If I met you on the road...

We travel far in distant lands to find ourselves, it's true.
Whether your hair is brown or red or moving now to blue.

God's truth speaks to us everywhere, we only have to hear
To see the power of His Word and hold each other dear.

An invitation I extend to share your walk with me.
We'll journey far to unknown lands and ever bless'ed be.

Provided that our destination's written in the Truth
Shed off the cares that tie us here and be unbounded Youth.

For Everlasting Man is known to each immortal heart.
We've faltered here from time to time and don't know where to start.

While different paths we walk some times will converge now or then,
Our pasts unite and we can choose to make the now the when.

- - - - -

Join me, please!
Let's see how far down the rabbit hole we can go.
It won't be easy, but we can have a lot of fun.
Peace

Amor Meus Crucifixus Est

Greetings, Friends! Today I invite you to love. Listen to the tender voice of Our Blessed Savior, the Word-Made-Flesh. He restores us to our inheritance by dying on the cross.

His mercy is unbounded and the gifts He shares with his adopted children are infinite. While most men look for glory and power, He leads us down the Royal Road of the Cross to establish peace. He never forces Himself on us and is always ready to receive us when we repent. How do I know this? I believe in the promises of Scripture and the testimony of the Church, and I see the power of Divine Love in my own life and in those around me. If life is all about our relationships, let us firmly establish a relationship with Him as the foundation of every other relationship we have.

Consider how He treated the rich young man. This fellow heard about Our Lord and sought His advice. He asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" In chapter 18 of his Gospel, Luke tells us that Our Lord "looked at him and loved him".  The response of the divine Lord was not bereft of human consolation. Before He answered, Jesus gave the rich young man what his heart desired (even if he didn't realize it): love. Jesus didn't just tell the man to give everything away, but first met the desire of his heart.

It's likely that this is just one account of many interactions that Our Lord had with folks around Him. But consider the account of the woman taken in adultery and the woman at the well. Have you ever considered that Our Lord initially met the emotional human needs of those whom He encountered?

Imagine every day Our Lord is walking through the streets of Galilee or chatting with his disciples and apostles on the shores of the lake. Someone approaches, asks a question, and the response of Our Savior is to love him. Not just give a rote answer or speculate about the good life, but Our Lord loves the interlocutor. How did Our Lord announce His purpose? "I have come to heal the broken hearted."

How many times to we do that? How are we helping to heal the broken hearted? Let's personalize this, as I think that's the intent of the Gospel of Salvation: that we make it personal. When someone asks you about the Faith, do you give a sterling intellectual account of the Mysteries that we contemplate, or do you invite the person to love? Do you try to meet their legitimate emotional needs and invite them to a relationship, or is it just about the words and how much fun it is to talk about cool things?

We see how the apostles were called and that they left everything to follow Jesus, but they didn't really leave anything of value considering what they received: The found the source and fulfillment of all their needs: Love. We can have that, too! What did Saint John say in the Apocalypse?

"Behold I stand at the door knocking. Anyone who hears me, I will have supper with him and he with me." 

Here is He through Whom all things were made, just standing there waiting for us to open the door.

Let's consider the woodcut that appears above. My favorite images of the Crucifixion have people in them. Don't get me wrong; the bare crucifix on my rosary and in each room of my home is wonderful. But my favorite shows the dynamic relationships that Our Lord had and how they endured even unto His death. In the woodcut, their appears to be Our Lady and John the Beloved. Note that name: John the Beloved. Wow! We even have the souls among the dead pictured and some angels floating about. We see in brief the entire Communion of Saints, and the angelic helpers of the Mystical Body.

I invite, you then, to walk with my and my Savior. Today while we enter into our own reflections on the Paschal Mystery, remember it's all about Love. Let us share our faith with our friends. Let's remember that we don't convert anyone. That's the work of the Holy Ghost. We can do something great in our evangelizing, however: We can try to meet the legitimate emotional needs of people whom we meet.

Saint James saw this when he wrote in his epistle (2:16):

... and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?

Certainly, we need to share an intellectual knowledge of the Faith with others, but I've learned in the street evangelizing that I've done that people listen to the Word of God when I show them that I'm really quite concerned about their needs. Their own needs. When I take the time to love someone and truly understand where they are coming from, I see how God invites me to share His life with others by demonstrating in a real and personal way that I'm concerned about their good.

Consider, too, how Our Lord acted during His Crucifixion. He was still making friends, even as He died on the Cross: "This day you will be with me in paradise." He wasn't all neurotic and needy. He wasn't showing off for His mom and asking His best friend to prop up His ego. That's love. He didn't complain about how much work He'd done to get there, he simply continued His invitation to Love.

And so, beloved reader, please know that I offer my prayers and works of the day so that you and I can continue to walk with Our Lord and build a civilization of love so that all things might be subjected to the One who redeemed us and set our captive hearts free.

Let's work to invite others to walk with Our Crucified Savior. Let's never forget that the most important thing is love. Let me know what you decide. Nothing would please me more than to know that you're walking with us. Remember, you'll receive no condemnation from me; this is just a gentle reminder of the gift that can be ours.

If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

Lent through the Eyes of Love

The Christian life is about the love affair between God and man. I see every aspect of our Faith as either contributing to the relationship of love between me and Our Lord or detracting from it. If I'm right about this, I'm going to look at Lent a little differently this year. I invite you to join me.

One of the great differences between Christianity and other religions is that for us, God is a Person, not a thing. (Yes, persons are things, but I'm speaking plainly here.) As a person, He treats us like persons and invites us to treat Him like a Person.

For instance, when Christians pray, we don't empty the mind; we fill it with God. Although through prayer and study, we can seek enlightenment, we don't attribute that enlightenment to the total negation of the self. Some religions propose that the self be absorbed into a kind of universal oneness of being. They may be right in a certain respect, namely that all things that have being are somehow united, but they seriously miss the boat when they believe that self-abnegation requires the destruction of the self.

In Christian thought, we lose ourselves in God only to discover that we are truly free and unique and that uniqueness is honored even by God himself.

I think this uniqueness of personhood is reflected in our prayer life. Our Savior wants to establish open lines of communication with us, speaking with us in intimate communion all the time. We see this in St. Teresa of Jesus's prayer. When she was travelling and her cart broke down in a rut of mud on a dingy road, she appealed to Our Lord and complained about her travails. She heard Jesus answer her in something of these words, "Don't you know this is how I treat all my friends?" Her response, borne of a life of intimate union with God was, in modern terms, snarky: "No wonder you have so few of them."

I love this story because it shows how Teresa's relationship with her Divine and Blessed Savior did not stop her from speaking her mind and being herself. Moreover, her relationship with Our Lord made her more herself.

When I think of my human relationships and my friendships over the years, I think about the number of times that I've realized that I was doing something that harmed my relationship with a friend. In my better friendships, I've been able to have a conversation about what I did wrong and what I could do better.

Sometimes our friends ask us to change our behavior for just a little while, or to practice impulse control for one thing. I have a fairly caustic sense of humor at times, and I've had friends say things like, "That's not funny now." or "I know you'll want to make a joke about this, but please save it for later." In my better moments, I honor their request. In my not-so-better moments, I don't.

At other times I've done things that actively frustrate my friendship and have been called to task. One of these times I remember clearly is when my best friend called me to task for speaking negatively to him in a joking manner. He said, "Let's not base our friendship on mock spite." It was an amazing conversation and a lot of the reason that we're still friends today. I'm thankful that he corrected me and I'm especially thankful that I took the correction and changed my behavior.

I think Our Lord identifies two kinds of things that we can do during Lent to improve our friendship with Him: Things that we deny ourselves for a time to show our love for Him, and other things that we try to give up for good.

This Lenten Season, I'm trying to look at the idea of a seasonal penance a little bit differently than in years past and try to phrase it in the context of my friendship with my Lord: Does Our Lord think I need to give up for good and what little things can I deny myself so that I show more clearly a deeper manifestation of my love.

I pray for the insight to change my behavior in such a way that I can deepen my friendship with Our Lord. I open myself up to His grace and I'm receptive to allowing His healing hands fashion my life.

A Tribute to Maryann Hassan

Since we have no city gates in our land, I must praise this good woman on the internet.

Her children rise up and call her happy;
   her husband too, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently,
   but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
   but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
   and let her works praise her in the city gates.

Proverbs 31:28-31

I had the blessing of going to an amazing funeral for an amazing woman. My kids pointed out the occupancy sign in the back: Maximum capacity 998. It was standing room only, and there were people lined up around the periphery of the church.

I met the Hassans through Seton School. I had heard about a family whose mom was sick with cancer and not expected to live. It took me two years to realize that there were not two Hassan families at the school. Maryann, with her gracious smile and never a word of complaint was actually the sick one!

Please help me to praise her "in the city gates".

Requiescat in pace!

Our Title Revisited: I don’t think I’m a relativist

I’ll preface this post with a warning: I may be wrong. If a gentle soul can direct me where I’m wrong, I’ll happily repent of my mistakes and correct them.

Plato identified one of the earliest relativists in his dialogue named after the relativist himself, Protagoras. The elderly sophist was quoted by Plato as saying “Of all things, man is the measure.” He enunciates the essence of relativism; namely, that each person can view reality and make up his own truth about what he sees. This view is contrary to philosophical realism and the teaching Church.

A fundamental tenet of relativism is that no external authority can dictate what someone believes. Catholic spirituality is based upon the principle that not only can an external authority dictate what we should believe, but an external authority has dictated what we should believe. Catholic spirituality is diametrically opposed to relativism.

In an earlier post, I referenced St. John of the Cross in his book The Ascent of Mt. Carmel saying “Here there is no law, for the just man is a law unto himself.” By this, I do not mean that there is no external authority by which we should judge ourselves. Nor do I mean to say that the “law unto himself” is a law that is self-motivated or derived simply from one’s own mind. St. John was particularly clear about the need for external direction and his books inculcate a deep distrust for idle manifestations of the mind.

The whole point of the Christian life is to conform oneself more closely to the perfect man: Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I believe (and think) that our goal is the conformity of the mind, heart, and will to become a perfect image of the Just Man. In no other way can we find perfection.

In the early stages of the spiritual life, attendance to an external law is the means of spiritual growth. Aided by grace, of course. Fidelity to the commandments, frequent meditations on the nature of virtue, exercise of the will in the practice of the good, and avoiding vices and sin mark these early days. In sin and in the early days of conversion, the “old man” is still active and dominant in the penitent’s heart. Such a man uses the precepts of an external law in order to leave the old man behind.

Some writers called these early days the way of purgation because they are marked by a deep suspicion of one’s own actions and motives. The great Carmelite cautions souls who are beginning their spiritual journey to be careful about their internal motivations and attend to what they have been taught about the moral law and the life of virtue. Exercise of the will seems to be difficult and engaging in spiritual things a trial. However, by prayer, the sacraments, grace, attendance to the moral law, and the practice of a devout life, in time new habits are formed that are virtues, ordered to the good and not to evil.

As these good habits become part of us, they become, as Aristotle said, a kind of second nature. Doing good becomes easier and more natural, almost spontaneous. Not as if there were no direction to their proper end, but doing good becomes almost easy, a likeness of which is the muscle memory of an accomplished musician finding the keys of the piano as he plays. He no longer needs to “think” about where to put his fingers, he just plays. Another example is a person who plays a sport and finds himself “in the zone” as we sometimes here. This is, perhaps, what some Eastern writers term the “Zen moment”.

As I understand it, when the master musician or athlete has practiced his art long enough, he finds his body responding to the internal order or harmony of what he is doing. So too the adept in the Christian life, after conforming his mind and will to the Just Man, no longer needs to “attend” to the moral law, he simply carries it out. The law no longer is, as such, the means to his conformity with Christ. This does not dispense with the law, but such a man no longer needs to think about the law so much.

He is a just man because he has become the Just Man. He has fulfilled the admonition of St. Paul to “put on the Lord Jesus” and become what our Loving Father in heaven meant us to be from the beginning.

Our title, then, is no relativist declaration that whatever I want, I can go after. Rather it is the recognition that, after years of toil in this valley of tears, I may be freed from slavish attention to the law and no longer find it a burden. Our Lord even said, “My yoke is easy, my burden light.”

By quoting Saint John, we articulate the summit of spiritual perfection, the perfection for which I hope and I strive. When the soul has been perfected, he no longer needs the external structure placed upon him by the law, for his actions so closely resemble Christ; no, originate in his union with Christ, that he truly becomes “a law unto himself.” Virtue and goodness flow from the soul’s conformity to the Just Man, as a spring of living water.

The amazing thing about this transformation is that once the highest stages of the spiritual life are reached, there is even greater attention to the law in all its integrity, but that attention flows from within the soul (even though it is always guided by the Holy Spirit) and does not come from outside as it did before.

No relativism is advocated here, just conformity to Our Blessed Savior, leading us along the royal way of the Cross until we find our resting place, in Him.

No Performance Standard

One of my favorite passages in the Gospels is found in Matthew 19:16-30 where the rich young man comes to Our Lord to ask what he needs to do to in order to be perfect. Pay particular attention to Our Lord’s response to this man. Some translations have it, “Jesus looked at him and loved him…” or “Jesus looked at him with love…” Before our blessed Savior responds to the man’s question, he loves him.

I hope my reader has had the experience of love on a human level. In human love one of our greatest experiences is the sheer delight of being with the beloved. “The lover seeks union with the beloved.” is an old saying but very true. Even in the pernicious relationships that only seem like true love, this desire to be with the other is all-consuming, we want to be united with the object of our desire, even if only physically.

The problem with human love, at least most of the time, is that we cannot perfectly love our beloved nor do we ever really feel perfect love from them. Human love tends to have restrictions and a performance matrix. Consider the first love of an adolescent. Warm feelings of tenderness usually come about from the physical appeal or the personality of the object of our love. And this is a good thing!

But when the object of our love falls short of our expectations, this merely human love can sometimes falter. It’s a little embarrassing to recount, but I remember having a crush on someone in middle school where she came to school on a Monday morning with a large pimple on her forehead. How hideous she was! Although she had several classes with me during the day and we frequently ate lunch with a group of our peers, I couldn’t stand to look at her!

The Divine Love, on the other hand, sees our pimples and still loves us. Even our defects and faults that are not clear to us are known to the Beloved, yet he still loves us. He desires the good for us and even works for that end. He loves us despite ourselves and works for us so that we can attain a likeness to His Son.

I used to think that God’s love for me was akin to my love for others, on a human level. On some deep emotional plane, I could not see that God loved me for who I am, for my personhood, that His love for me was the sustaining motion of my being. Despite my sins and numerous derelictions of duty, my Tender Savior was constantly reaching out his arms to hold me and sustain me.

There’s a kind of pride and inflated ego that operates in the soul of someone who thinks that he has to perform for God. To say that God’s love for us is dependent upon our fidelity to the Gospel is to hold out a performance standard for God’s love. But we’re told over and over in scripture that God’s love is unconditional.

For the rich young man cited above, St. Matthew doesn’t say, “Because of his prior fidelity to the Commandments, Jesus looked at him and loved him…” It doesn’t say, “Jesus, seeing the good works of the rich young man called him to perform more rigorously…"

St. Matthew says very clearly, “Jesus looked on him and loved him.” (Mk 10:21) Not because of what he had done in the past nor because of some estimation of what the man would do in the future, but merely because the rich young man was the object of His love.

If we read to the end of the story, the young man went away sad because he did not want to perform to the higher standard to which Our Lord was calling him, but the Gospel writers do not say that Our Lord stopped loving him. After the man left, he was still loved by God.

It’s true that Our Lord says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) But what the Sacred Text does not say is that if you’d don’t keep his commandments He will stop loving us. God loves even the demons in hell; the problem is that his love burns them because they do not accept it. Their refusal to cooperate with Grace is what makes them burn.

Let’s not make God’s love burn us. Let us pray for receptivity to God’s love, realizing that it is the basis for our conversion. I’m convinced that the chaos caused by scruples of conscience and the emotional pain we feel after we sin are the results of God’s love burning within us and calling us to greater conformity with His holy Will.

After we've accepted God's merciful love, let us share that love with others. Let's drop the performance standards that we set out for people and simply share God's love with them.

Praised be the Holy Name!

Conversion

Manifesting the principle that we need to be flexible, I started an hour or so ago to write about my battle of quietism and ended up with this instead! A Petrarchan sonnet for your consideration.

Conversion

Will this poor man surrender will to God

As urgent plea within his heart contends?

No desperation vast before him ends,

He has not come to truth by which he’s awed.

For many days and years this man has trod

against all effort, though ev’ry prayer commends.

Yet, soul, depraved, to ev’ry sin he bends

And kicks and screams against th’ eternal rod.

Have hope! This child does yet move in God’s grace

And Mercy! His most holy will enfolds

The awe-filled man embracing liberty!

He recognizes wherein ends the race

Heroic now his actions will be bold

Because he binds his will to actions free.

Comments are welcome! This is the first sonnet I've written since high school, so please let me know your thoughts. So far, I've received very little real criticism. An artist needs to know what to improve, so please feel free to share your thoughts!

Follow me on Twitter: @thegoodstate

God bless!