Sunday, January 27, 2013

Authentic conversion always comes from realizing that we have been “persecuting” Christ.

Heather King gave a powerful witness to conversion in her life. Read her message HERE. It appeared in the Magnificat on the feast day of St Paul's conversion.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” [Acts 9:4] Authentic conversion always comes from realizing that we have been “persecuting” Christ.

In the fall of 1986, I spent thirty days at an addiction treatment center in rural Minnesota. Hiking trails meandered through the woods. The trees were turning color. One morning I crept out for a walk just past dawn. Not another soul stirred. I came upon a pond and, through the mist, saw a blue heron, standing stock still, noble head erect. I saw the heron and the heron saw me.

It was a moment from the Song of Songs, a moment of liminal space and time, an instant of such heart-stopping beauty that in my memory it has attained the level of myth. All those years while I’d been in the bars, this heron, or one like him, had been coming to the pond. All those years while I’d been drinking morning Sea Breezes at Boston’s Sullivan’s Tap, another parallel world had been breathing, suffering, praising God. Many years passed before I discovered Christ, and more years after that before I came into the Church. But in a way I can mark my conversion from that moment. In a way that heron was Christ, saying, “Heather, Heather, why are you persecuting me?”

St. Paul fell off his horse, but Christ comes in the form of a lamb, a dove, a heron. That’s not to say he’s always gentle. But he’s often gentlest when we’ve been doing terrible violence to ourselves and others. Christ never cuts us down with a gun or a sword. He looks at us with love. He says, Look at these blue-gray feathers. He says, Isn’t it lovely to be still and listen to the frogs? He looks us in the eye with love and says, “Why are you persecuting me?”

To be forgiven when we know we don’t “deserve” to be forgiven is radically transformative in a way violence can never be. To be forgiven does another kind of violence: to our whole tit-for-tat notion of crime and punishment. To be forgiven makes us realize that, unbelievable as it may seem, God needs us for something. We have a mission.  

My experience with the heron wasn’t a white-light experience. It was a door opening onto what has proved to be a long and very slow spiritual awakening of, as William James put it, “the educational variety.” How often I’ve forgotten the heron. How often I’ve been harsh, rageful, importunate, intolerant, unfaithful, unkind, and just plain wrong.

When that happens I’m struck blind for a few hours or days or even months. Often a long time passes before I see that once again, I’ve been persecuting Christ.

Our offense doesn’t lie in breaking a rule. It lies in offending against love, against truth, against beauty. What’s remarkable about St. Paul isn’t that he had a white light experience. What’s remarkable is that he retained his fervor for all the remaining years of his life. 

Monday, January 21, 2013

The WHY of education and the WHY it is today we must take a step out in faith

Won't Back Down is truly a great theme to lead us into a deeper reflection of ourselves and our culture. Check out this video clip.


Last night we watched Won't Back Down and I felt that the movie tried hard to explore and expose the crisis that our education system is in. In the movie, popping in and out, in-between pushing numerous societal hot bottoms, we are presented the reason for action NOW and not later. I ask you to go back and review this clip paying particular attention starting around 1:28 through 1:32. Here we have the call to action - the WHY, as it were and I will add, it is nonnegotiable.

"We are not here for teachers and parents; we are here for our kids."

Somewhere deep in this plea we hear a call to understand education as well as all things human are generational. This is a call we cannot ignore yet it is exactly what we do, ignore. Obviously we cannot and must not turn our backs on the need to "fix" education in this country. One major stumbling block to seriously tackling this "fix" is due to how we all succumb to the fast-paced world of total distraction, relativism and anything goes - where we are all "occupied" - using this term in its military reference - what may be called seized and controlled by forces unnamed - thus being disarmed by way of a certain type of blindness causing us to misread the generational religious and spiritual warfare going on in our lives and in our civilization.

Researching for my class on spiritual direction today, I ran across the following article that reveals the need to ask the larger question of: WHY- Why do we educate our youth?


Here is a quote:
Education is in crisis not merely because standards of literacy or mathematics have fallen, but because we have no coherent vision, as a society, of what education is for or what it is meant to achieve. We have assumed that, if it is not merely a cage to keep our young people off the streets, its purpose is to train workers in the great economic machine, the same machine that we hope will produce endless growth. But we cannot know what education is for, since we have no idea any longer what man is for, or what a human being actually is.
As Frank Sheed once put it: “This question of purpose is a point overlooked in most educational discussions, yet it is quite primary. How can you fit a man’s mind for living if you do not know what the purpose of man’s life is?” We need a philosophy of education based on an adequate “anthropology” or picture of man, if we are to put education back on the right track.
See the entire article

The Purpose of Education: A Catholic Primer

by Stratford Caldecott

There are no easy fix to education especially if we just want to go along with the status quo. Yet if we look at the possibilities could this moment in time be an invitation to take a leap out in faith and become more than what or who we are.
Otherwise...are we not ushering in the "perfect storm?"


(*This video is part 2 and does not include parts 1 & 3, however I thought the lyrics appropriate to include.)
Another Brick In the Wall Lyrics 
by Pink Floyd
Another Brick in the Wall Lyrics - Part 1 (Waters)

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
"You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy!
Another Brick in the Wall Lyrics - Part 2 (Waters) 
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!"
Another Brick in the Wall Lyrics - Part 3 (Waters) 
[Sound of many TV's coming on, all on different channels]
"The Bulls are already out there"
Pink: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!"
"This Roman Meal bakery thought you'd like to know."
I don't need no arms around me
And I dont need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No! Don't think I'll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

St Anthony of Egypt - Memorial is celebrated on January 17th

"Persevere in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving." (Col 4:2)

"Ceaseless prayer is the ideal of the monastic life developed by Saint Anthony. Its goal is purity of heart, that is, a heart so filled with love for God and neighbor that there is room for nothing else. Its tool is discernment, that is, the habit of watchfully testing the inner movements of the heart, following those which are from God and ignoring those which are not. It is the desert legacy to all who seek God in any walk of life." 
--from Magnificat, January 2012

When you can abandon the modern trappings of autonomy you can really sense the power of what mimetic theory is all about in the Life of Anthony. 


Two Greek philosophers ventured out into the Egyptian desert to the mountain where Anthony lived. When they got there, Anthony asked them why they had come to talk to such a foolish man? He had reason to say that -- they saw before them a man who wore a skin, who refused to bathe, who lived on bread and water. They were Greek, the world's most admired civilization, and Anthony was Egyptian, a member of a conquered nation. They were philosophers, educated in languages and rhetoric. Anthony had not even attended school as a boy and he needed an interpreter to speak to them. In their eyes, he would have seemed very foolish.

 
But the Greek philosophers had heard the stories of Anthony. They had heard how disciples came from all over to learn from him, how his intercessions had brought about miraculous healings and how his words comforted the suffering. They assured him that they had come to him because he was a wise man.

Anthony guessed what they wanted. They lived by words and arguments. They wanted to hear his words and his arguments on the truth of Christianity and the value of asceticism. But he refused to play their game. He told them that, "If you think me wise, become what I am, for we ought to imitate the good. Had I gone to you, I should have imitated you, but, since you have come to me, become what I am, for I am a Christian."

Anthony's whole life was not one of observing, but of becoming. 

Every time he heard of a holy person he would travel to see that person. But he wasn't looking for words of wisdom, he was looking to become. So if he admired a person's constancy in prayer or courtesy or patience, he would imitate it. Then he would return home.

Anthony went on to tell the Greek philosophers that their arguments would never be as strong as faith. He pointed out that all rhetoric, all arguments, no matter how complex, how well-founded, were created by human beings. But faith was created by God. If they wanted to follow the greatest ideal, they should follow their faith.
Temptation of St. Anthony, Salvator Rosa, 1645

Anthony knew how difficult this was. Throughout his life he argued and literally wrestled with the devil. His first temptations to leave his ascetic life were arguments we would find hard to resist -- anxiety about his sister, longings for his relatives, thoughts of how he could have used his property for good purposes, desire for power and money. When Anthony was able to resist him, the devil then tried flattery, telling Anthony how powerful Anthony was to beat him. Anthony relied on Jesus' name to rid himself of the devil. It wasn't the last time, though. One time, his bout with the devil left him so beaten, his friends thought he was dead and carried him to church. Anthony had a hard time accepting this. After one particular difficult struggle, he saw a light appearing in the tomb he lived in. Knowing it was God, Anthony called out, "Where were you when I needed you?" God answered, "I was here. I was watching your struggle. Because you didn't give in, I will stay with you and protect you forever."

With that kind of assurance and approval from God, many people would have settled in, content with where they were. But Anthony's reaction was to get up and look for the next challenge -- moving out into the desert.

Anthony always told those who came to visit him that the key to the ascetic life was perseverance, not to think proudly, "We've lived an ascetic life for a long time" but treat each day as if it were the beginning. To many, perseverance is simply not giving up, hanging in there. But to Anthony perseverance meant waking up each day with the same zeal as the first day. It wasn't enough that he had given up all his property one day. What was he going to do the next day?

Once he had survived close to town, he moved into the tombs a little farther away. After that he moved out into the desert. No one had braved the desert before. He lived sealed in a room for twenty years, while his friends provided bread. People came to talk to him, to be healed by him, but he refused to come out. Finally they broke the door down. Anthony emerged, not angry, but calm. Some who spoke to him were healed physically, many were comforted by his words, and others stayed to learn from him. Those who stayed formed what we think of as the first monastic community, though it is not what we would think of religious life today. All the monks lived separately, coming together only for worship and to hear Anthony speak.

But after awhile, too many people were coming to seek Anthony out. He became afraid that he would get too proud or that people would worship him instead of God. So he took off in the middle of the night, thinking to go to a different part of Egypt where he was unknown. Then he heard a voice telling him that the only way to be alone was to go into the desert. He found some Saracens who took him deep into the desert to a mountain oasis. They fed him until his friends found him again.

Anthony died when he was one hundred and five years old. A life of solitude, fasting, and manual labor in the service of God had left him a healthy, vigorous man until very late in life. And he never stopped challenging himself to go one step beyond in his faith.

Saint Athanasius, who knew Anthony and wrote his biography, said, "Anthony was not known for his writings nor for his worldly wisdom, nor for any art, but simply for his reverence toward God." We may wonder nowadays at what we can learn from someone who lived in the desert, wore skins, ate bread, and slept on the ground. We may wonder how we can become him. We can become Anthony by living his life of radical faith and complete commitment to God.

In His Footsteps: Pray that God will show you how dependent you are on God for your strength.

Prayer: Saint Anthony, you spoke of the importance of persevering in our faith and our practice. Help us to wake up each day with new zeal for the Christian life and a desire to take the next challenge instead of just sitting still. Amen

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Light that Has Arisen


I thought that this was a great and penetrating view of our part in the divine work.

God desires but one thing… our Amen.

“God desires nothing upon earth but one thing, and that he has his heart set upon – that he may find the deep abyss that he has created in man’s spirit empty and ready for the perfect work he will do there.  In all heaven and earth he has full power; one thing alone is lacking him, the accomplishment of all his holy will in man’s soul.  And what is man’s part; that God may light up and take possession of his inmost soul?  He should arise, says Holy Writ: Arise, O Jerusalem!  This is as much as to say, that a man has his own part to play in the divine work, and that it is to arise from all things whatsoever that are not God – from all creatures, including himself.  It is in this rising up that the soul’s depths are quickly stirred with longing for God.  The more all inordinate desires are shaken off, the stronger and stronger grows the yearning for God, until it seems to pierce the flesh and blood and bones and marrow, and enter into the soul’s very essence.” – Father John Tauler, O.P. (+1361) was a German Dominican priest.

Meditation from the January 2013 Magnificat