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Clinging to Unfathomable Mystery

Sometimes silent prayer is very purifying.  Whether in the intimacy of our bedroom or in the vulnerable solitude of the wilderness or in a candlelit oratory before the Eucharistic Presence of the Risen Lord, we struggle to attend, to cling to Him for whom we long.   Sometimes it is only by persevering in firm discipline for many years that the humble wisdom of contemplative prayer begins to be born in our hearts.

There is hope.  His mercy exceeds our misery in all its distraction.  Long after the efforts of our own cleverness are spent and our gluttony for satisfying experiences is dissipated, there is still a hungry silence under which the whole might of our soul bends in adoration, even if this is at our last life’s breath.   Our own words and ideas and plans and laundry lists and agendas are not inexhaustible.  If we spend enough time in silent reflection and resist the temptation to torment ourselves with what could have been or should have been, we become aware of our own silent thirst for God.

This is not to say that silent prayer is learned by wasting time without devotion.  When there is no devotion in our heart, we should stop praying and engage in the good works the Lord has entrusted to us.  Then, as devotion returns, we can return to prayer.  In the beginning or in the midst of a hectic time of life, regularly observed but shorter periods are advised.  Eventually, the Lord invites us to spend longer periods of silence with Him — but even though there is devotion in our hearts during prayer, prayer can still be difficult and sometimes must endure great trials.

Our devotion to the Lord in prayer might need to persevere through some discouragement but if we are determined to rely on Him, we give Him the space He needs to bless our efforts.  Our propensity to entertain ourselves is finite.  He formed us in such a way that no mere fantasy, no elaborate myth, not even carefully calculated narratives can meet the profound demands of our humanity.  Deep inside our spirits know that trying to cling to any of this is never sufficient, never enough, never worthwhile.  We are fashioned to grow in our awareness that we need something beyond what merely created psychological powers can produce.

The heart is made to rest in God.   To pray is a movement away from self-occupation and self-reliance, and into relationship with the only One who can reveal to us the truth about ourselves. When we come to delight in Him who is so other than us, when we come to see that our own existence is meant to reveal His love, this is the beginning of praise.

St. Augustine said that man is made to praise the Living God and that we cannot rest until we rest in Him. What a paradox we are to ourselves–made in the image and likeness of One who is so different from us and yet became one of us!   To desire Him, to seek Him, to encounter Him, to acknowledge Him, to cling to Him; this is the quest, the challenge, the battle, the defining moment of our humanity.  But how can we cling to Him who is unfathomable mystery?  The Word of God illumines this mystery for those who allow their hearts to thirst for Him, “His right hand holds me fast.”  (Psalm 63:8)

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Reduced to Nothing – A Sign of Hope

Against the tendency to think that we possess knowledge of Christ in our successes and achievements, St. John of the Cross encourages those who are overwhelmed with suffering and sorrow to see their trials as the pathway to deeper union with the Lord:

When they are reduced to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between their souls and God will be an accomplished fact.   This union is the most noble and sublime state attainable in this life.  The journey, then, does not consist in consolations, delights, and spiritual feelings, but in the living death of the cross—sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior.  (Ascent of Mt. Carmel, book 2, chapter 7, 11)

What a beautiful application this has for those who at this moment are struggling to understand their lives in the face of insurmountable difficulty!  All kinds of physical, psychological, and spiritual afflictions can become part of the journey, the threshold to union with God in love.   How?  By clinging to the Lord in faith and believing in the mystery of his love reveals on the Cross, the Lord mysteriously communicates His Presence, transforms them and unites them to Himself.  They become, by God’s grace, signs of His power to the world, signs of hope.

St. John of the Cross also admonishes those of us who call ourselves friends of Christ but do not know this suffering.  Those who are pierced by the love of Christ are never daunted by bitter trials and never worry about sacrifices that might need to be made.  They see, instead, in each trial another opportunity to show their love and gratitude for the great gift they have been given by God’s love.  We who have avoided suffering a little to carefully could learn from their valor.

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The Heart of Christ – Our Hope for Holiness

Holy Cross Church, Santa Cruz, California

Why do Christians strive for holiness?  It is certainly not because we are naturally inclined to set ourselves apart for God or that we are very successful at it.  Wounded by sin, we constantly feel thwarted each time we try to act on desires we deem noble.  Instead of accomplishing something beautiful for God, it is as if the Lord allows us to fall flat on our face.  Then comes a temptation to discouragement and the heart feels itself drowning in a host of insurmountable difficulties.  What is our reason to hope when faced with such moments and why does this hope cause us to rise up again and follow our crucified God? It has to do with Him and not us.

Though there is no earthly reason to believe it, the hope of Christian holiness burns brightest precisely in this kind of trial, these moments when we see unfold before us the antithesis of what our hearts most desire.  It is in these moments when our hearts are laid bare that God lays bare His Heart to us.  When our inadequacies and failures to love appear the most overwhelming, God is inviting us into the purifying fire of His love.  This unquenchable fire burns in His Heart for us, each of us personally and uniquely, and He longs that the whole world be ablaze in it.  In such trials and hardships as in no other moments of life the Living God offers His Heart in an uncommon, unrepeatable, most intimate and person way.   In these moments, humbled faith beholds the Heart that has humbled itself unto death, and the Heart that is risen and raised to the right hand of the Father gives cause for us to lift up our hearts anew.

What happens when we say “yes” to the Sacred Heart in the midst of our defeats and failures?  If we are to live by faith, if we are to let ourselves be moved by the heart of Christ, our job is not to be overwhelmed, not to run away from such moments, not to give into anxiety.  Before the ineffable love of the Savior, we must die to all cowardice and self-occupation.  Instead, we must trust in the One who is righteous and true.  He alone is our Vindicator.  When we do, when we make even the frailest effort to trust in Him, we discover, to the degree we surrender to His power working through our weakness, a new nobility is born in us even as our broken efforts to be noble seem to fall apart.  The love of Christ is greater than the sin that weighs us down and His love restores our dignity by working all things for His glory – if we trust in Him.

The movement of the Heart of Jesus moves us to holiness informing our natural efforts with new life, a life that raises us above our failures and into the victory Christ realized for God the Father, the victory of Good over Evil.   The unfolding of this mystery in our lives and our lives in this mystery – this is the life of faith.  Where it leads we do not know but we do know we shall be like Him – for we shall see Him face to face. This is our hope, the hope of the children of God.  And, our hope does not disappoint.

For those who have been following my pod-casts with Kris McGregor and Miriam Gutierrez at Discerning Hearts, click here for episode #17.

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The Ascension – a sign of hope

Descending and Ascending are beautiful movements of the paschal mystery, the saving mystery by which all that is good, holy and true about our humanity is rescued by God and cherished by Him.   To say that Jesus, Risen from the Dead, ascended into heaven is to profess that frail humanity not only has been recreated in Christ but through Him drawn up into the mystery of God.  It is both the love and the vulnerability of our humanity that God has drawn into Himself, and in drawing this into his Heart, He has made it holy, once and for all.  What is more, but ascending into heaven and presenting holy humanity before the Father, Jesus obtains for us the Gift of the Holy Spirit so that through Him, the Holy Spirit descends on humanity anew.

Jesus Christ, ascended into heaven, reveals God’s astonishing delight in humanity.  What causes the Creator to be captivated by his creatures?  It is the most humble elements of our humanity that the Son of God raises up.  In the mystery of the Ascension we see that humble human love must be counted as greatness of humanity.  It is this love by which Jesus was obedient unto death.  It is this love that God raised up with Christ.  It is this God saved love that is stronger than death and greater than all the powers of this world.  It is in love surrendered to God that we realize the greatness of our vocation, that we actually give real glory to God.
Love draws the Lord down into our lives: the more the heart boldly lifts up to the Lord, the more the Lord descends into its depths, the more such a creature is raised on high not despite its inadequacies, but through them.  That is why the poor of spirit, the peacemakers, the merciful, and the sorrowing are so blessed.  
It is in the effort to love, no matter how broken or inadequate, that we most reveal God to one another.  To love is to give the gift of oneself to another, to be “for” another.  The moment we try to give this gift, the moment we try to really love someone the Lord has entrusted to us, we soon discover all kinds of inadequacies and voids and weaknesses.  We see in all of this that the love that ought to be in our hearts is not there.  To live life to the full, we need something (and it is not just some thing but rather Someone) we do not fully have.  This is a discovery of our spiritual poverty.  To know such poverty is to begin to pray.

The truth is, left to ourselves, we do not have the capacity to love in the manner we know the one we love deserves.  We constantly fall short of giving ourselves the way we want to give ourselves to one another.  This is true even in the most sacred and intimate of natural relationships: husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters. It is especially true in our relationship with God.  
This is why it was so important that the Lord Jesus ascend to the right hand of the Father.   The Father in gazing on his “Only Begotten Son” also gazes on the humanity the Son has united to Himself.  In the face of the Son, Father sees only what is good, holy and true about each of us, especially in our weaknesses.  He delights in what He sees.  This is because all that is evil, inhumane, and ugly about humanity has been destroyed by Christ through his death on the Cross.  All that is beautiful about humanity, fashioned and refashioned in the very image of the Most High, Jesus has rescued from the power of death.   This He has taken with Him when He ascended before the Face of God.
A new humanity is revealed in Christ before the Face of God to the wonderment of all Creation.  In Christ, the Father blesses humanity with every spiritual gift so that all of us might be raised up to dwell where Jesus dwells – in the heart of the Father.   In ascending into heaven, it is the glorious beauty of what humanity is meant to manifest that He gives to the Father.  This is what the Father sees in us – and this is why He hopes in us even more than we hope in Him.
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Following the Star

Epiphany is a celebration of the manifestation of the Lord to the whole world.  Pope St. Leo says it is the day that Abraham saw and longed to see.  This celebration includes the mystery of a radiant star whose mysterious light draws pilgrims from afar.  It is a light that shows, discloses and reveals where those who seek the Lord might find him.  The radiant splendor of this light is the source of jubilation for those who find it:  “Behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.  They were overjoyed at seeing the star” Mt 2:9 -10.

What did the Magi from the East mean when they explained, “We saw his star rising and have come to do him homage” Mt 2:2?  Were these Gentiles wise because they knew the Scriptures and prayed over its meaning?  These astrologers seem familiar with the the ancient oracle of  Balaam, “A star shall come forth from Jacob” Nm 24:17.

These Persians of the priestly caste were part of prophecy, witnesses that what was once promised was now being fulfilled, “Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.”  As they followed the star, they came to the conviction that the hope of the Gentiles rested with the newborn King of Israel, “Nations shall walk to your light and kings will come to your dawning radiance.” “Bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the Lord” they experienced for themselves how “The Lord will be your light forever” Isaiah 60:1, 3, 6, and 19.

The light these travelers saw was like the light St. John describes in the Apocalypse, “The city had no need for sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.  The nations will walk by its light, and to it the kings of the earth will bring their treasure” Rev. 21:23 and 24.  So important is this manifestation of glory that the Evangelist indicates this mystery at the very beginning of his Gospel, “In Him was life, and this life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” John 1:4-5.  This saving glory and this guiding light is found by following the Lord in faith, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” John 8:12.

The Star is connected to the Word disclosed in the words of Sacred Scripture.  Those who want to find this Star for themselves must search the Scriptures like the Magi searched the heavens.  As St. Maximus the Confessor explains, “A star glitters by day in the East and leads the wise men to the place where the incarnate Word lies, to who that the Word, contained in the Law and Prophets, surpasses in a mystical way knowledge derived from the senses and to lead the Gentiles to the full light of knowledge.  For surely the word of the Law and Prophets when it is understood with faith is like a star which leads those who are called by the power of grace in accordance with his decree to recognize the Word incarnate.”

This search, this prayer imbued gaze on the Scriptures, this lectio divina is worth the effort.  The Light of this Word brings peace and is transforming glory for those who gaze on it.  St. Augustine encourages, “The Lord of hosts is himself the King of Glory.  He will transform us and show us his face, and we shall be saved; all our longing will be fulfilled, all our desires satisfied.”

In the encounter with Christ this start establishes us in, the soul falls in love with the Lord in deeper ways and is moved to a loved filled adoration of the immensity of God and the greatness of his mercy.  The stillness and peace which brilliant radiance of the Word envelops the soul is so great, mystics like Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity are moved by this splendor to cry out in prayer, “I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light.  O my beloved Star, so fascinate me that I may not withdraw from Your radiance.”

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Christ and the Confidence that Comes from the Holy Spirit

Christ baptizes in the power of the Holy Spirit and his fire animates the Christian life with hope.  The Holy Spirit who moved over the waters of creation, who overshadowed the Virgin Mary, who descended on Christ at his Baptism, who carried the Crucified’s last wordless cry for our sake from the depths of his heart and into the Heart of the Father, who animates the Risen Body of Christ and who burns in the hearts of the apostles and the martyrs; He is the source of a hope so great no power in the heavens above or on the earth below can overcome it.

This hope conceived by the Holy Spirit makes sense of all the questions that riddle the effort to really live.  It spouts in the face that restless longing which can find no lasting peace in this world.  It rises against the burden of guilt that weighs down in shackles of all kinds of self preoccupation and escapism.  It stands firm before the doom of death which hangs over all that is good, noble and true in frail humanity.  This hope is rooted in the truth about the mystery of man because it is rooted in the mystery of the Son of God become the son of Mary.  He who freely gave Himself for our sake reveals the truth about human dignity and the greatness of the calling with which it is entrusted.

The primordial riddles running through this present moment are all of them answered anew by the risen presence of Word made Flesh who is the source of the Holy Spirit.  The Fire of God, who the Light that shines in our darkness communicates, produces a superhuman confidence which does not fear conversion.  The soil of our humanity is cultivated with supernatural power and our mortal existence made to flower with the fruit of divine life.

Christ was born in the flesh so that we might born in the Holy Spirit to live life to the full.   The Fountain of Life from whom the Lord and Giver of Life flows, He longs for the Father’s work of love begun in us to be brought to completion.  His Spirit-baptizing presence–born into our lowliness, crucified by our misery, and raising our humanity on high by the power of God–mysteriously opens up the freedom needed to fully give one’s life as a gift to God, to fill every moment of it with as much love as possible.

Trials, hardship, persecutions, renunciations, temptations, and sacrifices only extend and deepen the unfolding frontiers of this holy freedom, this fullness of life, this life lived by love.  Such is the invincible God-given confidence of the baptized.  They who have received the Gift of the Holy Spirit are continually invited to manifest this supernatural trust in God in ever more profound ways even in the face of death itself.  When they welcome the Holy Spirit and obediently avail themselves to the work He accomplishes in them, they become living signs of what total trust in the Lord’s presence can do and they bear witness that not even death can steal the life that that is given for the sake of God.

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Road to Hope

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan while Archbishop of Saigon turned prisons in Vietnam into places of hope not only for his fellow prisoners but also for their guards.  The Communists tried to break him by torturing and tormenting him.  He endured nine years of solitary confinement in his thirteen years of prison. Humiliated, mocked, threatened, beaten – sometimes it was difficult for him to utter even simple vocal prayers.  Yet he was never overcome.  He kept extending the hand of forgiveness and friendship to his tormentors.  He never failed to find ways to encourage his fellow inmates.  In the most difficult situations, Christ crucified gave him all he needed and he learned to rely on Him alone.  By keeping his eyes on the Lord, he understood that he was on a journey even in prison, and that the trail he was blazing was a road to hope:

“If you desire to reach the end of this Road to Hope, you must be fearless, and to be fearless means not wandering about aimlessly.  How many people stood beside our Lord at the foot of the cross?”
Road to Hope, trans. Peter Bookallil, Boston: Pauline Books and Media (2001), 9.
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Francis Xavier Nguyen Thuan – Road to Hope

Cardinal Thuan was just declared venerable on October 22. A priest of Vietnam, he was into police custody in 1975 only months after being named the coadjutor archbishop in Saigon. Thirteen years later, nine of those in solitary confinement, he was released from prison into house arrest and then expelled from his native land in 1991. He served the Church in Rome until his death in 2002. While in prison, anxious for his flock, he found a way to sneak messages to those entrusted to his care. Many of them are challenging:

“Is your life merely a continuous chain of events with time for sleeping, for rising, for eating, for study, for work, for relaxation, watching television, or reading newspapers? If there is not unifying element to your life, it will be meaningless. That element is the love of God. With it your life will change and all your actions will testify to God’s presence within you.”

And even more poignant:

“If you do not advance along the Road to Hope or aim at holiness, you belong to neither the younger nor the older generation, but to the generation of the dead. How wonderful and attractive it would be if, in this age of weakness, there should arise a generation of saints! God desires this, and you should desire it for your own life.”

The Road to Hope, Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2001. p. 152-153

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The Promise of Christianity in the Face of Death

In the face of death, it can seem impossible to pray.  How is Christ present when we lose a loved one?  The answer is not always clear and sometimes never is.  All the same, our faith compels us to seek the presence of Christ even when we lose someone dear to us.

I have recently returned from the funeral of a wonderful friend, Carol Sander.  After a struggle with cancer for over ten years, the Lord has taken her home.  She did not seem to willingly accept death until the very end.  Perhaps this was because her love for family and friends was so great, she wanted to hang on as long as she could to be with them. There was a beautiful funeral mass in Glenville, NY for all her friends and immediate family – and then there was a second funeral mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochova, Doylestown, PA to which more friends and extended family came.  

A devout Catholic and Third Order Carmelite, she was remembered as a great wife, a mother of two wonderful adult children, and a teacher who worked with mentally challenged children.  She was especially remembered as someone who really loved everyone the Lord put in her path.  She maintained this discipline even as her struggle with cancer required that she draw back from her career and other activities.  Yet cancer could not stop her generous witness to love.  Even the local grocery store sent her flowers.  At the same time, she was an artist not quite at home with suburban American culture.  I imagine the pain and tension of such a life must have been great, and this all the more so as her physical struggle became more intense.  In her case, this suffering compelled constantly renewed efforts to draw her strength from the Lord, to find in Him what she needed to continue to love, even when continuing to do so felt impossible.

In Doylestown, there was a wonderful experience of the richness of Polish piety and culture.  One had the sense of being with “the children of the forests and the plains.”  The enchanting simplicity of the Lord Jesus was central.  At the same time, this rich encounter with Jesus was also with the maternal presence of his Mother, Mary.  I could not help call to mind the great faith of John Paul II and his call to build a culture of life and civilization of love.  All of this was part of Carol’s own witness to the Gospel of Christ.

Towards the end of Mass, as her brother, Fr. Raymond Gawronski, S.J., sang a traditional Polish song to Mary for those who have died, the local grounds keeper joined him.  In fact, the grounds keeper was like a living icon of the Risen Lord, the mysterious gardener near the empty tomb.  Always in the background, he was solemn and at the same time generously present whenever he was needed.  Completing this contemplation, two priests of the Society of Jesus stood with Fr. Gawronski and his family.  The gardener, the brother priests, the faithful family members drank together the sorrow, joy and hope of those last prayers as Carol’s body was laid to rest. 

All of this has helped me call to mind the great promise of Christianity.  Our faith does not promise us glory, or happiness, or relief from suffering in this life.  Instead, Jesus commands us to love without counting the cost.  This means to love even when there seems to be no reason to do so.  It means trusting that God is at work in love even when what He is doing seems completely hidden and our efforts entirely wasted.  This means we must not avoid suffering when that suffering is for the sake of love.  Suffering in love is never wasted – there is great value in it.  Living in love, suffering in love and dying in love is what the Christian faith calls us to.  Suffering in love for the sake of love touches the very heart of what it means to follow our Crucified God.  This is the power of the Cross.  This is what transforms not only our own lives, but the whole world.  To this end, Carol’s brother, as he called to mind her life, remembered the great words of John of the Cross, “Where there is no love, put in love, and you will draw out love.”

May Carol Sander and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.  Amen.

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