Who will he be?

Who will be the next vicar of Christ?  The conclave starts on Tuesday, and after a sense of loss and mourning at losing our dear papa (made far easier by the fact that Pope-Emeritus Benedict is still living on Earth) among Catholics around the world, we now look to the future.  Who will he be?  I have been mostly ignoring the secular media in all their discussion of Church politics and what kind of “administrator” is needed in 2013 to lead the Church. 

Instead, my question is a little different than which “papabile” will be chosen by a group of 115 men in red hats.  No, what I’m wondering is who the Holy Spirit will choose through 115 men in red hats.  Will it be someone from Africa, South America, Asia?  Will it be someone from the United States or Canada?  Or will they return to tradition and Europe, or specifically Italy? 

Again, what I think doesn’t matter, though a part of me hopes he will be from Africa.  The Church in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds, but more importantly, I think that a poor man from a poor country might make it easier for people who care deeply about the poor to hear about topics like abortion, contraception, and religious freedom as well. 

Ultimately, the man chosen to be the servant of the servants of God will be the Holy Spirit’s choice, and God alone has the knowledge to choose, albeit while working through 115 men in red hats.  I can rest easy, with hopeful expection, knowing that the Holy Spirit will make the right decision. 

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Happy Birthday, Jesus! It is a bit strange that this Christmas, i keep thinking more of Your passion than of Your birth.

In a way, was not Your whole life Your passion, culminating with calvary but beginning, not i think with the Your enfleshment in the womb of Your sinless mother but instead with Your departure from there–Your first tabernacle–into the cold and broken dark of that cave where You were born, my Love.

Still, there you had Your mother’s voice, her soft touch, her warm milk to soothe Your hungry body.

Later, instead of Mary’s soft voice, You would hear the crowds shout, “Crucify Him!” Instead of the Blessed Virgin’s gentle hand, You accepted the brutality of whips tearing Your precious flesh. Instead of Your beautiful mother’s sweet milk, You tasted only bitter gall to match the bitterness of Your passion.

At Your birth, You were laid in a manger. The night before You died, You became food for us poor unworthy men to partake in and so to become more like You. In doing so at the last supper, i think You broke through the veil of time, for it would be the next day’s sacrifice of God-the-Son-of-God to the Father for us sinners when You became the pelican feeding its young with its life blood.

In between, You remained poor. I heard a priest say that when You lived on earth, a carpenter was one without land and therefore one who was poor. Even more than most carpenters of the day, it must have been true for St. Joseph because he left his business after Your birth to go to Egypt and then again to return to Israel and go to Galilee–both times for Your proection.

As a man, You spent Yourself completely. You had nowhere to lay Your head until You finally laid it on the wood of the cross as You cried out to Your Father. Only after your death could your mother hold You in her arms once again. Last all, You were laid in the tomb.

Then, O Joy of Joys, Glory of Glories, You returned to life once more.

Happy birthday, Jesus.

And thank You.

Marriage

A marriage is a relationship between two people whose job it is to help bring each other safely to the gates of Heaven and the heart of Christ.  Through a life spent together with all its joys and sorrows, they wear down each other’s sharp edges.  This is true whether the husband and wife know it or not, but it is better if they know it to be so.

Doctrine, Dogma, and Mystical Theology

Doctrine is the material with which to build the house.  Dogma is the form of the house–its shape.  Mystical theology is like the fire in the hearth and the smell of cinnamon rolls and coffee.  There is nowhere for these good things to be made “unless the Lord builds the house” (Psalm 127).

Silence

There is a time in every marriage–indeed, in every friendship–and between God and man as well when words no longer suffice. It is a difficult transition, full of awkwardness and loss, for words are all we know of how to relate to another. But if one is to reach the point of an old husband and wife walking silently hand in hand or friends sitting on a in silence taking comfort in one anothers’ presence or of a soul who has attained a certain union with her God and desires nothing but Him whom she holds close, then only silence will suffice. It is the silence of the tomb awaiting Easter morning.

The Immaculate Conception

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  It is the feast in which we ponder the fact that our Blessed Mother, unlike the rest of us, was completely without original sin from the first moment of her existence.  This has some rather amazing implications that are pretty hard for us to imagine as fallen human beings.  Here are a few of them according to the best of my understanding:

 

 

• She would have undergone temptation just like all of us, but because she never gave into the temptation, the temptation probably did not leave her.  Think of it this way.  When that 3rd slice of cheesecake in the refrigerator is “calling to me,” I keep thinking about it until either I eat it or something else draws my attention.  Most often, I give into the temptation and commit the sin of gluttony.  Mea culpa!  At that point, the temptation for me ends.  For Mary, the temptation would never end because she never gave into it.

 

• Also, she had complete trust in God.  Therefore, I think it is safe to say that fear held no part of her.  Even when Joseph planned to divorce her quietly, even in labor with no room at the inn, even when she was told by Simeon that a sword would pierce her heart, even on the way to Egypt led by St. Joseph to safeguard the life of Jesus, even at the foot of the cross.  Sorrow, yes; fear, no.  A priest who is particularly dear to me once said, “Fear is pagan.”  Mary was the most fearless human being who ever lived.

 

• In addition to being fearless, she always did God’s Will.  We know this.  It’s nothing new.  She was conceived without sin, and she lived without sin, but really think about what that means.  She always pleased God.  In His eyes, her small humble life was the greatest success ever!  Perhaps knowing that, we should rethink our ideas of success.  Not once in her entire life did she choose the less perfect moral choice.  Therefore, God’s plan was perfectly fulfilled in her life with her complete and free cooperation.  As she said to the angel Gabriel when he announced God’s plan to her, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to your word!”

 

• As part of the fulfillment of God’s will in her life, she had to undergo all of the suffering of being the mother of Jesus at His passion.  I mean that she suffered with Him because she loved Him as perfectly as a human being can love.  That is what compassion means–suffering with.  Because Jesus’ death on the cross was the Will of God, she would have accepted it.  This to me is the most astonishing thing.  As a mother, I am distressed at the very thought of one of my children being unjustly imprisoned.  She watched and was fully present to Jesus’ suffering and death, which was completely unjust from the human side of things as He was absolutely innocent; yet, from God’s perspective, it was what was needed to restore mankind to God, and so the God-Man chose to die so ignominiously for our sake.  Mary watched with sorrow that I suspect would have been all the greater for her unfallenness but without ranchor, without bitterness, without that “why” that is at the bottom of all of our sense of injustice.

Hail, Mary, full of grace!

Imagine being present while she spoke these words in response to the greeting of her cousin Elizabeth:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
(Luke 1:46-55)

On the Way to Carmel

Saturday was the feast of St. Teresa of Avila. Carmelites call her “our holy mother” as she was the primary reformer of Carmel and foundress of the discalced Carmelites. Unlike most other orders, one could say that Carmel really has no original founder. Instead, a group of hermits began living on Mt. Carmel in the middle ages and eventually asked St. Albert, the patriach of Jerusalem, to give them a rule to live by. More about the history of Carmel another day.

On Saturday, I really, really wanted to go to Mass since it was our holy mother’s feast day, but where we live, it’s hard to find Mass on Saturday. One of the only places I could find Mass being offered was at a Carmelite convent–how appropriate. My munchkins and I got up early to get there. I’d never driven there without my husband before, which means I had not paid any attention to the way there. As I was driving along the country roads in the dark and getting to be in a bit of a hurry to get there on time as well, I was thinking about what St. John of the Cross says over and over again about living by faith–not by intellect, not by locutions or visions (real or imagined), not by really anything else but faith, which he calls a dark light because our souls are blinded by the brightness of God.

The headlights on my car only showed a very small portion of the dark, unfamiliar road ahead. Thus, I had to assume on something akin to faith that the road would be there, and that a deer wouldn’t be! The spiritual life is like that: We can’t see very far ahead. In fact, when we think we know what’s coming tomorrow, we really don’t, do we? Jesus told us to pray for our daily bread, and I think that includes praying for our needs today. He said to only concern ourselves about this day because tomorrow has troubles enough of its own.

We arrived safely and almost on time, and the Mass was extraordinarily beautiful. Deo gratias for His holy Mass, for those beautiful nuns, and for the dark light of faith!

Testing

 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined: and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say: Thou art my people: and they shall say: The Lord is my God.” (Zechariah 13:9)

“In this you rejoice, although 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 Peter 1:6-7)

I am convinced that we misunderstand what God means in the Scriptures when He says He tests us.  After all, the Psalms tell us that He knit us in our mother’s womb and knows our inmost being.  What need does He have of testing us in the way of finding out what we know when He knows us better than we know ourselves?

Rather, i believe He is the perfect tutor who gives us the lessons we need to become “perfect as [our] heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:28).  He does not give up on us but patiently repeats the lessons we need to learn until we have mastered them.  The impatient or angry person continues to receive lessons that try his patience until he can bear with difficulties unruffled.  The prideful person is humiliated over and over again until he becomes humble.

Some lessons seem out of the ordinary enough that they clearly come directly from the hand of God.  Others seem built into the very fabric of the universe.  After all, the humble man is simply not capable of feeling humiliated, for to be humble means nothing more than seeing one’s own true worth, and if one has an accurate idea of one’s real value as the humble man does, then how can he be bothered or embarrassed when others do not see him as greater than he really is?  St. Teresa of Avila once said that never did anyone insult her except that she deserved a greater insult than she got.

The trouble with these lessons is that they take us beyond our comfort zone.  Our Lord, who loves us, takes us step by step to the Father, making us more like Him as we go.  Sometimes, maybe always, He takes us to the very brink of what we can handle, and for me at least, it often seems more than i can bear.  Only my faith, weak though it is, tells me to trust–tells me that the lesson will not be beyond my capability and that it is given to me by my loving Father so that the sins and attachments that keep me from Him are refined away, making it possible for me to draw closer to Him.

Pascal’s Wager

I wrote this 6 years ago while struggling through several difficulties, both interior and exterior.  I post it now because i suspect that there are others who are now experiencing about the same thing–so they know they are not alone.

Dearest, do You love me?  If You do not, nothing else matters; if you do, nothing else matters.  Like Pascal, then, I shall make my own wager.  I shall (oh, my bewildered soul, how can I do this?) in spite of everything appearing otherwise, believe in Your Love, and live, in spite of all, as Your beloved.  It seems that I shall not know whether i am right or not until i see Your face, just as the blind man in the Gospel whom You healed with Your spit knew the sun existed only by faith and an occasional sensation of warmth on his back.

I recently heard someone say that God keeps repeating the same lessons over and over until we learn the lessons.  This is certainly true in my case.  I think the lesson for me is that i am not in control–repeat 100 times and call the Divine Physician in the morning.  I only wish i could understand why each thing in our lives has to be so difficult–things that just seem to work easily for others.  My Dearest Love, why?

Here’s an explanation of Pascal’s Wager–the real one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal’s_Wager

The Interior Castle

In my father’s house, there are many mansions.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2)

I just finished listening to a CD by Sister Timothy Marie, OCD, of the Carmelite Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.  The talk is called “I Want to See God.”

In it, she gives a very clear explanation of each of the 7 Mansions St. Teresa refers to in The Interior Castle.  Of all that St. Teresa wrote that i have read so far, that book is my favorite.  In it, St. Teresa compares the journey of prayer and life (to try to separate the two is absurd) to a great castle, at the center of which is Christ Himself.  Each succeeding mansion is a step closer to Him.

Before I summarize what Sister Timothy Marie says (and I believe she was summarizing a priest whom she doesn’t name), I want to mention that I heard a Carmelite friar say years ago that it’s probably not a good idea to try to pinpoint exactly which mansion you think you’re in.  Still, I think it might be helpful to at least know what the basic journey looks like.

Before the First Mansion:

• In the courtyard are snakes and ugly creatures, representing the soul immersed in a life of mortal sin.

First Mansion: 

• Focus: I don’t want to go to Hell.
• The person struggles against mortal sin.
• The form of prayer is meditation.

Second Mansion: 

• Focus: I want to be good.
• The person struggles against venial sin.
• The form of prayer is meditation.

Third Mansion: 

• Focus: God is good and He loves me and I love Him.  A relationship with Him is being forged.
• The person struggles to get rid of voluntary faults.
• The form of prayer is still meditation.
• She said this is the mansion of “people who are pretty good and know they are pretty good.”
• They are active in their churches and volunteer.
• Lots of people get stuck here because of the Cross–because here they find contradictions, betrayals, and God asking them to get rid of things they are attached to that keep them from drawing closer to Him.

Fourth Mansion: 

• Focus: My God, what’s happening to me?
• Mystical or contemplative prayer begins.

Fifth Mansion:

• Focus: I’m in love with God.
• The relationship with Him is growing.
• There is a greater sense of God’s inner presence within the soul.
• The form of prayer is contempative prayer.

Sixth Mansion:

• Focus: I want to be alone with God.
• The person needs to be only with Him more and more often.
• The form of prayer is contemplative prayer.

Seventh Mansion:

• Focus: It is now no longer I who live but Christ Who lives in me.
• Contemplative prayer.
• Union with Christ.

Here are some other talks and music by these beautiful sisters who truly radiate the love of Christ:

http://carmelitesistersocd.com/CarmeliteCDs/index.asp