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!