How Does Your (Spiritual) Garden Grow?

Oh, Mary….

This seems to be a week for the Marys of Scripture. A few days ago we celebrated Our Lady of Mt. Carmel; Sunday’s gospel reading told of Mary and Martha and their different ways of receiving Jesus; and today is the new feast of St. Mary Magdalene. And since I named my younger daughter Mary, it should be obvious that the name is special to me.

I wrote yesterday about the magnolia tree in my Mary Garden blooming for a second time this season. Research suggests this is, if not unique, at least fairly unusual — but not unheard of. Certainly it caught my attention, coming as it did the day before I professed my vow of celibacy. The Mary Garden also has a new and beloved planting, a “shooting star hydrangea,” which was a special gift from a dear friend in celebration of my vow. As I planted and tended this new beauty, I thought of how Our Lady is always ready to lead us to her Son, to help us make ourselves better for him, and to show us new ways in which to love him. Recently, I received the brown scapular, with its accompanying promises and prayers, and found that the beauty of wearing it is all wrapped up in how it helps me think of Mary, the Mother Jesus gave us at the foot of the Cross, and turn to her often throughout the day.

The story of Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, in Sunday’s gospel has always been a difficult reading for me. Although no one will ever accuse me of being a whiz in the kitchen or at housekeeping or entertaining, I’ve always felt a little miffed on Martha’s behalf, and I’ve puzzled over the meaning of the story. Of course, I’ve heard dozens of homilies over the years based on this story; finally, the one I heard yesterday led me to a deeper understanding of its meaning.

The issue with Martha is not the “busy.” The issue is her focus. She has let her busy-ness make the whole thing about her, and thus she lets it make her impatient with anyone and anything not lining up with that focus. At the heart of it, both Martha’s bustling activity and Mary’s reflective sitting at Jesus’ feet are ways of serving Jesus, honoring him, and loving him. The “better part” that Mary has chosen is to focus on, indeed be absorbed in, Jesus as the source and purpose. Martha’s activity is necessary, and it is her role; its merit is in focusing on and being absorbed in Jesus as its source and purpose, and that’s what she has missed. As the priest said in his homily yesterday, we don’t get to hear the rest of the story — whether and how the sisters made up, whether and how they were changed by Jesus’ words, whether and how Jesus might have further explained his meaning. What we do know is that Jesus held them as dear friends and returned to their home, and I think that suggests that Martha learned to focus her response to her own calling on Jesus rather than on herself.

That’s an important lesson for anyone who is striving to hear and learn what God calls them to in life, who is striving to live out that calling. Focus on oneself and the message gets muddled. Focus on Jesus, the source and purpose of it all, and the message gets clearer day by day.

And then there’s the feast of Mary Magdalene. If I identify in part with Martha and in part with her sister Mary, I find a soul sister in Mary Magdalene. I identify with her life before she encountered Jesus, and I identify with her need for forgiveness and cleansing, and I aspire to her unflagging love for and devotion to Jesus after he cleansed and forgave her and opened up for her a whole new path in life. With the grace that came from this healing, she became an amazing witness to Jesus’ ministry and his glorious resurrection. If she, a great sinner who was once in the thrall of her demons, became such a champion of her risen Savior, then there is also great hope for me.

At one time in my life, I walked away from what Jesus was calling me to do…walked away because I was unwilling to change, or to be changed by him and his grace. This day, I pledge and commit myself to walk with him, not away from him; to be fully open to how he wants to change me; to let him have his way with my heart, my soul, my mind, my life, so that perhaps in some small way, through me, he can have his way with the world around me.

As I offer myself in this way, I’m remembering the beautiful words of St. Therese of Lisieux (my confirmation saint) as underscored by Fr. Michael Gaitley in Consoling the Heart of Jesus: We are little, and being little, we begin to understand how completely we must depend on Jesus. St. Therese writes that when we embrace being little, “Jesus will come to look for us [and] He will transform us in flames of love.”

Jesus, teach me to be little — to rely not on my own talents and abilities but on your grace, to be wholly dependent on you for all the good things you bring to my life. Only when I strip away my self-importance and self-centeredness can I find the small soul who needs you and cannot survive without you. All in life has meaning when there is nothing between you and me but love. I pray, with St. Therese, that you would fill me with your love, fill me so full that I can’t help but overflow with it and freely give it to others. Jesus, teach me to be little. Amen.

Consecrated

The day of the most amazing grace finally arrived! On July 20, 2019, in the presence of pastor, family, friends, and my faith community, I professed my permanent vow of celibacy with a commitment to serve God wherever and however he sends me, to find and serve him in his people. During the time I was preparing for this day and for this step, I didn’t write at all, although I took many notes during times of prayer and meditation that I’m sure will find their way here in the future.

Here and now, my intent is to write about my time of preparation and about some very interesting – and incredibly beautiful – moments along the way. My Father God has an amazing way of using the present moment to get my attention and, if I’ll listen, lead me where he wants me to go.

A couple of weeks ago, with 12 days remaining until the day of my vow of celibacy to my Jesus, and in the midst of a fast-paced life (even in retirement!), I received the grace of spending time a long weekend in a sort of modified retreat, with Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Fr. Michael Gaitley as my retreat guide. I am taking some time now to write down what this retreat has brought me.

Since I began to hear the call to a vow of celibacy late last winter, I have reflected often on the way such a vow will free me into greater service to God. With these reflections has come deeper grace and love than I could have imagined, in the form of new and expanded opportunities for service both within and outside my family. I can still remember thinking, when I first retired, that I didn’t want to be one of those grandparents/great-grandparents whose time was all taken up with caring for the children – I had other plans, and I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of!

What a narrow and blighted view that was. By grace, I find the greatest joy in having the little ones around. I find myself led to offer, rather than waiting to be asked, to take care of them. And I am constantly amazed at the relationships that are growing.

The other calls to service that I am hearing involve volunteering at Mother Teresa House, a Catholic hospice facility, and joining with the Companions of Pauline, a lay apostolate of the Sisters of Christian Charity. Both of these are “works in progress,” and I eagerly await the Holy Spirit’s lead in seeing how they will come to fruition. I feel these calls strongly. I have not been as sure about teaching catechism this coming year; after praying for guidance and light in that regard, I’ve discerned that teaching is definitely a part of how I will serve.

Once I had discerned that God was calling me to a personal vow of celibacy, I began to take steps toward making it a reality. Father Gordon, my pastor, heard my story and agreed that my discernment was proper and complete. He then suggested that there were three areas where I would benefit from focusing as I moved forward: prayer, as a defense against doubt and temptation; community, as a way of maintaining the strength and focus of my commitment; and ministry, as a way of spreading the love that Jesus pours into my life. And to these ends, I have returned to the very simple prayer that I repeated so often in the first days and weeks and months after I returned to the church in 2012: Jesus, by your Holy Spirit, lead me and teach me to do what you want me to do. Somehow, over time, I had mistakenly come to think that my prayer must become more complex and somehow sophisticated. Much comfort and consolation has come from returning to a simple conversation with my Lord and King.

As the month of June began to wind down, and I received Father Gordon’s approval to proceed with my vow, I began to think about preparations. It quickly became apparent that the idea of getting away for a silent retreat was not feasible at this time; still, I felt that a retreat was one of the best and most important ways I could prepare for this important step. That’s when the idea came to me to take the long holiday weekend as an opportunity to use Fr. Gaitley’s book, which I’ve had for four years but barely opened, as my retreat guide. The more I thought about it, the more drawn I was to making this kind of retreat. After all, the purpose of my vow is to make me a “consecrated person” who is pledged to God’s service, forsaking marriage and all that leads to it in favor of the love of Jesus, while living still in the world as a lay person. Making my retreat in my own home, according to the schedule that my life in the world would allow, seemed like a good thing – and it has been. I did not manage to finish the entire book over the long weekend, so I am going to continue spending a couple of hours of each day reading and following and praying with this book as I continue to prepare for my vow.

As I began to think about the retreat itself and how I will live out this vow, I became more and more aware of the work of the Holy Spirit in me – sometimes, in fact, with a layer of humor that vividly caught my attention.

For example, on the Saturday before the long holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to get out for a long walk, and I took along my iPhone with earbuds so I could listen to music. I selected the shuffle function to play from all the music I have collected over the years. And after a couple of classical pieces, which I enjoyed greatly, I started hearing some of the popular vocal selections – and a pattern began to emerge. The random selections I heard were these:

• Bob Seger, Turn the Page
• Bob Seger, Someday, Lady, You’ll Accompany Me
• John Mayer, Am I Livin’ It Right
• ELO, You Shed a Little Light on My Life (and let me see)
• John Mayer, I’m Tired of Being Alone (So hurry up and get here)

Secular music, to be sure – but the Holy Spirit was using it, as He loves to use everyday things, to highlight the call that Jesus was giving me. And the most profound sense of joy and peace came with the realization that he had chosen this way to communicate with me. He uses the things of everyday life to lead me to consecrate my everyday life to him.

Then, one morning during the week as I was heading out for Mass, a hymn popped into my head. The tune was almost all there, but I couldn’t remember all of the words. As I awaited the beginning of Mass, I picked up the hymnal, initially thinking to be ready when the gathering hymn was announced. (Any other day, I wouldn’t reach for it until I heard the lector’s “Good morning!” from the back of the church.) That day, I picked up the hymnal and (randomly, I thought) opened it. And there in front of me was the hymn that had been running through my head earlier. I know a sign when I see one (I think!), so I quickly scanned the refrain: Lead me, guide me, along the way; for if you lead me, I cannot stray.

OK, Jesus, I think I’m beginning to see where you are going with this.

On Sunday, June 30, I had the opportunity to spend time with the Lectio Divina provided in the Magnificat publication for that day’s readings, and once more I found beautiful guidance. In reflecting on the words of Luke’s gospel (9:57-62) regarding those who professed a desire to follow Jesus but put obstacles in their own paths, these points stood out for me:

• Where will Jesus lead us? The first man in this story sees Jesus as a means to recognition, fame, sainthood – whatever he thinks his destination might be; but Jesus is telling us that he himself is our destination, our place.
• Jesus tells us to stop living in the past – dwelling on our history of sin, failure, and problems and continually trying to “bury” them as the second man wanted to bury his father. Jesus wants us to see that we have no need to bury our past, that “he is the one who raises our dead past to life” (Magnificat, June 2019, p. 445).
• The third man sought to take leave of his connections to family and friends in order to follow Jesus. Jesus assures us that our life in this world and our human experiences and joys are not to be set aside by our relationship with him, but rather made better and stronger by his love. When we are united to others by only our own strength, the bond is tenuous at best; when we are united to others through Jesus, the bond is stronger than we can ever imagine.

So, from all of this, I learned (again, in a new way) that Jesus wants to be the center of everything for me. And then, on page 454 of the same issue of Magnificat, I found great consolation in the words of St. Claude La Colombière: “…God has loved me too well for me to spare myself henceforth in his service….I am ashamed at the mere thought of depriving him of anything.” St. Claude goes on to say that “in order to do much for God one must be completely his….in this state one maintains a lively faith and a firm hope, one asks God confidently and one obtains infallibly.”

A tall order? Absolutely. Why did it give me such consolation? Because I am sure this is what God calls me to, and with his call he includes the grace to hear and answer. “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me” (Phillippians 4:13).

At the beginning of my retreat, it occurred to me that it feels like everything in faith is about change. I saw great irony in this insight: The eternal God constantly calls on his people to change – to go against what they are used to, to leave behind what is comforting and comfortable, and to change. And because change is all about risk and growth, that call really should not surprise us. It started with creation itself – God changed the universe from the emptiness that he alone filled, to the fullness of his creations, and he declared it good.

When I talk to people about faith, I like to say that the questions we bring are so very complex, but faith itself is very, very simple. And that’s a mystery in itself. But as Fr. Gaitley says, in Consoling the Heart of Jesus, the meaning of mystery is not that nobody can understand it, but rather that we can never exhaust the meaning of it. And so I find myself daily contemplating the idea of faith, both as the gift of the Holy Spirit and as a response to God’s call, and I never get to the end. I never get to the end, and I never run out of beauty and grace in the contemplation of it.

So, if faith is a crutch, as many people believe, then please Lord, let me be a cripple.

And as my retreat and preparation time continued, I was struck by these words of St. Anthony Zachariah: “Let us run like fools not only to God, but also to our neighbor, who is the intermediary to whom we give what we cannot give to God. And this, from my own rambling thoughts: when we deal in forgiveness, we must ask ourselves how the forgiven must participate. That seems to me to be the missing link when we compare God’s forgiveness to our own forgiveness. When God forgives us, he offers us the grace to participate in it – to accept it and build it into our lives. It’s up to us how we accept that gift. When we forgive others, extending that same offer is necessary; and sometimes, the person we forgive will choose not to participate in the grace that comes with forgiveness. That’s when we turn to prayer. Another insight on forgiveness, from a homily based on the readings for July 7: Jesus, in sending out the 72 disciples, told them (and us), that there will be situations and people we cannot resolve or fix, and when that happens we have to walk away. He doesn’t tell us we are to keep hammering away at people until we change them. We must forgive, yes; but that does not necessarily change the other side of the equation.

Shortly after these insights, I read a section in Consoling the Heart of Jesus that opened my soul and my heart like nothing else has done. Fr. Gaitley writes (p.89):

Go to Jesus as you are. Open your heart to him as it is (not as you wish it to be) And know that Jesus loves sincerity, that he loves it when we’re completely open with him. Why does he love this? Because the more open we are with him, the more deeply he can heal us—and this especially applies to his being able to heal us of our attachments.

And then Fr. Gaitley says: “What hurts Jesus most is the sin of lack of trust in him. The greatest consolation we can offer him is to trust him completely.” Living this kind of trust daily means accepting everything that happens with praise and thanksgiving – living in a state of joyful, trustful acceptance. Fr. Gaitley goes on to suggest that instead of trying to choose our own crosses, we will benefit from accepting well the crosses that God chooses for us, which in his wisdom and compassion he will assure are not too heavy…and not too light.

In reading these sections and reflecting on them, I realized that my trust in Jesus had a big gap. I have, for a long time, found my trust in him to be tempered by a fear that he would test me beyond what I thought was my endurance, perhaps by taking Mary or Claire from me in this world. This gap in my trust would have me praying for God’s will to be done in my life – but don’t do this, or that, or some other thing to me that I think would be too hard.

As I read and reflected, I found that I needed to return to praying the Litany of Trust regularly, and I needed to pray for an increase in my trust, so that I would live in a state of complete trust. I saw that this kind of trust is rooted in God’s mercy, love, compassion, and forgiveness – that instead of expecting God to treat me as my sins surely deserve, I was being called to expect him to treat me like one of his beloved and redeemed children. This journey to trust will be a lifelong journey, one with daily renewals, and I am filled with gratitude for these insights.

During the time of my retreat, and often throughout the preceding weeks, I found myself in a state of a kind of discontent. I wasn’t getting a lot of consolation through prayer and meditation, and even my attendance at daily Mass was feeling fraught with effort rather than feelings of peace and serenity and joy. It occurred to me that I was having difficulty making Jesus seem real to me, and I came to understand that perhaps I needed to slow down a bit and simply put myself in his presence without all the busy-ness I seemed to want to put in the process. And, as he often does, the Holy Spirit handed me an answer: another homily, this time on the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle. Fr. Jerry said that he thinks St. Thomas gets a bad rap when we refer to him as “Doubting Thomas.” He pointed out that Thomas was not really doubting, but questioning, in the way that we all do with the rational minds that God gave us, and that his questioning (not doubting) gave Jesus opportunities to make himself real to Thomas.

As the day of my vow approached, I sat in prayer one day before Mass, and I felt like I was being distracted by thoughts of exactly how the ceremony might go. I sort of shook myself, mentally, and prayed for grace to come closer to Jesus and hear him. That’s when he asked me a crucial question: Once you take this vow, how are you going to live our life together?

This seems to me to have been the most important moment of all my preparations. After all the plans to pray regularly, to seek community, and to find ministry in my daily life, after writing my vow and planning its profession as a witness to others, wasn’t that really the heart of it all?

“How are you going to live our life together?” When I wrote my vow, I included the statement that I desire to be changed – profoundly, at the core of my being – and then poured out in love. If I truly mean that statement, and if my vow is truly intended as a seal binding my soul most intimately to Jesus, then how I live my life must change, now and every day hereafter. And as if to underscore this fact, God led me to witness a sight so unusual that this truth is written on my heart forever.

Friday evening, the night before my vow, my sweet granddaughter Claire and I were watching the rain from the back door. Claire told me she wanted to go out on the deck and stand in the rain, and get some rain in her mouth. So we opened the door, and stepped out. I looked back at my Mary Garden, and saw that the huge magnolia tree there was in bloom – for the second time this season! This is a tree that blooms in late April or early May, before the leaves come out – and here it was in a second bloom just when I was pledging my life to a new way of living for Jesus!

On Saturday, July 20, I went with a happy heart and a joyful soul to make this offering of myself at the 9:00 Mass in our parish’s Cana chapel. Fr. Gordon conducted the small ceremony and blessed for me the ring I will wear forever as an outward sign of my vow, and I’d like to think my voice was strong and true as I recited my vow. Family and friends were there with their love and support, and Mary put together the most wonderful brunch as we celebrated afterward. I was surprised to receive gifts – a lovely little plaque and a gift card from one friend, and a beautiful shooting star hydrangea for my Mary Garden from another; I treasure the cards and the sentiments they carried; and I loved getting both a card and an email from Sr. Mary Ann, SCC, to congratulate me and assure me of prayers.

And going back to the question Jesus asked, “How are you going to live our life together?” One of the first things I did was to recreate the hourly prayer reminders on my phone, which had been lost when I had to reset the phone a few weeks ago. These already have helped me with a renewed focus on my life’s true purpose.

I want to continue by focusing on regular formal prayer as well as “ad lib” prayer and meditation and also to focus on spiritual reading. Beginning studies with the Catholic Biblical School of Michigan will give me the frequent immersion in spiritual study that is essential. I hope soon to be installed in the Companions of Pauline, the lay apostolate of the Sisters of Christian Charity, and to begin working at Mother Teresa House; and I have plans for a ministry of knitting that is meant to put warmth and love in the way of those in need, by making hats, scarves, and mittens to donate to shelters and charities. And above all, I am focused on listening for God, for the voice of Jesus in my heart, not just on busying myself with all kinds of formalities.

The beautiful part of all this is that I sensed, very clearly and very joyfully, a profound shift in my soul upon pronouncing and professing my vow. There is no way to describe it other than to say I feel the difference, and it is a good difference.

Yes. I can live with that.

Wishful Thinking

A little wishful thinking, this morning….

If only I had understood, much earlier in my life, the joy and peace and that they come from being open to the promptings and urgings of the Holy Spirit and from being open to the grace to follow them.

If only I had known, while I was busy with work and marriage and raising children, that real joy, deep peace, and rich serenity come from allowing myself to be exactly where God wants me, doing what He calls me to do.

If only I had understood, way back then, that what is necessary to experience this joy and peace and serenity is to set aside my own wants and desires and “needs” in favor of what God asks of me.

While I linger in this “if only” way of thinking, I begin to wonder how my life would have been different if only I had understood all of this much sooner, and if only I had acted well on that understanding.

It’s while I’m imagining that life that I begin to realize that my maundering in the realm of “if only” is happening precisely because “if only” – is not. It didn’t happen, and my past life, the life I am trying to see through the lens of “if only,” is full of bells that I can’t unring – that I shouldn’t even try to unring.

And so I shift the lens, and as I am more and more often led to do throughout these days, I ask God what He means for me to learn from what’s going on here. And as He is always, and mercifully, willing to do for me what I cannot do for myself, I begin to see more clearly.

In a world where “if only” simply is not, then what is? The Lord God Himself answered it: He said: “I AM.”

Oh. This thought comes at me with such simple power that if I’d been standing, I’d have dropped to my knees.

When my Father God speaks of His own existence, His own eternal being, He does so always in the present tense. “I AM.” And now I catch a glimmering of what that means for me. He calls me to live in the present – to BE, not to wish. He calls me to do what lies in front of me to be done, rather than grieve the past. He calls me to be led forward, not to keep looking over my shoulder at what lies behind.

We hear a lot about “mindfulness” in our culture, and it’s usually presented in a sort of secular approach to being “spiritual” – live in the moment, think about actions and decisions before moving forward, be aware of how our actions affect others. When God tells me who He is – “I AM” — and calls me to live in the present, He is calling me to a state of profoundly spiritual “mindfulness.” He is reminding me that He has already dealt with all of those past failures. He sent His Son Jesus to die for them, and He raised His Son Jesus from the dead so that I, too, can triumph over those failures. It’s been handled, and He wants me to be free of the lingering doubts that this wishful thinking represents.

Here’s the thing. When I am focused on me, I get all wrapped up in the past and how I should have done it differently. I get all tangled in “what if” and “if only” and I miss the point altogether. Of course my life would be different if I had made different decisions. But where did I come up with the assumption that it would necessarily be better – for me and for others?

When I am focused on God, and when I am focused on living out His calling and His purpose for me, I get outside of all that. I get free of it. God, Who IS, wants me to understand that He was always loving me, always leading me, always bringing good out of my badness. That’s how He continues His work of creation and redemption in my life.

When I am focused on God, I find myself more and more open to His grace, to His Spirit working in me. My energy is liberated for the work He has for me to do NOW. When “if only” is cast forward, it becomes “I will….” He has poured His grace on my life, to forgive and to write straight with those crooked lines I drew and to hold the pen with me as I strive to draw straighter lines for the path ahead.

Why, oh why would I try to limit Him and the way He wants to work in my life by getting all tangled up in “if only”? Today, I belong to God, and I walk with Jesus, Who always seeks me and rejoices when I turn to Him. Today, I set aside “if only” in favor of “Come, Holy Spirit, and fill my heart. Lead me to shine with the Light you bring. Let my joy in You be complete, and guide me to do Your work in the world around me.”

My Father God has taken care of yesterday, He knows exactly where I need to be today, and He has tomorrow planned for me. I just need to listen.

And I can live with that.

Work In Progress

• You might be God’s work in progress if you keep closer track of when you had your last haircut than of when you last went to confession.
• You might be God’s work in progress if you sometimes put off prayer time to get other things – “this-world” things – done.
• You might be God’s work in progress if you steadfastly avoid eye contact with the man at the intersection holding a sign that says, “Will work for food. Anything helps.”
• You might be God’s work in progress if you found a $20 bill you didn’t know you had and spent it to treat yourself instead of on a charitable cause.
• You might be God’s work in progress if you sometimes take “me time” or “alone time” instead of volunteering or spending extra time with a family member.
• You might be God’s work in progress if you sometimes slip with an “Oh, my God!” when you are not actually praying.
• You might be God’s work in progress if your language sometimes strays into “sailor” territory or involves a four-letter word that is not “Help!”
• You might be God’s work in progress if the spiritual reading materials you keep meaning to get to are still on top of the bookcase or at the back of your nightstand.
• You might be God’s work in progress if your intentions to pray the Rosary at least weekly, if not daily, sometimes are not met.
• You might be God’s work in progress if going to Mass on Sunday sometimes feels like an obligation, and your thoughts wander far and wide as you are fulfilling it.

Think of it like one of those magazine quizzes. If you answered yes to more than three or four of these items, then Congratulations! You are a work in progress, ready for God’s hand to shape you!

You see, not one of those things (except possibly #6) is actually sinful. All of them are the behaviors common to good Christians who earnestly want to serve God, who believe that Jesus died for the salvation of us humans, and who believe that God created them, loves them, and wants them to enjoy eternity with Him in heaven.

None of these things, by itself, is a sign that we are seriously flawed in our spiritual life. They all, most assuredly, indicate that our spiritual life can improve. And for me, the number of items I can check on that list is in direct proportion to my need to seek spiritual growth – to actively pursue it in as many forms and ways as I possibly can.

The great blessing of this little exercise is the realization that should come when we finish it: God is not done with us. And even more important, and of greater spiritual benefit: He never gives up His quest for us, and He is infinitely patient as He awaits our openness to His grace. He will not be outdone in His will to lead us to a more blessed and holy life in His service. He will not be outdone in the ways that He seeks us or in the opportunities He places before us to grow in His love.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we all are God’s work in progress. When we give thanks for our blessings, let us include our gratitude for His not being done with us and for His refusal to be outdone in the outpouring of His Spirit, His mercy, His guidance, and His love.

 

Jesus Will Not Be Outdone!

You know how it’s very exciting to be involved in something that is new, and then the novelty wears off (for lack of a better way to put it) and the new becomes the ordinary every-day way things are? It’s less exciting, because it’s been around for awhile, and now you realize that it’s time to simply get down to the work of perfecting the thing and living it.

As I continue my journey toward a vow of celibacy and a life as a consecrated widow, that oddly distorted process has tangled itself around my feet more than once. My desire and commitment remain, and I am praying that the day of this consecration may come soon. And at the same time, the day-to-day work of this life stands in front of me and puts me at risk of letting it rob me of my joy.

Early on, I knew that the Evil One would try to put stumbling blocks in my way and tempt me from my intentions. I think I might have underestimated how subtle those things can be. I think I was expecting a glaring, obvious, obstreperous approach. Instead, I’ve experienced a barrage of “oh, not just now” and “actually I’m doing something else” and “oh, this feels a lot like work and obligation rather than fun.”

The first step in overcoming these attacks was to recognize them as such; the second was to pray for help to ward them off. It has been a long several weeks of struggle, and while I see light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, I strongly suspect that the battle may continue.

As part of the formation process in my preparation, prayer — regular daily prayer throughout the day — has become increasingly important. It’s important both as a means of formation and as a defense to the attacks that come and will continue to come. I’ve had my own little hourly prayer reminders in place for some months now, and they have been a help in leading me to seek a connection with my Lord throughout the day. At my pastor’s suggestion, I have added to some of these hourly reminders a cue to pray the liturgical hours/divine office. And these are beautiful prayer sequences based largely on the Psalms and the many Canticles that appear in both Old and New Testament writings. They are full of richness and depth. And yet when the alarm would chime, I would suddenly feel a sense of facing an obligation — rather than welcoming the opportunity to pray with the Psalms and other scriptures, it often feels like something that needs to be gotten through just to get done.

Frustrating, and terrifying. And so in my times of free-style prayer, I began to ask for help to strengthen and build my prayer life.

Jesus will not be outdone, and the Holy Spirit stays close just to make sure we know that. Very soon, in the listening time of my prayer, I began to hear that the simple solution is to welcome these times of prayer. Simply stop what I am doing, if at all feasible, and turn to the prayers for the liturgical hour. If that is not feasible — if I’m driving, for example — it’s less important that I pray the Psalms for that hour than it is to connect with Jesus; those become times for freestyle prayer and for listening. If I’m in the midst of an appointment or with other people, I simply look at my prayer reminder and take a brief moment to set my heart on Him and give Him that moment….until later.

Jesus will not be outdone, and so He made sure I became aware of ways to make these times of prayer valuable to our relationship. When I’m by myself, I pray them aloud or use the podcast features of the apps by which I access the Divine Office to pray them interactively. I remind myself that I have nothing but time — there’s no rush to get to the next thing, and there is nothing that is more important or valuable than this time.

Jesus will not be outdone, and so He rejoices and brings joy to my heart when I let myself linger over and reflect on the words in front of me.

And thus my prayer time becomes a source of peace and joy, and just in case that sense of obligation rears its ugly head, it’s a trigger for me to remember that Jesus will not be outdone. He has something far better to offer me in my prayer time than whatever else might be happening around me.

Even as I revel in the sense of peace and joy that come with my times for prayer, there’s an attack from another quarter! It takes the form of a question: Why on earth do you need a vow of celibacy? Just live your life the way you know you should live it. Nothing to be gained by reducing your options, right? Why make a spectacle of yourself? These attacks even go so far as to ask, Who do you think you are? 

Oh, my. These thoughts, these questions, do not carry a trace of peace and joy with them. They are at best troubling, and at worst even more terrifying than the difficulties with prayer. Now, if there is one thing I am getting at least marginally better at, it is recognizing doubts and temptations for what they are and for where they come from, and using them as a trigger for prayer. And once again, I learned, as I listened for answers, that Jesus will not be outdone.

As I explored in my heart what is going on with my desire to vow myself to a life of celibacy, I began to hear the Lord’s call with much greater clarity. The first thing I heard was: Relax. Don’t be so busy making this difficult — relax and enjoy the journey. I have good things in store for you. And then: Just relax, and lean into Me. Don’t worry so much about whether you are doing all the right things. Just do all things in the joy of your calling.  

When I took these words to heart, I realized that I had been doing the same thing that got me in trouble when I was in the convent years ago; I had fallen into the trap of seeing my prayers and devotions as a series of things to get done and move on from. And they are, truly, so much more! The sense of God’s presence that comes from just sinking into one of the liturgical hours of the Divine Office, from prayerfully and slowly reading the Psalms and Canticles and listening quietly for the Holy Spirit’s promptings — this is a path to peace and joy and richness.

The next thing that I began to think about was the way that grace has led me to the point of a vow of celibacy and to seek a life as a consecrated widow. The Holy Spirit will not be outdone, either. He had the answer to the question, Who do you think you are, anyway — making vows and setting yourself in such a special position? 

The answer goes something like this: The person with a charism of celibacy has received a gift — a gift, by definition unearned and even unsought; a gift which enables her to better serve her God and to better serve His people. The person who lives out this charism through a vow of celibacy and a consecration of her life to the service of God in His people is responding to God’s call — to the voice of her Creator, the call of her Redeemer, the urging of her Sanctifier — and responds not for her own sake but out of love and for the glory of God.

The idea that a vow of celibacy is a turning away from the natural order of things is a misnomer. In fact, the idea that celibacy is the giving up of something that is essential to all people is a disservice to the wonderful way that God works in His people. And the concept that vowed celibates cannot understand or counsel those who are called to marriage and family life is a concept that ignores the infinite power of the Spirit and Word of God.

It is true, of course, that God in His infinite wisdom created humanity such that new lives are created through sexual relationships between men and women. And to that end, He fashioned us with the ability and desire to experience these relationships so that—again as God wills—the human race may continue as an expression of God’s love.

God also fashioned us with free will, and by definition this means the freedom to choose among options for goodness as well as to choose sin. What it does not mean is that one way of life is representative of our “needs”—needs which we consider ourselves entitled to fulfill—while another is inherently limiting because the fulfillment of those needs is set aside.

When we put these decisions in such tiny boxes, we seem to limit the power of God.

What if, instead, we saw this range of lifestyles as meaningful responses to the many ways God calls His people to serve Him?

When I consider the whole of my life story and faith journey up to this point, it occurs to me that even my failures to serve Him in the way that I lived previously as a married person serve as a kind of guidebook to this new call. My life has come full circle from those early days when I could not quite grasp the depth of my vocation. Through years of a spiritual struggle that I didn’t really even see was happening, through years of my challenging God with the crooked lines I laid out for Him to write with, He has always been there, waiting patiently, watching out for me, keeping me from doing too much damage, and ultimately writing so very straight with those very crooked lines until I opened my heart to His grace.

Today, I begin anew my journey to a vowed life of celibacy and service. With my Lord’s help, may I turn from each doubt and question to the peace of prayer and grace. With the love of a Lord Who will not be outdone, may I just relax and lean into Him and do all things in the joy of my calling.

Yes. Jesus will not be outdone, and I can live with that.

What Just Happened?

This Good Friday in 2019 finds me in a strange sort of reflection. Even as most of the readings in the Liturgy of the Hours point to our suffering Savior, and the Good Friday liturgy this afternoon will focus on the Passion story, my thoughts are turning to all of the people around Jesus and how the events of this day affected them (not so much how they dealt with what was happening, because as soon as I considered this aspect, I realized that the disciples really didn’t deal with it at all, not then and not for some time after).

What must the disciples have thought during the Last Supper? And I realize, considering it, that they didn’t even know it was the Last Supper. We’ve named it that from the perspective of history, but I imagine that some, if not all, of the disciples still thought that Jesus would come out victorious by their world’s standards – that they heard His statement that His hour had come as a prediction of triumph. I feel like even His promise that the Son of Man would suffer and be handed over to death might have gone over their heads.

So I imagine them around the table, having no idea that this was the last time they would be together with Jesus in exactly this way, listening as He taught them. I am reminded that the 12 who sat with Him that evening were truly disciples – followers who devoted their entire waking lives to learning from Him and literally following Him everywhere; they had been immersed in His teachings for three years, and with the exception of Judas, they had turned their hearts and minds completely over to Him. John’s gospel tells the story of the Last Supper as a sort of extension and compilation of Jesus’ teachings, culminating in Jesus giving His Body and His Blood to the disciples as their food and drink. He gave Himself to them in this lasting way before He gave Himself up to death for the sins of all the world.

Again, from the perspective of history and the teachings of the Church, we understand that in those moments, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. What if we didn’t have that perspective? As the disciples, gathered around the table with the remains of the Passover meal before them, heard Jesus’ words, then received the bread and drank the wine that He had made His Body and Blood, what did they think was happening?

When I try to put myself in their place, I imagine them being utterly mystified, with perhaps a slight dawning of understanding. They would have recalled, I think, Jesus telling them earlier that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood, they would have no life in them (John 6:53). If they wondered at His meaning then, what must they have thought at the Last Supper? When Jesus made His statement originally, many of His followers walked away, and Jesus asked His closes followers – these same 12 – if they, too, would leave Him. Peter spoke for all, saying, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). This could be considered Peter’s first act as the Rock upon which the Church would be built, but as he listened to Jesus that last evening, I think he was as mystified as the rest of them.

What can he possibly mean? they think. I wasn’t sure about it when he talked about this awhile back, and now here he is telling us that this bread is his body and this wine is his blood. Are we to be guilty of his death? What is he doing?

The juxtaposition of Jesus’ earlier admonition in John 6:53 and His actions at the Last Supper might have brought the disciples a glimmering of understanding about the real mission of Jesus. Having already confessed Him as the “Holy One of God” (John 6:69), this may have been a moment when they began to see more clearly that Jesus, as the promised Messiah, was indeed bringing a kingdom of heavenly, rather than earthly, power and glory.

I find myself wondering if they might have hesitated, at least in their hearts, before receiving the bread and the chalice He offered as His Body and Blood. What am I getting myself into? I’m doing this, and I don’t even understand why. Maybe everything will sort itself out tomorrow. This Teacher has always kept His promises to us. I don’t understand this, but maybe He will explain it as He often explained the stories He told us.

And so the Last Supper culminates in this moment of sacred communion, Jesus giving Himself in a new way to His disciples – a most intimate way that they do not yet understand. To say that nothing after that moment went as they expected would be an understatement. Nothing about the trip to Gethsemane, Jesus’ prayer of abandonment and agony, and the betrayal by Judas which ended in the arrest of Jesus, lined up with the disciples’ expectations and hopeful anticipation.

The moment of communion, with all that word suggests, is shattered by the understanding that Jesus – their Rabbi, their Master, their Lord, the one they understood to be “the Holy One of God” – has been delivered into the hands of His enemies. He is now – in the disciples’ eyes – under the control of those enemies and at their mercy. He is now – in the disciples’ eyes – an utter failure. They still love Him, but they do not understand how things could be ending so badly. They do not yet understand that God, the God Who created all things and Who has been seeking the reconciliation of His sinful creatures to Himself, the very God of heaven and earth is in complete control of what happens next. From their human perspective, all is shambles and chaos. They do not yet have the perspective of the Holy Spirit. And so, with Jesus taken captive, they make themselves scarce. In their human minds, not yet fully enlightened by the Spirit, not yet fully taken up with grace, everything they thought was good and right these past months has disappeared before their eyes.

And so it goes, into Good Friday. From a distance, they watch as Jesus is mistreated and tortured, mocked and beaten. Any attempt to help or defend Him comes to nothing; Peter goes from staunch protector to denier to bitter grief, and John literally runs out of his clothing to escape those who arrest Jesus. As the hours pass, events that seem to be as bad as things could be lead to even worse things. The word spreads among them that Jesus is to be crucified. Can it possibly be that only the awful things he talked about are the ones that will happen? How can he possibly come back from this to the glorious kingdom, to the places in heaven he promised us? How can this be happening to the Holy One of God?

And finally, the crucifixion. The ultimate and most humiliating punishment for those regarded as the worst kind of criminals. The disciples and other followers of Jesus, in the midst of their horror at what was being done to this man that they loved and followed, must have felt utterly crushed by what seemed like the loss of everything they had hoped for. Their minds must have been unable to process what was happening in the light of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others. For three years we have believed He was the Messiah, and now it’s over. Their defeat comes from their choice – perhaps natural, perhaps inadvertent in its way – to accept the prophecies of the Messiah’s glory and ignore those of the Messiah’s suffering. Again, they do not yet have the perspective of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus breathes His last tortured breath, as the sky darkens and the heavens rumble and the earth quakes and the veil of the temple is torn, as the dream they dreamed with Him ends (or so they think), they drift off, perhaps hoping that they can just blend in and not suffer the same fate…and yet the spark still burns in their hearts. He did, after all, make promises. He changed them, changed their hearts, with His teachings. They drift off, but they still cling to each other. They don’t know what will happen next, but there must be something….and there is still His Mother. They, with John, will look out for her.

We are, I think, most particularly blessed as we celebrate the events of our Holy Week, that we do so with the perspective of history and with the perspective of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus gave His life for us in this most horrific and somehow, in the eyes of His disciples, unexpected and unexplainable way, we receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism and are showered with more of His gifts in Confirmation. We live our whole lives, really, with what the disciples received on Pentecost, that is, the enlightenment of faith so that we can understand the awful, terrifying events of Good Friday in the context of the glory of Easter.

We celebrate Holy Thursday, not with the nostalgia of remembrance of time spent with loved ones now dead and gone from us, but with the joyous sense of reunion and communion in the heart of our faith.

We celebrate Good Friday, not with the sadness and grim resolve of our observation of the anniversaries of terrible events like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, but rather with a heart that, even in the quiet solemnity of our worship, sees the coming glory.

We celebrate Holy Saturday, not in the dread and anxiety of those who don’t know what is going to happen next, but rather with hearts full of hope, knowing that with dawn comes the Resurrection and with the Resurrection, all the joy and glory of promises fulfilled.

We celebrate Easter, not with a fleeting sense of relief that the worst is behind us, but with a stunning and glorious joy that the best is ahead of us. We celebrate because when we, with the women of Easter morning, peer into the empty tomb and learn that He is risen, we know that we are the children of a Father Who keeps His promises. Now, in the light of Easter, we remember that there is yet one promise, and we look forward to it joyfully. He will send His Spirit, and His Spirit will fill our lives with His gifts.

That’s a promise. It’s personal.

And I can live with that.

Validation

A quiet house, and no early morning Mass because truly, the only time to celebrate the Lord’s Supper is in the evening, and nothing on my calendar until 10:30 this morning – it’s an ideal combination for reflection, and reflection almost always leads me here to write, or at least to capture a few notes for writing later.

My thoughts, this morning as I went around doing my morning things, turned to how Jesus might have spent this last “normal” morning of His life on earth. We know from the synoptic gospels only that Jesus, on Thursday morning, instructed His disciples to prepare the place for them to share the Passover meal. John’s gospel is even less revealing, saying only that after talking to the crowds on the first day of the week, after His triumphal entry into the city, “Jesus left and hid from them” (John 12:36). What began to occupy my thoughts, in the absence of specific information about what Jesus did that day, was the idea that as the hours wore on, He knew what was coming. There was no formless dread or anxiety for the unknown; as the Son of God, He knew exactly what would happen, moment by agonizing moment – every mockery, every humiliation, every excruciating pain of the torture of scourging and crucifixion. As the Son of God in fully human form, He knew all that His human body would suffer in all possible intensity of detail. I think of Him going about what should have been an ordinary day, with all of this knowledge churning and churning in His human mind while He considered the divine will that He also carried within Himself. He knew it was going to be bad, and He knew that in the kind of detail that none of us ever knows when we are dreading the events of tomorrow.

And He went on and did it all anyway. He chose to submit Himself to questioning, and mockery, and physical abuse and torture that went on, if I think of it conservatively, from perhaps 9:00 Thursday evening until 3:00 Friday afternoon. Eighteen hours; 1,080 minutes; 64,800 seconds – each spent in the intimate and detailed knowledge of what suffering the next seconds and all of the coming minutes and hours would bring, while suffering in the present moment as well.

He went and did it all anyway. And there it is – there is “the greatest love,” the love with which He loved us. He chose to go through that kind of suffering because He loved the Father’s creation, mankind.

And because He is God, He did it while holding each and every single person ever created in His heart and mind. Personally. And even if we can get some grasp of what that means, it still doesn’t begin to touch the fullness of His infinite love for us.

Forget, for a moment, all of the specifics we know about the tortures Jesus suffered and about His death. What truly astounds me, in my reflection today, is the gut-wrenching, heart-bursting, soul-searing love that Jesus felt in His human self – an echo, no, a full reproduction of the world-filling, all-amazing, eternal love that God carries for His creation. He could have chosen any of a multitude of ways to show this love and to reconcile His sinful, stubborn people to Himself. And He chose a way to do this that was sure to engage us in all of our senses, a way that would create empathy and gratitude in even the hardest of hearts, if they only open themselves to that kind of grace.

As I prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary yesterday, I considered how I would feel about someone I know and love being treated so horribly and suffering such pain and indignity. It’s then that I realized just how little I really have progressed in my relationship with Jesus – how great His love is for me, and how small is my own ability to love Him. Knowing what I know about Jesus and His merciful love, I must allow Him to reach me at my center and change me from the core of my heart and my being so that I can begin to love Him in at least some small semblance of the way I ought to love Him.

There is this, in the suffering and passion and death of our Jesus: that the very fact of His pain, His bleeding, His excruciating burden of sin and guilt – the burden that He took on for all of us, the burden that so weighed Him down that Simon of Cyrene had to be forced into carrying His cross so that He could even survive to then be crucified – all of this acted to spur on His tormenters in their viciousness. The act of causing Him pain dragged, even drew them deeper into the pit of sin and depravity.

I think, as I consider the very monstrousness of this idea, that one of the greatest gifts of His merciful suffering and His willing sacrifice for our redemption is that we are given a new lease on our free will. We are given back the ability to fully and wholeheartedly choose Jesus, a choice whose meaning and import are forever affirmed and validated by the choice that Jesus Himself made. Because the choice Jesus Himself made – the choice to suffer and die out of a deep personal love for me and for every person who ever lived or ever will life – was forever affirmed and validated by His Resurrection, everything that I do in service to Him or to “the least of these” has new meaning. My choice and my quest to walk with Jesus, Who is always near and waiting for me to follow Him, has new meaning.

This, to me, is the fullness of Holy Week. It is a matter of seeing what Jesus did in the full context of His humanity and His divinity – this is what brings redemption fully into my soul.

And I can live with that.

 

Every. Single. Time.

Here in the final days of the Lenten season of penance and atonement, I tried to watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

I couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t the fact that the dialogue is in (mostly) Aramaic without subtitles. Certainly I know the stories well enough to suss out the dialogue without English subtitles.

It wasn’t the violence. Although I think this movie depicts the violence surrounding Jesus’ suffering and death in a brutally truthful way, and it is hard to watch, the violence had barely started when I had to turn the film off.

It was this: I began watching this movie in a prayerful way, asking the Holy Spirit to let me enter into the redemption story (for that truly is what it is!) with an open mind and heart and learn what He wants me to know as Easter approaches. And as the beginning scenes unfolded on the screen, thoughts began to unfold in my head. You see, I know how it ends – or more accurately, that it doesn’t end! Not here in the garden, not in Pilate’s mock court, not on the road to Golgotha, and certainly not on the Cross or in the tomb. What happens next in God’s salvation story is – well, it’s the salvation!

I sat there for a few more moments with the remote in my hand, as it occurred to me that perhaps God was suggesting that I not dwell too much on the horrors of the events of the Passover Eve and following day; that I must see and know those events in the bright light of where they led; that if I dwell only on His suffering, my sadness might overshadow the complete joy of the redemption His suffering bought; that getting lost in the emotions that His sufferings evoke could actually lead me astray from the beautiful and glorious fact of His Resurrection.

The cycle of Holy Week – the solemnity of Maundy Thursday in remembrance of the first Eucharist, the tragic sorrows of Good Friday, the emptiness of Holy Saturday – can too easily lead to such an indulgence of feelings – feelings that reach their peak in the trumpets and the organ music and the alleluias of Easter Sunday. I contemplated this for a moment, and my finger found the “off” button on my remote as I opted for some quiet time in conversation with Jesus about all this. The conversation has continued, off and on, ever since, and here are some things I’ve learned from it.

Jesus did indeed suffer, beyond what we can imagine, as he stood in for us in atonement for our sins. We need to know that He suffered, because without the suffering, the glory of Resurrection would never have come about.

When we consider and reflect upon God’s story of salvation, we must see and know the whole story rather than getting stuck on just one part of it. Without the Cross there is no empty tomb. Without the empty tomb there is no Easter joy. And without the joy of Easter, we have no context for the suffering that came before it.

The next thing that I learned in this time of reflection is that we celebrate all of these wonderful events as a cycle of anniversaries, partly so that we are reminded of all the parts of the salvation story, but also in large measure because celebrating this cycle over and over again helps us to see the salvation story in its essential integrity as a seamless event that wound its way through history, continues in our lives, and will continue long after we have gone to our hoped-for reward. By celebrating all of these anniversaries, we put our selves on the path toward truth.

The truth – and it is a startling truth! – is that our redemption made mercy and forgiveness and blessings readily available to us because we continue to sin. Jesus’ once-for-all-and-once-for-all-time redemptive act did not remove the free will with which God our Father created us. And that, combined with the effects of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, means we are still sinful creatures.

We sin; we seek and avail ourselves of mercy and forgiveness; we repent, and join our acts of atonement with those of Jesus; and inevitably, we sin again.

And here are the most important things I learned:

He never tires of taking us back.

We sin, we repent, we atone, we sin again – and He waits for us to come back, to repent, to seek out His love and mercy. Every. Single. Time. Jesus is the ultimate Example of His own admonition to forgive without limits.

And He will not be outdone. For every time that temptation lures us back, He waits with yet one more act of forgiveness, if we will only seek it. No matter how many times we fall, or how badly, there He is with outstretched hand to offer not just mercy and forgiveness, but strength.

Does the world abound with thrills and delights and temptations? He waits for us with serenity and joy and peace. He will not be outdone.

Do we suffer physical illness or mental illness or addiction? He waits for us with abundant healing, and He smiles when we reach to just touch the hem of His garment. He will not be outdone.

Are we in love with material things and success and the praise of others? He waits for us with rewards that last endlessly longer than these, and He rejoices when we seek them. He will not be outdone.

I love being the child of a God Who never tires of taking me back and Who will not be outdone. The more I learn about how much He loves me, the greater my joy.

I can live with that.

Remember My Joy!

Sometimes it is just astonishing how quickly and easily we can slip into a routine when it comes to our spiritual life. Years ago, a family friend used to say, after slipping up in some way, “Oh well – can’t be Mr. Wonderful all the time.”

It’s true. We aren’t going to sustain high levels of spiritual energy for endless periods of time – not until we get to heaven, where all the earthly distractions and limitations and obstacles are gone. We can move so quickly from moments of ecstasy and joy to a sense of plodding through the “obligations” of our prayer life. We get too reliant, sometimes, on having “the feels” so that when we experience those down times, those days when it all feels like rote and routine and duty, those days when the emotions just don’t rush in when we pray or meditate or even go to Mass and receive Holy Communion – when that happens, we let ourselves slide. Maybe it’s just a tiny bit, but we do it. We back off from our participation in the spiritual life in favor of something that brings a spark of fun and feeling.

We are so fortunate that our God, Who loved us into being, loves us so much that He understands this. Certainly it isn’t where He wants us to be, and He always has a path open for us to return.

What I think He would love for us to understand is that our participation in the spiritual life does not rely on our emotions at all. He welcomes our coming to him in the dialogue of prayer no matter how we are feeling – bored, busy, happy, sad, depressed, excited – and He wants us to sit with Him in that conversation just as we are.

I don’t need to be full of excitement to call a friend and say that I need to talk; likewise, I don’t need to be brimming over with either happy or sad emotion to tell Jesus that I really need Him today.

It’s precisely when we are feeling not much of anything, one way or the other, about our prayer life and our ongoing conversation with our Lord, that we need to take the opportunity for those conversations with Jesus. And the act of reminding ourselves of His presence and beginning to tell Him what is on our hearts and minds will not always bring an immediate burst of emotion. But emotion isn’t what our relationship with Him is all about, any more than it’s what any of our other relationships are all about if we are honest with ourselves.

Our relationship with Jesus is built on faith and trust and love and joy, and none of these are emotions. They are, instead, choices – choices that open our hearts and souls to receive God’s grace. And when I pursue my conversation with Jesus throughout my day, regardless of how I “feel” about my spiritual life or anything else in that moment, I do so knowing that He is here with me, loving me, hearing me, wanting me to invite Him into all the parts of my life. My soul is filled with joy when I choose to be open to grace. This joy is a state of being, not an emotion.

Joy is not so much felt as it is known.

Joy is not so much experienced as it is lived.

Joy is what happens when we know the answer to Peter’s question: Lord, to whom shall we go? Joy is all but inevitable if we allow ourselves the time to remember Jesus’ presence with us and to turn to him, and if we remember, with conscious intent, what He has done for us, continues to do for us, wants to do for us.

Psalm 12 offers a beautiful example of the soul caught in gloom and sadness, wondering if God has forgotten, and then remembering in joy the living, loving God in Whom all hope is well placed:

How long, O Lord, will you forget me? How long will you turn your face from me?

How long must I bear grief in my soul, how long must I carry sadness in my heart by day and night?

How long will my enemy be stronger than me?

Turn to me and hear me, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes and save me from the sleep of death.

Or my enemy will say, “I have prevailed against him!” and those who torment me will rejoice at my stumbling.

But I put my hope in Your loving kindness. My heart will rejoice at Your saving power. I shall sing to the Lord, Who has granted good things to me.

It seems to me that it is not possible to avoid joy when we put our hope in God. Joy is poured into us with the grace that God longs to give us. It is, however, possible to bury our joy in the detritus of our quest for “the feels” and in the doldrums of our willingness to give in to routine rather than open ourselves to a fresh experience of the Spirit with every conversation in prayer.

Our quest, then, should take us not down the path of seeking some new and fleeting experience of feeling or emotion; our quest should take us on the path that Jesus walks – the path of hope, mercy, and joy.

Jesus, let me walk with You each day in my quest for Heaven. Show me the Father, Who created all through You, and send me the Spirit Who renews all of Your creation in love. Instill in my heart the fullness of joy and let it shine from me wherever I go. If I seem inclined to stifle the joy that Your presence brings to my life – and how could it not bring joy? – with routines and useless quests for needless things, whisper in my ear, Lord – whisper to me loudly: Remember your joy! I think, Lord, that if I remember my joy, the joy that comes from You, I cannot help but share it.

Liberation by Charism

This blog has been pretty quiet for a few weeks. That’s because something has been going on in my life that I wasn’t quite ready to write about yet. Now, God has brought a new focus to it all, and I find I need to write about it before I can go on to write about other things in the coming days and weeks.

Two months ago, my life took yet another amazing turn when I participated in a Called and Gifted workshop sponsored by our diocese. When I left the house that morning, I was full of anticipation, but I could not have known what surprises were in store for me! I could not have predicted the joy that was waiting for me. The purpose of this workshop was to lead participants through a prayerful process of identifying the charisms with which God had gifted them and discovering what that would mean for them.

First, a few words about “charisms.” These are gifts of the Holy Spirit – special gifts we receive, in addition to those at Baptism and Confirmation. The gifts of the Holy Spirit received in Baptism and Confirmation are intended for our own spiritual growth and benefit, whereas charisms are given to us for the purpose of fitting us to serve others. Charisms are not necessarily aligned with natural talents, but discerning charisms can begin a life-changing journey of grace, a journey in response to God’s call to all of us to serve Him and His people. To go into greater detail here would stray from my purpose in writing and would ruin the surprise for those who may be inspired to explore further. More information about charisms can be found at https://siena.org/charisms-faq.

On the day of the workshop, I sat with about 80 other people, taking the inventory that would reveal my charisms to me. And what a revelation when I completed the self-scoring process!

It wasn’t particularly surprising to me that “writing” came through loud and clear as one of my strongest charisms. I always have known that this was something God called me to.

What was a surprise was learning that I have the “lifestyle” charism of celibacy – and that it was identified with a resounding emphasis!

At some future point I may write further about the other charisms I identified that day; they will be significant to my life of service to God. But celibacy is the one I want to write about at this moment.

Just to start on a level field, celibacy is defined most simply as abstinence from sexual relationships. Make no mistake – the Catholic Church expects that unmarried persons will remain celibate outside of marriage. In that sense, while I am single, celibacy is the state I am supposed to live in. Beyond the basic definition of abstinence from sexual activity, celibacy also may include voluntary abstinence from marriage, and by extension may include voluntary abstinence from activities that would naturally lead to marriage.

In the context of charisms, celibacy may be simply one’s current state of life – for example, as a widow who has not remarried, I live a celibate life. On the other hand, celibacy may represent a vocation, or calling, that goes far beyond a state of life or even a lifestyle – a calling that liberates someone in a significant and special way for the work to which God further calls them.

With that as a backdrop, what I learned at that workshop put meaning and purpose around what I’d been thinking for some time – that I needed to do something about my single state. Not change it! No, what had been growing in my heart is a need and desire to somehow formalize it.

In the seven years since my husband died, I found that I lacked interest in dating or in any sort of romantic involvement. Oh, I tried dating, but there was never the slightest spark of real attraction; fortunately, each foray into the world of dating and relationships ended naturally, without drama. I’ve thought it was unusual without ever really exploring it. Apparently, my demeanor lets men know – without my being aware of doing so – that I am not interested.

The revelation that came out of this workshop was that my lack of interest in relationships, and the fact that men are not swarming to ask me out, are actually huge blessings from God. As I gained understanding of the charism of celibacy, I gained clarity. By removing these urges and temptations from my path, and by making it easy for me to get past them when they arise, my Lord is making me a clear path to devoting my life to His service in all the ways He calls me.

This realization has led me on a path of discernment and has had me seeking, in prayer, the counsel of the Holy Spirit as to whether I should in some manner formalize my celibate state. Although I had wondered about this, vaguely, in the past, I didn’t have a clue what form that might take. Now I began to see it as something He wanted me to explore.

I see in celibacy, with this new infusion of grace, a fertile ground for deepening the roots of my personal relationship with Jesus. Celibacy brings liberation, a freedom that lifts my soul.

I needed this liberation. At first, there was this idea that if I accepted in a formal way that I am called to celibacy, and began to live that out in my life, that would be the exact moment that the guys would start beating down my door for dates and romance, and oh, oops, I already made this promise to God. And this notion tended to get in the way of my discernment, even though I know rationally that I don’t want such relationships and do not have space in my life for such complications.

I realized, then, just how much I had regarded each trip out of the house, to church or out to eat or shopping or any number of activities, as an opportunity to meet “the right guy.” This realization brought reality to my liberation, and a weight lifted from my heart. Even before I began a more formal discernment, I began to feel a new strength that lets me know that I can (a) turn down invitations without drama, (b) offer friendship with a clear understanding that this is all I offer; (c) know that in doing so, I embrace what is already mine rather than avoiding or losing something else and (d) constantly pray that God, in His Holy Spirit, will guide me.

Over a period of two months of prayer and discernment, I’ve prayed daily for guidance, and I’ve met with several individuals (including my spiritual director and my pastor). I’ve talked with family members and shared my thoughts with them, and their support is beyond value! Out of all this has come the firm conviction that in grace, and for the greater glory of God, I am called to make a formal commitment of my celibacy – to become, as the early church often practiced, a “consecrated widow.”

To that end, I am preparing to make a formal private vow of celibacy sometime in the next few months. My preparation involves three main pursuits: First, intense prayer, establishing a daily schedule that makes formal and informal prayer a priority. My pastor called this, when he advised it, a “spiritual defense system,” essential both for spiritual growth and for that inevitable time when the Evil One, seeing the good I intend, will tempt me to stray from it. Second, identification of ministry – for while it’s all well and good to understand that I am called to celibacy, at its heart the purpose of this call is to liberate me from other potential priorities to make God’s purpose my top priority. And third, identification of community – finding and connecting with others who are living in a similar way, a community in which all gain and give strength from and to one another.

While this will be a “private” vow – that is, a vow given to God rather than being accepted by a religious superior in the name of the Church – my plan is to make this vow in the setting of a weekday Mass, as a means of witness, evangelization, and discipleship. Along my path of discernment, I realized that doing so is a way to glorify and praise God to the benefit of others. I will give public witness to my commitment to answering God’s call to service and to my intentional choice for living out that commitment.

My heart is ready. My soul is eager.This is a way that I have lived, intentionally and voluntarily, for several years without fully understanding the import of it. In those years, one of my most frequent prayers has taken the form, “Jesus, lead me. Jesus, guide me on the path You want me to walk. Please help me to know what You want me to do in life, and give me the grace and strength to hear you and to follow You.” It has been the most wonderful surprise to see where He is leading me, and I am eager to know what He has in store next.

This path to a consecrated life – to be sure, one lived in the world and in active service to family and others to whom God may send me – fills me with joy. I’ve written before that I had come to understand that I had a vocation to religious life and that I walked away from it when I was younger; God found many ways to write straight with the crooked lines I drew over the years, and now He has called me back to a new and fresh version of that life.

I can live with that.

Thanks be to God!