As we today celebrate the testimonies Sts. Peter and Paul, I offer three questions posed by the Lord to St. Peter as points of entry for reflection as we each discern God's call for our lives. Invite you to ponder and chew over these questions.
1. What are you looking for? (John 1:38)
What is it that your heart is seeking?
Where is it seeking it?
What is the cry of my heart?
Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." (Matt 6:21)
2. Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15)
Who is Jesus to you?
What aspects of his mystery have you encountered in your life?
Jesus said, "Whoever knows and obeys my commandments is the person who loves me. Those who love me will have my Father's love, and I, too, will love them and show myself to them." (John 14:21)
3. Do you love me more than these? (John 21:15)
What would 'these' be for you?
Would you be able to renounce them for the sake of Jesus?
Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?" (Luke 9:23-25)
I believe these three questions are key to our discernment because a) it gets us in touch with the dynamics of our own hearts and b) it allows us to see where that heart stands in relation to the Lord.
As these questions are posed to us again in light of our discernment, it is important that we remember two things:
1) IT IS GRACE THAT SAVES US
Jesus builds his Church on the weak rock that is Peter. What I most appreciate about him is precisely his weakness. Every time Peter opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it. "He walks on the water – but then panics and starts to sink. He makes the first profession of faith – and moments later blunders into error and is called Satan by the Lord. He refuses to be washed, and then, when the purpose is explained to him, demands to be washed all over. And, of course, he betrays his master soon after having been warned that he will and having sworn not to. If Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, what a fissured and friable rock it is!...
In the end, it was grace that gave the coward the courage to bear witness when it counted, grace that gave the fool the wisdom he needed to set the infant Church on her way, grace that taught the impetuous man patience and forbearance."
No practice of virtue, however hard we may try, will ever give us that strength to overcome this humanity so deeply held by sin, evil and death. If ever we accomplish anything, it is the grace of the Lord at work precisely in our weakness.
Peter and Paul well understood this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. (2 Cor 12:10-11) I hope in our journey of discernment that we too learn well this lesson.
2) PRAY PRAY PRAY
Discernment begins on our knees, in silent prayer before the Lord, because like Peter, our vocation emerges from our encounter with Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Prayer reminds us that this is not our work, that we are but servants in the Lord's vineyard. In the white heat of Archbishop Romero words,
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
Sts. Peter and Paul nourished the early Church with their blood. Through their intercession, may our own lives be poured out as a libation to the Lord so we can say with St. Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6-8)
Oremus pro invicem.
Let us also pray for one another as we each discern God's call for our lives.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
DARK NIGHT
One of my favourite poems translated with captivating force by Roy Campbell
UPON a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.
In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
(O happy enterprise)
concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.
Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.
It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.
Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning’s pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.
Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.
Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.
Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.
-- Saint John of the Cross
UPON a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.
In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
(O happy enterprise)
concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.
Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.
It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.
Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning’s pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.
Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.
Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.
Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.
-- Saint John of the Cross
Thursday, June 4, 2009
VERTIGO
A Reflection on U2's Song, Vertigo
You can listen to the song here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWZ7bpfQag
Ver·ti·go \ˈvər-ti-ˌgō\
a dizzy confused state of mind
Lights go down, it's dark, the jungle is your head, it can't rule your heart
A feeling so much stronger than a thought...
I can't stand the beats...The girl with crimson nails has Jesus 'round her neck
As a homosexual man, my contingent reality is Love as a dark jungle overwhelming emotion and logic.
And as a deeply religious man, my homosexuality often chocked my faith in frustration, struggling to make sense of two seemingly incongruous entities. In an effort to help, voices attempted to eliminate one in favour of the other dismissing dialogue as compromise: Personal experiences are used as weapons against faith and faith is often used as an escape from genuine experiences.
...I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
But you give me something I can feel
In my own meandering journey, I recognized value in a dissonant, no-holds-barred dialogue between the two, mutually questioning each other. My contingent reality must question faith's reasons for the parameters that it sets and why it cannot simply rubber-stamp the current trend. Yet experience must also be open to faith's scrutiny: What ultimately do I want? Who defines me and why?
Faith without experience is an ideological fantasy and experience without faith is an impotent hope.
With these two wings, one is assumed into that Love who is the source and summit of our innate restlessness.
Your love is teaching me how to kneel, kneel...
You can listen to the song here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWZ7bpfQag
Ver·ti·go \ˈvər-ti-ˌgō\
a dizzy confused state of mind
Lights go down, it's dark, the jungle is your head, it can't rule your heart
A feeling so much stronger than a thought...
I can't stand the beats...The girl with crimson nails has Jesus 'round her neck
As a homosexual man, my contingent reality is Love as a dark jungle overwhelming emotion and logic.
And as a deeply religious man, my homosexuality often chocked my faith in frustration, struggling to make sense of two seemingly incongruous entities. In an effort to help, voices attempted to eliminate one in favour of the other dismissing dialogue as compromise: Personal experiences are used as weapons against faith and faith is often used as an escape from genuine experiences.
...I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
But you give me something I can feel
In my own meandering journey, I recognized value in a dissonant, no-holds-barred dialogue between the two, mutually questioning each other. My contingent reality must question faith's reasons for the parameters that it sets and why it cannot simply rubber-stamp the current trend. Yet experience must also be open to faith's scrutiny: What ultimately do I want? Who defines me and why?
Faith without experience is an ideological fantasy and experience without faith is an impotent hope.
With these two wings, one is assumed into that Love who is the source and summit of our innate restlessness.
Your love is teaching me how to kneel, kneel...
CONTINGENT GRACE
Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word,
Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being;
Bestial as always before, carnal, self seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,
Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;
Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.
(T.S. Elliot, Choruses from the Rock)
Pain is the kiss of love.
Love offers the highest ideal yet also lacerates the deepest wound. Thus, Yeats diagnosed love as "the crooked thing. There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it." (Brown Penny) Enraptured, the heart follows its own rhythm, at times overwhelming emotion and logic. Its ultimate goal: fulfillment. Restless by nature, the heart looks beyond itself to the other as the locus of its fullness in the affirmation of its existence, in the revelation of its meaning and reason for living. Pope John Paul II identified this restlessness as the lifeblood of that which is most deeply human: “the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience.” (Redemptor Hominis, 18) This pilgrimage to meaning is deeply rooted, inflamed by an innate affection for this 'other' to which I long to offer my life, time, treasures and talents. Some can choose to understand this as humans being innately selfish, desiring only their own self-realization. There is accuracy in this because humans begin with themselves. Where else can I begin other than myself, introspectively delving into my being, questioning my life and the meaning of my existence? In fact, isn't the best gift that which comes from the depths of the heart?
Love is more than a happy, romantic feeling. Its voice speaks to the deepest self, offering it the drive to look for purpose and beauty. As a man attracted to the same sex within a context where most of my male peers are attracted to the opposite, I felt the searing sting of unsatisfied desire. I went through times when I was caught up in love's dangerous embrace, simply to be teased by unfulfilled affection. I was so drawn that I preoccupied myself with everything that this collective 'he' did. I treasured every part of the little insignificant things that made our relationship, got raptured into pure bliss at every attention received from him and sank into deep despair when felt ignored or rejected. I recklessly delved into conjugal acts that only left me more empty and yearning.
The Song of Songs well worded the condition of my heart: "I sought him but I did not find him; I called to him but he did not answer me" (5:6). I was ushered into the dark side of love, to its night. Love has its nights as much as it has its days, its winter as much as it has summers and both have much to teach. The midnight of love, beyond infatuation and lust, is a refining fire burning away the impurities to have only pure gold, a pure, real and most authentic self. It is easy to run away from this, it is easy to fill the hole, to run to someone else just to avoid feeling lonely, feeling alone, feeling rejected and unwanted.
Then a voice within, with a forceful tenderness of a mother, asked, "What would happen if you allowed the pain to speak to you, if you stayed with the loneliness, the rejection and the abandonment?" It would be like Alice falling into the rabbit hole and continually being asked, "Who are you?" with the only answer being apophatic: "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid... because I'm not myself, you see. I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly... for I can't understand it myself to begin with." It is ultimately, in the words of Luigi Giussani, "the thirst for change in one's life and the desire for one's life to be coherent, that it may be changed on the strength of what it is at its root, that it may be more worthy of the Reality that "clothes" it." (From Utopia to Presence)
Passing through this valley of tears, what I thought made me ME was scrutinized. It returned me again to the beginning, to the question of existence and meaning, down a vertiginous quest that drove me to the limits of my understanding of myself and the world, almost to a point of sheer madness. Love pushed me to the peripheries of my world of comfort and plunged me into a realm beyond myself. Love transcended my humanity, my world, even humanity itself. The affection for love, in its very nature, carried me beyond the human and into the arms of this total 'Other' who dares to call himself LOVE, to this 'Other' whose face is one yet three: Love given, received and shared. It is the journey of the soul to its meaning, to its destiny. So why did I stay? Why take the red pill and dare jump into the rabbit hole of love? What was at stake was my very life.
In the words of Morpheus,
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.
Did not Dante pen a similar experience?
MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say,
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
The forest of the dark night is deep. In this ascent, I am confronted with my own finitude, humbled by my own littleness in the face of Mystery in its totality. I cannot reach it unless it reveals itself to me, unless it makes itself accessible to my embodied existence. Is this not what makes love authentic? That it is seen, touched, heard, even tasted? Regardless of its infinite nature, Love desires to be made known through the body. Can love really be expressed outside of the body when this is our sole means of communication, or to better articulate it, that the body is the sole medium for our gift and reception of love?
Trinity and Incarnation. In my own meandering experience, this is the face of love revealed to me: Love whose nature is a unity of Persons who reaches out to me in embodied form.
The journey is far from over. It has just begun. Along this road, two lamps are my guide: The reality of my experience and the conviction of my faith. Experience and faith continually question each other, often in a dissonant dialogue. Experience prevents faith from becoming an ideology and faith prevents experience from superficiality. In the words of Tennyson: "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! (Ulysses)
In this invitation to depth and height, searching leads to surrender: "This passion is the opposite of moralism because it is not a law to which we must conform but a love to be ever more adhered to, it is a presence for us to follow ever more with our whole selves, it is a fact within which we can really abandon ourselves." (Giussani, From Utopia to Presence)
It is the sign of contradiction: My Redemption came through suffering, light travelled through night, chastity has dignified my sexuality. The end is the beginning, eternity has embraced time, grace has built on nature, deep has called on deep and the Beloved rests its head on the bossom of his Lover.
The fire of the wild white sun has eaten up the distance between hope and despair. Dance in this sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction.
You fool, it is life that makes you dance: Have you forgotten? Come out of the smoke, the world is tossing in its sleep, the sun is up, the land is bursting in the silence of dawn.
You fool, the prisons are open!
(Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable)
Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being;
Bestial as always before, carnal, self seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,
Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;
Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.
(T.S. Elliot, Choruses from the Rock)
Pain is the kiss of love.
Love offers the highest ideal yet also lacerates the deepest wound. Thus, Yeats diagnosed love as "the crooked thing. There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it." (Brown Penny) Enraptured, the heart follows its own rhythm, at times overwhelming emotion and logic. Its ultimate goal: fulfillment. Restless by nature, the heart looks beyond itself to the other as the locus of its fullness in the affirmation of its existence, in the revelation of its meaning and reason for living. Pope John Paul II identified this restlessness as the lifeblood of that which is most deeply human: “the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience.” (Redemptor Hominis, 18) This pilgrimage to meaning is deeply rooted, inflamed by an innate affection for this 'other' to which I long to offer my life, time, treasures and talents. Some can choose to understand this as humans being innately selfish, desiring only their own self-realization. There is accuracy in this because humans begin with themselves. Where else can I begin other than myself, introspectively delving into my being, questioning my life and the meaning of my existence? In fact, isn't the best gift that which comes from the depths of the heart?
Love is more than a happy, romantic feeling. Its voice speaks to the deepest self, offering it the drive to look for purpose and beauty. As a man attracted to the same sex within a context where most of my male peers are attracted to the opposite, I felt the searing sting of unsatisfied desire. I went through times when I was caught up in love's dangerous embrace, simply to be teased by unfulfilled affection. I was so drawn that I preoccupied myself with everything that this collective 'he' did. I treasured every part of the little insignificant things that made our relationship, got raptured into pure bliss at every attention received from him and sank into deep despair when felt ignored or rejected. I recklessly delved into conjugal acts that only left me more empty and yearning.
The Song of Songs well worded the condition of my heart: "I sought him but I did not find him; I called to him but he did not answer me" (5:6). I was ushered into the dark side of love, to its night. Love has its nights as much as it has its days, its winter as much as it has summers and both have much to teach. The midnight of love, beyond infatuation and lust, is a refining fire burning away the impurities to have only pure gold, a pure, real and most authentic self. It is easy to run away from this, it is easy to fill the hole, to run to someone else just to avoid feeling lonely, feeling alone, feeling rejected and unwanted.
Then a voice within, with a forceful tenderness of a mother, asked, "What would happen if you allowed the pain to speak to you, if you stayed with the loneliness, the rejection and the abandonment?" It would be like Alice falling into the rabbit hole and continually being asked, "Who are you?" with the only answer being apophatic: "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid... because I'm not myself, you see. I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly... for I can't understand it myself to begin with." It is ultimately, in the words of Luigi Giussani, "the thirst for change in one's life and the desire for one's life to be coherent, that it may be changed on the strength of what it is at its root, that it may be more worthy of the Reality that "clothes" it." (From Utopia to Presence)
Passing through this valley of tears, what I thought made me ME was scrutinized. It returned me again to the beginning, to the question of existence and meaning, down a vertiginous quest that drove me to the limits of my understanding of myself and the world, almost to a point of sheer madness. Love pushed me to the peripheries of my world of comfort and plunged me into a realm beyond myself. Love transcended my humanity, my world, even humanity itself. The affection for love, in its very nature, carried me beyond the human and into the arms of this total 'Other' who dares to call himself LOVE, to this 'Other' whose face is one yet three: Love given, received and shared. It is the journey of the soul to its meaning, to its destiny. So why did I stay? Why take the red pill and dare jump into the rabbit hole of love? What was at stake was my very life.
In the words of Morpheus,
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.
Did not Dante pen a similar experience?
MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say,
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
The forest of the dark night is deep. In this ascent, I am confronted with my own finitude, humbled by my own littleness in the face of Mystery in its totality. I cannot reach it unless it reveals itself to me, unless it makes itself accessible to my embodied existence. Is this not what makes love authentic? That it is seen, touched, heard, even tasted? Regardless of its infinite nature, Love desires to be made known through the body. Can love really be expressed outside of the body when this is our sole means of communication, or to better articulate it, that the body is the sole medium for our gift and reception of love?
Trinity and Incarnation. In my own meandering experience, this is the face of love revealed to me: Love whose nature is a unity of Persons who reaches out to me in embodied form.
The journey is far from over. It has just begun. Along this road, two lamps are my guide: The reality of my experience and the conviction of my faith. Experience and faith continually question each other, often in a dissonant dialogue. Experience prevents faith from becoming an ideology and faith prevents experience from superficiality. In the words of Tennyson: "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! (Ulysses)
In this invitation to depth and height, searching leads to surrender: "This passion is the opposite of moralism because it is not a law to which we must conform but a love to be ever more adhered to, it is a presence for us to follow ever more with our whole selves, it is a fact within which we can really abandon ourselves." (Giussani, From Utopia to Presence)
It is the sign of contradiction: My Redemption came through suffering, light travelled through night, chastity has dignified my sexuality. The end is the beginning, eternity has embraced time, grace has built on nature, deep has called on deep and the Beloved rests its head on the bossom of his Lover.
The fire of the wild white sun has eaten up the distance between hope and despair. Dance in this sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction.
You fool, it is life that makes you dance: Have you forgotten? Come out of the smoke, the world is tossing in its sleep, the sun is up, the land is bursting in the silence of dawn.
You fool, the prisons are open!
(Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Ecce Homo
For the Way of the Cross in Rome in 2005, the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, reflected in the Third Station: (Note - We used his prayers and reflections for our Way of the Cross in 2006)
Man has fallen, and he continues to fall: often he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but a mockery of the Creator... In Jesus’ fall beneath the weight of the Cross, the meaning of his whole life is seen: his voluntary abasement, which lifts us up from the depths of our pride. The nature of our pride is also revealed: it is that arrogance which makes us want to be liberated from God and left alone to ourselves, the arrogance which makes us think that we do not need his eternal love, but can be the masters of our own lives. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, creator and judge, we fall headlong and plunge into self-destruction. The humility of Jesus is the surmounting of our pride; by his abasement he lifts us up. Let us allow him to lift us up. Let us strip away our sense of self-sufficiency, our false illusions of independence, and learn from him, the One who humbled himself, to discover our true greatness by bending low before God and before our downtrodden brothers and sisters.
It is this profound mystery of man's abasement and Christ's self-emptying that SPYG sharply intuited for this year's Way of the Cross. As the Sorrowful Way progresses, there runs parallel to Christ's journey, the journey of another man who, desirous of becoming the 'perfect' man, makes himself the measure of his actions. In this disordered affection, he, lured by evil, is gradually blinded from truth, love and genuine beauty. In a certain sense, the journey of the Son of God to the place of the skull is a passionate run towards humanity who lie fallen, profaned in it's own self-absorbed pride. Christ 'empties himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7) in order to meet humanity who, having turned from God, has became a slave to sin and its daughter, death.
In a moving scene in the Third Fall, the man, fully clothed in sin, is emptied from within, is hollowed. The attempt to free himself of his own slavery is of no avail, reducing him to a helpless and pathetic caricature. It is this same posture that the Son of God takes upon himself-- in the words of the prophet, Christ has become less than a man, more like a worm crawling its way through dirt. (Psalm 22:6) In this way, the Divine Condemned One shows the true meaning of compassion: Cum Passio - To suffer with. Christ takes himself the sin of the world, the sin of humanity in the burden of the Cross and in so doing, places himself in that same state of slavery where humanity lie fallen. He meets humanity face to face and with his strength as God, he lifts humanity up again.
Raised up, the man kneels before the suffering Christ. What other posture can we have other than humble adoration before this God who empties himself to save us? Meditating on the Greek word for adoration, which is proskynesis, the Holy Father teaches us, "It refers to the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, supplying the norm that we choose to follow. It means that freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness, so that we ourselves can become true and good. This gesture is necessary even if initially our yearning for freedom makes us inclined to resist it. (Homily, WYD 2005) It is to Jesus to whom we render our worship. We must be careful that we do not use the Way of the Cross to glorify only ourselves and our talents without reference to Him who graced us with such gifts. We must be careful, in the end, not to celebrate only ourselves. All those called to 'watch and pray' must leave with praise only for what the Lord has done with his blessed Cross. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give the glory!" (Psalm 115:1) We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You for by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world!
As we enter the Octave of Easter, having contemplated the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord, we would do well to ask ourselves: By what do I measure my humanity? By what do I measure my worth as a human being?
The eyes of others?
How I look?
Who I'm with?
What I wear?
What I own?
How much I have?
What I can do?
All of these feed us with the lie, the terrible lie, that our deepest core is of no value, no worth, and therefore must be clothed with value, the void must be filled and silenced. Voices, many voices, will come offering only illusion and delusion, and in the end, we become as empty and shallow as these passing things to which we rendered our worship. In the Gospel of John, Pilate, when presenting Jesus to the crowd cries out: ECCE HOMO! Behold the Man! (John 19:5)
Behold the Man, emptied, naked and bleeding.
Behold the Man, whose words once moved hearts and is now silent.
Behold the Man whose hands, once working wonders, now bound.
Behold the Man, acclaimed as King, now crowned with thors.
Behold the Man, who can summon legions of angels, standing powerless before the powers of this world.
Ecce Homo! Behold Him who spoke to us at the ninth station: Behold, Beloved, the poorest king who ever lived. Before my creatures I stand stripped.... Yet who has ever been so rich? Possessing nothing, I own all –my Father’s love.
This, THIS is the measure of our humanity. This is what it means to be human. This is THE difference between the Way of the Cross of Christ which is the Way of the world: "One who chooses to follow Christ, on the other hand, avoids being wrapped up in himself and does not evaluate things according to self interest. He looks on life in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not in terms of conquest and possession. Life in its fullness is only lived in self-giving, and that is the fruit of the grace of Christ: an existence that is free and in communion with God and neighbour (cf. Gaudium et spes, 24)....Therefore, the choice is between being and having, between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and falsehood. (John Paul II, WYD 2001) THe Lord reminded us at the beginning of the Stations that this meditation on his Way of the Cross will only be complete when we have crowned it with our lives. "True joy is a victory, something which cannot be attained without a long and difficult struggle" (John Paul II, WYD 2002) You know that it is at difficult moments and trying times that the quality of our choices is measured. There are no short cuts to happiness and light! Only Jesus can supply answers which are neither illusion nor delusion! (John Paul II, Address to the Bulgarian Youth, 2002)
ECCE HOMO! Look to Him who is the God-Man who alone can lift us up from our falls. Look to Him whose promise is trustworthy. Look to Him who reveals to us our genuine worth: It is not in what we do, it is not in what we have. In the prophetic words of the late Pope, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." (John Paul II, Homily, WYD 2002) Not because of who I am, But because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, But because of who you are. ...You've told me who I am. I am yours.
Man has fallen, and he continues to fall: often he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but a mockery of the Creator... In Jesus’ fall beneath the weight of the Cross, the meaning of his whole life is seen: his voluntary abasement, which lifts us up from the depths of our pride. The nature of our pride is also revealed: it is that arrogance which makes us want to be liberated from God and left alone to ourselves, the arrogance which makes us think that we do not need his eternal love, but can be the masters of our own lives. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, creator and judge, we fall headlong and plunge into self-destruction. The humility of Jesus is the surmounting of our pride; by his abasement he lifts us up. Let us allow him to lift us up. Let us strip away our sense of self-sufficiency, our false illusions of independence, and learn from him, the One who humbled himself, to discover our true greatness by bending low before God and before our downtrodden brothers and sisters.
It is this profound mystery of man's abasement and Christ's self-emptying that SPYG sharply intuited for this year's Way of the Cross. As the Sorrowful Way progresses, there runs parallel to Christ's journey, the journey of another man who, desirous of becoming the 'perfect' man, makes himself the measure of his actions. In this disordered affection, he, lured by evil, is gradually blinded from truth, love and genuine beauty. In a certain sense, the journey of the Son of God to the place of the skull is a passionate run towards humanity who lie fallen, profaned in it's own self-absorbed pride. Christ 'empties himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7) in order to meet humanity who, having turned from God, has became a slave to sin and its daughter, death.
In a moving scene in the Third Fall, the man, fully clothed in sin, is emptied from within, is hollowed. The attempt to free himself of his own slavery is of no avail, reducing him to a helpless and pathetic caricature. It is this same posture that the Son of God takes upon himself-- in the words of the prophet, Christ has become less than a man, more like a worm crawling its way through dirt. (Psalm 22:6) In this way, the Divine Condemned One shows the true meaning of compassion: Cum Passio - To suffer with. Christ takes himself the sin of the world, the sin of humanity in the burden of the Cross and in so doing, places himself in that same state of slavery where humanity lie fallen. He meets humanity face to face and with his strength as God, he lifts humanity up again.
Raised up, the man kneels before the suffering Christ. What other posture can we have other than humble adoration before this God who empties himself to save us? Meditating on the Greek word for adoration, which is proskynesis, the Holy Father teaches us, "It refers to the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, supplying the norm that we choose to follow. It means that freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness, so that we ourselves can become true and good. This gesture is necessary even if initially our yearning for freedom makes us inclined to resist it. (Homily, WYD 2005) It is to Jesus to whom we render our worship. We must be careful that we do not use the Way of the Cross to glorify only ourselves and our talents without reference to Him who graced us with such gifts. We must be careful, in the end, not to celebrate only ourselves. All those called to 'watch and pray' must leave with praise only for what the Lord has done with his blessed Cross. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give the glory!" (Psalm 115:1) We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You for by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world!
As we enter the Octave of Easter, having contemplated the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord, we would do well to ask ourselves: By what do I measure my humanity? By what do I measure my worth as a human being?
The eyes of others?
How I look?
Who I'm with?
What I wear?
What I own?
How much I have?
What I can do?
All of these feed us with the lie, the terrible lie, that our deepest core is of no value, no worth, and therefore must be clothed with value, the void must be filled and silenced. Voices, many voices, will come offering only illusion and delusion, and in the end, we become as empty and shallow as these passing things to which we rendered our worship. In the Gospel of John, Pilate, when presenting Jesus to the crowd cries out: ECCE HOMO! Behold the Man! (John 19:5)
Behold the Man, emptied, naked and bleeding.
Behold the Man, whose words once moved hearts and is now silent.
Behold the Man whose hands, once working wonders, now bound.
Behold the Man, acclaimed as King, now crowned with thors.
Behold the Man, who can summon legions of angels, standing powerless before the powers of this world.
Ecce Homo! Behold Him who spoke to us at the ninth station: Behold, Beloved, the poorest king who ever lived. Before my creatures I stand stripped.... Yet who has ever been so rich? Possessing nothing, I own all –my Father’s love.
This, THIS is the measure of our humanity. This is what it means to be human. This is THE difference between the Way of the Cross of Christ which is the Way of the world: "One who chooses to follow Christ, on the other hand, avoids being wrapped up in himself and does not evaluate things according to self interest. He looks on life in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not in terms of conquest and possession. Life in its fullness is only lived in self-giving, and that is the fruit of the grace of Christ: an existence that is free and in communion with God and neighbour (cf. Gaudium et spes, 24)....Therefore, the choice is between being and having, between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and falsehood. (John Paul II, WYD 2001) THe Lord reminded us at the beginning of the Stations that this meditation on his Way of the Cross will only be complete when we have crowned it with our lives. "True joy is a victory, something which cannot be attained without a long and difficult struggle" (John Paul II, WYD 2002) You know that it is at difficult moments and trying times that the quality of our choices is measured. There are no short cuts to happiness and light! Only Jesus can supply answers which are neither illusion nor delusion! (John Paul II, Address to the Bulgarian Youth, 2002)
ECCE HOMO! Look to Him who is the God-Man who alone can lift us up from our falls. Look to Him whose promise is trustworthy. Look to Him who reveals to us our genuine worth: It is not in what we do, it is not in what we have. In the prophetic words of the late Pope, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." (John Paul II, Homily, WYD 2002) Not because of who I am, But because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, But because of who you are. ...You've told me who I am. I am yours.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
O Felix Culpa
Then they seized Jesus and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. Peter followed at a distance; and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a maid, seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing at him, said, "This man was with him." But he denied it, saying, "Woman, I do not know him." And a little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." But Peter said, "Man, I am not." And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, "Certainly this man was also with him; for he is a Galilean." But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are saying." And immediately, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, "Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:54-62)
Why then, Peter?
Why there?
What happened to your faith? The servant is enough to crumble your all-too fragmented faith.
What happened to the Rock, to Petrus Barjona, Peter, the Son of Jonah who boldly proclaimed what he received from the Father?
Yet, is it really a surprise or is it to be suspected?
You are not the saviour, Peter
You cannot be everything
You cannot do everything
You cannot be all for all
You are not higher than your brothers
You are as human as they are, with needs and longings, with faults and weaknesses.
Your lesson is clear: Even those closest to Jesus will offend him through sin.
Yet who writes your history?
Is it your mistakes?
Are you defined by what you have done?
Turn your face from the storm again and fix your eyes on the one enthroned above it
Turn again to him for he turned and looked at you
He knows what is in your heart, he knows the deepest secrets of your soul
He knows everything, he knows that you love him
He directs your history
Where sin increased, grace has overflowed
“Not because of who I am, but because of what You’ve done. Not because of what I’ve done but because of who you are.”
“But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and you, when at last you have come back to your true self, must strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22:32)
There is faith in you, Peter, although it may be a tiny seed struggling to grow through the thorns
Allow yourself to be tilled and dugged and fertilized for one more year
Abide in him and bear much fruit
The cock pierces the silence of that evening.
It is now your mark.
It will forever remind you of your fear and your frailty.
My fault became for me the price of redemption, through which Christ has come to meet me. I have nothing in my works with which I can glorify myself, I have nothing to boast about and, consequently, I will glory in Christ. I will not glorify myself because I am just, but I will glory because I am redeemed. I will not glorify myself because I am exempt from sins, but I will glory because my sins have been remitted. I will not glorify myself because I have helped or been helped, but because Christ has been my advocate with the Father, because the blood of Christ was poured out for me. For me, Christ tasted death. Guilt is more profitable than innocence. Innocence made me arrogant, guilt has made me humble." (St. Ambrose of
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Hungry...
A flask when burned ignites a large flame and dies as quickly as it was lit...
Is it just one high after another?
Without love, without reciprocating love, it's an illusion
chasing a shadow
perhaps it's crumbs that fall on the Master's table
food for the desperate soul
believing its not worthy of the feast
or perhaps, in poverty
it is blessed
if it is a blessing, its a hidden one
a hidden presence, an absent presence
yet a presence nonetheless
Lazarus, stay strong
you are not yet in the bosom of Abraham
"Just as a lover is wearied and depressed when on a longed-for day his opportunity is frustrated, so is a man wearied and tired by all his appetites and their fulfillment, because fulfillment only causes more hunger and emptiness. An appetite, as they say, is like a fire that blazes up when a wood is thrown on it, but necessarily dies out when the wood is consumed."
St. John of the Cross, Ascent on Mount Carmel, Book I, 6:6
Is it just one high after another?
Without love, without reciprocating love, it's an illusion
chasing a shadow
perhaps it's crumbs that fall on the Master's table
food for the desperate soul
believing its not worthy of the feast
or perhaps, in poverty
it is blessed
if it is a blessing, its a hidden one
a hidden presence, an absent presence
yet a presence nonetheless
Lazarus, stay strong
you are not yet in the bosom of Abraham
"Just as a lover is wearied and depressed when on a longed-for day his opportunity is frustrated, so is a man wearied and tired by all his appetites and their fulfillment, because fulfillment only causes more hunger and emptiness. An appetite, as they say, is like a fire that blazes up when a wood is thrown on it, but necessarily dies out when the wood is consumed."
St. John of the Cross, Ascent on Mount Carmel, Book I, 6:6
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