Blessedness beyond pain

Friday, March 31, 2017

I wrote yesterday about the enormity of God’s mercy and His love, of this boundless goodness that is too great for us to comprehend and too magnificent for us to define or describe. I also wrote about how the Pharisees simply couldn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah because they couldn’t “wrap their minds around” the veritable explosion of religious understanding that he came to bring.

The tension between the Pharisees and Jesus is depicted in the daily Mass readings at this point in the Lenten journey. Today we hear words which are understood as a direct prediction of the Passion of Jesus. The statement comes to us from the book of Wisdom 2:1, 12-22

The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright: ‘Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings. . . . He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. . . . With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.’

These were their thoughts but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them, and they knew not the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense of holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.

I am reminded of the way Jesus was mocked as he was dying on the cross: “If he is the son of God, let God come down and save him.” (Mark 15:31-32; Matthew 27:42)

Of course, what they fail to take into account is the fact that the work of God and the power of His love and grace is not limited to this life only nor to what we can see and experience here in this world. So much of it, in fact--may I dare say the greatest part of it--is experienced beyond this life and beyond the present reality of what we can see, touch, taste, feel, hear or experience.

Please take this as a consolation. As Paul said, “I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) Reread the Beatitudes and understand that peace and happiness and blessedness are the Divine reward for what we undergo here and now, and those things, once given to us, will never come to an end.

We enjoy times and even years of peace, blessedness, consolation and joy. These are just rewards and gifts from God, and a sign to us of the great destiny that awaits the blessed. Give thanks for the good things you enjoy at this present time, and if your present time is marked by pain and anguish, look beyond it and realize that the good that is in your destiny will far outpace whatever you may have to endure now.

I say this often, and I’ll say it again here: God loves you and wants you to make it to heaven.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.

Limitless Mercy

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Our minds are finite and therefore our vision of the world, and by extension of reality, is limited. This is one reason why the Pharisees simply couldn’t grasp or appreciate the enormity of what Jesus was trying to tell them. The Gospel passages for this time in Lent are depicting the confrontations between them and Jesus (see John 5:31-37) on this account and why they considered Jesus to be a blasphemer and a heretic. (Certainly issues of power, control and pride also figured in to their refusal to accept him, but I’m not going into that today.)

Since our minds are finite, our vision and understanding of God is limited as well. As we progress in the spiritual life we begin to see how God is so much greater than anything we have conceived of up until this point. We could adopt a mantra that says, “No, God is even greater than that.”

I’d like to consider this in terms of one important reality: the expansiveness of God’s mercy and His ability to forgive, and to do this, I turn to a couple of passages from the Patristic era that I think you might find consoling or inspiring.

Saint John Chrysostom (344-407) On the Incomprehensibility of God:

“If our sins are countless that is all the more reason for going to him, for we are the sort of person he is calling. . . . He is called the God of consolation, of mercy, because unceasingly he consoles and encourages the unfortunate ones and the afflicted, even if they have committed thousands of sins.”

Saint John Climacus, (7^th century)  The Ladder of Divine Ascent

“The mercy of God has no limits, nothing is too great for it.”

“If the passions lord it over us and we are weak, let us with great confidence offer to Christ our spiritual weakness and our impotence; let us confess them before him. He will help us irrespective of what we deserve, on the sole condition that we descend continually to the bottom, into the abyss of humility.”

Isaac of Nineveh (7^th century)  Ascetic Treatises

“When God sees that in all purity of heart you are trusting in him more than in yourself . . . then a strength unknown to you will come to make its dwelling in you. And you will feel in all your senses the power of him who is with you.”

Finally, concerning our inability to see God in all His glory, I like this little Sufi explanation by al-Ghazzzali:

“. . . just as the bat sees only at night and cannot see in the daytime because of the weakness of its sight, which is dazzled by the full light of the sun, so also the human mind is too weak to behold the full glory of the Divine Majesty”  (in Essential Sufism, p. 76)

God bless you!

A Sufi Parable

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

I offer you a wonderful Sufi story that reminds me of a parable of Jesus.

“A man of piety was following Christ. A thief seeing this thought to himself, ‘If I sit in the company of the pious one, perhaps God may for his sake forgive me.’ Prompted by humility in his heart, the thief started condemning himself for the impious life he had led. He considered himself unfit to sit by the side of such a saint. On the other hand, the pious man, seeing the thief seated by his side, reprimanded him lest his shadow corrupt him. Immediately Christ heard the Divine Voice say, ‘Tell the pious one and the thief that I have washed clean the scrolls of both. The virtues of the pious and the sins of the thief are washed clean. Now they must start life again. The virtues of the pious are washed away because of his pride, and the sins of the thief are washed away because of his humility and repentance.’”  A parable of al-Ghazzali in Essential Sufism, © Harper Collins, San Francisco, p. 63

Can you remember the parable of Jesus where two men went to pray? The Pharisee thanked God for his virtuous life, essentially congratulating himself that he wasn’t like the other man praying in the back of the temple. That man kept praying, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus explained that the second man went away justified, while the pride-filled Pharisee did not.

Have a nice day!

God bless you!

A helpful mantra

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by. (Psalm 57:2. My paraphrase.)

This is a helpful verse to learn by heart and repeat frequently.

When you’re trying to meditate but distractions keep assailing you: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When faced with temptation: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When troubled by an old memory: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When you catch yourself thinking unkind thoughts about another person: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When someone breaks a piece of your equipment (this happened to me today): Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by

When there is chaos and noise all around you and you are craving a moment of quiet: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by. (I have used this verse on a crowded subway train.)

When at a contentious meeting and you are seeking some distance from the fray so you can regain perspective: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When you need to take a “three-second retreat”: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When anxious, frustrated, discouraged, fearful: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When anger is about to get the better of you: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When you need to remind yourself that God is taking care of you at all times: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.

When lonely: Hide me in the shelter of your wings, till the storms of destruction pass by.  (Remember that you are never less alone than when you’re alone with God.)

Might I suggest that you use this verse as a mantra for a few hours or even a whole day, repeating it as often as you can, especially when walking from place to place. You will be pleased with the effect it produces in your spirit.

God bless you!

Hardness of heart

Monday, March 27, 2017

Here is a Lenten prayer from the Orthodox Liturgy for Lent by Ephraim the Syrian (306-373):

Lord and Master of my life,

take far from me the spirit of laziness, discouragement, domination, and idle talk;

grant to me, thy servant, a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, love;

yea, my Lord and King, grant me to see my sins, and not to judge my neighbor,

for thou art blessed for ever and ever. Amen.  

“Laziness” refers to a certain hardness of heart which is the result of self-centeredness and pride. Hardness of heart causes us to become insensitive to the needs of other, forgetful of God’s love continually being poured into our hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit, unable to see beyond appearances, unable to savor and wonder at the beauty of nature and other human beings.

“Idle talk” can be lying, talking about magic, a frivolous outlook on life, an obsession with greed, words of discouragement and despair, and, as Olivier Clément puts it, “fascination with nothingness.” (In this, I can’t help thinking of people who faithfully read publications like People magazine.)

The remedy for these things is the cultivation and practice of the virtues, the things Ephraim prays for in the third line of the prayer.

The fourth line of the prayer calls us to “wake up,” to reflect on our own personal sinfulness and inclinations to sin. All too often, when we grow forgetful of our own condition we are more prone to judge others; in addition, judging others is a good way to distract ourselves from the important work we need to do—to direct our attention within where we can be honest about all those things that cause us to need to pray, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Olivier Clément (The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 131) speaks about the condition of a soul which has been freed from hardness of heart. Perhaps this might also be the basis for a good Lenten prayer:

the heart, he says, “may become an antenna of infinite sensitivity, infinitely vulnerable to the beauty of the world and to the sufferings of human beings, and to God who is Love, who has conquered by the wood of the cross.”

God bless you!

Some Sufi wisdom

Friday, March 24, 2017

I like to read texts from other religious traditions. What I find very often is that these texts speak of spiritual truths that are common to all the world’s religions. There is a name for this; these bits of wisdom are known as Perennial Wisdom. A second thing that happens when I read these texts is that they are related to the wisdom of our own spiritual tradition and often shed new light for me upon Biblical texts, especially the Gospels, which I sometimes take for granted because they are so familiar to me.

Today I offer you a Sufi text by the 13rd century Sufi Master known as Ibn ‘Arabi, often called “the great.” This text is particularly appropriate for us as we make our way through our Lenten journeys.

“This world is a place of preparation where one is given many lessons and passes many texts. Choose less over more in it. Be satisfied with what you have, even if it is less than what others have. (Note: Saint Benedict teaches the same thing in his Rule.) In fact, prefer to have less.

“This world is not bad—on the contrary, it is the field of the hereafter. What you plant here, you will reap there. This world is the way to eternal bliss and so is good—worthy to be cherished and to be praised.

“What is bad is what you do with the world when you become blind to truth and totally consumed by your desires, lusts, and ambition for it. Our master the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), in whom wisdom was as clear as crystal, as asked, ‘What is worldliness?’ He answered, ‘Everything that makes you heedless and causes you to forget your Lord.’ Therefore the goods of this world are not harmful in themselves, but only when you let them render you forgetful, disobedient and unaware of the Lord.”

And from today’s Gospel: you shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:29)

God bless you! Have a nice weekend. See you on Monday.

The Lowest Part of your Need

Thursday, March 23, 2017

For our reflection today I’d like to draw your attention to a single phrase from Dame Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love:

“The highest prayer is to the goodness of God, which comes down to us in the lowest part of our need.”

Breathe deeply, and let the breath you inhale represent “the goodness of God,” and allow that breath to enter deeply into your soul and spirit, more deeply than ever before. Let it touch those inmost parts of you which you would prefer remain hidden not only to others but also to yourself, except in the darkest hours of your existence.

Let the breath of His goodness touch that very part of you which you fear may drive Him away forever. You fear is an illusion, because the goodness of God’s love cannot be driven away by anything that lies within us if our intention is to turn to Him and stay open to the workings of His grace. Breathe deeply. Drink deeply of His love. Let the food of His Eucharist, which is Him in all reality, nourish that part of you which is starving, thirsting, literally dying for lack of Him. Let Him come to you in that place and tend to it, feed it, succor it and envelop it in his love. If you are held by Him there, then you are held by Him everywhere. Nothing will keep Him from you. Consider the words of Saint Paul:

For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)

And now, for a moment, think on your enemy. Think on the person who causes you the most distress in your life, that one person you find it so hard to get along with, so difficult to endure, the one you most dislike, the one you find it most difficult to think of with kindness, forbearance and love. Consider that this love of God which has touched you so deeply also touches the other person in the very places you find it so hard to tolerate. Consider that the process of God’s compassion is unfolding within that person as much as it is unfolding within you, and that person is loved by God as deeply and completely as you are yourself. Perhaps, with God’s grace, thinking like this will help to ease your dis-ease and help you to begin to see the other as God sees—even if just only for an instant, even if just only for a small opening in time.

And then return to yourself. Consider that this part of you which is so addicted to disliking another is also a part of you God’s goodness is reaching down to embrace and enfold. Let His loving compassion continue to do its work in you, because that work was begun long before you ever came upon these words. Make a prayer to this goodness, the goodness that “comes down to us in the lowest part of our existence.”  Amen.

God bless you!

The "Cloud of Forgetting"

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

I wanted to meditate last night, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing, but my mind was so filled with people and plans and thoughts about things that have been happening, that instead of reaching a meditative state I found myself becoming more and more frustrated and anxious. And so I offered this frustration and anxiety to God, saying to Him, “I’m sorry, Lord, but this is all I have tonight.” And a verse from the psalms came to mind: “O God, come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me.”

And I kept repeating this prayer and found my spirit moving towards a greater peace. As I continued to pray these lines in harmony with my breathing, the prayer was eventually whittled down to two words: “God” on the inhalation, “help” on the exhalation. And as I continued to breath and to limit my thinking to just these two words, the thoughts and cares and plans and people and issues faded away.

Finally, in my thoughts I found myself in a concrete cell---only big enough to hold me as I was seated in my chair. The cell was completely bare and there was no entrance nor exit, and I found that I was completely alone with God. I continued praying my prayer words and found that my prayer was heard. It was not frightening to be in this cell; no, I felt safe and protected and free to direct my loving thoughts only to God while nothing else could get into the cell to distract me. This state continued for the rest of my meditation time, until at last the bell I use sounded to end the period of meditation. And I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.

This morning during my lectio period, I discovered these words of Dame Julian of Norwich. It is almost as if she were speaking directly to my experience last evening:

It is God’s will to be known, and it pleases him that we rest in him; for all that is beneath him is not sufficient for us. And this is the reason why no soul can rest till it is naughted of all things that are made. When it is willingly naughted, for love, so as to have him who is all, then it is able to receive spiritual rest.

Finally, the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing calls us to put everything made underneath a cloud of forgetting when we go to meditate.

. . . you must put a clout of forgetting beneath you, between you and all the creatures that were ever made. . . . . I mean not only the creatures themselves, but also their works and conditions. I exclude no creatures, whether they be bodily creatures or spiritual; nor any condition or work of any creature, whether they be good or evil. But, to speak briefly, all should be hidden under the cloud of forgetting.

Use what helps, and leave the rest aside for now.

God bless you!

The trials of Saint Joseph

Monday, March 20, 2017

The Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of Mary

Today we honor Saint Joseph, the silent, humble and upright man whose role in salvation is both crucial and privileged. Twice he was visited by an angel in his dreams, and three times the angel’s word to him uprooted and changed the trajectory of his life.

He was planning to set Mary aside and not go through his marriage to her when it was discovered that she was pregnant. That culture would have called for a public and cruel punishment for her since she “apparently” was a great sinner. The angel explained the true circumstances of her pregnancy to Joseph, and he changed his plans for her and took her under his care. We hear the story so often we may gloss over the humanity of Joseph and overlook the terrible trials he bore both when he discovered that his betrothed was with child, and again when he realized that his destiny was to become the chaste husband and guardian of both woman and Child for the rest of his life.

We can and should go to Joseph at those particular moments when our world is turned upside down and the “rug is pulled out from under us,” or when we become aware that our destiny is going to be so much different than what we thought had been plotted out to us.

Joseph is the strong and silent figure who withstood the twistings and turnings of his own life.

His second visit by an angel summoned him to take his fledgling family and flee to Egypt, to leave everything he had known and go to a land which, as a Jew, he must have feared and resented, since the connotations of this voyage could very well have seemed to be a “return to the land of slavery.” The third visit by the angel told him to leave Egypt but not to return to his original home, but rather to go to an insignificant town known as Nazareth so that he might avoid the danger which awaited him in Judea.

How many times in our own lives has an angel protected us from harm which awaited us and sent us in an unexpected and perhaps alien direction for our own good? We might never know that this happened to us, but I would offer you a suggestion, if I may: Look at the disappointments in your life; look deeply enough that you can see the hand of God in what was so difficult to accept or make sense of.

There is one event in Joseph’s life that we learn about and it happened when Jesus was 12 years old and the family was in Jerusalem for worship. They couldn’t find Him, and what fear and anguish that must have caused His parents; finally they found him teaching in the temple—another unexpected occurrence—and when Mary asked him why he “had done this to us,” his response seemed almost rude, but yet a typical response from a 12-year-old: “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’ house?” I wonder what that might have felt like to Joseph, or whether he was struck with an arrow of humiliation.

Joseph the silent one. Joseph the patient one. Joseph the guardian, no matter what. Joseph who helped the boy Jesus grow in wisdom and grace, and who taught him the carpenter’s trade.

Honor him, and pray that he may guard you until the day of your death.

God bless you!

Please note that there will be no reflection tomorrow, Tuesday, March 21.

Longing for God, part 4: "Oh my God, what have I done?"

Friday, March 17, 2017

Longing for God, part 4: “Oh my God, what have I done?”

We begin where we left off yesterday, with the humble prayer of Saint Augustine:

“My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you.”  (This prayer can also be found online in its original translation: “Too narrow my mansion.”)

As we make our way back to God (see part 3: coming home), like Saint Augustine, we invariably pass through a time when we become more aware than ever before of our own wretchedness, of the depth and extent of our sinfulness and of the sheer insanity of how we have lived. At this point we might be tempted to despair, to give up the journey, or to doubt that God would ever want to look on us with patience, loving-kindness and forgiveness. In this I recall the first two of the 12 Steps for addicts: (1) We admitted that we were powerless over ______ and that our lives had become unmanageable, and (2) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

The enemy of our souls tries to lure us into a trap. Be on guard not to begin dwelling not on your own sinfulness but rather on the sins, imperfections and shortcoming of others around you. This is useless work and nothing other than a distraction. As such times we are prone to judge others far more harshly than we would want the Lord to judge in us. Once we recognize this happening, we need to redirect our thoughts to considering our own sinful condition.

As for the despair, it, too, is a temptation of the devil. Don’t  give into it. Take comfort in these words from The Cloud of Unknowing:  “Be not humbled by the unimaginable greatness and incomparable perfection of God in light of your own wretchedness and imperfection. In other words, look more to God’s worthiness than to your own worthlessness.” (24) In addition, the Cloud concludes with these words of encouragement: “For it is not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes, but what you would be.” (75: last paragraph)

The author of the Cloud encourages the reader (namely, us) to take the whole body of our misery together and call it a lump, and that when we go to meditate, lay a “cloud of forgetting” over the lump and direct our hearts and our thoughts to what lies above. I have taken this advice myself and have found it to be particularly helpful.

At other times, we may be inspired to pray the Jesus Prayer as we go about our day: It is consoling in its humility and its compunction: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And so as best I could, I have laid before you a very brief and inadequate outline of a type of spiritual journey which many of us have been called to follow in our own lives:

                First, we become aware that we are indeed longing for a closer relationship with God.

                Second, we become aware that this yearning is itself a gift that God has implanted in our souls.

                Third, we decide to reorient our lives towards this God of our yearning and away from the paths we have taken when we have gone astray, and of the trivialness or the constant distractions that get in our way.

                Finally, we take a courageously close and honest look at the extent of our past failings and lament them, at all times trusting that God’s love and mercy will transcend the “lump” of our own darkness.

You can find more eloquent descriptions of these stages than in many places in the spiritual tradition. As always, take what resonates with you and put the rest aside for now.

God bless you! Have a blessed weekend.

Longing for God, part 3: Coming home

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Longing for God: coming home

Let’s begin where we left off yesterday, with this passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. (¶ 27)

The sad truth of human existence is that all too often we search for truth and peace and happiness in all the wrong places.

Alan Watts (Behold the Spirit) speaks eloquently of the frustration of looking in the wrong places, which can also serve as a sad commentary of our modern consumerist society:

Man is characterized by a hunger for the infinite, for an eternity of life, love and joy which, whether he knows it or not, can be nothing other than God. . . . . his real appetite continues to be God, for which these lesser goals are always unsatisfactory substitutes. Those who set their hearts on finite goals are always discontented; they must always have more and more of what they desire, and failing this are frustrated and miserable. Profound contentment is only enjoyed . . . by the saints and mystics who have realized union with God.

But God isn’t done with us yet. When God initiates within us this longing for him, and invites us to follow it where it will lead us, there is always a sense of return, of coming home, of rediscovering where we are meant to be. And never forget that when we experience such a longing, it is God Himself who has put this yearning within us. God is always searching for us, long before we respond and begin seeking Him. Consider the story of the Fall itself, when Adam and Eve hid themselves because they realized they were naked (which is proof that they had sinned) and God comes to the garden and calls out “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9) Now, why would God have to ask such a thing when it is obvious that he already knew where they were? I suggest that it was because he needed them (or us) to realize that despite the fact that they had sinned, he would still seek them out. There would be consequences of their sin not only for them but also for all of us, but the important message here is that God was not giving up on them. And no matter what we may have done, He does not give up on us either.

Perhaps the most beautiful and consoling of all the parables of Jesus is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The son departed from the father and gave himself over to a life of sin and debauchery. Finally, he came to his senses and began the journey back home, not expecting a great welcome. Yet, what do we discover? That the father had been at the door looking for him and yearning for him, and even bestowed great blessings upon him without ever uttering a word of reproach.

As a Benedictine, I also think of this line from the Rule of Saint Benedict: The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. (Prol. 3)

Saint Augustine (354-430) confesses what happened to him at the time of his awakening, as he traveled on his own journey home:

“All my empty dreams suddenly lost their charm and my heart began to throb with a bewildering passion for the wisdom of eternal truth . . . My God, how I burned with longing to have wings to carry me back to you, away from all earthly things, although I had no idea what you would do with me.” (Confessions III, 4).

I conclude today with a prayer uttered by St. Augustine. Perhaps you might make it your own.

“My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you.”  (Confessions. I was unable to find the exact location.)

Tomorrow: our awareness of our own sinfulness.

God bless you!

Longing for God part 2: God's longing for us

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Longing for God, part 2: God’s longing for us

As I write this I assume that you are reading it because you have found within yourself a longing that cannot be satisfied by the things of this world, a longing which calls to you and gently, as the Lord says through the prophet Hosea:

I led them with cords of human kindness

with bands of love. (11:4)

We left off with this idea yesterday: “If you do this [spend time before God], you will discover that it was He who was seeking you all along.” And that is what I would like to take up today through the study of various texts from the Christian and other traditions.

This love of God which we experience within us

is not a product of our own imagination or creativity,

but is rather a reaction to what God has done in us:

1 John 4:19 “We love because God first loved us.”

And so, the longing itself establishes a connection between us:

Longing is a direct connection from the heart of the seeker to the heart of the Beloved.

(Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee: Sufism: the Transformation of the Heart, p. 13)

Note: Sufism is a movement within Islam that is particularly interested in the mystical journey of man (“the seeker”) to God (“the Beloved.)

So anyway, God put this longing into our own hearts and beckons to us through it to a more profound way of living:

The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 1: “In that most gracious way of his, he kindled your desire for himself, and bound you to him by the chain of such longing, and thus led you to that more Special life, a servant among his own special servants. He did this that you might learn to be more especially his and to live more spiritually than ever you could have done in the common state of life.”

Again, like grace, it is God’s doing. Consider what the Sufi poet Rumi has written:

“Not a single lover would seek union if the Beloved were not seeking it.”

Or perhaps this poem of his will inspire you:

                The thirsty man is moaning, “O delicious water!”

                The water is calling, “Where is the one who will drink me?”

                The thirst in our souls is the magnetism of the Water:

                We are Its, and It is ours.   (quoted in Helminski, Kabir (2000): The Rumi Collection, p. 108)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs us that this call from the Beloved is at the heart of human existence, and we can never be happy until we recognize and heed this call:

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. (¶ 27)

. . . to be continued . . .

God bless you!

The Longing for God (part one)

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Longing for God, part one

Deep within us

there is a longing for God.

It is buried beneath many lesser things,

beneath cares and anxieties and worries,

beneath hopes and dreams and plans and projects,

beneath joy and sorrow, happiness and misery,

beneath all that happens to us and all that we cause to happen.

It remains within. It is eternal. It seeks to be satisfied,

but cannot be satisfied

with what isn’t eternal,

with what is merely ephemeral,

or with what is trivial or distracting.

Psalm 42: “Like the deer that yeans

for running streams,

so my soul is yearning

for you, my God.

My soul is thirsting for God,

the living god;

when can I enter and appear

before the face of God?”

Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God: at dawn I seek you;

for you my soul is thirsting.

For you my flesh is pining,

like a dry, weary land without water.”

No matter what may delight, excite or thrill us,

we will never be satisfied

until we are in touch with this longing.

(Not that we find God as much as we seek after Him.)

Rule of Saint Benedict 58.7:

The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God.

The Song of Songs

Upon my bed at night

I sought him whom my soul loves:

I sought him, but found him not.

. . .

Spend quiet time before God.

Seek Him; long for Him, desire Him

as one desires the arrival of the Beloved.

And if you do this, you will discover

that it was He Who was seeking you all along.

to be continued . . .

God bless you!

PAX

Monday, March 13, 2017

I finished reading my collection of spiritual poetry, “The Enlightened Heart,” edited by Stephen Mitchell. One of the last poems in the collection, entitled “Pax” (peace) by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) evokes so beautiful the experience of contemplative prayer that I have decided to share the entire poem with you today. Perhaps you can use it as a reading before you begin a session of meditation or quiet prayer.

“All that matters is to be at one with the living God

to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chair

at peace, in peace

and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress,

at home, at home in the house of the living,

sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleep on the hearth of the living world

yawning at home before the fire of life

feeling the presence of the living God

like a great reassurance

a deep calm in the heart

a presence

as of the master sitting at the board

in his own and greater being,

in the house of life.

God bless you!

The Transience of all things

Friday, March 10, 2017

I am sorry I missed posting a reflection yesterday; I was ill.

I was ill and the illness passed and is no more.

All things are transient. All pass and are no more, except for God.

The Trinity is the one, lasting, enduring reality, and we are called to rest in that reality.

This is so difficult for us, because we are so attached to things that are transient.

Do you remember that possession you had many years ago, the one that gave you so much pleasure?

Where is it now?

Do you remember that great concern you had, so many years ago, that cost you sleepless nights?

It is still a concern?

Can you recognize the current trial as something that is going to pass away?

If you can, you have gained mastery even within the trial,

and if you continue to honor its transient nature, you will gain freedom.

Poets speak of these things so eloquently, so often with simple images.

Rainer Marie Rilke:

                All that is hurrying

                soon will be over with;

                only what lasts can bring

                us to the truth.

another of his:

                . . . a billions stars go spinning through the night,

blazing high above your head.

but in you is the presence that

will be, when all the stars are dead.

And Walt Whitman:

People I meet . . . the effect upon me of my early life . . .

The latest news . . . discoveries, inventions, societies

. . . My dinner, dress, associates, looks, . . .

The sickness of one of my folks—or of myself . . . or ill-doing . . . or loss or lack of money . . . . or depressions or exaltations,

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

And our scriptures:

                Jesus Christ: heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Colossians 3:2  If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

God bless you! Have a good weekend.

Heavenly glimpses

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Sacred poetry, continued. Once again I quote from The Enlightened Heart: an anthology of Sacred Poetry (Stephen Mitchell, ed.)

Today’s excerpts come from Dante’s Purgatorio and Paradiso

”The love of God, unutterable and perfect,

   flows into a pure soul the way that light

   rushes into a transparent object.

The more love that it finds, the more it gives

   itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,

   the more complete the joy of heaven is.

This next part comes from a dialogue between Dante and a soul who is occupying a lesser seat in heaven:

But you who are so happy here, tell me:

   do you aspire to a more profound

   insight, or a greater ecstasy?

She smiled a little, as did the shades beside her;

   then answered with such gladness that her whole

   being seemed to glow with love’s first fire:

“Brother, God’s generosity itself

   calms our will, and makes us want no more

   than what we have, and long for nothing else.

If we desired any greater bliss,

   we would not be in harmony with Him

   whose love assigns us to a lower place.

The essence of this joy is that we all

   have given up our personal desires

   so that our will is merged with God’s own will.

Therefore our rank in heaven, from height to height,

   is just as dear to each particular soul

   as to the Master who appointed it.

In His will is our peace: it is the sea

   into which all currents and all streams

   empty themselves, for all eternity.”

May you, too, find you peace in His will.

God bless you!

God heals and transforms

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Spiritual Reading:

I spent a delightful prayerful hour yesterday perusing a collection of poetry (The Enlightened Heart: an anthology of spiritual poetry, edited by Stephen Mitchell) and I want to share some of its riches with you today and tomorrow.

First, to find a place from which to read:

                Do you have the patience to wait

                till your mud settles and the water is clear?  Lao-tzu

(This is a great introduction to meditation as well.)

Today’s excerpts are centered around the concepts of forgiveness, purgation and healing:

“. . . in those who have cured themselves of

selfishness, I shine with brilliance.  (from the Bhagavad Gita 5^th to 2^nd centuries B.C.)

Even murderers and rapists,

tyrants, the most cruel fanatics,

ultimately know redemption

through my love, if they surrender

to my harsh but healing graces.

Passing through excruciating

transformations, they find freedom

and their hearts find peace within them.

I am always with all beings;

I abandon no one. And

however great your inner darkness,

you are never separate from me.   (The Bhagavad Gita)

more from the same ancient writing:

Let your thoughts flow past you, calmly;

keep me near, at every moment;

trust me with your life, because I

am you, more than you yourself are.

From Symeon the New Theoloian (949-1022)

. . . and everything that his hurt, everything

that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

maimed, ugle, irreparably

damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,

and radiant in His light

we awaken as the Beloved

in every last part of our body.

and finally, from Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

Holy Spirit,

giving life to all life,

moving all creatures,

root of all things,

washing them clean,

wiping out their mistakes,

healing their wounds,

you are our true life,

luminous, wonderful,

awakening the heart

from its ancient sleep.

Tomorrow: Dante’s glimpses of heaven

God bless you

Recovering from tragedies

Monday, February 6, 2017

A fresh look at the grace of Baptism

We begin with the basics, what we have heard in Baptism ceremonies and from what we have learned in the Scriptures and in our own reading and study: In Baptism we are buried with Christ so that we too can rise with him to new life.

But what does that have any meaning for our day-to-day practical lives and for our journeys from the day of our baptism to the present? Well, for one thing, the baptismal pattern of death and resurrection is repeated time and time again in our lives. Another term for this pattern is the Paschal mystery which we celebrate in a particular way during Lent and Holy Week and especially at the Easter Vigil.

But these are not one-time occurrences. How many times in your life have you suffered a “little death” and then after time has gone by, discovered that you have recovered from it and have indeed begun to live a new life. Times of loss, of death, of failure, of tragedy, calamity, misery and suffering are always followed in some fashion with some sort of rebirth or new birth: in short, in resurrection. Olivier Clément expresses it beautifully:

When everything seems lost, baptismal grace, if we pay heed to it, can convert a situation of death into one of resurrection, an apparent deadlock into a necessary breakthrough. We have to learn . . . to get round obstacles, to tear away dead skin, to let the very life of Christ arise in us by the power of his resurrection. Each present moment has to become baptismal: a moment of anguish and death if I seek to cling to it and so experience its non-existence, but a moment of resurrection if I accept it humbly as ‘present’ in both senses of the word. . . . We come finally to the moment of agony when we are overwhelmed by the waters of death. Through our baptism, according to the measure of our faith, they will be transformed into the womb of eternity.

I pray this helps you in some way.

God bless you!

God INCLUDES us

Friday, March 03, 2017

I’ve been writing recently about the Trinity, and how it is essentially about relationship between the three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (For a fuller explanation of this, see Richard Rohr’s powerful book The Divine Dance: the Trinity and your transformation.)

Therefore our God is a God of relationship, a loving relationship between equals, each giving to and surrendering to the other in an eternal dance of beauty, truth and goodness. And what is even more beautiful about thinking of God in this way is the fact that we are intended to be part of that relationship, that there is a place for us within the “dance” that takes place among the persons.

I mention it again today because I was reading the 17^th Chapter of John’s Gospel, the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus before he was betrayed, arrested and taken away to be tortured to death. In this prayer, Jesus prays to the Father that we be included in their relationship. Nowhere is this expressed more clearly:

. . . that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one. . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. . . . that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them. (John 17:21-16; RSV translation)

This is what Jesus wants for you and me. This is our destiny, not off in some undatable future, but here and now, each and every day, even while we are lost in our struggles, trials, torments or failures.

It may also seem that the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity is not included in this prayer, but yet it is implicit. The Holy Spirit is “the love with which thou hast loved me.”

What difference might this make in your living, your thinking and your praying? Well, meditate on it; carry it around with you; refer to it frequently---and then find out for yourself what difference it will make.

God bless you! Have a good weekend. I’ll be back on Monday.

The Power to Choose

Thursday, March 02, 2017

Moses: I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, . . . (Deut 30:19)

Jesus: . . . whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.  (Luke 9:24)

There is no way out of the human predicament: we must make a choice. This is the natural consequence of the fact that God has given us free will. Unfortunately, from the very beginning, evil had entered the world and therefore our ability to choose has been compromised. This is the meaning of the word concupiscence: we have an inclination to choose what will take us farther and farther from God, and deeper and deeper into the realm of death and destruction.

One of the prayers I have decided to make this year is for the Lord to strengthen my ability to make the right choices, knowing full well that there have been many times in my life when I let my guard down and freely chose to act, speak or think in a way that has threatened the good of my soul and that ultimately has weakened the quality of my life, even though at time it seemed to me that my life was richer, freer, more comfortable and enjoyable when I yielded to temptation.

One thing we can do to strengthen ourselves (with God’s help, of course), is to do those things that strengthen that part of our brains that makes connections between the truly good choices in our lives. Some call these choices “top-line activities.” What are those things that draw you closer to God, that bring you peace and contentment of soul, that increase your ability to savor what is good and true and beautiful, that help seat you within the circle of divine love that is the Trinity? A wholesome hobby, perhaps, a certain type of praying and meditating, time spent with people who bring out the good in us, discovering the joy of giving, sacred reading, times of solitude and silence?

Deep down inside we know which things lead us to life and which things we are being encouraged to set aside or let go of. Pray God that He give you the ability to make the choices you know you need to make.

God bless you!

Make it personal

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Ash Wednesday

I call your attention to a few phrases from the Gospel appointed for the Mass for Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6:1-6,16-18):

. . . so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

. . . pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

. . . so that you may not appear to be fasting except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

And so, I leave you just one conclusion on this most important of days: We are being called to invest ourselves in a totally interpersonal and private and intimate relationship with our God. And as a result of that intimate relationship others will benefit and we ourselves will be blessed beyond measure.

Have a holy and (may I say) prosperous Lent!

God bless you!