The Beautiful Cross!

I can't do justice and will fall so short of a good explanation, but nonetheless will try. I am convinced so deeply that in no other way can we fully experience our Christ than through the cross. There is an exquisite and beyond this world reality which we can encounter by running to the cross. By loving Christ with such intensity that we choose to suffer with him. That we choose to embrace the often humiliating garments of poverty, obedience, and contrition. That we choose to walk the road of Calvary with our Christ, with our beloved.

Only when we can encounter him in this way, do we begin to experience a grace that is beyond any natural blessing. It is a grace wrapped in such an intense love that we are left with unspeakable radiant joy. Therefore, this at times is the very gift that religion gives to us. It builds for us a cross. A cross that will lead us beyond the very good blessings of this world, and to blessings hitherto unimagined as St. Paul refers, "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, that which God has prepared for us in heaven." I pray that all can encounter Christ in this way. Enrapturing us in his unequaled and unfathomable love.

A Bit of Heaven

When we see humility in another we see a bit of heaven!  Humility is the gateway to the kingdom.  It is the door that opens the soul to all of the gifts of God.  It is like the window of the soul.  When we encounter a humble soul we are taken aback.  We are struck by a beauty – at first so simple and unassuming – but then so penetrating and striking.  It is a glimpse of a purity and of a beauty which we have never before encountered.  Its qualities leave us speechless – we cannot even put an image to the reality that we have just encountered.

“Your simplicity is a kind of flame which scorches them.” (The Diary of a Country Priest, 187)  It scorches, yes, but it does not damage.  It is like the burning bush that Moses encountered in the desert.  Humility is holiness and mystery combined.  When in its presence we almost feel like we are on holy ground.  We then like Moses want to take off our sandals.

Yet humility nevertheless attracts.  Its simplicity is so becoming.  We are struck by its unpretentiousness, yet dumbfounded by its awesomeness.

A truly humble soul has encountered God in a profound way.  Their intellect and their will are totally consumed by the Word and the Love of God.  The Son and the Spirit have come to deeply rest in their soul.  They are truly tabernacles of the Lord and temples of the Holy Spirit.  And yet in their simplicity and their deep humility these souls are totally unaware of this presence with themselves.  And yet this is the ‘secret of their strength’. (Diary of the Country Priest, 185)

This is heaven on earth.  It is a foretaste of heaven.  The purity and sweetness of humility is the door that opens our eyes to the first fruits of heaven.

Once humility is witnessed in another our soul becomes enflamed to imitate this virtue in ourselves.  Perhaps in some this flame will wither and die just as quickly as it starts.  But for others this is just the first flame of what will later be an all consuming fire of love.  Humility will open the soul to a greater docility and to a deeper Faith and it is cultivated through sacrifices, penances, and sufferings.

Confessing Our Sins

The Holy Scriptures urge us to make an acknowledgment of our personal sins. (James 5:16)  The fact that we ourselves have let God and others down.  That we are at fault.  But this topic seems to address something that is so unloving.  The topic of sin is so negative.  Does not speaking of sin belittle our dignity?  Is it not negative to our psychological and emotional health?  Will it not lead to low self esteem?  

The answer to these questions is yes, if and only if, we see the confession of our sin as a negative event.  But it is not negative.  We are beloved sons and daughters of God.  Our sins do not define us.  Rather our Creator defines us, by making us into His image and likeness.  Confessing our sins, therefore, does not damage our dignity.  Rather as the prophet Joel says, it is an encounter with our God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in kindness.”  And how great is this love.

But our good and gracious God nevertheless always calls us to repentance.  To an acknowledgement of our sins and failures.  To a humble admittance of our weakness.  Sin, however, has become for us a word ‘wrapped’ in feelings of fear.  We are scared to even think about it.  We are scared what God will think about us.  We are scared what the priest will think of us.  God, however, does not want to scare us.  Rather he wants to lovingly heal us.

Our failings and our sins are like knots.  They bind us up internally.  We try to live with this internal tension.  We may even try to confess these sins to ourselves and to God in the silence of prayer.  But our deepest desire is to unburden ourselves to another.  To come to someone who can say ‘You are Forgiven.’  Christ has given this power of forgiving sins to the Church.  When Jesus was on Earth he lovingly forgave sins himself.  But as we see in the Gospel of Matthew (Chapters 16 and 18), Christ gave the apostles the power to bind and loose sins.  Now that Jesus is in heaven it is the priests who act in the person of Christ, thus following Christ’s words in the Gospel of Matthew to bind and loose sins here on earth.   It is Jesus Christ, acting through the priest in the confessional, who then unties our knots of sin and returns us to a life of freedom and joy.

Our God is such a good and gracious God – he is rich in kindness and mercy and slow to anger.  He does not want us to live in our sins.  He wants us to be free.  Therefore, may we come to the healing Sacrament of Confession.  For this Sacrament is not something to be feared.  It is rather a free and wonderful source of God’s all embracing and all healing mercy.  Where every confusion and every suffering caused by sin, will find the peace of Christ.

The 'Modern Fortress Malady'

View from Perugia - Looking at Assisi and Mt. Subasio

Ages long-gone, humankind used to war against its neighbors.  It was city against city, family against family, race against race.  Where St. Francis of Assisi grew up this scenario played out. The ancient cities in his region of Umbria warred against each other and thus secured themselves by building walled fortresses upon the sides of the mountains.  Today these cities have majestic and stunning beauty and are therefore striking religious and tourist destinations - but in years past these same cities which today offer such peace and relaxation were built for war and for the defense of their inhabitants.

Today we live in a blessed time.  Instead of warring against our neighbors, we embrace them.  Through our generous charity we send donations all over the world to help out our fellow brothers and sisters.  We embrace people of every race, culture, and creed.  This is a truly wonderful act that the ancient world would have been hard pressed to match; therefore, we should be commended greatly.  The Lord truly looks down upon us and smiles upon our acts of love and sacrifice for the many suffering peoples in the world.

However, in some ways we still suffer from the same shortcomings of the ancient cities.  Why did these ancient cities build walls around their cities?  Why did they send out their young men for battle every year?  Why could they not just find peace amongst their neighbors?  The answer lies in the common human fact: we all have a natural desire to first of all defend our possessions and secondly to pursue their increase in this world.  This is a good desire in many regards for God said, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen 1:28)  However, due to our fallen nature this good can often become distorted.  The currency of Christianity is ‘love’.  Without love all becomes distorted.  Thus in our pursuit of both our supernatural and natural goods we must always temper these activities with love.  And love calls for the sacrifice of ourselves for the good of another.  It is in this paradox that a Christian begins to find something that is more priceless than any worldly good.  The Christian finds the meaning of the Cross, the depth of Jesus’ love, and the path in which he/she can also enter and partake in this divine love.

Getting back to our analogy, the reason why ancient cities warred against each other is because they were trying to protect and to build up their earthly kingdoms.  They attempted to take the life of their neighbors in order to allow their own lives to prosper.  Praise God that today we have relative peace with our neighbors.  But in a different way, we likewise, suffer from this same ‘ancient fortress malady’.  Just like the ancient cities we as a society attempt to protect our middle-class comfortable life.  Figuratively, we put up stone walls around our hearts.  We erect fortresses on top of high mountains.  In our society, who are our enemies?  They are those who will threaten our comfort, those who will possibly cause us burden, those who will restrict our freedom.  Sadly in our society our enemies have become the most vulnerable, the unborn and the elderly.  These are the ones that cost us the most amount of money and time to look after.  These are the people that reduce our efficiency, our productivity, our ability to be successful.  They end up being seen as a burden in our society and therefore we find it easy to ‘war’ against them.

In his day, St. Francis of Assisi was able to cut across the borders of hate in the Umbrian countryside because he preached the Gospel of Christ’s love.  “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:7)  Likewise for us we must embrace the power of Love, the power of the Holy Spirit, and believe with all our heart that our ‘modern fortress malady’ will only be remedied through a radical living of Christ’s love.  We were not created to live a life of coldness – a life that attempts to hang on to our worldly goods at the expense of others.  No, we are called to live a life of vibrant generosity where love spills over in selfless abandon to the good of the other.  If we can live this life, we will then begin to taste the gift of Christ.  We will taste extreme happiness.  We will taste what God has made us to be!!!

Malta & Gozo

Malta & Gozo are stunningly beautiful.  The cliffs, at around 200 meters in height, plunge into the most amazing blue water.  The Blue Grotto, the Dingli Cliffs, the Azure Window, the Xlendi Bay are just some of the highlights of the natural wonders to be found in these isles.

Perched upon these cliffs, overlooking the vastness of the Mediterranean and the breathtaking cuts of the terrain one is struck with an overwhelming sense of awe.  Man seems to come in contact with a beauty, an immensity, and a grandeur that is beyond his very self.

Why is it that people will travel thousands of miles to see these natural wonders?  Why is it that in these remote locations, people are unceasingly present?  We do not see animals lining up to catch a glimpse of these breathtaking natural wonders.  No, rather we only find humans irresistibly attracted.

Wherever there is beauty you will find mankind.  For man is insatiably attracted to that which is beyond himself.  To that which is transcendent, perfect, and infinite.  To God in His very self!

Reflecting The Tender Love Of Our God

Holiness is about entering into the Family of God.  It is an entering into the embrace of true love.  A familial relationship and friendship based upon truth, sincerity, and compassion.  We are walking into the arms of our Family.  Into the arms of our Father in Heaven, into the arms of our Mother the Heavenly Church, and into the company of the saints and angels.  Our life is a preparation for this great homecoming.  A homecoming that includes all of God’s redeemed creation past, present, and future.

Our apologetics and defense of the Faith is, therefore, wholly inadequate if we fail to lead people into this encounter with the living God.  If we fail to bring them to an encounter with His eternal and merciful Love.  A love of unspeakable compassion and of untiring patience.  We must pray, therefore, for soft eyes and a tender heart!  So that we can convey to others this most tender love of our Maker.

The truth we profess as Christians is without question objective.  We will die to uphold this truth.  But our defense of this Faith can never be reduced to rigid and positivistic proofs.  We cannot be just solely intellectual in our defense of the Faith.  Rather we must love the person who attacks us with the most tender of loves.  We must look into their eyes and react in compassion to their antagonism, in sympathy to their confusion, in kindness to their bitterness.

If we do not react with this generosity of heart we will never reveal to them the greatest truth of our Christ.  The Truth that He is Love, that He is Mercy, that He is everything that they could ever desire.  Our Faith can never be proved, it can only be entered into.  It only comes alive in the mystery of relationship.  The greatest scholar could be the most distant from God, while the unforgotten widow with a sole tear in her eye and a prayer in her heart may just be the most near.  Our love of God urges us on to Know Him Better.  But never can knowledge replace relationship with Him.

May we therefore enter into our Faith with the joy of knowing that we are loved.  That we have a merciful Father in heaven who loves us more than we could ever imagine.  And with this humble love we can say with St. Catherine of Siena that ‘every step of the way to heaven is heaven.’

Sweetness in Suffering

Love calls us to die to ourselves in countless ways so that we can then give ourselves more completely to Christ.   We can do this in many ways in our personal life through various penances.  Ultimately these penances should be done so that we can begin in a very real way to partake in the redemptive sufferings of Christ.  Our love should lead us to desire to be at the foot of the cross with Mary as she weeps over the death of her Son.  But it is not just simply a desire to suffer pain, for this would be masochistic and totally unredemptive.  Rather this suffering is inexpressibly tied to love and as St. Teresa explains is unexplainably coated with sweetness.  Therefore, the soul participates in some very real and amazingly deep way with the mystery of God’s redemptive work.

However, our human nature is so reluctant to embrace this suffering.  The thought of this ecstatic love is quite attractive but when it comes to physically enduring this cross, human nature can never persevere.  Therefore, ultimately a soul can never succeed in this act of heroic love unless if it is buoyed and supported by grace.  Only God can give a soul the strength to live a life completely for Him.  However, this does not exclude the soul from hoping for and praying for the grace to love God in this heroic manner.

There are many advantages associated with this grace of sweetness in suffering.  First of all, as St. Teresa mentions, it insulates the soul better from the attacks of the devil.  A soul that is genuine in its desire to be with the Lord, will desire to suffer all things for love.  The devil, therefore, cannot allure the soul through worldly enticements.   Nor can the soul be saddened easily and led to worldly things for comfort.  Rather the soul is enraptured in a love that touches upon the very depths of its desire to give, to be heroic, to be loved.  The suffering the soul endures is as nothing, for in return the soul receives everything!

St. Teresa remarks that this favor also stimulates within the soul a greater desire to suffer for God and to have many crosses.  This is also a complete gift and a soul can never attain this through its own human strength.  But with grace the soul is enamored and strengthened beyond its capabilities.  The devil is unable to encroach upon the interior of the soul when it has this favor.  However, externally the soul suffers much from the various external attacks of the devil.  However, just as the devil’s rage led to the death of Jesus and to the redemption of all mankind; the attacks of the devil at this stage lead to the ever greater sanctity of a soul who is ascending to the Lord.  

Through this suffering our love is widened and expanded to the point where we are able to offer our lives for the good of all mankind.  Thus in a very real way we are given the grace to imitate Christ in his total self-offering on the Cross.  We learn to love the world as Christ loved the world.  Thus through our lives we begin to radiate within the world the very same grace that Christ gave to the world through his death.  However, obviously this grace that flows through us is never of us.  We are merely conduits and humble servants who are given the generous opportunity to serve our Lord.  But as St. Teresa says this service is filled not just with suffering, but also with a delectable sweetness and the knowledge that we are growing in the love of the Lord.  Therefore, St. Teresa shows us that there can be sweetness in suffering and that ultimately this desire to suffer is founded in our ever growing intensity and desire to love our Lord.