Formative Influences

The EWTN series The Journey Home features the stories of non-Catholics who somehow find their way into the Catholic Church.  Sometimes the show includes "reverts" also, those cradle Catholics who left the church at some point and then later returned "home."  From watching this series, I know that the three greatest hurdles for most of the non-Catholics are Mary, the Pope, and the Sacrament of Confession.

Strangely enough, it is the unity of the church under one head, the Pope, that most often convinces those who have most closely questioned and studied what they have believed all their lives.  It is the ministers, the theologians, those who have had conversion experiences and who seek to live their faith more deeply who finally come to the realization that Christ would not have left us without the authority to know the truth of what we believe.  Frankly, I am simply amazed at the number of pastors, youth directors, and ministers who come to a point in their ministry where they need to define Truth, and this after years and years of dedicated prayer and study.  It is their search for Truth that finally leads them to the teaching authority of the Catholic church. And in their search, they most often turn to those who have made the same journey of faith -- seminary colleagues or other pastors who have converted to Catholicism.  They want to know "the story," the "journey" of how others have come to believe what they do.

For those not so deeply immersed in the questions of Truth, for the "ordinary churchgoers" or believers, however, the first question they want to ask is "Why do Catholics worship Mary?"  Alternatively, they might ask, "Why do you pray to the saints?"  I could never understand the question about "worshipping" Mary until I finally read an explanation in one of the conversion stories.  I think it was Dr. David Anders' book, The Catholic Church Saved My Marriage, that explained the difference between the Protestant experience of "worship" and that of the Catholic: the Protestant defines "worship" as singing, praying, and preaching.  The Catholic defines worship as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass-- participating in the total Oblation of Christ on the Cross, His death and resurrection and receiving the Eucharist.  Worship for the Catholic is directed to God the Father in the Person of Christ the Son through the Presence of the Holy Spirit.  Worship is entering into the eternal and ongoing Life and Activity of the Most Holy Trinity through the Sacrifice of the Mass.  There is no "worship" of Mary; she is the one standing at the foot of the cross, offering her most beloved Son in obedience to the will of the Father.  She is the chief "worshipper," and she teaches us as we "worship" with her.

We can sing to Mary, or about her; we can pray to Mary, asking for her help and intercession; we can imitate her submission to God; and we can even preach or listen to sermons about Mary -- none of which constitute "worship" for the Catholic.

When I was a child, my parents had bought a wonderful series of books -- a child's encyclopedia.  One of the books in the set was called People and Great Deeds. I cannot tell you how many times I read that book, a collection of short biographies about famous people.  My three favorite stories -- and formative influences -- were those about Johnny Appleseed, George Washington Carver, and Madame Curie.  Those stories gave me big dreams of great deeds.  I too wanted to help people the way my heroes had done: sowing seeds of trees that would eventually produce apples, or maybe discovering useful scientific secrets that would forever improve people's lives.    Above all, I wanted to be dedicated to something greater than my own life.

In school, I was fortunate enough to read and re-read the lives of the saints.  Our school library had dozens of books about famous saints.  I gobbled up those books as fast as I could read them -- not realizing at the time the influence they were having on my spiritual development.  We are taught to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole strength.  But what does that look like?  How do we actually do that?  Just as it takes audio-visual aids to teach us about abstract concepts in chemistry, geometry, and literature, it takes living, breathing people -- saints-- to incarnate for us living examples of what it means to love God and to love our neighbor.  Looking back now, I deeply regret that I did not purchase the lives of the saints for my children along with the Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss books they devoured.

If we are to enter into our faith with conviction and love, we deeply need to see, hear, feel, touch formative influences -- people who have gone before us and who can show us the way "home."  We cannot make it up on our own.  Peter needed the formative influence of Jesus; Clement needed the formative influence of Peter; Ignatious of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna both needed the formative influence of St. John the Apostle -- and so the story goes.  Reading and contemplating the lives and the words of Mary and the saints model for us the multiple ways of responding to the Gift of the Father: the Word and the Spirit.

This morning I read these words from an obscure saint that few have ever heard of--St. Emily de Vialor:  If God did not breathe into me the spirit of zeal, my heart would cease to be quickened and then I would not be able to do anything.

Do her words cause me to "worship" Emily?  Far from it, her words cause me to realize how dependent I am upon the Living God, Who constantly breathes His very life and breath into me and into the whole world.  Thanks, Emily, for being one of the formative influences on my spiritual life--for showing me how to love God with my whole heart, my whole mind, and my whole strength!

Seeking Wisdom

  In the book of Sirach, chapter 24, Wisdom "sings her own praises":

From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, and mistlike the covered the earth...come to me, all you that yearn for me, and be filled with my fruits.

I still remember the day I fell in love with Wisdom.  I was in the 8th grade when the nun gave us images of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Mine was the Aladdin's Lamp with a small flame imposed above its spout.  Above the image was the word Sapientia, Latin for "Wisdom."  As I colored (or perhaps copied) the image (I don't remember), I remember wanting Wisdom more than anything else.  I'm not sure I knew exactly what it was, but I thirsted for it greatly. (The power of art).

Many many years after that, as I began reading the Bible, I discovered all the passages in Proverbs, Wisdom, and Sirach that speak of Wisdom, and I again yearned for that Gift.  Wisdom describes herself as "fragrant balm, precious myrrh, like the odor of incense, a tree of life for those who find it, sweeter than honey" ….and the list goes on and on.  Someday I need to compile that list and keep it above my desk.

One of my favorite passages has always been the end of Chapter 24 of Sirach:

     He who eats of me will hunger still; he who drinks of me will thirst for more; he who obeys me will not be put to shame; he who serves me will never fail.

    All this is true of the book of the Most High's covenant, the Law which Moses commanded us as an inheritance for the community of Jacob.  It overflows like the Phison, with wisdom--like the Tigris in the days of the new fruits.  It runs over, like the Euphrates, with understanding, like the Jordan at harvest time.  It sparkles like the Nile with knowledge, like the Gihon at vintage time.  The first man never finished comprehending wisdom, nor will the last succeed in fathoming her.  For deeper than the sea are her thoughts; her counsels, than the great abyss.

     Now I, like a rivulet from her stream, channeling the waters into a garden, said to myself, "I will water my plants, my flower bed I will drench"; and suddenly this rivulet of mine became a river, then this stream of mine, a sea.  Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn, to become known afar off.  Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy and bestow it on generations to come.

I cannot think of a better way to channel Wisdom into our own gardens than to read one chapter a day of the books of Wisdom and Sirach.  Suddenly, this rivulet will become a flowing stream in our own hearts and begin to flow out of us into the world around us.

Signs That God Loves Us

"So coffee is my greatest vice," I said to the young intern in the emergency room where I had gone for sudden chest pains a few years ago.  "Coffee is not a vice;" he replied definitively, "it is a sign that God loves us!"

As I sat at the beachfront today savoring a now-rare cup of McDonald's coffee, I gazed at the scenery and reflected on his words.  What a great way to live, seeing all around us signs that God loves us.  Once we start, it's as if our eyes and hearts are opened again to how many signs exist.  All of us have places of refuge, of beauty, of peace -- a sign that God loves us.  A garden, a park, a forest of special trees and creatures -- signs that God loves us.  Waves on the sea, the sun that comes up without fail, the moon and stars at night.  People that love us and those we love, meaningful work, and good friends …. just go for a walk with eyes looking for signs that God loves us, and our hearts will sing in gratitude.

Humanity's purpose is to praise God -- to be the soul of creation, and to return thanks to Him Whose Beauty shines through the work of His hands.  Our destiny is to delight in creation as a gift and to give gratitude to the Giver.  Gregory of Nyssa put it this way:  The human voice was fashioned for one reason alone -- to be the threshold through which the sentiments of the heart, inspired by the Holy Spirit, might be translated clearly into the Word itself.  

We were created to praise God.  On this account, we are called to learn to bear the joy of what C.S. Lewis calls "the weight of glory."  We were born to praise and to sing a new song of praise, and  through praise, to enter into communion with God.

The church teaches us how we can increase our ability to deepen and widen our song of praise -- deepening our communion with God and widening it to include all of creation, including the Body of Christ around us. Theology is an attempt to understand the works of God and to catch the rhythm of the Holy Spirit in our praise and thanksgiving.  Once we understand how God has worked in past history, we learn to fit our own stories into the pattern of grace. And once we see Him acting in our lives, we understand ever more fully how He acts in human history.  Church is the place where our perception of the world is altered in order to help us see grace more clearly. Thus we become more sensitive to its presence and more responsive to its promptings in our lives (from The Republic of Grace: Augustinian Thoughts for Dark Times by Charles Matthews).

So many things help us to see the grace all around us -- the casual remark of a young intern, a hot cup of coffee with cream, the breeze across the sand, the stillness of a blue heron, the Body of Christ, the Church:  all signs that God loves us.

Learning from the Little Flower

Lord, help me today to do what You want me to do, to go where You want me to go, to say what You want me to say, and to give away what You want me to give away.

 (From Rome, Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberly Hahn).

Much as I have wanted to, I have never been able to identify myself as a "servant of Jesus Christ."  It seems hypocritical to even think of doing so, when I see myself as serving myself and choosing what I want at every minute of the day. I think I may have  written this years ago, but I'll tell the story again of the time when I earnestly and sincerely said to the Father, "I just want to be of use to You." In my spirit, I "heard" a long, pregnant pause, the kind of thing that would happen when one makes a social faux pas at a sophisticated gathering.  And then, for the only time in my life,  I heard God laugh!  It was the kind of roaring, full laughter that immediately pulls you into it -- and I started laughing out loud too.  In my mind, I had a vivid image of a two-year-old pushing a chair up to the sink, saying, "I wash the dishes for you, Mommy."  

Yes, first, Mom has to remove anything breakable or valuable.  Then she has to throw in all the plastic stuff, so toddler will have a good time splashing things around.  Then, after a few minutes, when baby gets bored, she has to clean up the mess he made.

"Be of use to God?"......Hardly.  And yet......somehow, He has made it true.  He has given us dominion over the work of His hands, to guard, nurture, and protect His work.  And truly, what we do does make a difference, for better or for worse.  We build up, build a fence around, and till the soil to productivity to feed the world -- or we poison and destroy it beyond repair.  We feed, clothe, and educate His children -- or we neglect them while we watch soap operas or twitter on our cell phones.

It does make a difference to God and to the earth what we do and how we do it every day.  The book of Ecclesiastes says, Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart (9:10), and If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the roof leaks (10:18).

My problem with seeing myself as "useful to God," or a "servant" of Jesus Christ, I think, stems from my vision of doing "great" things for God.  But learning from the Little Flower of Jesus (St. Therese of Liseux) and from Mother Teresa of Calcutta is much more realistic.  St. Therese saw herself as a plaything of the Child Jesus, as a ball thrown into the corner.  If the Child Jesus decided to leave her there, unseen and forgotten all day, then it pleased her to lie there unseen and forgotten, for that was His choice.  If He decided to pick her up and play with her, then she was pleased to please Him.  She said that if one picks up a pin from the floor for love of God, the act was of great merit. ( Because of her, I always pick up Kleenex and cheerios from the floor of the church after parents have left with their small children, and because of her I do it with love instead of with criticism.)

Mother Teresa realistically said, "We cannot all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love," echoing the words of Ecclesiastes.  Someone said to me recently: "Stretch out your hand.  Whatever you find at the end of your arm is what you can do today."  Yes, my vision definitely extends way beyond the reach of my arm, and so I think I cannot help solve the problems of hunger, of misery, of loneliness, of child abuse, of meanness of spirit, of selfishness --- and the list goes on.  But I can do what is put before me today, just today.  

I remember once ending my time of prayer and asking God what He wanted me to do today.  Immediately the thought went through my head: "Clean out the litterboxes!"  Whoever thinks that God does not have a sense of humor has clearly never heard Him laugh or heard His Voice!

Agent of Transformation

It makes sense, now that we know it, that we alone, unaided by the Holy Spirit, could never reach into the Presence and Power of Divine Life.  Despite all the sacrifices of pagan worship and of Old Testament rituals, man cannot give himself peace or communion with God.  Jesus told Nicodemus that unless we are born from above, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Everything is Gift:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, faithfulness, and self-control.  None of these come from man's nature.  And it is when we discover the lack of these gifts in ourselves that we begin to search for the Giver of all good gifts.  We were made for joy, for love, for kindness -- we were made to be the image of Him Who created us.  But sin has marred the Image and robbed us of divine life.  The sinner cannot re-create himself in the Image of God; only God Himself can remake us.

The Holy Spirit is the Agent of Transformation.  St. Seraphim tells us that whatever we do in the Christian practice, the aim is always to acquire the Holy Spirit.  Whether we fast, pray the rosary, attend mass, or confess our sins --- always, always, the goal is acquisition of the Holy Spirit.  He alone can achieve in us the death of the old man and the formation of the "new creation," created to be the image of God.

From baptism, we have the seed of eternal life.  And it is not a dead seed, but one that takes root and grows in us throughout our lives, if we but till the spiritual soil and allow the rain of grace to fall in our hearts.  Grace is the Presence and Action of God in us, nourishing the seed of divine life.  In so many hearts, the seed is allowed to wither and even die as we are drawn more and more to the attractions of the world.  Eden's "apple" still draws our eyes and our hearts, until we bite and discover the nakedness and emptiness of its promises.

But, as at the beginning, the Holy Spirit hovers over the chaos, the void, breathing new life.  And when we experience that new life, we know its Source and cling to Him with no faith in our own abilities.  "If you knew the Gift of God," Jesus tells the woman at the well whose life has turned to dust and loneliness, "if you knew  the Gift of God, you would ask, and I would give you, water springing up to eternal life."

"Ask and you shall receive......for God the Father knows how to give good gifts to those who ask."  Asking for the Gift that He wants to give is the first step in transformation.  And He will not refuse one who asks.  Nothing else will ever matter once we know that we have received the Gift of God.