Can there be Charity without Mercy?

What exactly is "charity"? An idea? An action? A virtue? A disposition of the mind and heart?

Charity is all of those, and more. Charity can also be a way of life or a world-view. In fact, charity can be a state of being - and that is God. For as we know:

"God is love" 1 John 4:16.

If charity is love, and love charity, and God is love, than God is also charity.

But, echoing the Scriptures, who has ever seen God, but the Son, and those to whom the Son reveals the Father to?

So how are we to know what charity really is, or what it really means?

I have always found it very interesting that the Gospel of Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount ending with Jesus instructing us to "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect," (Matt 5:48) and the Gospel of Luke says in a similar fashion and yet differently, "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

This is certainly insightful when it comes to contemplating what it means to be "charitable."

To "love" someone, to look at another in "charity" or with "charity," is to imitate our heavenly Father. We have been taught and believe that God is perfect. Yet, we know that we cannot be perfect, and certainly not in the same way that God is perfect, since he is infinite and beyond us even while he comes to us so intimately.

Certainly, this question has been raised often in the history of the Church - Lord, how are we to be "perfect"?

On of the first or most obvious answers is that we must be "merciful." The interchange found in the Gospels between "perfect" and "merciful" assists us in understanding that God's perfection, God's ultimate charity, the very being of the Blessed Trinity who is a Communion of Love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a perfection and charity that is mercy.

Now, we have all heard that "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom" (1 Cor 1:25) and "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" (Is 55:8). What is the context of these statements? St. Paul is speaking of the "paradox of the Cross," that the Son of God would become man and suffer and die for the sins of men so that we might have hope for eternal life. And Isaiah's passage states immediately before those words:
"Let the wicked forsake their way,

and sinners their thoughts;

Let them turn to the LORD to find mercy;

to our God, who is generous in forgiving." (Is 55:7)

The Lord has revealed that God's mercy is a mercy that can be surprising, sometimes even confusing, and often incongruent with what "human wisdom" might dictate. Yet, Sirach 2:18 says:

"Let us fall into the hands of the Lord

and not into the hands of mortals,

For equal to his majesty is his mercy;

and equal to his name are his works."

Here we should recognize that the glory and splendor that are proper to God who IS, cannot be separated from the mercy of God, which is both his wisdom and his works (charity).  We may often think of "justice" or "what is right" in a sense of retribution. We tend to have a sense that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," and that this applies to all things, including human relationships and how we see and treat others. Retribution might seem like a term for someone who purposefully seeks revenge, or who goes to some length to "pay someone back" for an offense (such as trying to cause someone to lose his job, or making up falsehoods about someone so that she is disliked or unwelcome). Yet, the truth is that we often carry this type of attitude around with us in daily life, even when we may not realize it. Even small incidences of a friend who fails to show up for a meeting time, or a coworker who "drops the ball" and leaves you with all of the hard work, etc.. can bring us quickly to a point where we are at least hard-hearted toward that person for a while, if not that we desire to "return the favor" at some point. Even when we aren't acting out of revenge, per se, we might still have an attitude or disposition of vengeance. For example, perhaps later in the week that same friend tries to make up for the missed date by asking you to set up another time for meeting. Perhaps you agree, but then find that you have other things you might prefer to do when that meeting time comes. How quickly and easily we can justify calling that friend "apologetically" and saying that we cannot make it, and feeling very little guilt or remorse since it is "fair" considering that he or she did the same to us. Yet, if we paused to think about it, we should be all the more aware of how hurtful being stood-up can be, since it hurt us enough that we were upset with that friend. It is so silly, but we feel "justified."

This is what we can call "human wisdom," which is not God's wisdom. This is what we can understand as not God's justice, not the Lord's mercy, not our Father's charity, and not in line with the perfection that is Love, that is God.

Truly, I do not think that we can be charitable without also being merciful. There will always be things that we must forgive in one another. Even things that are in no way intentional or even personal choices, such as someone who might simply offend us because of body odor or because we find him or her unattractive. Perhaps we can keep in mind that while the cliche of "skin deep" can be no more than a cliche, it can also be a very real danger. If we see only what is on the outside, while our Father in heaven sees the whole person, especially the heart and soul, then can we really hope to be charitable if we are not also merciful, and merciful in the way that acknowledges just how similarly sinful we all are? We all share the common bond of humanity; and from that, we all share the fallen nature of sin, and even when we have received the great grace of Baptism, we still carry the concupiscence of our nature. Therefore, while there are many differences that set us apart from one another, there is also the common ground of being a sinful man before God, a creature who has failed and rebelled against his Creator. We all need mercy. We all stand in need of forgiveness, and a forgiveness that we cannot give to ourselves! Only the mercy, the charity, of the one who created us can heal us and restore us, can actually recreate us, can aid us in becoming more perfect. We must always keep in mind that if we should desire to love as God loves, and be perfect as our Father is perfect, than we must strive to be merciful as our Father is merciful.

May this last week of the Lenten season be a time for us to enter more deeply into that paradox of the Cross, into the mystery of the mercy of God. Perhaps we can receive the sacramental grace of Reconciliation, and find ourselves more intimately united with the wisdom of God that is always charity and mercy.

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?”

Exaltation of the Cross

The Gospel reading for today's Feast is the following:

"Jesus said to Nicodemus:
'No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.'
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him."
Jn. 3:13-17

Today I heard a reflection on the Scripture proclaimed at mass that I was truly moved by. Bishop Cisneros, Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn, meditated on what the "Cross", especially the symbol of the Crucifix, really means for us in our modern day culture. He discussed the Cross depicted in art, and also how it is worn in jewelry. He shared a story that contrasted the more "beautiful" or "artistic" vision of the Cross that is common today. He told us of his first day of school, how he accidentally walked into the Sacristy of the Chapel rather than the hall to the classrooms, and as it happened, the Chapel's large Crucifix had been laid on the floor for cleaning. He thought he saw a man who was dead and bloodied lying on a wooden cross, and he ran to his mother to say he did not want to go to school! The Bishop made the point that we often desire to escape or elude the crosses that are present in our life, because they do contain fear and suffering, and we would prefer the more gentle and pretty ideas.

The meditation went a little further, and drew upon the specific act of the Crucifixion, and what the Cross is meant to symbolize - the great act of love, that is remembered in every celebration of the Eucharist. The Cross is meant to be a sign of love, one that we would look to for encouragement, peace and joy, and yet it is understood either as something feared and avoided, or as something emptied of its meaning.

This made me ponder the images of the Cross of the Crucifixion that I have hung in my office, or in my house, or that I wear around my neck. Am I wearing this Cross because I feel protected by it, as if it is a charm that wards off evil? Sometimes, yes. Do I hang these images of the Cross out of habit or out of a limp attempt to remind myself that I believe, and that believing means doing? Yes. How often to I embrace the Cross? How often to I kiss the feet of the corpus hanging on the Cross in my room? How often do I pray in acceptance of suffering? How often do I thank the Lord for things that try me? How often to I embrace the Cross out of love, just as my Lord and my God embraced the Cross out of love for me?

I thought about how I wear my wedding ring all the time. I certainly believe that I will be married whether I have that ring on or not. Yet, I want the ring there, as a reminder of our promise, commitment, and of our love. Is this not the same attitude that should go with wearing a Crucifix around my neck? Should I not know, already and without doubt, that I belong to Him who loved me, whether I have a symbol of it or not? Yet, should I not desire to be reminded every day that love means action, and that action means sacrifice, and sacrifice means accepting the suffering and doing so in thanksgiving.

I recently read something that was discussing how it is unlikely that someone in our day and age would be asked to give his or her life for Christ in martyrdom, but that we can still choose to live in a sacrificial witness of Christ. It may very well be true. But moreover, there are many Christians who are being martyred, although perhaps not in this country. Yet, in this country or anywhere that persecution is not taking place, the call and challenge goes out to each Christian that we must make present, that we must witness, that we should re-present the Cross to the world in our humble service, silent suffering, and joyful acceptance of all that we are given from God, easy or difficult.

I pray on this feast for new grace, that the Holy Spirit would fill me with a sense of the depth and breadth of Christ's love for me and for all, specifically manifested in His willing death on the Cross. The second reading at mass was from Philippians, and the first half read:
"Brothers and sisters:
Christ 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,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross."

Love, if we believe in the Lord, should be defined in these lines - that we would understand that it is emptying, humbling, and giving of our very self that is the most authentic and genuine act of love we will ever be able to show.

May the Lord assist us in our journey to His arms.

Mercy.

Too many thoughts have been dancing through (and colliding within) my mind, and at this point its fair to say the pinball machine is ready to break down.

My friends, mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy! Divine mercy, real mercy, living and generous, form-taking mercy. Mercy alive and breathing. Mercy as a child. Mercy as a man. Mercy on a cross. Mercy as King.

I was reflecting on what true charity is. On the mountain that we all have to ascend to reach that unbelievable challenge uttered by Christ, "Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." That journey is uphill. That journey is full of sharp rocks and steep ascents. That journey is also filled with beautiful landscapes and invigorating experiences! Oh! The colors. The breaths of air that seem to have been saved for your lungs alone. The intoxicating scents of mountain air that teach you about a way of living that our little world has forgotten. You pant for more. Nothing ever tastes as sweet again. You are lost to it. These are woods you will happily wander into, map left behind, rejoicing at the idea of being lost. This is a trail your feet know without being told. This is a way that is clearly marked, simply by the desire in your heart. Follow the love inside of you! Run when you cannot bear to walk, and you will gain ground. Sing when you are stirred within, laugh at everything. Smile because it is too ridiculous not to.

Do not allow yourself to get over it. Never get over it. There is never room enough in you to exhaust all that you can take it! There will always be more beauties, more glories! Hans Urs von Balthasar says that glory is the fullness of beauty revealed. That means that glory is what you experience when your heart is too captivated to do anything else but adore what you have been captured by. And the mountain, the ascent to charity... it captivates. Not only the mountain, but the journey itself. Every step! Every breath. Every stone that digs into our feet. Every inch of dirt we move through. Every drop of rain or dancing stream or fierce wind or starry night or great oak. Not just these things in and of themselves, but our participation in them. Our encounter with them. Our harmonies to their symphonies. It is the moments of "them being" and "us coming to them" and "together, it being better." And forgive me for all the mountain imagery because this is just as applicable to the eyes of one meeting the eyes of another, or a still moment shared between old friends, or the explosion of a family reunited with one another (at least, that's the caliber of sound when my family is together), or the smile of teammates when the goal has been accomplished or the pride in a professor's eyes at the student who has excelled. All of this is what is part of our climb into the heights and depths of charity.

Today at mass the priest said, "Humility is not putting yourself down or thinking less of yourself, it is simply the truth." This is the epitome of true charity - mercy. The truth is our littleness, and the truth is also God's benevolence. The truth is our pitiful infidelity and the truth is his UNFAILING CONSTANCY. He is always there. Always. Never leaves us. Never gives up. Never ceases to love. Gosh! Do we have ANY idea of what the words "never" and "always" really mean? How could we? Look at our society, at our culture, at our world! Everything is so quick, so instantaneous, and sadly, so inconsistent. If there is any quality that is most endearing and most healing to me in the merciful love of God it is certainly his perfection made manifest in his unstobbable and eternal and infinite and constant being. Never means, never. There is simply no time, no space and no place that you could be that he will not already be there and will not follow you to. Just waiting to pick you up again, waiting carry you back home. "What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, 'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep" (Lk. 15:4-6). And this is Mercy.

Who among us can turn to our brother after he has insulted us and genuinely love him, forgive him, even get up and make him something to eat because he is hungry? Who among us wouldn't consider this complete foolishness!? He didn't even apologize! He might do it again! Will he learn nothing? Are we to be so poorly treated? Oh, but was this not exactly the life of our Lord? Is this not the entire love story of the Scriptures, of the Hebrew people and God, of the Bride (the Church) and the Bridegroom? When have we ever given him true cause to lavish the grace upon us that he does? The justification that we could never earn for ourselves has been generously supplied by the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God. This is mercy. The truth is mercy. Humility is acknowledging the truth of the mercy of God.

Everything is mercy. The grace to have our hearts stirred by the beauty of the ascent to charity throughout our lives, even the sorrows and the darknesses and the freezing cold nights... that is mercy! The grace to see, that is mercy. Just to open our eyes is mercy; to have ears to hear, that too is mercy. He is embodied Mercy. Love made flesh is mercy. The Eucharist is Mercy.

O Burden, Why art thou?

Silly weight of the world, get off my shoulder!

You know, between the readings of mass emphasizing things such as persistence and humility and obedience and conversion and all of the personal aspects of my crazy life, I felt it was a good time to reflect on how to handle the weight of the world.

 

I think I'll call it a spiritual irony that I read "The Diary of a Country Priest" this semester as part of a book forum for my graduate studies. I will post an entire reflection on this book because it may be in my top five favorite of all time. However, as usual, I have no time and should be working on a 20 page paper. Yippee.  

I truly think that most people will find when reading this book (which I implore you to do) that they read their own hearts within the priest's story. His miserable littleness, and often thwarted works made him so severely aware of his failings. He simply seems to not possess any of the needed talents for being good at what he has set his life to do (serving his little community). 

Yet, they did not cause him to despair. In fact, he seems to become more reckless than ever as he realizes how little any good fruit that came was of him. 

Huh? You might ask. 

We need to be like this. Our hearts have to look at this (very sick) amount of work we have to do and just smile. For me it's the laundry list of reading and writing, along with all those pesky chores like feeding myself that never seem to go away. The thing is, it is not us who accomplish things. We try, we give our effort, even when our effort is minimal... but the Lord is the one who accomplishes. 

Some of my favorite Scripture passages that have been dancing around in my head concerning this are as follows:

"O LORD, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done." - Isaiah 26:12

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where (I) am going you know the way." - Jn. 14:1-4

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts. For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it." - Isaiah 55:8-11

The Gospel today was about the servants who were given certain gold coins and then who gave the master more on his return or the unfortunate one who buried the coin. It isn't really "suggested" or even "highly recommended" that we open our hands and trust that the Lord will fill them. That is the only way we can be a healthy part of the Body of Christ. I'm renewing the Consecration to Mary through the preparation of St. Louis de Montfort and today the reflection covered the apostles going to Jesus and saying, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." The humility present here, or perhaps more specifically, the child-like virtue, struck me deeply. I mean, really, how often do I think "I wish I knew how to pray"? Not too often, to be honest. But in response to such simple honesty, Christ gives such a gift! He tells them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test" (Lk 11:1-4). 

Please be struck with me! 'Hey, Jesus, how do you pray? What are we supposed to say? You tell us that the pharisees are being hypocritical, but that is all we've ever seen. What is the right way? How do we approach God?' And Christ says, 'Call him your Father. Honor and worship him. Be humble. Be his children. Yearn for the coming of his kingdom. Trust that he will give you all you need. Be contrite and ask forgiveness and forgive each other. Ask him to spare you and protect you from evil.' Seriously? 

Between God giving us graces/gifts/virtues/talents that we are meant to share and serve with (but not that we earn or merit - they are gifts!) and being taught to pray in a way that is an intimate and daily journey through life with God as Father, how could we ever get so wrapped up that we think things depend on us?? Oh, but we do! We do so very often. I know I do. And then the stress, the anxiety, the fear.. it eats us alive. I can't sleep on Sunday nights because every Monday there's that worry about all that must be accomplished. Really? I mean, we DO have to use what we are given and put our whole energies into things, I'm certainly not advocating laziness! But the difference is the peace in our hearts, and the peace in our hearts is regulated by our self awareness of God's perfect Love and mercy or our failure to acknowledge his power and goodness. He's either perfect love or he isn't. He's either all powerful or he isn't. He either humbled himself to shed his blood on a cross in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago so that we could live one day forever with him, or he didn't. Since I'm holding here that he DID, I think it's fair to say that it isn't up to us. The Lord will always provide, we need to go before him in faith. We need to humbly trust. We need to never lose hope.

One last word of Scripture for encouragement - 

"The eyes of the LORD are upon those who love him; he is their mighty shield and strong support, A shelter from the heat, a shade from the noonday sun, a guard against stumbling, a help against falling. He buoys up the spirits, brings a sparkle to the eyes, gives health and life and blessing." - Sirach 34:16-17

So get that dirt off your shoulder and keep your eyes fixed on Him.

Father, forgive them.

Yo peeps.
What can I tell you? If I had time to write the million things running through my head right now you would not have the time to read them all, that is for sure.
Do you know the feeling of your mind blowing up (thus making that convenient black hole we've all been told about) and everything being sucked up in a vacuum that then just deposits it all back where it started?
One day it will fall more neatly into place. For now, this is what I can grasp.

We have a very short time to learn how to love.

Love is not what we think it is.

We are no longer taught how to be humble. Therefore, only in those beautiful souls who seems to have been given such graces will we be able to see this humility brought to life. When we do see it, we must love it. We must want to imitate it with all that we are. We must pray for this grace.
Innocence is far from being something laughable. No, innocence is inexorably bound in purity. And purity goes nowhere without her sister, humility.
And these are the family members that strive to build true love in the heart of man.

We do not even understand what humility is!

Oh, it is a disposition of thinking less of yourself than of others. But it is far more, far deeper than that. No one can help those thoughts that spring into your head of their own accord that demand that you laugh at what someone is wearing or doubt the sanity of another human being or perhaps wonder if they've ever heard of soap, etc... Humility must be a disposition of the soul. It must possess you, as any passion would. Yes! Can you imagine being passionately humble? You must be. We must be. That is the path to love.

To be humble is to see ourselves as God sees us. He is the only Truth, and so humility means to see ourselves in truth. But once we see ourselves this way, that vision must be our only reality, our only truth. It cannot be that we are sometimes so sad and pathetic, or sometimes so weak or selfish, or sometimes so proud and vain, but other times not. No, we are always those things. And therefore, we are always in need of forgiveness, always in need of mercy, always in need of assistance and grace!

Does this mean we can do no good? Of course not! Quite the contrary! Just because we are so empty, we can be filled. So we can do great good, we can love with great love. But by this fundamental qualification - Only by the Lord. Only in His Spirit. Only because of grace. It is He who loves in us, through us.

Oh! There's a great song by Jeremy Camp called "Empty Me" that has the general idea down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl85EU33jgo

Moreover, what is charity? Oh! Don't we see how humility and charity and purity truly come hand in hand, as little ones running to us with open arms, waiting for us to embrace them and hold them close? It is so simple! If my heart is pure I will be looking to see with eyes of purity, with a vision of the Lord. I will see in another his hurt or her sorrow, his need or her emptiness, his joy or her excitement, and I will share these things. I will bear them within me, take them within me. I will do what Christ did, and assume the suffering and joy of each of my brothers and sisters. I will be focused on those things, and on aiding them, serving them. I will not be worried about their appearances or social skills or statuses, etc... How could I be so blind? How could I fail to understand the other? Purity helps me to see, and humility helps me to take them into myself. Charity is the seal, the bond over life that binds me with my brothers and sisters and reveals our common hope.

If I want to love, I will learn more of humility. I will pray for the grace to be truly humble. Every time I begin to be shallow, judgmental, hard hearted, or even hateful, I will begin to pray to be changed. Transformation is never easy, and building habits takes time, and assuming virtues can take a lifetime - but we must! What kind of life will we have lived, if at the end we cannot say that we've learned what true love is? What kind of reality do we think we exist in? It is a reality where Love pervades all things! It is a reality where Love is our glue, our fiber, our reason. Will we stand outside of that reality and mock it? Or refuse it entry into our lives? May it not be so!

Oh Lord, make our hearts like unto thine. Sweet Mother, defend us from all evil.

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.

Beatitudes, Part I

I have decided to do a series of short reflections on the beatitudes. I continually feel that through Scripture and the lives of the saints these important words of Christ are reinforced time and again as the pathway to holiness. I would like to share some of this walk with others through discussion.

So let us begin with the words Jesus has for us -

Matthew 5: 1-16

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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.
Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I think it is a fair place to begin with the example of Mother Teresa. This woman's life was a witness to love, a love that she bore so deeply inside she seemed to be made up of nothing but that love. The Blessed Mother would, of course, be the most perfect example of the poor in spirit. Mary was able to receive the message from the angel who said, "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk. 1:35), because she was so pure that there was nothing taking up space in her other than the readiness to do God's will.

Lives that are fully spent for others, expended to the furthest drop of blood, exhausted to the point of death - these lives are those that burn brightest, that last the longest, that seem to live on decades and centuries after the life is over. They are the ones we praise, we admire, we seek to imitate. They are those who have discovered the true human strength - that of overcoming the self for the sake of love rather than of being conquered by the self for the sake of self-love. One seems so good, to care for and look out for one's own good and own interest, but the other is the one which is heroic and valiant, because it defies what comes to us "naturally" and seeks the better nature that all mankind was given before the fall. These lives have faith that cannot be shaken, and hope that does not disappoint, for they chose to believe fully that it would not. We see miracles happen in their lives and after from their good works, we discover deep sufferings they never complained of or beautiful thoughts and prayers that were never shared, and we marvel at how they could be so free, and so alive. We crave that.

We face a culture that considers the f-word to be common knowledge, and "poverty" to be akin to a curse word. To be poor is to lose all respect, to have no morale, to not be worth someone's time. At most, to be poor is to gain pity. It is never a virtue, and never something to learn from. Then again, culture rarely tells us to "learn" something from anything, because we aren't even humble enough to believe we need to be taught things, much less that if we are in a position where we are being taught things that we could consider it a good thing.

There we find the true thing to pity. Bl. Mother Teresa spoke to this exact problem. She said,  "Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat." Real poverty is when there is too much inside of a heart or soul to be able to open to love, truth, beauty and goodness. It is sad and pitiful, for so many claim that they are full, happy, satisfied, acheiving good things, and yet are struggling and empty of what truly satisfies. The Lord satisfies. His love satisfies. Nothing else.

So what Jesus is speaking to here is not the poverty of hunger or of material things, nor the poverty of the wealthy or lonely who choose not to let him in, but the poverty of a heart that has freely given over themselves to their Lord that he might lead them as he wills.

This is an epic freedom, a total one. It allows the soul to soar to new heights, and the heart to remain steadfast in great trials. It is frightening, at first, to open your heart and soul to this love. It can come as a torrent, sweeping in and taking with it things that we thought we held dear, or things we thought defined us as who we were. It can become a purifying river, that will cleanse us of many things we did not even realize we were clinging too - things that are the building blocks for the walls that will not let God's love in. Yet, when we have the courage to allow this bursting-love to come, to move within us, to take over... we are amazed. Life looks so different through eyes that see it in truth.

This truth is one that recognizes three important things: first, that God is God, Jesus is Lord, the Spirit is our life, and in the Trinitarian love we find our truth, our "why", our purpose, our hope, our reason, our fulfillment. The second is that we are nothing, empty, little, pitiful, sinful, children who rebel and think we deserve good things when in truth our behavior and our lack of love deserve only punishment.  The third is that the Lord's love is merciful, that mercy is actually the active existence of this Love, of him who loves us, and so in reality, the more we recognize our littleness, the more we pray for the grace to be humble, the more we delight in our embarrassments and humiliations, the more we are grateful for every little thing and do not think anything is of our own doing, nor that we deserve any of what we have, the more we can recognize that all of this life is a generous gift, the beautiful and the sorrowful, the more the Lord lavishes his love upon us and delights in our repentence, and refills our souls abundantly with his love.

Moreover, we become addicted to this glory, to the pure peace and hope that comes from being broken and empty, and receiving from him his mercy and love in abundance. Not that we sin more to receive more mercy, quite the opposite! But we are able to see more and more our imperfections and failures, and while we are ashamed and even horrified at how cold and stony are hearts can be, we realize all the more the deep tenderness and gentle love that the Lord pours over us.

In the end this poverty of spirit becomes one continual laughter, a joy that wells up deep within, as we enter into the logic of God. He, who is all powerful beyond comprehension, who holds the universe in his mind and could end it all at any time, He prefers that we have free will. He, though not needing our love at all, desires it to be given to him, freely. He choses that we would have the choice to give him our hearts or to hold them back. He desires that we love like he does, freely, generously. He gives us a lifetime to understand it and so many mercies and graces, people and situations, that we might ever more deeply comprehend how low he has stooped to save us, how far down he has come to be near us, how marvellous his love truly is. So we must laugh, we must giggle, we must rejoice! He is in love with us, stupid, frail and evil though we can be. He still wants us, still yearns for us. His love does not have limits, nor conditions. So we have to laugh, because it would seem that nothing but our own stubborn hate could keep us from him. How ridiculous! We fall at the smallest temptation - we forget him, ignore him, tell him we'll be sorry later, cheat and lie and even hope he won't notice. Yet, there he is, scooping us back into his hands, laying us against his Sacred Heart, softly singing to us of his mercy and love. It almost seems as if we could not escape him if we tried. But we can, and sadly often do.

So let us pray for the grace to be poor in spirit. Whether materially wealthy or not, whether someone who feels close to the Lord or not, whether stuggling with deep rooted issues or feeling happily care free, we all need to be humbled, we all need to pray more, we all need to seek grace and mercy, and we all need to ask God to make us his servants, children and friends.

Let us love one another as Christ first loved us!