Friday, December 31, 2021

DWELLING PEACEFULLY IN FAITH, LOVE, HOPE, LIGHT, JOY~ Part 13

 

                           When we hear from Jesus the word ‘go’ it is the vocation of being sent, of being missionaries, bearers of the Gospel and of Jesus Himself to others.

GO WITHOUT FEARS INTO THE DEPTHS OF MEN’S HEARTS.I SHALL BE WITH YOU….. PRAY ALWAYS. I SHALL BE OUR REST. These last words of the Little Mandate are both a gift of mission and a promise of intimacy with Jesus as we live them out.

What does it means to ‘go into the depths’ of the heart of another human being? How dangerous is it that fear is part of the challenge?

This mandate to go into the depths of hearts presupposes we are not acting merely out of curiosity, far less to acquire information to be used to control someone else. The mandate is focused here on humble, loving, service to other in attentive listening, without judgement or being fearful of encountering the pain in the heart of other.

Prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit of discernment and His words to be spoken is essential. Sound advice here from the Blessed Callistus, monk and patriarch: if you wish to pray as you ought, imitate the dulcimer player: bending his head a little and inclining his ear to the strings, he strikes the strings skilfully, and enjoys the melody he draws from their harmonious notes. Is this example clear to you? The dulcimer is the heart, the strings – the feelings; the hammer – remembrance of God; the player – mind. By remembrance of God and of Divine things the mind draws holy feelings from the God-fearing heart, then in effable sweetness fills the soul, and the mind, which is pure, is lit up by Divine illuminations. [2]

Going ‘into the depths’ of another’s heart presumes total self-forgetfulness, no agenda other than to listen, heart to heart, with no rush to comment or say anything. It is a matter of peaceful, loving, presence to other.

While it is true the heart is a major organ in the human body The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depth’s of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God. [3]

Therefore, we are called to enter fearlessly into the depths of a most sacred space and must consciously ask Christ to accompany us there.

Chatting ‘heart to heat’ is a common expression and this should influence our attentiveness and any words we are inspired to speak. In these days when countless of our brothers and sisters live in the illusion of texting as true communication, and likewise use other forms of social media, numerous are the lonely who ache in their hearts because for all the frenzy of social communication that dark misnomer is neither.

True social communication is charitable heart to heart speech, with attentive  listening, face to face. All else is illusion.

Perhaps never before has a humble, loving willingness to patiently listen to other been as needed as today in our wired world of selfies and cryptic texting.

We should not fear listening deeply to other.  We should seek to be present to other. For it is being present and attentive to Christ.

 

 

It is said of St. Mother Teresa that she had a notable gift to enable to set at peace a restless and troubled mind”. Her method was simple: first she would listen. She would listen attentively to the account being related to her, but even more she would listen to the pain and confusion that accompanied it……In this heart-to-heart exchange, she was able to listen without prejudice and without a judgemental attitude, giving advice in a way that often was unexpected. With her “vision of faith”, she was able to look at the issue at hand from God’s perspective. [4]

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The last words of the Little Mandate contain a directive and a promise.

Pray always is rooted in St. Paul’s injunction: Pray without ceasing. [1 Thess. 5:17].Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life in the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions insist that prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart "We must remember God more often than we draw breath." But we cannot pray "at all times" if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it. These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration. The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours. Sundays, centered on the Eucharist, are kept holy primarily by prayer. The cycle of the liturgical year and its great feasts are also basic rhythms of the Christian's life of prayer. The Lord leads all persons by paths and in ways pleasing to him, and each believer responds according to his heart's resolve and the personal expressions of his prayer. However, Christian Tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer: vocal meditative, and contemplative. They have one basic trait in common: composure of heart. This vigilance in keeping the Word and dwelling in the presence of God makes these three expressions intense times in the life of prayer. [5]

God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” [Gal.4.6] 

To pray always is not a matter of reciting various formal prayers, such as the Holy Rosary or various Litanies, nor should we stress ourselves out by setting burdensome quantities of such forms of prayer. To pray always is a state of being aware, aware the Holy Spirit Himself is always at prayer within us, aware Jesus is our perfect prayer to the Father and that we have the Holy Mass wherein we are brought together by the Lord, that He leads us to meet each other. This moment should issue a call to us to accept one another inwardly, open ourselves up, go to meet each other, that even in the distraction of everyday life we should maintain this state of being brought together by the Lord. Our cities, as we all know, have become places of solitude of a kind never known before……But the Lord brings us together and opens us up, to that we can accept one another, belong to one another, so that in standing before Him we can learn again to stand next to each other. [6]

We can offer no greater prayer than to love one another. Loving always is to be prayer.

The above quotation connects with this from St. John Cassian: ….before we pray we should make an effort to cast out from the innermost parts of our heart whatever we do not wish to steal upon us as we pray, so that in this way we can fulfill the apostolic words: ‘Pray without ceasing.’ And: ‘In every place lifting up pure hands without anger and dissension.’ For we shall be unable to accomplish this command unless our mind, purified of every contagion and vice and given over to virtue alone as to a natural good, is fed upon the continual contemplation of almighty God. [7]

One of our professors in the seminary, teaching on prayer, told a story attributed to St. Theresa of Avila that she had become irritated the Lord was not freeing her from distractions and that eventually the Lord did respond to her plea stating: “Why should I relieve you my daughter. It is your perseverance in prayer that most pleases me.”

In his book NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION, Thomas Merton has a whole chapter on the issue of distractions in prayer. Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible, and your heart turns to stone. If you have never had any distractions you don’t know how to pray….it is useless to get upset when you cannot shake off distractions…..it is the will to pray that is the essence of prayer, and the desire to find God, to see Him and to love Him is the one thing that matters…His presence does not depend on your thoughts of Him. He is unfailingly there; if He were not, you could not even exist. [8]

The next and final instalment will be to focus on the promise; I WILL BE YOUR REST.

 

 

 

 

[1] https://www.madonnahouse.org/mandate/

[2] Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart; p.271; Faber and Faber, 1951

[3] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1B.HTM  #368

[4] A CALL TO MERCY, MOTHER TERESA; p.168; Image Books 2016

[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church #’s 267-2699 https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P9J.HTM

[6] Theology of the Liturgy; Cardinal Ratzinger; p.407; Ignatius Press 2014 [italics are mine]

[7]John Cassian; The Conferences; Newman Press, 1997; p.331 [Italics are mine]

[8]NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION; Thomas Merton; pps.221-224; a New Directions book, 1961 [Italics are mine]

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph

 

 

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

A VOICE FROM THE CATACOMBS ~ Part 2

 

       Not long after the previous post, unlike a year ago when I was rushed to hospital with severe pancreatitis, once again I was suddenly and seriously ill, this time with what the doctor’s call a brain bleed.

Miraculously after collapsing and landing on the floor when I came to I heard the phone ringing, crawled until I found it and heard the voice of a dear friend who wondered what was going on as normally I answer the phone quickly. I told him. He came over immediately. Climbed up onto the balcony, saw through the window I was on the floor, broke in, called 911, stayed with me until the paramedics arrived.

Unlike last year when, I spent days literally struggling not to die, from the moment I gained consciousness until the doctors told me death had receded, this time when I came to I was peaceful, knew death was being kept at bay and that this illness had more to do with metanoia – that is conversion of heart - for myself and the human family, thus it is not so much illness I am aware of as the grace of wee suffering in intercession and atonement.

In case any reader thinks the preceding is some sort of humble-brag an adult member of my family said I should be offering this experience as noted, thereby confirming what was already in my heart.

I have two books brought to me by family, when they were permitted to visit, books which enhance atonement offering. This city is in a 4th wave of the pandemic and the hospital is in lockdown so you can only have 2 designated visitors, one is the daughter of my heart being my son’s wife, a joy whenever I see her and is truly a woman of faith, very close to and attentive to Our Blessed Mother. The other designated visitor is my son, a man of faith also very close to and attentive to Our Blessed Mother. I trust them both and their love-wisdom.

One book is THEOLOGY OF THE LITURGY, a treasure house for contemplation and prayer from which this, which has been the focal point of these already 10 weeks of therapy and recovery, referencing the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council and their choice to consider what became the document on the liturgy: By starting with the theme of liturgy, God’s primacy, the absolute precedence of the throne of God, was unmistakably highlighted. Beginning with the liturgy tells us: “God first.” When the focus on God is not decisive, everything else loses its orientation. The saying from the Rule of St. Benedict “Nothing is to be preferred to the liturgy” [43,3] applies specifically to monasticism, but as a way of ordering priorities it is true also for the life of the Church and of every individual, for each in his own way. It may be useful here to recall that in the word “orthodoxy”, the second half, “…doxa.”, does not mean “idea”, but, rather, “glory”: it is not a matter of the right “idea” about God; rather, it is a matter of the right way of glorifying Him, of responding to Him. For that is the fundamental question of the man who begins to understand himself correctly. How must I encounter God? Thus learning the right way of worshipping- orthodoxy- is the gift par excellence that is given to us by faith.[1]

In my near 80 years of life and 40 of priesthood I have experienced a vibrantly visible Church where clergy and men and women religious were visible by clerical dress and religious habits, to a rag-tag Church, of priests and religious dressed as seculars, thus a Church now mostly invisible; from packed attendance at Holy Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation, to parish Churches on such days in the 21st century, sparsely populated, and simultaneously rendering the Church even less visible, it is akin to old Western movies where the camera pans the deserted streets of an abandoned town with wind blowing swirls of dust through the empty buildings and tumble weeds are scattered about while the soundtrack is of lamenting music and banging saloon doors, to trigger the audience to ponder ‘what happened’, ‘where have all the people gone’?

Nowhere Charlie Brown. They are us, or rather we are them, we have gone so far from self that we live and move beside ourselves like fleshed shadows and move about passing one another as if we are become blind walking about in the dark.

We pass by each other not seeing Whom we are actually bypassing.

Pope Francis wants us to be the field-hospital-Church for the deeply wounded human family, however since the turbulent post-Vatican II sixties we have made ourselves invisible as Church notwithstanding all our vaunted reassurances, mostly to ourselves, that the outcome of  our rush to ditch the charisms of founders and foundresses of our religious orders, ditching as well religious habits and priestly garb in order be more relevant and closer to the people, we are now further from the people than ever and those western ghost towns are more populated than seminaries, noviciates and parishes.

We have secularized religion, made the truth of Gospel teaching and moral order a matter of personal whim and thus we have become complicit in the culture of death.

We have become like the woman I watched coming out of a theatre one night on Broadway, in New York, casually lifting up her evening gown as she, nonchalantly, stepped over a homeless man to get to her limo.

In this year 2021, second of the pandemic, with many countries experiencing the fourth and fifth waves of covid, where the left and right shout incessantly, from the battlements of their ideological castles, firing flaming pitch of mutual accusations rarely based on objective, verifiable facts, at each other, while what should be a means of enhancing mutual respect understanding, the internet, has become a moat of self aggrandizing sharks surrounding the castles, the sharks devouring the name and dignity of all who do not agree with their view of reality. In the current climate I admit even hesitating to continue to blog: how confused and lacking in common sense have we become that during Cop26 so many people were taken in by a posting which promised if you post a picture of your pet “we would plant a tree”. Really?

As we walk along the road of life, pilgrims towards our real home, it is extremely urgent not that we plant trees wilily-nilily but that we replant ourselves at the center of our Baptism, which is where the horizontal and vertical bars of the Cross meet, there we will once again be face to face in the arms of our Beloved Bridegroom and can see into His eyes, eyes of our Divine Lover and what do we see reflected there in the burning light of the fire of HIS LOVE for us? An immense, endless ditch in which lay our wounded brothers and sisters. They are HIM and HE is THEM. One face seems familiar. It is our own, as we pass by, so bent towards our false, uncreated by God selves. After all these millennia since Adam we have manufactured humanity into functional entities, bearing the burden of self-sufficiency illusion, having failed to become fully the beloved children of God and thus the universal siblings we have been created to be, and as is a certainty for all who will follow us, be there future generations who emerge from this culture of death, they will fail as well, unless we begin to become real persons, being about anchoring the liturgy in the foundational act of our faith and, thus, also about its place in the whole of our human existence. [2]

When I was doing my studies in university for my Bachelors’ Degree in Philosophy I took advantage to indulge my passion for humanity and the story of the human person through minors in history, anthropology, and sociology.

My own study-meditation-reading in those fields continues to this day.

Every era in history has within it its own turbulence, evil, confusion, and when the dust settles and we look back we discover, granted sometimes only after much searching, it has had its own peace, holiness, clarity. For every nation, religion, on earth, for each human being, the journey of our Elder Brothers and Sisters in Faith and Liturgy, the Jewish People, the Exodus Journey, is the template for the pilgrimage from birth to death for each of us, and for following Christ carrying our cross with Him wherever He leads, this template holds true, even in 2021. The Old Testament does not detail all the events of those forty years in the desert, rather we are given broad outlines as it were, with a few specific critical moments between God and His People being in more detail.

To assume, for example, the chaos and deep divides in the US in the Trump and post-Trump era, came out of nowhere is also to assume when the guns fell silent at the end of the American Civil War, that the war was over. Nope. It never really ended. The wounds were temporarily cauterized but never healed and the push by the extreme left – politicians and media alike – to assign blame for all that to the current generation is both insanely evil and shows a complete ignorance of what triggered the civil war. Democracy is being torn to shreds virtually everywhere it exists because that sixties mind-set which assumes inflexibly it knows everything better than everyone not of their ilk betrays a fateful blind ignorance of the human person and human history, it is the tower of Babel arrogance rooted in the original sin where the created person trusted a snake and self more than the one who creates us.

And how did that work out?

In telling us the shining truth of how things unfolded Genesis tells us about more than sin, which like a huge boulder dropped into a still lake, the waves traveling ever faster outward to the far shores, such is sin throughout history. It washes over each of us who toss our own sin-boulders into the unfolding of history, but Genesis, from God’s own heart and in His own words reveals One is given to us, who as Lord of the Cosmos is more powerful than the mightiest of waves and even the huge boulder used to assure us we are safe from His liturgy, if we just block Him in the tomb, that is seal Him out of our hearts, memories, awareness so we can safely bypass, walk by, our brothers and sisters in the ditch.

I have absolutely no intention here of advocating for one side or the other in any of the disputed questions swirling around us like a sandstorm scrapping away the thin veneer of what is left within us of Baptismal compassion and understanding for one another, rather it is my hope that through this and follow-up essays to show that we can choose to live Theocentric [God -centered] lives, grounded in Christocentric [Christ centered] liturgy in every moment of the days that are still grace-gifted to us – please God therefore living between two Holy Masses, the Divine Liturgies of today and tomorrow.

From that will flow our stopping by the ditch and picking up our siblings so battered and wounded by life, bringing them deep into the inn of our hearts to be cared there with the patience and compassion of our love and understanding, centered in and flowing from the Holy Gospel and like a healing balm lavished through objective truth words spoken to heal and comfort them, never to prove some disputatious point.

More than a century ago humanity thrust itself into the co-called ‘war to end all wars’, whose oceans of blood proved only to have been a dress-rehearsal for WWII and its Niagara Falls of blood which has so saturated the earth that almost a century later the wounds, worse than those of the civil war, are not only unhealed but have become putrid with the culture of blame and death so favoured by some in power, while wars, revolutions, concentration camps proliferate.

When WWI appeared to be winding down, with most of Europe devasted and empires and kingdoms overrun, allowing the victorious allies to redraw the maps of much of the world, the real shocker for many was the Russian Revolution, which was more than the overthrow of a czar but of an ancient culture with its Christian faith and liturgy.

The fact that the main leaders and participants were all baptized, as are many of today’s leaders who push abortion and related evils, should have us pause and realize it is not just satan himself personally prowling about the earth seeking whom he may overcome. The culture itself and its adherents so prowl to overcome people of faith.

We seem determined to outdo Cain rather than embrace the humility of Abel, the first person in recorded history to celebrate liturgy, for which he paid with his life.

Like him we must choose to risk martyrdom and live liturgy everyday.

Life is not a stage or film production of Les Misérables.

Liturgical inner peace is what is needed that we move about these turbulent days with calm emotions, radiating the Light of Christ, fulfilling our baptismal vocation to be light and salt within the human family.

We are baptized people called to turn away from violence, loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us as Jesus asks us to. Liturgically living, means for us no mounting of the barricades, rather peaceful, loving living out of the prayer of St. Francis that metanoia will envelope those caught as prey by the wolves of the culture of death, and also that the wolves themselves, will receive the grace of metanoia, through  our love and shining the light of Christ which heals their/our wounds and washes away the poison of secularism and anger leaving them/us with childlike cleanness of soul and heart, and picking up the towel and water of humility and charity in imitation of Christ to, by our very presence be about lovingly washing their tired and blistered feet through being truth and light, radiating truth and light, letting go of the need to be in control, or win arguments or have power over anyone, being in and with Christ humble servants, thus shattering the darkness of the culture of death, causing the shards to fall as harmless icons reflecting the light, sparkling  as ice crystals do in the moonlight shining on fresh fallen snow. Our Lady, Star of the Sea, is the gentle, brilliant moonlight of history, drawing us to follow the same star as the Magi, which is Herself, to the cave of the Incarnate One’s birth, where if we are humble enough, little enough, to bend low, enter the cave offering the Child the frankincense of our charity towards other, the myrrh of our love for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and offering the gold of discipleship. Once we have laid our gifts before the Child She will pick the Child up and place Him in the manger of our hearts, our becoming then ever more fully Christ-bearers to others.

While the Russian revolution and civil war were ongoing, a not much publicized aspect of history was also unfolding. What is known as THE RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS RENAISSANCE. Like the proverbial grain of wheat, it would be over seventy years before in Russia, above ground as it were, much would change, and even today, though not yet completed that change is like a tender shoot that powerful forces in Russia are trying to crush to death.

Urbanites have been trying, for decades, to eliminate dandelions from their lawns. That part of creation we call nature is far more resilient than we seem to grasp. But compared to the resilience of the Gospel nature is a wimp.

The entire human family, if it is to find the field hospital of the Church on the battlefield of the 21st century needs a huge red cross painted anew on the canvas of history partly by the visible blood of martyrs – already occurring, and the sweat and tears of the CONFESSORS OF FAITH, ordinary baptized people living liturgically rooted lives that are peaceful, holy and without sin, willingly standing, with radiant smiles at the doorway to the hospital, lovingly welcoming all who come. No more for us passing by.

 The steamer referred to below was a ship carrying the protagonists of the Russian Renaissance to safety. For us the ‘steamer’ is Christ Himself and His Church, His Body of which we are members. If we live and love and have our being in Him and the Church we will be true light, salt, confessors and, if necessary, martyrs, and this era in history will be transfigured into an era of grace and holiness.

To borrow from Pius Parsch, these are our ‘seasons of grace, if we strive to embrace them and live them out, with love, not counting the cost.

And when the Leninists died of their own poison, the exiles would be on hand to restore true Russian culture. Emotionally Berdyaev and his idealist colleagues would take the spirit of Russia with them in their suitcases. No customs man could ask them for a receipt for that. Nor stop them. They would take with them the invisible and ineffable essence of Russia and preserve it for eternity. [3]

When the protagonists of this culture of death, raucousness and irreligion drink their own poison then will end the experience of the many ways faithful Christians, Catholics and Orthodox in particular are exiles in our own country. What we have to secure and bring everywhere with us is the invisible and ineffable essence of lived Liturgical Faith, something none can take from us. Because we are endowed with free will on our journey through life in these days we can choose to leave by the roadside the life of grace, of liturgy, of Gospel. Lord have mercy on us if we do.

I am not advocating Christians run off to a mythical hideaway and turn inward. That some have tried before and what often emerges are cults with disastrous consequences. Should there be from the Holy Spirit a resurgence of the age of the Fathers and Mothers of the Desert or of an influx of people into the religious life and Catholicism of the inter and post war periods, that will be great. However, I believe mostly the transformation by grace of the culture of disputation, blame, anger, death, division, will come about through the radiant light of men and women living ordinary daily lives, quietly loving their spouses, children, co-workers, neighbours in and through the liturgy, that is to live the Gospel without compromise.

That is to live, joy!

That is to become the living medicine of Christ the healer as we move throughout the culture of death radiating the Light of Christ, which purifies, heals, converts, we will become seed, spread throughout the land of humanity.

It may be decades before the seed bears fruit, but it will as surely as the sun rises.

Our vocation is to sow the seed with the same generous abandon Christ does.

Love does such things.

That is the true liturgical dance: joyous generosity.

However, before we can live deep in and through the gifts of liturgy and be all Christ invites us to as His disciples, which means we become visible as Church, active as field hospital for the human family, with the help of the Most Holy Spirit and with Our Blessed Mother we must contemplate and be immersed in the mystery and gift of the Incarnation, not as a dogma to be approached intellectually but as gift to be embraced and lived.

The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!" Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you." This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example. The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." [4]

When we preface Communion with the word Holy we are speaking of that sacramental intimacy of love and life when we receive the living, glorified Christ into our beings, true nourishment for the journey, greater than the mana in the desert, living in and through the grace given is the ultimate process of divinization-apotheosis, the transforming effect of divine grace, which is also the work within us of the Holy Spirit, all flowing from the atoning passion death and Resurrection of Christ from whose pierced heart flows the water and blood, Baptism and Holy Eucharist, the conforming and sustaining sacraments of our truly living as St. Paul notes no longer as isolated “I” but radiating Christ living within me. Galatians 2:20.

Thus filled with the Fire of Divine Love, we develop a true passionate love for every human being, our true siblings, and a burning desire that they too should meet and open wide the doors of their being to Christ, it is to work tirelessly, by living the Gospel with our lives without compromise to bring the light of the Gospel to the heart of the marketplace of human encounter, and particularly to those regions of the human heart and soul most alienated from Christianity……[5] and this alienation, is in these times the fundamental paucity of the soild rock on which to build the home of society. Indeed, without the rock of the Gospel we are building on sand. And as all the raucousness of contemporary politics and social media conspiracy theories reveal it is quicksand on which we are building.

And we are sinking fast. We need to cry out with the psalmist: Save me, my God, for the waters have risen to my neck. I am sinking in muddy depths and can find no foothold. I have fallen into deep waters, and the floods overwhelm me. I am exhausted from crying out; my throat is parched. [Psalm 69:1-4]

Momentarily I will insert a quotation from the Servant of God Catherine Doherty, from the above referenced Ekaterina. In His Resurrection and Ascension Jesus, in His living glorified Body is now the tabernacle, the place of worship, that no human hands have made. Because Jesus Himself is the true place of worship how we must treasure and spend time with Him in the Holy Eucharist primarily through participation in the liturgy of Holy Mass and receiving Him in Holy Communion but also through the ancient practice of Eucharistic Adoration, that is being with Him, adoring and loving Him in the tabernacle or monstrance. And also, being with Him in the hungry, the needy, the stranger. That is the essence of Eucharist lived. [6]

How could we, without the incarnation, love as Christ wants us to love?......”By this shall men know that you are my disciples, that you are going to love each other as I have loved you.” Now here is where we become sort of divinized…..The point is that the Gospel of Christ really penetrates us to the very bellybutton of our soul…..we empty ourselves to allow this Christ to grow in us and to take hold of us so that we become Him. That is to say He becomes us in a sense, and we become Him. [7]

In the Little Mandate of the Madonna House Lay Apostolate [8] Christ asks us and promises us: Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fears into the depths of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

As I am writing and praying today, as my youngest grandson would ask – when his parents were away, ‘How many sleeps’, before they would be back, I am “Two sleeps from being released from hospital” which approaching reality after being in hospital six weeks already has me recalling something from Vaclav Havel I read many years ago about how we as human beings imprint ourselves onto the places were we dwell for any length of time and the adjustment when ‘place’ is changed.

We imprint ourselves in the dwelling place of home, municipality, nation, parish/religion, family, season, hour, day, week, year etc., but all aspects of place these days are constantly disrupted by the contentious of the times, by rancouress divisions, by other trying to shape our personal space into their idea of what it should be. When I leave this place of hospital and return to the place of poustinia there will be an adjustment, perhaps painful, perhaps not, maybe lengthy, maybe not, His will be done. He will imprint me where and as He wills, that is what Lovers do, gift and receive. He is the Beloved and we are His beloved.

Today in Europe thousands of people in various countries are violently protesting against lockdowns, Russia is massing more troops along its border with Ukraine, gun violence continues apace in the US and the ever-present pandemic disrupts everywhere.

Rather than fall into the quicksand of choosing sides in the contentiousness of public discourse, much less into the evil muck of harshly trying to control or emotionally overpower those who disagree with us, which is so common these days and tears families, parishes, apart, we must ask the grace to be radiant in the world and protected from being darkened by the world

To love one another as Christ loves us is to live out the liturgy with our lives, animated by the Holy Gospel, moving about as living tabernacles after Holy Communion and by our words and actions being living flames enlightening, that is illuminating all around us: people, history, cosmos, with the love of Christ.

Not easy to enter the hearts of others without fear, even harder these days without rancor or a personal agenda.

We are not called to change or convert anyone, simply to give Christ to everyone. Christ will do the changing and converting.

In our day people toss about the terms spiritual and spirituality with abandon. Often we hear phrases such as “I am not religious, but I am spiritual” or “I don’t belong to a religion, but I am deeply spiritual.” God bless them that is pure fantasy. The only authentic way to be ‘spiritual’ and have ‘spirituality’ is by opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit.

Not far from this hospital, daily no matter the wintry weather, a couple stand on the street corner loudly declaring the ‘end is nigh, get ready, be converted to Jesus.’

Bless their hearts for undertaking such a challenge in this day and age!

Truth is the ‘end’, the second coming of Christ, has been nigh, is nigh, every moment since Pentecost and Jesus’ Ascension, we should all strive to ready and the best way to prepare is by forgetting self, and my agenda, and selflessly loving everyone, a matter of choice and not emotion.

The particularity of the Christian way consists of the fact that the Christian spiritualization is simultaneously an incarnation. Paul has splendidly formulated its motto: ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit.’ [2 Cor. 3:17] This distinguishes it from all other kinds of spiritualization, whether philosophical or merely mystical. The Spirit into which it transforms all that has come to pass is the body of Christ….To spiritualize means to incarnate in a Christian way, but to incarnate means to spiritualize, to bring the things of the world to the coming Christ, to prepare them for their future form and thus to prepare God’s future in the world. In St. Irenaeus’ work we find the lovely thought that the meaning of the Incarnation was for the Spirit – the Holy Spirit -  to get used to the flesh, as it were, in Jesus. Turning this around we could say: the meaning of ongoing incarnation can only be the reverse, to get the flesh used to the Spirit, to God, to make it capax spiritus* and in this way to prepare its future. [9] * capable of breathing.

I began this essay in part by noting: that this illness had more to do with metanoia – that is conversion of heart - for myself and the human family, thus it is not so much illness I am aware of as the grace of wee suffering in intercession and atonement.

That was on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, now I have just prayed first Vespers of the Solemnity of Christ the king. From which, fully aware I am returning to the hidden life of intercession and atonement for the human family in the urban environment, these intercessions, are very appropriate in context:

Let us pray to Christ he King. He is the firstborn of all creation; all things exist in Him.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ our king and shepherd, gather your sheep from every land, give them pasture in green and fertile meadows.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, our leader and saviour, form all men into your own people, heal the sick, seek out the lost, guard the strong call back those who have wandered far away, strengthen those who waver, gather all your sheep into one flock.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Judge of all ages, when you hand over your kingdom to the Father, place us all at your right hand, so that we may inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the beginning of the world.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Prince of peace, break the weapons of war and inspire nations with Your peace.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, heir of all nations, gather humanity and all the Church which your Father bestowed on you, so that the whole body of your people, united in the Holy Spirit, may acknowledge you as their head.

May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, firstborn of the dead and firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death, bring all who have died to the glory of the resurrection.

May your kingdom, O Lord. [10]

Jesus and His kingdom are coming. Perhaps sooner than we expect. Surely we can be ready to welcome Him if we answer as He knocks constantly at the door of our hearts to be granted leave to enter.

What have I begun to learn after all these weeks to contemplate the current human condition and pray for every human being, my siblings? That only if I struggle to open the door to Christ will my prayer have power and that it is not only okay to but important we feel the weight of the pain of humanity.

And from the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI instituting this feast in 1925: In the first Encyclical Letter which We addressed at the beginning of Our Pontificate to the Bishops of the universal Church, We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ;……the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ." Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved." He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. "For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation but a number of men living in concord?" If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ……… The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."…… If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society…… This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences…….: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin…….individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. [11]

[1] written in German and originally published in 2008, the above is taken from the English translation published in 2014 by Ignatius Press pps. xv, xvi: Joseph Ratzinger, Collected Works, THEOLOGY OF THE Liturgy=Italics and underlining are mine.

[2] op. cit. p.xvi

[3] EKATERINA, Catherine Doherty and the Russian Religious Renaissance, Robert Wild, editor; Madonna House Publications, 2021, title page.

[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1J.HTM

[5] Ekaterina, op. cit. p.81

[6] see THELOGY OF THE LITURGY, op. cit. pp. 25-30

[7] Ekaterina op. cit. p. 92

[8] https://www.madonnahouse.org/mandate/

[9] see THEOLOGY OF THE LITURGY, op. cit. pp. 285,386

[10] First Vespers of the Solemnity of Christ the King, Intercessions; Volume IV, THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS, according to the Roman Rite, Catholic Book Publishing Corp., New York 1975 pp. 569,570

[11] https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html from paras. 1-32

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph

 

Monday, September 06, 2021

A VOICE FROM THE CATACOMBS ~ Part 1

 

                                          Most Christians are familiar with the catacombs where the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and other prayer took place in the first age of martyrs. Less familiar perhaps, particularly in 17th century Ireland, was the necessitated use of “Mass Rocks” in fields far from the prying eyes of British troops, when Catholic faith and practice was banned.

We need to pray, be vigilant, and courageous truth-speaking witnesses in our day that such necessary precautions will not be needed again, for the only remaining and acceptable discrimination is anti-Christianity, a potential gateway to concentration camps and martyrdom.

One of the powerful scenes in the film THE KING’S SPEECH, is when the about to be crowned King shouts: I HAVE VOICE!

Every human being has a voice, but not every human being is heard, because totalitarian governments suppress opposition voices either by imprisonment, shutting down media, while ersatz democratic governments use other less drastic but no less effective means to stifle dissent, such as the Liberal party of Canada banning all pro-life people from running as candidates for the party, giving so-called ‘financial help in these difficult times’ to pro-Liberal media outlets, by giving press passes mainly to those media who agree with the current government, while social media, in the main, eviscerates solidly Christian, pro-life, pro-family voices, even banning people outright, whose posts are not in line with the outlets leftist agenda and doing such banning with no process of adjudication.

So much for freedom of speech, so much for ‘I have a voice’, nope, not unless you join the chorus of the pro-death, anti-family, anti-Christian culture. A choir whose only ‘music’ echoes the banshee screams of the damned.

A minor example of political correctness run amok is the moment I typed “damned’ up pops a message, imbedded in Microsoft Word, advising me that word ‘damned’ might be offensive to some of my readers. Really?

Reminds me of the 1998 film: Enemy of the State. Not just totalitarian regimes but even western democracies through the symbiosis of leftist politicians, media, special interest groups, have made the state sacrosanct, treating any dissent as ersatz blasphemy.

It is extremely urgent we Catholics, indeed all Christians, rediscover the courage of martyrs, should things keep heading in the direction where martyrdom becomes a fact of life. Even more urgent is that we Catholics and all Christians have the courage to be Confessors of the Faith, no matter the cost.

Doing anything less means not even noticing the smoke of satan, which pervades within this time it history, and, as Pope St. Paul VI noted, having also penetrated the Church, has become so thick that breathing in and exhaling the True-breath of the Holy Spirit becomes well nigh impossible. If we choose to ignore the smoke of satan we will suffocate through cowardice. Wildfires in summer are a common occurrence and the smoke contains numerous chemicals, gases, and particulate matter such as burning embers and soot.

The main components of satanic smoke are: hedonism, secularism, relativism, humanism, atheism, a disdain for the sacredness of life from the womb to the tomb, and most pernicious of all: pride.

Breathing in wildfire smoke damages the body. Breathing in satan’s smoke corrodes the intellect, heart, and soul.

Equivalent to the winds that spread wildfire smoke thousands of kilometers from the source, ideas uncritically embraced by human beings and passed on to others, often globally, are the lies and pseudo ‘truth’ that originate with satan and his minions.

Ideas matter; but ideas that matter most are taken for granted…….Eventually one side of ideas or another comes to be accepted as what “right-thinking” or “realistic” people accept. These fundamental presuppositions are the environment in which the Church has to function…….I do not think enough care has been shown by churchmen in understanding and evaluating these ideas that shaped the modern world, and, as a result, it is the modern world that has begun to determine our understanding and preaching of the gospel, to the detriment of our common Christian tradition. [1]

…….a truth which the Church has always treasured: in the far reaches of the human heart there is a seed of desire and nostalgia for God. The Liturgy of Good Friday recalls this powerfully when, in praying for those who do not believe, we say: “Almighty and eternal God, you created mankind so that all might long to find you and have peace when you are found”. There is therefore a path which the human being may choose to take, a path which begins with reason's capacity to rise beyond what is contingent and set out towards the infinite……..People cannot be genuinely indifferent to the question of whether what they know is true or not. If they discover that it is false, they reject it; but if they can establish its truth, they feel themselves rewarded. It is this that Saint Augustine teaches when he writes: “I have met many who wanted to deceive, but none who wanted to be deceived”. It is rightly claimed that persons have reached adulthood when they can distinguish independently between truth and falsehood, making up their own minds about the objective reality of things. [2]

The attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of another more serious and destructive dichotomy, that which separates faith from morality. This separation represents one of the most acute pastoral concerns of the Church amid today's growing secularism, wherein many, indeed too many, people think and live "as if God did not exist". We are speaking of a mentality which affects, often in a profound, extensive and all-embracing way, even the attitudes and behaviour of Christians, whose faith is weakened and loses its character as a new and original criterion for thinking and acting in personal, family and social life. In a widely dechristianized culture, the criteria employed by believers themselves in making judgments and decisions often appear extraneous or even contrary to those of the Gospel. [3]

There are groups, of no small influence, who are trying to talk us out of kneeling…..” It’s not appropriate for redeemed man – he has been set free by Christ and doesn’t need to kneel any more.”…..Kneeling is not only a Christian gesture, but a Christological one…..there is a story that comes from the sayings of the Desert Fathers, according to which the devil was compelled by God to show himself to a certain Abba Apollo. He looked black and ugly, with frighteningly thin limbs, but, most strikingly, he had no knees. The inability to kneel is seen as the very essence of the diabolical. [4]

There we have it, for the dominate poison in the smoke of satan is pride.

It we are to be true Confessors of the Faith, have the courage of martyrs, dwelling in truth and radiating the light of Christ to hold back the spread of the darkness and smoke of satan poisoning the human family with lies, the culture of death, the desperation that flows from unbelief, the result of surrendering to the smoke of satan, then we must heed the words of Micah: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. [6:8]

 

[1] THE MASS AND MODERNITY, Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory; pps. 40-42; Ignatius Press, 2205 [italics are mine]

[2] FAITH AND REASON, John Paul II, paras. 24/25; [italics are mine] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html

[3] THE SPLENDORS OF TRUTH, John Paul II, para. 88, [italics are mine] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html

[4] JOSEPH RATZINER COLLECTED WORKS THEOLOGY OF THE LITURGY, pp.115, 120-21, Ignatius Press, 2014 [italics and emphasis are mine]

 

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph

Thursday, August 26, 2021

DWELLING PEACEFULLY IN FAITH, LOVE, HOPE, LIGHT, JOY~ Part 12

 

                    Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. [1]

Here at first blush the Most Holy Spirit has given two seemingly contradictory words: hidden and light. Yet they are not. At it’s most basic hiddenness ensures the brightness of our light and that very light is what wraps us in hiddenness.

Jesus teaches us about the importance of being hidden. Two examples: …..when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you……..when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you. [Mt.6:6 & 17,18]

To be hidden is not the same thing as to hide, neither is going into a room alone to pray in secret the same thing as hiding: to hide means to conceal; to be in secret is to keep something from being observed by others.

It is the false self, the ‘look at me’ self, the needy self we are asked by the Holy Spirit to keep hidden. Such self focused things are like a dirty window which keeps sunlight out, the warmth of lights from inside at night from easing the darkness for those passing by.

When it comes to windows in a building or the home we live it, cleaning the windows inside and out in spring to remove the grim accumulated over the winter to let in the bright, warming light of the sun, is a common practice.

Our hearts and souls need to be so transformed by the Holy Spirit that the fire-light of Christ permeates more deeply and that light then pours out from our being so brilliantly anyone who looks at us is transfixed by the light, just as people walking by a home where the lights are burning are more conscious of the light than of the clear glass of the windows.

To become that clear glass cannot be done by our own efforts, it is the work of the Divine Guest of our souls, the Most Holy Spirit. Yes our cooperation with Him is required and the process can be painful for the false self fights tooth and nail not to be diminished, not to be scrubbed away. Indeed, no matter what it costs that false self wants to survive!

Transformation by the Holy Spirit enables us to be Christocentric and like Christ focused on others, loving as Christ loves everyone without counting the cost.

Teaching about the Holy Spirit Archbishop Martinez writes: The intimate life with the Holy Spirit is, in reality, love…..To love Love is to live with Him, it is to allow ourself to be possessed by Him, it is to impregnate ourself with His divine fire and to let ourself be consumed by it. [2]

Gold only becomes precious and brilliant until, as from ancient times to this very day, it is purified by fire. The fire of the Most Holy Spirit, burning more brightly and intensely than even the fire of the sun, purifies us of the false self we tend to present to the world making us radiant! True this is a lifelong process of purification for the false self resists and wants to survive, hence since the false self, the unpurified self has many layers the Holy Spirit, if we say yes to Him, tirelessly purifies deeper and deeper until the real self becomes more and more visible, and we radiate the Light of Christ which gleams from us with the brilliance of all the suns in the universe.

To be truly “a light to our neighbours’ feet” we must also ask the Holy Spirit to grant us radiant fullness of faith, truth, charity, for we dwell at a time in history when the darkness of relativism is as solid as rock.

While solid rock is impenetrable by ordinary light, the Light of Christ makes the rock of the darkness of these days in the human family as permeable as the gossamer of a spider’s web.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. [Mt. 5:14-16] Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” [Jn. 8:12]

If we constantly ask the Holy Spirit to enable us to burn ever more brightly with the Light of Christ poured into us at Baptism, then this light becomes as brilliant as sunlight which hides starlight. Christ’s Light will keep us hidden, because being a light means not to be noticed, rather it is Christ who is seen.

To be a light to our neighbours’ feet means also to preach the Gospel with our lives, so needed as Abbot Nault stresses: ……we urgently need to announce the Good News of salvation joyfully….If whole sectors of our Christian civilization seem to be falling, it is because it is time to get to work and facilitate the action of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth and charity, so as to touch hearts and accomplish his work. Of course, the Lord is the one who brings about conversions, but he also willed to have need of us to announce him and to witness to him. [3]

 

[1] http://www.madonnahouse.org/mandate/

[2] THE SANCTIFIER, Most Rev. Luis M. Martinez, p. 30; St. Paul Editions 1982; italics are mine

[3] THE NOONDAY DEVIL, by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., p. 200; Ignatius Press, 2015

 

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph

 

Thursday, July 15, 2021

HOPE IN THE AGE OF COVID 19 ~FINAL IN THE SERIES

 

 

                                Begun, in March of 2020, at the suggestion of someone whose love and wisdom I trust, the way things within the human family in virtually every country on earth, have unfolded, and continue to unfold, I discussed with two other people I trust about ending this series and beginning in due time a new one with a broader scope given the current conditions within the human family.

Close to 18 months into this pandemic with the almost innumerable casualties, death cutting a wide swath among the infected, with the hardened positions, the inflexible attitudes, of those both who accept it is a pandemic, those who do not, between those who get vaccinated and those who refuse to, there is so much anger and hatred within the human family, on a scale that in the past would have been constricted by geography.

Nowadays with the internet and ever-expanding social media sites, akin to the infamous clouds of gas that drifted silently, like huge green snakes, across the battlefields of WWI, we are increasingly loosing a willingness to accept objective fact. Facts have become the bailiwick of groupthink on both sides of virtually ever issue from the pandemic to………..each of us can fill in the blank, likely with a long list of contentious issues.

In mathematics we all learn as children that 1+1=2.

Today 1+1=equals whatever I say it does.

Anger and division flows between individuals, families, citizens, and governments, like an unending lava flow: hot, deadly, destroying everything in its path.

As a result, we live in nations where, democracies or totalitarian, politicians of all stripes, at every level of government from national to local have usurped the right of the people to have true freedom of government for the people. Thus: “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ― Victor Hugo

How much longer will this night last is unknowable, that at some point we will return to what was allegedly ‘normal’ before the pandemic is a mythological tapestry still being woven by the dreamers.

It is highly probable, besides new covid variants, there will be revolutions, wars, national bankruptcies, increased bitter and vengeful divisions within families, within nations, between nations, simply because we have become, in such a short time, more than ever preoccupied with self, with our own ideas, interpretations of the issues of the day.

“I” dominates. Other is no longer seen as one like me.

You are either with me or against me: with me tolerated friend, against me hated enemy.

Part of this tragedy is self-hatred has become as common place as the air we breathe.

All the above spills out of the stressed minds and wounded hearts of countless people I hear from, good people who unwittingly as they speak are crying out like the Psalmist:  Save me, God, for the waters have reached my neck. I have sunk into the mire of the deep, where there is no foothold. I have gone down to the watery depths; the flood overwhelms me. I am weary with crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, from looking for my God. [Ps. 69: 2-4]

There is no way, individually or collectively as the human family, by our own wits, we can get ourselves out of this global swamp. No amount of science, money, government legislation, revolutions or riots, no screaming arguments, nothing humanly devised can save us.

Individually and collectively, we need to cry out, like Peter sinking beneath the waves: “Lord, save us.”: [see Matthew 14:22-33].

Jesus stretches out His hand, for He loves us and wants to lift us out of the swamp.

The way we grip His hand and hold on tight – and this is our hope – is to live out: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’…….‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Mk. 12: 28-24]-and- You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for He makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. [Mt. 5: 43-45]

© 2021 F. Arthur Joseph

 

 

Monday, July 05, 2021

DWELLING PEACEFULLY IN FAITH, LOVE, HOPE, LIGHT, JOY~ Part 11

 

 Pray, fast. Pray always, fast. [1]

The template for this is Jesus in the desert [Mt. 4:1-11] where He both prays and fasts and rejects satan’s traps. There is frequently intense spiritual warfare when we are in prayer, so trusting the source of the gift to pray is critical: ….the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.[Rms.8:26].

All of creation prays, the whole cosmos prays, every creature prays by the very nature of their being reflections of the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. The stars and suns shimmer, the planets rotate, light travels, sound travels, the wind blows, rain and snow fall, trees, plants, grasses sway in the wind, dance really, mountains and hills, rocks and valleys, oceans waves and all creatures beneath the water, birds of the air and creatures like deer moving on the earth – all by their very existence pray. [Daniel 3:56-88]

When we ask: Let my prayer be incense before you….[Psalm 141.2] we can be confident it is so: Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel. [Rev.8:3,4]

Both prayer and fasting are very simple, easy to fulfill, however both can also be experienced as burdensome if we complicate matters by seeking to do either by our own efforts, for in essence neither should be primarily about us. Yes, both have a personal aspect, but that should be secondary to a focus on the Holy Trinity, with love and adoration and intercession for others, specific individuals and for the entire human family.

Jesus taught us one prayer, the Our Father which contains all aspects of humble, loving, recognition of right relationship with Our Abba – love, trust, dependence – and essential petitions for self and others.

There are many other forms of prayer: the Psalms, Holy Rosary, Litanies, and the most perfect form of prayer, which itself contains the Our Father: Holy Mass/Divine Liturgy.

We can easily, throughout the day or evening, while doing necessary tasks like dusting or washing dishes, and also perhaps taking a few moments in stillness to pray with the prayer drawn by the Desert Fathers from the prayer of the Publican, [Lk.18:9-14]: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ The Desert Fathers thus prayed: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner. At night the beating of our hearts testifies to our loving prayer, awaiting either the grace-gift of a new earthly day or the arrival of the Divine Lover Himself, come to take us home. [Jn. 14:1-3]

A critical aspect of prayer, which we glean from all the times in the Holy Gospels we see Jesus

going off by Himself to pray, is the aspect of intimate conversational prayer with the Most Holy Trinity. This is not to try and get the Father or Jesus or the Holy Spirit to speak with us like we would expect in conversation with another human being, rather it is to trust Love Himself is attentive, and that we can speak unabashedly whatever joys, sorrows, doubts, burdens, gratitude, needs, fill our hearts. It is to have the heart of a child who chats with their parents or grandparents.

The ‘always’ aspect of this line from the Little Mandate is no burden since our hearts beat all day long, for our very existence is prayer, and fidelity to the duty of the moment is itself prayer. There is no dichotomy between the serving actions of Martha and the contemplative stance of Mary in the presence of Christ. Indeed, action must lead to contemplation and contemplation to action, the mobius strip of living the Gospel with our lives.

Fasting itself must be marked with love, lack of self interest, be done as act of intercession and remembering, intercede for Divine Mercy for our sins and those of the whole world and remembering that our real needed food and drink is the Holy Eucharist. Fasting should not be restricted to food. Indeed, better not to fast from food of any kind, or any kind of drink if we are unwilling to fast from a very long list of unholiness from self-interest, ego, judging others, etc. etc., etc. Yes the classic form of fasting, such as is common practice during Lent is blessed, but fasting from actions and attitudes that hurt or demean, judge, or reject others, etc., is very much blessed.

The absolute depths of Pray, fast. Pray always, fast, is best shown by the following: One day Father Lot went to Father Joseph and told him, “As far as I can I keep my rule. I eat little, I pray and I am silent. I work with my hands and share my bread with the poor. As best I can, I strive to purify my heart. What else should I do?” Then Father Joseph stood up and stretched out his arms, and from his fingers shot tongues of fire. “If you want,” he said, “you can become a living flame.”  After that quotation from the Desert Fathers, Pelton continues: To become a living flame: that is the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus the Master. That is what He Himself is, the blazing sun who lights the whole world………There is no secret about the nature of that fire. It is simply love……It is the living Spirit of the living God, alive in us. It is the Holy Spirit who pours God’s love into us and makes us living flames……Our Lord and Master has made Himself our food and drink as He has made Himself our fire and light. It we remain inconsolable until our own prayer pierces the clouds and the Father makes us also living flames, the reason is that our burning is ultimately for others. Everywhere our sisters and brothers are dying of hunger, cold, and disbelief. It we refuse the humility of Christ and the fire of His love, who will feed them or warm them – or light their way home to the tenderness of the Father? [2]

[1] http://www.madonnahouse.org/mandate/

[2] CIRCLING THE SUN, Meditations on Christ in Liturgy and Time; pp. 122 & 123; Robert D. Pelton; The Pastoral Press, 1986 [out of print/italics and emphasis mine]

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph

 

Thursday, June 17, 2021

HOPE IN THE AGE OF COVID 19 ~ 36

 

                                           The trouble about law has always been that it can diagnose the malady but cannot effect a cure…..There is in fact……a kind of terrible paradox in law. It is human nature that when a thing is forbidden it has a tendency to become desirable…..Law, therefore, can actually move a man to desire the very thing which it forbids. [1]

The purpose of law is regulating society for the common good. Since the expansion of cities with dense populations, particularly since the invention of the automobile, laws have been passed which indicate where pedestrians, all things being equal, may safely walk and where cars, trucks, buses are restricted, so the ordinary person out for a walk does not get crushed under the wheels of a vehicle. Traffic lights are law: stop on red, go on green, to avoid every intersection becoming a demolition derby, with human casualties.

Such laws are logical, have purpose for the common good. They are supposed to come forth from democratic governance within the parliamentary system.

Flowing from the establishment of the Estates General in France, [2] which were of no real common good, 98% of the population being uneducated, poor, voiceless in the places of power, revolutions in many countries of Europe, and the United States, the pressure to establish a confederation in Canada, more than two centuries of effort has brought about the era of one person-one vote parliamentary systems, allegedly with the so called “4th Estate” [media] keeping the head of government and the political parties honest.

How fragile and easily manipulated are both democracy and the machinery of government, how loosey-goosey with the truth have the media become, are, facts this pandemic has exposed. Infamously as in the fable, the secular Emperors have no clothes. [3]

People willingly obey laws, even exceptional to the circumstances of a crisis if they are clearly enacted for the common good based on objective fact, and IF the reason for them is explained clearly and they do no harm.

Governments, health officials, media continue to fail on all counts and so populations are seriously skeptical, rebellious, stressed, angry the more governments listen to the banshee screaming of those, in the midst of all this, demanding apologies for historical wrongs, apologies which have as yet, likely will never satisfy anyone, because anger is addictive, and no amount of caving into the screamers will ever end the addiction. The past is past and cannot be changed. Blaming/burdening this generation for historical events in which no part was taken by this generation, or future generations, disingenuous governments, with apologies, cash handouts, chiseling names off buildings, hiding statues, heals nothing, rather such self-serving political statements, such excising of visible historical-cultural memory, only creates new wounds causing hope of cross-cultural love and reconciliation to wither away while the equally disingenuous media feed the fires of gimmee anger to such a degree the majority of the population recoils in disgust, seeing themselves dismissed as irrelevant, then politicians come forth again with spurious declarations we are one society, one people, one country, which we no longer are. They have made us pawns in their leftist games of ineffective appeasement, which guts love and reconciliation out of the common good. 

Two more examples of how leaders are arbitrarily usurping the power of the people to make choices for the common good, not unlike despots around the world: the city of Victoria has decided to cancel Canada Day celebrations to be in solidarity with Indigenous people – this is destructive as it signals our Indigenous brothers are sisters are not Canadians like everyone else in this country otherwise the denizens of Victoria would invite their participation, an authentic act of solidarity for the common good,  plus such heavy handed leftist arrogance increases anger across the country further widening the divide and some Indigenous leaders are urging Roman Catholics to show solidarity by not participating in Holy Mass, while spray painting hateful statements on the walls of Catholic Churches, a truly hateful and diabolical suggestion, both of those examples signaling the death knell for reconciliation.

Even in the secular understanding of reconciliation to reconcile means working towards that mutual attentive dialogue which leads to mutual friendship. In the light of the Gospel the first step on the journey is forgiveness and learning to truly love on another.

Far too many leaders of the banshees don’t want any healing, love, reconciliation because that would mean the end of their alleged fame before the cameras and the shutting of government money spigots.

Destructive earthquakes, within the human family not just those in nature but even more so between human beings collectively and even between individuals, occur when the constant grinding of the plates of hardened positions reach a critical state of being stuck, a state of affairs contraindicate by the nature of tectonic plates as by the nature of the interdependence we have with one another. The result of the subsequent increased pressure is societal destruction, the two plates fracturing along the fault lines between intransigent groups in society, from the left and the right.

It is reality that, like the tectonic plates, we are always, in our personhood, experiencing the grinding of our wounded selves against the being healed by grace self. So long as that grinding indicates movement it is life lived. When the stuck-ness occurs is when marriages tear apart, for example, and worse we become spilt, fractured in our personhood, and start walking beside ourselves.

We need patience and inner reconciliation, which achievement comes from the Holy Spirit, with the real person I yearn to be and the as yet unsanctified person I am, and with compassion to see and understand all our brothers and sisters on earth live with the same struggles, day in and day out as we do.

Reconciliation, true reconciliation, can only occur when those needing reconciliation can meet in the space of mutual respect, attentive listening and understanding, with mutual compromise and that real love which affirms, no matter our histories or wounds, we are all brothers and sisters of one family.

Without going down the rabbit hole of is there or not a pandemic, viruses do not pick sides. They infect people of every race, religion, economic status, age. Untreated they kill. They don’t care because viruses have no heart, no soul.

Unless we rediscover our hearts and souls and live from them, and see every other human being is also endowed by God with a heart and soul, then democracy will be shattered and replaced by a new round of global totalitarianism.

When we hear the jackboots tramping down the street, it will be too late: You will hear of wars and reports of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for these things must happen, but it will not yet be the end. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes from place to place. All these are the beginning of the labour pains. Then they will hand you over to persecution, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of My name……..[Mt. 24:6-9]

The closer we come to God, the more patient we grow and the more we reflect that infinite respect for all beings which is the proper quality of God. [4]

In these times, beyond the poisoned and ever thickening fog of arrogant anger, the screaming, the self-centeredness of I am right and everybody who does not agree with me is an enemy, where is the hope for the human family?

In one place only, in one person only, IF we open the doors of our being, to Him will we find the source of authentic hope and the template for authentic reconciliation: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. [see Rev. 3:20]

Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world. He understands human sufferings, he has shown the face of God’s mercy, and he has bent down to heal body and soul…… Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst; it is born from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! And in this moment the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him! Let us follow Jesus! We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must bring to this world. Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us. [5]

This is the living in light, truth, hope, joy, with love spread throughout the human family as the penultimate common good, personal good. [the ultimate good is communion of love with the Most Holy Trinity in heaven]: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. [Mt. 5:3-12][1]

 

[1] From a commentary on THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS, Revised Edition; William Barclay; p.69; Westminster Press

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_General_(France)

[3] The Emperor's New Clothes, by Hans Christenson Anderson

[4] GREAT LENT, Alexander Schmemann, p. 37; St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974

[5] https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130324_palme.html

 

© 2021 Fr. Arthur Joseph