AS I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament this past weekend, I felt Our Lord’s intense grief — sobbing, it seemed, that mankind has so refused His love. For the next hour, we wept together… me, profusely begging His forgiveness for my and our collective failure to love Him in return… and He, because humanity has now unleashed a Storm of its own making.Continue reading
THERE is so much war. War between nations, war between neighbours, war between friends, war between families, war between spouses. I am sure every one of you is a casualty in some way of what has taken place over the past two years. The divisions I see between people are bitter and deep. Perhaps at no other time in human history do the words of Jesus apply so readily and on such a massive scale:Continue reading
THE “now word” that has been simmering in my heart this past week — testing, revealing, and purifying — is a clarion call to the Body of Christ that the hour has come when she must love to perfection. What does this mean?Continue reading
THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Thursday of the Second Week of Lent, March 5th, 2015
Liturgical texts here
TRUTH without charity is like a blunt sword that cannot pierce the heart. It might cause people to feel pain, to duck, to think, or step away from it, but Love is what sharpens truth such that it becomes a living word of God. You see, even the devil can quote Scripture and produce the most elegant apologetics. [1]cf. Matt 4;1-11 But it is when that truth is transmitted in the power of the Holy Spirit that it becomes…
Footnotes
| ↑1 | cf. Matt 4;1-11 |
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HAVE you ever met someone who is passionate about their subject? A skydiver, horse-back rider, a sports fan, or an anthropologist, scientist, or antique restorer who lives and breathes their hobby or career? While they can inspire us, and even spark an interest in us toward their subject, Christianity is different. For it is not about the passion of yet another lifestyle, philosophy, or even religious ideal.
The essence of Christianity is not an idea but a Person. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, spontaneous speech to the clergy of Rome; Zenit, May 20th, 2005
ON THE FEAST OF THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER
FOR two weeks, I have sensed the Lord repeatedly encouraging me to write about ecumenism, the movement toward Christian unity. At one point, I felt the Spirit prompt me to go back and read the “The Petals”, those four foundational writings from which everything else here has sprung. One of them is on unity: Catholics, Protestants, and the Coming Wedding.
As I began yesterday with prayer, a few words came to me that, after having shared them with my spiritual director, I want to share with you. Now, before I do, I have to tell you that I think that all of what I’m about to write will take on new meaning when you watch the video below that was posted on Zenit News Agency’s website yesterday morning. I didn’t watch the video until after I received the following words in prayer, so to say the least, I have been utterly blown away by the wind of the Spirit (after eight years of these writings, I never get used to it!).
DO not waste time thinking about the heroics of the saints, their miracles, extraordinary penances, or ecstasies if it only brings you discouragement in your present state (“I’ll never be one of them,” we mumble, and then promptly return to the status quo beneath the heel of Satan). Rather, then, occupy yourself with simply walking on the The Little Path, which leads no less, to the beatitude of the saints.
THE greatest expression of Christ’s love was not the Sermon on the Mount or even the multiplication of the loaves.
It was on the Cross.
So too, in The Hour of Glory for the Church, it will be the laying down of our lives in love that will be our crown.
GOD wants to slow us down. More than that, He wants us to rest, even in chaos. Jesus never rushed to His Passion. He took the time to have a last meal, a last teaching, an intimate moment of washing another’s feet. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He set aside time to pray, to gather His strength, to seek the will of the Father. So as the Church approaches her own Passion, we too should imitate our Savior and become a people of rest. In fact, only in this way can we possibly offer ourselves as true instruments of “salt and light.”
What does it mean to “rest”?
When you die, all worrying, all restlessness, all passions cease, and the soul is suspended in a state of stillness… a state of rest. Meditate on this, for that should be our state in this life, since Jesus calls us to a state of “dying” while we live:
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it…. I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. (Matt 16:24-25; John 12:24)
Of course, in this life, we cannot help but wrestle with our passions and struggle with our weaknesses. The key, then, is not to let yourself be caught up in the rushing currents and impulses of the flesh, in the tossing waves of the passions. Rather, dive deep into the soul where the Waters of the Spirit are still.
We do this by living in a state of trust.