How Close He Is!

 For what other nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him? (Deut. 4:7)

The history of Israel demonstrates how close God is to his people, those with whom He has a covenant beyond death.  In Jesus, that covenant/closeness is extended to all mankind, to whomever will accept it. Those of us who have walked through the shadow of death have had some glimpse of that closeness, but for many people, God is just "too busy" or too remote to bother about our little lives.

There is a current youtube video now about the second pilot shot down over Iran, whose plane crashed in the moutainous region where there was no vegetation to cover him.  Exposed, without water, injured, he faced certain death, whether found by the Iranian search parties or not.  But Jesus appeared to him, saying, "Follow Me!"  Although the soldier had a crushed knee which was beginning to swell badly, he began to walk after Jesus, who eventually led him 48 kilometers, past four Iranian checkpoints, to a plateau where he could be picked up by American helicopters.  Later, when he was debriefed by Army Intelligence, his story was held to be "impossible,"  as they traced his journey from the site of the crash to where he was rescued.

 Last night, I watched a program called It's A Miracle, which tells of similar miraculous events.  One story was of a pilot whose single-engine plane was about to crash.  Suddenly, a man appeared in the cockpit, telling the pilot that he would not die in that crash.  The pilot reported an unnatural sense of peace and calm as the plane nosedived into a field, burst into flames, and filled the cockpit with smoke.  Unable to release the seatbelt, the pilot reported that the "man" with him began to breathe in his face, giving him fresh air in the midst of heavy smoke.  Someone who had seen the plane go down ran to rescue the pilot and pulled him out of the plane, which immediately exploded.  Later, the rescuer remarked that he could not understand how the pilot could have survived the intense smoke filling the cabin.

After viewing the program last night, I woke up this morning thanking God for the numerous stories like this of His Presence in the midst of almost certain death.  As I sat down to pray, I heard in my spirit the word "Sirach."  I kind of vaguely thought to myself that I needed to re-read Sirach at some point, but mostly ignored the message otherwise.  After prayer, I reached for another book which I have been reading every morning.  But immediately, I heard more insistently: Read Sirach!

Now curious, I reached for my Catholic bible (Sirach is not included in the Protestant Bible), and opened to Sirach, but for some reason, I went to the very last page of the book, where at some point, I had written the following words in an empty space at the end of Sirach:

I give you thanks, Lord and King/  I praise you, God my Savior! 

I declare your name, refuge of my life, because you have ransomed my life from death;

You held back my body from the pit, and delivered my foot from the power of Sheol.

You have rescued me according to your abundant mercy/ From the snare of those who look for my downfall/ and from the power of those who seek my life. 

Since it has been awhile since I read Sirach, I had forgotten writing those words, taken from  the last chapter of the book.  Startled to find them in my present contemplation of God's closeness to us, I turned to Chapter 51, to read the whole thing, and found these words included:  from many a danger you have saved me, from flames that hemmed me in on every side; from the midst of unremitting fire, from the deep belly of the nether world (vv. 4-5).

Slowly the feeling crept over me that the Holy Spirit had not only guided my tv watching the previous night but somehow out of the multitude of Biblical words and stories, He also guided my reading this morning.  I am in awe at how close our God is to us!  

For those who don't usually read the Bible, I highly recommend perusing Sirach, especially the last chapter.  It gives one pause....... 

 

 

 

The Inner Christ

 Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe, Jesus said to Thomas.  Was this a kind of echo of God's word to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise?  For the ancients, as well as for the moderns, like Thomas, we "know" what we can verify through our senses:  she saw that the apple was good for food and pleasing to the eye.  That she knew.  What she did not "know" was the poison of not trusting God.  This knowledge is what every one of us must learn for ourselves.  We know what we've been told, but we don't believe it until we taste for ourselves.

St. Ausgustine taught that the "inner Christ" is the divine truth and light within us, closer than we are to ourselves.  In his Confessions, he argues that God is present within us, as the source of wisdom and truth.  Our inner teacher is Christ who shines on the mind to reveal truth.  Now, Thomas had, during the three years he spent with Jesus, undoubtedly come to experience Jesus as the Way, the Life, and the Truth. His failing was that he could not trust what he knew internally.  What he "knew" was what he had seen --- Jesus taken from the cross and laid in the tomb, and the door sealed.

St. Augustine's beautiful prayer "O Beauty ever ancient/ O Beauty ever new/ You, the beauty of my life renewed,/ let me find my life in You" can be found in his Confessions.  But today, it is easier to access it online --- and even better to listen to it sung by the St. Louis Jesuits, which will pop up when you google O Beauty Ever New.

It is easy for us to trust what we "know" through our senses and our reasoning.  But that knowledge ultimately leads to death until our "Inner Jesus" begins to teach us the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Most of us are afraid to simply ask Him to show us the Truth; we, like Thomas, are afraid to trust that He is real.  But "Show me!" is a prayer that He will answer.
 

The Right Hand of Fellowship

 In Galatians 2:9, St. Paul tells that he had gone to Jerusalem to explain his ministry to the Gentiles to the "pillars of the church, Peter, James, and John:"  ...they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews.

Originally, the gesture of extending "the right hand" to someone indicated a demonstration that one held no weapon in the hand and that the other person was being greeted as a friend, not an enemy.  In the early church, "the right hand of fellowship" expressed acceptance, agreement, and trust --- a welcome into an established group, a way to enter a partnership in the Gospel.  In the very first church, the believers "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).  They considered their relationships with one another an important part of their daily lives.

Strong friendships and fellowship are an essential part of a healthy and growing Church. In the final reference to fellowship in the New Testament, (1 John 1:7),  we read, "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."

Recently, I have been thinking about the words of the Resurrected Jesus to Mary Magdalene: Go to my brothers and tell them, "I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17).  It seems to me that these are among the sweetest words Jesus spoke in the Bible.  The words themselves seem to me to be Jesus extending "the right hand of fellowship" --- that is, of acceptance, agreement, and trust --- to His friends.  At the Last Supper, he had said to them: "I no longer call you servants, but friends, because servants do not know what their master is doing."  And now, it seems that after the Resurrection, a new kind of fellowship is established.

Jesus spoke often of "my father" during his ministry on earth.  He did always what the Father wanted and the words He spoke were not His own, but belonged to the One who had sent Him.  And now, it seems that the apostles were included in the same ministry, the same partnership in the Gospel. Now, He refers to "my Father and your Father, my God and your God."  Our fellowship with the Risen Christ has given to all of us fellowship with the Father Himself and with one another.  We are accepted; we are loved; we are trusted, and we are being purified from all sin, that our fellowship may continue beyond this life and into the next!

When God Speaks

 The religion of the ancient Hebrews (and thus of the Hebrew Bible) was based upon the belief that God can and does speak to man. ...  The belief that God speaks to man is fundamental; we cannot accept some of the Hebrew beliefs as valid for modern man and abandon the basis upon which they are proposed, for this leaves them precisely baseless, unfounded (The Two-Edged Sword, McKenzie).

As moderns, we tend to be sceptical about God speaking to us.  We may not doubt that he speaks to the great saints ("Francis, rebuild My Church!" for example), but most of us are extremely doubtful that He can or will speak to us.  And yet, Jesus is very emphatic at the Last Supper about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives: But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (Jn. 14).

    When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you (Jn. 16).

Many of us have had the experience of "hearing" an inner voice directing us, and yet we have shut it down, thinking that we were speaking to ourselves, out of our own minds and desires.  How do we know when we are talking to ourselves or when the Holy Spirit is directing us? While most of the time the whisperings of the Holy Spirit are subtle, there are times when He is very direct.  Let me give you a recent example:

My sister is retired but still drives a school bus on a regular basis to pick up extra cash.  Once or twice a year, she and her husband will travel to the coast and spend 2 or 3 nights in a casino, where they both enjoy playing poker with her school bus money. (It's the only money they use for that purpose.)  If one or both of them win a poker game or two, they will add that money to the casino fund and save it for the next trip.  

On one of the bus trips -- a field trip where the drivers had to wait for the children to return -- another bus driver, a woman also, was telling my sister that one of her checks had bounced at the bank, and now she was faced with not only paying that bill, but also interest and added fees from the bank.  She did not know what she was going to do. My sister immediately told the woman to follow her home after they finished their route that day, and she would give her 500 dollars to take to the bank and cover her costs.  She took the cash from her casino fund.  

The other woman was extremely grateful and promised to repay her 50 dollars every two weeks, with each paycheck.  After a couple of payments, however, the woman moved and her bus route was changed, so that the two no longer met on a regular basis.  Eventually, my sister began to think to herself, "She's never going to pay me back; I'll never see that money again!"  And of course, once we begin to gnaw on a mental bone like that, it continues to haunt us.  But then one day, in the midst of her grousing about the money, a strong voice spoke in and to her:  "It was never your money to begin with; let it go!"  And that voice brought such peace that my sister was able to release all of her negative thoughts and worries about the money.  She realized how much of that money she had actually won, as well as earned. She indeed was able to "let it go." 

Now how do we know God was speaking in this case?  As John McKenzie points out in his book, there is always a sense of the "Other" in these cases.  When we are consumed by fear, worry, and anxiety, and there is "voice" that cuts across the direction of our own thoughts, bringing peace and even love, it's a pretty clear indication that we cannot be talking to ourselves.  And once we have experienced the Voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us, we begin to believe and to be a little more sensitive and less doubtful that God does want to be part of our lives.

The Best Easter Ever!

As we entered the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday/Sunday) this year, there was an extra measure of prayer and intensity for most of us.  An American airman had been shot down in the mountainous region of Iran during the Iranian War.  The pilot of the plane had been rescued by American forces, but the second in command had not yet been found  ---- and the world was holding its breath.

It was a question of who would locate the American first.  Iran had placed a bounty on his head, and it seemed that every Iranian citizen in the area was out to claim the reward, hunting him down with sticks, guns, and whatever weapons they had at hand.  Ameica, meanwhile, was trying to locate him with all the tools at their disposal-- encoded signals, helicopters, etc.  One search plane had already been shot down by the Iranians, but that pilot had also been rescued.  

Those of us who remember previous wars remembered the brutality of nations like Iran who captured American soldiers.  We recalled the televised beheadings, the parading of broken and tortured men before cameras while citizens cheered.  As the mother of a helicopter pilot who has been through survival training, I was especially focused on the parents of this young airman.  I could almost experience their anguish and fear for his safety.  I could imagine in my flesh and bones what their prayers for his safety must have been like.

Every service I attended -- Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil --- I felt as if I were praying with the whole world for this man's rescue by American forces.  During the night, I would wake up praying for him and for his parents.  And I knew I was not alone in my prayers.  

Then, Easter Morning, I arose at 4 am, wondering if there was any news.  Fortunately, my husband, who had also been praying at night, was already awake with the exultant announcement:  The airman is safe; he has been found !    Immediately, I thought of the Father's cry in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:  We must rejoice; the son who was lost has been found!    I could imagine the joy and relief and thanksgiving of the parents as I sort of collapsed with joy myself.  

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  He is risen from the dead!  Ring the bells; announce the Good News!  We have all been saved from death and sorrow!  Alleluia!  The timing of the loss and resurrection brought a whole new and real dimension to Easter this year!  

On Visions and Meanings

 Thinking this morning of Julian of Norwich, a 14th century nun who thought she was dying when she had a series of visions for 12 hours, in which Jesus revealed to her secrets of heaven and of His own heart.  Indeed, she did not die, but spent the next 40 years reflecting on and writing about what she had seen and heard in her visions.  

One of the most remarkable secrets God revealed to her was what she called "the hospitality of God."  She reflected on the sweet kindness of God, Who welcomes the worst of us into his heart and home.  As a parent who is most tender and solicitous with the child who is sick, weak, or disabled in some way, she saw God as most welcoming of the sinner.  Indeed, Jesus said that the angels in heaven rejoiced more over a sinner who repents than over the 99 who have no need of repentence.  And in the story of the woman caught in adultery, we see Jesus turning away the "righteous" ones who want to condemn the sinner --- we see the Face of God!

After my experience with the baptism of the Holy Spirit in 1977, I began to have a series of visions also --  unlike Julian of Norwich, I had only 3 or 4 of them over a period of a few years.  But now, almost 50 years later, I realize that those few visions have guided me all the rest of my life.  I have never thought about revealing those visions to any but a very small number of people in my life, but thinking about Julian today and the impact of her visions on me, I'm thinking about writing them down.  I don't know that they will mean anything to anyone else, but I have found that the gifts of God are never given for us alone.  The graces we have been given are always meant to be shared.

In the first -- and longest -- vision I had, I saw myself in a cloud looking down at the top of a mountain.  I could see the top of the mountain, and I could see multiple paths leading to the top.  There were people on all of the paths; some of them had wandered off their path and were lost in the trees, not even knowing they were lost.  As I watched them, I asked Jesus, "Can I help them?"  "NO," he said; "on their journey, they come to know their Guide, and you are not the Guide."  I was completely satisfied with that answer, for some reason, knowing that He would take care of the ones I was worried about.  

Suddenly, though, I realized that I myself was at the base of an invisible mountain in the cloud, one that I could not see at all.  And He spoke again:   You will not know whether you are going up or down, backwards or forwards; you will know only the One Who guides you.  And once again, I was completely satisfied and content with His words.  I knew that I did not have to worry about where I was going, if only He was taking care of me.

Then I saw in front of me what looked like a library table with four small drawers.  I opened the first drawer and saw what appeared to be bookmarks, and for some reason, I understood those to be the Ten Commandments.  The next drawer also held small bookmarks, and these seemed to be the Beatitudes.  The contents of the third drawer were (occasionally) the secrets of men's hearts.  The fourth drawer, however, would open only a couple of inches, much like a kitchen drawer stuck half-way by some tool blocking the pathway.  I could see it held a scroll, which I squeezed my hand in far enough to draw out.  As I unrolled the scroll, it seemed to be blank; intuitively, I knew there was something written on it, but I could not see it!  As I watched, the scroll continued to unroll itself upwards, even to heaven.

I understood the vision immediately:  From childhood, it had been given to me to know the Commandments, the Beatitudes, and even sometimes the secrets of other's hearts.  What I could not know and did not know, was what was written on my own heart!  I understood the words, "If you allow Me to reveal to you what is written on your own heart, it will lead you to heaven!"

And then I saw the first (and as it turned out to be, the only) three words I would ever see:  Purity of Heart, Humility, and Truth.

Now, almost 50 years after that experience, I realize that these words were not "virtues" that had been given to me from the beginning, but they were instead guideposts that would lead me to heaven.  They were paths that I would need to learn to walk on the way, and from which I would occasionally, if not often, depart.  But they would inevitably draw me back to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I am, and always have been, profoundly grateful for this vision.  As a visual learner, I have always needed to "see" rather than "hear" things in order to retain them in memory.  I tend to forget what I hear -- sometimes after 10 minutes!  But I always remember the things I see.  And here's the point:  God, as the Master Teacher,  honors and accommodates His Voice, His teachings, to our strengths rather than to our weakness.  In his hospitality, according to Julian, He bends low that He might raise us up!

A Moment of Joy

Our local Walmart is undergoing re-organization, making for a somewhat frustrating shopping experience.  Recently, I approached the Garden center for some potting soil, only to find out that the entrance was closed.  Despite having parked close to the garden entrance to make it easier to haul and load the potting soil into my car, I now needed to walk around to the main entrance.  

When I reached the Garden center, I found that it was closed, but that I could pay for the potting soil at a main register and then pick up the package outside the store.  The chashier of course knew nothing about potting soil sizes, so ended up just showing me pictures on her phone.  Since I didn't want the smallest size, I picked another one:  "That's fine," I said, and headed outside to pick up the soil, only to discover that I had picked the industrial sized package, one way heavier than I was capable of lifting into the basket.  Of course, there was no way back into the garden center, nor was there anyone working outside to help me.

As I usually do, I turned to my guardian angel for help:  "Show me how to get this thing in the basket," I asked, and immediately saw the solution -- pull the bag off the top of the pile onto the ground, let it stand on end while I rolled the cart up and slid the bag onto the lower shelf.  Done!

When I got to my car, there was another issue -- how to get the darn thing into the car.  It was really beyond my ability to lift it even a few feet off the bottom of the basket.  Again, I turned to my guardian angel:  "Send me someone to help me!" I prayed, as I had parked the car on the outer fringe of the lot, where few people were passing by.  Immediately, a man in a wheel chair rolled up to my car.  "Do you need any help?" he asked.   "Well," I said, "I asked my guardian angel to send me someone to help me, and he sent you!"   "God works in mysterious ways," he said with a grin. 

When I looked at his face, I suddenly had the thought that maybe this encounter was as much for him as for me.  He looked a little "on the edge," so to speak.  He may have been homeless, I'm not sure, but I noticed there was nothing in his basket if he had just come from the store.  Anyway, he put one foot on the ground, lifted one corner of the potting soil, and told me to grab the other end.  Between the two of us, we managed to wrestle the bag into the car, and both of us kind of collapsed laughing at the effort. 

It was a moment of shared joy for both of us.  I think he felt good about helping me, and somehow I felt good about needing his help.  What I originally thought might have been a joke on the part of my angel turned out to be a special moment in my day --- as I'm sure it was in his!