The Room of Self-Knowledge

 St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) lived, like all of us, in tumultuous times.  Destined for greatness, she experienced the love of God at an early age, but she did not fit in with the expectations of her parents or of her culture.  When she turned her back on the possibility of marriage, her parents retaliated by forcing her to work as a household servant, but she constructed in her heart a "secret cell" of "self-knowledge" to which she could retreat from her daily drudgery.

To Catherine, knowledge of self and knowledge of God were one and the same. Christ once said to her: You are she who is not; I am the One Who Is!  The entire secret of this woman who never learned to read and who wrote poorly seems to be her absolute knowledge of her own poverty and of God's sufficiency. For her, to know oneself is a form of prayer.

She once said, "Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire!"  So then, how do we get to the place where we know ourselves and understand who God meant us to be?

When I started thinking about the room of self-knowledge, the image that came to mind was the kaleidoscope room at Disney World.  I don't know if that room still exists, since I experienced it in the 70's, but as we waited our turn for a main attraction, we stood in a circular room surrounded by 20 or more narrow screens that reached from floor to ceiling.  Each screen portrayed for a few moments a different scene, not in a dizzying fashion, but rather peacefully, so that you could gaze at whichever scene drew your attention for a few seconds until your focus shifted or the scene changed. 

When I imagine a "secret cell of self-knowledge," I imagine standing in the center of such a room, with the screens flashing images of myself at different times and stages of my life, or even from moment to moment in the present time.  Over the room and embracing all the scenes, I imagine a ceiling like the ones in the Eastern Orthodox churches, with Christ the Pantocrater--the Ruler and Creator-- hovering over all the images of my life, loving and embracing all of who I am, who I was, who I will be in the future.  What I see as failures to love, He sees as stages along the journey.  Catherine said, "It is only through shadows that one comes to know the Light."

To see ourselves through His eyes is a great grace; we cannot see ourselves through our own eyes, for there are too many false images and too much lack of understanding.  I think we naturally fear to see ourselves as we truly are, but if we could only see the person He made us to be, we would rejoice in His wisdom and strength.  

The Master Has Need of It - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

absolutely stunning!

On Dying and Rising

 Each of us, according to Walter Burghardt, S.J., is a unique authority on our own Calvary.  It is not necessary for anyone else to lay a cross on us, for each of us carries a painful circumstance--or more--- unrecognized by the rest of the world.  And most often we carry it alone.  When we try to explain it to others, there are no words to convey our experience, our suffering.  We recognize the silence of Christ before Pilate: "I cannot explain it to you."

During the last three weeks, my husband and I (at 80 and 87) have been moving to a new house and trying to prepare the former house for sale.  Most people our age are moving into retirement homes, where life becomes more simple and where other people do things for them.  What was difficult and stressful at the age of 50 or 60 becomes extraordinarily more so at 80 and 87, when the body refuses to cooperate with the demands of the situation.  

To make things even more stressful, I was planning to leave the country for three weeks as soon as the move was completed, leaving my husband to deal with an unorganized household of unpacked boxes, unhung pictures sitting on the living room floor, and our former garage full of things that needed to be disposed of.  Neither of us had had a clue as to how demanding it would be to empty a 3100 square foot house, holding 50 years of accumulated treasures.

Under the stress of carrying heavy boxes day after day, my husband developed back spasms and sciatica, leaving him unable to move for about a week.  Concern for him added to my burdens of loading and unloading 3-4 carloads a day, the discovery of mold in our new house, sudden leaks in the house we were trying to sell, exposed hotwires in unexpected places, and the demands of our agent to update and paint an aging house.

Finally, I was sleeping only 2-3 hours a night, eating irregularly the wrong foods since I had no time to cook, and starting each day at one o'clock in the morning --- until my body finally shut down also and I could no longer function at all.  We both desperately needed help!

In my last entry, I wrote about the experience of "solution found!" that becomes the starting point of faith in the presence and faithfulness of God.  As Abraham journeyed from his homeland to a new land, he built an altar whenever he reached a new place, "and there he called on the name of the Lord" (Gen. 12).  From Genesis on, we find those who call on the name of the Lord and find "an ever-present help in distress" (Ps. 46).

When I finally reached the end of my own strength and ability to cope, I had no choice but to rely entirely on the Lord for help -- and I was not disappointed or "put to shame" (Romans 10:11). I began to be amazed at the people who showed up at just the right time to lend a hand or to solve a problem entirely beyond our capabilities.  

Even the small things I had not thought about were taken care of -- someone showed up spontaneously at the chapel one day as I arrived for my assigned hour of adoration.  I had not even considered that I would need a replacement during my 3-week absence.  This person had never before attended adoration and was looking for a time slot to fill.  I had planned to stop on the way for gas and decided at the last minute to get it afterward. That decision put me at the chapel just in time to meet this new person, who was delighted to fill my time slot for the next few weeks.  Solution found!

St. Julie Billiart said it so well:  Let us endure with courage the painful little experiences that Divine Providence allows to befall us.  They are a necessary part of every life, and force us to place all our trust in God, for He alone can support and guide us.

I am not at all sure I have "endured with courage" the pain and stress of the past few weeks, but I will never forget the Lent of this year, when I have come to experience a kind of dying and rising, an overcoming with the help of God the painful experiences that each of us must face in our lives.