Steakhouses, Pig Pods, and the Eucharist

Everyone has a favorite steakhouse or restaurant with the best complimentary bread. My personal favorite is Lucky’s Steakhouse. Time and time again I find myself scarfing down the entire loaf of their warm, moist, delectable bread before it’s even time to order the main entrée. When the waiter or waitress asks me what I’m having for dinner, I find myself thinking, “I’m not even hungry for dinner anymore, I’m already full!”

I thought of this “tradition” of mine the other day as I was reflecting on the readings from the famous Bread of Life discourse in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Last week we heard of the crowds being fed by the multiplication of the loaves and fish. When the crowd pursued Jesus afterwards, he told them in this week’s portion of the discourse: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled” (Jn. 6:26). Later, at the request that he give them this bread “always,” Jesus added, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger” (Jn. 6:35).

All of this got me thinking about the number of Catholics who have fallen away from the faith and have joined various Protestant communities. There have been multiple surveys done to poll these individuals, asking them why they left the Catholic Church. The results are noteworthy. According to a Pew Study conducted in 2008 (cited in Sherry Weddell’s book Forming Intentional Disciples), those who left the Catholic Church and entered a Protestant community were motivated to do so not mainly for reasons related to the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal (that made up for about 21% of those surveyed) nor was it due to their dissent on hot-button issues such as the Church’s teaching on birth control (that was a main reason for only 16% of those surveyed). The number one reason was that individuals felt their “spiritual needs were not being met” (71% of the responses). Another way of wording that response, which I have heard people say and have myself experienced, is: “I did not feel I was being fed.”

Before we write off these complaints as being naïve or selfish, it’s important to sympathize with these sentiments. I have some idea of what someone says when they say, “I just don’t feel like I’m being fed at this church.” Objectively, we are fed by the Bread of Life, Jesus Himself, every time we receive the precious gift of the Eucharist. Whoever comes to Him “will never hunger” but will be “filled,” He tells us. Yet we are also human. Our places of worship, if we’re being honest, do not always help facilitate an encounter with the Divine. I know what it’s like to go to Mass and experience dry homilies, God-awful music, a community of believers who resemble the walking dead, in a church building that looks less-than-inspiring. I can’t say I blame someone who grows up in that kind of environment for feeling as though they were not “being fed.”

However, there is an important question to ask ourselves each time we go to Mass regardless of the type of worship environment we find ourselves in. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself every day recently and it’s a question I want to ask people who have left the Church because they felt they weren’t being fed: Have you been coming to Mass hungry?

In my own life (and, I perceive, in the lives of many 21^st century middle-class Americans) I can find it difficult to show up to Mass admitting that I am truly hungering for God. Like my steakhouse “tradition,” I can sometimes show up on Sunday (or daily Mass) to the Heavenly Banquet “already full.” The days where I walk away from Mass feeling as though I wasn’t being fed were often the very days I entered into Mass not feeling I needed God- that I was doing and would continue doing just fine on my own. I felt I wasn’t being fed because I wasn’t showing up hungry.

Conversely, some of the times where I’ve felt the most “fed” by the Bread of Life were those moments where I entered into Mass honestly acknowledging that I was hungry for Him. I’m reminded, for instance, of the times I’ve spent doing missionary work in Honduras. Those were some pretty exhausting days. By the evening I’d be physically spent from all the manual labor, mentally drained from trying to keep up with the foreign language, and spiritually hungry for a sense of belonging and familiarity. We would end our evenings with Mass and I found myself looking forward to it in a way I’d never experienced before. I was coming to the Lord out of a place of near desperation, a place where I could genuinely utter the words: “Lord, I need you.” Not a single homily that week sticks with me now. The chapel was cramped, had a dirt floor, and was filled with bugs. There was no music and there was a stray dog that would constantly walk in and out of the chapel. Yet I truly felt fed every time I left that chapel- rather, I felt “filled.”

If we don’t show up to Mass hungry for the Lord, being conscious of our dependence on Him, able to honestly admit “Lord, I need you,” we should not be surprised when we walk away not feeling like we’d been fed. We won’t have room for the Heavenly Banquet because we were already full from the steakhouse bread. We were already full from our self-reliance, pride, addictions, excessive usage of and dependence on material goods, putting our time, trust, and faith in things other than God, etc.

This is why the Gospels (and, consequently, the Church) exhorts disciples of the Lord Jesus to a life of ever-greater simplicity and self-denial. This is so important for those of us who are living fairly comfortable lives. It is in moments when we experience the depths of our own poverty (whether voluntarily or involuntarily) that we begin to taste of the riches of the Bread of Life. It is in having things stripped away that we find ourselves longing for the Constant who remains with us through all we endure. Hospital patients are overjoyed when extraordinary ministers show up with communion because, as one patient once shared with me, “I truly will need Jesus to get through this day.” Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East risk their lives to receive their “daily bread” because they have a greater awareness than we of not knowing whether they will live to see the next day.

What caused the Prodigal Son to journey back to his father? After he’d squandered his inheritance, “a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need.” In the face of utter depravity,  “he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed.” “Dying from hunger,” he went back to his father who, upon receiving his son, ordered his servants to “take the fattened calf and slaughter it.” “Then” he commanded, “let us celebrate with a feast” (Lk. 15).

We can have separate conversations about what we can learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters and what kind of reform is needed in our Church to ensure that we are doing our best to facilitate encounters with the Divine at our Eucharistic celebrations. But let’s make sure we begin with the reform needed in our own hearts. You say you do not feel you are “being fed.” I ask you: have you been showing up hungry, or have you been showing up too full to receive with a hungry heart? When you come to Mass do you genuinely acknowledge that you need the Lord, or do you honestly think you’d be fine without Him?

Lucky’s Steakhouse bread is good, but it is pig pods compared to the Bread of Angels.

Stay hungry, my friends.

“O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water…My soul shall be filled as with a banquet.”
-Psalm 63

Eucharistic Adoration chapel at All Saints Parish, St. James church, in Bay City, MI

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A Brief History of Human Nature

I’ve never been a big history buff. Consequently, history has always been a subject I’ve struggled with in school. Yet I’ve recently discovered a new way to look at the study of history with greater appreciation. It once seemed as though the point of studying wars, the formation of governments, and the development of various institutions was just to memorize dates, locations, and facts. Through that lens, I would often think, “What a useless pursuit in the grand scheme of things.” Now, however, I see how the study of history can simultaneously become the study of human nature.

In studying various wars down the centuries, for instance, we can see the ways in which the lust for power, glory, and riches, the desire to protect and uphold the dignity of one’s self and one’s loved ones at any cost, the desire for vengeance, and other motivating factors are perennially manifested in war after war, battle after battle. In studying historical events and figures, we simultaneously get a glimpse of human nature at work.

Is this not what we experience whenever we read a classic novel or watch a critically acclaimed movie? Classic novels and classic films are classic for a reason: they’re expertly crafted in such a way that they vividly present to us the heart of our human nature in all of its glory and all of its ugliness. For instance, the classic novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck is essentially a modern-day retelling of the story of Cain and Abel. Thousands of years after Cain and Abel, we can still find ourselves relating to a story of sibling rivalry and the drastic actions which the desire to be loved and the feelings of envy, anger, and unforgiveness can tempt us into.

The study of history can simultaneously become the study of human nature. In our studies, we find we are not so far removed from the soldiers in World War II who chose to commit atrocities under the justification that they were simply going along with what the people around them were doing. Time is the only thing which truly separates us from such biblical figures as Peter, the ancient Israelites, and Eve. For we are Peter whenever we deny that we know the Lord by our sinful words and actions (or lack thereof). We are the ancient Israelites whenever we acknowledge the many wonderful things God has done for us in the past, yet still fail to trust that he will provide in the future for what we think we will need (see Psalm 78). We are Eve whenever we begin to listen to the lies of the Evil One who seeks to cast into doubt our belief in the goodness of God our Father. History certainly does repeat itself: what’s present in the heart of the great events and figures throughout history lives on in our own hearts today.

A temptation in the spiritual life, rooted (I believe) in pride, is to think that we are exceptions to the ways of God’s heart. Whether we think of it in such explicit terms as these or not, we can sometimes find ourselves believing and thus operating from the following mindsets: “God forgives all sins, but he wouldn’t possibly forgive this sin of mine.” “God loves all unconditionally, but he doesn’t really truly love me personally.” Some of us (speaking from my own experience) can tend to overdramatize our sinfulness, thinking we’re the only person who has ever had to struggle with this particular sin, who has ever felt these feelings of despair, distrust, or abandonment. This perception of the “uniqueness” of our sinfulness can lead us to voluntarily step away from receiving the love and mercy of God, preferring to dwell in the darkness of our self-made isolation.

How naïve it is to think we are so vastly different from Peter, from the ancient Israelites, from Eve. How sad it is to believe we are exceptions to the universal ways of God’s heart. History repeats itself, as we see in the great historical figures and events over the years. The study of history can offer us glimpses of human nature: both the study of the history of the world and the study of the history of my own past sins. The Psalmist recounts how God “has compassion on his children” for “he knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14). God knows how we are formed. He knows human nature as well as any of us do. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, took on the fullness of our human nature. A verse from the letter to the Hebrews reads, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Do not believe the lie that you, your sins, or your sinful nature are unique in such a way that they are exempt from the mercy and love of God. No one is “too far” from God. No sin is “too great” for him to forgive. In studying history, we can see the glory and the ugliness of our human nature up close and personal. No one knows human nature better than our Lord Jesus Christ. The study of the history of our past sins must not throw us into despair. Instead, we must throw ourselves to the feet of Our Lord who “has compassion on his children” for “he knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust.”

Top 17 Books of 2017

Every year I share the best books I read that year (2016, 2015, 2014, 2013). Here are the top 17 books I read this year with a brief summary of each book.

17. The Soul’s Upward Yearning: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason by Fr. Robert Spitzer
Rational and intelligent “clues” of the transcendent nature of our souls which is designed to seek out perfect truth, love, goodness, and beauty.

16. The Revenant by Michael Punke
The novel (based on a true story) which inspired the 2015 film with Leonardo DiCaprio in which a man, brutally mauled by a grizzly bear, embarks on a journey fueled by a desire for revenge.

15. Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family by Pope Francis
Our Holy Father’s Apostolic Exhortation on the joy of love, particularly in marriage and family life.

14. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A “children’s” book of immense importance for adults.

13. Last Testament by Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict’s most recent (and possibly final) extensive interview.

12. On Hope by Josef Pieper
Pieper summarizes and clearly articulates the nature of hope from a Thomistic perspective.

11. In the School of the Holy Spirit by Fr. Jacques Phillipe
Brief, rich spiritual read on being docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

10. Heart of the World by Hans Urs von Balthasar
Honest, hard-hitting meditations on the heart of Christ by the renowned 20th-century Swiss theologian.

9. Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
The famous, first-hand accounts of a saint’s visions of Jesus and his desire to share the good news of his Divine Mercy.

8. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
An incredibly thought-provoking book on the need for the courage to be vulnerable.

7. The Gospel of Mark by Dr. Mary Healy
A succinct yet informative commentary on Mark’s Gospel.

6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The prophetic classic which causes us to reflect on what it means to be human.

5. Island of the World by Michael O’Brien
A novel of the life of a man who grew up in a war-torn Bosnia and experiences the Paschal Mystery throughout his life.

4. Catechism of the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II
Long story short, a compilation of just about everything Catholics believe.

3. Edith Stein: A Biography by Waltraud Herbstrith
Well-written account of the saint who grew up Jewish, became Atheist as she pursued philosophical studies, converted to Catholicism, became a cloistered nun, and eventually died in Auschwitz.

2. The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah
Meditations on the value and necessity of silence in a world dominated by noise.

1. Interior Freedom by Fr. Jacques Phillipe
Don’t judge a book by its cover! Phillipe is my favorite spiritual author, and this small book on how to live out of a place of interior freedom is quite possibly in the top three books I’ve ever read.

This Advent, Get Mauled by a Grizzly Bear

In 2015, actor Leonardo Dicaprio received his first Oscar for “Best Actor,” thanks to his starring role in the film The Revenant. The Revenant is based on a novel bearing the same name, which is based on the true story of a fronteirsman from the 19^th century named Hugh Glass. In 1823, at the age of forty, Hugh Glass was mauled by a girzzly bear, then left for dead by a few of his compatriots. Without any weapons or equipment and in such wretched condition, Glass managed to crawl hundreds of miles in an effort to avenge the men who stole his goods and left him to die. He would not let anything slow him down- not even his broken bones and the deep cuts on his back which exposed his ribs and quickly filled up with maggots.

At the end of the novel (which deviates from the plot-line of the film), Glass catches up with one of the antagonists who had left him for dead and is faced with a dilemma: kill the man and face severe consequences, or forgive, let go, and carry on. He ponders his decision one night as he looks out at the Missouri River. The novel reads:

“He stood there on the high rampart for a long time that night, listening to the Missouri and staring at the stars. He wondered at the stars and the heavens, comforted by their vastness against his own small place in the world. Finally he climbed down from the ramparts and went inside, quickly finding the sleep that had eluded him before.”

I think what Glass experienced that evening as he looked out at the immensity of the waters and the heavens is something many of us can relate to. There’s something about the vastness of creation that evokes some sort of existential curiosity and awe within us. For instance, I can still distinctly visualize a sunrise I witnessed one morning from the peak of a mountain in Honduras. I can visualize the view I had while I was near the spot where Jesus ascended into heaven, which overlooks the city of Jerusalem. Even in my college years, in a period of time when I was constantly asking “What am I doing with my life?” I remember finding some sort of consolation whenever I looked out at the sunset. Experiencing the grandeur of creation often helps me put my life in the perspective of eternity. I find myself truly “comforted” by the vastness of creation against my “own small place in the world.”

Overlooking Jerusalem from the site of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives

This Advent season is the perfect time to reflect on these themes. The mystery of the Incarnation causes us to ponder on the fact that Infinity dwindled to infancy. The Eternal became man so man could have eternal life. The Immortal became mortal to raise us mortals to immortality. What better time than now to reflect on the vastness of our God against our own small place in the world? Like Glass, we may find that directing more of our attention from ourselves towards God can actually help us find peace, hope, and consolation. Keeping eternity in mind can help us forgive, persevere, and be truly joyful.

This Advent, you need not get mauled by a bear to learn a thing or two about the “reason for the season.” Though, if you find yourself still carrying around some wounds, grudges, or frustrations that feel like claw marks on your soul, perhaps meditating on these strophes of various acathist hymns to the name of Jesus will help you gain a new appreciation for the mystery of the Incarnation:

Jesus, incomprehensible Word of God,
Jesus, impenetrable Mystery,
Jesus, immense Divinity,
Jesus, Lord of the universe,
Jesus, God from all eternity,
Jesus, King of kings,
Jesus most beautiful, Glory of angels,
Jesus my eternal Lord,
Jesus, Light that shines upon the universe,
Jesus, Poet of creation,
Jesus, Guardian of humanity,
Jesus, Shepherd of Nations,
Jesus, Light of the new dawn,
Jesus, Treasure always abundant,
Jesus, invincible Mercy,

Jesus, son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Jim & Solanus

Netflix recently came out with a new documentary called “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.” The film explores the attention Jim Carrey drew to himself when he played the late comedian Andy Kaufman in the film “Man on the Moon.” The attention was not simply due to Carrey’s uncanny impression of Kaufman while the cameras were rolling, but for his refusal to break character on or off the set. Carrey would often aggravate the director and fellow actors by abandoning any association with “Jim” and instead demanding to be addressed as “Andy.”

Eighteen years later, Carrey is now opening up about the inner turmoil he faced throughout the production of that film. He shares how later films like “The Mask” and “The Truman Show,” movies which have certainly left their mark on our pop culture, portray the very struggles he himself had undergone in his inability to differentiate between real-life and acting. At one point in the interview, he remarks: “I have a Hyde [from Jekyll and Hyde] in me that shows up when people are watching with their eyes on me and they hand me a microphone. Jim goes away and Hyde comes out. But it’s a good Hyde. It’s not a hateful Hyde. It’s a loving Hyde. It just wants everyone to party and have a good time. But it’s a Hyde nonetheless.”

The release date on this documentary was significant for me. Another event that took place on Friday November 17, 2017 was the funeral of the mother of one of my friends. She was a beautiful mother of nine who had touched the lives of so many. At the funeral, which took place at a time when many people had to work, the church had to resort to standing-room-only even after bringing out additional chairs. Nineteen priests concelebrated alongside the presiding priest, a dozen seminarians helped serve, and a full choir marvelously sang such hymns as the “Panis Angelicus.” Then, a little over twenty-four hours later, I found myself at Ford Field in Detroit at the beatification Mass of now Blessed Father Solanus Casey. It’s estimated that over 65,000 people filled the stadium just to celebrate the life of a poor, humble friar who had 20,000 people attend his funeral back in 1957.

The release of the documentary, the funeral of the mother of my friend, and the beatification ceremony of Fr. Solanus Casey all took place within a period of about twenty-four hours. I’m grateful it did, because it all helped teach me an important lesson: Become who God created you to be.

My friend’s mother and Fr. Solanus shared (at least) one very important quality: their authenticity. What you saw was what you got. Their holiness was no act, their life of virtue was not simply a matter of putting on a show. Who they were “on and off the set”, outside of and behind closed doors, at the workplace and in the pews, in their joy and in their suffering, was the same person. I’m sure Jesus could say to the two of them as he said to Nathanael, “There is no duplicity in [them]” (John 1:47). Fr. Solanus and my friend’s mother always seemed to be at peace with becoming who God created them to be. In doing so, they seemed to avoid all the stress and confusion that comes about whenever we try to “create” our own identity solely based on our own designs and efforts. Jim Carrey touches on this burdensome task when he says, “At some point, when you create yourself to make it, you’re going to have to either let that creation go and take a chance on being loved or hated for who you really are” (that is, to “take off the mask,”) “or you’re going to have to kill who you really are and fall into your grave grasping onto a character that you never were.”

I pray for Jim Carrey and for all those in Hollywood who struggle with this kind of inner turmoil as the cameras roll and the paparazzies follow their every move. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for them to strive to operate from the place of their true-self and not succumb to the temptation to constantly “put on the mask” for more laughs, sales, and publicity. And yet, if I’m being honest with myself, I can acknowledge that I do face that very temptation (albeit on a less dramatic scale) every day. Every day there are moments where I have to stop and ask myself, “Should I be what I think they might want from me, or should I simply be myself?” “Should I try to come off as a whacky, extroverted, charismatic person to this crowd in order to satisfy this culture’s Extrovert Ideal (a term coined by author Susan Cain in her best-selling book Quiet), or should I simply speak to them from the heart?” We all need to pray more for the courage, the humility, and the vulnerability to truly become who God has created us to be.

Blessed Solanus Casey was a man who strove to become who God created him to be. He “took the chance of being loved or hated” by being his true self day in and day out. Though he did not accomplish much in the eyes of the world and was found rather simple in appearance, there was something about him that drew people in by the thousands both while he was living and even since his death. The mother of my friend was a woman who strove to become who God created her to be. When the suffering that came with battling cancer intensified, any mask she may have been hiding behind would have come off. Yet family and friends attest to the fact that, in her last months on earth, her light only shone all the more brightly. Neither of these individuals were buried as a “Hyde,” but as their true selves. Neither of them could say, after their passing, “I killed who I really was and fell into my grave, grasping onto a character I never was.” Their lives of authentic holiness, of striving to become who God created them to be, was ultimately what attracted and inspired so many people.

Because what people truly want, the deepest desire of every human heart (as the memorial services of both the mother of my friend and Blessed Solanus Casey show), is Jesus Christ. The more we can become who God created us to be, whether introvert or extrovert, intelligent or simple, entertaining or humble, the more Christ will become present in us and through us.

If You Want to Be Heroic, Go to Bingo

Fr. Emil Kapaun was a US Army Chaplain in WWII. He was a Medal of Honor recipient and died as a P.O.W. A famous picture shows how he would celebrate Mass in war zones using the hood of his jeep as an altar.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest who was taken and eventually imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp. When a fellow prisoner was about to be killed, Kolbe volunteered to switch places with him. The guards let the man live and Kolbe spent the last two weeks of his life praying with prisoners being starved and dehydrated to death. He was eventually killed by a lethal injection.

Hearing stories of these and countless other heroic priests played a significant role in leading me to apply to the seminary. There was something I was beginning to find appealing in the sacrificial nature of the priesthood. After my first year of seminary I felt like I possessed the conviction of a martyr, the zeal of a knight in shining armor, and the courage of a soldier willing to run into the line of fire. (Slightly exaggerated, but not by much.)

This year I’m taking a break from my studies in order to have a “full-immersion” experience of parish life. Just as students take “full immersion” trips in a foreign country to learn a new language, so too am I enrolling in the classroom of parish life- fulling immersing myself in and learning from the reality of diocesan priesthood. In my first month, I’ve already learned a lot about myself and the priesthood. One thing I’ve been reflecting on lately is that, if you want to be heroic, all you need to do is go to bingo.

In his book Interior Freedom, Fr. Jacques Philippe speaks on how “love transfigures everything and touches the most banal realities with a note of infinity.” He relates this to the experience we sometimes have of feeling restricted when we must do something we wouldn’t ordinarily choose willingly. He continues, “Very often we feel restricted in our situation…But maybe the real problem lies elsewhere: in our hearts. There we are restricted, and that is the root of our lack of freedom. If we loved more, love would give our lives infinite dimensions, and we would no longer feel so hemmed in.” Finally, he concludes, “People who haven’t learned how to love will always feel like victims; they will feel restricted wherever they are. But people who love never feel restricted.”

If there was one area of my life where I sometimes feel “restricted” as I partake in a seemingly “banal reality,” it’s for two hours every Tuesday morning in our parish hall when I’m asked to call bingo numbers for our senior population. Now let the record show, I think those folks are great people and I look forward to seeing each one of them every week. The last thing I want is to make it sound like I feel that I have to “put up with them.” I could just as easily have ragged on having to attend Finance meetings, etc. We all have our own “bingos”; that is, the things that come up on a daily basis which we wouldn’t normally feel like choosing on our own but are asked to participate in/remain faithful to. Maybe your “bingo” today was attending a seminar for work or changing your crying baby’s diaper at 3 am.

As a twenty-four-year-old, I have lots of energy, motivation, hope, and ideas. I want to be out on the streets evangelizing people and praying with them. I want to prepare a talk on the Scriptures in order to inspire all our parishioners to give their hearts more fully to Christ. I want to be playing with the kids at recess at our Catholic school right across the street so I can try to be a good role model and help the young men see that seminarians are somewhat normal. Thus, it oftentimes feels “restricting” to have to sit down and yell “O-73” while I put other projects I’d like to be more involved in (and which I sometimes unfairly assess as being more “noble” and “valuable”) on hold.

I’m seeing more and more that the key to unshackling this feeling of restriction in these situations is exactly what Fr. Philippe proposes: love. Not just any old sense of the word “love”; rather, a love which is truly oriented toward willing the good of others. A love which does not count the cost. A love which requires that my own desires and my own will must die. That’s the kind of love which, as Philippe puts it, “transfigures everything and touches the most banal realities with a note of infinity.” Whenever I feel “restricted” at bingo, I’m reminded that it’s because I do not yet love those individuals perfectly (and probably won’t until heaven). Instead of throwing in the towel as I realize I’ll never be able to love them perfectly, I can very simply ask today for the grace of an increase in and purifying of my love for them.

This concept is also essential for all married couples. A beautifully written article, which went viral last year, described how one man realized that marriage wasn’t for him; instead, he discovered that marriage is for the one he was marrying. He writes, “a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. Selfishness demands, ‘What’s in it for me?’, while Love asks, ‘What can I give?’” This kind of selflessness and self-sacrificial love did anything but cause the author to feel “restricted” in his marriage or like a victim who never gets to do what he wants. On the contrary, he attests to experiencing the joy of receiving the self-sacrificial love his bride mutually desires to share with him.

In a world where less and less people are believing that authentic love and committed relationships are truly possible, we need witnesses of heroic love. In a world which preaches radical autonomy and keeping all your options open (which, ironically, leads to a kind of enslavement) we need witnesses of authentic interior freedom. This heroic love, which springs forth from authentic interior freedom, very often requires a death to our own wills and a desire to bring that love into whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. It doesn’t sound glorious, yet that is exactly the kind of “hidden” heroism which all of us are called to partake in and which will help provide the peace we all desire.

Priests like St. Maximillian Kolbe and Fr. Emil Kapaun are inspiring, but I’m learning to also be inspired by the “hidden heroes” in my life: men and women of every vocation who seek to love selflessly at each moment of their day. Men and women who enter into their own versions of “bingo” without dragging their feet and sighing for all to hear, but who pour forth their hearts in a self-sacrificial love which, whether it seems like it at the time or not, “transfigures everything and touches the most banal realities with a note of infinity.”

God, I’m Not Sorry

I found myself yelling at the TV screen several times yesterday as I watched the film The Purge. I always yell at characters, particularly in horror/suspense films, who don’t follow common sense and walk right into the hands of their killer. I’ve shouted such things as, “You idiot! Don’t go down there without a light!” “Why would you not check behind the door when you entered that room?” “I don’t feel sorry for you. You walked right into that one.” That last line in particular is the one I think (and sometimes yell out loud) most often. Thus it came as a great surprise (and, at the same time, great relief) when I realized this past week one way in which I can be just as foolish as a character in a horror film. If my soul could be on display like a film for the whole world to watch, viewers everywhere would be yelling at me, “You idiot! How do you keep walking into the same simple trap over and over again?” The trap I’ve been so frequently walking into is that, for too long now, I’ve been telling God, “I’m sorry.”

When To Be Sorry

Before you accuse me of falling into moral relativism, denying the gravity of sin, or advocating the false image of a God who just lets us do whatever we want, let me explain. There are circumstances in which we do need to say “I’m sorry” to God. Most folks who learned the Act of Contrition growing up know that one version of the prayer begins: “My God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended thee…”  Such a prayer is meant to be uttered at the conclusion of the sacrament of reconciliation/confession. This sacrament exists in order to reconcile us with God after we sever our relationship with him, with our neighbor, and with our selves through our mortal sins.

It’s important to remember that the three conditions constituting a mortal sin are: 1. The object chosen being one of grave matter 2. Committed with full knowledge and 3. Committed with deliberate consent (CCC, 1857). Another way of wording that is if by our free choice we deliberately choose to do (or not do) something we know full well involves grave matter and goes against our conscience, we can be assured that we have offended God by essentially saying, “I know what you want me to do, but I don’t care. I’m deliberately going to go against your desire for me.” In such instances, as has been mentioned, we sever our relationship with God, our neighbor, and our selves. When we come to see how we’ve caused such damage by means of our sins, we should naturally desire to approach God with a contrite heart, sorry for having offended him “who art all good and deserving of all my love.”

When Not To Be Sorry

The trap I’ve been walking into is not that I’ve been saying “I’m sorry” to God whenever I realize the damage I cause through my mortal sins: the trap I’ve been walking into is that I’ve been saying “I’m sorry” to God whenever I encounter my non-sinful imperfections. I hadn’t realized until just recently how often I’ve been apologizing to God for things that aren’t sinful: “Lord, I’m sorry I’m so tired in prayer today.” “Lord, I’m sorry I keep looking around the chapel instead of at you in the tabernacle.” “Lord, I’m sorry my mind keeps wandering to things I need to get done today.” None of these things are sinful and none of them merit an apology.

Before you brush this off as a minor or unimportant distinction, think again. Imagine the child you care for the most in this world: a child you’d do anything for and love unconditionally. Imagine if they came to visit you every day just to talk with you and be with you and how delighted you’d be even if it were only for a few minutes. Now imagine if every day the child came to visit, he kept apologizing for things that didn’t merit an apology: “I’m sorry I’m a little sleepy today.” “I’m sorry I keep getting distracted by my toys and the TV screen.” “I’m sorry if I smell a little funny today.” You may think nothing of these statements at first and instead reassure him, “You’re fine! I’m just happy I get to be with you.” Yet what if a majority of the things that child said during his daily visits began “I’m sorry”? Wouldn’t you start to be concerned? Would that child sound free to you? The same goes for us in our relationship with God. We are his children and he knows how childish and distracted we can be and how imperfect we are. Yet he does not expect nor does he desire for us to apologize in those instances where we encounter our non-sinful imperfections.

Why It Matters

Once again, this is more than a minor distinction in word-choice. On the contrary, it is a tactic devised by Satan himself in the spiritual warfare for our hearts. One of Satan’s nicknames in Scripture is “the Accuser” (Rev. 12:10). Another nickname is Lucifer which literally means “light-bearer.” Both nicknames come together in these moments when he tries to get us to apologize to God when no apology is necessary. As an Accuser, he tries to accuse us of having done something worthy of apology. As a light-bearer, he twists the truth and tries to convince us that apologizing is what God would want. Thus, he may speak to our hearts in the following way: “You’re in the presence of Almighty God and you’re falling asleep and your mind is wandering? What’s your problem? Is he not enough for you? Is this how he deserves to be treated? Apologize!” Listening to such reasoning can make it seem as though our apology is fitting repentance. However, in truth, we are actually condemning ourselves for something that doesn’t merit an apology. In the words of a wise priest, “Self-condemnation is recrimination masquerading as repentance.”

Be especially mindful of this trap if you are prone to struggling with self-condemnation and/or perfectionism. Such struggles can make it easier to buy into the lies that what we’re doing (or not doing) merits an apology and that such an apology will please God. In reality (and this is the main reason why such an attentiveness matters) it can distort our image of God and ourselves over time: God soon becomes a wrathful Father who is constantly disappointed in us, whose expectations we can never meet and whose love we can never accept without feeling a sense of guilt.

Conclusion

So the next time you find yourself saying “I’m sorry” to God, reflect for a moment on what you’re apologizing for. We must, with contrite hearts, say the words “I’m sorry” when we realize how our sins have offended God and severed our relationship with him, our neighbor, and our selves. These sins involve the three conditions of grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. If what we’re saying sorry for is not for something that met these three conditions, we can add something along the lines of, “Actually, no: I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry that my mind just wandered to things I need to get done today. I didn’t deliberately choose to ignore you or know full well what I was doing. However, now that I’ve recognized that my mind was wandering, I come to you with the desire to be more attentive to how you’re with me in this present moment.” It seems like a minor shift in thinking and word-choice, but it makes all the difference in the world. We need to learn when and when not to say “God, I’m sorry” as we, his children, walk more and more in his freedom safe from the enslaving mindset of perfectionism and self-condemnation.

Why I’m Forgiving These Darn Birds

One of the best parts about spring is the opportunity to open house and car windows to welcome in a refreshing breeze. In the last few weeks, the open windows have supplied another delightful gift; the chirping of nearby birds. My mornings in the last few weeks have consisted of drinking coffee near an open window at 5:30 or so, listening to the birds sing their morning hymns while the rest of the world slumbers. It’s a sound which is both beautiful in itself and which serves as a much-needed reminder that summer is on the way.

Unfortunately, it’s a sound that has also caused great pangs of frustration in the depths of my soul (slight exaggeration). I’m not annoyed by any painful screeches or rambunctious cacklings: the birds around these parts have been pretty gentle on the ears. Nor am I envious that these winged creatures don’t have exams to study for or papers to write as the semester draws to a close. I’m frustrated because they left when the going got tough and they’ve returned now that the conditions are not only bearable, but downright gorgeous.

Granted, I recognize that the birds needed to fly south for the winter not merely to avoid discomfort, but to avoid almost certain death. I realize that most birds are not made to survive the harsh winter months and must flee out of a biological necessity. Still, I’m tempted to passive-aggressively call out to my fowl friends, “It’s good to have you back! We missed you during the most miserable time of the year. I’m sorry to hear you only had four-star reservations in Palm Springs the last few months. Looks like we were both suffering!” Luckily, with the help of God’s grace, I’ve recently been able to let go of this tension in my heart and find the grace to forgive these darn birds.

This healing process started when I was praying with the passage from the third chapter of Daniel where three men are thrown into a blazing-hot furnace for refusing to worship the god and statue set forth by King Nebuchadnezzar. Though they were thrown into the white-hot furnace, they were able to walk amidst the flames untouched and unharmed as they sang praises to the glory of God. Fire in the Scriptures often calls to mind the theme of refinement. This can be found in Peter’s first letter when he writes how “now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 1:6-7).

As I prayed on these passages, I realized I don’t always do a good job of allowing myself to be refined by the flames. I’m often like Peter in that, when things are going well, I make such promises to the Lord as, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” Then, hours later, I can betray him at the first sight of trial. I can praise the Lord when I recognize the many blessings he’s bestowed on me, then angrily blame him minutes later when I face some sort of agony. I’m always amazed at how readily and consistently the Lord welcomes me back in his patient mercy. As I reflected on how I tend to flee from the Lord when the going gets tough, I was more readily able to sympathize with these birds.

However, this did not immediately lead to forgiveness on my part. In my mind, the birds still owed me. I could sympathize with their southbound flight, but I reasoned that they were still in some way in my debt. This continuously stirred up within me minor feelings of bitterness and resentment and I found myself incapable of fully enjoying their tender tweets.

This led me to consider the true meaning of forgiveness. In the last year or so, I’ve had conversations with several people who have been wounded in ways far greater than I’ve ever experienced. The ways in which they’ve been betrayed and harmed puts my plight with these birds to shame. Each of them are in the process of forgiving folks who have radically shattered their lives. If anyone has a right to hold someone in their debt, it would seem to be these folks. Yet each of these individuals I’ve spoken with have a desire and are working towards forgiving these people. Why?

I think, on a much more serious scale, it’s for the two reasons I’m trying to forgive these birds. First, as crazy as it sounds, there’s a refreshing sense of freedom we experience when we free someone from our debt. As I’m now able to rejoice in the sounds of a nice spring day while remaining free from feelings of bitterness and resentment, so too are folks who forgive people once in their debt experiencing a newfound sense of freedom. Un-forgiveness offers a false illusion of freedom and power, yet it actually can become enslaving and inhibit the healing process. (For a beautiful testimony on forgiveness, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGrbtma7LgE )

Second, as I eventually found it in my heart to forgive the birds based on the fact that I too have fled in tough times, so too are folks finding it in their hearts to forgive others when they look to the Cross. St. Matthew was a tax-collector who knew a thing or two about financial debts. In his version of the Lord’s Prayer, we could translate one of the lines from the original Greek as: “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Mt. 6:12). The reality is that your and my sins put us in God’s debt: a debt that could not be repaid on our part. Jesus’ death on the Cross was the moment where God himself took our place in order to free us from this debt and open to us the gates to eternal life. If God could forgive us our infinite debt, how can we not imitate that mercy and forgive our debtors? (See Mt. 18:21-35)

To forgive, then, is more or less to say to someone, “What you did was not right. I may never forget what you did. Because of this action, justice demands that you be in my debt. However, in imitation of the mercy God has bestowed on me, I will choose mercy over justice and release you from my debt. I refuse to be enslaved by the bitterness of a grudge and instead choose the freedom and healing that come with forgiveness. I forgive you.”

Birds, I no longer consider you to be in my debt. I’m looking forward to hearing your chirps as we enjoy this beautiful weather together. I forgive you for leaving and welcome you back as I, too, have been welcomed back time and time again into the merciful Heart of the Lord.

This Lent, Give Up Being A Wimp

At only eighteen years old, Blessed Chiara Luce Badano was dying of a rare form of bone cancer. She spent the last year of her life in a hospital going through round after round of chemotherapy and radiation. Her beautiful head of hair and healthy figure were quickly replaced with a buzz cut and an emaciated body. To make matters worse, it soon became clear that the cancer was inoperable and terminal. Her friends and family looked on in utter helplessness as the beautiful teenager before them prepared for her departure from this life. Yet, through it all, Chiara maintained a soft glow in her eyes and a sense of joy that inspired those who visited her and continues to inspire folks who read her testimony to this day. When a lock of hair would fall out, she would hold it up and pray, “For you, Jesus.” She was so sure of Jesus being present with her in her sufferings that she would frequently pray, “If you want this, Jesus, I want it too.”  On October 7, 1990, she passed away with these final words to her mother: “Bye mum, be happy, because I’m happy.”

I’ve recently been reflecting on the decision she made, in the midst of her great emotional distress and physical agony, to refuse morphine throughout her treatment. Her reasoning? “It reduces my lucidity and there’s only one thing I can do now: to offer my suffering to Jesus because I want to share as much as possible in his suffering on the cross.” For many, this reasoning of hers can sound naïve, misunderstood, absurd, and even downright insane. I, for one, question whether I would have this desire and this courage in such a situation. However, I believe this decision and the rationale behind it can teach us at least two valuable lessons as we enter into the Lenten season.

First, Chiara’s peace in this time of vulnerability serves as a great inspiration for us. These days the word “vulnerability” is generally equated with “emotional vulnerability” and typically evokes the image of a support group sitting in a circle passing around a box of Kleenex’s. I’m not knocking support groups, but this is only one manifestation of vulnerability. The word “vulnerable” comes from the Latin word “vulnerare” which means “to wound.” Thus, vulnerability literally means “able to be wounded.” A common example of vulnerability involves opening up about something you have a strong emotional attachment to, but there are other examples. For instance, a man who gets down on one knee to ask a woman for her hand in marriage places himself in a vulnerable position. In that moment on one knee, the man is opening himself up to the possibility of rejection; that is, the possibility of being “wounded.” He could avoid the possibility of being wounded with rejection by never asking, but that would also mean he’d have to avoid the possibility of rejoicing at hearing her say “Yes.” This is precisely the point: we cannot experience true, lasting joy and fulfillment if we are not willing to embrace moments of vulnerability.

We may be able to acknowledge the truth of this maxim in theory, but many of us still struggle with putting it into concrete practice. If you’re wondering how well you embrace vulnerability, ask yourself, “In what ways and how often do I numb myself from facing the harsh truths of reality?” When pain (physical or interior) rears its ugly head, we very often turn to some degree of numbing. Even something like grabbing a bag of Sour Patch Kids at the checkout lane because it’s been a bad day (speaking from experience) is a minor form of numbing. Numbing or “taking the edge off” in and of itself is not always a bad thing, but it can escalate into a big problem. Such numbing outlets that have become pretty commonplace in our culture are excessive alcohol consumption, recreational pot smoking, excessive gambling, obsession with social media, viewing pornography, and other sources of obtaining a brief dopamine high that may bring temporary relief. The problem, as we all know, is that this temporary numbing never fully satisfies us or gets rid of the problem we’re trying to run from, which is a realization that discourages us, which causes us to numb the pain of that realization, which doesn’t fully satisfy us, and the vicious cycle continues. What most people don’t realize (or, if they do, they don’t want to admit) is that numbing ourselves from a vulnerable state (that is, facing head-on the opportunity to be wounded by the harsh truths of reality) numbs us from the possibility of attaining the joy and fulfillment we’re longing for.

Research professor Brene Brown, known for her world-famous TEDTalk on vulnerability, flushes out this observation in her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. In her section on numbing ourselves from vulnerability, she writes, “Numbing vulnerability is especially debilitating because it doesn’t just deaden the pain of our difficult experiences; numbing vulnerability also dulls our experiences of love, joy, belonging, creativity, and empathy. We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.” If you still need convincing on this point, just watch Disney Pixar’s Inside Out.

When Chiara came face-to-face with excruciating pain and the foretaste of death, she had a decision to make: numb the pain with morphine, or embrace a painful and vulnerable state. As we know, she chose the latter. She courageously embraced the state of vulnerability not because she particularly enjoyed suffering (none of us do), but because she must have known that numbing her suffering and avoiding a state of vulnerability would somehow prevent her from experiencing joy and love at the deepest level of their being. Had she been doped up, the final words to pass her lips, “Be happy, because I’m happy” would have lost some of its credibility.

This leads to the other point that Chiara demonstrates through her heroic virtue: her decision to embrace this state of vulnerability was firmly rooted in love for another person. There’s something about suffering that has the capacity to draw us closer to others and, conversely, there’s something frightening about the idea of suffering alone. There’s a special bond that can be formed between two people who love one another when one or both persons are suffering. As I wrote in an earlier blog post What Refugees Taught Me About Love, Part One on the descending nature of agape love: “Love impels us to cry out to the suffering beloved, ‘I will take your place! I will take your sufferings upon myself.’ What mother would not look upon her cancerous child and say, ‘Lord, spare his life and take mine instead!’ What husband would not look upon his wife while she’s in great pain and say, ‘If only I could take on her sufferings and give her my own health.’” Chiara had such a great love for Jesus who suffered on the cross out of love for her that she desired “to share as much as possible in his suffering on the cross.”

Now if Chiara had this beautiful desire to avoid numbing her pain in order to share as much as possible in the sufferings of Christ, how much more should we expect Christ, who is Love, to avoid numbing his pain in order to share as much as possible in our sufferings? The reality is that he was presented with that very opportunity. In the first place, God becoming Incarnate and taking on the weakness of human flesh was the ultimate act of vulnerability (that is, allowing oneself to be wounded). In that state of vulnerability, he was eventually arrested, beat, spat upon, scourged, humiliated, crucified, and pierced with a lance. “Ability to be wounded” here would seem to be an understatement. As he dangled from the Cross, the crowds urged him to miraculously “come down from the Cross” so they could believe that he truly was God (Mt. 27:42). The irony was that he is God, and God is Love, and descending agape Love does not come down from crosses, but “comes down” precisely for crosses.

Throughout His Passion, Jesus was offered the chance to numb his pain. St. Matthew recalls, “They gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink” (Mt. 27:34). St. Mark also attests, “They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it” (Mk. 15:23). We can infer that this decision was an act of great love on his part, just as Chiara’s choice to willing embrace the sufferings that came with vulnerability was an act of great love.

This Lenten season, don’t settle for just giving up chocolate. This Lent, we have the chance to “give up” being wimps who constantly numb every source of  suffering. We have the chance to embrace rather than avoid vulnerability and lovingly share in some of the sufferings Christ underwent for us on Good Friday. We will no doubt be wounded in this state of vulnerability, but we must cling to the hope that this will lead us to a greater rejoicing in the reality of the resurrection. I pray that, whatever you do (or don’t do) this Lenten season, you are able to draw nearer to the pierced side of Christ’s flesh. For it is in contemplating the pierced side of Christ that, Pope Benedict XVI writes, “the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move.” May the beautiful witness of Blessed Chiara Luce Badano inspire us in walking this path of love- a path of love that is not for the faint of heart.

“At this point I have nothing left, but I still have my heart, and with that I can always love.”
-Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

‘Silence’ and the Value of Humiliation

(WARNING: Contains major spoilers)

“Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.” -Shusaku Endo (Silence)

The recently released film Silence, based on the 1966 historical novel by Shusaku Endo, has stirred up quite the array of reactions. Some walk away from theaters disgusted, others inspired. Some have discouraged everyone they know from seeing it, others are convicted that everyone needs to see it. And then there are those who just aren’t quite sure what to make of it. It would be unrealistic for me to try to address and respond to every difficulty people are having with the film. What I have set out to do in this post is draw parallels between characters in this story with characters both in the Gospels and in real life to highlight the value of humiliation.

A brief synopsis of Silence may be helpful here. The film/novel takes place during the persecution of Christians that really did occur in 17^th-century Japan. Two Jesuit priests (Fr. Rodrigues and Fr. Garrpe) requested to enter into this hostile territory in secret because they had heard rumors that their beloved and zealous mentor, Fr. Ferreira, had apostatized (that is, renounced his faith in Christ) amidst brutal persecution in his most recent mission. The two young priests set out to disprove these rumors and minister to the Japanese Christians who were living their faith in secret. When word got out that the priests were in Japan, the Japanese government punished the local Christians with brutal forms of torture and death. When they finally captured Fr. Rodrigues, they also had him undergo severe bouts of torture.

The cruel irony was that Fr. Rodrigues himself was not crucified, forced to dangle upside down in a pit, drowned, burned alive, or have boiling water continuously poured on his flesh like the Japanese martyrs experienced. Instead, he was told that they would continue to torture the Japanese Christians in these ways until he apostatized. What made it even more difficult was the spiritual battle inside Fr. Rodrigues’ soul where he experienced the frustrating “silence” of God at a time when he needed Him the most. When the sufferings of the faithful finally overwhelmed Fr. Rodrigues, he gave in and apostatized. He lived the rest of his life comfortably in Japan where he was forced year after year to renew the public denouncement of his faith.

One of the reasons why his apostatizing came as a surprise to many of the viewers (I could hear people gasp in the theaters) was because of how Fr. Rodrigues’ persona was portrayed throughout the film leading to that point. Martin Scorsese, director of the film, wrote a foreword in the recent edition of the novel. There he explains, “Sebastian Rodrigues represents what you might call the ‘best and the brightest’ of the Catholic faith…stalwart, unbending in his will and his resolve, unshakable in his faith.” Based on Fr. Rodrigues’ attitude and actions, one would think “he will be the hero,” “the Christ figure, with his own Gethsemane and his own Judas.” When Fr. Rodrigues realized the difficulties he was faced with were not the ones he expected or prepared for, he began asking God, “Why am I being kept alive? Where is my martyrdom? My glorious martyrdom?”

The film and novel flesh out these prideful intentions even more painfully in his thoughts towards a local man, Kichijiro. Kichijiro is portrayed throughout the film as the Judas/Peter of the story. Though he was once a “strong” Christian committed to enduring martyrdom like Peter, who had told Jesus at the Last Supper, “Though all may have their faith in you shaken, mine will never be…I will not deny you,” he too had apostatized and lived in great shame. When Fr. Rodrigues came to Japan, Kichijiro went to confession to the priest and asked him for absolution for his earlier act of betrayal. However, soon after his confession, he told the authorities where Fr. Rodrigues was hiding out and was rewarded three hundred pieces of silver (calling to mind the thirty pieces of silver Judas received). Sickened by what he had done in a moment of weakness, he came back to the imprisoned Fr. Rodrigues for confession once more. Fr. Rodrigues reluctantly absolved him with “a bitter taste on his tongue.” He looked down upon Kichijiro as “weak” for falling so frequently while considering himself as “strong” for remaining faithful. He then reflected in the novel, “Men are born in two categories: the strong and the weak, the saints and the commonplace, the heroes and those who respect them. In time of persecution the strong are burnt in the flames and drowned in the sea; but the weak, like Kichijiro, lead a vagabond life in the mountains.” When he himself apostatized, he reflected on the weakness he’d previously perceived in Kichijiro and finally came to the revelation, “I wonder if there is any difference between Kichijiro and myself.”

One of the main takeaways for me from the story was the humbling realization that I am more like Judas and Peter than I often am willing to admit. I’d like to think that I could persevere through any trial, that I could die a martyr’s death, that I have a strong enough friendship with Christ to never betray him. Yet, though I have never formally renounced my faith in Christ, I “betray” him every day when I sin. I can often take on the prideful, self-reliant attitude of Fr. Rodrigues that I am “strong” while looking down on others as “weak” (or at least weaker than myself). Much like the Pharisee in Luke 18, I tend to subconsciously pray, “God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of humanity: greedy, dishonest, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11). I go back to confession again and again, even though I pray at the end of the Act of Contrition, “I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.” It’s in those times that the Lord gently (or sometimes not so gently) leads me into encountering my own interior poverty so that I can honestly say, “I wonder if there is any difference between Kichijiro/Fr. Rodrigues/Judas/Peter/the tax collector and myself.”

This revelation is not meant to encourage us to self-condemnation to the point of despair over our sinfulness. That hopeless despair is unhealthy and has no value. What encountering our interior poverty should do is lead us all the more to Christ our Divine Physician. For he himself said, “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners” (Luke 5:32), for “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do” (Matthew 9:12). After Peter denied our Lord three times, Jesus did not abandon him to wallow in the overwhelming reality of his sinfulness but sought him out and led him to repentance. The tax collector who, unlike the prideful Pharisee, cried out, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner” was held up as a model for us since “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:13-14).

A 20^th-century “real-life” Jesuit priest by the name of Fr. Walter Ciszek faced a similar revelation during his time in Soviet labor camps and prisons. He felt the Lord call him to leave the safety and familiarity of his parish in Poland and head to Soviet Russia to minister to the Catholics being placed in the labor camps. He recounted in his book He Leadeth Me one moment in this time that set the stage for a life-altering experience. After spending five torturous years in a Soviet prison camp, on a day in which he felt weak and, “prayed for the Spirit to move [him] and felt nothing, feeling abandoned by God,” he finally gave in to the interrogators’ commands and agreed to renounce his faith. He recalled, “I was despicable in my own eyes, no less than I must appear to others. My will had failed: I had proved to be nowhere near the man I thought I was.” (“I wonder if there is any difference between Kichijiro and myself.”)

He follows this up with a crucial observation:

“I was ashamed because I knew in my heart that I had tried to do too much on my own, and I had failed. I felt guilty because I realized, finally, that I had asked for God’s help but had really believed in my own ability to avoid evil and to meet every challenge. In a way, I had been thanking God all the while that I was not like the rest of humanity, that he had given me a good physique, steady nerves, and a strong will, and that with these physical graces given by God I could continue to do his will at all times and to the best of my ability. In short, I felt guilty and ashamed because in the last analysis I had relied almost completely on myself in this most critical test- and I had failed.”

It almost sounds like a page out of Fr. Rodrigues’ journal (and did you catch the tax collector reference?). However, how Fr. Ciszek continued from that point on set him apart from Fr. Rodrigues and helped him identify more with the tax collector. (As a reminder, the tax collector, mindful of his sinfulness, had cried out, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner” and our Lord commented, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:13-14).)

As he continued reflecting on his great act of betrayal, Fr. Ciszek wrote:

“God must sometimes allow us to act on our own so we can learn humility, so we can learn the truth of our total dependence on him, so we can learn that all our actions are sustained by his grace and that without him we can do nothing. Learning the full truth of our dependence upon God and our relation to his will is what the virtue of humility is all about. For humility is truth, the full truth…And what we call humiliations are the trials by which our more complete grasp of this truth is tested.”

It was through that humiliation of betrayal that Fr. Ciszek was faced with the invitation that had been offered to the tax collector, Peter, Fr. Rodrigues, and Judas, yet was only taken up by Fr. Ciszek, the tax collector, and Peter: to resist the temptation to despair over his own sinfulness and instead turn to Divine Mercy once more. This act of repentance could only be possible through humility of heart.

After his act of betrayal, Fr. Ciszek “turned to prayer in fear and trembling. I pleaded my helplessness to face the future without him. I told him that my own abilities were now bankrupt and he was my only hope.” It was then that he was consoled by the thoughts of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Fr. Ciszek referred to this revelation in prayer as “a conversion experience, and I can only tell you frankly that my life was changed from that moment on. I knew that I must abandon myself entirely to the will of the Father and live from now on in this spirit of self-abandonment to God.” This kind of decision could only come, he admitted, “by the experience of a complete despair of my own powers and abilities that had preceded it.” From that moment on he knew “I could no longer trust myself, and it seemed only sensible then to trust totally in God.”

He took back his offer of betrayal to the Soviet guards and was sent to labor camps for fifteen years as a punishment. He endured those years with a newfound sense of God’s consoling presence that was only made possible through the painful humiliation of the weakness of his own will. After his release from the camps, he reflected once more, “No matter how badly the humble man fails, he will reckon his accounts with God and start over again, for his humility tells him of his total dependence on God.”

Here’s my point: Humility consists in seeing the truth of who we are and who God is. Through humiliations big and small, we can come to find that we are not as strong or holy as we thought we were. After we are humiliated we are left with two choices: forever wallow in an isolated, secretive despair at our sinfulness like Fr. Rodrigues and Judas chose, or humbly repent and seek God’s mercy once more like Peter, the tax collector, Kichijiro, and Fr. Ciszek. Seeking to grow in humility does not mean desiring to scrupulously condemn ourselves over every little flaw we find, but to rely on God’s presence and strength in a way that opens ourselves up to having our egos deflated. Silence shows how all of us, even the “strongest,” are capable of being brutally humiliated, but the Gospels and Fr. Ciszek’s story serve as a more inspiring model of the hope we can still have in God’s mercy on our pursuit towards sainthood and of the value of humiliation.

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Top Fifteen Books of 2016

In 2013, 2014, and 2015 I shared my favorite books I read in those respective years. Here are the top fifteen books I read in 2016 along with a one-sentence description of each book. (Follow me on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/13386635?shelf=read )

15. Father Elijah: An Apocalypse by Michael O’Brien.
An apocalyptic novel depicting the life of a faithful priest entrusted with an important mission as the end times draw near.

14. The Mystery of Joseph by Fr. Marie-Dominique Phillippe
Striking, prayerful reflections on the foster-father of Jesus.

13. The Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
One of the most critically-acclaimed novels from the 19th-century covering a wide array of themes and ideas.

12. The Way of a Pilgrim by Anonymous
A short novel that follows a pilgrim around as he discovers the beauty of the “Jesus Prayer” in the midst of seeking out the meaning behind St. Paul’s exhortation to, “pray without ceasing.”

11. The Mystical Body of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen
A wonderfully crafted teaching on the nature of the Church from the beloved 20th-century priest, author and speaker.

10. The Art of Being a Good Friend by Hugh Black
Timeless advice on how to cultivate meaningful friendships.

9. The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac
An intelligent investigation by the great 20th-century theologian into the downfalls in the atheistic humanism philosophies present in our world.

8. Healing by Dr. Mary Healy
A theological/biblical exploration into the reality of Jesus’ healing power and the ways in which it still reaches people today.

7. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The “children’s story” that has something to say to all ages.

6. The Meaning of Tradition by Yves Congar
A brilliant teaching by the renowned twentieth-century theologian which unveils the beauty of what the Church is referring to when she uses the word, “Tradition.”

5. Silence by Shusaku Endo
A novel following a missionary priest who endures great sufferings amidst the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan (now a major motion picture).

4. He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek
Raw, down-to-earth life lessons presented by a priest who had spent twenty three agonizing years in Siberian prison and labor camps.

3. Into Your Hands, Father by Wilfrid Stinissen
A brief, yet powerful spiritual read on the importance of abandoning ourselves more fully into God’s Divine Providence.

2. Come Be My Light by St. Mother Teresa with Brian Kolodiejchuk
A commentary on the private letters St. Mother Teresa wrote on her spiritual life with a special emphasis on the interior sufferings she endured.

1. Charles de Foucauld by Jean-Jacques Antier
A powerful biography on the incredible life of the 20th-century martyr.

What were some of the best books you read this year? Feel free to leave a comment below. 

Rediscovering Beauty

“God speaks to man through the visible creation. The material cosmos is so presented to man’s intelligence that he can read there traces of its Creator.”
-Catechism of the Catholic Church #1147

It all started when I was about to doze off in the chapel. One cup of coffee proved to be an insufficient dose to sustain me during my 6:00 A.M. Holy Hour this morning. I must have looked super holy with my head bowed and eyes closed, but in reality I was striving to use the little strength left in me just to stay awake. It was then that I remembered a specific task I had assigned to myself for the day: “Find at least one beautiful thing and allow it to move your heart to God.”

A little background here might be helpful. I’ve recently been struck by the claims made in the “Catholic world” (more specifically the ideas of Hans Urs von Balthasar as advocated and explained by the hosts of the podcast, “Catholic Stuff You Should Know” and by Bishop Robert Barron) regarding the importance of acknowledging and promoting beauty in theology. The basic idea is that in every created reality there exists, to certain degrees, a sense of truth, goodness, and beauty about it (referred to as the three transcendentals). God himself contains the fullness of these three transcendantals in its purest form, so everything we can observe in creation that exudes one or more of these qualities is a kind of reflection of God. Thus when we recall a time when our heart was moved by the goodness exhibited by St. Mother Teresa, we should recognize in that moment of captivation an invitation towards exploring the fullness of pure Goodness: God. The same goes for truth and beauty as well.

The problem is that true beauty is often misunderstood and thus underappreciated in our society and in our Church. Beauty tends to be associated with adjectives like “pretty” or “visually appealing,” which leads to an abuse of the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” For instance, if beauty were merely “pretty” or “visually appealing,” then I would not call an old, wrinkled, hunched-over Albanian woman named Mother Teresa “beautiful.” Yet there is something about her that radiates something I can’t adequately put into words.

So, what do we mean when we call something “beautiful”?

That’s what I’ve decided to explore. For at least the next two months, I’m going to try to open myself up to the beauty that surrounds me on a daily basis. I want to discover the different doorways God places in my daily life to have an encounter with him. I’ve been keeping a Beauty Journal to keep track of these encounters in order to train myself to take notice of the beauty present in what would have otherwise been simply looked over as ordinary or mundane.

That was where I found myself in the chapel this morning. When I slightly lifted my head up, striving to be open to the ways in which God could speak to me through beauty, my eyes landed on the back of the pew in front of me. I’m in the chapel at least once a day every day so I’ve seen the back of a pew before. Yet I never observed it with such intentionality as I did in that moment. I found myself struck by the patterns of the growth rings.
It wasn’t really visually appealing or “pretty,” yet there was something about it that really captivated me. In one sense the pattern of the growth rings was ordered, in another sense it wasn’t. There was a sense of order in so far as the whole pattern did not seem chaotic, yet it wasn’t a perfectly symmetrical, aligned, equally distributed order. It retained a sense of “natural-ness,” so to speak. The wooden structure itself had been sanded down, glossed over, and shaped into this structure by man, yet the pattern present in the wood was something that had not been forged by man. There was something that remained from its time as a tree in some distant forest despite the many changes it had undergone. The more I thought about that, the more fascinated I became.

It reminded me of a fingerprint.

Our fingerprints also have a sense of order about them, yet they’re not cookie-cutter perfectly ordered. There’s a uniqueness to every set of fingerprints such that no two fingerprints in the world are exactly the same. The pattern of a fingerprint, like the pattern of the growth rings on a piece of wood, is not shaped, altered, or even designed by man. It is one of the intrinsic things about me that remains the same despite other changes I may undergo over the span of my lifetime.

There was something about the patterns of the growth rings in the wood and the complexity of my fingerprints that truly captivated me today. Neither of these two things are all that visually-pleasing or pretty, yet I encountered something truly beautiful the more I reflected on it. I suppose you could say I was able to sense God’s fingerprints in creation.

Then, as I looked up from the pew in front of me, reflecting on what I had just realized, I all of a sudden was struck by how much wood there was in our chapel. In addition to the wooden floors below my feet and the wooden pews,
there was also a wooden altar, wooden choir stalls, and a wooden backdrop to the sanctuary in front of me.
When I left the chapel and went upstairs to my room, I noticed that we had wooden stair railings.
I got to my room and set my books on my wooden desk,
grabbed a sweatshirt from my wooden dresser,
closed my wooden closet,
grabbed some vitamins out of my wooden sink cupboards,
draped my rosary over my wooden bed frame,
grabbed a pen off of my wooden bed stand,
grabbed a textbook off of my wooden bookshelf,
closed my wooden door,
walked down the hallway and passed numerous wooden windowsills
and wooden walls,
sat down in class at my wooden desk, and began listening to my professor teach from a wooden podium.

I never realized how much wood surrounds me on a daily basis because I wasn’t “looking” for it. Until I purposely sought to look for all the different ways wood surrounds me in the seminary, it was simply taken for granted. This is why I’m excited to spend the next two months (at least) trying to daily keep myself attentively open to encountering beauty. I have no idea what I’m going to learn along the way. I still can’t even fully describe what “beauty” is so I don’t know how I’ll be able to stumble across it. But I have the intuition that this is something I need to work on. Something the world needs to work on. Because as the renowned 19^th-century author Dostoevsky put it, “Beauty will save the world.” Beauty cannot be merely associated with so-called “beauty pageants” any longer, nor can it be limited to merely visually-pleasing or pretty pictures on Instagram of sunsets and waterfalls and mountain ranges. For if we cannot see beauty in the face of our neighbors and/or the poor that we encounter each day because they are not “pretty,” if we cannot see beauty in the image of the crucifix because it is not “visually-appealing,” then we do not really know what beauty is.

Von Balthasar reminds us of the urgency of this need to rediscover true beauty when he writes, “We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it…[Yet] we can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past — whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.”

Will you join me on this journey of rediscovering beauty? Consider keeping a Beauty Journal, try to make an entry at least once a day, and reflect on whether that encounter with beauty somehow led you to encounter God.

The Final Blessing

Update: Monsignor Tom Villerot passed away December 5, 2016, just weeks after this post was first written and shared. Please say a prayer for the repose of his soul

~ ~ ~

Ninety-nine years ago, Our Lady of Fatima appeared in the miracle of the sun, America entered WWI, J.R.R. Tolkein began working on his opus magnum, The Silmarillion, and Monsignor Tom was born in Detroit, Michigan. If you do the math, you’ll notice that as a priest he’s prayed Mass on Sunday at least 3,800 times (again, that doesn’t include daily Mass), he’s heard at least 10,000 confessions, and, if he’s prayed the Liturgy of the Hours all five times a day for at least thirty years of his seventy-four year priesthood, that means he’s opened up his Breviary prayer book at least 50,000 times.

In the first year of major seminary at Sacred Heart, seminarians are sent out to visit and pray with patients and residents at local hospitals and nursing homes. I had the chance to visit with Msgr. Tom on a few occasions this semester at a local nursing home. Our conversations generally revolved around the Detroit Tigers, our families, and our time in the seminary. I’m convinced that five years from now I will forget almost every word of our conversations, yet I hope I never forget our final encounter.

A group of us seminarians all squeezed into his room this past week to say our final goodbyes before we began our assignment at a local hospital. He wouldn’t let us go before running through his usual selection of stories from his childhood and seminary days. When he told us about the time his dad broke out the belt once he caught him smoking cigarettes as a youngster, we laughed aloud together. When he shared the lessons he’d learned the hard way as a priest, we drank in every bit of wisdom that flowed from the chalice of his heart. As our time together came to a close, we asked him if he could give us a final blessing. He was more than eager to do so and sat up in his wheelchair. His eyes closed and his head slowly began to droop as he prepared to enter into dialogue with his lifelong Intimate Friend. His tone of voice softened as he spoke, “Father…”

Suddenly, the sounds of the P.A. system calling for assistance in Room 213, the scraping of the wheels of walkers trudging through the hallways, and Wolf Blitzer’s voice blaring from the TV in the next room all began to fade. Silence took the place of time as this humble shepherd led us into the presence of the Eternal God. We all leaned forward a bit so we wouldn’t miss a single word.

“Father,” he began again, “we ask you to bless these men.” He paused. Perhaps he was taking the time to craft the perfect prayer in his head before speaking it aloud. Perhaps he was trying to find the right words to convey to us the goodness of God. Perhaps he simply couldn’t function as quickly as he used to and was using all the strength he had in him to stay focused on this one prayer. When he finally spoke again, his words did not flow together cohesively. It took a great amount of attention on our part to discern what words he was trying to say amidst his mumbling.

Eventually, his focus turned from addressing God to addressing all of us. He slowly lifted up his head so he could look each one of us in the eye. I will never know with certainty what it was that he saw when he looked at us. Did he see in us the younger version of himself: young men passionate to give our lives in service for the Lord while still naïve about the crosses that will come our way? Did our presence remind him of how quickly the time had gone for him? Was his heart filled with regrets as he considered all the ways in which he could have done more over the years to love God and others? Whatever it was that he saw, it caused a tear to run down his face and dangle from the tip of his nose.

“Keep up the hard work,” he told us. “It’s worth it.” His face relaxed a bit and a small glimmer of light twinkled in his eyes. Though his body was still in 2016, his mind had suddenly been calmed by a brief visit to the 1920s. “When you were kids, maybe you used to play Mass.” At this we all chuckled. “But soon…” All of a sudden his face began to scrunch up. He brought his fragile hands together and raised them slightly off his lap. His voice broke into a higher pitch as he spoke, “Soon you will be able to say, ‘This is my body.” He sniffled. “This is my blood.” His head and hands slowly drooped back down and only the sound of his sniffs could be heard. We all looked with great admiration on this faithful servant. While he thought of the right words to end his prayer, I quickly prayed in my own heart, “Lord, grant that I may have Msgr. Tom’s perseverance. May I cling to you to the end.”

When he raised his head again, he looked each of us in the eye one more time. His gaze pierced right through the shortcomings, the insecurities, and the worries that surrounded our young hearts. Though he is practically blind, he had developed a vision of another kind over his lifetime. He saw something in us that we could not see ourselves that prompted him to conclude, “You guys are the light of the world…You are the light of the world.” He paused once more, knowing he had said everything he needed to say, and lifted up his right hand. “And may the blessing of Almighty God…the Father…the Son…and the Holy Spirit…come down upon you…and remain with you…forever.”

“Amen.”

~

“Homes for the elderly should be the ‘lungs’ of humanity in a country, in a neighborhood, in a parish; ‘sanctuaries’ of humanity where those who are old and weak are cared for and taken care of like a brother or a sister. It’s good for you to go and visit senior citizens! Young people, who sometimes seem so miserable and sad: Go visit an elderly person and you will become joyful!”
-Pope Francis

 

There Will Be No Pumpkin Spice Lattes In Heaven

There are many ways of coming to the conclusion that fall is finally here other than checking the calendar. Those of us who appreciate a cold brew noticed that Leinenkugel’s “Summer Shandy” has been replaced with “Oktoberfest”, the nature-lovers have observed the paintbrush of green leaves has seemingly been slowly dipped into an invisible bucket of red or yellow paint, and Instagram/Twitter/Facebook users have seen more than their fair share of poorly-filtered pictures of people venerating their beloved pumpkin spice lattes.

Fall is officially here and the transition into a new season brings forth a mixture of emotions. Those who despise Jack Frost are not amused by fall’s trademark contributions of apple cider, doughnuts, and array of colors; they see right through fall’s attempt at distracting them from the impending doom of the winter season and shake their fists in fury. Those who have mastered the art of being grateful in each present moment do not focus their attention on the pros and cons of the past or the future seasons but are trying to live in the present circumstances with great optimism and appreciation. I tend to naturally adhere more to the first view. As I strive to take on the mentality offered by the latter approach in order to stay sane in these upcoming months, I also find comfort in the fact that there will be no pumpkin spice lattes in Heaven.

We’re all familiar with the age-old analogy regarding the rhythm of the seasons. There’s something about the cycle of the four seasons that speaks to the cycle of our lives and the life of all that grows from the earth. Summertime tends to be associated with fruitfulness and life, fall is associated with the process of change (most notably towards death) and last call for harvesting, winter is associated with death, and spring is associated with renewed life.

We see hints of this relationship between the seasons and the stages of life in Scripture when we read, for instance, Song of Songs 2:10-13,

“Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come…the fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.”

We find something similar in Luke 21:29-30,

“Consider the fig tree and all the other trees. When their buds burst open, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near…”

Fall/winter is a time of dying and death and the following spring/summer is a time for rebirth and fruitfulness.

Now consider these two incredibly similar visions of Heaven brought forth first by the prophet Ezekiel and then from the Book of Revelation:

“Then he brought me to the bank of the river, where he made me sit. Along the bank of the river I saw very many trees on both sides. He said to me… ‘Along both banks of the river fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
-Ezekiel 47:6-12

“Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of its street. On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations.”
-Revelation 22:1-3

Will there literally be trees in Heaven that will appear exactly as has just been described? Possibly- but that’s not my takeaway from these passages. My takeaway is that in Heaven we will no longer experience death or the process of dying/intense suffering. That’s something we will only experience on earth and in purgatory. The idea that “their leaves shall not fade” and that “every month they shall bear fresh fruit” brings to mind another passage from Revelation which speaks of our hope in everlasting life:

“Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth…I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.’ The one who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.'”
-Revelation 21:1-4

Though this life is filled literally with the repeated cycle of all four seasons and we experience spiritually/emotionally what tends to be associated with each season at various times in our life, the whole of our earthly lives can be described as a journey from the springtime of our youth to the wintertime of our death. Heaven is a time of sharing for all eternity in the glory of Christ’s resurrection; the rebirth of springtime and the fruitfulness of summertime.

In Heaven, therefore, there will be no death, there will be no fall, and thus there will be no pumpkin spice lattes.

 

Why I’m Starting To Dig Classical Music

[WARNING: I am not a wine connoisseur. If you place a glass of red wine in front of me, I will not swish it around, inhale it in, and say (with a pretentious accent), “Splendid: an angular wine. The sweetness and hints of cedar-wood give it a cigar box flavor and there appears to be a hint of oak. I would say this opulent, velvety wine must be a 1942—no—1940 from the Trebbiano grapes of Italy.” I would probably take a few sips and say, “Dang, this is a lot better than boxed wine.”

Similarly, I know next to nothing about classical music. I cannot yet tell a Baroque from a Romantic, a viola from a violin, a canon from a concerto. Yet when I listen to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6, I can still be rendered speechless and think, “Dang, this is so much better than bro-country.”

Those who boast much experience with and knowledge of classical music, you have been warned.]

 ~ ~ ~

About a third of the way into the 2011 film Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt, there is a fifteen minute scene that depicts the great drama of creation from it’s beginnings to the first stages of human life. Accompanying the stunning cinematic effects is some pretty epic background music. The first installment features an opera singer whereas the second installment is solely instrumental. The richness of the music in both cases is a tantalizing supplement to the special effects.

Not surprisingly, the director Terrence Malick is not the first person to want to express the intricacies of the unfolding of creation through music. In fact, we can find someone who took such an approach all the way back “in the beginning.” Yes, I’m speaking of none other than the author of Genesis.

Almost all of my readers have read, at some point, the creation story in Genesis 1. Most people recognize that the genre of this passage is not a literal, scientific explanation of the origins of our universe. We need not believe, for instance, that the author wished to teach us that God created the world in six twenty-four-hour days. With careful studying, the reader can pick up on some rather intriguing features in the passage. The following is a modified (underlined, different spacing, italicized, bolded) version of a snippet from the passage which should show that the author was trying to tell us something more than just what we find on the surface:

“ And God said,
‘Let there be light,’
and there was light…
And God SEPARATED the light from the darkness.
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said,
‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters,
and let it SEPARATE the waters from the waters.” …
And God called the expanse Heaven.
And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”

Notice the patterns? The rhythm? That’s not a coincidence. The ancient Israelite’s saw this account of creation in Genesis as a liturgical hymn which culminates in the seventh day when God creates the Sabbath. Think of the structure of a modern day pop song. There’s generally a verse, a chorus, a new verse, a repeat of the chorus, a bridge, and a repeat of the chorus. We can see in the Genesis account of creation a kind of hymn being shared with us. The first verse deals with light and darkness, the second verse deals with the waters and the heavens, yet there is a chorus of sorts that repeats in both days and brings about a harmonious unity.

There are many other Scripture passages which convey this understanding of the wonderful ordering of creation in such a poetic manner. Several of the Psalms, which were written as lyrical/poetic hymns of praise to God, touch on these themes. Psalm 96, for instance, proclaims: “Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice; let the sea and what fills it resound; let the plains be joyful and all that is in them. Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord…” Psalm 139 states, “How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sands.” And who could forget the canticle from Daniel 3:52-90 which includes, “Mountains and hills, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Everything growing on earth, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. You springs, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Seas and rivers, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.”

What does this have to do with my growing appreciation for classical music? While in prayer the other day, I realized that a great symphony surrounds me at all times. God, the Great Composer of the universe, has placed certain people in my life to form a piece Beethoven never could have conceived of. Some people in my life take the role of a violin, some take the role of a trombone, others a piano, a harp, or a bass. Still others are a clarinet, a flute, or a bass drum. When I’m in my Trinity class and my elderly, Jesuit, Irish-version-of-a-hyper-Clint-Eastwood professor is yelling at all of us about the Modalism Heresey, I can hear the pace of the score picking up as a rambunctious trumpet suddenly steals the spotlight. When I’m in a chapel filled with seminarians facing Our Lord in the Eucharist just a few feet away, my soul rises up with the peaceful chords that glisten off the strings of a cello (until someone sneezes).

When I’m caught up in a Shubert piece I’ve never heard before, I experience a sense of unpredictability. Unlike a pop song where I can quickly pick up on the words of the chorus by the end of the song, some classical composers seem to be a little more evasive. As I listen to a classical piece I can pick up on patterns here and there, but I can’t guarantee that the piece won’t all of a sudden shift into a minor key and slow down considerably within three measures. At times the piece seems chaotic and I think, “Where did that come from? Where are we heading?” Yet after a period of time, if I’m listening attentively, I can usually recognize, “Ah, so that wasn’t as random as I thought it was. It really did serve some purpose after all.” What seems in the present to be a moment of chaos ends up being classified, in retrospect, as merely unpredictable. From my experience, what appears to be chaotic generally entails a sense of unpredictability, but unpredictability does not necessarily entail chaos.

And so it seems to be in the symphony of my life. I have had some people contribute one lousy note to the score. Some people have been present for a measure. Some have merely blended in with the masses while some have had a solo all of their own that has captivated my attention for an extended period of time. I have wept as some who had made a significant contribution to the experience stood, took a bow, and walked off the stage with what appeared to be no intent of returning. In these moments I can fall into despair, thinking that the symphony has come to an abrupt halt and the Conductor chose to culminate this overall aesthetically-pleasing work, filled with a wide range of emotions, into the faint buzz of a lone kazoo. If I don’t keep the entire symphony in mind, I can think that I’m drowning in a whirlpool of meaningless chaos. If I can recognize that God has ordered the universe in some sort of symphonic manner and, with even greater attention and love, ordered our lives in a symphonic manner, I can see a confusing duration as being simply unpredictable, not meaninglessly chaotic. It is in those moments that I must keep my eyes fixed on the Baton of the Conductor, faithfully playing the notes placed before me measure by measure.

This is why I have started to listen to classical music. The yearnings of my heart for the transcendent are guided upwards by the beauty that emanates from a well-written symphony. A sense of order and rhythm that sometimes takes a strenuous attentiveness to notice reminds me of the invisible realities at work in our visible universe. The frustrations I have regarding the unpredictability of life is abased.  Life regains meaning. There is a reason to keep going. This present moment serves a purpose. Everything that has led to this point has served a purpose. In the end, when the Divine Conductor takes His bow and the angels and saints offer their applause, the magnificence of the piece will finally hit me. I will recognize the value of every note, every instrument, every rest. In that moment I will desire nothing more than to bow down in humble adoration for all eternity.

^“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.’ The one who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” -Revelation 21:1-5

 

Why Mary Matters

St. Teresa of Calcutta, who wrote into the Rule for the Missionaries of Charity that her Sisters “should use every means to learn and increase in that tender love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” once said, “I make a Holy Hour each day in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. All my sisters of the Missionaries of Charity make a daily Holy Hour as well, because we find that through our daily Holy Hour our love for Jesus becomes more intimate, our love for each other more understanding, and our love for the poor more compassionate.”

I had the opportunity recently to pray a Holy Hour with some Missionaries of Charity stationed in the Detroit-area. All four of them were originally from India and three of the four couldn’t have been taller than five feet. They graciously welcomed us into their chapel which was a simple, cozy living room in a building located in an inner-city neighborhood. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed and the Sisters prayed Evening prayer and a rosary before entering into a half hour of meditation.

Towards the middle of the rosary the doorbell rang. One of the sisters answered the door and guided a young, blind girl into the room. The Sister sat the young girl down next to her and went back to kneeling on the hardwood floor, gaze fixed on Jesus in the Eucharist. The young girl must have had some sort of autism because she constantly reached out to touch and re-touch the hem of the Sister’s habit (reminding me of the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, “People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed” (Matthew 14:35-36).)

The window at the back of the room was open and we could hear the neighborhood kids playing outside. Every once in a while the kids would laugh and the girl would turn her body in their direction, laughing as though she was in on whatever was happening. Whenever she got distracted she would reach back and grab hold of Sister’s habit to find her bearings. When her body turned too far to the side and she began making noises, the Sister would gradually nudge the girl’s knee, causing the girl to turn back towards the Blessed Sacrament. The Sister would then go back to adoring Our Lord with a smile on her face.

As I reflected on the beautiful sight before me, I couldn’t help but think of the role Our Blessed Mother is meant to play in all of our lives.

A traditional analogy compares the relationship between Mary and Jesus to the moon and the sun. Though the sun is always shining, there are times (most notably at night) when we are not able to see it. However, we have faith that the sun is shining when we see it reflected off the moon. The moon produces no light of its own, it merely reflects the light of the sun in order to bring that light to us in the darkness. In a similar manner, God is always present to us but there are moments when that truth appears questionable. Instances of “darkness” cause us to wonder whether we have been abandoned. In those times we can turn to Mary, who perfectly reflects the light of her son, and ask that she guide us to Jesus and comfort us while we wait.

What I saw in this Sister was a clear example of Mary’s motherly guidance in our lives. She took the hand of a blind girl and led her into a room where the presence of Jesus was radiating in a special way. I imagine that she whispered into the girls ear, “Jesus is right in front of you, I promise. Let’s sit here and let Him love us.” The girl may not have been able to see the “Son” shining, but she frequently grabbed hold of the Sister’s habit which, like the moon, reminded her that she was not alone in the darkness. The Sister would nudge the girl when she started to stray too far from Jesus, just as Mary attempts to lovingly nudge our hearts back to her son when we’ve wandered too far off His path. Then the Sister would go back to adoring Jesus in the Eucharist with a smile on her face; the same gaze that Mary must have as she looks upon the face of her son in Heaven.

This is why each of us needs to grow in our relationship with Our Blessed Mother. She knows and loves Jesus in a deeply intimate way; a way only a mother can know and love her son. The example of obedience, trust, and faithfulness she portrays in the Gospels give us all something to emulate. We need her prayers as we strive to follow God’s will and seek to know and love Him more and more each day.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

The Stem

There was a time when noise was not
And silence enveloped the world.
Then came a word, “Let there be light!”
Noise shattered silence’s reign,
Yet silence remained.
Noise did not replace silence
Any more than a child replaces her mother upon entering into the world.
Noise was the eventual budding of the stem of silence.
There was no tension, no rivalry between the two.
They both beheld each other with such reverence and awe.
Silence wept as she listened to Chopin and Mozart
And noise always looked forward to finding rest in her mother’s embrace.
But this is hardly the reality we observe these days.
No, we have plucked noise from her stem.
We have pit the two against each other
And have decided to exult that which blooms.
After all, it is said, noise propels us forward in “progress”
While silence holds us back.
Noise liberates, silence imprisons.
Noise frees us from our worries, silence drags us into a lonesome depression.
Therefore we must allow noise’s mother to die, her stem to wither.
And yet, in all of this, there is more at work in man’s heart than mere dissatisfaction with silence.
There is a fear of silence that has crept into our being.
To enter into silence is to surrender control and predictability.
When silence enters a conversation,
She is seen as a small flame that needs to be put out by the waters of noise
Before it spreads and destroys the ego.
As a result, noise has been trained to hate her mother and see her as a threat.
It was thus that noise appeared to have taken over our world,
Leaving silence to vanish quietly into the night.
Noise became a sign of the developed world
And silence became associated with outcasts on the mountains of distant places.
They were allowed to cling to their ancient treasure,
But there was an understanding that they would never be welcomed
Here in “the real world”- “the world of noise.”

~ ~ ~

This was the world Brother John was born into. As an infant, he was left on the doorstep of a monastery. The brothers took him in, raising him in the life of a monk. When he was of age, he acquired his own habit and became more immersed in the life of these rebellious outcasts. He prayed for an hour each day before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. He prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, the rosary, and a Lectio Divina with the community daily. When his chores had been completed and he had some free-time, he would write poetry, read a spiritual classic, walk the monastery grounds, or take a brief nap.

It was a life of solitude; a life of peace.

One summer evening, Brother John knocked on the door of his prior.

“Come in.”

Fr. Charles had been staring at the crucifix he’d hand-carved in his days as a novice. He placed it on his desk and looked up with delight at Brother John. Their eyes barely met, for Fr. Charles-in his old age-could not lift his head above his shoulders for very long.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Father. Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all, come.”

Brother John took another step inside and closed the door behind him.

“Father Joseph had asked that I speak with you this evening.”

“Ah, on the feast day of our patron?”

“Precisely. Father–” he paused, thumbing the rosary beads on his habit, “through spiritual direction with Fr. Joseph, I have discerned that God is not calling me to take the next set of vows. I will be leaving the monastery.”

Fr. Charles nodded slowly, the peaceful gaze remaining. His eyes shifted to a nearby chair.

“Sit.”

Brother John sat in the gentle glow of a nearby desk lamp. He lightly tapped his fingers on his lap, waiting for Fr. Charles to speak. Fr. Charles remained silent, peering into Brother John’s eyes. There was no hint of condemnation, only admiration. He then took a deep, wheezing inhale and spoke, “You’ve been discerning this for quite a while.”

“Yes.”

“For a year now.”

Brother John hesitated, “…y-yes.”

Fr. Charles beamed. “My son, I have been keeping a close eye on you. One day last spring you were strolling by the garden and you looked so unhappy. I thought maybe you were just experiencing some  minor spiritual desolation. But then I saw you reach the edge of the hill, looking down at the family that lives across the valley. I got up to make my tea, came back, and you had not moved a muscle.”

Brother John began to blush. Fr. Charles’ eyes gleamed. With his hands resting on the arms of his chair, he leaned forward slightly- his head drooping to the left.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I know, Father. I just…I don’t want you to feel betrayed, after all you’ve done for me.”

“My son, what I want for you more than anything else is your joy and your peace. That is something only God’s will can provide. If His will is to take you away from me, then I will not stand in His way.”

Brother John looked down at his feet. Part of him wished Father’s voice would have a hint of anger or even indifference in it. He hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to abandon someone who cared so much about him.

“Father…I am afraid.”

“Good, that means you’ve discovered God’s will.”

“…well, yes. I suppose. But there is something that’s been keeping me up at night. I don’t know how to live in that other world. This is all I have known from birth.”

“What do you mean, ‘That other world?'”

“The world of noise.”

Fr. Charles closed his eyes, gently stroking his beard. Brother John was tempted to fill the silence by explaining further, but he knew better. He kept still and waited. After what seemed like hours, Fr. Charles took a deep, wheezing inhale, reached for his cane, stood, and began to hobble across the room. He picked up a copy of the Bible from his bookshelf and placed it on the desk next to Brother John.

“Genesis One.”

Brother John opened and looked up obediently.

“What did God create on the first day?”

“Light.”

“The second?”

“Sky.”

“Third?”

“Land and sea.”

“Fourth?”

“Sun, moon, stars.”

“Fifth?”

“Animals.”

“Sixth?”

“Man.”

Fr. Charles tapped into his renowned passion for teaching as he began to explain, “The first three days, God laid a foundation. The next three days, He built off it. The sun borrowed light, birds filled the sky, man and lesser animals occupied land and sea.”

Brother Charles was slightly frustrated at the seemingly condescending approach Father had decided to take. He’d learned all of this in his fourth-grade catechism class. He tried not to show his impatience.

“Before there was noise, Brother John, there was silence. Just ask the land, the sea, and the sky.”

Brother John simply nodded, not knowing how to respond. Fr. Charles delighted at the chance to continue.

“Our world, and it is one world Brother, has forgotten that fundamental truth. People think there are two separate worlds; a world of noise and a world of silence. You yourself hinted at this just now. No, there is one world, and silence and noise were meant to live together in harmony.”

“I realize that, Father. What I fear is that, living amidst noise constantly, I too will forget that truth. That fear has pierced my heart. How do I prevent myself from idolizing noise?”

“You must learn to find God in the noise. Yes, He speaks to us most clearly in the silence. Never abandon your daily time of silent prayer. But Our Lord is present in the noise as well; He is Incarnate! You can find Him in the wailing of a baby, the pleas of the poor, the mindless chatter of the man sitting next to you on a bus. He is in here,” he pointed to his chest, “and He is out there,” he pointed out the nearby window. “Where you are, there He is.”

Once again, silence was all Brother John could reply with.

“Come here.”

The two embraced. Brother John began to weep silently on Fr. Charles’ shoulder.

“This is all I have known. I am afraid.”

Father Charles backed away, clutching Brother John’s wrist firmly. With his other hand, he pointed his wobbly finger at Brother John. “What you have known is the Lord. He will remain with you wherever you go.” Brother John smiled through the tears. “Silence has something she wants to say to the world concerning her daughter, Brother. Go, and do not be afraid.”

They embraced once more and Brother John walked back to his cell for the last time.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, Brother John awoke earlier than usual. He folded up his habit, placed it on his bed, and changed into a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He gathered together his Bible, spiritual journal, and rosary and exited the only home he’d ever known.

When he entered the garden, he indulged himself in a favorite past-time of his: he took off his sandals and walked through the edge of the garden barefoot. He loved the feeling of soil squishing beneath his feet. It was a gentle reminder that he came from dirt and to dirt he would one day return. As he exited the garden the dew of the grass brushed the dirt off his feet, causing him to shiver. When the numbness in his feet went from refreshment to penance, he slipped his sandals back on.

Just up ahead rested the log which overlooked the valley to the east. Brother John had become acquainted with this log over the past year as he daydreamed of a new life; a life which was now becoming a reality. He had arrived just as God had painted the first strokes of light on the canvas of the sky. A breeze whispered through the trees and an orchestra of crickets and bullfrogs played all around him.

When enough light had reached his corner of the world, he took out the Bible from his bag and opened it to the passage he’d bookmarked the night before:

“As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
-Luke 10:38-42

He closed his eyes in an attempt to open the eyes of his heart. With those eyes he looked upon Jesus, Mary, Martha, and the family in the village. He recalled Fr. Charles’ remarks and sat with them in light of the Gospel reading: “There is one world,” “Harmony,” “He is always there.” He was reminded of the confusion he’d felt after hearing Fr. Charles’ closing remarks: “Silence has something she wants to say to the world concerning her daughter.”

“What could that mean,” he wondered. Meditating on those words in silence for a half hour revealed n further insights and Brother John began to feel discouraged. When he opened his eyes, he saw a single daisy in the distance. It was a peculiar sight. After all the visits he’d made to the log, he’d never noticed the lonesome daisy. He walked over to it with fascination. “What are you doing here all alone, my friend,” he thought. He plucked the stem out of the ground and held the flower in his palm. As he gazed upon the daisy, it all came together; Brother John realized his place in the world.

He went back to the log and pulled out his spiritual journal from his bag. After looking at the daisy one last time, he began to write:

There was a time when noise was not
And silence enveloped the world…

~ ~ ~

What Refugees Taught Me About Love, Part Two

When my time with the Karenni refugees came to a close this summer, I wrote a blog post on a great lesson I learned from them about the nature of love. It’s been a month since I’ve last had a meal consisting of rice, spices, and sake with some of God’s most precious children and I still find myself learning new things based on the experiences I had with them. Recently, God pierced my heart with another revelation of the ways in which the Karenni taught me about love; more specifically, about God’s love for me and my inability to properly respond to that love.

At the beginning of last school year, a group of around fifteen brother seminarians and I all piled into our rector’s office. We had yet to be assigned to an outreach project for the school year. Our rector listed off all of the opportunities: “We need someone who can teach religious ed at St. Agnes parish,” “We need a pair of guys who would be willing to lead Bible studies on campus every Tuesday night,” etc. At the mentioning, “We need a pair of guys who would like to work with refugees that live in the area,” my ears perked up. There was a noticeable stirring in my heart, as if God was trying to say, “This is the one I have prepared for you from the foundations of the earth.” When I found out not only that I would be assigned to this outreach but also that a close friend of mine would be joining me, I felt overjoyed. I was surprised at just how excited I was to delve into an environment filled with so many uncertainties. I immediately went to the chapel to thank God for the upcoming mission, to thank Him in advance for the many blessings I had confidence He would bestow on me through the refugees, and to pray for those I would be serving.

I had not yet met the Karenni and could not even locate Burma on a map, yet I was already looking forward to the opportunity to love them and to lose myself in their lives. I felt what I imagine a father would feel upon finding that his wife is pregnant; speculations (driven both by joy and a fear of the unknown) on what the future will hold and a great love for a child whom he has not yet laid eyes on. It also brought to mind stories I’ve heard from seminarians who begin praying for their future parishioners before they are even assigned to their first parish.

The adventure began and, admittedly, it took a long time for me to feel comfortable around the Karenni. It felt strange just entering into their daily lives with a desire to love them, especially since many of them had no idea who we were or why we wanted to spend time with them in the first place. This in turn caused myself and my fellow interns to constantly reflect on the questions, “Well, what am I doing here,” “What kind of difference will my presence make,” etc. Eventually their trust in the authenticity of our motives removed many of the barriers of suspicion they may have had on their hearts and true friendships began to be formed.

As I shared in “What Refugees Taught Me About Love, Part One,” the time I spent this summer developing those friendships and meeting new families entailed a variety of unforeseen struggles. It was in this classroom of love that I learned first-hand the true meaning of com-passion: “to suffer with.” Recently I’ve been reflecting on the dynamics of my friendship with one of the young adults in particular (I’ll refer to him as “Nate”). I’ve come to see just how similar my relationship with Nate looks like my relationship with God.

Nate, along with a majority of the other Karenni refugees, did not respond to my love (or attempts at loving) the way I had expected and desired. He seemed to remain indifferent towards any words of affirmation I gave him. Small gifts seemed to be unappreciated. He didn’t seem to want to spend a ton of time together. It was hard to read him and this led to some bouts of discouragement. Yet I desired to spend time with him, to affirm his existence, to let him know how much I cared about him in whatever way I could communicate that. I had been praying and fasting for him for so long- even from before we’d met. I had so much love I wanted to show him but I often felt like he wasn’t being open to receiving that love and he certainly didn’t seem to be reciprocating it.

It was at this point in my reflections that God whacked me over the head with a spiritual-2×4: I am Nate when it comes to the spiritual life. Here’s why:

St. John reminds us that God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The words in the book of the prophet Jeremiah depict this heart-piercing reality when God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). This calls to mind the image from earlier of a father loving (in some sense) his child even before he/she is born. The child is loved before he knows he is loved. The child is known before he knows he is known and before he knows the one who knows him. I experienced this sense of God’s love in reflecting on the love I had for Nate before I had even met him; a love which was purified and which grew deeper as I got to know him over the year.

Because I approached the summer with the intention of “loving the Karenni and losing myself in their lives,” I was willing to take that journey of love wherever it led me; even (or, more appropriately, “especially”) when love led to some sort of sharing in the Cross of Christ. Very often the causes of this suffering were my own human weaknesses and my inability to love as purely as I am called to. Yet one of the hardest parts for me during those times of suffering was knowing that Nate and the rest of the Karenni didn’t even realize what they had caused me to go through. A mixture of their own personal hard-wiring and the upbringing they had in their culture led them to be a people difficult for me to love through no fault of their own. As a result they did not and could not know the lengths I was taking to stretch my heart in an attempt to envelop my heart over theirs.

With all this being said, I can say with great confidence that I am like Nate in at least two ways: 1. I have been loved by God before I knew Him or knew of His love for me, yet 2. So often I fail to acknowledge that love in my daily life and forget what my unresponsiveness to His love led to.

1. Each and every day I find myself trying to explore the depths of God’s knowledge and love of me. I would have to say that the first time I really got a glimpse into how real this knowledge and love for me is was when I was on a retreat in ninth grade. Yet I was tapping into a knowledge and a love that had been present before that moment. It had been present before I attended my first Sunday school class. It had been present before my parents first whispered the name of Jesus into my ear as an infant. It had been present before I was born. As a result, my love for God at every point in my life is a response by it’s very nature. My love is like the “Polo” to His eternal “Marco.” He has taken the initiative to love me first, which requires that I open up my heart to receive, to soak in, to rest in that gift, and then respond. Consequently, I follow Him because He has called me and not vice-versa. As Our Lord says in John 15:16, “It was not you who chose Me but I who chose you…” It became clear to me that I have been loved by God in a way not too dissimilar from the way Nate was loved by me.

2. Yet, also like Nate, I fail every day to acknowledge that love as it ought to be acknowledged and I take the Cross for granted. I set aside about two hours every day specifically for prayerful purposes. Of those two hours, I relish in the incredible gift of God’s love for me and the knowledge He has of the depths of my heart for a total of maybe three minutes on a good day. It’s not that I don’t care about God, I just don’t give Him the time, the thanksgiving, and the service to Him in my neighbor that He deserves. I simply take for granted the fidelity of His love and only appreciate it when I go to Him and don’t feel it as strongly as I once did.

By the same token, I will never be able to fathom what my sins put Him through. Once in a while He shows me glimpses of my contribution to the Cross and it sends chills down my spine; not just because I realize that my sins were responsible for the shedding of His blood, but also because, based on the way I live my life, it would appear as though I could care less.

I think an example of God’s great mercy is the fact that I am not capable of grasping just how ungrateful I am for God’s decision to empty Himself to become a man, to be scourged, to be crowned with thorns, to be humiliated, and to be crucified for me. I go through most of my life failing to acknowledge what I know of His love and failing to thank Him for the love which I will never be able to fully realize and thus unable to be properly appreciative for. Though my love is nowhere near as selfless and pure as Our Lord’s, I experienced a lesser degree of this kind of suffering and hidden love in the ways I tried to reach out to Nate. I’ve come to realize that if I’ve been responding to God’s love in that manner for all these years and He still hasn’t given up on me yet, I must pray for that same stubbornness of heart to love those whose reciprocity is not as I think it should be.

I pray that you would all find your own Nates so that, in recognizing your good intentions and your failures to love as purely as you’d like, you too would be able to explore God’s great love for you. In closing, I wanted to share a quote from my good friend Pope Benedict XVI on this important lesson we can learn in the classroom of love:

“In the love-story recounted by the Bible, [God] comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross…Nor has the Lord been absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect his presence, in his word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist…He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has ‘loved us first,’ love can also blossom as a response within us.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est

‘Suicide Squad’ and the Prodigal Son

The Suicide Squad

The Youtube Channel “How It Should Have Ended” offers humorous alternate endings to popular films. For instance, their alternate ending for Finding Nemo involves Marlin forgetting how to get back home once he’s finally found his son. The alternate ending for 300 involves King Leonidas falling down the bottomless pit when his Sparta-kick misses the messenger.

I’ve often thought of alternate endings to certain passages in Scripture. For instance, what would have happened if Lazarus was never raised from the dead? What if Peter had never stepped out of the boat and onto the water? What if John the Baptist had kept his mouth shut about King Herod’s unlawful marriage? I think this is a helpful spiritual exercise because it leads us to a better appreciation for the way things actually did unfold in the Gospels.

One passage in particular continuously calls me back to consider it’s alternate endings: the parable of the prodigal son. We all know the story. A young man demands his share of his father’s inheritance before the appropriate time. He then goes off to a distant land and squanders it all on “a life of dissipation.” When he hits rock bottom, unable even to have his share of the pods that the swine feed off of, he decides to return home and declare to his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”

The fact that the father welcomes his son back in a merciful embrace, throws a feast for him, and refuses to treat him as a mere servant should shock us. Our fallen human nature longs to receive mercy, but is often hesitant if not strictly opposed to letting others receive the same degree of clemency. Many times we find ourselves inclined to favor justice over mercy; we romanticize Gandhi’s quote, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” but in practice many of us seem to demand, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

With that being said, it’s rather easy to picture an alternate ending to the parable of the prodigal son. We can imagine the young man, who rudely requested his share of the inheritance and squandered it in a foreign land, returning to his father suggesting that he be treated like a hired servant and having his request granted. Perhaps the father, in his anger and disappointment, becomes tempted to send his son away, effectively disowning him, but decides to keep him around to get some free labor out of him as a punishment. If the father had an “Eye for an eye” mindset, he could have very easily treated his son however he wanted under the guise of justice.

This alternate ending that I have in mind seems to me to be very similar to the premise and character development of the recent film, Suicide Squad. The “Suicide Squad” is a team of antiheros/villains from the DC Comics world. This collection of super-villains is recruited by a secret government agency to carry out dangerous missions in exchange for shorter prison sentences. The reason they are referred to as the “Suicide Squad” is because the conditions of the missions they are sent on are considered suicide missions due to the high probability of death. This is a seemingly brilliant idea for the agency since everyone on the Squad is a prisoner, which means if they succeed in the mission they go back to prison and if they die then there’s one less villain in the world to worry about.

So how is this film like an alternate ending to the parable?

It seems to me that the main villains that make up the Suicide Squad represent the role that the prodigal son would play in the alternate ending to the parable because they have all messed up and are now living the life of a servant. The film begins with a glimpse at each criminal in their respective cells of a penitentiary. It’s interesting to note that Will Smith’s character, Deadshot, is given a mystery heap of junk called “loaf” for dinner- calling to mind the pods that the swine fed off of. Eventually an intelligence operative by the name of Amanda Waller assembles the team and sends them off on a series of missions under the command of Colonel Rick Flag. For his own protection, Flag requests the bodyguard services of a martial arts expert named Katana. It soon became apparent to me that Waller represented the father and Katana represented the elder son in this alternate ending to the parable.

Amanda Waller

Waller represented the role that the father would play in the alternate ending because she most clearly embodies the philosophy of “justice over mercy.” She constantly reminds the Squad of their past in order to justify her treatment of them. Their identity has forever been stained by their criminal activity and their  dignity, according to Waller’s treatment of them, has been reduced to the point where they are merely disposable means to accomplish her ends. Their value is not inherent, it’s determined by the level of services and skills they can offer (which is why one of the characters, El Diablo, resists the opportunity to join the Squad and defiantly states, “I’m not a weapon. I’m a man.”). She implants bombs into their necks which could be detonated at any moment that they tried to disobey orders. Thus they were treated like slaves with no choice but to obey a master who literally held their lives in her hands. She keeps constant watch over them, similar to the image that atheist Richard Dawkins has of God as a “surveillance camera in the sky or the small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move.” This is the picture of a father who, upon the return of his prodigal son, agrees to distance himself in a master-slave relationship and constantly reminds the young man of the ways in which he’s failed.

Katana

Katana represented the role that the elder son would play in the alternate ending because she teams up with the father-figure, Waller, in resisting the implementation of mercy. In one flashback, we see Katana hold up a sword to a man she found out had been involved in the murder of her husband. He pleas for his life to be spared, but she replies, “Criminals don’t deserve mercy” and kills him on the spot. In the actual parable, the elder son has a hard time rejoicing in his father’s reaction to his brother’s return because, as he tells his father, “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.  But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.” Thus it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to imagine the elder son in the alternate ending being satisfied with the kind of father-figure described above. As the father begins to treat the prodigal son like a slave, I could see the elder son with a smirk on his face, muttering under his breath, “Criminals don’t deserve mercy.”

It’s truly mesmerizing to realize that we could very well have been in the same situation as the Suicide Squad members. If we had a Heavenly Father like Waller, life would be downright frightening. We would be constantly looking over our shoulders, afraid of disappointing the “surveillance camera in the sky,” without a shred of hope for a merciful response to our poor decisions. We would pray for a second chance, but would believe that a third, a fourth, a thousandth chance would be out of the question. Luckily we have a Father who sent His Son to die in our place; a Son who, after being scourged and crucified for a crime He himself did not commit, cried out from His deathbed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We have a Father who sent visions of His Son to a Polish nun named St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the twentieth century in order to share these and many other quotes on His Divine Mercy:

-“My Heart overflows with compassion and mercy for all,”

-“Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart,”

-“My mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world. Who can measure the extent of my goodness? For you I descended from heaven to earth; for you I allowed myself to be nailed to the cross; for you I let my Sacred Heart be pierced with a lance, thus opening wide the source of mercy for you. Come, then, with trust to draw graces from this fountain. I never reject a contrite heart.”

Yet all of us still have a Katana lingering around in our lives; a voice that tries to convince us, “Criminals don’t deserve mercy.” We are surrounded by a society that seems to favor justice over mercy. The evil one wants to convince us that our sins cannot be forgiven. He wants to convince us that our Father is like Waller in hopes that we will be afraid to ask for a second, a third, a thousandth chance.

Don’t be fooled.

Instead, acknowledge that idea as merely an alternate ending to the way the parable, a depiction of our Father’s boundless mercy and love, actually unfolds.

“While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.’  But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast,  because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began.”

 

Fat Momma and the Spontaneity of Charity

When I was thirteen years old I watched a reality TV show called, “Who Wants to be a Superhero,” hosted by former president of Marvel Comics Stan Lee. A handful of contestants invented their own superhero and tried to make the case that they deserved their own comic. Each week a series of challenges would sift out those superhero-wannabes who lacked truly heroic virtue (or who couldn’t come up with a catchy theme song). One of those contestants was a woman who developed a superhero alter ego named “Fat Momma.” Fat Momma’s super powers included growing five times her size when she got angry and certain abilities that were only activated if she ate a doughnut.

In the first episode, Stan Lee gave the contestants a challenge that he described was “a race to the finish.” The contestants were given the impression that the winner of the challenge would be the one who made it to a specific destination first. However, near the finish line was a young girl crying, “Help me, I’m lost! I can’t find my mom.” Several of the contestants, including Fat Momma, sacrificed a decent time in order to ensure that the little girl was taken care of. Not surprisingly, helping the little girl was the actual challenge all along and those who ignored the girl, even if they had the fastest time, faced the possibility of elimination.

That gutsy decision made by Fat Momma has stuck with me all these years. This past week I was reminded of her heroism as I reflected on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37).

You’ve all heard the parable before. A man was jumped by a group of robbers and left for dead on the side of the road. Two people saw him and decided not to help him, but the Good Samaritan, “moved with compassion,” decided to care for him. As I reflected on this passage recently, I found myself drawn to the wording of a particular verse. Luke begins describing the various reactions to the sighting of the beaten man by writing, “A priest happened to be going down that road…” The original Greek translation conveys the notion that the priest was travelling down that road, “by chance.”

What struck me as I reflected on that choice of wording was that the priest, the Levite, and the Good Samaritan were not planning on encountering the beaten man that day. “Happened to be” and “by chance” seem to suggest that the three men were somewhat surprised to see the man on the side of the road. We’re not given the impression that the men had just blocked off a chunk of time to go out and help the destitute on the streets. Rather, the opportunity was presented to them at a moment’s notice and any act of charity on their part would have to be spontaneous.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical “Deus Caritas Est (God is Love)”, refers to this parable when he comments on Christ’s commandment to love God and  neighbor. The request to define “neighbor” was actually what prompted Our Lord to share this parable in the first place. Benedict, by analyzing the parable, helps make the definition of “neighbor” and the notion behind “love your neighbor” more concrete when he writes:

“Until that time, the concept of ‘neighbor’ was understood as referring essentially to one’s countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor, The concept of ‘neighbor’ is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract, and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now” (15).

Very often I find myself guilty of only performing acts of charity during schedule times. “Next Saturday from 1:00-3:00 I will help at a nearby soup kitchen.” “Tomorrow I will visit the refugees for a few hours.” I methodically schedule times where I know I can be charitable. The problem is that, in the moments in-between, I unconsciously consider myself “off the clock”. I think, “If it’s not in my planner, there’s no need to pursue it. What I already have planned out is enough; it fits my acts-of-charity quota.” I’m so caught up in looking-ahead to the next planned-out moment of service that I pass by all of the opportunities I have to serve in the present moment; as Benedict wrote, “my own practical commitment here and now.” I neglect the spontaneity of charity.

But am I not just as guilty as the priest and the Levite from the parable? Am I not just as guilty as the contestants other than Fat Momma were? They had their eyes set on something in the distance and consequently neglected their call to service in the present.

Our Lord was faced with the same temptation to ignore the needs of the present moment, yet His spontaneous charity consistently prevailed. The wording of Luke 19:1, “He came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town,” tells me that his upcoming interactions with Zacchaeus was, shall we say, unscripted. I’m sure there are many other moments throughout Our Lord’s life where He originally “intended” to pass through towns or pass by individuals on his way to a destination He had in mind but, like the Good Samaritan, was frequently “moved with compassion” and gave Himself fully to the person right in front of Him.

I’ve found that this principle applies not only to concrete acts of charity, but also prayer. Very often I schedule time to pray, such as my daily Holy Hour, Mass, my daily rosary, and praying from the Liturgy of the Hours. Those are set times where I am able to remind myself of God’s constant presence and to quiet my heart for a period of time to converse with Him. Unfortunately, I don’t find myself praying spontaneously throughout the day nearly as often as I’d like. Unless it’s a time specifically designated for prayer, I don’t take the opportunities I could to offer up a brief prayer of thanksgiving, to talk to God about how my day is going, to offer-up an instance of suffering, or to just meditate on the name of Jesus.

This is just one of the many reminders you and I need in our fast-paced, materialistic, success-driven, secularized, Western world to immerse ourselves more fully in the present moment. The more present we can be in each present moment of our lives, the more readily we can perform acts of spontaneous charity and prayer. May Our Lord, the Good Samaritan, and maybe even Fat Momma be our guides in this life-long endeavor.