Lin Wilder's Blog, page 15

Do You Not Know That Life is a Soldier’s Service?-Epictetus

WASHINGTON, DC – November 10, 2007. Native American Navajo Veteran Soldier at Veterans Day parade, Washington DC- do you not know that life is a soldier’s service?

Do you not know that life is a soldier’s service?

The stirrings of Greek Stoic’s Epictetus philosophy were formed by his early subjugation as slave to Nero’s secretary, Epaphroditus. Freed after Nero’s death, Epictetus went on to write his Discourses and the Stoic Manual: the Enchiridion.  Although Epictetus had never been a soldier, his slavery immersed him in the battleground that is the human will. Each time he walked the streets of Rome, the consequences of its evil leadership were evident. His statement, “Do you not know what life is a soldier’s service?” applies to each of us, whether uniformed or not.

Former Roman Centurion Aurelius, from my novel , describes Nero’s Rome:

The suddenness of my demotion, followed by my return to a Rome I no longer recognized, nearly destroyed me. I had been a centurion since the age of twenty-two and had expected to live out my years as a warrior or die honorably on the battlefield. Although it had been three years since the Great Fire, my native city remained shattered, ruined. Yes, of course, I knew about the week-long fire; we all did. And I thought I was prepared for its aftermath. But nothing could have girded me for such massive devastation.

This Rome was unrecognizable— nothing like the beautiful, vibrant, and cultured center of learning I had grown up in. Even after three years, most of its formerly magnificent temples remained in ruins; there had been no attempt to rebuild them. As I walked the streets, now populated by Idumeans, Hispanians, Numidians, Franks, Syrians, Egyptians, and slavish people from all ends of the Empire, I seldom heard Latin spoken.

These hordes teemed into the city for the free food, housing, and depraved entertainment provided by Nero as he fought to maintain control of the senate. The reasons for my tribune’s decision to send me on this mission are irrelevant to my purpose here; what matters is the fact that I craved a way to externalize my humiliation; to find someone worthy of my enmity. I discovered him in Paul the Apostle, enemy of the Empire.

Life as a soldier did

specifically apply to Viet Nam war Naval pilot James Bond Stockdale.  Stockdale’s Stanford graduate school study of Epictetus, Zeno and their Stoic philosophy provided him the fortitude to survive a seven- year inprisonment in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

In a Hoover Essay called Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior, the former Naval pilot writes a gripping integration of Stoic philosophy with his experience. I’ve embedded it here, because this astounding tale of one man’s war with the impossible warrants our attention and our reverence.

The truth, beauty, and clarity of Stoicism has been eclipsed by contemporary and superficial interpretation of Stoics as vacuous robots impervious to pain. In so doing, entirely missing the goal of Stoicism: the serenity of mind that can be achieved only through detachment.

Stockdale’s story is far from prideful or even heroic. Because he knew it was impossible to convey the reality of a torture so severe that a man surrenders his soul to avoid it, he writes almost casually.

Stockdale’s testimony of how and why Stoic philosophers became the foundation of his life is magnificent. And in an odd way, one I can identify with. My undergraduate college years were, at times, spectacularly bleak. The Episcopalian faith I grew up in was gone. Neither family nor friends could understand why attending church was the very worst kind of hypocrisy. And yet I was hungry for wisdom, for truth.

I don’t recall now how Meditations showed up: Marus Aurelius’s practical Stoic wisdom for life 2100 years ago, and now. But reading it provided me sanity:

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I will deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own-not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel anger at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth upper and lower. To obstruct one another is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Meditations: A New Translation

Writing the ancient novels.

provided a perfect excuse to return to Xeno, Seneca and Epictetus.  I, Claudia and protagonists Lucius Pontius Pilate and Saul of Tarsus are well-versed in Greek philosophy. Especially Stoicism. I have no passages from Pontius Pilate to support that statement but St. Paul’s letters are replete with Stoic philosophy. If one looks for it.

Both men were born into wealthy families and were therefore tutored by the finest minds of the time: Greek philosophers. The Romans copied the Persians in their benevelance toward the culture and religion of their conquered people. No attempts were made to coerce worship of their gods. This was true especially for Greece.

Until reading Stockadale’s brief monograph, however, I’d not read the “Stoic Handbook”: Enchiridion. Embedded here in case you’d like to refer to its sage counsel. Here’s another pithy fragment of wisdom from Epistetus:

Things that are not within our own power, not without our Will, can by no means be good or evil…Evil lies in the evil use of moral power and good the opposite. The course of the will determines good or bad fortune, and one’s balance of misery and happiness. [Enchiridion]

Early in this brief booklet, Stockdale quotes Edward Gibbon, the famed historian attesting to the power of Stoic training. “If a man were called upon to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous,…without hesitation would name that which ended with …the death of Marcus Aurelius. The united reigns of the five emporers of the era are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of great people was the sole object of government.”  Each of the five emperors was a Stoic.

If it’s been a while since you’ve studied the Stoics, Ryan Holiday’s site might be useful to you. Or to someone you know who could use a deep dive into virtue.  Ryan’s thoughts and books are worth writing about.

One last point: Here are Ryan Holiday’s thoughts on the value of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.

 

 

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St. Thomas And Us: A Twinship of Doubters and Believers

 

St. Thomas and Us: A twinship

Caravaggio’s magnificent painting of The Incredulity of St Thomas graphically details a story we’re very familiar with. Jesus’ appearance to the frightened apostles through the locked door to the room they hid in, occurs just days after the horror of the Crucifixion. The Lord comes to satisfy St. Thomas’s strident incredulity and breathe the Spirit upon each of the apostles.

Could it be that we’re too familiar with this story? And with Thomas’s stidence?

St. Thomas the Apostle has a modifier: the twin. John the Evangelist mentions it three times. The repeat makes us wonder, doesn’t it? Consistently we refer to Thomas as ‘the doubter,’ even using it as an adjective for a skeptic—doubting Thomas.

But could Didymus mean something other than a twin sibling?

Like a description for a dual nature?
One that both doubts and believes?

Like us who say we believe but frequently reveal our lack of belief? St. Thomas and us: a twinship of doubters and believers.
The Gospel for the second Sunday of Easter is very long, with a density that seems to infuse each stanza. I’ve embedded it here in case you want to reread the entire passage.

Here’s the Lord’s reply to doubting Thomas:

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side,and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him,

“Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

With that statement, “blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” is Jesus referring to us? 

There’s virtue in doubting

claims Fr.William Nicholas in an an intruiging homily offered during the Covid pandemic. Listening to this priest’s ten-minute sermon brought me back to those shocking days when churches were closed all over the world. When I and just about everyone I knew, believed that God was allowing this. That it was just chastisement for sin. I recall too, the blessing of our introduction to the priests on EWTN and their daily Mass.

Fr. Nicholas’s reflection reveals a very diffent way to think about this apostle-about the entire subjects of doubt and belief. 

It was Thomas, upon hearing that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to awaken Lazarus, who said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us go with him that we may die with him.”

And it was Thomas who established several churches in southern India where Syriac- a dialect of Aramaic spoken by Christ and the apostles is still spoken. And then was stabbed to death in Mylapore, India.

So how did the man so strident about his unbelief so completely change?

Maybe his transformation was no different from that of all the apostles—and you and me: a twinship of doubters and believers.

This week’s daily liturgy reveals St. Peter’s about-face from his triple denial of the Lord to steadfast refusal to comply with the Jewish authorityies. Standing before the fearsome Sanhedrin for his continued preaching about “this Jesus”, Peter declares, “We must obey God rather than men.”

With ease I can recall one of my very first confessions following my conversion to Catholic Christianity. Patiently the priest listened as I sobbed through my litany of sins. Still overwhelmed with the horror of life before, I could not stop. Finally, when the sobs had reduced to quiet tears, the priest said simply, “The Apostles lived and worked with Jesus for three years. Until they were filled with the Spirit, they were afraid, weak and ignorant.”

Unsaid, “Like you.”

Indeed.

And so I wonder, when I’m at adoration, do I “believe even though I don’t see?”
When I receive Him, am I thinking, “I believe even though I don’t see him?”
Back during those days of spiritual communion from EWTN daily Masses, was I believing despite not seeing?

No, I stare at that white wafer and know it’s—Him. Back then, I was fully confident that the Mass I watched and the spiritual communion I participated was Jesus: Faith.
But when something unexpected happens to me, my husband, loved one and/or the world, am I shaken? 
And do I always see Him then?
No, then I can no longer see. St. Thomas and us: Both doubters.

During this Easter Season

of fifty days, I aim to make offering myself as I am right now, believer or doubter, to Him habitual. Hold on for just a moment and I’ll explain that perculiar comment.

A few years ago, I hesitantly blurted out my goal to my then spiritual director:

“Fr. Chris, I want to be a saint.” Since he neither doubled over in laughter nor looked incredulous, I then said, “There, I’ve finally said it, that wasn’t too painful.” 

So the goal’s clear, what next?
I’ll bet you know the steps better than I so no need to repeat, it’s the work of daily life.

On the subject of that work, I picked up Fr. Michael Gaitley’s book, " target="_blank" rel="noopener">33 Days to Merciful Love, at the beginning of Lent. And read it slowly and carefully. The priest begins with his personal experience while a seminarian. In hopes of impressing, Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, young seminarian Fr. Gaitley stated that holiness is all about consoling the Heart of Jesus. Pleased by the older priest’s {an expert on the Message of Divine Mercy] enthusiastic reply, the author declared that the best way is to “remove the thorn in His Sacred Heart that happens through our lack of trust.”

Now on a roll, he concluded, that

“it’s all about trusting Jesus in order to console him.”

But was stumped when his mentor asked,

“And how do you live trust? What’s the concrete expression in your daily living?”

I was stumped. “I don’t know.”

His answer changed my life: “The way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things. That’s what the Lord said to Sr. Faustina.”

 

Fr. Gaitley presents St. Therese of Lesieux’s Little Way of offering to Merciful Love

in a way that’s exciting, eminently practical and consoling. The young saint Therese knew that no amount of penance or prayer can cleanse our sinfuless: Our recourse is focusing on our nothingness. Precisely what Luisa Piccarreta, St. Faustina and Our Lady write.

We’ve one of two paths to choose in this life: His Justice or His Mercy. Although I’d read and written a bit  about this saint, I’d not gotten the message I needed to know.

Can this be any clearer?

…For the sake of friendship, in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God chose to need our love, because His heart experiences both joys and sorrows, we can enter into true friendship with him. So, he can share with us not only his joys but also his needs, sorrows and pains—and we can console him…

How?

We console him by loving, letting him love us and by allowing him to have mercy on us, save us. In fact, Jesus’ ‘need is to show mercy and to save us….When people reject his mercy, it causes him pain….That’s what St. John Paul ll marvels at when he askes, “Could man’s dignity be more highly respected and ennobled, for, in obtaining marcy, [man] is in a sense the one who at the same time shows mercy?’

 

“Ecce.”

                                                                                                                     “Fiat.”

 

 

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We Are An Easter People and Alleluia is Our Cry

We are an Easter people

Easy to say when all is light, love and happiness. But how about when it feels like all is lost?

Or when everywhere we look, we see only darkness. Not just absence of light but a soul-crushing darkness that functions like a magnet for our kids, spouse, ourselves?

Isn’t it naive, pollyannaish—even foolish to say we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song, in the midst of threats of new pandemics, nuclear wars and economic collapse?

Sure it is. St. Paul preaches, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

With just a little perspective we understand that humans have always lived amidst uncertainty, even chaos: precisely why St. Augustine preached it. St. Augustine lived in the fourth century amidst the collapse of the Roman Empire. The saint was wholly familiar with a life of sin, for the first third of his life, he lived in sin.

A couple of thousand years later, Pope John Paul ll quoted St. Augustine after a noon-time Mass in Australia. Asking those present to pray the Angelus with him, he explained that the Angelus takes its name from the angel’s greeting to Mary: “Hail, full of grace.” And he declared that joy is indeed the Christian message. We believe, the pope continued, in a God who “created us to enjoy human Happiness.”

It’s worth repeating isn’t it?

Joy is the Christian message.

We beleve in a God who created us to enjoy human happiness.

Five years before, this Pope had been nearly killed by an assassain.

His early life was one of intense sacrifice and loss. And yet he preaches:

“We are meant to have our human joys: the joy of living, the joy of love and friendship, the joy of work well done. We who are Christians have a further cause for joy: like Jesus, we know that we are loved by God our Father. This love transforms our lives and fills us with joy…

We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”. We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the “fundamental duty of love of neighbour, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy”. We realize that joy is demanding; it demands unselfishness; it demands a readiness to say with Mary: “Be it done unto me according to thy word”.

Angelus 1986

If there’s a universal human desire, it’s happiness. Perhaps its more than desire, hunger may be a more accurate noun. Because of my early life, I think, and therefore write about happiness.

Mostly, I think, happiness is like love, a decision. Similar to the one a Christian Texas woman named Katherine Lee made during an conversation on an airplane. Lee wrote that the man seated next to her exuded sucess, confidence and poise. Trained as a life coach, Lee continued engaging the man after he disclosed that he was the CEO of a top pornographic company.

Aware that he’d seen the Christian book she was reading, Lee maintained her serenity. Instead of the judgement he expected, she expressed curiosity. Then listened his replies. Followed by calmly asking questions like, “Do you think about the women?” “About what happens to them after they’re used up?”

Lee went home and began the Pure Hope Foundation. A rescue center for suvivers of sex trafikking. I know only this bare outline of what must be a complex story but Lee’s reaction to a pornogapher exemplfies grace and compassion. choices we are given with each moment of the time we have. Take just a moment to listen. And think about donating.

The Gospel of the devil

is what St. Padre Pio called 20th century newspapers. I’ve segued into the news because the damage a news addiction can do to our peace of mind is incalculable. Padre Pio made his statement decades ago, long before the media took control of our living rooms, families and psyches.

During Holy Week in Houston, a twenty-nine-year old priest heard over 1100 confessions—sixty-eight hours of confessions. “Last week, I heard 1167 confessions. Do I care about numbers? Not really. Do I care about the salvation of souls? Oh yeah. That’s all I care about. And each confession was a soul that walked in with sin, then walked out a new creation,” Father David Michael said.

“1167 beautiful moments of grace, and the only witnesses were the angels… and me.”

These kinds of things aren’t reported on all the news you need to know. Instead, we’re fed its primary commodity: fear. What happens when we]re filled with fear?

Our joy disappears, stolen by satan, the author of joylessness.

Keep this in mind: Joy is the only real enemy to Satan! Who understood this better than J.R.R. Tolkien who went so far as to invent an expression that attempts to capture the invincibility of joy:

I coined the word “eucatastrophe”: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears. It produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth; your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back.

This is Satan’s real enemy: Take it Seriously

We Christians cannot afford that loss. These ticking minutes of our lives are too momentous, too packed with opportunity.

Opportunity for what?

Taking the lid off the dynamite of our faith

Huh?

Bishop Robert Barron

I’d not hear it until I listened to Bishop Robert Barron’s riveting thirty-five minute address, The Christian Contribution to the Public Conversation, to the British Parliament. He begins by discussing the shy, diminutive Hindu man who arrived at Oxford in 1888. That man was, of course, Mahatma Ghandi. Introduced to the Bible by fellow student, Ghandi is electrified by the New Testament.

Especially Matthew, Chapters six, seven and eight: The Beatitudes.

But we’re no Catholic Bishop
with tons of theological background and an army of staff.
Right, we’re not.
We’re ordinary men and women of faith. Chistian, Catholic and maybe one we can’t name.
And on our own we can do nothing.
But through our Baptism, we are marked forever.
….When baptized, each of us is left with an indelible spiritual mark. “No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated. Through the sacrament, the Holy Spirit has marked us with the seal of eternal life…Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift. . . .We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift  because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath  because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God’s Lordship.”
Baptism: His and Ours

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What’s It All About?

What’s it all about?

Do you remember that Burt Bacharach song, What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it’s wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

Bacharach and David’s haunting melody and lyrics pair magificently with Dionne Warwick’s 1966 interpretation. She cries out humanity’s existential search for meaning: Who am I; Why am I here?

The confusion and sorrow inherent in these lyrics have amplified exponentially in the last six decades. As has the power of those proclaiming their remedy to all human suffering: expunge and persecute humanity’s true identity as sons and daughters of God.

I’ve thought repeatedly of this phrase these past Holy Days as we’ve moved slowly toward this Resurrection Day. The culmination of the three-year ministry of the Son of God. Reflecting, meditating and praying on the Gospel readings of these days.

Like:

I’ve done many kindnesses. For which of these do you want to kill me?

And, “I say to you, one of you is about to betray me.

My soul is sorrowful onto death, stay and watch with me.

And to Peter’s “Though all may have their faith shaken in you, mine will never be,, Amen I say to you this very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.

His first words from the cross

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Wrench another WHY? from the shreds of our sinful hearts. He who was equal with God willingly emptied Himself, descending from the High Heavens to become a helpless infant, walk in the dust of ancient Isreal, subject Himself to mockery, spittle and the torture of scourging and crucifixtion.

It was because of this that he humbled himself, obediently accepting death, even death on a cross.

He who would not grasp equality with God descends to grasp us: You and me up and out of the muck of our egodramas.

Why?

He tells us precisely why. Over and over He declares I do nothing but what the Father asks of me. Following the Father’s command to shoulder every single sin commited by every single soul since the beginning of humanity: becoming, literally sin. Forever ending the domination of the hater of humanity.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,  but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 

He lived and He died to break open the path to God the Father.

Christ overcame death by dying—mortem nostram moriendo destruxit. This is the paschal cry rising in unison from both the Eastern and Western Churches today. Death is no longer a wall, smashing everything that crashes into it. It is a passage—that is, a Passover. It can be likened to a “Bridge of Sighs” beyond which we enter into real life where there is no death.

The most awesome part of the Christian message is that Jesus did not die just for himself. Unlike Socrates, Jesus did not simply leave us an example of heroic death. He did something quite different: “One has died for all” (2 Cor 5:14), St. Paul exclaimed, and elsewhere Scripture puts it “that he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9). These are extraordinary statements, and the only reason we do not shout for joy when we hear them is that we do not take them seriously and literally enough. “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (see Rom 6:3). We have entered into a real, even if mystical, relationship with that death. We have become sharers in death, so much so that St. Paul is bold enough to proclaim in faith, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3), and again, “One has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor 5:14).

One Man has died for all

We know what it’s all about, faithful Christian brother and sister. It’s about this Man, this glorious, perfect God-Man who came to kick satan, and all his demonic minions, in the teeth to defeat his kingdom of death. And so, we are amboldened in our rejection of the nihilistic, antiChristian propaganda of our days. Because we know and believe that we’re called to be saints.

Priests, prophets and kings, that’s us!

It’s not just priests who have been annointed as priests, prophets and kings.: Other Christs. It’s each of us who has been baptized and confirmed. He died so we can become saints, an annointing for the world. Bishop Barron explains:

“God’s center—the love between the Father and the Son—is now offered as our center; God’s heart breaks open so as to include even the worst and most hopeless among us. In so many spiritual traditions, the emphasis is placed on the human quest for God, but this is reversed in Christianity.”

In fact, He calls us to renew the face of the earth, take unbelievers by their virtual hands and share our annointing for the world.

Aleluia.

He has risen—And so have we.

“

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The Awful Simplicity of Sin

the awful simplicity of sinThe awful simplicity of sin

Isn’t it strange when something we’ve repeatedly read and/or heard in the liturgy one day seems to shout out at us?

As in STOP, PAY ATTENTION!!

Monday’s reading was from the Book of Daniel and if we listen closely, brings sorrow, if not shame.

Why?

Because we see ourselves.

“they began to lust for her.
They suppressed their consciences;
they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven,
and did not keep in mind just judgments…”

It’s this passage that evokes the phrase, the awful simplcity of sin. These men are elders appointed as judges and teach us the three simple prerequisites on the road to sin:

Suppress our consciencesRefuse to look to heavenDecline just judgements: His Laws.

If we’ve not done something similar, we’ve thought about doing it. And so we recognize these men, the two judges, when we look in the mirror. Then we see the radical heroism of Susannah:

“I am completely trapped,” Susanna groaned.
“If I yield, it will be my death;
if I refuse, I cannot escape your power.
Yet it is better for me to fall into your power without guilt
than to sin before the Lord.”

Since the Protestant Bible ends at chapter twelve and it’s a long reading, I’ve embedded it here.

Susannah recalls Esther

with her life and death situation and heartfelt prayer to her God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:

“O eternal God, you know what is hidden
and are aware of all things before they come to be:
you know that they have testified falsely against me.
Here I am about to die,
though I have done none of the things
with which these wicked men have charged me.”

The Lord heard her prayer.
As she was being led to execution,
God stirred up the holy spirit of a young boy named Daniel,
and he cried aloud:
“I will have no part in the death of this woman.”

These women: Susannah and Esther, call out to us in the 21st century. Both of them were gifted with beauty and brains; gifts they kept constrained within the Mosaic Law. They make no attempt to cloak their fear. And yet, neither woman doubts the presence of God’s listening ear.

They trust. Their situations are impossible and yet they choose to blindly trust Him.

It’s a bit like Christ’s healing isn’t it?

The fervent faith must precede the healing, or it does NOT happen.

I write frequently about passages from the Old Testament and ancient Isreal. That’s because, ever since my conversion, I’ve considered America as the New Israel, although I didn’t phrase it that way. My reading Jonathan Cahn‘s hundreds, maybe thousands of parallels between America and Israel provided the phrase and strengthened my conviction.

But there is paradox here

My phrase, the awful simplicity of sin, conveys the paradox—the mystery of it. Neither Susannah nor Esther was guilty of offending the Mosaic Law. Just so, many Christians have never veered from the Commandments or the rules of our individual churches, whichever one we follow. And yet we must accept our complicitness in the darkness around us.

Seeing the enemy as us sinners, not some politician ignorantly basking in their five minutes of fame, changes our lens. For example, consider these excerpted sections of the lengthy Prayer to Heal Our Land from the Patriotic Rosary.

Lord, who are we as a people, having been given blessings
in portions as no other nation before us? What
has become of us, Father? We have spoiled your spacious
skies with buildings and cities breathing with sin. The
amber waves of grain are no longer viewed as our blessing
but as our due…

We now realize it’s because of our failings as
Christians. Father, Samuel told your people, “It is true you
have committed all this evil, still you must not turn from the
Lord, but worship Him with your whole heart. For the sake
of His own great name, the Lord will not abandon his own
people….

We realize our nation is headed toward disaster by so many
signs You have given us. Holy, Holy, Holy God, grant Mary
Her requests that we may again be your people, not a nation
above God but one nation humbled and under God. Amen.

Is there more we can do?

We Catholics need to act more like our friends the Protestants and believing Jews: we need to speak and behave differently.

Here are just a few of a lengthy list:

Cut out those practices and habits that harm ourselves and othersDetermine gratitude for everything: see each moment as willed by Him for us, nowGive our idle and ‘wasted time waiting‘ to HimPray In His NameGuard our thoughts, if they’re negative and judgemental, turn them to healthy thoughtCease complaining or criticizing anyone or anything Invite a former—church goer, Catholic, synagogue attendee, to come worship with us.When the opportunity arises, speak to others about why we do what we do, risking rejectionKeep in mind that holiness cannot be taught, it must be caught.

In a time of widespread indifference to faith, one dilemma in the effort to live for souls is whether to resist in a forceful manner a disdain for religious truth that we may encounter in others. It would seem that few victories take place. Even so, does the likelihood of rejection excuse us from a struggle that God may expect us to enter bravely, especially after our own conversion? Is it enough to comfort ourselves with the assurance that truth will win in the end?

Perhaps a different recognition is possible. Truth was nailed to a cross at Calvary in Jesus Christ. And it should be equally evident that the crucifixion of truth continues throughout the course of history. Should we expect otherwise in our own time? The ignominy and shame of Golgotha do not suggest great triumphs for those who defend and live Christian truths, including moral truths. The cross implies, rather, that we will be crushed at times in an unequal fight. What God asks us to accept is that, if we are worthy of it, Christ will be mocked and scourged within our own life, even in trying to love and save souls. That mystery cannot take place unless we are courageous in our witness to Christian dogmatic and moral truth. We can trust that the experience of rejection is united to his mysterious presence and, perhaps, in the long run wins more souls than we can realize. Those with eyes to see will perceive this reality.

Willing to Risk Rejection/Fr. Donald Hagerty

Behold I make all things new- courtesy Fr. Boniface HicksHoly Week Meditation:

EWTN FR. JOSEPH MARY THE SEVEN LAST WORDS

Powerful 20 minute meditation with EWTN Chaplain Fr. Joseph Mary: Jesus’ Seven Last Words

The post The Awful Simplicity of Sin appeared first on Lin Wilder.

Deeply Invested in Blindness: We Are All Jews Now

Deeply invested in blindnessDeeply invested in blindness: we are all Jews now.

The sobering, jolting truth of a phase penned by Liel Liebowitz: we are all Jews now, shouts out to us.

“Maybe it was the spirited conversation, or maybe just the spirits served liberally throughout the evening, but at some point I turned to my friends, raised my glass, and made a toast. “Mazal tov,” I said. “You’re all Jews now.”

The line got a big laugh, but I was being serious. Growing up in what, until five or six years ago, felt like a very different America, my friends had no way of knowing what life as an embattled minority might feel like. Their beliefs, give or take a few articles of faith, were so ubiquitous in the public discourse that they hardly needed stating: Of course we all love America and believe in its divine election. Of course we all cheer and yearn for warm, tightly knit families offering love and support. Of course we worship a mighty God, divergent as our religious practices and affiliations may be. Sure, here and there a fiery and divisive issue might have popped into view, reminding my friends that some of their neighbors held wildly different convictions, but what they could expect at such contentious moments was a debate, not a crusade, because America was America, and because they, normal Americans, were the majority.

No more.”

Because my hometown was two-thirds Jewish, our closest neighbors were orthodox Jews, and many of my best friends have been Jews, since childhood, I’ve been attracted to the Jewish people. Later, in adulthood, although I called myself an atheist, it was at the orthodox wedding of two dear Jewish friends where the beauty of the Hebrew and the ancient rituals, evoked profound yearning for substance, rules, solid ground: Truth.

There’s a surfeit of wisdom in this essay

for us, the newly persecuted. And also humor. I’ve read it a few times now and chuckle at the author’s reminiscence about a dinner—in Texas, which produces a grin now that I’m back— with a “diverse group of Jews, Evangelicals, young, old, musicians and professors with little in common except shared belief in family, faith and nation.”

If anyone can teach us about our new status in America, it’s Jews.

Newly persecuted, huh?

Yes, that’s us, we who believe that the Commandments don’t change. That He meant every word recorded in the Gospel.

Consider the Justice Department targeting of orthodox Catholics as “violent extremists. And then there’s Hillary Clinton’s label of prolifers as domestic terrorists and war criminals. Of course, those Christians and Catholics who’ve adapted God’s law to their own are exempted. It’s us “Biblical Christians and Jews who are now the public enemy.

Author Leibowitz’s advice to us is classically blunt, practical and serious:

Don’t talk to those who hate you.Agree with whatever epithets are hurled-racist, misogynist, fascist.Start educating one another in scripture, in what we know is Truth.Stay focused.

It’s critically important to recall what we’re dealing with here:

These people are not our enemies. Evil is not a thing. It can’t be for all that God creates is good. But it’s real and increasing. St. Augustine explains the oxymoron:

Evil has no positive nature but its loss receives a name: evil…evil then, Evil, then, is the act itself of choosing the lesser good. To Augustine the source of evil is in the free will of persons: “And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill.”5 Evil was a “perversion of the will, turned aside from…God” to lesser things.6

Last Sunday’s Gospel

tells the tale of the man who was blind from birth who Jesus walks by and heals. It’s a long Gospel and can be read in entirety here. “Some people looked for a reason why the man was blind, suggesting it was punishment for his sins. Others did not believe he was really blind, and thus did not believe in the miracle. The man’s parents, worried about the anger of the synagogue officials, were afraid to say anything. All these cases, the Pope said, show “hearts closed in front of the sign of Jesus: because they seek a culprit, because they do not know how to be surprised, because they do not want to change, because they are blocked by fear.”

Barron’s explanation goes far deeper, revealing that this tale contains each of our stories. The blind man is not only restored to physical sight, but spiritual. When “his being is rubbed into our sin-sick eyes, we begin properly to see.” In reply to all the skeptics claiming that you cannot be the same guy, the man’s answer is translated as “Yeah, it’s me.”

But in the original Greek he says, “Ego eimi.” Or “I am.” Precisely what the Lord tells Moses His Name is: I Am.

Why? Recall what happens with the sacrament of Baptism, we are restored to our proper roles as Sons and Daughters of God; we’re immersed in Christ.

But the reaction of the powerful to this wondrous miracle?

They throw the healed man out of the synagogue!

Harrassment, questioning the man’s legitimacy, demonizing Christ.

There are a lot of people in this sinful world deeply invested in blindness…That means their whole world, their way of making money, their whole political order, whatever it is, is predicated on the fact that most people are not spiritually awake. Most people are spiritually blind. And so they don’t want someone who has been liberated…They don’t want someone who sees…So I say to everyone who is on the spiritual journey who can say Ego Eimi, stay wide awake, be careful, for the devil is prowling, looking for someone to devour. You will be opposed,
Trust me.
Trust me.

Bishop Barron/I Was Blind and Now I see.

Liel Leibowitz ends his both sobering and delightful piece

with these comments, “So welcome, my Christian friends, to the ­mishpocha, Hebrew for “family.” We’re all on the outside now, but we’re outside together, a communion of believers, ­happy and passionate and committed to a life of truth and beauty. Let’s celebrate!”

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A Journey of Forgiveness: Our Life on Earth

Letting go psychology concept as a heavy anchor transforming into a flying group of birds as a motivational metaphor for liberation and leaving a life or business burden behind.A journey of forgiveness

“Our life on earth is a journey of forgiveness,” declared Fr. Paul at the St. Matthew’s Tuesday 6am daily Mass. Commenting on the Gospel for last Tuesday, the priest spoke of a recent experience with a parishioner following the sacrament of reconciliation.

He told the contrite young man, “I see Jesus in you. Yes, I see Our Lord in your repentance and love for His Law.” At hearing the priest’s words, the penitent began to sob, Fr. Paul said.

Then, looking out at each of us as, he observed, “Often, the one we need most to forgive is ourself. Over and over we need to forgive ourselves.”

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan…

Forgiveness is a form of voluntary suffering

that brings about a greater good. With that statement, Pastor Timothy Keller explains the lens through which we Christians view forgiveness in reply to the secular rise of the “offense of forgiveness.” Think Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Jane’s Revenge—activist groups enforcing a culture of victimhood. And of  through oppressing excellence. A moral culture, one author maintains, not of sexual licentiousness but of vindictiveness sanctioned by law.

But yet we must ask whether forgiveness has ever been intrinisic to humans? Our Lord answers our question when he speaks about the actions of the forgiven servant.

Jesus speaks of the forgiven man’s shockingly sinful ingratitude. His refusal to extend the same compassion and mercy to one who owed him far less, invokes the eternal wrath of his master.

Forgiveness. It’s the toughest thing to do in life, I think. In fact, I don’t think it’s tough; I think it’s impossible. At least on our own. I’m not talking about forgiving someone who slighted us a little. I’m talking about someone who has hurt us in a profound and life-altering way. Someone who sexually or physically abused us, was unfaithful to us, slandered us, tried to ruin us, took the life of a loved one…This is Serious

It’s worth sticking on the servant forgiven a large debt for a moment. That forgiveness from his master was Grace. And what must we do when we’re given Grace? Fully cognizant of our own need for forgiveness, we must

GIVE IT AWAY!

In his homily for last Sunday, The Thirsty Soul, Bishop Barron explains a basic maxim of the spiritual life: we can only receive Grace.

We cannot grasp it, make it mine.

And how do we keep the divine life alive within us?

Give it all away, honoring the Law of the Gift.

“Scattered about the entire earth, your mother the Church is tormented by the assaults of error. She is also afflicted by the laziness and indifference of so many of the children she carries around in her bosom as well as by the sight of so many of her members growing cold, while she becomes less able to help her little ones. Who then will give her the necessary help she cries for if not her children and other members to whose number you belong?”
—Saint Augustine

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A Journey of Forgiveness: Our Life on Earth

Our life on earth- a journey of forgiveness, letting goA journey of forgiveness

“Our life on earth is a journey of forgiveness,” declared Fr. Paul at the St. Matthew’s Tuesday 6am daily Mass. Commenting on the Gospel for last Tuesday, the priest spoke of a recent experience with a parishioner following the sacrament of reconciliation.

He told the contrite young man, “I see Jesus in you. Yes, I see Our Lord in your repentance and love for His Law.” At hearing the priest’s words, the penitent began to sob, Fr. Paul said.

Then, looking out at each of us as, he observed, “Often, the one we need most to forgive is ourself. Over and over we need to forgive ourselves.”

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan…

Forgiveness is a form of voluntary suffering

that brings about a greater good. With that statement, Pastor Timothy Keller explains the lens through which we Christians view forgiveness in reply to the secular rise of the “offense of forgiveness.” Think Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Jane’s Revenge—activist groups enforcing a culture of victimhood. And of through oppressing excellence. A moral culture, one author maintains, not of sexual licentiousness but of vindictiveness sanctioned by law.

But yet we must ask whether forgiveness has ever been intrinisic to humans? Our Lord answers our question when he speaks about the actions of the forgiven servant.

Jesus speaks of the forgiven man’s shockingly sinful ingratitude. His refusal to extend the same compassion and mercy to one who owed him far less, invokes the eternal wrath of his master.

Forgiveness. It’s the toughest thing to do in life, I think. In fact, I don’t think it’s tough; I think it’s impossible. At least on our own. I’m not talking about forgiving someone who slighted us a little. I’m talking about someone who has hurt us in a profound and life-altering way. Someone who sexually or physically abused us, was unfaithful to us, slandered us, tried to ruin us, took the life of a loved one…

This is Serious

It’s worth sticking on the servant forgiven a large debt for a moment. That forgiveness from his master was Grace. And what must we do when we’re given Grace? Fully cognizant of our own need for forgiveness, we must

GIVE IT AWAY!

In his homily for last Sunday, The Thirsty Soul, Bishop Barron explains a basic maxim of the spiritual life: we can only receive Grace.

We cannot grasp it, make it mine.

And how do we keep the divine life alive within us?

Give it all away, honoring the Law of the Gift.

A postscript about age-old division in the Church

“Scattered about the entire earth, your mother the Church is tormented by the assaults of error. She is also afflicted by the laziness and indifference of so many of the children she carries around in her bosom as well as by the sight of so many of her members growing cold, while she becomes less able to help her little ones. Who then will give her the necessary help she cries for if not her children and other members to whose number you belong?”
—Saint Augustine

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Do We Know How to Pray?

Smiling young woman cross fingers make wish. Do we know how to pray?Do we know how to pray?

The blue-jacketed 40 Days for Life prayer warrior approached the driver of the car leaving the San Antonio Planned Parenthood building with her small pink bag of free gifts. I watched as the young woman’s face contorted in rage. Rolling down her window and using her middle finger as emphasis to words I didn’t need to hear, she shouted at Racquel. Then angrily drove away. Walking back to where I stood praying, Racquel was smiling.

“It’s all good. I’ve done worse. I used to be there, too. One day she’ll see.”

Indeed.

Prayer is the fulcrom of Lent, of our life as Christians. But recent readings in the litrugy make me wonder , “Do we know how to pray.”

These past weeks in the Christian liturgy, we read first Daniel’s prayer:

I, Daniel, understood… that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.  So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes….

“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,  we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws…Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you.  

You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster…Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him…”

Daniel is the quintessence of holiness, purity and trust in his Lord. His refusal of unclean food, gifts of prophecy and counsel to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar reveal a man of holiness. And yet he places himself in the collective with his passionate entreaties to the Lord for mercy. “We have been wicked and rebelled…”

Then last week,

we read of Esther and her mission to save her nation. I know a little about Esther because she appeared in my head a couple of years ago and stayed there for nearly a year.

The result?

A novel about her life.

Stepping out past the courtyard into the chariot, I felt the prayers of my people lifting me up. See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I’m setting before you today?…

I felt a chill, for autumn had arrived. The sun was rising slowly behind me, and every nerve I possessed seemed to stand on end.

Am I afraid to die? No. The Lord has placed me here in this place and in this time.

The Reluctant Queen

They’re brought to us each Lent, Daniel and Esther. Because they are prophets, they speak for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And they carry their sinful nation on their backs.

This Lent of 2023, I read their prayers and wonder: do we know how to pray?

Specifically, am I doing my part of carrying the sins of our nation on my back? Much of my prayer is words. Devotionals like the Liturgy of the, Rosary, Auxilium Christianorum, Divine Mercy Chaplet and the like.

Recently. I read three of New York Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s books. Each confirmed a longheld belief: 21st century America and ancient Israel are mirror images of one another.

Both nations chosen and prodigiously blessed by God.

Each country turning its back on our Creator and prostituting itself with the gods of pride, lust, wealth, greed and power—stomping on His Law.

I trust in the power of my prayers…but, is there more?

On the Friday after Ash Wednesday, the second reading was from a homily by Saint John Chrysostom, Prayer is the light of the spirit. He begins by talking about prayer as a supreme good…calling it a partnership and union with God. And qualifies his statements:

I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed times or periods but continuous throughout the day and night…Prayer stands before God as an honored ambassador. It gives joy to the spirit, peace to the heart. I speak of prayer, not words…[italics mine]

It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God’s grace. The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings.

Prayer is the light of the Spirit

Yes, there’s more. But it isn’t coming easily. But then, nothing worth doing is easy.

Pope Francis exhorts us to pray for the grace of combative hope. This spiritual hope is much more than mere optimism. It is not full of fan-fare, nor is it afraid of silence. Rather, it penetrates deep down within us, like sap in winter roots. Hope is certain, and it is the Father of Truth who gives it to us. Hope discerns between good and evil. It does not worship at the altar of success: falling into optimism; nor is it content with failure: wallowing in pessimism. Because hope discerns between good and evil, it is called to do combat. Yet it fights without anxiety or illusion, with the assurance of one who knows that he pursues a sure goal…

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Whatever’s Happening: Make it Holy!

Funny s… asks What’s Happend? Lettering, comic design for t-shirt or poster-Whatever’s happening: make it holyWhatever’s Happening: Make it holy

It is wonderful to be alive in as
much as our true life is the life beyond; otherwise who
could bear the burden of this life if there weren’t a prize
for suffering, an eternal joy; how could one explain
the admirable resignation of so many poor creatures
who struggle with life and often die in the breach if it
weren’t for the certainty of God’s justice?…

My life is monotonous, but every day I understand
better what a grace it is to be Catholic. Poor unlucky
those who don’t have a faith: to live without a faith, with
out a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle
for the truth, is not living but existing. We must never
exist but live, because even through every disappoint
ment we should remember that we are the only ones
who possess the truth, we have a faith to sustain, a hope
to attain: our homeland. And therefore let us banish all
melancholy that can only exist when the faith is lost.
Human sorrows touch us, but if they are viewed in the
light of religion, and thus of self-surrender, they are not
harmful but helpful,

He was twenty-four when he died, Pier Giorgio Frassati—having gained the wisdom of heart that takes most of us seven or eight decades…if we’ve been open to Grace.

I’ve been thinking—and therefore writing, about time of late. It’s a limited, precious resource: each moment unrepeatable. As in, the choice we make in this moment at this time could be life or death.

Too dramatic?

Perhaps. From the age of twenty, I was immersed in just that: Life or death, so maybe it’s an imprint- virtual, of course. In the critical care units where I worked my way through undergrad, then graduate school, moments were indeed filled with life or death.

But then again, maybe not. It’s impossible to miss the increasing numbers of sudden, unexplainable deaths in persons far younger than I am. So how many heartbeats have I/we left?

Not infrequently, I get more than a little anxious about how wisely I’m using the minutes and days of my life or the astounding gifts I’ve been given. And, of course, it’s Lent. Already the second Sunday in our six-week journey to becoming a better version of ourselves; more like what He had in mind when He thought us into being.

“How did you get here?”

asked my friend at breakfast last Tuesday. She meant, “How did an atheist transform to a daily Catholic Communicant?” I’m still not sure why I began my response with an abruptly salient incident that occured while I was in my doctoral program.

So appalled at what I’d done, I talked at length with my dissertation advisor about my inexcusable arrogance and rudeness to a Christian conservative politician (the antithesis of my politics at the time) at a dinner party the evening before.

I asked, more accurately begged, my advisor Steve, if it was plausible that all this disciplined study precluded a repeat of such ignorant, boorish behavior on my part. Looking back, I realized that I was seeking absolution from him—that conversation with my advisor was a confession of a type. Long before I was conscious of such a sacrament.

“I don’t know why I began with that awful memory…” and looked at my friend.

Barely blinking, Linda said in reply, “But aren’t these humiliating events the most effective teachers we can ever find?”

Indeed-Whatever’s Happening: Make it holy.

An online friend mused about the upheaval of her plans for a Lenten cenacle:

“On the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes…. I planned to make my deeper commitment to the Lord. Surely this day would be “set apart”. Well…after prayerfully making my deeper commitment early in the day, I had choir practice later that morning, Grandchildren in the afternoon, and a rare outing with my daughter in the evening.

I wondered, what just happened? My intentions had been so good.

I could blame the devil and human weakness for the busy-ness of my week. But I don’t like giving the enemy credit for anything. …”

Her words remind us that all our actions— even interruptions, can be the work of Grace, if we so choose.

And these days of Lent are jam-packed with Grace.

Pope Benedict’s reflection of Lent, 2011, recalls our Baptism, declaring these forty days to be indelibly linked to the Baptismal washing. A cleansing that eradicated our sin and purified our souls.

A particular connection binds Baptism to Lent as the favorable time to experience this saving Grace. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council exhorted all of the Church’s Pastors to make greater use “of the baptismal features proper to the Lenten liturgy” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium, n. 109). In fact, the Church has always associated the Easter Vigil with the celebration of Baptism: this Sacrament realizes the great mystery in which man dies to sin, is made a sharer in the new life of the Risen Christ and receives the same Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead (cf. Rm 8: 11). This free gift must always be rekindled in each one of us, and Lent offers us a path like that of the catechumenate, which, for the Christians of the early Church, just as for catechumens today, is an irreplaceable school of faith and Christian life. Truly, they live their Baptism as an act that shapes their entire existence.

Message of His Holiness for Lent

The mighty here and now.

It’s the Feast of the Transfiguration as well as the second Sunday in Lent.

Our Christian journeys are a curious juxtaposition of contrition and joy: Hating our sins but secure in the knowledge that we belong to Him. Told to be perfect as Our Father in Heaven is perfect, we resolve each Lent, to become a better version of ourself. One that reflects the person our Creator had in mind when He conjured us. We travel up to the mountain top to hear, “This is my Son. Listen to Him.”

Maura Harrison’s poetic rhythm and metaphors describe our moment-to-moment choices to perfection.

Make Holy What is Happening

Bathing in beauty, richly rich,

God grants us gifts and gives us grace.

Do we receive? Or do we pitch

His wealth into a worldly place,

The reaping race, the maddening

Mundane, the mighty here and how?

“Make holy what is happening”

is prayer that pushes pout and brow     

      

To sigh, to fiat, an exchange                                  

That holds our harms so we relive

The offered offering. Let’s change

Our hurts to something that we give:

Small sacrifices, humbly hewn,

Our poverty, our graceful tune.

The Transfiguration of Christ

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