Our Breath: Sign of Mercy and Hope

In the near-crushing disappointment of contemporary politics, I thought some free-verse should convey what I'm thinking about things. Cast your cares on the Merciful Love of God and be open to His gifts.

This government, legacy of pigs who forced upon us "freedom".

Robbing all piety from nature, they throw us

into self-deception, wrought with fear.

All the strange folk from generations

plod along unknowing, unwoke, deeply feeling

nothing. 

Cast your eye towards Heaven and repent.

Oh, Sacred Tree, spring forth from nothingness.

Allow the stirrings of our heart to sing once more

Your song.

We're dead, though. We struggle now and then

To open eyes to things we dimly sense.

For what?

For renderings of love amidst the ruins

of an age now lost to men.

We hope!

For in the stirrings of each unwoke heart

we see a glimmer of some strange new force

Eternal.

Our own decision to receive God's Love 

gives context to the dead who, still asleep,

do breathe.

For every breath means life.

And where there's life

There's hope.

Condemn, then, not those men who are but boys;

Nor women who themselves deny.

But pray!

For Mercy everlasting works through you.

And in each breath finds love.

Gift

The free-est gift I give my self is to give myself to God;

And in the journey that I Work, I keep my feet unshod.

For in the giving of the gift the Giver gives to me

The Sacred Life that He did live and hung upon a Tree.

If self-denial is the quest that leads us to the Other,

Then we must make some sense of life attached here to Our Mother.

For nature only signifies transcendent things. It’s true,

And only saying “only” here brings me right back to you.

The dialectic we embrace has perfected our time,
And brings us to a sacred Gift that's hidden in our rhyme.

The only Real Person, then, is God Himself, you see.

But in that deep surrender, now, I find Integrity.

A Dialogue about Broken Dishes

Puer: I'm sorry, Pater, I broke the dishes.

Pater: Why are you sorry?

Puer: Because I broke the dishes.

Pater: But did you intend to?

Puer: No, Pater, I did not.

Pater: Then, my glorious Puer, why do you say you're sorry?

Puer: I don't understand.

Pater: It is good and holy to apologize for those mistakes you committed willingly. However, to apologize for something that was an accident imputes guilt to yourself that you do not have.

Puer: Well, Pater, I feel bad about it and I don't know what to say. I didn't want to break the dishes, but there they are, broken. You have asked me before to tell you if I broke anything. How can I make up for it?

Pater: Oh, beautiful Puer, I sense your heart. And I honor your emotions. If you feel sad about your loss, share your heart with me.

Puer: Yes, Pater... I will begin over: I feel sad that I broke the dishes.

Pater: Ah, my Puer, were they lovely dishes?

Puer: No, Pater, they were shabby, but I did like them.

Pater: If they were shabby, why did you like them?

Puer: Because I used them whenever my friends came over. Mater did not want me to use the good dishes. She took these out of the closet and told me she had saved them for me to dine on with my friends.

Pater: It seems to me, then, that you feel sad not only because the shabby dishes are broken, but that you do not have anything on which to share meals with your friends. Is that all?

Puer: No, Pater, I also feel sad, too, because Mater made an effort to save them for me and now I have lost them. I feel like I have dishonored her gift.

Pater: My dear and sweet Puer, honor your emotions and take some delight in the fact that you still have Mater, me, and your friends to create new memories. You honor Mater by feeling deeply that you may have dishonored her gift. And you honor me by sharing your heart with me.

Let us sit down, soon, and write beautiful poetry about the joy these dishes brought you. Let us also talk to Mater and see if she can assist you in obtaining other dishes for the times you entertain your friends. Perhaps the next time that your friends come to dine with you, you can grieve the loss of the dishes together and sing a song in their honor?

But first, let us attend to the mess in the kitchen!

Written on the Occasion of Being Asked to Sponsor a Young Man for Confirmation

Our openness to the Divine

And sanctifying grace

Is sharing in the sweetest wine

poured out in every place.

Our soul seems like the barren earth

That laps up every drop

Of nourishment from heaven sent

Don't ever let it stop.

But even though the Perfect Gift

Is giv'n every day

We do traverse a deep, dark rift

That seems to block the way.

A willing heart will build a bridge

Across the empty span

Though there's no wall, there is no ridge

That stops God's holy Plan.

Except a heart that is still closed

To His most gracious rain

Hearts are bitter that were hosed  

By wounds from human pain.

The heart that's wounded is so dear

To Our Most Gracious Lord

He longs to draw us ever near

But sometimes we sit bored.

And though we sit or even sleep

While others labor hard

His Mercy is so very deep

Like "aromatic nard".

When you're Annointed, soon, dear boy

Open your heart to God

He will not treat you like a toy,

But waits for you to nod.

Your head will show Him of your love

Your willingness to serve

Your open heart will rise above

The ridge if you have nerve.

I give you now my hand to hold

So open wide your heart

That as you age and become old

From Him you will not part.

Fraternal Correction or Verbal Torture?

The principle that we should correct our brother if he is sinning is mandated by Our Lord in Matthew 18:15. But what does this look like? The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1829 says that fraternal correction is the fruit of love:

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.

The Catholic Encyclopedia asks that we consider the following circumstances before we subject someone to the torture of fraternal correction:

1. The delinquency to be corrected or prevented is a grievous one;
2. there is no good reason to believe that the sinner will adequately provide for himself;
3. there is a well-founded expectation that the admonition will be heeded;
4. there is no one else just as well fitted for this work of Christian charity and likely to undertake it;
5. there is no special trouble or disadvantage accruing to the reformer as a result of his zeal.

Considering the foregoing, it seems to me a good idea to reflect on what charitable fraternal correction looks like. I think that the best attempt at fraternal correction is done:

• with prayer,
• if you don't have the same fault,
• after taking counsel from wise peers who are familiar with the person you want to correct, and 
• if you're not trying to control the person.

Fraternal correction is fundamentally an invitation. If it's not a big fault, suffer their presence in love and see if they don't realize themselves that they need to change. For instance, I know I'm loud and my friends have to put up with that from me. I'm aware of it and, from time to time, folks ask me to keep my voice down. My best friends tolerate how loud I am, and I'm thankful for that. There's a lot of give and take in any relationship, so be careful that what you're correcting is a real sin and not just a quirk of personality.

One of the greatest obstacles in living the Christian life is being upbraided by people who really want to control you. We've all met folks like that. Their practice of the faith is wrapped up in their own idealization of what they perceive to be good, mixed up with some personality defects, combined with contempt for anyone who doesn't do things their way. On a profound level, when they correct you, what you experience is a kind of revulsion at their own lack of authenticity. See the image, above.

Let's say your brother has a fault. The first thing to do is pray about it. If you have conversational intimacy with Our Lord, this is an easy thing. He'll tell you right away whether or not you should be concerned about the fault. Be careful to discern whether it's a sinful behavior or just a personality quirk.

Next, ask yourself if you have the same fault. If you do, then please don't correct your brother until your fault is at least on the way to being reformed. The essence of hypocrisy, it seems to me, is the assault on others when you're guilty of the same thing. If you can't correct your own fault first, and there's some grave matter involved and the other person needs correcting, see if you can ask another person familiar with the situation to correct your brother instead of you.

Seek wise counsel before correcting anyone. See if another person who can be trusted will support your effort through prayer and good advice. If other people see the same problem as you do, it's likely a good idea to go ahead with the correction. If others do not see the problem, be careful.

Finally, make sure you're not trying to control the person. Since one of the great dangers in the spiritual life is the notion that our own idealization of the good is absolute and everyone should do everything the way we do, be very careful that when you correct your brother you are merely pointing out a fault that you consider to be harmful, either to the person or to another, and invite your brother to reform.

If you have a legitimate position of authority over your brother, you can certainly assign a consequence to his not reforming, but I think that the best approach is to merely invite your brother to reform. Think about St. Therese of the Child Jesus who remarked, "I thank God that it's not my job to correct her." when she was asked by another member of her monastery to tell a different sister what to do.

This last part is especially important to consider: Love extends itself to another and invites the other to communion. Love never forces the will of another.

Now that this is out in the open, let's get around to engaging in true reform of ourselves, by the grace of God, so that we can carry on the work of the Gospel and invite our friends to embracing the good life with vigor. Peace!

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.