God Breaking Through....

God's beauty, His wisdom, His truth all become incarnate in His creation.  In Christ, the world and mankind are "taken up," united to the nature and Person of God.  In Jesus, God enters here and now into the world He made for His own delight and the delight of His children.  If we allow Him, He enters here and now in us to take our world to Himself -- this place, this neighborhood, this moment.  Wherever we are, there is Christ, and wherever is Christ, there is God.  And where there is God, there is the kingdom of heaven.

When Paul says, "Offer your bodies to God, which is your reasonable sacrifice..."(Romans 12:1), he means this---allow God to enter His world through you.

Purity of Heart

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (Jesus).

Purity of heart is to desire one thing (Kirkegaard).

What is the one thing we desire?  What is the bottom line, the last, most solid layer of our existence?  What "one thing" would we sacrifice everything else for---the Pearl of Great Price?

What is the one prayer we can say as we gaze on each facet of our lives?  Thy kingdom come; Thy (whole, perfect, and acceptable) will be done.

Nothing else can supercede that desire; nothing is more important than that His will be done in every area, every concern, every phase of our lives:  children, husbands, works, friends, finances, health, etc.  If we knew the will of God for us, we would joyfully embrace it, without fear, for God by His very nature can will only the perfect.  He made us for joy; will He not also will for us everything that gives overflowing joy?  Jesus said, "I tell you these things that My joy should be in you."  Imagine the joy of God; imagaine the laughter of God in the face of His enemies.  He has already put all things under His feet.  St. Teresa of Avila wrote:

Let nothing disturb you;

Let nothing afright you:

All things are passing away---

God alone remains.

Her words are even more remarkable when we realize that she was under the suspicion of the Great Inquisition.  God grant us total purity of heart.....

Needing and Receiving

Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it (Ps. 81:10).

Your word came to me, and I ate it (        ).

What if we thought of prayer as receiving "our daily bread," our necessary nourishment, from God, Who "opens His hand and satisfies the hunger of every living thing"? 

If we come to Him hungry, will we not leave satisfied?  If we yearn for His nourishment, will He not fill us to capacity?  Would a mother refuse her overflowing breast to her infant?  Her need to give, to satisfy the infant, is as great as the the infant's need to receive.  And God's need to give is even greater than our (perceived) need to receive.  He knows what we need; He knows when we need.  And He is the good mother, the wise servant who provides what is needed when it is needed. 

During Jesus' earthly ministry, the only ones who went away unsatisfied were the teachers of the law, the Pharisees, who "needed" nothing from Him.  They needed Him to stop giving so freely when they themselves gave so sparingly.  We cannot hoard the things of God---they must be liberally given to all who want to receive.

"Blind" Faith

Faith is not blind at all; it is based on intimacy, or deep knowledge, of Who God is.  We know Him as the One Who cannot fail to do good,
                        as the One Who cannot leave us or abandon us;
                        as the One Whose power is at the service of His love;
                        as the One Who is not hundered from reaching us wherever we are,
                        as the One Who can still "seek and save" that which is lost,
                        as the One Who is able to exceed all our expectations.

Gift of the Cleaning Woman

A cleaning woman where I worked once gave me a glass-blown single-stemmed flower that had the edge of one petal broken off.  I thought it was beautiful and kept it on my desk until I retired.  I still have that flower, and whenever I see it, it reminds me of her love and friendship, and of the joy with which she gave me her present.  I knew she thought it was beautiful also, and it spoke volumes of her love for me.

What we offer God is like that flawed flower--broken, maybe fished out of the trash (worthless in the eyes of the world).  But if we think it is beautiful, in His eyes, it is eternally beautiful.  A classic book for children, The Littlest Angel, tells of a newly-arrived-in-heaven small boy who missed the box of treasures hidden under his bed back home--a box containing a butterfly, a frog and his baseball glove, among other treasures of earth.  He asks the head angel if he might have that box, and his wish is granted. 

When it comes time for the birth of Jesus on earth, all the angelic choir prepare their best gifts for the celebration.  The littlest angel shyly offers his box of treasures to the new-born Child.  Of all the gifts of heaven, it is his gift alone that is chosen to be illumined forever as the Star of Bethlehem.

That book is a charming tale, but once a small boy on earth actually offered to Jesus a basket containing two fish and five loaves, and his small gift fed 5000 men, women, and children.  There is, in truth, no telling what God will do with our very small gifts, broken, gifts to Him.

On Being "Perfect"

The law came through Moses;

grace and truth through Jesus Christ (John 1).

The law of Moses has to do with behavior:  Thou shalt not....        

The law of Christ, the Sermon on the Mount, has to do with character:  Blessed are the poor in spirit...the pure of heart....those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.....

St. Paul reminds us that the purpose of the law was to convince us that we could not "do" it, to show us where we fall short of who God is---for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  If this is true of behavior, how much more true is it of the attitudes of the heart.  We can no more "do" the law of Christ than we can "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."  Even the supreme law, "Love one another as I have loved you," is not achievable for us.  We cannot make ourselves pure in heart or poor in spirit---God must do it in us, transforming our inner man through the Spirit He places in us.

The one who truly loves others, the one who is truly poor in spirit, has not done this by "trying," but only by emptying himself that Christ might live in him.  It is Christ within us who lives to the glory of God; it is Christ within us who loves others, who is pure of heart and poor in spirit. 

In a way, this is a great relief and a burden lifted from us.  No longer do we need to think ourselves into perfection, but only allow Jesus in us to accomplish the work given to Him by the Father.  Our "task" is to bring Him our imperfection, our sins, and our poor attitudes and trust Him to do the work in us that needs to be done.  Psalm 139 is a great place to begin.

Father's Day

Sin is about the damage we do to ourselves and to others.  Sometimes we damage ourselves and others because we ourselves have been so damaged that we cannot function without passing on the "sins of our fathers."  Their sins have carved into our minds and bodies indelible patterns of thought and behavior; without divine intervention, these patterns are destined to repeat themselves for a thousand generations.  Fortunately, there is a way out of the "empty way of life passed on to us by our fathers," as St. Peter tells us. 

Jesus Christ is a new creation, no longer conformed to the patterns of the natural man, but transforming us by His death and resurrection into a new way of life, based on the image and fatherhood of God rather than the image of Adam, the natural man.  Jesus carried within His own body the sins of the world without passing them on to us.  Instead, He crucified our natural man of sin within His own body, buried that man forever, and then brought us to a new pattern of life given to us by the Holy Spirit.  We are now no longer slaves to sin (Romans 7), but now free to keep in step with the Spirit of God:  in love, in mercy, in compassion, in truth.  No longer must we continue to damage ourselves and one another; now, like Abraham, our father in faith, we can become a blessing on the earth by the Spirit of Jesus, who lives in us.

He takes it personally

Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute Me?

With God, it's always personal.  There is nothing about God that is impersonal.  Ecclesiasties says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart."  Everything God does is done with all His heart; nothing He does is done with distraction or half-heartedly.  He pours all of Himself into everything He does. 

This is the reason abortion is so devastating; we are destroying not only the work of God, but the hope and desire of God, the heart of God, the mind of God, the will of God.  Does God will rape or incest?  No, but in allowing a new life to form out of the cesspool, He is able to make that life glorious and beautiful.  Our social systems destroy the individual--both mother and child--in the name of convenience and efficiency.  At one time, there were safe havens for "unwed mothers," but now abortion seems to be the only solution to unwanted pregnancy.  Can we believe that this solution is not personal to God?  If He asked why Saul was persecuting Him, will He not also ask us why we are killing Him?

Encounter

In the ordinary moment of the the day,
In the getting of water for cooking and washing,
I met Him who told me everything I had ever done
with such love
that I knew my thirst was satisfied at last.

"Ask of Me," He said to me,
"and I will give you living water;
water that springs up to eternal life."

And each time after that,
Going to the well,
I remembered the One
Who met me there,
At one moment,
Satisfying forever
My thirst for life.

Ah! bright wings

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea.  A third of the sea turned to blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed (Rev. 8:8).

The earth is man's domain; it is his possession, given dominion over it by God.  What happens here is man's.  Even God Himself must now ask permission, or be invited, to enter and rule.  Fortunately, through the humanity of Christ, man has now fully allowed God to enter and to rule over human affairs.  If only now the rule of Christ would hold sway over all the earth, so that God's rule would be complete:  Thy kingdom come!  But for now, it is not the kingdom of God and of His Christ that rules, but still the kingdom of man and of the Prince of this world that rules---and the result is chaos and destruction.

In the 1800's, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem called "God's Grandeur;"  some of the lines from his poem have been running through my head over and over as I contemplate the effects of oil in the Gulf of Mexico:

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

and all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell; the soil

is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

He might have written "smeared with oil" if he had been writing today.  It feels as if the second angel of the Apocalypse has blown his trumpet---everything has occurred except the destruction of the ships, but if we think of all of them sitting in drydock not able to be used, maybe even that.....

Hopkins' poem ends on a hopeful note:

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs---

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

God is With Us

The mystery of God's entrance into this world,
into our lives....
incomprehensible....
unacceptable.....

The Greeks had a dim view and a vague hope
that it might be true.

The Roman gods ruled from afar,
but watched for offense and neglect of duty.

But we, daily, celebrate and acknowledge His Presence,
relying on it to get us through the day.

Spiritual Trees

Thanks be to God for people like C.S. Lewis, Karl Rahner, Ron Rolheiser, and Julia Wilson---those in whom the Spirit has taken root and grown into a great tree, providing shade to all who wander in a dry and barren wasteland.

In [them] I will place my own Spirit, says the Lord, and [they] shall be a light to the nations and a blessing to those far off.  In [them] I shall plant my word, and it shall not return to me void, but accomplish on the earth all I decide.

Psalm 1 tells us that the person who "meditates day and night" on the Word of the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in due season and whose leaf does not wither. Those who are tired and weary are drawn to sit awhile in the shade of great spiritual trees; there they find rest for their souls. 

In the News

God has taken to Himself our weakness and infirmity, piling up in His own body our illness and sores.  Not one spot was left untouched; our pain became His.  From the top of His head to the soles of His feet, He was wounded because of our cruelty to one another.  It pleased God to afflict Christ, the Redeemer, with our infirmities---not to punish---but to bring us to health.  Only He could take this body of death to the new life of resurrection from the dead.  The body we now have becomes a new creation in the Son of God.  We rise to a life where there are no tears and where pain does not exist. 

What mother or father, if their child commits a crime, would not gladly take upon themselves the punishment, if they knew the child would go free and live a wholesome life afterwards?  It now seems that Joren van der Sloot's father might actually have helped his son dispose of the body of the girl in Aruba.  But the anguish of what his son had done eventually destroyed the father, who knowingly took upon himself the guilt that his son might live.  In this case, the analogy breaks down, for the son went on to kill again.  But still, the father's dilemma:  to die himself, almost in place of his son, or to allow the son to undergo the punishment, and maybe even death.

In Jesus, the criminal nature He took to death is gone for good;  what He brought back was a new spiritual life, no longer inclined to evil, but animated by and alive to the Spirit of God---the persons we were created to be, not what sin had made of us.  If only the death of Van der Sloot's father could have accomplished the same!

Promises and Answers

You and I do not have, nor will we ever have, enough wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to guide our own lives.  But we have from God Himself great and precious promises for guidance, wisdom, and truth:

If any man lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him (James 1:5). 

The Living Bible reads this way:  If anyone does not know what to do, he should ask God, who does not mind being asked.....

The Lord will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame (Is. 58:11)

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Is. 30:21).

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you. 
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you (Ps. 32:8-9).

Thinking about these promises, back in December, I asked for wisdom about what I thought then were allergies causing constant coughing, and I also asked for a good doctor.  In January, for the first time, I saw a doctor who immediately ordered a CT scan and then sent me to a great pulmonologist, who then referred me to a great surgeon.  My prayer was answered in marvelous ways.....

A Life Coach

In His great mercy and love, God offers to each of us a "personal trainer," a "life coach:"  The Holy Spirit.  How long it takes us to begin to yield control of our lives to His wisdom and truth!  We think we know; we think we can control our lives; we believe we are, as the snake in the garden suggested, "as gods"---until our worlds fall apart and we are left naked, exposed in our weakness and vulnerability. 

We are not in control;  we know nothing; we are caught in a whirlwind----until the Spirit of God arrives:  Peace, Be still; Be not afraid; I am with you.  And, relying on Him, we go forward, not in our own strength, knowledge, and wisdom, but in His.

We cannot comprehend the things of God

The things we know at the deepest level of our being cannot always find expression or explanation which make sense at other levels of our personality.  Paul says, "The natural man cannot accept the things of God, nor can he.  The Spirit is given to help us understand the things of God."  But what the Spirit expresses---what we know to be true---is often laughable to the world:

Jesus as the only way to God?  Be real!  Would God condemn those who have not heard the Gospel?  How can that be true? 

When the Pharisees and others turned from Jesus because they could not accept His teachings, He asked the disciples, "Will you also go away?"  And Peter, to whom flesh and blood had not revealed the truth, but the Spirit of God, replied, "Where else would we go, Lord?  You alone have the words of everlasting life."

Jesus spoke of a kingdom; Pilate and the Jews were threatened by what they could not comprehend.  To the naked eye, the man on the cross was anything but a king.
It is so necessary to be taught by the Spirit, from within.  Otherwise, the truths of God seem foolish to our natural minds. 

Aline: A Tribute

For Gary and Keith:

Your mother was a wonderful woman,

full of laughter and joy,

of home-made goodness and truth,

of simple wisdom and justice;

a woman not of over-reaching lofty goals,

but of pouring out abundance on the earth.

Like the Word of God leaping down from heaven,

watering the earth and giving fruitfulness to all it touched,

her spirit overflowed and watered all who knew her.

Like the virtuous woman of Proverbs,

her arms were strong for her tasks;

her house warm and well-ordered;

her children satisfied and her husband content.

"Let her children stand at the gate and praise her:

Many are the women of proven worth,

but your excellence is above them all."

Revelation

The very mysterious interweaving of our lives;

the events that make up who we are;

the Spirit that guides us into all truth:

These are One.

God pours His Spirit into each of our lives---we do not know how or when I AM HERE will manifest His Presence to us---whether in the burning bush in the desert, or whether in the sudden turning of a staff into a serpent, or whether in the opening of the Red Sea.  "I will be there however I will be there" is how some modern Hebrew scholars interpret the 4 Hebrew letters YHWH, which is very hard to translate.

Our task is to stand still and let Him be there for us and in us. 

Let Him be God...

in the opening of a book,

in the play of light upon the leaves,

in the shining sun on the sparkling water;

in the smile of a stranger,

in the warmth of a blanket--

Let Him be God.

In the trust of a child,

in the souffle of a neighbor,

in the quiet of the garden,

in the conversation with a friend,

Let Him be God.

Stand still; stand still:

Let Him be God.

Transformation

"Jesus did not come on earth in order to found another religion

but to bring us new life,

the life of God Himself,

the life lived by the Holy Trinity:

the communion between

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." 

--from a homily given by Msgr. Aldo Giordano on Oct. 10, 2009

If we knew this, if we meditated on this truth, it would solve many of the problems of "religion."  Like the Jews, we are caught up in the "demands of the Law," and we soon lose sight of the Life of the Trinity dwelling in us:  the Father loving the Son; the Son loving the Father; the Spirit of Truth animating the relationship between them. 

If Jesus is not still present among us, doing the works of God in us, then our faith is in vain.  He is still opening the eyes of the blind, and giving hearing to the deaf among us---we are all blind and deaf and dumb until the Son of God says to us, "Be opened." 

Out of darkness, light!

Out of fear, peace!

Out of ignorance, truth!

Out of helplessness, strength!

Out of evil, goodness!

While we are arguing about doctrine, the Son of God is transforming all things into His image and returning them, transformed, to the Father Who gave them life.  Ron Rolheiser writes that because of Jesus' resurrection, the very atoms of the universe have been re-arranged.  Didn't He say, "Behold, I make all things new"?  This is the substance of our faith.

Anticipation

I will hide in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed (Ps. 57:2)

I was on my way to the doctor's office in early February, thinking I was to be treated for the allergies which I thought were causing my constant coughing.  On the way, since I was early, I decided to detour to the shopping center to look for a GNC.  However, the center I was looking for was a lot further away than I had thought it was when I headed in that direction.  As it turned out, there was no GNC there anyway, but my detour on the way and back caused me to hear the entire broadcast of Charles Stanley's talk on "Dealing With Crisis."  He used the quotation from Psalm 57 above, repeating it many times during his talk.  I found it strangely comforting and listened intently, glad for the extra time I was spending in the car to hear it.

That doctor's visit revealed the results of a CAT scan I had taken a couple of weeks previously.  The scan showed a mass on my right lung, which turned out to be lung cancer.  However, Stanley's message---indeed, God's message to me---remained with me and became my prayer throughout the "crisis." 

Before I called, You heard my voice;

Before I hungered, You had set the table and provided the food--

O anticipatory Love!

You healed; You set free;

You built up; You tore down.

You redeemed; You set apart;

You watched over, and walked with us through the valley of death.

The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall fear...