the Center of Love

Friday, May 19, 2017

From today’s Gospel: “Love one another as I love you.” (John 15:12)

The very foundation of our love is the love that Jesus Christ has for us. If we wish to grow in the spiritual life, we must focus on that love, meditate on it, experience it in our lives, and come to revere it as the greatest gift we have ever received.

And the more deeply we learn to rest in that love, the more closely we are drawn to one another. Consider, if you will, the spokes of a wheel. We are the spokes, and God is at the center. Notice that as we draw closer to the center, we also draw closer to one another until at last, we are all united as one resting in the very bosom of God.

That is what Jesus wants for us. That is what he prayed for before He was taken away to be crucified. “That all may be one, even as You and I are one.” (John 17:20)

Left to our own devices, we are so far from that love. We are a junk pile of petty resentments, judgments, complaints, intolerances, annoyances and dislikes, and not only do these things keep us from one another, they also keep us apart from God. On the other hand, once again, the more closely we are united to God, especially in our prayer and meditation, the more the pile of junk is reduced. And as always, the remedy for us is to contemplate the love that God has for us.

Nothing can be more simple, and yet isn’t it true that we find it so difficult to put this into practice in our lives?

This love must be more than simply an inner change in attitude. It must demonstrate it in the charitable acts we perform for each other. Remember that shortly before Jesus spoke of His love for us, He knelt before us and washed our feet, and then commanded us to do the same for others?

Don’t think of any epic grand action that changes the world. Look locally. Very locally. Pray God to enable you to see beyond appearances, and to reach out with an action of love, especially towards those you may find it most difficult to like.

In other words, move more closely to the center of the wheel.

God bless you! Have a good weekend.

Deepening Our Love

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Spiritual progress is seen in our growing ability to love, and as we continue to develop through our prayer and reading and through the sacraments, it can sometimes seem like we are moving through stages in our loving.

To love is to be of service to others, freely, unselfishly, without seeking anything in return, and with no hidden agendas. Olivier Clément calls this a “disinterested affection.” The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 270.

What happens when we begin to love this way is that little by little, we develop a greater sympathy towards others. We become more aware of the individual and personal pain that each person carries, and rather than becoming judgmental or cynical, we begin to identify with that pain, not necessarily taking it upon ourselves, but certainly becoming more sensitive, patient, tolerant and kind towards others, particularly towards those individuals the in the past we found it difficult to endure or tolerate.

Consider those persons in your life you may find it difficult to like, those individuals you naturally feel compelled to avoid or keep far from you; consider those especially who in weaker moments you see yourself as superior to. As you progress in the spiritual life, you will discover the coldness melting, you will be more inclined to patience, understanding and kindness. This doesn’t happen overnight; it takes a lifetime for most of us and we progress with baby steps. Nonetheless, we can actually get to a point where, recognizing those baby steps, we celebrate them and give thanks to God who has sent the graces to soften our hearts and our brittleness, to weaken our tendency to see others as “the enemy”  and to unmask our illusions of superiority.

As we grow this way, we become more truly Christ-like, remembering that Jesus Christ identifies himself with “every human being who is suffering, or rejected, or imprisoned, or ignored” (p. 271). At the same time, with the Lord’s help, we learn to regard each other person as possessing “an inward nature as mysterious and deep as our own, but different and willed to be so by God.”

When I was younger, I used to think in terms of “giving permission” to others to be the way they are, but now I am coming to see that as not fully charitable and sometimes prone to judgment even while pretending to be tolerant. As I’ve grown older, instead I keep reminding myself to “bow before the mystery” of each person I encounter. I don’t always succeed; my progress is halting and imperfect. But as often as I can remember to think this way, good things tend to develop. Perhaps it can work the same way for you.

God bless you!

The peace the world cannot give

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” John 14:27-28

The peace that Jesus bestows on us is independent of anything that is happening around us, no matter how great the storms that may be raging, no matter what interior battles we may be enduring, no matter what others may be doing to us. How do we find that peace? By breathing deeply, dispelling outer thoughts and troubles, and locating that place deep within us where we abide with Jesus alone, and then rest in the peace we find there. This takes practice, which is why silent prayer and meditation are so important. It also takes grace that comes from outside us, so we much continually ask for that grace.

If we can rest in that peace that Jesus gives us, even if only for a brief amount of time, it will strengthen us to face whatever may be going on in our lives or in our world. These days I pray especially for all those who are currently being persecuted for their faith, that they may receive the grace to rest in that peace.

If you remember, Job was a man who had to endure many terrible things in his life. And yet, commenting on the book of Job, Pope Saint Gregory the Great had this to say:

“Amid the tumult of outward cares, inwardly a great peace and calm is reigning, in love.” Commentary on the Book of Job, 18, 43, 70. In Clément, p. 270.

Pope St. Gregory was reigning at a time when Rome was being attacked by Mongol warriors, so his comment on Job was meant as much for him as for anyone else.

Finally, notice that this peace is not provided by the world, or by attachment to anything that is of the world. We cannot gain this peace by going about our wordly pursuits, or by clinging to any of the deadly sins. Consumerism does not lead to this peace; discord, rivalry, judgmentalness or greed rob us of this peace. Breathe deeply and strip yourself of any outward attachments, and rest in that realm within you where there is nothing but you and Christ, and hear Him speak those words to you that he spoke to the apostles at a time when their own worlds were about to be disrupted and overturned.

May that peace be with you today.

God bless you!

Seven little words

Monday, May 15, 2017

“I need more grace

than I thought.”

(Rumi)

Sometimes a few simple words from a poem can say something about reality in a way so simple and direct that it causes us to gaze within and realize that, “Yes, that is true about me. Yes, that is true about my life. Yes, that describes the human condition more eloquently than pages of commentary.”

And now that I have said that, how could I possibly say more, except to confess that I am often deluded by prideful thoughts of how far I have come only to then discover that I still have so far to go or that I am actually regressing rather than advancing. And I am reminded not to trust my own thinking especially when it comes to thoughts about my own spiritual journey. My sense of self-reliance is shattered by these few words as I am reminded that all the help I need, all the grace, is not within me but rather comes from outside of me. And yet, perhaps I am saying too much already. I do better, I suspect, to just leave you with those two lines of a divinely inspired poet and let them do their work within you.

God bless you!

Open the door

Friday, May 12, 2017

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone . . . opens the door I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3.20)

Olivier Clément says it so beautifully: “God is the beggar knocking at the door of our soul asking for love.” (The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 250.)

Do you sometimes sense that He is knocking at the door of your soul, wanting to come to you and share a banquet with you, a richer banquet than you have ever known before? He is, you know. Continually and repeatedly. And it is not a question of your worthiness or unworthiness; don’t forget that grace is a free, unmerited gift that comes to us not because we are good, but rather because God is good—total goodness larger and more magnificent than our limited minds can grasp. Origen speaks encouragingly: “. . . these words may be said even to those who are not yet perfect.” (Homilies on the Song of Songs, 2.7)

And what takes place in the souls of we who are not yet perfect is a purification, sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive and usually life-changing.

He knocks, we open, and when He comes to us it changes us. “Fear not the coming of your God, fear not his friendship,” St. Augustine reassures us. He will not straiten you when he comes; rather he will enlarge you.” (Sermons, 23.7) (“straiten” = to make narrow, to confine within narrow limits) St. Augustine knows the process so well, for he was a sinner, and it took a long time for him to be able to open the door and let Christ in. This process has been documented in his Confessions, and you would do well to read that book if you haven’t yet come to know it.

The process also entails a stripping, a stripping away of everything that is not God, and it has been my experience that every instance of stripping has led to a more wonderful way of existing. Sometimes it seems as if God is stripping us of something, and at other times we take the initiative, the initiative itself being a work of grace. But the stripping never diminishes our being, it always expands our horizens, and every stripping of course is a preparation for the ultimate stripping of death, and passing through death, thanks to the saving work of Jesus who died and then rose again, ushers us into an unknown but marvelous realm. But more about that another time, perhaps.

I’ll close with a teaching of Pseudo-Macarius (c. 400):

“If you renounce the way you are living today and if you persevere in your prayer, you will beel that your effort is securing you great restfulness. You will discover in these slight pains and fatigues a joy and a happiness that are immense. God’s tender love is ineffable. He offers himself to those who with all their faith believe that God can dwell in the human body and make it his glorious abode.” (Forty-ninth homily)

God bless you. Have a nice weekend.

Continued porgress

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Yesterday I began listing the “stages of the self” as described by a Sufi teacher. Today I continue the list.

We left off with the fourth stage of the self which he calls “The Contented Self”

4. The Contented self.  “If one accepts difficulties with the same overall sense of security with which one accepts benefits, it may be said that one has attained the level of the contented self.”

This stage reminds me of what St. Benedict calls the “4^th step of humility: “under difficult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions, his heart quietly embraces suffering and endures it without weakening or seeking escape.” (RB 7.35-36)

5. The Pleased Self.  At this stage, one begins to understand that everything, even difficulties and trials, comes from God. I would add to this that St. Benedict encourages us to understand that all of these things, as unpleasant as they might be, lead to our ultimate salvation. Again I quote the Rule:

“They are so confident in their expectation of reward from God that they continue joyfully and say, But in all this we overcome because of him who so greatly loves us. (Rom 8:37) (RB 7.39)

Perhaps you have discovered this for yourself. Can you remember a time when you were suffering these “difficulties and trials” only to discover that once you have passed through them, you arrive at a new and more wonderful level of existence, and that certain gifts and blessings that you experience in the present were purchased by the pain of the past. And, furthermore, if you happen to be passing through a time of difficulties and trials right now, perhaps you can take hope from this teaching, knowing that “this too shall pass,” and you will attain a renewed peace, understanding and serenity.

6. The “Self pleasing to God”  I quote the Sufi explanation: “Those who reach this next stage realize that all power to act comes from God, that they can do nothing by themselves. They no longer fear anything nor ask for anything.”

On one hand, few reach this stage, but on the other hand, it is basic Christian spirituality that leads us to realize that we can do nothing by ourselves. This is significant, because in our own development we have to reach a point where we realize that the help we need (especially in struggling against addiction of any kind) does not come from within us, but rather comes from outside of us; that is, from God Himself. So many people resist this realization, and the more they resist it, the more they stay stuck in their misery and hopelessness even if they fail to realize how bad off they are or how stuck they remain.

7. “The pure self”   This is a mystical stage, attained by very few, in which one has transcended the self and only exist in union with God. I believe that we do reach this stage for very brief moments in our lives, but are quickly pulled back by the lure of the self. I know that I am far from realizing this stage but admit that there is something desirable in it. For myself, I think that I will only reach this stage, God willing, after death. Since I haven’t experienced it, I can’t say any more about it, but I will leave you with a few lines of a poem by the Sufi poet Rumi which give a hint of this stage of existence:

If you could get rid

of yourself just once,

The secret of secrets

Would be open to you.

The face of the unknown,

Hidden beyond the universe

Would appear on the

Mirror of your perception.

As always, take what helps and leave the rest aside for another time perhaps.

God bless you!

Reaching out for higher values

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Mystical writings from every world tradition speak of our cleansing the soul, or cleansing the self, in order to remove anything in us that would keep us from experiencing God in all His fullness. Christianity of course, goes beyond that because it presents the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Nonetheless, there is value in mystical teachings from other traditions.  I came across one teaching about the “stages of the self” that makes a lot of sense to me. Perhaps you will find it helpful as well. Here are the stages:

1. The Commanding Self.  At this level, the self is not free but rather is controlled by dark desires, by addictions to negative traits and habits, and the addicts are in denial, refusing to recognize or admit that there is a problem.

2. The Regretful Self.  The light begins to penetrate the darkness. Insight grows, often for the first time. Sufi teacher alJerrari says that “at this level, people do not yet have the ability to change their way of life in a significant way. However, as they see their faults more clearly, their regret and desire for change grows. . . . “like addicts, they are beginning to realize the strength of their addiction and are just beginning to understand the pain they have caused themselves and others.”

3. The Inspired Self.  At this level, the seeker begins to take genuine pleasure in prayer, meditations and other spiritual activities. The seeker begins to appreciate moral values such as compassion and service. This is where the real practice of the spiritual life begins. “Behaviors common to the inspired self include gentleness, compassion, creative acts and moral actions. Overall, a person who is at the stage of the inspired self seems to be emotionally mature, respectable and respected.”

4. The Contented self.  This stage is described in the Rule of Saint Benedict discussing the 4^th step of humility. alJerrari writes: “If one accepts difficulties with the same overall sense of security with which one accepts benefits, it may be said that one has attained the level of the contented self.”

I’m going to stop at this point and will continue with the stages of the self next time.

God bless you!

Excerpts come from the Introduction to “Essential Sufism” pp. 20-23

B

Fr. Bede Camera, O.S.B.

Saint Anselm Abbey

Manchester, NH 03102

http://www.spiritualityforbeginners.blogspot.com

The One Unescapable Fact

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

All the great Wisdom traditions of the world basically speak the same truths about life, and this is because they all come from the One Source of all Truth; that is, from God Himself. And those who study these “Perennial Truths” share a profound respect for all the other traditions. Sufi mentor Murat Yagan put it his way: “The fountain from which I drank was here, and there are many other fountains if you are thirsty.”

However, there is one unescapable and unavoidable reality which separates us Christians from all the other traditions: the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

You see, of all the great wisdom teachers throughout history, there is only One who claimed to be God, and then went on to prove it by rising from the dead. And herein lies the fundamental reality of our Christian faith. Without the Resurrection, our faith is useless, as St. Paul so eloquently states in 1 Corinthians 15:

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. (I Co 15:17-19)

Not everyone can hear or accept this, but only those whom the Father has given to Christ, as it says in today’s Gospel passage (John 10:22-30). “. . . you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

“My Father who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

We can take great consolation and hope in hearing that “no one can take them out of my hand.” We, who have heard His voice, and have followed, have been given to Christ by the Father, and we are eternally His. No one can take us away from Him, no matter how bleak things may seem at times, and no matter how miserably we may fail because of our human weakness.

God bless you!

Jesus "includes"

Monday, May 08, 2017

The readings for Mass today are from Acts 11:1-18 and John 10:11-18. I’d like to reflect on the readings in reverse order.

In the Gospel passage, Jesus makes a prediction which comes true in the passage from Acts. (Now it is important to realize that the events in Acts come after the Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord.)

So, what is the prediction?

Jesus is speaking to the Jews who are following him: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

The passage from Acts tells us of a dream that Peter had in which a collection of animals and reptiles considered “unclean” are present to him and a voice commands, “Slaughter and eat.” Peter resists, explaining that nothing unclean has ever touched his lips before. But the voice of the Lord answers, “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.” This vision occurs three times, “three” being a symbolic number representing perfection and completion.

Because of this vision, Peter is led to a Gentile (=uncircumcised) household, and while he is with them the Holy Spirit descends upon them and Peter comes to realize that God has blessed these Gentiles with the same blessings he has given to the Jewish believers (=circumcised). And so, we see that God is including within his flock those who were previously considered to be unclean outsiders, unworthy of His blessings and grace.

What might we take from this? It seems to me that the action of God’s grace in the world through Jesus Christ is an action of continually including what was previously excluded.

You have to make up your own mind about this, but I have to wonder whether this act of including was a one-time happening, or whether it is something that still continues, that Jesus Christ is continually reaching out to include those who were (or are) excluded by those who consider themselves to be part of his flock.

For myself, I have become aware of how often my mind seeks to exclude others, and when I catch myself doing this, I picture Jesus’ arms extended on the cross in an embrace which includes those whom my own prejudices or pride or self-righteousness almost naturally seeks to exclude.

How about you?

God bless you this day.

The bolt of lightning

Friday, May 05, 2017

I’m sorry I’ve been missing reflections lately; I haven’t been feeling well; nothing serious.

Today at Mass we hear about St. Paul’s conversion, when he was knocked off his horse by a flash of light. (Acts 9:1-20) (I often think of it as a bolt of lightning.)

This story tells us a lot about the nature of God—a God whose purposes are greater than what we can plan for or predict, a God whose mercy extends so far beyond the boundaries our rational minds would want to set. Just take a look at Paul and at what he had done:

Paul was a religious zealot, a Pharisee just like those the Lord had opposed and even condemned during his days of public ministry. Paul was a religious fanatic and was obsessed with persecuting those who had come to faith in Jesus, that is, those who had abandoned the faith the Paul clung so tenaciously to and who dared to think and believe in ways that he felt were unacceptable. We learned the other day that Paul stood by consenting when the Jews stoned St. Stephen to death. We also know that Paul had been going around arresting and even arranging for the deaths of the early Christian believers. We might say that Paul had been doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons.

But yet, God chose him to become one of the great leaders of His Church. God sent light and power and crushing defeat upon him, God rendered him blind so that finally he could begin to see the truth; God arranged for a considerably long time of training, and then used him as one of the greatest preachers the Church has even known. He didn’t make Paul’s live easy; no, he lived a life of tremendous hardship, persecution, violence (against him), shipwreck and poverty.  He was guided by the Spirit, but nothing every came easy to him. Paul had been a man who struggled; his converted life also became a life of great struggle.

Study Paul’s writings. I believe we can see traces of the “old Paul” in many places in his writings, and a trace of the zealot who was too quick to condemn those who did not adhere to what he said or thought. There are also places in his writings where his humanity shone through and where he tended to be manipulative, boasting and acting like a poor parent. Those are strictly my own considerations, and perhaps I will write about them at another time.

There are a couple of lessons we might take away from this story:

--worthiness has nothing to do with God’s action in our lives.

--We struggle because of our sins, but we also will struggle when we are devoting ourselves to doing what is right.

--God’s light and power and grace can knock us off our high horses at times and perhaps has already done that to us more than once.

--God uses everything for the advancement of His Kingdom. Even you. Even me.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.

Interbeing

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

In today’s Gospel passage (John 14:6-14) we hear these words from the Lord:

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

“I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Notice, if you will, the rather unusual description of the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Father is unfathomable, uncontainable, eternal, greater than anything we can understand or imagine, and yet despite this, He is “in the Son,” contained by a single human body living for a limited amount of time in a particular location in the world. What is this relationship in which the Father and the Son give each other everything they are and everything they can accomplish?

One word used for it is interbeing, and this word is also applied to the three persons of the Trinity. In today’s passage, John is only emphasizing the first two Persons, but I suggest that we should keep the Trinity in mind as well because the fullest scope of their relationship is realized in the interbeing of the Three.

Not only that, but the works that Jesus does are actually the Father’s works. The words that Jesus speaks are actually the Father’s words. The way Jesus thinks and acts and relates to the people He encounters are indicators to us of the Father’s way of thinking and acting.

Come to know Jesus better, and you begin to discover more and more of what God is like. You will never exhaust what is to be discovered about the Father, but might I suggest that by reading and re-reading the Gospels, we grow in our knowledge and understanding of how God deals with us in our own lives.

At this point, might I make a few suggestions:

--How does Jesus deal with those whom religious leaders consider to be outcasts?

--What does Jesus think of the self-righteous?

--How does he deal with those who neglect the needs of the poor?

--What does He say to those who are persecuted?

--What is His will for all of us at the end of time?

--And finally, what does all this say to us about thy ways of God?

God bless you.

More than it seems

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

From today’s Gospel (John 6:30-35)

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

John likes to use images that are easily misunderstood and that often have symbolic and metaphoric meanings, especially when Jesus speaks. You might remember from school that symbols are things that point to a greater reality, and today’s symbols do exactly that.

First we have the I AM declaration. To a Jew, those were the sacred words that God had used to identify himself to Moses when he spoke to him from the burning bush. By copting those words and using them to refer to himself, Jesus is telling his listeners that He is God in no uncertain terms. The Pharisees were scandalized by this, accusing him of serious blasphemy. There weren’t able to grasp the simple reality of what He was telling them.

How about us? Perhaps we could use it in our own prayer and meditation, thinking of Jesus not in physical or practical terms, but rather as mystical reality. In your mind and heart, picture Jesus saying to you I AM, and grasp that He is pure Being.

But then he uses another symbol: I AM the bread of life. A good symbol, because it refers to something we need on a regular basis. Remember the prayer He taught us: Give us today our daily bread. What is this bread? What does it mean to you? Can it somehow be related to the Eucharist itself? How does it feed us? How does He feed us? Do we eat the bread often enough?

And then he makes a statement which doesn’t make any sense if we take it literally: “whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Once again we have to consider the words as symbols which point to a greater reality. Hunger and thirst: what do they mean to you. What is the hunger, what is the thirst that Jesus continually satisfies? These statements remind me of two things in particular:

First, the lines from Psalm 37: Take your delight in the Lord, and He will grant your heart’s desire.

And secondly, the passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church which states that “we are made by God and for God and only in God will we ever find the peace and happiness that we never stop searching for.” (¶ 27)

We are very fortunate, my friends, because the circumstances of our lives have led us to the Source of the peace and happiness that we are meant to have, a peace and happiness that have nothing to do with the material things of this world; a peace and happiness that very often have little to do with the actual circumstances of our lives. Jesus has given us this gift. Those who have not reached the Source often lead lives of quiet desperation, always seeking to satisfy those needs in ways that fail to deliver, fail to satisfy. And sometimes even we, who have been given such a gift, are prone to forget and then re-enslave ourselves to a quest which can never be fulfilled.

Read the verse from the Gospel again, and see if it can take on more life and more meaning for you at this point.

God bless you!

Spring breaks through

Monday, May 1, 2017

I offer you a brief personal story today.

This morning, someone did something that annoyed me. In fact, he does it often and it annoys me every time he does it, and I’ve never let him know that because I don’t want to come across as a pain in the neck. It’s not a big thing; in fact, it’s a very little thing. But I get annoyed every time he does it, which is almost every day. And sometimes when he does it and I am under the spell of “being annoyed,” I think unkind thoughts about him. Does this ever happen to you?

But something was different about it today. He did that-thing-which-I- get-annoyed-about, and I looked at it almost from outside of myself, and I noticed the thing, and I also noticed my tendency to get annoyed. But for some reason---call it the grace of the Holy Spirit, if you’d like---today I wasn’t annoyed. I was simply watching the dynamic at play. The action, the habitual response, and now, this new thing: the reality that I could observe it and actually choose to just let it be.

Now he’s probably not going to stop doing that thing. The object of all this is not to change his behavior, after all. The object of all of this is to notice my internal behavior and to find out whether or not I have the option of living in a more loving and tolerant way. That is the ultimate goal, after all, a goal which we should all share in to one extent or another: the ability to choose to live in a more loving and tolerant way.

He’s going to keep doing that thing, so I going to have to keep remembering what happened today and ask God to help me continue growing in a more loving way.

Maybe it was just a May 1 gift. After all, spring is trying to break through, just a little bit of light broke through the clouds that are often in my own life. How about you!

God bless you!