holy and beloved - December 26, 2010

It was a time to be warmhearted, to be time of tenderhearted; a time to believe in hope, in God. There were thick white candles with delicate orange flames reaching toward the ceiling, dancing toward heaven.

How easy it is to forget the behind the scene preparation for each Mass, to forget the ritual which precedes the rich, spiritual Rituals of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Here reverence and respect have an uneasy alliance. There is much scurrying, much hurrying. Patens and cruets have to filled and placed in the proper places. The chalice has to be covered and placed in its proper place. The ribbons in the books must be on the correct pages. There are voices saying hello, voices saying good-bye. There is much activity. There are questions about Mass, questions about brunch or the football game. It is a spiritual time. It is a very human time. It is a time for reflection. It is a time to search for chalice veil or a cushion for a chair or to ask someone to pray for you. Always people are walking this way, walking that way. Here is a moment of quick, joyous welcome. Here is a moment to accept a quick handshake, humble smile.

There is a little anxiety as volunteers arrive and ask for instruction.

There is a pureness in the moments leading up to a Mass, a moment of incorruptible high ideals and righteous as these minutes are freely, lovingly given in service to God.

There is laughing, water sipping, hand-washing, book skimming, slouching, standing, wobbling, joking, listening, praying. Here is a community.

Here is an opportunity to follow Jesus Christ, to escape the darkness and dangers of the secular world. Here is a time to be earnest, humble, and loving. Here is a time to seek illumination from God. Here we discuss contemporary hope and the encyclicals of the Pope. We ask about the Cardinal's ring which glancing at the processional song which we will sing.

There is a moment of silence, a moment of prayer, a moment when time does appear to stop, and Jesus Christ does gently appear on each face, each loving, believing face.

Send Them - December 1, 2010

"My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way." Matthew 15:32

How we interact with each other is very important. Each person's interactions can have either a negative or positive impact upon other people. Whether one person acknowledges another, listens attentively, opens a door can affect the actions and statements of others. Human beings exist within a hazy blur of hyperbole, creating crazy hypothetical questions about life, using hypotenuse triangles to explain this and that while trying to find each other's hypostasis. It is the search for the essence of the individual which sometimes leads men to God. The key ingredient of this search is whether we can see and/or sense evidence of goodness, kindness, holiness in each other. The essential element which we are all looking for is a sign of love. For unconditional love is the meat and potatoes of charity, humility, obedience to God. The key component is the ability of the individual to act in a way that is tender and non-selfish, a way that expresses honest concern and shows honest compassion. When this occurs, there is a moment of bliss, a moment of peace, a moment of hope when everything else is forgotten. This is a moment which should be cherished. The lessons of goodness, kindness, holiness are difficult to hear, process, accept, and imitate because they are often in direct conflict with how the popular culture dominated society behavior patterns where nothing needs to be respected, where being irreverent is considered the norm. Popular culture does not respect the soul of the individual, the souls of all human being. The essence of the individual is courageous in goodness, kindness; faithful in compassion, obedience; caring in words, actions.

Christians are asked to be gutsy, to have moxie, to develop and display dauntlessness, to be lionhearted, to have valor, to be valiant in the name of Jesus Christ, in both their thoughts and their deeds. Christians, simply, are asked to love and fear God and to love their neighbors. When a person is able to love, unconditionally, without compromise then finding the inner peace and the inner strength to be courageous.

Learning to commiserate with other people is a beautiful skill to have. This skill requires a level of courage. Being truly, honestly empathetic can provide understanding, hope. Being empathetic is active, asks each person to participate, to use their senses to explore and share the experience in a way pleasing to God, in a way that leads toward God, in a way that reinforces the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Christians are part of a group. How each individual describes and interacts with the group is very important. Attending Sunday Mass is important, but there is an underlying desire for each Christian to do more than that, to incorporate the lessons of love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ into their daily lives. Christians are often described as a flock of followers, a herd of believers, the assembled, the gathered. Christians consociate. Each Sunday Christians rendezvous and experience the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Each Christian has the responsibility of sharing his experience, the responsibility of asking others to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. The experience of being Christian can provide hope, love, courage. Being Christian is a beautiful consociation. Being Christian asks us to find the essence of goodness, kindness, and holiness within ourselves.

Hanging on Words

"It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.'" Luke 19:46

Many people have their own personal ideas about prayer. Many people have their own personal ideas about attending Mass. When we go Mass we understand that there is both a Liturgy of the Word and a Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Mass is a celebration. These things we know. But, what happens when we attend Mass?

Are we engaged and listening to each prayer and reading that we hear? When we recite the prayers and the creed, is our voice passionate, are we speaking with love and hope? When we receive the Eucharist, what is in our hearts, our minds, our souls?

As Catholics we are asked to be active participants. It is not enough to simply recite our lines. We must remember the life of Jesus Christ. We must remember the death of Jesus Christ. This is essential. As Catholics we must open our minds, be ready to learn about goodness.

Attending Mass should be a time of renewal, a time of peace. We should look forward to attending Mass. When we attend Mass, we should always remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and remember to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Attending Mass should be a way to show and share your love.

We must allow ourselves to hang on every syllable, every word that we hear during the Mass. There is a purpose for each word. As Catholics we must teach ourselves how to listen and reflect on each Mass. As the believers we must always hang on to every word and be prepared to encourage others to do the same. Our actions should inspire others to follow us and to believe in God.

Prayer is very important to us as Christians. How many prayers do we hear during each Mass? Are the prayers important to you? Do the prayers move you, make you think, help you to understand and remember the passion of Jesus Christ.

My Conversion

I sometimes think of my conversion and wonder how I would ever explain it to another human being. Would I stress love or would I talk of my soul. My conversion is incomplete. The journey continues. The itinerary changes each day, the destination remains the same. There is great charm in my conversion, endlessly reminding me of the need to be good, to be devout, to love others and myself. My baptism was remarkable. Over a period of a few weeks I learned the grace, delicacy, and confidence of faith, of believing in the Mystery of God. There are endless books on the philosophy and metaphysics of religion. I heard many conversations on those subjects and others. But, the most important idea which I learned and which I retained is that I am not insignificant in the eyes of God. I am loved by God. I have to respect God every second of my life. I have to be humble before God. I have to be obedient to God’s will. My conversion is more expansive than history or philosophy, in many ways is a movement orchestrated and influenced by God. There is always a desire to be like Christ. There is always a desire to love, to show mercy to all, to experience a grand universal love filled with an infinite awareness of the details of goodness and holiness. It is the experience of this love which teaches me how to be Christian, which keeps my mind aware of my strengths and weaknesses. Loving and serving God is an acquired taste, an acquired desire to be loyal, obedient, reverent, and loving. The psychology of a life with Jesus Christ begins in the sphere of love and continues to sphere of social justice; a life with Christ revolves around ideas of simplicity, sacrifice, and fairness. Oh, true hope, true faith are delicacies waiting to guide each one of us. A life with Christ is filled with many subtleties of emotion and awareness; I learned to close my eyes and to feel the presence of Christ Jesus in my life. My conversion is often in direct conflict with my personal affectations, my personal preoccupations. My conversion is a renewal of my social and educational interests, directed outward, searching for ways to serve God. My imagination finds new ways to serve him, new desires for goodness and holiness within my life. My conversion is the search for a pure and clean ingenuity and sagacity, created with a foundation of compassion, obedience, and love. Serving God faithfully with my entire heart, soul, and mind is my goal. There is something very exquisite in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. How fine the prayers are, how they tug at my heart, encourage me to desire to live a priestly life of love, obedience, and sacrifice. Each word teases my ears, plunders my imagination, leads me closer and closer to God. There is a gentleness, something very soothing, very renewing in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. And there is a bold rush, a zephyr pushing me toward goodness, holiness, serenity, pushing anxiety and thoughts of the secular world aside.

There is great beauty in my conversion. It is hopeful and peaceful. There is admiration, tenderness, gratitude.

My character now feels like that of a child filled with wonder and possibility.

Oh, I am dreamy at times. I am learning to pray.

Truth asks us to find Meaning

through the righteousness that comes from faith. Romans 4:13


Being Catholic affords us many opportunities for a continuing education in the mercifulness and love of God. We have daily Masses, we have the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have the sacraments. The aim of the Church is to provide the tools necessary for us to live simply, lovingly as Christ lived and as Christ wants us to live with fairness and social justice. We have the opportunity and responsibility to encounter and learn how to become better Christians every day. Our education in being Christian is not finite; new things are being added every day. The teachings and dogma of the Church are constant, lasting for thousands of years in some cases. How we apply the teachings and ideas of the Church does change.

We live in a time of white lies, coverups, statements, and declarations. So many words bombard us constantly. Politicians misleading voters, celebrities being unfaithful to their spouses, athletes having controlled substance problems. We hear these things every day. We read about them in newspapers and magazine. We wait for the next person, the next story, the next white line, the next denial, the next press conference with a short apology and some statement of regret.

Saying that we are sinners is easy; our society teaches us to admit this when we are caught with our hands in the cookie jar without a plausible explanation. We live in a time when every sin can be downgraded. The concept of sin is difficult for some people to accept. There are choices, good and bad. Sin surrounds us. We are in a guerilla war with sin and many of us do not know it. Our society now desensitizes us to sin, encourages us to sin, to act immorally.

As Christians we must always remember God. We must always remember that our lives are not simply for us but for him; we have the responsibility to be humble loving servants for God.

It is not enough to admit that we are sinners; we must understand what it means to be a sinner. The words are meaningless without knowledge and understanding. We live in a time of over-stimulation and meaninglessness. So much information is available to us in all types of formats, amounts, places. We can not process it all. We can not understand it all.

Sometimes, it is easier to focus on one thing, to try and learn about that one thing. Let everything else fall to sides temporarily. The Beatitudes are great for this. The Lord’s Prayer is also great.

As an example the Lord’s Prayer provides a great place for us to focus briefly. The Lord’s prayer appears in two of the Gospels. It’s structure is similar to the Ten Commandments. The first part relates to God, the second relates to us. The Lord’s prayer presents Christ’s idea about community to us. Notice the complete absence of the word “I”. Notice the use of the word “our”.

As Christians we must remember to seek out goodness. Being good is not a weakness; it is a sign of strength. As goodness grows within us, our knowledge of God also grows.

Truth waits for us. God waits for us. Words are transient. God presents each us with many opportunities to observe goodness, to learn about holiness. We have the Holy Scriptures, the lives of the Saints, prayers, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Sacraments, and we have each other. At some point in time when even we ourselves neither know or realize it we are by our actions teaching someone about our faith; about goodness, fairness, love; about God. It happens quietly, it provides hope to someone in need.

With patience and hope allow yourself time for a relaxed period of discernment, seek only Truth, listen only for God’s voice. Let your personal conceits and judgments fade into the background. Lead your thoughts toward the Light, do not worry or fret about dark, shadowy ideas. Concentrate on finding ways to be pleasing to God. Allow yourself to avoid any thoughts which would encourage you to neglect loving God. Simply believe and accept that being lovingly obedient and humble before God is necessary and profitable for our souls.Only direct our minds toward goodness, hope, forgiveness, mercy, love; the connection with God will grow. With patience, prayer and hope our eyes will see the Truth, our ears will hear the Truth.

Attracts Attention

A darkening sky. Windows alive with golden electric light. Looking up at the buildings, all concrete and glass and realizing, imagining that I am in another city, a larger city, no imagining that I am in a movie city, larger, grander, more eclectic. Looking at the pedestrians, smartly dressed, neatly dressed; looking at the shiny cars speeding through the intersections as the traffic lights change from yellow to red. This was how a visitor described the office buildings surrounding Farragut Square.

Offering hope, teaching love and forgiveness to an apprehensive, angst-ridden society engrossed in disproving everything, deconstructing goodness and holiness, depositing malignant doubt in the hearts and minds while talking peace and security. Amid the cataclysmic anxious downpour of fear and jealousy prayer can still help each person who takes the time to pray. Instability rules, encourages people to move away from their families for all types of temporal reasons. But, Christians are taught to praise God, to trust God, to love God, to obey God. These items will never change.

How do modern Christians describe their relationship with Jesus Christ, with God?

The gradual changes in the function of Christianity, as society alters, will, I hope, continue encouraging the conversion of adults. Being Catholic is a big commitment; being Catholic is offering your life to God; being Catholic is being a humble servant of God; being Catholic is learning how to love everybody and how to forgive everybody. These are just a few general statements about being Catholic.

Each Catholic interprets and practices the faith however they choose. We can not see what is in anyone’s heart. We look at individual interactions, how we talk to each other, whether we volunteer or not, whether we pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament, if we know what the Blessed Sacrament is.

Although Christianity is over two thousand years old, it is not static, not out of touch. The commandments and teachings are as relevant today as they were when they were first written. Mankind may have technology, but human behavior has not changed. The commandments can easily be expanded to fit all of the technological advances.

Since the beginning Christians have been criticized and ridiculed. At times there are lessons to be learned from the criticism. Sometimes this criticism is retrograde, irreverent, irrelevant. The basic sensibilities of love and forgiveness appear to alarm many non-believers who attack the validity of God, the Church with anger, heresy, misinformation. Humanity today faces the same problems as it faced in the past. The influence of the Church seems to ebb and flow; however, the message does remain the same. The nature and function of being Catholic involves a continual education process asking each one of us to listen to the Word of God, to contemplate about the Word of God, to apply the Word of God. Simply stated each Catholic is asked to constantly think about his/her belief in God and how to do God’s work. There is nothing decorative or extravagant about being Catholic. The principles of humility, charity, obedience remain very important and contain the essence of good behavior within the Church and in the society at large; all civilizations require good citizens who obey the law. It is in the Catholic mind and sensibility that the knowledge about the sacrifices, suffering of Jesus Christ is shared and remembered. This sensibility is plainly visible in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The mind can associate so much Church history and dogma with the Eucharist. Therefore, the importance of the Eucharist can never be denied; the Eucharist reminds us of God’s love for each of us, God’s hope for each of us; the Eucharist encourages us to share our hope, to share our love.

Christianity contains a natural appeal as it encourages love and hope. Believing in God always attracts attention.

A Struggle

Being human is a constant struggle between being critical or uncritical; each moment of our lives calls for some choice to be made, some judgement to be made; our criticism defines how we think, how we behave, how we love; as Christians we are asked to examine ourselves internally, examine our lives and how we relate to the world externally and then develop a road map to move closer to God, following the lessons and instructions from the Gospels.

Jesus Christ offers to his followers, a foundation of love and hope. This foundation is fortunate for all believers who have sympathy for themselves, their neighbors, their community, their country, their world. These believers learn how to do the beneficial thing, to say the honest courageous thing, to contemplate the loving faithful thing: that is the beginning of a Christian life. Learning how to balance the public and private components of a life with Christian ideals, Christian believes provide an opportunity for a close relationship with God, better relationships with others. Each Christian receives this opportunity at Baptism, it is renewed each time we freely attend Mass, each time we freely acknowledge that we believe in and love God. For Christians there is no public face; we believe, we love God. For Christians there is no private face; God sees and knows all.

By simply trying to love our neighbors we are being radical. By simply trying to obey the commandments we are being radical. Our simple actions can open us to all types of criticism from friends, work colleagues, family members. Jesus Christ taught us how to overcome this criticism. It is not always easy to do. We must remember that we love God; that we want to be humble, loving servants. We must pray. We must be silent. We must be patient. We will learn when it safe for us to walk through the angry mob.

Christ did not offer assumptions, suppositions; he offered a peaceful, just, loving thought and sensibility. The philosophical questions of his preaching and his action challenged the dogma and customs of his time. He followed his course, did the things that he had to do. As Catholics we are called to live our lives with a direct connection to Christ, with a direct experience of Christ through the Liturgy of the Eucharist. As Catholics we are called to commemorate the life of Jesus Christ when we attend Mass and also by all the choices that we make in our lives.

Being Christian requires activity, not rhetorical ingenuity. Christian lives involve the formulation of faith, hope, love from their abstract dictionary meanings into something alive, personal, vibrant leading us toward God. We live in a time of mass communication, mass confusion; the truth is often somewhere else; the secular world promotes the idea of the truth but then quickly debunks it, questions it, searches for some reason not to accept it. The validity of our faith, of our religion often is attacked within the media; this occurrence is sad—and yet expected.

Our appreciation and love for God is ongoing with prayer, almsgiving, fasting and other activities of humility, charity, and obedience. How others view this remains beyond our control! Our behavior must remain true to God’s teaching.

How to Respond to God's Call

Like many educated people, Priests talk to themselves. Maybe it occurs because of Aristotle or Saint Augustine or Saint Benedict or Pope Pius. Priests are human beings, who like to learn, who like to teach, who live to serve, who live to love.

I sometimes wonder about all the lessons from the Gospels, all the teachings of social justice and fairness, if this crazy noisy world is able and ready to understand the responsibility that all human beings possess to live just lives of peace.

But whether we learn to love our neighbors as we love ourselves from listening to the Gospels and homilies, or from fresh devotion of Him Whom we have arrogantly abandoned, or from careful observation and careful imitation of His faithful followers, it properly presents a definite relationship with God. For it is Jesus Christ by his Passion who does provide both an example and definition of love to Whom we ought to be especially grateful and humble before as our undeniable exemplar; to Him we diligently, patiently direct our free will as our way to follow him. As Christians we must accept that throughout our lives that different types of temptation and sin will cause us to abandon God; our lives will filled with prayers of hope, prayers of forgiveness, prayers praising him, prayers professing our love in him. Blessed is the Christian whose life and actions reflect a natural, loving belief and faith in God.

Observing the simplicity of the Liturgy of the Eucharist—and that not only the spoken prayers, but even the unspoken prayers—implies that some type of basic compassion or love be shown towards all human beings, this word 'love' might attract some secular cynical ambiguity when defined by others who might not believe in God like we do; however we can assert with absolute confidence that love is necessary when we worship God. Love, then, will not limit our relationship to God; but encourage and inspire each of us to embrace our neighbors also.

But it is only by learning to freely share our "love" without desiring any reciprocal action that we will discover and/or recover our personal humanity; it is a lesson of sacrifice and suffering and forgiveness. There is a moment when we publicly accept our unworthiness and request forgiveness. A Christian life requires reconciliation.

Love, in Ecclesiastical terms, seems to direct each Christian, away from the individual, physical, and earthly self, toward goodness and God. This love does not seek to possess; it only seeks to serve.

Further, humility accompanies this love. Humility directs our actions toward service. Our lives must contain service for God and for our neighbors. As Christians we have a natural relationship and concern for social justice and fairness for all our neighbors. Humility with our neighbors can lead us to beautiful spiritual awakenings.

Lastly, faith in God and love of God and neighbor can lead us to salvation. Allow yourself a moment to relax and to pray in your local parish church. Allow yourself time for a religious retreat. Allow yourself to listen for God’s voice. Always make time for to listen for God’s call.

And then learn how to respond to God’s call.

We Pray at Twilight

We live in a era that emphasizes leisure. We are sinners. Sibylline talking heads reinterpret the Bill of Rights. Byzantine parrots joke about how complicated our lives become as each new technological advance allows us to stay connected with each other. We murmur communication to ourselves in barely audible tones. We are trying to improve our lives.

Our lives still contain mistakes, failure, sin; modern society has removed public morality from the public’s conscience. Every behavior is accepted, every behavior is expected. Many people live moments of great compromise and confusion behind faded brocade curtains of sin and vice.

We live within great metropolises with malignant friends leading us into subterranean antechambers, crumbling and dark; our subways offer a glimpse of purgatory, a noisy chaotic moment when we must depend upon prayer, our own and our neighbors. Flattering acquaintances present florid complements to the bad weather, our bad natures revolving in the revolving doors, revolving with jealousy, revolving with avarice, revolving and revolving.

There were prayers to say on Sunday, hymns to sing on Sunday, and ideas and ideals to reflect upon, to incorporate into our lives. We listened on those poetic Sunday mornings to lessons about goodness, about morals; and we decided which restaurant we would be best for our brunch party.

Urban life beckons us with unending choices and sweet popular possibilities preserved within television commercials and glossy magazine advertisements present unending promises of happiness, fulfillment. Ironically we live with an era of typographical and grammatical errors.

The secular color of the moment remains an aggrieved gray, mourning, weeping like a discarded courtesan demanding the attention and courtesies from a younger yesterday. The sound of this discontent does not disturb us as it tries to attack our hearts and souls.

There are prayers before and after Communion for us to listen to, for us to think about. Being Christian is sometimes like being a travelling salesman moving from room to room, searching for leads, laying foundations for future sales. Being Christian is always examining ourselves, always trying to apply the Gospel teachings to our lives.

Sibylline coffee cups with enticing whipped cream wait to protest social justice, wait to lead you astray with words of discouragement, words of discontent.

But the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are beautiful yet ancient; they both offer and gently encourage love. We are asked to look within the unopened rooms within our hearts to find and release all of our love. Sharing our love will improve our lives.

There is always talk of murder and mayhem. Euthanasia, contraception, abortion have become accepted as natural modern living rights with slogans, supporters, and advertising campaigns confusing and/or losing the issue of the value of each life.

The hateful, profanity covered lyrics from some popular songs attack the pedestrians with machine gun like intensity from behind tinted glass. The faces on the street are lost, disillusioned, desperate and so much denim and so many people simply moving between eutectic points, freezing or melting, sinning and regretting. . . . We pray at twilight.

Devotion

A another thought about devotion to God, instead of modern compromise, it requires action and obedience. I had the joy of seeing many members of the parish kneel and pray during the liturgy of the Eucharist; I had the joy of hearing the prayers spoken by the priests; and yet, the expressions on some of the faces, expectant, anticipating, reverent, as the words “Body of Christ” were spoken which were both beautiful and inspiring. All of this happened in front of me. I had a feeling that I was unworthy.

It is the most delicate of hours; the love of God continues to flourish, but our deliverance will be guaranteed only by the price of our efforts when we feel and share our charity, humility, and obedience.

I wish my devotion was covered with flowers, and singing. My greatest consolation is that I understand the necessity of goodness and holiness; in small increments my life is changing to include them; being a humble servant of God is a complete way of life.It was a deep consolation to be together till the end.

It is fine of Jesus Christ to have saved this drowning disciple by providing the Beatittudes. We don't always realize and understand the reserve and beauty of heroism there is in being Christian, and among the young spiritual followers who believe in and understand the principles of fairness and social justice.

In regard to our Faith, I may tell you that daily prayer and weekly attendance are important. But what is in our hearts and souls are equally important. Please pray and strive to keep your hearts clean and pure.

As for my state of Faith, my devotion is increasing, my love of God does give me strength and hope, my desire is to be a patient, humble servant. Each day I learn a little more about obedience. As a Christian I must always understand that my duty is to love everyone as I love myself and to be a willing, loving, humble servant of God. I must always be ready to suffer and sacrifice in the name of God. I must always work to have a clean undefiled conscience and an enthusiastic spirit willing to offer praise and glory to God through all of the actions of my life.