The Source and Summit of our lives

Living is growing.  Living is moving, moving freely by choice and action, from being limited – materially, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually – into self- transcendence, into a horizon that gets bigger with each new step further into life.  It comes down to moving from desires to satisfaction, and the process is what is thrilling.  Coming to a well of cool water as a long walk is finally ending.  Going to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving, getting there, reveling in the warm, welcoming embraces, and then moving forward to delicious foods, memories, laughs and comfort.  Getting through what seemed our longest years and finally becoming a teenager.  Raising a family.  Becoming a good, magnanimous, loving person.  And living out the pursuit of all these good things in the company and in league with others -- with family, friends, and community.  These all take time:  some of it hard, much of it joyous, all of it necessary.

God portions our lives out into moments, days, weeks, and years.  Along with that, God also gives us the means, the way, and the truth to figure out, decide and act upon on a whole hierarchy of desires which He has placed within us. They make up the fuel moving us to pursue what is lacking -- to search for it, go after it, and find it.  Food.  Love.  Intimacy.  New experiences, knowledge, and understanding.  Safety and security.  Companionship and community.

Our bodies and souls, full of desires for these things, testify that we long for fullness of life.  Along the way, we have moments when we taste it, not to the full, but the taste is real and it satisfies—for the moment.  But we always seem to hunger for more.

Sometimes we seek and go after momentary satisfactions willy-nilly, in no particular order – like a puppy going from his master, to his food, to scampering about, then back again to the others.  Sometimes we go after them according to what we think is more fulfilling, and we plan accordingly.  Sometimes we pursue them according to what is more fulfilling, and for these reasons we discern and pray – sometimes in solitude, sometimes with others – and then decide and try to live accordingly.

 

Underneath all our desires, mingling with them and undergirding them, is the desire for God.  Life is sorting out and ordering all our other desires to the one that is deepest and most passionate, the one that gives ultimate meaning and relevance to all the rest.  We sometimes know it and are sometimes unaware of it, but what we want ultimately is a loving relationship with God—and through that, a loving relationship with everything and everyone else.

God is the only one who can slake our deepest thirst, feed our deepest hunger, satisfy our desires to the full.  We want God’s company, God’s protection, God’s love.  We want intimacy with the One who gives us our very life, with all its desires.

Often we grab for substitutes.  Fast food.  Faster living, faster cars.  More convenience, more comfort, unrestricted sexual fulfillment (without responsibility), and the so-called “right” of complete freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want to.

Jesus offers us the ultimate food and drink:  giving us bread that is His body and drink that is His blood, poured out for us. We need to calm down, become more simple, and receive quietly this Body and Blood of Christ into our own fleshly selves.  Doing so puts us squarely in God’s company, secures us under God’s protection, and engages us in God’s intimate love.  It unites us with the One who is giving us our life, with all its desires.

We can do this at Mass, thanks be to God. The Eucharistic Prayer makes ready the food we receive at Communion. Here we ponder, choose, and act to fulfill our most real hunger and thirst. We eat the bread which Christ identifies as “true food,” and we drink the blood which is “true drink.”  In doing this, we enter into the kind of communion Our Lord speaks of in the Gospel:  “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him.”  (John 6:52-59)

This communion will nourish the moment-by-moment course of our lives, if we let it.  It will bring order to our desires.  It will lay out the way for us, serve up the truth of things, and move us to the very pulse of life.  It will satisfy our desire to unite our hearts and minds to one another and to God.

Belief is not a one-time thing

As the saying goes, “There’s one in every crowd!”  On the third Tuesday of every month I have to attend a meeting along with all of the General Managers on my team and my boss.  One of the GMs is “that” one.  He has an opinion on just about every topic (usually wrong) and when confronted, he is childishly defensive, but never offensive in his rebuttals.  But his abilities as a GM far outweigh these shortcomings, so he’s a great guy to work with.  I have known him and worked with him for twenty years. In fact we celebrated his twentieth anniversary with the company at today’s meeting.  I celebrated my own twentieth anniversary last month.  Tradition at these events holds that the honoree says some words about his career and the people he has worked with.

When I gave my speech last month, I tried to keep it humorous, but I also choked a few of my co-workers up when I referred to them as members of my family.  I thought I knocked it out of the ballpark.  Well, Charlie outdid me today.  How could he do that?  Isn’t he the “one in every crowd?”

 

What floored me was his opening statements; “While I appreciate this recognition, I give all the glory and honor that my career has brought me to God. It is through His providence that I’ve been successful.”  I must admit I didn’t listen much to the rest of his speech. I was too embarrassed by my own lack of humility and shame that I didn’t give God the same credit last month when it was my turn.  I also felt a new-found surge of respect for Charlie, because he was unabashedly Christian.  Of course, I’ve known for a long time that he is very active in his church (that he described to me once as “Apostolic”), and that he takes his Christianity VERY seriously.  He uses his vacation time to attend retreats and lead youth groups on their retreats.  And I have NEVER heard him raise his voice in anger. After his speech today, I felt very inadequate by my failure to publicly recognize God’s graces in my own life.

At times in our lives our faith can be challenged by things around us.  It could be people that we interact with every day (like Charlie), or horrible acts of violence or disasters that we see on the news—I’m thinking of the tragedy in Boston yesterday. Regardless, each act has the opportunity to shake the foundations of our faith.  The key for us is to stay strong in what we believe.  To push forward through the pain and suffering while continuing to look towards the Lord since he will protect us and guide us to eternal life.  He will be there for us always, even in the toughest times when we think he has abandoned us, he will still be there.

Faith as strong as this is rewarded by the Lord.  As Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  This belief is not just a onetime thing though; it must be a constant showing.  Faith is not a light switch that you can turn on and off whenever you like, but instead it is something you should show every chance you get.  Jesus urges us to live our lives like this every day.  Demonstrate your faith by showing love and respect to everyone around you.  If you do this, just as Jesus said, “You shall be raised on the last day.” (JN 6:35-40)

God Bless

Sainthood or bust!

There is a change that must occur in each of our hearts in order for the New Evangelization to transform our lives and our world.  We must be willing to put anything on the altar of sacrifice, to follow Christ unreservedly. We must fall in love with the Lord, and to do so, we need to encounter Him in a profound, personal way. “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” (Psalms 31: 5, Luke 23:46)

That is what separates Christianity from every other religion. We are not worshiping a distant being to which we offer daily sacrifices. No, rather, we fall in love with an actual person, a living being, Who is here with us, in our joys and sorrows, in our health and our infirmity, in our successes and our failures. We must meet this Person who offers us more than we could ever dream of for ourselves, but where do we find Him? The answer lies in the Gospel.

“I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35). There is no better place to encounter and personally experience the living Person of Jesus Christ than at Mass, where He is physically present to us, where we receive His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and become intimately acquainted with the almighty and eternal God. This is a great mystery, and if we truly knew what we were receiving, we would die of joy. We receive meaning, purpose, the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is nothing greater we can do in this life. Receiving the Eucharist makes heroes out of ordinary humans, like you and I. It equips us to be as loving as Mother Teresa, as devout as John Vianney, as courageous as Maximilian Kolbe, and as mystical as Theresa Lisieux because when we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving the rare fine air of Holiness itself as Heaven kisses earth. But it’s a hard journey and so few recognize the courage within them needed to continue.  St. Stephen found out just how hard it can be.

St. Stephen was proclaiming the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and those surrounding him rejected it, so they took him outside the city and stoned him. Stephen stood in the face of the most dominant powers of his society and proclaimed the Truth of God, whom he had personally encountered, and it cost him his life. There is a New Evangelization that is occurring within the Church today. Amidst the darkness of the modern world, the light of Truth and Love found in the Church continues to shine. We must strive to become a beacon of that light to the world around us. This begins with surrendering ourselves to Christ. Then we must encounter Him, and finally, we must proclaim Him from the rooftops, telling everyone we encounter the Good News of Jesus Christ, and living it out in every aspect of our lives.

We are living at a time when we may be persecuted for our beliefs, for proclaiming the truth, but that should not deter us. “Do not be afraid.” We have been entrusted with a mission from God, a mission to proclaim the Gospel at all times, regardless of the circumstances. We must live for the Truth of Jesus, as proclaimed by the Church, never letting anyone or anything stand in our way. While Stephen was being martyred, Saul was giving his consent because he could not understand why someone would give their very life for a man crucified. What he soon realized, however, is that Stephen was not willing to die for a poor carpenter that taught people good ideas about life. Rather, Stephen lived for the eternal Truths that God revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and, that choice cost Stephen his life. Ironically enough, in time, Saul, later Paul, discovered those same Truths for himself. Again, that choice cost him his life. He did not give up, let up, or quiet down until the end. He was a disciple of Christ. So, too, we called to become saints.  We must get holy or die trying because holiness is not a spectator sport. We are all in this together: Sainthood or bust!

A blogger for the people!

I had no idea that a couple of the links to the Stations of the Cross that I removed last week were so popular. Of course when the readership of my blog is an average of 8-10 people a day, 2 or 3 requests to put it back in constitutes "popular demand".   I called my Mom this evening and she was disappointed that I had removed them.  I was going to just send the links in an email to her.  Then I open up my electronic mailbox when I got to the apartment--and found that there are at least 2 more of you out there who asked me to put them back up...coincidence?  I think not!

I figured Easter was coming to a close--it isn't really, because the Easter "season" is upon us until the Holy Spirit descends upon the Apostles and Mary at Pentecost.

Since I am a "Blogger for the People" (lol), I'll put them back up. If two links were good, 3 will be better...right?  Look for them on the sidebar.  Just "click and pray".   Oh, and thanks for really using the blog as I intended it to be--a "one-stop prayer and meditation station".  If there are any other prayers or devotions you would like to see, please email me (if you're one of the lucky ones to have my address) or put it in the comments section.  I'll do the research and link them for you here.

God bless you.  Alleluia!

God is trustworthy

When I was a child, I would often pray for things that I was told I should--for sick relatives, for a easier life for my parents.  And yet those relatives still died, my parents still struggled.  I was pretty bummed out a lot of times.

It is only with maturity that I realized that God knows what's best for us and answers our prayers in His own way. He always listens! We need to get our communications right!

In the Gospel of John (John 3:31-36), we hear that the word of God is trustworthy. That best describes Christ, God the Son.

It seems that as I get older, although I still pray and talk to the Lord, I now spend more time reading scripture and just listening to His word. That makes all the difference!

Back in the saddle?

I was hoping to be a little more regular in my meditations this year, but I have bigger priorities to deal with.  As I’ve stated repeatedly since Ash Wednesday, my Lent was less than desirable in what I hoped to sacrifice and give back to our Lord.  Not only that, but my prayer life has been in a real “funk”—you could say I’ve been going through a “dry” spell in my daily devotions.  Oh, I say my prayers alright, but I’ve felt like I’m just “going through the motions”.   I’m use to enjoying my private prayer moments, but they’ve been tedious for a couple of months now.  I know prayer is not about “me”—it’s about loving and praising my Creator and Savior yet I feel like I’m disappointing Him by not giving Him my full attention during prayer.

 

My dilemma has been how to get that motivation to pray back in full-swing.  I asked for God’s help, but I wasn’t seeing it because loving God that He is, my life is still blessed.   I have a great family, many good friends, and relatively good health for a guy who doesn’t eat well or exercise properly.  I had an offer for promotion yesterday that I turned down primarily because it would mean more work (for not that much more in salary) and less time to spend in prayer and with my family.

Then a couple of mornings ago a co-worker came to me for advice.  She said she just didn’t feel much like coming to work lately because it hasn’t been as fun as usual for her.  (Yes, I said fun.  What good is work if you can’t enjoy it?)  It had become routine and boring.  Some of the tasks she usually had “fun” doing seemed like “work”.   I told her that I hadn’t noticed because she was still maintaining her high level of productivity. Then I asked her how she was able to get the job done when she “didn’t feel like it”.  It boiled down to a very simple explanation.  She HAD to!  It is what she is SUPPOSED to do!  My advice to her was to continue to do the few tasks that HAD to be done, but then to find a new, fun project to work on that would help her get back in the swing of things.  I suggested we have a contest to create a little fun competition to increase productivity and morale that would require us to do those things she was finding mundane.  She thought that was a great idea.  By the afternoon, she was so excited about the contest that the friendly jousting between us (we had elected ourselves “team leaders”) had us both crying with laughter!

I had an epiphany!  I would start throwing words around like “epiphany” to get my mind back to religious matters!  Just kidding….  Actually, I did think of a plan to use something I find enjoyable to direct my thoughts into a more prayerful mood.  What better way than to re-design my blog page?

 

You’ll notice I cleaned up a lot of the clutter on the right side of the page.  I organized it as well by content—prayer, family, self, and nonsense.  I also got a little creative and designed a new “logo” for the header.  I hope you like it.  More importantly, I think I may be on my way out of my spiritual funk—While looking for new graphics and creating a few, I re-visited some of my favorite online meditative sources and found myself in a pretty deep contemplation through prayer tonight.

 

I guess Jesus was noticing the struggle I was having and sent His spirit to me in the guise of my co-worker and her dilemma to help me recognize a way out!  I won’t say I’m completely running on all cylinders prayer-wise, but—like the punch line of the old joke that asks “What do you call a group of 1000 lawyers tied together at the bottom of the ocean?”—It’s a “good start”.  (Sincere apologies to my attorney daughter). 

Crumbling walls, broken springs

After Jesus had risen from the dead, He appeared to His disciples.  They were horrified because they thought that they were seeing a ghost.  Jesus responded by asking them why they were troubled.  In my opinion, the disciples had every right to be freaked out.  In fact, it is only natural that we doubt and question. I’m almost positive I would have acted the same way the disciples did.  Scripture says that we are to love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds.  I imagine that part of loving God with one’s entire mind involves doubt.  I’m not convinced that blind faith is really faith at all. 

I read somewhere that there are two kinds of faith.   The comparison was made in answer to the question, “What if Jesus’ bones were discovered by archeologists and it was proven that they were really Jesus’ bones? Would you still have faith?”  The first kind of faith is like a brick wall, and if one brick (especially the brick at the base of the wall) crumbles, the wall will fall.  The other kind of faith is like a trampoline.  If Jesus’ bones were found, one of the springs would break on the trampoline, but people would still be able to bounce on it. 

So I’m thinking that genuine faith leads to questions and doubts.  Genuine faith, a constant searching for answers, will bring more questions and more doubts.  What is important is that our faith does not rely on just one principle, but rather many things that we believe to be true about God.  When ‘questions arise in our hearts’ and we become troubled, our faith won’t crumble.  At most, we may have a few broken springs.

 

A Simple Prayer Method From A Simple Pontiff

http://t.co/gpW11tkJzy

Not everyone celebrates Easter on Easter

 

The story of Peter and John approaching the gate and seeing the beggar is a great one. (Acts 3:1-10) How many times do we walk by the “beggars” in our lives?  Sometimes we do stop and give them a dollar or two but Peter and John gave so much more, not just the healing but the gift of our Lord.  The man entered the temple, “walking and jumping and praising God.”  How often do I forget the gifts that are mine because of Him?  How much of my life do I spend walking and jumping and praising God?  I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning, I walk, I talk, I am blessed with the most wonderful wife, children, and grandchild  – certainly enough to cause someone to jump and praise God  . . .   Do I show my gratitude enough – I do try – it is not lost on me that I am incredibly blessed.  That doesn’t mean everything goes my way – I’ve had my tragedies and disappointments.   I am always aware that no matter what, I am not alone.  I know that what I have is in the name of Jesus and is possible because of Him.

I love the story of the disciples’ meeting Christ on the road to Emmaus, obviously.  I was, after all, inspired to name my blog based on the event. (Luke 24:13-35) The symbolism is so layered to me.  The idea of meeting Jesus and not having “open eyes” is so telling of our everyday lives.  How often have we met “Jesus” and we just didn’t know it?  There are numerous stories in today’s media filled world circulating about such situations and only later when their “eyes are open” do the characters in the story realize they have indeed encountered Jesus. We are bombarded with so many things in our lives; it is so easy to walk with “unopened eyes,” to not see what is the most important around us.  We must learn to recognize when “our hearts burn within us.”  When the Holy Spirit makes His presence known to us through that burn it is essential that we embrace it and jump and praise God  . . . the best is yet to be!

Not everyone celebrates “Easter” on Easter. This is an important point of the gospel that often goes unnoticed, in my opinion.  We need to move deeper into the understanding of Easter. It is not merely the day where we celebrate the belief that today Jesus rose from the dead, but rather a more expansive celebration where we celebrate hope and the continuation of life. Easter is a season, a series of days where we continue acknowledging constantly the joys and pains of what it means to exist in this world and continue the hope that it is all worthwhile.

Most of us are probably like the two men walking down the road with an unrecognized Jesus. Life and Resurrection are right there beside us, but we still don’t realize we should celebrate. To some, the stress of Easter is more of a hassle than celebration. To others, they might be living in physical and social conditions that make it nearly impossible to believe in resurrection. They are still living the passion. And there are those who feel like they tried to participate in Easter, but didn’t really celebrate. They may not feel the boldness and life that comes from the Resurrection. That’s OK. There’s still time. Not everyone celebrates Easter on Easter Sunday. It took the two men on the road a bit of time actually physically staring at Jesus before they realized what was happening and took the time to celebrate. Why should we be any different?

So for any of us still struggling to live Easter, let’s hope we can be like Peter and John in their encounter with the beggar and help each other. Let’s pray for each other. Let’s physically help each other. And through all this, let’s find a space where we might be able to celebrate the hope and life that is the Resurrection. Alleluia.

The Easter Challenge

As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we are challenged to expand our Easter joy to more than just hope in eternal life.  The resurrection is the pouring forth of the promise of the Holy Spirit here and now.  It is the assurance of the presence of God at this very moment, not just about what we can expect when we leave this earth, but while we are still here.  The bigger picture of the Easter story is that we have not been abandoned to hopelessness, ever.

 

But tell that to the poor.  Tell that to the beaten and abused, the tortured and the unjustly imprisoned.  Tell that to the terminally ill, and tell that to the lonely.  Tell that to the hungry and the homeless who wander the scourged lands of the earth.  Tell that to the people of this earth who feel in very real ways that they have been abandoned to hopelessness.

 While our faith in the resurrection is certainly about God keeping us safe and the assurance of abiding in hope for our own lives, we pray in Psalm 16 that God will also show us the path to life, and fullness of joys in the presence of God.  So if the death and resurrection of Jesus was about our liberation from the hopelessness of our own deaths, why do we have to follow a path to life?  Hasn’t it all been done for us already?  Yes, it has.  But life is not living unless it is experienced in joy, the joy of the presence of God.  So there is something we can do in response to our joy to make it fuller.

To more fully experience the presence of God, we will tell the poor, the beaten, the abused, the imprisoned, the sick, the hungry, the homeless and the lonely that they too have not been abandoned to hopelessness.  Christ is not just our hope, but the hope of the world.  The resurrection of Jesus is the redemption of all of humanity.  And it isn’t just about whether we believe it or not, it is about whether we feel confident enough to act on it

As I reflect on these lessons, I think about the reason why the first words Jesus said to those who saw Him after the resurrection were “Do not be afraid.”  I don’t think it was because He thought they might be afraid of ghosts.  I think He says this to us today, just as He did then, because His resurrection means that He is the fulfillment of the promises of God.  It’s not our fear of death; it’s our fear of life that we need to think about now.  If Jesus really is alive, then God really meant it when He said He loved us and we, meaning all of humanity, are worth saving.  That means nobody has been abandoned to hopelessness.  Believing in the resurrection means believing in the entire promise of God’s enduring presence with humanity.

 

I feel great joy at Easter, but the fullness of joy that I seek in the presence of God is not just about the relief that the fear of death has been lifted.  The joyful Easter Sunday celebration encourages me to identify with the suffering of others who don’t feel that hope.   Alleluia!  I pray today that I will not be afraid to stay on that path and share that Easter story by bringing hope and joy in very concrete ways to those who do feel abandoned.