Go With Him the Extra Mile

"Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles." (Matt. 5:41)

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus thought about Simon helping him to carry his Cross at the moment when he said that statement during his Sermon on the Mount.

What is brewing in my heart is the figurative "carrying of the cross." This is directly linked with some meditation on the Scripture concerning Our Lady: "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart" (Lk 2:19). Mary, from the early moments of the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit, finds herself the keeper of something special.

I wish there were words to express how I understand this. Analogously, she was given a garden to tend, a special, secret place, set aside from the eyes of the world. She was the guardian and protector of that little piece of land, and her charge was to keep it safe and to bring forth fruit. She tilled the soil and watered the ground as best she could, until she began to see the fruit of her labor springing up. And then when that fruit was ripened, she gave it away, that it might bring the nourishment to others that it was intended to give. She let go of something that she had spent years working on, caring for, guarding and tending, so that it could go and die. And in death, the seeds which were within it spread themselves far and wide, so that there was a rich harvest of new life brought forth from its death. And in that way, she saw the fulfillment of her work taking even greater measures than she could have hoped for when she first started to work. All of this, she kept in her heart. All of this work, growth and death, she witnessed with the eye of her mind and understood in the wisdom of her heart.

In the practical, Mary did experience what all pregnant women experience, which is a unique understanding of allowing life to grow within you, a life that is intrinsically linked to your own, and inherently dependent on you, and yet... is absolutely separate. There is a mind and heart, a body, organs, blood running through veins that are not yours; yet, they can only be there because of your mind, heart, organs, blood and body. It is a strange balance of a deep bond that is still separated by two bodies. Even while Our Lady had the Son of God growing and developing in her womb, she knew how completely "his own" he was. Even while she scarified her public status, her physical comfort, her appetite, her previous freedoms, all for the sake of the little being inside of her, she also knew and understood that this being was not hers.

This understanding of the unity between the mother and the child, but also the true and real distinction, followed and continued to grow in her heart as her child was born and matured. The Son, who at one time could not live without her physical presence, would grow to be a man who was completely independent of her. It is the human condition. Yet, she kept these things and reflected on them in her heart. I think it is safe to say that even when Jesus was far from her, traveling, preaching, teaching, living an independent life, she still knew something of that interior sense of union that she knew while he was inside her womb. I think this is what it means to "keep someone in your heart." Presumably, the most unique or profound experience of this "keeping someone in your heart" is possible for a mother and child. But even for those who simply love someone else, this is possible.

It is the profound "holding someone in your heart," even if they do not know of your love, or do not want your love, or simply cannot appreciate your love, that is what I think of concerning "going the extra mile" with someone. Many people, really all people, suffer. Many, or all, of the people we know and are acquainted with will carry heavy burdens at one point or another. Perhaps we will be able to help them. Perhaps the circumstances will allow us to make them meals, send cards, spend time with them to help them cope, give them a hug, etc... Perhaps the circumstances will be that we are hundreds of miles away, and we really cannot be a physical presence to them in their time of sorrow. What then?

This is where we can still go another mile with them, even if it is only in our hearts. We can carry them within. We can lift and shoulder the burden with them by remembering them in our prayers. We can make sacrifices and offer penances for their sake. We can turn daily to the Lord with our petition, and present them to him for healing, consolation, mercy and love. We can say, in essence, "Lord, as long as I live, and as long as I breathe, let each breath be part of my prayer to you for that person, for his or her sake." We can bear them in our mind and heart as we go through our daily work. In each circumstance, whether it is a joyful one or a sorrowful one, we can thank God and petition him on their behalf.

Is this not what a mother has to do for her child? Is that not what it really means to live for someone else? To go another mile with anyone, be it a spouse, a sibling, a parent, a child, a friend, or even a stranger, is to accept that the first thing we can do is to welcome that person into our hearts. Perhaps there are many other very real and physical things that we can do for that person. Perhaps there is nothing material or physical that we can do for that person. Either way, the first thing we must do is to take them into our hearts. There we can tend a little garden of empathy, of understanding, of patience, of mercy, of forgiveness, of prayer, of solidarity in suffering. There we can be a balm for the wound they bear, even if unknown to them.

We have to have faith, a faith that can bear fruit, so that what we bring into our hearts we offer to God for his cultivation. We have to imitate our Blessed Mother in bearing with her Son from the moment that his tiny body was growing within her until his body was pierced for us all on the Cross. Even there, her faith allowed her to hold the darkest of sufferings in her heart and to return it to God. And the seed that died bore such an abundant harvest! We have to believe that God can and will do good things with the prayers and petitions we offer, even if we never know about the fruit that comes from it.

Let us not be afraid, let us not even hesitate, to hold others in our hearts, and to go with them each mile that they need.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1085   
"In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father 'once for all.' His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is—all that he did and suffered for all men—participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life."

Just a quick thought concerning our most Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, as he prepares to resign this coming Thursday, February 28, 2013.

The single line, "The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life" can be understood in a number of ways. An obvious, and perhaps the most appropriate, understanding is that of the liturgical sacrafice of the Holy Eucharist, where we do what Christ did in offering himself to the Father "in memory" of him, as he instructed his Church to do. At that time, when Christ is made truly present on the altar, we participate in his Paschal Mystery in a very significant way. In some sense, we can understand how this "unique event of history" which was the offering of God himself for the salvation of man is also an event "which does not pass away," but which "abides," as we know that throughout the two thousand year history of the Church, the Eucharistic sacrifice continues to be celebrated and remembered, and the Church continues to be sanctified through this Sacrament.

What this also should remind us of is the prayer of the Church. The liturgy is prayer. The celebration of the Sacrament is a prayer. Our offering of ourselves to God along with the offering of Christ through his minister, the priest, is one that must always be prayerful. It is also intercessory. It is also sacrificial.

Each time we are able to praticipate in the Paschal Mystery through the Holy Eucharist, we must share in the offering of self which Christ made on our behalf, and we must recall that the offering he made was in intercession for us, was sacrificial of his very self, and was in all ways a prayer to the Father.

We too, especially in the season of Lent, must find ourselves making new our offering to the Father. We need to enter into a prayer that intercedes for the Church, for others, and for ouselves. We need to make sacrifices which will draw us closer to the truth, to the Heart of Christ, to the ability to "worship in spirit and in truth." We must pray, in the Mass, with Sacred Scripture, with our bodies through our penances, with the Church through the liturgy, with our families and friends, and certainly with our daily lives, in the work that we do. We must invite the Holy Spirit to be with us as we rise, that the whole day that we have been given, we will in turn offer back to the Father. What else can we learn from the Paschal Mystery if not that our very lives have the power and the value to be something worth offering to the Father. We exist out of the gift of love that God has given to us. We therefore must take the gift of life and offer it back to our Creator, just as the Son has revealed to us.

This is precisely what I believe the Church is being taught by the witness of our Holy Father. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of the call upon his heart to intercede for the Church; to serve the Body of Christ particularly through prayer and fasting. His leadership is one that we should not fail to follow now. This Pope has been a blessing to the Church in so many ways, and his witness of life is not over yet. This final act of sacrifice is ongoing, because as long as Pope Benedict XVI lives, he will be offering himself to God in prayer and fasting on behalf of the Church, for the sake of us all, that we will more fully enter into the Paschal Mystery. This is the kind of "rebirth" that Nicodemus questioned Christ about. He asked Jesus how a man could be "reborn." It is the process of entering into the sacrifice of Christ that is precisely how we are made new. Jesus told us that we must be made into "new wineskins," because the wine of the New Covenant will burst our old skins, as they are dried up and ill prepared.

We need to enter into the event of the Cross, in our prayer, our fasting and our intercession, so that with the Holy Father, we too will participate in this "unique event of history which does not pass away" and so that we can truly hope to share in the ongoing event of Eternal Life one day.

Year of Faith, Scripture Reflection

The Gospel reading for today was Luke 18:35-43:

As Jesus approached Jericho
a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging,
and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening.
They told him,
"Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."
He shouted, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!"
The people walking in front rebuked him,
telling him to be silent,
but he kept calling out all the more,
"Son of David, have pity on me!"
Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him;
and when he came near, Jesus asked him,
"What do you want me to do for you?"
He replied, "Lord, please let me see."
Jesus told him, "Have sight; your faith has saved you."
He immediately received his sight
and followed him, giving glory to God.
When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.

Let us reflect for a moment about the faith of the blind man.

Few of us know what it feels like to live this life without sight; many of us know what it is to fear the unknown. I assume that some of the feeling of fear that we experience about what we cannot anticipate or predict is similar to the feeling of fear one would have when he cannot see.

This begs a question of us; how courageous is our faith? How fundamental? How complete?

In this Gospel reading, we hear of a man who is rebuked for his audacity. He is told to be quiet, and yet he throws himself into making a ruckus. He will not be hushed.

When Jesus calls the man to himself, he asks the man what he desires. His simple answer of "Lord, please let me see," is certainly one of faith in the power of Jesus. However, this supplication comes after the man has shown how strong his faith is in that he would not be quiet, would not be hushed, and disregarded the social norms for the sake of drawing near to God.

It is his audacity that is the sign of his faith, that comes before he even asks for healing.

Perhaps we need to keep this in mind for our own lives. How many times in our culture are we, people of faith, hushed? How often do we feel the oppression of social norms keeping us from reaching out to a stranger in need or speaking up about the truth when our friends or family are misguided? I know how easily I can close my mouth and think of what I would say, if I were free to do so. Well, why am I not free to do so? Fear? I seek acceptance. I seek to not "rock the boat." I seek to remain in good standing with people, and therefore I would rather not confront them with the truth or rebuke them.

Certainly, the virtue of prudence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit assist us in judging accurately when we should or should not speak or act. There are times when it is not appropriate, or when we could do more detriment than harm. But this cannot be the case every time. Nor should it be the case most of the time. We should be practicing a much more fear-less faith! Truly, we should be practicing the proper fear, which is fear of the Lord. It is he who is our final judge, not society, culture or our family and friends. None of them will judge our eternal life - only the Lord. So we must remember who it is that we should be calling out to - Jesus - and no one else.

The very end of the Gospel states that "When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God" - perhaps we find this hard to imagine in our own day and age. Yet, if more of us acted in great faith, and had the audacity to proclaim the truth of Christ even in the midst of opposition, perhaps more people would find themselves believing again! Jesus performed miracles both because of the good of healing and because of the confirmation of his identity before the people. Those who might have doubted were perhaps brought to faith by seeing this blind man's faith rewarded so beautifully.

We must keep in mind that God's will is not our will, and that his plan for our lives is perfect. While we may not be able to see into the future and anticipate what that may mean, we must act daily with the faith that is a testimony to the power and love of our Savior. We should pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to pour out grace and to strengthen his gifts in our lives. We must pray to be courageous if we hope to see the miracles our world needs.

Hold it!

Sometimes the first thing I want to do is close my eyes. Turn off my ears. Hold very still. Listen, but with my other senses. My skin. My heart. The blood pumping in my ears.


What do I learn? What discoveries are made?


There seems to me a rather wide gap between what is selfish and what is self-aware. The bridge that is built between these two needs to be kept by a wise gatekeeper. Yet, I find that it is sometimes much harder to pass to Mnt. Self-Aware than it is to laze on Selfish Island.


There is a bit of wisdom tucked away in the need to be aware of oneself, wisdom that opens some rather challenging doors of self-gift.


It is often remarked upon that the small things within your closest friends or family members that irritate you or draw your disdain are often the very things within yourself that need to be amended. We don't always (or even often) appreciate the truth of our own weaknesses or failures flung in our faces. It is not very consoling to be so reminded of the things we must struggle with.


Yet, how can we be a "one-who-gives," when we are not a "one-who-knows"? You cannot give what you do not have, and you cannot adequately give what you do not know you have.


Let me be more practical for a moment; if I want to be a good soccer player, I must first practice many hours and train so that I know I have the skills to offer to my team or future team. If I wish to sing I must train and stretch myself so that I know what skills I bring to a song. If I want to be a friend, I need to know myself in order to know my own opinions, thoughts, dreams, desires, etc... which I can than offer to my friend.


In essence, we cannot reasonably approach relationship with others if we do not first have an awareness, or a relationship, with ourselves. How can I relate to another if it is not first from myself? Likewise, how could I receive the gift of another (be that a kind word, some good advice, a listening ear, or any other shared experience with a friend) if I do not understand how to receive it, or where to apply it?


I suppose this seems funny, or at least obvious. Yet, I find that our culture is an open invitation to distraction. I have been known from time to time to say that I have ADD tendencies, but I know that is not true. What I do know is that many people struggle to be "present" to day to day tasks, to coworkers, friends, family, shopping, driving, etc... because we do not have the experience of practicing stillness. We do not have endless hours of quiet, or even one hour. We do not have days without entertainment, or even moments. We do not have to wait very long for anything, and when we do, we are either impatient or distracted.


Sometimes I like to imagine what it must have been like for those first American pioneers who settled a bit further west into the country. No electricity, just oil lamps and fire wood. In the winters, especially in the areas where heavy snows are, there must have been little to no venturing out, especially for women and children. A house the size of a small room, with two, three, four, five, or more people sitting inside. For months. Without being able to leave. Can you even stand the feeling that is creeping over you thinking about that? I think I would be crazy in the first few days!


Yet, for whatever struggles and failures and pains that type of living must have been, those who endured it most certainly obtained certain virtues we, as a culture, do not value or posses. For whatever the suffering, those who lived in such simplistic ways certainly had the strength of mind to hold their attention for long periods of time. I can only imagine that they were experts in various skills and trades, for all the time they would have devoted to practice and improvement.


I am not trying to advocate for cutting off water supplies and trying to recreate the 1800s, but I am admiring what I know I need to learn from them.


It is a skill that I find most needed when in prayer, when communication is at it's "least explicit" or at least not the typical form of conversing. I do not get phone calls or skype messages or facebook inboxes or texts from the Lord. I have to find somewhere quiet, peaceful, and secluded when I want to speak with Him. I have to still my mind from it's 6,000 mile and hour runs. I have to breathe. I have to close my eyes to the craziness of life around me and turn off my ears. I have to come to myself, come to know who I am, and I have to be honest with that knowledge before the Lord.


One of the reasons I believe so firmly that this type of stillness needs to be practiced more and not given up or forgotten is because there is so much we still need to discover about ourselves! I never leave a time of prayer and peaceful communication with the Lord and am not surprised by some level of knowledge or insight or confidence in myself that I did not know before. Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in Gaudium et Spes, "Christ...fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear...[and] that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself" (22-24). 


This is the integral and immediate point: that when we enter a certain stillness and allow ourselves to be aware, we come to know both the Lord and ourselves much more certainly. Likewise, this knowledge gained enables us to simultaneously love the Lord, our neighbor and ourselves more fully. It is always easier to be patient and sincere with a friend when we know someone else was just patient and sincere with us. It is also always easier to forgive a friend or make great efforts to help a friend when one has done the same for us. And someone has done the same for us, and much more (that is, Jesus Christ).


So if you find that in the mornings you cannot keep your head on straight long enough to remember to pack your lunch before you rush to the car, or you cannot recall to get quarters for doing your laundry because of the laundry list of things you have to do in one day, chill. Stop. Hold it. Relax and breathe. Say a "Hail Mary," or try to imagine the Cross. Picture your idea of heaven. Best of all, find a chapel with Eucharistic Adoration. Stop for ten minutes and just be with Him. Stop for an hour and really pray. Whatever efforts you make, let them be for the stillness. 


When we are bearers of peace in our hearts, the peace that only Jesus gives, we will be amazed at what we learn. We will discover the strength to address our weaknesses that we find so unattractive and to work on them. We will discover the determination to improve what things we find lacking in ourselves. We will discover the patience to endure things which are hard or sorrowful or trying. We will find that others recognize in us a sense of relief and comfort. We will be like miniature safe havens for the very weary in our world. We will be places of peace for them because we will know Who is our peace and where our peaces comes from. We will be able to give what we have, and know what we have to offer. 


The cliche "take time to smell the roses" is just so true. Take time to calm down, and look around. Take time to look around inside yourself. Take time to invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate your heart. Breathe in deeply the fragrance of the Love of God, which is potent and stirring. Do not let the culture of progress, deadlines, noise and distraction leave you alone and unsure of your own self because there was no time for that. Make time for that. Self-reflection leads to self-awareness, and self-awareness means that you can spend more time in the heights and less time trying to make it across that shaky bridge that can lead to selfishness.

Can You Stand Still?

I am an interesting combination of personality. Most would call me an extrovert. Those who know me well understand my deep introverted side. I am both. I need people. I love people. I am the oldest of seven kids... you can't escape needing people when you grow up in a small house full of people! I also need space, and quiet, and alone time. You also can't escape needing solitary times of reflection and introspection when you live in a small house full of people!

Yet, I was that was before we moved into a smaller house and before we had as many people in the family. I've always needed both. You can ask my parents. When I was eight and nine I would go wandering off in our woods, thinking I'd been gone for 20 mins only to find it had been hours and they were freaking out that I might have died or something (you can sense my contrition, can't you? lol). At the same time that I yearned for this solitary adventure, I would return to life so refreshed that you would barely be able to contain me. My parents were always encouraging me to "go outside and play"... being old enough to understand what that means now, that translates to "you are WAY too hyperactive, so go get out your energy and don't come back until you'll stop breaking things and running your siblings into dressers..." (oops, again). Yeah.

So many things never really leave us, and I am in so many ways just the same, although I've learned very well how to mask it all. Those who sit next to me most often in class know that my leg is always bouncing or my fingers tapping or my attention span spreading to include fun comics and little notes and side comments that may or may not pertain to the lecture (most recently those comics depict me hitting my head against a wall repeatedly). And on the other side of life, I get home and am all too happy to become a recluse, playing guitar or reading or just being alone.

In the spiritual realm of life, this is easy to understand, even if in psychology is is less so. I have two options. Go to prayer, and actually listen. Really receive. Allow the Lord to tell me who I am. Receive his love. Or go to prayer and... not receive. Fail to really hear his words. Fail to know myself anew.
When I receive, his Love is abundant. It overflows. There's a crazy torrent running through me and there is no practical way to handle that aside from allowing it to spill all over the place onto others around me.
When I think I am static and that perhaps, I already know myself... that is when I suffer. When I decide the wineskin isn't quite worn out, and it could stand another day or two before I need to face getting re-outfitted, that is when I can't handle the world.

How can I give if I do not receive? Moreover, how can I receive from others (and the world at large) if I do not give? There needs to be some emptiness for what others bring to have somewhere to go. I can't pay attention or care or be compassionate or focused if there's just too much inside that isn't being moved through me. That's where the introvert can cause real problems. When my introspection does not lead to greater self-love and then greater self-gift, but instead remains fixated on whatever issues or problems or skills have caught its attention. Then I remain self-absorbed and unable to really relate to others.
On the other side of the coin, the extrovert can cause just as many problems, because the more I get caught up in the "high" of joy that I often have when I am around friends and family, I assume a level of "everything is good in life" that also means "no need to pay attention to myself" and therefore means "suddenly, I don't know who this girl is anymore." I hope that makes sense.

The point is that the need for balance is very evident. Too much of a good thing never made more sense than when dealing with our hearts and souls. To go to the Lord and receive and hear and allow him to speak is vital and necessary. But to stay there and never go out and give from the abundance, to never get emptied so that I can return to be refilled.. that's no good either. I must enter into a continuous (and dare I say, habitual) cycle of being given to, and then giving from that wealth. Once I am a pauper again (which should be the next day), I will return for more of what I need. The "cycle" shouldn't scare me, but encourage me. I should be thrilled that every day is another point of discovery, of starting over. Not that anything has been lost from the day before, but exactly the opposite: everything from the day before was so potent that who I am now ought to be someone new. I ought to be changed, touched, reformed, affected in some way, from my interactions with the world and God.

Truly, the balance is generally much harder to maintain than simply going to prayer with an open heart. There are weekends or weeks where no time is "your time" and you just loathe people by the end. There are also weekends or weeks where the emptiness of the house or the lack of relationships is the loudest echo that you've ever heard, and it perpetually goes on, and you fear you will never hear the end of it. Neither are good, to this extreme. Both are needed, when appropriately given.

The stillness we need to move, and the movement needs to be stilled.

It's all about Love.

You know those funny Christian songs that repeat things a lot and seem to say very little other than that God is good and we love him? Sometimes, I need those songs. Their purpose is a feeling more than developed lyrics. Sometimes they offer one profound thought, or one focus for your heart, and the rest of the time you are just being kept on track while you allow that single idea to settle and take root in you. Songs like "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord"... not that much of a new concept. But when you listen to the whole song, you understand the basic theme of praising God, in the good and bad times. Or "Lay it Down".. even more simple. You surrender yourself and your life to God. That's the crux, and the whole song. The songs that are a few short lines that find themselves repeated are often the ones that most swiftly lead you to true worship. You aren't worrying about following the notes all over the staff, and you aren't concerned with the words that are coming up either; simply, you enter into prayer. 

Now, please don't misunderstand me, I am a critic of music. Especially certain types, which I will not get into here. And likewise there are certain forms that I am very devoted to. The bands I love most are those that I find ingenious - those whose lyrics turn simple thoughts and phrases upside down or inside out, and allow me to think about life in new ways. I love poetry, and I love thinking outside of the box. I love imagery and analogy. The bands that run along these lines are those that I truly enjoy. However, that does not mean that each genre of music does not have it's place. I love jazz, and classical, and orchestra and latin chorus and punk and rock and boy bands and girls who sing their hearts out... each in their own place. When I need to get out some frustration, I will go run to my fun/angry/punky/yell-about-life songs. And when I need to be quiet and find peace, or even more importantly, pray, the Christian songs that are "worshipful" are the best. 

That being said, when I write a song that is in that style of worship-music, I get excited. I love repetition, when it is good. However, often when I go back I find myself disappointed with the music because it seems so tame or emotionless. That is when I recall that the purpose was for me to get over myself and into a place of communication and prayer, a place where I can thank God for life specifically in the form of music. In that case, I can't allow my annoyance that this song is nowhere near the symphony I feel God actually deserves. He wants to embrace us. Some people, I know, do not find music in anyway prayerful or worshipful, and these "Christian songs" are the worst. That's fine. I have found them to be excellent ways for me to pray, especially when I am with friends or family and can praise together. 

So here are some lyrics that were running through my head today. Granted, you can't hear the music (because I'm not going to put it on youtube right now.. I'm supposed to be writing a 10 page paper, haha), so you don't know the melody and that is part of the experience. But as it is, I wanted to put the words down. I wrote the song a few years ago, and periodically it just gets stuck in my head. 

We stand before your body.

We stand before your blood.

What gift could ever measure up

to the Love that you are?

So take my heart, it's all I have.

Take my faith, it's in your hands.

Take my life, all of my heart,

Take my fears and show me you.

We stand before your body,

and we stand before your blood.

What gift will ever measure up

to the Love that you are?

Take my heart, it's all I have.

Take my faith, it's in your hands.

Take my life, all of my heart, 

Take my fears and show me you.

Behold the body of Christ.

Behold, the God of the universe.

Behold the King of the world.

Behold, the Lamb who was slain.

If all that I am,

Would be only yours.

What could I fear?

What could I fail to love?

I'll be very honest here, I love music and poetry. I love words. I'm not always good at them though. Sometimes it comes very easily, and sometimes I feel like I can't find that natural rhythm that is usually there. But when I do find the current that is running inside of my veins and allow myself to float along its course, I usually find myself surprised at how simple it all is. Sometimes I want to be able to develop something truly literarily spectacular, but I understand that if what inspires me is sitting still in a tree or by myself somewhere, I'm probably going to reflect the simplicity of my inspiration. And once again, I'm just not a genius. :)

So anyway, go read St. John the Beloved, St. John Chrysostom, St. Therese of Lisieux, or any other of those wonderful saints whose poetry is truly gripping if you need something beautiful to mull over. In fact, read John Paul II, especially The Jeweler's Shop, a play he wrote. 

But take time to allow things to settle inside of you. I cannot tell you how often I need to slow myself down to hear my heart beat before I carry on with life. I see myself running off like the little four year old I was, getting lost in the mall because I forgot to look at where my mom was going, I was so intent on getting to whatever temptation the toy store may have held. Nothing has really changed. Deadlines, papers, friends, "fun," etc... the things that demand my time and effort and energy and presence begin to get me running toward them too fast, much too fast. Then I arrive and realize I left "me" behind. That is a terrible feeling, realizing you didn't bring the real "you" along because you were in too much of a rush. Give yourself time to breathe, to think, to discover, to wonder, to be. 

Allow the world to present to you its gifts. The dawn awaits your eyes, awaits your heart. Those pinks and purples and blues are painting the clouds and buildings and that ever-so-gentle sunlight is peaking over the horizon, hoping to meet your eager gaze. But where are you? Staring at the jerk in front of you who just cut you off in the four lane highway that you aren't getting anywhere fast on? (That would be my life.) The dawn is still there, right in front of your eyes. Do you want to see it? Will you allow it to bring its beauty before you? Gosh! How often this world, and PEOPLE, come before us, offering us their goodness. How often your coworkers have some small personal achievement in the day that is truly worthy of your appreciation. Although it may have been a minute task, they preformed it with the beauty that only they could bring to it. How often my coworker's issues mean little to me. What they have to offer goes overlooked because I can't slow down. 

Let us take some time to stand before life. Before God. Before others. Before ourselves. Who are you? Who is the Lord? Who are these people in your life? What is this life? Why do you do anything that you do? We never want to bother to ask these questions because the worst fear might just come to be true - that we aren't doing it for love, but because we are slaves. We cannot bear to live that way. It is a half-life. God has set us free. Free from sin and free from a world that would teach us that love isn't real, or isn't to be trusted. How foolish. God is the only true and eternal thing, the one who holds all of life in place, and we would believe that he is a fantasy or fictitious, just so that we don't have to face the pain that is entailed in love. What are we thinking? Pain is because we need to grow. Love is because we are. Love is how we are. To be should be to love. If that is not our life, we must find ways to make it our life.  Nothing else is going to satisfy! Nothing is truly enough, other than what is real love. We will always feel incomplete without Him. Even when we do pray and do strive to love, we face satan's temptations and the world's lies, teaching us to distrust the goodness and faithfulness of our Father. How often I am still tempted to disappointment and loneliness because I listen to the lies instead of the truth! The more we are in the habit of putting ourselves somewhere where we can be still and quiet, and truly pray, the more we will be able to weed out the truth from the lies, and hear only the voice we should hear. The only voice that speaks in love.

I'll end with my favorite image of all time. I've placed it on this blog before, but the face of love never gets old.

Amen.

Wait in Joyful Hope

I hope that this post will be one many have been waiting for, though perhaps unknownst to them, and that it will bring much joy to the heart... the kind of joy that comes with the peace of Christ, the peace only God can give.

This is what the Christian life is about everyone. It is truly that simple. Of course, the words of Christ echo in our minds, "Be perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect," and we wonder at him. How could that be possible? How could we even hope to be perfect, we who are so far from God? Then we hear proclaimed over and over, "love one another as I have loved you" and "love your neighbor as yourself" and "the greatest of these is love"... again, this is a theological virtue that comes with grace. How can we be expected to live like this all the time?

But perhaps we can draw from Blessed Mother Teresa here, for she understood how basic this call to holiness was, how truly simple Jesus' message to the human race was. We cannot be gods, nor can we reach the perfection of our Father in heaven... but we can learn from his Son the ways of holiness, by walking the same path he walked, with the same heart he held, one of perfect abandonment, holy trust, full peace at his Father's will. Jesus waited. He did not know his hour, the time or even the way in which he would bring about the Father's will. He waited for it to be revealed to him in the span of time which he lived on earth. Of course, being God himself he could know everything, for he was before all time and space existed, and he will be after all is gone. He is the Alpha and Omega. Yet, he chose, in love, to take humanity upon himself, and in this form of a slave he surrendered himself to a childlike faith in his Father, so that though he could never be separated from him, being the Second Person of the Trinity, he also chose not await revelation of things to his mind according to the Father's will.

Mother Teresa said, "Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus." This translates into every area of life - we must expect that even in our journey to holiness, on our walk to the Father, we will be asked to lay down our control, to set aside our plans and our dreams and the ways we think that life should go. We will be asked to get in a boat and see where it lands, and to endure the storms that come up, and to rejoice when the weather is beautiful. We are asked to trust beyond just our family's health or our daily safety. We are asked to trust beyond the things we cannot control anyway. It is more than that. It is meant to be more than that. It must be more than that. We need to trust will ALL the things we can control. Our jobs, our co-workers, our friends, our families, our homes, our cars, our toothbrushes, our sandals, our pillows, our cats or dogs, our coffee...everything. This is how we learn to live as Christ exemplifies, in the same childlike trust and patience.

Moreover, this waiting on the Lord, this trusting and obedience, is hand and hand with two virtues - hope and joy. We wait upon the promises of the Lord, because "he is faithful even when we are unfaithful," and "hope does not disappoint," and "his word does not return void but accomplishes the task for which it was sent." His promises do not let go of us, and his promise is for truth, for love, for life. His promise is for fulfillment in joy, for a return to our home and our Father who loves us. His love bought us at the price of his Son, his Son's love purchased us at the price of his own flesh, his own life. His promise cannot be denied. So our hope is firm, and should grow more firm with every passing moment. As we live, we learn more and more of his goodness, his mercy, his grace working in our lives. This should be testament enough for us to never lose our hope! And this hope, this glorious gift of God, must inspire in us a true joy. Even in the darkest nights and longest struggles, and in the most lonely and forsaken times, joy should be the waves we ride upon because his promise is alive in us, it is Christ the Lord.

Consider Our Lady, Mary most holy, as a young woman who receives a great message of salvation. It is a message of hope, and a promise. Yet, so often we typify her as anxious or nervous, or at least a little fearful, for she could be stoned to death in Jewish law for becoming pregnant illegitimately. Yet, when she is kneeling in her room, surrounded by the glory of the Lord, hearing the sweetness of the angel's words, I do not think there could be any room for fear or doubt. Before that love, all fear is driven out, and all lies of the devil are disspelled. I believe that Mary's fiat was given as one wholly aware of herself, wholly possessing her heart, mind and soul, and yearning to give them to one who was revealing all the love in the world to her! Her Creator was coming to her as a lover, yearning to draw her near to his heart, nearer than she already was, and in response she yearned to give over her obedience, her life, in joy! In joy because what could she fear? What could anyone do to her when God the Father loved her so? What could this life bring that would be too bitter to taste, or too great a climb for her to endure? We know that her life faced perhaps the most bitter climb of all, to be the Mother of the Savior who would lay down his life for all men, and yet she still loved, and still waited, and still trusted, because her hope was God himself, and his promise cannot be broken, and in this her heart and soul found the joy to conquer all the evil of sin.

So my challenge to myself and all Christians is to pray for this grace. We need to seek the grace to practice this kind of faith, one that is hopeful at all times, and through this hope, joyful at each moment.

I know all too well that I fail at this daily. But if I could learn more of the silence, the internal meditation that leads to the awareness of the Lord's love alive and dwelling in me, the Holy Spirit made known in my heart... surely I would find the joy and hope I need in any situation? I believe it to be true, and the truth will set us free. So until that day when we are reunited with our Father, let us wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  


And for fun meditation, a few Scripture passages on "hope" from the RSV:
Matthew 12:21 "and in his name will the Gentiles hope."
Acts 2:26 "therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will dwell in hope."
Acts 17:27 "that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us."
Romans 4:18 "In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, 'So shall your descendants be.'"
Romans 5:4-5 "and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us."
Romans 8:24-25 "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
Romans 12:12 "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." 
Romans 15:2-3 "'in him shall the Gentiles hope.' May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."
Hebrews 3:6 "but Christ was faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope."
 Hebrews 7:19 "(for the law made nothing perfect); on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God."
Hebrews 10:23 "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful;"
Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
1 Peter 3:15 "but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence;"
1 John 3:3 "And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."