord does mean this! Yet, look at the example of Christ. Every person he heals, every miracle he performs, every life he changes in Scripture - it is not the bodily injury or ailment but the spiritual one, that of sin, that he first and foremost heals. It is forgiveness that precedes everything else. The healing of hearts, souls and wills in the merciful love of God enables all the other miracles to take place. How can we expect reconciliation among family members, or peace in the workplace, or comfort in our ministries, if we do not first come as bearers of God's mercy? The miracles are possible, but the mercy must be first.

The merciful are blessed because they recognize that life is not their own. They have peace because they let things go. They have joy because they realize that the grace to let go and forget is a gift given. They have more joy because they realize the grace to ask to have the grace to let go and forgive is a gift given. In this track they end up recognizing that nothing is ever of them, and yet they are always the center of God's loving action, as he moves and reforms their hearts so that they are an image of him in this world.

As I said, there aren't words. I repeat again that mercy is the active-verb of love. "To love" is to be merciful. To love is to forgive, time and again. To love is to never fear forgiveness being withheld from you, and to never leave others in fear of your forgiveness being withheld. Could this mean being taken advantage of? Walked upon? Perhaps. Do we take advantage of the Lord, and walk all over him? Absolutely we do. Does his love extend so far beyond our injuries against his love? He set up the giant trampoline long ago, and it is ready to catch us immediately. We'll land and be shot back up to him in an instant. It's almost fun, being forgiven. It buoys our spirits, leads us to rejoicing! So we can be so free with others. He will always supply the strength for us, always give us the courage to be more merciful than we think we could bear.

Love. Forgive. Never count the cost.

Beatitudes, Part IV

Matt. 5:1-16

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

I would like to think this is one of the most unique and perhaps overlooked beatitudes. So often Christians/Catholics struggle with the issue of justice. We hear things that conflict often in this area, such as Scriptural references that insist not to live the mantra of "an eye for an eye" and yet also demonstrate Jesus acting in just anger by forcing the Pharisees out of the Temple when they have used it as a marketplace. Where does that leave us, the disciples?

Society usually enforces the "get what's yours" attitude along with the "it's your right" attitude. This trains us to be frustrated, annoyed, hurt, and angry when things we believe are our "due" are withheld from us or when others "deprive" us of something we feel we deserve.

Then there's St. Paul, that wonderful teacher, who so beautifully writes,
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Rather, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.' Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good." Romans 12:17-21

Here we face a frightening challenge - not only to learn to be less offended when we are put-out, but to turn around and love the person or situation that is causing us grief. Really, St. Paul? Can't you feel your eyebrows rising slowly higher and higher as you realize what living this command out means?

Let's take a few quick examples:
Your little brother steals your favorite anything (fill in most recent offense) and what do you do? Initial insticts say the following: tell on him (and enjoy his squirming under the scrutiny of mom or dad), go take it back (with force) and be sure he understands you are not happy, or perhaps, steal something of his that is of equal or greater value (war tactics) and do not relinquish it until your possession is returned with the interest of a humble apology or some other offering to appease your wasted time in punishing him.
Sound familiar?
You know this has been you. I know this has been me.

Perhaps something less obvious.
Public transportation (or even in your car in traffic) and you get jostled/bumped/roughly moved aside/edged out of your lane/the jerk didn't use a turn signal/the crazy driver is going 5 miles under the speed limit/etc... Who hasn't been tempted to rear end the slow guy? I know I've considered plenty how I could not be blamed for the accident. Who doesn't want to imitate Dane Cook's hilarity when they're bumped and say something "condescendingly nice" like, "oh, no problem," before they apologize (because they weren't going to)? You get the point.

Last example:
You are poor, you go to grad school (this may be a personal example, not making any promises...) and somehow all these other students in your class who are not as poor as you have scholarship money that is need-based. Wait a minute! You may not be good at math (and I'm terrible), but certain comparisons aren't that hard to make. Why are you taking out two loans and they aren't? Who's in charge here?!

I think the point is clear. In the practical life-lessons of the daily grind, we find ourselves tired, hungry, over-heated, uncomfortable, maybe a little sick, suffering in some capacity, and even if everyone else is too, we're still entitled to feel good. So what do we do? Well, we're angry, at life, then at everyone else. Maybe at ourselves too. So we're a little short-tempered, and we might lose patience faster than usual. "Charity" isn't the book we're reaching up to take off the shelf. It's more akin to "How-to-make-someone-suffer-without-being-caught."

I'm not saying our "excuses" aren't legitimate. They are. We do get worn out. Our nerves are raw. We all need more rest, more peace, more quiet, more stillness, more sitting-in-the-rain-and-letting-life-be-still, more fireplaces with someone we love, more smiles, more laughter, more children-who-are-adorable-bringing-us-joy, more hope, more silliness, more... more generosity.

Welcome to how this is all going to be explained.

Generosity.

The Prayer of St. Francis is perfect here (and anywhere, really):
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.


When we allow charity to come into our hearts and make its dwelling place there, we discover a fountain of goodness that we had no idea was inside of us. The beautiful gift of God is that this fountain truly is always present in us (as the Holy Spirit is always with us), and we need only seek the Lord's mercy and grace to bring the waters flowing into our hearts and out into our actions, words, thoughts and prayers. I think of St. Bernadette who discovered the fountain of water below the dirt where she was told to dig. Embarrassed and mocked for her actions, this young woman so full of faith was able to bring to the world immesureable miracles through her seeking God's will and allowing him to bring the waters flowing, in her life quite literally. We can all share in healing waters coming into our souls and our world when we go to him who has said very frankly, "Jesus stood up and exclaimed, 'Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him.' He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive." - John 7:38-39
 
So the first step of being a Christian who hungers and thirsts for righteousness is to be one who hungers and thirsts for charity, for generosity, for the Holy Spirit, for mercy and forgiveness, for purity of heart, for truth.
 
When these become the dominating themes of one's thoughts and desires, even when we are attacked (physically and spiritually) in the subway or by our families or in our places of work, we will confidently know where to turn. Just a few moments of quiet and stillness, just a quick prayer of peace, a deep breath of the Holy Spirit can return our hearts to the worship they were made for, the Lord's will, and away from our own angry or hurt dispositions.
 
On the more spiritual plane, I think it is fair to say that when we hunger and thirst for righteousness we seek the Truth above all else.
This truth, we expect and mean to be the Lord's will, in our lives and in the world. Whether our decisions are to eat a meal or to date someone, to apply to a school or to call an old friend, big or small, effecting only ourselves or many, they need to be placed first before Jesus. Truly.
 
I do not mean that we should be overly scrupulous and need to pray, "Lord, should I be reading this blog now?!" (He'd probably say yes, though). What I mean is that when we place our hearts before him and our wills and our bodies before him and we say (everyday) - these are yours, Jesus. I am yours. This life that I have, it is yours. I am your child. Save me, care for me, instruct me, hold me, guide me, love me. I am your servant. Send me, inform me, enlighten me, use me as you will. I am your lover. Lead me deeper into love with you today. With Our Lady we can say simply, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be it done to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38).
 
Then, with a heart disposed to belong to a lover and King who has condescended to love us purely and fully forever, we will find that each decision we face will inevitably belong to him as well. He will guide our wills and hearts. We can trust our hearts, because they are his. So we can move through life in confidence and hope, because we hunger and thirst for his satisfaction, for his pleasure, for his joy. These are fulfilled when we love him. When we believe in his love, so much that no sin or failure will ever keep us from him, because we will believe in his mercy and forgiveness above all else. So our hope will ever motivate us to seek him, to seek Truth, to know it and follow it, to proclaim it and live it. To witness to truth. To teach the truth.
 
Let us pray that our understanding of what righteousness is will ever be the wisdom of the Lord, and that our hunger for it will ever be satisfied as we place our trust in him.
Amen.

Beatitudes, Part III

Matthew 5: 1-16


"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land."

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear this beatitude is the following words that flowed from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, full of the Holy Spirit -
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." Luke 1:46-55

The meek are not the downtrodden, the lame, the uneducated, the loathsome, the weak, the gullible, the easily manipulable. No, meekness does not translate into cowardly or spineless. Quite the opposite, really. Meek could be translated into "wise" or "honest" or "full of truth" if it is to be best understood. The meek are they who realize both the goodness of the Lord, the mercy and generosity of God, and their own poverty and littleness. Not to confuse this with "poor in spirit," the meek add an active lifestyle to this knowledge. The meek are those who willingly choose to submit to God's will, to other's who are harsh or take advantage of them, who accuse them falsely, who judge them wrongly, who may be unkind, for the glory of God and his plan, and not because they can't fight back or win. Most often the meek are more confident of the truth and could easily prove the injustice of the other if they so desired, yet choose not to because they understand a greater purpose and a more generous end than those who are their accusors or attackers.

The first definition in the dictionary for Meek is: "humbly patient or docile, as under provocation from others." The importance here is that those who are humbly patient, who are meek, know that beyond a doubt they have already won. Rather, Him who they are fighting for has already won. His battle tactics can seem unconventional, but when he says to lay low and not rise to the bait of the ignorant or those acting out of hurt or confusion, but rather to love them in the justice that he loves them in, they obey, freely.

I can say there have been a number of times in my life when I have come under some small persecutions and have handled it poorly. Sometimes I attempt to be meek at first, but then my sense of self-righteousness gets the better of me and I find a way to disprove them or "try to talk to them, to make them see their wrong." Sometimes we are certainly called to challenge others to love better, to respect others more, to respect themselves more, etc... We are never called to vengence though, and God tells us in Scripture to leave repayment of evil up to him. We are to imitate his Son, who rather than snuffing us out like the gnats we can be, he endured our greatest ridicule and silently went to the cross, even when he was given opportunities to defend himself. Such was his love. He asks us to seek to live in the same manner, to try to forgive when forgiveness seems impossible, and moreover then to forget, as if it never happened. He asks us to accept his unconditional love, and then to relate to others with that same love we've received. There cannot be conditions or stipulations or requirements. Cool or awkward, pretty or ugly, best friend or uncomfortable person on the subway, we are all his sons and daughters and he yearns for us to invite everyone else into the love he is freely handing out.

So blessed are the meek, for they have received first love, then wisdom and understanding, and then perseverance in mercy and generosity, so that they are livnig testimonies to the love of Christ for all men.
Let us be as our Lady and never hesitate to proclaim the greatness of God, for those who are humble he will exalt. Amen.