Suffering

Not that my life has been particularly full of suffering lately, but recently I've been struck by how truly significant and profound God's choice of the method of our salvation was. Last night in men's group for some reason it hit me that as God, Jesus, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, picked the absolute best way possible to redeem us fallen humans. For some reason I'd always projected my own feelings about pain and suffering onto the sacrifice of the cross; it was something that had to be done, endured, part of life. It was heroic of course, but I'd never realized the full significance before. As God, Christ could have chosen any means for redeeming us, and yet the best, absolute most perfect way was to undergo unbelievable suffering both physically and surely spiritually as well to save us poor wretches. The cross was completely voluntary; it was not mere nails that held our savior to the tree but His own will.

In Theology of the Spiritual Life the other day Fr. Roch was talking about the roll of suffering in conversion; how suffering purifies the soul of the believer. Then sometime this morning at Dominican, either in the end of Morning prayer or during Mass I can't remember where, something was said about Christ becoming man to show us how to suffer, to offer it as a sacrifice. There's no way that I'm going to fit the awesome mystery of the means of salvation into my poor very finite intellect but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that God wanted to give us an example by His death of how to make proper use of suffering.

In a way these very out of the blue revelations have me on edge a little, because I know that everything happens for a reason and although I appreciate the gift of suffering more now, I'm still not eager to undergo it if that's what He has planned. However, in little ways they have been helpful reminders to offer up to God in love my little daily discomforts, a head cold, the incredibly cold weather, frustration with myself and my little everyday failings. In the meantime, I just pray for the grace to accept all things from God's hands joyfully as the gift that they are. What are the little (or big) gifts of suffering that He is giving you to offer up in love?

"For to you has been granted, for the sake of Christ, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him." - Philipians 1:29

*******

AHHH!!! That's what it was, after posting this once I realized that during the gospel today, Feast of the Presentation, the one where Simeon tells Mary, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that is contradicted -- and you yourself a sword will pierce -- so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." The example of Mary is what prompted my line of thought this morning. Her sufferings were a means by which she became the Mother of us all, and thereby won innumerable souls for her Son. May we strive to imitate her selflessness. PAX

Gratitude

So this could be kind of a rambly post. I don't really have one overwhelming idea like usual, just several things that I'm thankful for (3 to be exact), and a lot of joy. I wanted to reuse the title from my last post but I figured I could come up w/ something new. lol Anyways here are the graces God has been pouring into my life recently:

1. http://rzihashrimp.blogspot.com/ When I saw that my friend Cecilia Rziha had started a blog I was really excited. She is one of the deepest thinkers I've ever met; one of those folks who has given some thought to just about everything, an awesome woman of God. Not only that but God has used her blog to drop a couple Holy Spirit anvils on me already this year. I'm sure she's not going to appreciate this but a lamp is not lit to be hid under a bushel basket so go check it out.

2. Encouragement. The second thing I'm grateful for is tied to another friend's blog as well. A few weeks ago my friend Jackie posted a story she read. It totally nailed me:

"On the last day of our four-day trip, I told Jonathan we were going to drive to one of the lakes in the area. We weren't going to do the Mall or a show. He knew something was up and wasn't sure if he liked it. I pulled into a parking lot in our rental care and stopped next to the lake. Then I turned to my son and gave him a bit of a shock.
"Jonathon," I said, "let's trade places."
I paused, then went on. "I want you to get behind the wheel of this car and drive around the parking lot a bit.
Jonathan was stunned, especially because he is a bit of a rule keeper. "Dad - no! I am only twelve. I can't drive." I smiled and encouraged him that I would only have him drive around the parking lot for a few minutes. "Dad, I can't I am not big enough. This isn't good. Mom will not like this, Dad. Mom will not like this!"
When I finally talked him into it, he slipped into the driver's seat with fear and trembling. He slowly backed up, trying to imitate all he had seen me do over the years. Then he began rounding the parking lot. Before long, he was having fun. He's a boy, and like most boys he found driving a car natural and enticing. He was actually quite good at it, though I did stop him after a few minutes.
It was after this experience that a meaningful conversation ensued. I said, "Jonathan, how did you feel when you first took the wheel?"
He was honest. He acknowledged that he'd felt panicked, terrified that he couldn't do it."But you found out you could do it after all, didn't you?" I said.
When he agreed, I went on. "Jonathan, those feelings are exactly what you'll be feeling as you enter manhood. You will think you can't do it, that you don't know where you are going, but you won't want anyone to know how you're feeling. Being a man is a lot like taking the wheel of a car. You are no longer a passenger in life. You are a driver, responsible for getting to a destination and getting your passengers safely there as well. Growing up means becoming a drive instead of a passenger." http://aww-spiration.blogspot.com/2011/01/panicked-and-terrified-then-what.html

Jonathan made me laugh b/c I've been right there. I remember having similar arguments with my dad over driving the tractor and being terrified initially too. And in all honesty I feel like I'm still there in a way. My life has been crazy the last few months. With My Grandpa passing away in December, several friends getting either married or engaged, and summer internships deadlines looming I've been feeling a lot like the little kid in the story. I'm too young, too immature, too selfish...etc, to be making these big decisions, to be transitioning into the next phase of life. Through stories like this though, and through a hundred other little graces God's been reassuring me that with Him all things are possible, and for that I am forever grateful.

3. Father Roch and Theology of the Spiritual Life. This is the class I'm most excited about this semester. Fr. Roch is novice director for the Cistercians and around 80 years old with a thick Hungarian accent. To quote Fr. Roch's notes "the theology of the spiritual life is to be distinguished from other branches of theology not on the basis of its object but on the basis of the believing subject in whom the mysteries of faith become 'spirit and life.'" So basically, we're going to be guided by a saintly old monk in studying the lives of the saints, and reading some of the great spiritual writers of the church, with the goal not of gaining systematic knowledge, but of growing in holiness. Seriously?! I get college credit for this??? Awesome! This class is making me all the more grateful that God put a place like UD on the earth and then gave me the grace to stumble upon it.

So in summary: God is good! And while I'm still hopeless confused and wondering what the heck He is doing in my life and where He wants me to go, I know that He's the one in charge and that as stubborn as I am, I'm no match for Him. God bless, and quo vadis, where are you going?

He is Faithful

Sorry for the long span between posts, a lot has been happening in my life in the last 4 weeks. I'd been waiting to be ready to write a post on all of it, but right now I feel a bit like the little boy who St. Augustine saw trying to fit the whole ocean into a whole in the sand. It's going to be a while before I'm ready to write about it.

However, after coming out of adoration tonight I was yet again so amazed at God's faithfulness that I had to get on and share it. It's been a tiring week. I feel like I've been gradually worn down. Today was a continuation of that theme. I slept through my alarm, missing mass, and then proceeded (I'm a little embarrassed to admit this) to sleep until 10:30 because no one came in to wake me up. I went to work and was hoping to finish in time to make the 6:00 Mass at St. Catherine's. That required quitting around 5. I was about 25 minutes late getting into the house because of a few little things that popped up at the end of work. Thanks to a super fast shower I was going to be able to make it but as I walked out the door around 5:35, Jay, our afternoon milker, hollered to me from across yard. The bulls were out and he needed help getting them back in because they were being really stupid. In the process the baby calves freaked out and three of them got out too. Suffice to say I didn't make it to Mass which only added to the frustration already inherent in chasing bulls all over the farm. However, while all this running and yelling and getting frustrated is going on the sky is lit up in a glorious sunset. If you look back through my posts you'll see one of my favorite's on the Theology of a Sunset. I guess I kind of look at sunsets the way Noah must have looked at rainbows, they're a sign of God's faithfulness and love to me. I have to laugh now looking back because while I was not exactly in the best mind set for appreciating the sunset, I got two texts from different friends prompting me praise God for the beauty of this evening.

As I walked back into the house at 6, I knew there was some reason why God had kept me from getting to mass that evening, but I didn't have a clue what it could be because I felt like I really needed that grace right now. After eating supper with Mom and Dad, Mom asked if I wanted to ride into St. Jude's with her and go to adoration while she was at choir practice since I'd missed mass. Then Dad pointed out that St. Jude's had mass that evening at 6:30. It was weird that all three of us had forgotten that. I drove my mom into practice and as we were walking in we literally almost ran into Fr. Vacha who was getting ready to head back to the rectory after mass. Talk about timing. One of the reasons I was disappointed at not making it to St. Catherine's is because I'd really wanted to go to confession. So I got my confession in and went to the adoration chapel. After doing my penance, and reading a chapter from Wild at Heart (good book btw), I decided to pray evening prayer. Wow. In doing so I discovered the reason why I had missed mass. God really wanted me in that adoration chapel praying evening prayer. I normally don't sing or even read through the opening song but for some reason tonight I started reading the second option for the opening hymn. Read through it here and make sure to say the refrain each time:

Refrain:
For to those who love God,
Who are called in His plan,
Everything works out for good.
And God Himself chose them
To bear the likeness of His Son
That He might be the first of many, many brothers.

Who is able to condemn? Only Christ who dies for us;
Christ who rose for us, Christ who prays for us.

Refrain

In the face of all this, what is there left to say?
For if God is for us, who can be against us?

Refrain

Who can separated us from the love of Christ?
Neither trouble, nor pain, nor persecution.

Refrain

What can separate us from the love of Christ?
Not the past, the present, nor the future.

The first time through the refrain I was kinda like "yeah, whatever." Then it gets your attention with the first verse and then, bam, right back to the refrain, then total simplicity in the second verse, and complete confidence in the last two verses and by the end of it God has told you like 5 times that its fine because you're part of His plan and you're His son through being the brother of Christ so He's gonna take care of you. I don't know maybe it sounds like making a big deal out of nothing but the Holy Spirit was totally telling me what I had been needing to hear. Then the psalms for that night were incredible. I thought about typing them too but that would make this post even ridiculously longer. If you're interested though they were Psalm 62 "In God alone is my soul at rest" Amen. Psalm 67 "O God be gracious and bless us and let your face shine upon us." And finally, Col 1:12-20 "He rescued us from the power of darkness...Through Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins."

Now the real kicker, I had my breviary tabbed wrong. I should have been on Wednesday Week III but I was on Week II, so when I went to do the reading what was it? "He rescued us from the power of darkness...Through Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins." Col 1 again. God is good. He knew I was too stubborn to let it sink in in just one read through. He was ministering to me so much in that moment that I almost stopped so I could start writing it down because I've been meaning to write out all the ways He has shown me His faithfulness in the last weeks, but I kept on. I thought maybe He might not be done yet. He wasn't. I was already so grateful, but when I got to the intercessions the response was "Lord, show us your compassion." I almost didn't pray it. He'd already shown me His goodness so clearly I felt unworthy to receive anymore, but then I thought of it from the standpoint of obedience. He was asking me, to ask Him, to show His compassion. So I asked. The rest of the petitions were arranged from all time in the mind of God to speak to me where I am right now, they touched on the sacred liturgy (which I had been upset about missing and yet had brought me to that very place), spiritual and physical healing (which my soul is in desperate need of), hope to those in torment and to those in sin that they may rejoice in God (me again), release for captives (wow, again, really? that's me too), and finally to let the dead pass through the door to heaven, Christ (May eternal light shine upon him).

Finally the closing prayer was that we may be filled with the radiance of God. Thank you Lord. So I don't know what He has planned, but I know above all else He is forever faithful, and He just made me pray for Him to show me His compassion. If the last few weeks are any indication it could get interesting. Maybe you'll hear about it in another blog post in the not to distant future. We'll see. Also sorry I'm so dang long winded, I'm gonna work on simplicity this year, including in my writing.

"In the face of all this, what is there left to say?
For if God is for us, who can be against us?"

Quo Vadis, where are you headed?

Thirty reasons why I know God is good.

For the last several months I've been posting reasons why God is good, Gig's. To give credit where credit is due I got the idea from the three incredibly blessed days that I spent at Prayer and Action in Norton, KS this summer. Recently I hit #30 and figured it would be a good time to look back on them. As I was reading through them, it prompted me to reflect back on how God has been working in my life this semester, which was really awesome. I'd been feeling like this had been kind of a quiet semester (compared to Rome anyways) but upon looking back on these reasons I realized God has really been doing a lot in my life. Take sometime this advent to reflect on how God's been working in your life. Anyway these are my first 30 reason why I know God is good:

1. The petition from tonight's Evening Prayer - Guide travelers along the path of peace and prosperity...
2. Realizing just how many good people I'm surrounded by everyday and how many more I have to meet.
3. After coming out of the first Philosophy of Being: Philosophy of the Person class of the semester Pandora plays "less that perfect more than flesh and bone" Matt Maher.
4. He made Kansas.
5. Perfectly beautiful late summer nights
6. Fresh Homemade food on a Sunday evening. Props Matias Hospitality Group.
7. For giving us humans the ability to bring together the labor, research, and expertise of literally hundreds of individuals into my bowl of honey nut cheerios.
8. The newness of creation as the sunsets into a clear sky after 2 straight days of rain. And on Mary's birthday no less!
9. Reconciliation.
10. Dancing all night at the world's largest honky-tonk w/ a great group of UD'ers.
11. Good food, great friendship and a slightly overcooked cake on a Sunday night.
12. A roomate that gets me out running and working out when I have no motivation too.
13. The feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Check out the rosary of the seven sorrows: http://7sorrows.org/7sorrows.aspx
14. For His faithful instrument, Rex, a good Samaritan that
dropped his plans to help us when our alternator quit in the middle of
nowhere Oklahoma.
15. Tonight's gratefulness - for bringing me into the world in a Catholic family, for a 2,000 year old tradition of religious art and architecture, for sacramental grace, and Matt Maher, Addison Road, and 10th Ave North in concert.
16. The first fall chill, beautiful Gregorian chant at mass, and praise and worship afterwards
17. A 10pm, classical piano concert for three in the Church of the Incarnation.
18. Blessed Bartolo Longo and the 'Supplica': http://vultus.stblogs.org/2010/10/o-rosario-benedetto-di-maria.html#more
19. For creating a little town on the side of a hill in Northern Italy as the headwaters of the river of grace, poured out through a poor humble man dressed in rags and his devote followers. Happy feastday of St. Francis! P.S. if you want to check out the blog of my time there last semester: http://quo-vadis-deum.blogspot.com/2010/02/pax.html
20. For friends who always remind me God is good.
21. For healing all ten. Today's Gospel: Lk 17:11–19
22. An indescribably blessed weekend. (TEC 126 Hoot among other things)
23. "You walk with me, you never leave, you're making my heart a garden." Matt Maher for the second time in a month!
24. For His faithful servant St. John Vianney, "The Lord does not ask us to be martyrs of the body but rather to be martyrs of the heart and the will."
25. For reminding me to laugh at myself
26-28. For reminding me what stars are, why I love KS, and for putting me in a gigantic family full of wonderful cooks. Happy Thanksgiving y'all!
29. For making bobcats with cabs and heaters. Unbelievable!
30. His faithfulness knows no end.

Theology of a Sunset

This is an idea that came to me while I was working on the farm last summer. However it most definitely has its roots in the awesomeness and beauty that we were surrounded by while in Italy last semester (Watching the sun set into the Tyrrhenian Sea from the Alban hills just south of Rome is pretty cool, as is the Umbrian sunset from the top of a castle in Assisi, as is seeing the sun go down into the Adriatic while sailing to Greece, etc. etc.) Like I said though, this idea didn’t come to me until the hottest, driest three weeks of the summer. I’ve held off typing it out because I felt like it wasn’t quite time yet; the ideas hadn’t worked themselves all the way out. After talking it through with my good friend Sara Gudde, who came down to visit me here at UD last weekend, I feel ready. In addition, after Sara and I had visited, the sunset Sunday evening was perhaps the most amazing I have seen thus far in TX. I felt like that was God’s little way of saying it was time. Anyways enough prologue, here it goes; I may revise or add to it later but I think the time is right.

I’ve realized after coming to school here in Texas (where we have some small hills and trees and stuff), that one of the beauties of growing up in a place so flat as the flood plain of the Big Arkansas River is that you can watch the sunset. Here at UD the last 20 min of the sunset the sun is behind this big hill and a bunch of trees, but back home, if you stand in the right spot, you can watch the sun go all the way to the horizon. This makes for a different type of sunset. This summer it got really hot and dry for three weeks straight. Something about that weather consistently produced the most amazing sunsets. My friend Sarah Brenner and I had been texting each other whenever we saw a really good one and it seemed like we ended up texting each other each night for several weeks. Since I was working on the farm I got to watch them every evening and after a while an idea started to take hold. It started to sink in how much each individual sunset was an absolute masterpiece, no less than the Bernini’s or Michelangelo’s we studied in Rome. And yet these sunsets lasted at their most brilliant for only about 30 seconds before they began to fade down to dusk. If that’s how it worked with human masterpieces, that they only lasted for a few moments before fading; if Caravaggio’s only lasted for a split second, people would never cease lamenting such a tragedy. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story of the Prodigal Son called instead the story of the Prodigal Father, the idea being that the father is so generous and forgiving with his love that it is almost wasteful, prodigal. I feel like God is that way with sunsets. Each one is a masterpiece, a treasure perfected by God’s own hand and yet we only have a split second to appreciate them before they are gone forever. As much as we may want to capture them and hang on to the beauty, we can’t. Even the best picture can’t capture the shear creative splendor and the power of experiencing an awesome sunset firsthand. All that we can do is thank God for the love He makes manifest so presently to us, and move on knowing that each evening He repeats this breathtaking spectacle of His love for us.

This idea applies to more than just sunsets or even the beauty of the natural world though. Sarah Gudde said she felt like her life was full of “sunset moments.” Whether they are the awesome view from a mountain top, the friendly smile of a stranger, or a sweet, brief friendship, these moments all pass, they are not ours to keep. We should not despair at the transitory state we live in, but rather thank God for the new gifts He is constantly giving us. Imagine if the sky was always the flaming red of a brilliant sunset, would we be able to appreciate its beauty? No; it is because it lasts only for a split second that the sunset is so remarkable to us. If we spend our time wishing we still had those gifts that have already passed we will miss all the ones God is surrounding us with in the present. In one of my favorite prayers from St. Augustine, he addresses God as “Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” I think Augustine is hitting at the same idea, God is forever (eternally) making present His love for us in new, creative ways. If each sunset was the same beauty or if life was a perpetual sunset we would not have the opportunity to realize constantly God’s love in new and completely unique ways.

This is not to say that this transitory life is perfectly satisfying. It’s not. There is some part of us that longs for permanence, for stability. I think that this is by design though, His design specifically. Without this longing we might be satisfied merely by created things rather than longing for a relationship with the creator himself. This inner longing cannot be satisfied by anything in this world but only by our God who is “ever-ancient, ever-new.”

I want to finish with a quote given to me by a friend.
Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word
will fade, but do not be disheartened.

The source they come from is eternal…
growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?
That source is within you as well…
-Jelaluddin Rumi

Take a second to appreciate the “sunset moments” in your life today, or better yet make an effort to be one for someone else. God Bless!

Let everything that lives and breaths praise the Lord -Psalm 150

This week as I was trying to come up with something worth writing a blog entry about, God in his great faithfulness bailed me out yet again and gave me an awesome experience to write on. Last Tuesday, the feast of All Souls Day, the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas had their annual Requiem Mass. Here's a link to the Kyrie of the Anerio Requiem that was sung so you can get an idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NhrUkI3X30&feature=related

The Collegium Cantorum from UD that sang the polyphonic chant for the mass was truly amazing. I once read a reflection of priest about his guardian angel, he said that his guardian angel was always drawing him to the Mass, and was most perfectly in a state of bliss during the celebration of the Eucharist. He said it was almost as if he could hear the flutter of wings when the host was elevated at the consecration. If ever there was a liturgy to evoke the fluttering of wings it was this Requiem. The simply awe-inspiring music was enhanced by the significance of the feast we were celebrating, in offering the mass for all the souls of the dearly departed. The universal church, militant, suffering, and triumphant seemed especially present in the standing room only church that night. It was as if you could feel physically the " so great cloud of witnesses surrounding us" Hebrews 12:1. What an honor and blessing to be part of something so profound.

Finally, I thought it was an awesome testament to the Catholic faith that the last two things to provoke me to post a blog entry have both been music, radically different types of music, and yet radically the same in their praise and honor of God. In our church we bring together centuries old traditions like Anerio's polyphonic chant with the contemporary praise of Matt Maher. How blessed are we that God didn't just give us one way to praise him through music, but an infinite myriad. May he be forever praised in the Kyrie's and the Hold Us Together's.

You're Making My Heart a Garden

First, I must apologize for, as my blogging accountabilty partner has reminded me, I have been doing a deplorable job writing regularly. Lucky for me though the Matt Maher concert at the Univeristy of Dallas Ministry Conference tonight so was amazing that I couldn't help putting up a blog right away.

While the whole concert was wonder-full, (Matt Maher has such an awesome testimony, message and an incredible gift at leading worship) there was one point in particular at which I was just stunned by God's faithfulness. I'll do my best to paraphrase how he introduced the song, or at least how I took it:

You know us humans have it pretty good. We were made; not only that but we were made on the sixth, the last day that He worked. And then He rested on the seventh day, He went on vacation, and we got to go along. We didn't have to do any work and yet still we got to go along to the garden where God walked with us. But we left that garden and ever since then God's been trying to get us back. He sent prophets, judges, and kings but to no avail. Finally, He, God Himself, took on our flesh so that He could also take our sins upon himself to make the situation right again. And because of that sacrafice He made for us we're all able to be here tonight. Because of that sacrafice we can return to the garden and walk with God once again. However, that garden is no longer so much an external thing as it is an internal thing. God cultivates that garden inside, in our hearts...and maybe as that change takes root it changes the way we look at the external world too.

He then proceeded to play "Garden" listen to it -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9P9RkwLK-0

While he was playing I was thinking about his introduction for the song especially the part about how when that change begins to take root in our heart maybe it will being to change the way we look at the external world and we be'd walking with God. That's when it struck me that I'd had that esperince before. One time on a narrow paved road, on an early summer's night in the middle of nowhere Israel, at the base of Mount Tabor I walked a few miles down to a bus stop just visiting with a good friend. We shared a few two-pence peices of bread between us. The weather could not have been more perfect, there was the gentlest breeze blowing over a field of hay that'd just been cut, and we were heading to Jerusalem the next day to celebrate Our Lord's Passion, Death, and Resurrection. It was probably the most beatiful night I have ever had the privalege of living through. I remember thinking at the time that it was like God had transfigured creation for us that one night, just as His Son had been transfigured upon the mount we had so recently descended.

Standing there among all of those young adults on fire for their faith I realized that on that night at the base of Mount Tabor we had been walking with God. Talk about chills. I also realized that I can walk with God anytime, whenever I realize His hand in all the little creations He has surrounded me with. Whereever He's leading me I am more committed than ever to going becuase I know He'll be walking with me. Quo Vadis? Where are you going? God Bless!