During prayer this morning it came into my heart to note briefly why the particular links on the mid-left-hand side of this Blog.
A Penitent Blogger impresses in particular because of their reflections on the Scriptural Readings, Saints of the day.
Adoro Te Devote because this faithful woman writes from the heart, has a great love of the Priesthood, of priests.
Catholic Love Blog because, frankly the Everetts are members of my own family and I am very proud of them, but also because of their wisdom about marriage and family life.
Fr. Arthur’s Web Site, rather un-humbly, admittedly, self evident!
MPECS Inc. Blog I note first this is NOT any form of paid advertisement but they do freely supply all hard and software needed to keep this Blog and the Hope For Priest’s website going, plus this husband and wife business is run on solid Catholic principles and, while most of the postings deal with technical matters from time to time there are posts, well studied, about ethical business practices.
Plot Line and Sinker is from a Catholic wife, mother, writer and with her husband a strenuous advocate of all life issues and holy marriage questions.
Saint Blogs Parish is informative since I cannot link to every site I visit nor evaluate here the orthodoxy of all sites this is a helpful place to check things out.
These Stone Walls may be controversial or even painful for some to read but I am touched by the courage and openness of the writer.
Whispers In The Loggia is the classic site for those who feel a need to be ‘in the know’ regarding who’s who and what’s what in the institutional Church!
World Priest, visit their home page and you will quickly see why this site is, I believe, a must for priests and those who love, support, pray for priests.
While I appreciate when people send site suggestions I cannot link to all but I do check all of them out and if one particularly touches my heart then mostly likely it will eventually be linked here.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
A PEACEFUL DEATH
It is the time each day when, normally, having just prayed the Office of Compline, Night Prayer, I would go to bed.
After all, in union with the whole Church, I have just prayed the blessing: “May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.”
Yet, this late evening of All Souls, some in particular are on my heart, for whom, at least to external appearances, death would appear to have not come peacefully.
The first death I witnessed when I was barely five years old.
To this day I do not know if the baby was a boy or girl for when I heard the breaking glass of the tenement window, saw the mother throw her baby through the window from so high up, watched the child crash onto the roof of the coal shed below, I was too far away, likely too shocked as well, to realize much other than the horrific vulnerability of being little.
Decades later, working always that shift, rightly in many ways, called the “graveyard’ shift, as a child protection officer, in the middle of one shift the homicide detectives put out a call for those familiar with a particular part of the inner city to stop by the morgue and see if we could identify a body.
This was in the days before DNA and given the body had been in the river for several days, that the deceased had been tortured, mutilated in a manner to make identification near impossible, and murdered, executed to be blunt, the detectives were desperate for help.
It was near three in the morning before I had a chance between calls to stop by the morgue.
In those days I was a true atheist so my attitude approaching a dead body was akin to finding an empty shell on a beach.
The horrific method by which death had apparently devoured the young man was the antithesis of peaceful.
You can well imagine how stunned I was as I stood there unable to identify him, yet suddenly sensing this was someone’s child, brother, perhaps husband, father, when I distinctly heard: “You will remember him at your first Mass!”
Nearly fifteen years later, concelebrating with my newly ordained confreres, other priests and our Bishop, I did so, and do every year on this day.
One day I was called to emergency, not unusual for a priest, and when I arrived an elderly woman approached me and said she was the younger sister of the woman I had been called to anoint.
She explained to me they were from another part of the country and named the city.
It was the city of my childhood.
She further explained the her sister had been for years a member of the Sisters of.....but one day had simply quit, without ever getting dispensation from her vows, and had also left the Church.
This gentle woman also told me that her sister had not asked for a priest and at that moment grief replaced words with tears.
Holding her hands I asked her to tell me her sister’s name and her name in religious life.
When she told me the latter I smiled and said: “Ah, yes! I remember her. She was my teacher in the parish school of St....”.
I approached the dying woman who was still conscious, bending close to her ear and calling her by her religious name said: “Dear Sister when you taught us the Hail Mary you were so emphatic that we should trust Our Lady would be with us at the hour of our death. Be at peace for Our Lady has brought a child you taught to you to fulfill her Motherly love for you.”
In the memorial of the Fourth Canon we pray for “...those whose faith is known to You alone.”
Ultimately it is neither the time nor manner of our death which determines if it is peaceful or not, all external appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.
It is, and mostly this is invisible to our bodily eyes, but the heart often sees, the outstretched hand of Jesus, of Mary, catching a falling child, cradling the youth sinking into the blackness of frigid river water, caressing the fevered brow of an elderly nun as they say: “Do not be afraid.”
Yes O Jesus, You who have conquered death, grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.
After all, in union with the whole Church, I have just prayed the blessing: “May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.”
Yet, this late evening of All Souls, some in particular are on my heart, for whom, at least to external appearances, death would appear to have not come peacefully.
The first death I witnessed when I was barely five years old.
To this day I do not know if the baby was a boy or girl for when I heard the breaking glass of the tenement window, saw the mother throw her baby through the window from so high up, watched the child crash onto the roof of the coal shed below, I was too far away, likely too shocked as well, to realize much other than the horrific vulnerability of being little.
Decades later, working always that shift, rightly in many ways, called the “graveyard’ shift, as a child protection officer, in the middle of one shift the homicide detectives put out a call for those familiar with a particular part of the inner city to stop by the morgue and see if we could identify a body.
This was in the days before DNA and given the body had been in the river for several days, that the deceased had been tortured, mutilated in a manner to make identification near impossible, and murdered, executed to be blunt, the detectives were desperate for help.
It was near three in the morning before I had a chance between calls to stop by the morgue.
In those days I was a true atheist so my attitude approaching a dead body was akin to finding an empty shell on a beach.
The horrific method by which death had apparently devoured the young man was the antithesis of peaceful.
You can well imagine how stunned I was as I stood there unable to identify him, yet suddenly sensing this was someone’s child, brother, perhaps husband, father, when I distinctly heard: “You will remember him at your first Mass!”
Nearly fifteen years later, concelebrating with my newly ordained confreres, other priests and our Bishop, I did so, and do every year on this day.
One day I was called to emergency, not unusual for a priest, and when I arrived an elderly woman approached me and said she was the younger sister of the woman I had been called to anoint.
She explained to me they were from another part of the country and named the city.
It was the city of my childhood.
She further explained the her sister had been for years a member of the Sisters of.....but one day had simply quit, without ever getting dispensation from her vows, and had also left the Church.
This gentle woman also told me that her sister had not asked for a priest and at that moment grief replaced words with tears.
Holding her hands I asked her to tell me her sister’s name and her name in religious life.
When she told me the latter I smiled and said: “Ah, yes! I remember her. She was my teacher in the parish school of St....”.
I approached the dying woman who was still conscious, bending close to her ear and calling her by her religious name said: “Dear Sister when you taught us the Hail Mary you were so emphatic that we should trust Our Lady would be with us at the hour of our death. Be at peace for Our Lady has brought a child you taught to you to fulfill her Motherly love for you.”
In the memorial of the Fourth Canon we pray for “...those whose faith is known to You alone.”
Ultimately it is neither the time nor manner of our death which determines if it is peaceful or not, all external appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.
It is, and mostly this is invisible to our bodily eyes, but the heart often sees, the outstretched hand of Jesus, of Mary, catching a falling child, cradling the youth sinking into the blackness of frigid river water, caressing the fevered brow of an elderly nun as they say: “Do not be afraid.”
Yes O Jesus, You who have conquered death, grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
TEARS AND FEARS
When I last posted on October the 18th I sincerely expected to be posting at least a few times a week – however as the ancient saying goes: Man proposes, God disposes!
While from time to time over the past two weeks I have made notes, the time to actually compose something coherent simply was not there!
I volunteer at a soup kitchen, where the numbers of men, women and children coming for food and clothing doubled in the spring and doubled again this fall, so besides the normal times I am there, twice I was called in to help some more – and Jesus present needing attention in the poor is always more important than any plan of mine!
Also a family member was in a car crash, she was not physically hurt but that event meant Jesus in a woman, a wife and mother, Jesus in her children, Jesus in her husband wanted me away from my plans and present with Him.
So a week went by!
Then I was laid low for the weekend with a severe cold – and like most men would rather have a broken bone than be felled by a wee virus – but sometimes Jesus wants us to just let go and be still, sometimes using the Pauline goad of a wee virus.
Come Monday I was well enough to return to the soup kitchen – no worries I’d be back in the poustinia Tuesday and would have time to write then – except Jesus in the person of the Volunteer Coordinator stopped me as I was leaving Monday evening and asked my help Tuesday.
No worries, Wednesday in poustinia in silence, solitude, writing would be fine.
Except Wednesday there was a family member needing help, Thursday it was hours in line for the H1N1 vaccine and the brain was too mushy to write and Friday was an early morning drive to the next town to help another family member and when I got back I slept!
Ah, but I knew as I feel asleep Saturday, Our Lady’s day – yep she would make sure I had the silence, solitude, time to get ‘my’ writing done.
Well here we are Saturday evening!
I was awakened early this morning with a long distance phone call from a priest from one diocese asking if I could find a canonist for a priest from yet another diocese and so the day unfolded, phone calls from various priests and lay people with one pain or need or another .
Sometimes alone in prayer in the poustinia I weep – the tears are most prevalent when I sense in my heart the pain of the priesthood, of the women and children in Darfur, the pain of some person who has just phoned, or what I read in their letters or emails.
Sometimes I weep because of a bout of the pts-syndrome is triggered and fear gnaws at me. Then I must abandon such weeping for it can become a whirlpool of self-pity which is contrary to living in the wonderful gift and mystery of priesthood.
The Fathers of the Desert have taken a Greek notion and ‘baptized’ it into a powerful understanding about Jesus, about gifts from the Holy Spirit, about tears.
Pronounced and written in the common alphabet as: Penthos, originally the name of the ancient pagan spirit of mourning and lamentation but, as with so many things from ancient worlds and cultures, the Baptized Fathers discovered a grain of truth in the ancient mythology through a Gospel understanding, a lectio divina upon the weeping of Christ.
Some of the Fathers referred to the gift of penthos, the gift of tears, as a second baptism.
When the tears flow from self pity or a sense of having lost or been denied something, from a type of un-availed grief, common among those who have no understanding of, belief or trust in the Resurrection, they are limited and rather self-directed.
When tears flow TRULY as gift of the Holy Spirit then they are in union with the tears of Christ – true the aforementioned mere human triggers may be used to get them going by the Holy Spirit but the transformation becomes a weeping, a penthos of personal contrition/compunction, a weeping in union with Christ, a co-mingling of our tears with His for the conversion and salvation of the whole human family.
At La Salette Our Lady revealed her penthos.
Mostly when people are interviewed for news reports about abuse of children or some murder, soldiers being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or when we see reports about abortion, epidemics, floods, fires, famine – mostly people are angry, want what they call justice, which usually is code for revenge.
Anger has become prevalent.
Anger at God, Church, Priesthood, government, banks, family members.
Anger is the blame game usually.
Anger is loud, public, frequently out of control, and usually all about self.
It seems we have forgotten how to weep, or perhaps we are afraid to weep, for penthos is silent, hidden, neither of my doing nor in my control.
It is gift – a wee bit for myself, but like all gifts from the Holy Spirit the major portion is for others.
Penthos is a salted fire of tears, a grace, a blessing, a gift of intimacy with Christ.
Towards the end of his epic film on the passion Mel Gibson has the camera with fish-eye lens, it seems, pull way, way, way up above the scene of the three crosses until it is almost as if we are observing from outer space when suddenly we are rushing ever faster back down until there is a single teardrop landing on the earth.
The Father’s penthos?
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A RETURN
I truly believed when I posted the announcment last spring I was on the road to real recovery from a bout of despression and the resurgence of the post-traumatic-syndrome from which I have, and do suffer as a result of the false accusation.
It has been a long struggle since then, however as always Jesus is with us, for as Hebrews reminds us He is the one who has been first tested in all things by which we are tested[cf. Heb.4:14-16].
You will note a couple of changes here: First the image of Our Blessed Mother, known as Protection.
In this Year of the Priest, with the priesthood suffering so, more than ever we priests need Her protection.
Second the addition at the top of a quotation attributed to Pope Leo XIII which was sent to me by a suffering priest who found it on a web site: www.penitents.org
With your prayerful help dear friends this is not merely a return but a new beginning.
Do pray for all priests.
It has been a long struggle since then, however as always Jesus is with us, for as Hebrews reminds us He is the one who has been first tested in all things by which we are tested[cf. Heb.4:14-16].
You will note a couple of changes here: First the image of Our Blessed Mother, known as Protection.
In this Year of the Priest, with the priesthood suffering so, more than ever we priests need Her protection.
Second the addition at the top of a quotation attributed to Pope Leo XIII which was sent to me by a suffering priest who found it on a web site: www.penitents.org
With your prayerful help dear friends this is not merely a return but a new beginning.
Do pray for all priests.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Announcement
Dear Friends I just realized, finishing yet another chapter revision, that because of pressure to finish the final edit of my book due to be published early this summer, I have failed to post here.
There is about a week's worth of work to finish the manuscript so please pray for me and the writing and rest assured once completed I will resume regular posts and, when the publication date is offical, will post same and where to get the book, already a nine year project!
There is about a week's worth of work to finish the manuscript so please pray for me and the writing and rest assured once completed I will resume regular posts and, when the publication date is offical, will post same and where to get the book, already a nine year project!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
SAINT JOSEPH: MODEL FOR OUR TIMES -Part 1
Throughout this month, traditionally dedicated to St. Joseph, I have been reading and meditating a lot about him, in particular the traditional Litany of St. Joseph.
Rooted in the liturgical history of the Jewish People through the refrain of petition and response found, for example in many Psalms, litanies in the Roman Catholic life of prayer are divided into those which can be used in public prayer, of which there are currently seven approved including the Litany of St. Joseph, and those which are approved for the private use of the faithful, such as the Litany to the Infant of Prague.
I will be alternating over the coming weeks further essays and reflections on “The Thin Place” and reflections, given the global economic crisis, on Church social teaching.
Given the times in which he lived and the very depths of his absolute surrender to the will of the Father, indeed his very fidelity to his vocation to love and serve Jesus and Mary, as a man of faith, it seems appropriate to take time and reflect through the litany on this good man, a true model for our times.
Should you not be familiar with this Litany, do not have a copy; it is easy to Google for it at http://saints.sqpn.com/litany16.htm
Sacred Scripture shows us clearly St. Joseph is both the embodiment of the history of the Chosen People, bearing within their lives and liturgy the history of promised redemption, of the Messiah,[ cf. Mt. 1: 1-16 ] and St. Joseph is likewise a type of connecting link between the Old Testament of promise and the New Testament of fulfillment.
Child of the First Covenant, St. Joseph is the guardian of the New Covenant in the person of Jesus and thus St. Joseph is rightly the Protector of the Church.
Thus in the litany St. Joseph is first invoked both as noble son of the House of David and as the Light of the Patriarchs.
While we do not have, neither in the Holy Gospels nor in other reliable sources, a detailed biography of St. Joseph, we can garner insights about the man from what is clearly there within the sparse words in Scripture.
If we contemplate Matthew 1: 18-25, and know the recorded history of this period of the Roman Empire, then each detail within Sacred Scripture can be unfolded and we can imagine the reality of an extraordinary man.
Clearly St. Joseph loved Mary and she him and this love had deepened into mutual gift of self, one to the other, growing and deepening to the point of betrothal and St. Matthew presents Joseph and Mary to us on the threshold of holy marriage.
Most probably Joseph the carpenter if he had not built their house, soon to be home, entirely by his own hands would certainly have built the furnishings and Mary, as any woman of the time, would have been skilled at making clothing, gardening, cleaning, cooking, in a word would have learnt from her mother and other women the skills necessary to make a house into a home.
In a word, life for Joseph, obviously a profoundly good man of complete integrity and great charity, a man of faith and prayer, would have been unfolding as ordinarily as that of any other young man of his day.
However we should remember Joseph and Mary and their contemporaries were an oppressed people living in a land occupied by a foreign power, ruled by a despotic traitor of a king.
While the suffering of countless husbands and wives and families in today’s global economic crisis is very real, raw, widespread, life in the days of Joseph and Mary would also have been marked by poverty, uncertainty, oppression.
Presumably very close to the wedding day it became apparent Mary was pregnant and the shock for Joseph would have been overwhelming.
It would have appeared the woman whom he loved completely, had betrayed him.
The starkness with which St. Matthew describes the whole event reveals the immense stress and pain in the depths of the being, the person, the man, the righteous man who nonetheless places love of Mary, places selflessness and truly manly protective-servant love before himself or his needs.
By choosing informal divorce, rather than a public forum where Mary would have been seen by one and all as a betrayer, indeed as guilty of adultery under the Law and vulnerable to death by stoning, Joseph would have been seen as a cad of the worst order, presumed to have chosen to abandon his pregnant wife.
Most likely he would have been shunned and had to leave for some other part of the country.
How long this agony went on, how long the struggle, how intense his prayer for the strength to make the loving choice cannot be gleaned from the text as St. Matthew describes these events staccato like.
We do know, and who has not been in some deep decision-needed agony when it seemed God was silent, it is only after Joseph has chosen selfless love of Mary over his reputation and legitimate heart’s need, that God sends the Angel to reveal to Joseph the truth.
Thus the Litany exalts Joseph as Mary’s husband.
However more is asked of him and so while he is to be a husband, it is to be so without the physical intimacy and bond of spouses and so he is lauded as, in truth, the Chaste Guardian of the Virgin.
Even more is asked of Joseph, for he is to be a father, he is to have a son, he is indeed to name his son, the traditional prerogative joy of a father, but he will not have a son issued from his own body, only from his heart, hence his is forever known as the Foster-father of the Son of God.
This is where St. Joseph is patron of all priests who are true fathers of sons and daughters: that is of every human being, born not of our bodies but of the suffering of our hearts.
Eventually to the eyes of everyone else Joseph and Mary were married, settled into their home, awaiting the birth of their first child.
Like millions of couples around the world this very day they lived, embraced, and yes endured, the realities of ordinary daily life.
They would have followed the life of faith and prayer of every observant Jewish family of the day, but all of this living unfolding within the stark reality of being an occupied country and an oppressed people.
Recent history well documents the cruel forced movement of peoples by invading armies, oppressive regimes, so we should be able to see and hear in our hearts the tremendous suffering of the upheaval recorded by St. Luke 2: 1-5.
Today countless families are being uprooted because of the global economic crisis causing massive unemployment, loss of home, possessions.
People are being forced to be on the move. Many to return to their ‘ancestral’ home, to move in with elderly parents, or other relatives.
In many cities the ‘regular’ ranks of the homeless are becoming swollen with entire families and in some places already tent cities, harking back to the dark days of the first Great Depression, are becoming common place.
When the Angel stressed the truth the Child would be Emmanuel, God-with-us, it is because there is no experience common to human beings unknown to Christ.
Even before He was born, in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb and Joseph’s heart, Jesus was on the move in the midst of the oppressed and the homeless.
St. Luke’s simple statement of there being no room in the inn [2:6,7] and of Mary placing her newborn Child in a manger, is precisely the cold reality of a family today huddled inside a cardboard box.
Mostly we are familiar with the account of the Angels giving glory, the Shepherds coming to see the Child, but surely, though not stressed in the Gospels, St. Joseph must have been extremely vigilant over Mother and Child.
At the same time he must have been working, somehow, for it is doubtful they were in the stable rent-free and it may well be that the forced relocation to Bethlehem meant a complete starting over, thus Joseph must have laboured and earned money to care for his little family, since St. Matthew, when telling of the visit of the Magi refers to a house wherein the Magi encountered Jesus [Mt. 2:11].
How many families in our own day have to start over?
However long the time was in Bethlehem, certainly we know from St. Luke long enough to fulfill the waiting period before the purification rites {cf. Lk. 2:22ff} all too soon once again Joseph would have to uproot his family.
This time to flee: to save the very life of the Child.
St. Matthew [2:13-18] reveals to us those horrific events and once again, from the earliest days of His life on earth, Christ our God is in the midst of human suffering, experiencing the very harsh reality of every persecuted person, of all people’s targeted for extinction: in the camps of the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Killing Fields, in Darfur and places barely reported on such as what is happening in the darkness of North Korea.
Even more, no person has even been or is a refugee fleeing oppression, or an immigrant seeking a new life, or a migrant in their own homeland as is happening again and again today as factories are shuttered and families must go in search of work and shelter, no person endures such things alone, for Christ has endured all.
St. Joseph is rightly called Defender of Christ because from the moment he chose to protect Mary from public shame to the events of Christ’s birth, to saving His life from the death squads of Herod, indeed as any father, Joseph fulfilled his role of protector until the day he died.
In the eloquent words of Pope John Paul in his Apostolic Exhortation on St. Joseph in the Life of Christ and of the Church #14, referencing the flight into Egypt: “...divine providence once again had recourse to Joseph”, noting further that: “...Joseph, guardian and cooperator in the providential mystery of God, even in exile watched over the one who brings about the New Covenant”.
Thus rightly is St. Joseph invoked further in the Litany as being Head of the Holy Family, just, prudent, valiant, obedient and faithful.
As Pope Benedict noted during First Vespers for the Solemnity of St. Joseph just a few days ago, stressing how fully and completely St. Joseph lived out fatherhood, “To be a father means above all to be at the service of life and growth..” and in this we see too how St. Joseph is a model for everyone in these days of such suffering in all its forms throughout the world for St. Joseph, as the Holy Father notes: “For the sake of Christ..experienced persecution, exile and the poverty which this entails.”
Is not the plight of millions of families because of the economic crisis with the attendant sudden unemployment and loss of home an experience of persecution, exile and poverty as raw as that of those families who suffer because of political or religious persecution?
If men especially, as husband and fathers, look to St. Joseph they will have the courage to remain selfless and steadfast at the service of wife and children, for to serve them is to serve Christ, to endure suffering for their sakes is to endure for the sake of Christ.
Rooted in the liturgical history of the Jewish People through the refrain of petition and response found, for example in many Psalms, litanies in the Roman Catholic life of prayer are divided into those which can be used in public prayer, of which there are currently seven approved including the Litany of St. Joseph, and those which are approved for the private use of the faithful, such as the Litany to the Infant of Prague.
I will be alternating over the coming weeks further essays and reflections on “The Thin Place” and reflections, given the global economic crisis, on Church social teaching.
Given the times in which he lived and the very depths of his absolute surrender to the will of the Father, indeed his very fidelity to his vocation to love and serve Jesus and Mary, as a man of faith, it seems appropriate to take time and reflect through the litany on this good man, a true model for our times.
Should you not be familiar with this Litany, do not have a copy; it is easy to Google for it at http://saints.sqpn.com/litany16.htm
Sacred Scripture shows us clearly St. Joseph is both the embodiment of the history of the Chosen People, bearing within their lives and liturgy the history of promised redemption, of the Messiah,[ cf. Mt. 1: 1-16 ] and St. Joseph is likewise a type of connecting link between the Old Testament of promise and the New Testament of fulfillment.
Child of the First Covenant, St. Joseph is the guardian of the New Covenant in the person of Jesus and thus St. Joseph is rightly the Protector of the Church.
Thus in the litany St. Joseph is first invoked both as noble son of the House of David and as the Light of the Patriarchs.
While we do not have, neither in the Holy Gospels nor in other reliable sources, a detailed biography of St. Joseph, we can garner insights about the man from what is clearly there within the sparse words in Scripture.
If we contemplate Matthew 1: 18-25, and know the recorded history of this period of the Roman Empire, then each detail within Sacred Scripture can be unfolded and we can imagine the reality of an extraordinary man.
Clearly St. Joseph loved Mary and she him and this love had deepened into mutual gift of self, one to the other, growing and deepening to the point of betrothal and St. Matthew presents Joseph and Mary to us on the threshold of holy marriage.
Most probably Joseph the carpenter if he had not built their house, soon to be home, entirely by his own hands would certainly have built the furnishings and Mary, as any woman of the time, would have been skilled at making clothing, gardening, cleaning, cooking, in a word would have learnt from her mother and other women the skills necessary to make a house into a home.
In a word, life for Joseph, obviously a profoundly good man of complete integrity and great charity, a man of faith and prayer, would have been unfolding as ordinarily as that of any other young man of his day.
However we should remember Joseph and Mary and their contemporaries were an oppressed people living in a land occupied by a foreign power, ruled by a despotic traitor of a king.
While the suffering of countless husbands and wives and families in today’s global economic crisis is very real, raw, widespread, life in the days of Joseph and Mary would also have been marked by poverty, uncertainty, oppression.
Presumably very close to the wedding day it became apparent Mary was pregnant and the shock for Joseph would have been overwhelming.
It would have appeared the woman whom he loved completely, had betrayed him.
The starkness with which St. Matthew describes the whole event reveals the immense stress and pain in the depths of the being, the person, the man, the righteous man who nonetheless places love of Mary, places selflessness and truly manly protective-servant love before himself or his needs.
By choosing informal divorce, rather than a public forum where Mary would have been seen by one and all as a betrayer, indeed as guilty of adultery under the Law and vulnerable to death by stoning, Joseph would have been seen as a cad of the worst order, presumed to have chosen to abandon his pregnant wife.
Most likely he would have been shunned and had to leave for some other part of the country.
How long this agony went on, how long the struggle, how intense his prayer for the strength to make the loving choice cannot be gleaned from the text as St. Matthew describes these events staccato like.
We do know, and who has not been in some deep decision-needed agony when it seemed God was silent, it is only after Joseph has chosen selfless love of Mary over his reputation and legitimate heart’s need, that God sends the Angel to reveal to Joseph the truth.
Thus the Litany exalts Joseph as Mary’s husband.
However more is asked of him and so while he is to be a husband, it is to be so without the physical intimacy and bond of spouses and so he is lauded as, in truth, the Chaste Guardian of the Virgin.
Even more is asked of Joseph, for he is to be a father, he is to have a son, he is indeed to name his son, the traditional prerogative joy of a father, but he will not have a son issued from his own body, only from his heart, hence his is forever known as the Foster-father of the Son of God.
This is where St. Joseph is patron of all priests who are true fathers of sons and daughters: that is of every human being, born not of our bodies but of the suffering of our hearts.
Eventually to the eyes of everyone else Joseph and Mary were married, settled into their home, awaiting the birth of their first child.
Like millions of couples around the world this very day they lived, embraced, and yes endured, the realities of ordinary daily life.
They would have followed the life of faith and prayer of every observant Jewish family of the day, but all of this living unfolding within the stark reality of being an occupied country and an oppressed people.
Recent history well documents the cruel forced movement of peoples by invading armies, oppressive regimes, so we should be able to see and hear in our hearts the tremendous suffering of the upheaval recorded by St. Luke 2: 1-5.
Today countless families are being uprooted because of the global economic crisis causing massive unemployment, loss of home, possessions.
People are being forced to be on the move. Many to return to their ‘ancestral’ home, to move in with elderly parents, or other relatives.
In many cities the ‘regular’ ranks of the homeless are becoming swollen with entire families and in some places already tent cities, harking back to the dark days of the first Great Depression, are becoming common place.
When the Angel stressed the truth the Child would be Emmanuel, God-with-us, it is because there is no experience common to human beings unknown to Christ.
Even before He was born, in the tabernacle of Mary’s womb and Joseph’s heart, Jesus was on the move in the midst of the oppressed and the homeless.
St. Luke’s simple statement of there being no room in the inn [2:6,7] and of Mary placing her newborn Child in a manger, is precisely the cold reality of a family today huddled inside a cardboard box.
Mostly we are familiar with the account of the Angels giving glory, the Shepherds coming to see the Child, but surely, though not stressed in the Gospels, St. Joseph must have been extremely vigilant over Mother and Child.
At the same time he must have been working, somehow, for it is doubtful they were in the stable rent-free and it may well be that the forced relocation to Bethlehem meant a complete starting over, thus Joseph must have laboured and earned money to care for his little family, since St. Matthew, when telling of the visit of the Magi refers to a house wherein the Magi encountered Jesus [Mt. 2:11].
How many families in our own day have to start over?
However long the time was in Bethlehem, certainly we know from St. Luke long enough to fulfill the waiting period before the purification rites {cf. Lk. 2:22ff} all too soon once again Joseph would have to uproot his family.
This time to flee: to save the very life of the Child.
St. Matthew [2:13-18] reveals to us those horrific events and once again, from the earliest days of His life on earth, Christ our God is in the midst of human suffering, experiencing the very harsh reality of every persecuted person, of all people’s targeted for extinction: in the camps of the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Killing Fields, in Darfur and places barely reported on such as what is happening in the darkness of North Korea.
Even more, no person has even been or is a refugee fleeing oppression, or an immigrant seeking a new life, or a migrant in their own homeland as is happening again and again today as factories are shuttered and families must go in search of work and shelter, no person endures such things alone, for Christ has endured all.
St. Joseph is rightly called Defender of Christ because from the moment he chose to protect Mary from public shame to the events of Christ’s birth, to saving His life from the death squads of Herod, indeed as any father, Joseph fulfilled his role of protector until the day he died.
In the eloquent words of Pope John Paul in his Apostolic Exhortation on St. Joseph in the Life of Christ and of the Church #14, referencing the flight into Egypt: “...divine providence once again had recourse to Joseph”, noting further that: “...Joseph, guardian and cooperator in the providential mystery of God, even in exile watched over the one who brings about the New Covenant”.
Thus rightly is St. Joseph invoked further in the Litany as being Head of the Holy Family, just, prudent, valiant, obedient and faithful.
As Pope Benedict noted during First Vespers for the Solemnity of St. Joseph just a few days ago, stressing how fully and completely St. Joseph lived out fatherhood, “To be a father means above all to be at the service of life and growth..” and in this we see too how St. Joseph is a model for everyone in these days of such suffering in all its forms throughout the world for St. Joseph, as the Holy Father notes: “For the sake of Christ..experienced persecution, exile and the poverty which this entails.”
Is not the plight of millions of families because of the economic crisis with the attendant sudden unemployment and loss of home an experience of persecution, exile and poverty as raw as that of those families who suffer because of political or religious persecution?
If men especially, as husband and fathers, look to St. Joseph they will have the courage to remain selfless and steadfast at the service of wife and children, for to serve them is to serve Christ, to endure suffering for their sakes is to endure for the sake of Christ.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
VOCATION OF JOY
{ A friend about to be ordained and live the eremitical life, in poustinia is the term, wrote and asked reflections on priesthood and poustinia.}
My Dear Brother in Christ,
I have been praying over your upcoming ordination and for you, as well as listening for the right words to answer your request I tell you about my eremitic life, and was struck by a profound urgency in my heart to encourage you to be steadfast and courageous in your own priestly life.
The kiss of Christ, the embrace of Christ, the passion for us of Christ’s love for us echoes the cry of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, in particular the unborn at risk of abortion, the endangered women and children throughout the world, such as in Darfur, the suffering Holy Father, the hungry, priests in danger of all kinds, husbands and fathers suddenly unemployed and unable to care for their families, wives and mothers bearing the burden of these uncertain times, government leaders and civil servants facing the challenge of a world gone mad and populations increasingly restless, for we are on the brink of global catastrophe and war and are in the depths of spiritual warfare of ferocious intensity.
Within the Islands, where Our Lady has led you, for centuries there has been and is extreme evil because of slavery, occult and modern causes; while here in Canada, as in the United States, the poison of relativism, and a tragic spiritual sloth, cries out to heaven for intercessory prayer and atonement that the grace of true repentance and conversion will permeate the ranks of Bishops, Priests, Laity that all might return to Christ.
To be a poustinik in these days means to be profoundly one with Christ in the depths of His Holy Kenosis, hence to be humanly powerless and as priest entering ever more deeply into the courageous meekness and humility of His Most Sacred Heart; to be one with Him in the depths of the Desert, that is being totally childlike of heart as the evil one seeks to disrupt, distract, threaten, batter, tempt, confuse; it is to be one with Him in the Garden, following the example of the Servant of God, Catherine Doherty, comforting the lonely Christ by allowing His agony, His prayer, His fiat, His love of the Father and of every human being to permeate us so completely we become more and more oblivious of self and truly, as Catherine says, letting Our Lady of Combermere there in the Garden, and on the Cross, and yes even in the Tomb, form our priestly and poustinik hearts so that, like Christ’s our hearts are pierced, torn open “..for the whole world to walk through”; it is to be one with Christ on the Cross so that, again as Catherine says and Our Lady forms within us, most especially when we are celebrating Holy Mass over and for the whole human family, all of creation, for the souls in Purgatory, but frankly also within the depths of every moment, which is both fulfillment of the duty of the moment and the moment of beginning again, always, in Him, we simply, humbly, hiddenly being be priest, love, serve, are crucified and crucify ourselves so that we “...may be lifted up and draw all things to Christ.”; thus in every Holy Communion, not by anything we do but rather by the lavishness of His Merciful Love we enter ever more deeply into His Holy Resurrection.
Oneness with Him in the tomb then is to be hidden in the depths of the poustinia, of the will of the Father, of the folds of the Mantle of Our Lady of Combermere, for poustinia must never be about anything we do, indeed neither should priesthood – both are of heart’s being.
Yes as a priest-poustinik there is the Divine Office to be prayed, and other prayers such as the Holy Rosary, the Jesus Prayer, letters, phone calls, the normal dusting, cleaning, cooking, there is being available to listen, to serve at the soup kitchen, help with family, blog, site, essays, manuscripts to write, but all of that “doing” of the duty of the moment must be, can only be, preparation for Holy Mass, being made ready to be lain myself on the paten, poured into the chalice, in a word to be both the one offering and oblation, and all the ‘doing’ can only be thanksgiving for Holy Mass and Holy Communion – priesthood, and indeed poustinia, should not, must not ever be about ‘moi’, but only about Him, for Him, in Him, with Him, through Him, while holding onto the hand of Our Lady of Combermere, deep in her school, so that poured out for every human being, like Catherine at night in her poustinia howling on behalf of the Church, priests, this and that person, the whole world and wounded creation, we too are poured out.
In that is the truth the priestly vocation IS a vocation of joy!
With my love and blessing in Jesus and Mary.
My Dear Brother in Christ,
I have been praying over your upcoming ordination and for you, as well as listening for the right words to answer your request I tell you about my eremitic life, and was struck by a profound urgency in my heart to encourage you to be steadfast and courageous in your own priestly life.
The kiss of Christ, the embrace of Christ, the passion for us of Christ’s love for us echoes the cry of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, in particular the unborn at risk of abortion, the endangered women and children throughout the world, such as in Darfur, the suffering Holy Father, the hungry, priests in danger of all kinds, husbands and fathers suddenly unemployed and unable to care for their families, wives and mothers bearing the burden of these uncertain times, government leaders and civil servants facing the challenge of a world gone mad and populations increasingly restless, for we are on the brink of global catastrophe and war and are in the depths of spiritual warfare of ferocious intensity.
Within the Islands, where Our Lady has led you, for centuries there has been and is extreme evil because of slavery, occult and modern causes; while here in Canada, as in the United States, the poison of relativism, and a tragic spiritual sloth, cries out to heaven for intercessory prayer and atonement that the grace of true repentance and conversion will permeate the ranks of Bishops, Priests, Laity that all might return to Christ.
To be a poustinik in these days means to be profoundly one with Christ in the depths of His Holy Kenosis, hence to be humanly powerless and as priest entering ever more deeply into the courageous meekness and humility of His Most Sacred Heart; to be one with Him in the depths of the Desert, that is being totally childlike of heart as the evil one seeks to disrupt, distract, threaten, batter, tempt, confuse; it is to be one with Him in the Garden, following the example of the Servant of God, Catherine Doherty, comforting the lonely Christ by allowing His agony, His prayer, His fiat, His love of the Father and of every human being to permeate us so completely we become more and more oblivious of self and truly, as Catherine says, letting Our Lady of Combermere there in the Garden, and on the Cross, and yes even in the Tomb, form our priestly and poustinik hearts so that, like Christ’s our hearts are pierced, torn open “..for the whole world to walk through”; it is to be one with Christ on the Cross so that, again as Catherine says and Our Lady forms within us, most especially when we are celebrating Holy Mass over and for the whole human family, all of creation, for the souls in Purgatory, but frankly also within the depths of every moment, which is both fulfillment of the duty of the moment and the moment of beginning again, always, in Him, we simply, humbly, hiddenly being be priest, love, serve, are crucified and crucify ourselves so that we “...may be lifted up and draw all things to Christ.”; thus in every Holy Communion, not by anything we do but rather by the lavishness of His Merciful Love we enter ever more deeply into His Holy Resurrection.
Oneness with Him in the tomb then is to be hidden in the depths of the poustinia, of the will of the Father, of the folds of the Mantle of Our Lady of Combermere, for poustinia must never be about anything we do, indeed neither should priesthood – both are of heart’s being.
Yes as a priest-poustinik there is the Divine Office to be prayed, and other prayers such as the Holy Rosary, the Jesus Prayer, letters, phone calls, the normal dusting, cleaning, cooking, there is being available to listen, to serve at the soup kitchen, help with family, blog, site, essays, manuscripts to write, but all of that “doing” of the duty of the moment must be, can only be, preparation for Holy Mass, being made ready to be lain myself on the paten, poured into the chalice, in a word to be both the one offering and oblation, and all the ‘doing’ can only be thanksgiving for Holy Mass and Holy Communion – priesthood, and indeed poustinia, should not, must not ever be about ‘moi’, but only about Him, for Him, in Him, with Him, through Him, while holding onto the hand of Our Lady of Combermere, deep in her school, so that poured out for every human being, like Catherine at night in her poustinia howling on behalf of the Church, priests, this and that person, the whole world and wounded creation, we too are poured out.
In that is the truth the priestly vocation IS a vocation of joy!
With my love and blessing in Jesus and Mary.
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