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A Retreat For Holy Week and Easter With Kris McGregor and Discerning Hearts

Grateful to Kris McGregor for hosting these conferences which were to be offered at St. Clare’s Retreat Center in Soquel, California.  In this first conference, I offer some practical pointers on how to enter into this retreat and some counsels on meditation and mental prayer. The retreat is a meditation on the the Gospel of John, Chapters 13-17 drawn from Hans Urs von Balthasar’s great work Heart of the World.  I hope you have a Holy Triduum and and Blessed Easter!

Heart of the World – Conference 1 – Meditations on the Paschal Mystery /w Dr. Anthony Lilles

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Spiritual Communion and the Prayer of Faith

The act of faith is a powerful movement of soul, more powerful than pandemic, loneliness, suffering, fear or even death. This wholly simple movement avails not only one’s intellect but also one’s whole being to mysteries so great that this present life is not able to contain them. The act of faith culminates in a foretaste of splendor dawning upon us.

This act remains un-circumscribed by anything that is not God. Pressing exigencies, terrifying circumstances, catastrophe, disaster, none of this limits this most primal act of the human heart.  The spirit reaches out for its object – realities above and beyond itself – not in titanic struggle, not in nihilistic dreaminess, but with the simple, humble determination that only love knows. Eternity comes rushing in, in the very frailty of the present moment, whenever the heart lifts itself up to God and humbly requests His saving help.

Such is the mystery that faith in Christ Jesus has opened up for the world. He bought this movement of grace at the price of his own blood.  By His Passion and Death, He has opened access to the heart of the Father so that every prayer of faith offered in his Name is always heard and answered. His Cross is the threshold to the boundless love of the Holy Trinity, the meeting point of human misery and Divine Mercy, the doorway to a love stronger than death. When we ask for our own salvation (and before God, no one else can ask for us), the Father recognizes our voice because the Blood of His Son cries out to Him. The blood of Christ is so eloquent that it bears away even our sins and rushes in with such tender mercy.

Because our faith is not yet perfect, we might see inadequacy, shame and unworthiness, but the Father sees in that Blood a love that is stronger than death. Struggling with doubt, we might see a game in which we secure psychological relief but not true change of heart, in that Blood the Father sees His Word by which He made Heaven and Earth.  By that Blood, doubt no more and do not be distracted by what you suppose is beyond God’s power to heal, for your trust in Him gives Him the space He needs to make you whole. In His Son and what He suffered for us, the Father chose to suffer our misery with us, including our own sin, so that we would not suffer alone, and out of this suffering, the power of His love in the blood of His Son rescues our dignity and gives us life, even as we struggle for life’s breath.

The fact is, before we offer our act of faith, Jesus, the Word of the Father, has already taken our side and the Risen One has poured out the blood that enables us to call to Him.  He whose life now belongs to us is not indifferent to our plight, but ready in the twinkling of an eye to come to our aid. So it has been from the first moment of our lives and is now in this pandemic. Though we treated him as an enemy, He has chosen to be our neighbor. Where others pass us by, he stoops down, baths our wounds and carries us to shelter.  Though we have treasured Him so little, He sees in us a treasure buried in a field, a pearl, a lost coin, a lost sheep – and He has turned the world upside down to find us.  We are His beloved Bride, and to render us pure and immaculate, He has held nothing back but handed Himself over to humiliation and scorn. We are His Father’s vineyard, and what abuse He suffered so that the Father might lay claim to us.

In the Name of the Father who loves us, He watches for our coming from a long way off and the moment we come to our senses, turn around and start on the way home, He who longs for our return runs to us. He clothes us in robes, rings and shoes, and leads us where we belong. In our plight, we see that we are not worthy to be his servant, but He calls us sons and daughters. If we will only seek those tear filled eyes that so tenderly gaze on us, we would know in a single glance that what most defines our existence is not our betrayal of love, but the deeper reality that God’s love for us is irrevocable – and whether we accept it or reject it forever, nothing has the power to change that – for He is unchangeable.

The access that Christ has opened to the heart of the Father through our faith in Him makes possible what Christian tradition calls spiritual communion – a heart to heart with God, an unfolding of that the very same grace he offered the night before His death,  an encounter with what Christ did on the Cross that even in this moment can begin to fill our hearts. To receive this grace, all one needs to do is ask with faith and perseverance. Think of it!  The greatest work that God can accomplish in humanity is only a prayer away, a treasure is ours for the asking.

Suddenly, we are not alone no matter how cut-off we are from our friends and family.  Heaven surrounds us and we breathe the air of our true homeland. This immense and majestic silence echoes with the hymns and canticles of myriads and myriads of angels and saints gathered around the throne of the Lamb. The glory, the splendor, the beauty can cause us to ache with such joy and sorrow all at once, and something is given that fills every moment of our life, from birth to the present, with new meaning.  God’s City of Peace descends and the misery of the moment is pregnant with love’s intensity.

All at once, no matter what our poverty or dire circumstance, we have everything that matters. By this most humble prayer of faith, we open the door to a banquet hall and discover that we are the guests of honor.  In the valley of death, as fear rises up on every side, He guides us and helps us refresh our weary hearts if we will but bow our heads and fold our hands. We feast on the Bread of Life in the face of our enemies if we will only ask the Source of Living Waters to give us a drink.  And he pours a cup of joy so wonderful that no matter what might befall us, we will live in the house of the Lord for ever and ever. Amen.

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The Spiritual Battle and the Call to Prayer

First, I am so very grateful to all the first responders and the medical professionals who are on the frontline during these difficult days of pandemic. Their courage and dedication exemplifies what is good and noble about our humanity, and there is no way to repay them for the way they have put their lives on the line, not only here in America, but around the world.  Our civil servants and political leaders also have been dedicated and I am thankful to them for engaging tough discussions and tough decisions, and for keeping us informed. There is and will be adamant disagreement – that is part of our national character. Yet, deeper than our divisions, God is at work and our graciousness to one another during this time is a testimony to His providential guidance.  Finally, the men and women of our armed forces have also rallied for us, and I am very grateful for their sacrifices and leadership.

It is in this context that a deeper discernment of what is really going on in this pandemic needs consideration. Whenever things go wrong, there is a destructive tendency to want to point fingers, blame, find fault, and scapegoat one another. Yes, we have sinned, and the plight that we deserve for our actions is always before us.  However, instead of taking stalk and repenting for my own callousness (indeed, our own actions and judgments are the only things we can really change about the world), we point the finger at others: political leaders, foreign enemies, or anyone else I can distance myself from. We do this with God as well. He is the easiest to scapegoat, for He never defends Himself, but humbly accepts our accusations even when it costs Him everything. Yet the God of life has no desire that his children should suffer and die, and He will never abandon us, though it means going to the edge of doom to reach out and bring us home.  Such is the immensity of His love that even in the face of all this evil and fear, He remains.

Who is God? God is love. Christ, the image of the invisible God, revealed this to us when, in obedience to His Father, He stretch out His arms on the Cross to suffer our doom with us so that even should we die, we will have life. We who are in His Image and Likeness are made to make Him who is love known so that the truth about Him might enlighten the hearts of those who have lost their way. When we believe in Him, warmth returns to hearts that have grown cold. He has the power to forgive sin, to close the door to any evil we have let into our hearts. He is revealed every time we make the determined decision to love one another, no matter the cost, even in the smallest things. By faith, each moment of our lives flows from and leads back to the offering of love that Christ has poured out through His blood. Call on Him with faith and perseverance, and no matter the trial or oppressing circumstances, the love of God will triumph.

The battle we fight is not against mere flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). This is why playing the blame game with each other never really solves the problems that we must face. It would seem that the enemies of all that is good, noble and true about humanity have been unleashed with this virus. The evil we face is an ancient foe, a murderer from the beginning. He is the Accuser and he delights when we accuse, especially when we accuse God. Unable to bear his own fault, he faults God and all the goodness that comes from God. Bent on our destruction, he will work to bring out the worst in us. He plants rash judgment, sews distrust, stirs confusion, excites contention and robs of courage. His, however, is not the final word about humanity, and the misery in which he would engulf us has its limits. For God Himself has taken our side against this adversary, and no power in heaven, on earth or under the earth can come between us and the love of God.  On the basis of this love and for the sake of this love, we must resist the enemies of humanity and fight the spiritual battle that these times demand.

That is why such faith is called for today. Indeed, in the face of evil, affirming that God is a loving Father and that He is all powerful is one of the most difficult and one of the most powerful movements of heart the human person must learn to offer.  When loved ones suffer distress and we feel powerless to relieve it, or when a friend is isolated and afraid, and there seems to be no word of hope that can soothe his anxiety, it is precisely in these moments where we must cleave to our faith in the God who is Love and ask for His help. He who descended into Hell to liberate our first parents is no less dedicated to our liberation from anything that might compromise our integrity or threaten our dignity.  the Lord is our Savior and His saving help is only a prayer away: Oh Savior, save us!

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Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving – in harmony with human nature

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are works of piety that make space for a right use of reason. Many spiritual people do not connect works of piety with reason or love or freedom.  Without making good use of reason, freedom and love, our works of piety will fall short of our Lenten Observance, and the healing that this season offers us will not be realized.

We must confront some popular misconceptions about our human reality. Reason is presumed as cold and calculating, the dispassionate part of our psychology whose purpose is exhausted in minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities. Freedom is associated with selfish indulgence and escape from responsibility.  Love is often thought to be irrational or opposed to reason or simply a feeling. Although to the extend that they are isolated from one another some of these presumptions about these spiritual realities might be true, God created these wonderful powers to be related in a kind of sacred harmony resonating in the spiritual interior of our lives.

Frequent confession and extra-sacramental penance like making a pilgrimage or observing Friday abstinences are aids to this difficult work.  It is a manner of asceticism, of spiritual practice, out of love for the Lord. It is not a matter of accomplishment or achievement, but a matter of vulnerable surrender and humbling ourselves before an inestimable gift. To fully realize our God-given human vocation, we must do everything we can to tune and discipline our use of reason and piety, love and freedom until they are made to resound in divinizing harmony through our spiritual exercises this Lent.

The harmony of reason, freedom and love with works of piety is gift upon gift – restoring and perfecting the image and likeness of God in us.  The gift of human reason is given by God so that we might use our freedom to love in a manner that gives Him glory. Through the Holy Spirit who prays in us, the gifts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving expand the capacity of reason to find the holy freedom such divinized love demands — a freedom that gives space to everything that is good and authentic in our humanity and that frees us from everything that is not worthy of the noble calling that we have received.

Because of sin and its limiting power, unaided reason by itself cannot secure this kind of freedom.  So we surrender to the Holy Spirit who convinces us of sin and the deep things of God. He prompts us to be merciful when we are otherwise thoughtless or resentful, and He moves us to venture with love into situations that we would otherwise find inconvenient and repulsive. When the Holy Spirit raises reason up in prayer, when the limited designs of our hearts are pierced by the limitless designs in His, the vast expanse of human frailty is laid bare and capacities unfamiliar to us are revealed.  It is here, in this desert wilderness, that the music of heaven is waiting to fill.  It in this emptiness and poverty of heart that the divine harmony of human reason, freedom, love and piety resounds.

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The Blood of the Lamb and the Sign of the Cross

For Christians, the ancient rites of Passover and the Passion of Christ are deeply connected.   To deliver the People of God from slavery in Egypt, God sent an angel of death, a great power that stole from families the lives of those they deemed most precious.   To protect His own People from this destroying angel, He commanded the Hebrews to gather as families, slaughter a lamb and to sprinkle the blood of this lamb on the doorposts of their homes.  Seeing the blood, the angel of destruction passed over the homes of those who belonged to the Lord.  In the tradition of Christian prayer, this sprinkled blood foreshadows the power of the Blood of Christ signified by the Sign of the Cross.  So much did the early Christians connect their faith in the Blood of Christ with that of the saving events of the Passover, St. Paul explains, “Our Paschal Lamb, Christ has been Sacrificed” 1 Cor. 5:7.

Ecce Homo
By St. Albert Chmielowski of Krakow

The Gospels explicitly connect the sacred rites of the Last Supper of the Lord with the Passover celebration.  There are also other theological contexts connecting the sacrifice of the lamb with the Cross of Christ. (See Mark 15:25-37.)  In the Gospel of John, according to St. Augustine in Tractate 117, Jesus dies on the Day of Preparation for the Passover, the day on which lambs were slaughtered for the celebration of passover (See John 19:14).  The diversity of these Scriptural traditions is symphonic, speaking to the inexhaustible horizons of the Lord’s saving work, a mystery so vast and beautiful the only proper response is thanksgiving (eucharist).

Whenever we prayerfully reflect on the beautiful connections of our salvation prefigured in Exodus and fulfilled in Christ, our hearts are made vulnerable to the vision of the early Christians.  Their vision was filled with wonder over the blood of the sacrificial lamb and what it revealed about the Mystery of the Cross.   They marveled over how the blood that was shed in ancients rites foreshadowed the Blood of Christ they received by faith and they rooted their worship in this contemplation.

“The Passion of the Christ was prefigured by the Jews when they received the command to mark the doors of their houses with blood.  It is by the sign of His Passion and Cross that you must be marked today on the forehead, as on a door, and that all Christians are marked.”  St. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, as cited by Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy, Ann Arbor: Servant Books (1979), 167.

St. Augustine is connecting the ancient rite of sprinkling the blood of the lamb, a saving sign for the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, with the cross that is given in the baptismal rites, a saving sign for those seeking freedom from sin.  Before baptism, the Church entrusts the Sign of the Cross to the chosen catechumen by tracing a cross on the forehead with the Oil of Catechumens.   This ancient Christian rite is continued in our Catholic practice today.   Those who receive the Sign of the Cross (sphargis)  through this anointing are safe from demonic attack in a manner similar to the way ancient Hebrew families were saved from the angel of death.   The blood of God, the life of God, is more powerful than evil.

“There is no other way to escape the destroying angel than by the blood of God, Who by love has poured out His blood for us.  And by this blood, we receive the Holy Spirit.  Indeed the Spirit and the blood are related in such a way that by the blood which is connatural to us, we receive the Spirit which is not con natural, and the gate of death is closed to our souls.  Such is the sphragis of the blood.”  Paschal Homilies of Pseudo-Chrysostom as cited by Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy, Ann Arbor: Servant Books (1979), 166. 

Making the Sign of the Cross is like covering ourselves in the Blood of Jesus.  Whenever we make the Sign of the Cross with devout faith, we are renewing our baptismal commitment and the Lord communicates His life to us in new and unimaginable ways.  This Sign of Victory plunges us into the saving power of God foreshadowed in the Exodus.  In a world of all kinds of slavery and death, this Sign of Freedom reminds us that God has intervened.

This Sign of Salvation proclaims to all principalities of destruction and powers of darkness that God Himself has implicated Himself in our plight and helps us remember that we are never alone — no matter how difficult or dark the circumstances we must face.  This Sign of Hope renews our faith that the saving power of His Blood is such that no matter how intense the struggle, no irrational force in the heavens above or on the earth below is able to surmount the love of God.  Through renewing this Seal of our Hearts, the heart covers itself again with the Blood of the Lamb so that even in death it knows Eternal Life.

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The Mysterious Prayer of Gethsemane

There are stories about great saints who struggled to pray in the face of great difficulty.   This can be baffling until we try to enter into the Passion of Christ and consider the movements of His Heart before the merciful love of the Father.  Until we contemplate the prayer of the Word of the Father, this struggle to pray is often deemed to be merely a stage through which we pass.   Yet, in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Luke 22:35ff), the bloody sweat of the Son of God reveals this struggle as a supreme moment of Christian contemplation, a terrifying standard against which the truth of all our other prayers can be discerned.


The hymn of praise learned with the Suffering Servant on the Mount of Olives is shrouded in a mystery.  It is against this mystery that therapeutic approaches to prayer should be discerned.  Psychological or physical tantrums are silenced before the authentic cry of heart offered by the Son of Man.  His love for his disciples and devotion to the Father challenges any consumerist attitude toward the things of God.   His sorrow and spiritual poverty helps us feel the appropriate shame we ought to have over any gluttonous expectation for mental relief or euphoric experience.  Against the dark terror Jesus confronts in prayer, spiritual consumerism can only be seen as limiting the freedom that our conversation with the Lord requires.   



The Word made flesh baptized every moment of his earthly life in this kind of prayer.   Every heart beat and every breath was so filled with zeal for the Father and those the Father gave Him, divine love ever exploded in His sacred humanity with resounding silence, astonishing signs, heart-aching wonders and words of wisdom which even after two thousand years still give the world pause.  Each verse of the Gospels attempts to show us His self-emptying divinity boldly hurling His prayerful humanity with the invincible force of love to the Cross.  


In Gethsemane we glimpse how the Son of Man availed Himself to these mysterious promptings of the Father’s love, an unfathomable love that is not comfortable to our limited humanity.   Unaided human reason cannot penetrate the divine passion that compelled Him into the solitude hidden mountains and secret gardens.   His vigil on the Mount of Olives can only be understood as the culmination of the ongoing conversation to which He eagerly made His humanity vulnerable.   


If, in this culminating movement of heart, Christ sweat blood, we who have decided to follow in the footsteps of our Crucified Master should not be surprised by moments of great anguish in our own conversation with God.  In the face of this mystery, we must allow the Risen Lord to give us His courage.   What is revealed on the Mount of Olives helps us see why Christian prayer can mature into a beautiful surrender, a movement of love which gives glory to the Father and extends the redemptive work of the Redeemer in the world.   What Christian contemplation sees with the Son of God can involve very difficult struggle, through the strength that comes from the Savior even the terrifying moments of such prayer can resolve themselves in trustful surrender: “Not my will… Yours be done.”  

A vision of prayer that contemplates in the midst of terror and anguish is probably not a popular subject, but I think a very important one today.   For further reflection on this I refer you to “Blessings that are Difficult to Receive” on Dan Burke’s Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction blog.

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The Freedom of God in Our Freedom

Sometimes we look at religious observance as a kind of holy imposition, a yoke, a burden.  We can even look being observant as an inconvenience to which we submit as if we were somehow manipulated into it.  Although we cannot do very much about such feelings (they come and go whether we like it or not), there is a deeper truth for which we forsake not the discipline of our faith – a truth that dances in the sacred melodies of love and freedom.

The Lenten Observance is a time of discovering the liberty of God in our freedom, and in discovering this, also tasting a new liberty.  This is a freedom that the narrow limits of this present life cannot fully contain. It orients us to a life over which sin and death have no power.

In the discipline of the Christian life, that holy exercise of our faith, God freely works through our freedom to restore our dignity and to help us discover our true identity in His eyes.  Our choices, especially those we make out of love, are the very stuff of this divine industry.  Despite our spiritual sluggishness, He is constantly making all things new in our lives and in the world with unimpeded sovereignty – and this even when sometimes we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved and traded our dignity for pottage unworthy of the children of God.  How can we respond in any other way to God’s faithfulness to us than by renouncing our sins and taking up the discipline again?

Hidden though it is from our distracted gaze, the saving presence of the Risen Lord is freely directing the smallest, the most ordinary, the most humble things.  Accepting His loving Providence in the little hidden things in life is the fountain of all genuine freedom in our lives – a smile to the busy clerk at the grocery store, a kind word in exchange for a rude remark, allowing someone to inconvenience you a little so that they might know they are loved.  We need to be careful when He gently proposes and disposes, or our hearts will be pierced in such a way we may never be able to live the same again – for our freedom given in love opens up whole horizons for His freedom to work in.

This secret freedom offered us in all kinds of hidden events is the saving liberty of divine love.  It gushes from the side of the Word made flesh.  It is meant to ring through the whole of our existence, bringing every fiber of our being into its sacred harmony.  It is a canticle so beautiful that we find ourselves our old way of life mortally wounded while we are also animated by a new life totally other than this old tired world can hold down.

It is in this freedom of the Cross that the chorus of creation and the cacophony of sin are taken up in this new symphony of grace.  In the wonder of this divine melody something like the childlike freedom of real song, play and dance are unleashed into humanity: we, welcoming God’s gift of Himself; He embracing us, as we give the gift of ourselves to Him and through Him to one another.

To glimpse the wonder of divine freedom at play and to have the freedom to join this dance, we must freely choose to exercise our faith.  This means deciding in each instant to fill this particular moment given to me right here and right now with all the love I can    Prayer, fasting and the works of mercy make space for this kind of freedom, this divine liberty in our humanity.   The more love we put into these holy exercises, the more we discover those hidden choices most open to the tender subtlety of His power.

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Lent – praying from the heart

During Lent, we dedicate ourselves to prayer, fasting and alms-giving.   These practices are simple ways of expressing our gratitude to Jesus for what He has done for us.  This in fact is the very nature of penance.  Penance is love which responds to mercy – and this love is not content with words, thoughts and feelings.  This love needs to express itself in a prayer that cries from the heart, in sacrifice that really costs, and in little hidden acts of kindness that comfort those who most need it.

Why do we allow God to implicate us in the plights of others, especially during Lent?  God’s love suffers the personal plight each of us.  He does this because He does not want us to suffer alone.  So He seeks us out in our suffering – the suffering that we have brought on ourselves and the suffering that others have brought on us.   He is concerned about our dignity and He is ready to do whatever it takes that we might be rectified and stand with Him who is Love Himself.  The extent to which He enters into our misery for this purpose is revealed on the Cross.  If we are to be His disciples, we must pick up our cross and follow Him.  This is how the Lord extends His saving mystery through space and time – He loves us so much He implicates us in this great work of His Love.

No matter how many times we fail, no matter how great our weaknesses, no matter how inadequate we are to the demands of love — He is there with us, loving us, providing exactly what we need in the moment, and this because He really loves us that much.   How can we not respond by offering Him food and drink when we recognize Him in the disguise of those who hunger and thirst?  How can we not respond by forgoing a little comfort and convenience when He has already suffered so much discomfort and inconvenience for us?  How can we not respond by praying for those who need the love of God when He has never forgotten us in His love for the Father?

When prayer, sacrifice and generosity come together in thanksgiving to God for His goodness to us, deep places of the heart are purified and we rediscover the joy humanity was meant to know from the beginning.  Lent is all about this joy – a joy God’s love allows us to know, the joy of being sons and daughters of God, the joy of heart so beautiful it would be wrong not to share it with those who need a little joy as well.

Would you like to hear this in audio file?  Click here. Courtesy of Kris McGregor of www.DiscerningHearts.com.

In an explanation of St. John of the Cross’s teaching, I have offered some more thoughts on praying from the heart at Dan Burke’s Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction.

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