How Does Your (Spiritual) Garden Grow?

I Trust

A few days ago, I wrote about trust, and a part of that writing was about how my trust in God is flawed, that my declarations of trust are all too often followed by a “but…”

Grace provides us the nudge to pray about those things we need help with, and that alone should impel us to a more perfect trust in God. Certainly I felt the nudge to pray about this over the last several days, and I even found my prayer taking a somewhat different form. I found myself asking God to deepen my trust in Him, and to help me get past the boundaries and roadblocks I seemed to place on my level of trust.

Now, I didn’t ask directly for a sign that my prayer was heard. I’m a little like Ahaz in the 7th chapter of Isaiah. Ahaz, when instructed by God Himself to ask for a sign from God, responded, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” And if I’m really, really honest, that attitude carries a lot of false humility. When God Himself invites you, you shouldn’t duck and cover. You should stand up and run, not walk, into His arms.

God chose, I think, to show me some things over the past day or so that would help me learn to trust Him more deeply and more fully, and I’m finding myself full of wonder and awe at how He works.

Here’s what happened. As things came up throughout the day, I actually remembered to pray about them. And three things happened that still have me shaking my head and smiling.

First, I had been notified that it was time to turn in my leased car and get a new one. Exciting, right? Except that I really hate the process. You go and sit at the dealership for hours while they parade cars in front of you, and the first few they tell you all the reasons you won’t really like them, and then they finally bring out the one they really want to sell you. And then the haggling begins, and I really hate the haggling part, so I usually don’t end up with the best deal I could get, because I just want to get it over with. So with a sigh, I set up an appointment with the salesperson, and my wonderful daughter and son-in-law agreed to go with me as support, so I wouldn’t cave too early in the process, and then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t hurt at all to ask God to be with me and guide me through the process. So I did.

I do not make this stuff up, people. Less than 30 minutes after I prayed about this, my salesperson called with a couple of questions about what I was looking for. A few text messages, a couple more phone calls, and some pictures, and what do you know? I had a lease deal in front of me that was so good that I gave my daughter and son-in-law their Saturday back. All I have to do on Saturday is go to the dealership, sign papers, make the exchange, and drive home in my new car.

I got way more than I asked for. I thought I was asking for patience to deal with the whole process, and I got so much more.

And I even received the grace to pray an immediate “Thank You” afterward.

In the immortal words of classic television: “But wait! There’s more!”

Late in the day yesterday, as I retrieved a couple of documents I needed from my little lockbox, it occurred to me that my passport should have been in there. And it wasn’t. There is no one so obsessed as I am when I can’t find something. My quest began, but all the places I would normally put something of that nature were barren, empty. And as I began thinking about the less obvious places, I prayed, “OK, St. Anthony, I’m going to need a little help here.” (We Catholics dearly love our ability to call on our saints when we need a boost. St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost articles, and as I age, I have more and more occasion to call on him for help.)

Did I mention that I don’t make this stuff up? I looked at the shelf just below my lock box, and there was a wallet that I had stopped using a few months ago when I found a better one. I picked it up and opened it, and there was my passport. Right next to a crisp $20 bill.

Again, I received so much more than I asked for. I was so startled that I said, “Well, thank you!” right out loud. I put the passport where it belonged; likewise, the $20. It’s going to be donated later today when I find the right spot for it.

My mind put those two events together right away, but God wasn’t quite done with me. He wanted, I think, to make sure I was picking up what He was putting down, as they say. So this morning, as I was going out the back door to go to Mass, I hit the wrong button on the remote control for my security system, and I set off the panic alarm. It’s not the first time this has happened, so I knew what was coming. With one hand, I used the button to turn off the alarm, and with the other I reached for my phone. The call from the alarm company was coming through before I even got the phone out of my purse. We went through our conversation — “We received a panic alarm, is everything OK? …. Good, glad you are OK, may I have your name and password?” Done, and done.

Like I said, it’s not the first time I hit the wrong button and sent an alarm by mistake. But what I knew, and what my actions demonstrated, was that the guys at the other end of that system were going to do what they said they would do — call and offer protection. If something bad was happening, help would be on the way. If everything was OK, we both get on about our business. Simple.

That’s when it all really clicked. That’s when I began to see how trust really works in my relationship with God. He’s always there. No matter what happens, even when the problem is of my own making, He’s always there to offer help and protection. He’s going to have the answer when I’m in trouble, and He’s going to be glad right along with me when it’s all OK.

What God showed me over the past day or so was that I don’t need to put conditions or limits on my trust. When I think I need to do that, those thoughts are not coming from my loving Father. He’s telling me that this is personal with Him and that He’s not only going to give me what I need, He’s going to give me a whole lot more.

Dear Father God, I am sitting here in a state of wonder and awe at the way You care for me and love me. You show me again and again how You are everything I need, and with the grace You give me I say to You now, I trust You, Father. I need no other words; I trust You. Amen.

How Many Times?

Forgiveness.

There are reams of work on the topic, from deeply spiritual writings to entirely secular advice on forgiving for the sake of one’s own mental health. I’m thinking about forgiveness today in the context of Advent, a time during which we humans reflect on the way God’s people waited and wandered their way through centuries and centuries until God fulfilled His own plan of forgiveness and redemption.

We ask, in the Lord’s prayer, that God forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Sometimes I think that if God forgave me as I forgive others, I’d be lost forever.

The gospel story where Jesus talks with Peter about forgiveness is one that has given me great difficulty in the past. Peter asks Jesus a seemingly simple question: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” And Jesus responds, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times….” In other words, we are called to forgive without limit.

Jesus goes on, wonderful Teacher that He is, to illustrate with a parable, but we tend to stop reading at “seventy-seven times.”

I struggle with this passage. I struggle with forgiveness every day of my life. Why? Because someone I love has repeatedly done wrong against me and other family members. She does not express remorse, nor does she ask for forgiveness. She is certain that all of us are to blame for her pain, and she is equally certain that she is in the right. We have been estranged for nearly two years, the culmination of many years of starts and stops, of repeated forgiveness followed by new hurts and new wrongs. And I have learned – learned in the hardest of hard ways – that letting her back in will do nothing more than create a new opportunity for her to “sin against me.”

I am pretty sure I am well beyond the 77 times Our Lord speaks of in His answer to Peter. And I sincerely question, as a devout Catholic Christian, what my spiritual obligation is in this situation. Over the course of time, some answers have begun to take shape – most of them developing from what I have read and what I have heard in homilies and from reading this section of scripture many times over.

The best definition of forgiveness I ever heard came in a homily I heard a while ago: Forgiveness is the state where we no longer wish harm upon the person who has wronged us. It’s natural, when someone hurts us or offends us or damages us in some way with their words or actions, to respond with a desire for retaliation. And retaliation is the opposite of forgiveness.

Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus instructs us to “turn the other cheek” (Mt 5:39). Catholic writings on this verse make it clear that Jesus is speaking (as He did with much of the Sermon on the Mount) with use of Aramaic hyperbole to make His point; that this statement, like many other statements in this same section, are not meant to be taken literally.

So turning the other cheek, and being willing to forgive without limiting the number of times we do so, are ways that we behave, in Christ, with love toward others. Rather than seeking retaliation when others do us wrong, we are instructed to love them and, in loving them, seek the best for them.

When someone displays repeated and escalating hurtful and damaging behavior, it sometimes becomes impossible to love them and seek the best for them in a direct way. In fact, with adult family members who behave in this way, I think that doing so may even cause us to be an occasion of sin for them. In my own case, I now know that if I let the person who has hurt me back into my life, she will inevitably lie to me, steal from me, lie about me to others, and possibly cause physical harm to me. Given that I have no power or authority to force her to receive professional help (as I would for a minor child in my care), the best way I can love her is to pray for her – for healing and for her soul to be filled with God’s love in place of the torture that seems to be there now.

Make no mistake: I do not write this as a justification for being from estranged my loved one. Nor do I write this as a justification for not offering or providing assistance and support, financial or otherwise, for her in her jumbled and chaotic life. Nor is my message that estrangement is somehow a necessary or even desirable or acceptable component of or outcome to forgiveness. Estrangement is really a last resort; it happens only when wrongdoers are intransigent and all efforts to maintain a direct loving relationship have been met with hate and hurt. Forgiveness should never be a basis or excuse for alienation from another person.

Rather, my intent is to seriously and prayerfully examine – on a daily basis, if necessary – the depth and quality of my love and forgiveness. And I dare to think that for anyone who struggles with forgiveness in even remotely similar circumstances, prayerfully asking themselves these questions may help them to achieve some reconciliation with it:

• Do I pray, regularly, for this person’s healing and for good things in his or her life?
• Do I avoid wishing for, or behaving in a way that supports, retaliation or harm in return for the wrong they have done?
• Do I avoid dwelling on the wrong done to me? Do I avoid complaining to others about this person or the wrong was done to me?
• Do I sincerely and wholeheartedly wish and pray for good things for this person?
• Do I avoid creating situations where this person can do repeated or greater harm?

Jesus admonishes us throughout the gospels to live a life of mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. Getting to a clear understanding of His meaning requires our full participation in prayer and reflection. Living a life where we refuse to return hurt for harm, pain for injury, or ill will for evil is very different from living in a way that allows, or even encourages, others to continue to sin against us. True forgiveness lies in turning the other cheek – not so that it, too, can be struck, but so that we turn away from the hurt and keep from hurting others in retaliation.

We need to ask not only for His guidance, but for the grace to hear and follow it. We are called to forgiveness, and when we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others, I think that we are asking Him to see that we are forgiving as He has called us to forgive: not as He forgives, for His forgiveness comes from infinite mercy and love and is beyond our power to give; but as we are called to forgive – without counting or limiting our forgiveness, and with prayerful desire for the good of the one who hurt us.

Father God, each day I need and seek Your forgiveness for all the ways I have fallen short of Your love, for all the choices I’ve made that separate me from You. And each day, as I seek Your forgiveness I also seek to forgive others. I am in great need of Your grace in order to do so, Lord. Remind me, please, of Your Son’s call to forgiveness and place in my heart a true desire for the good of every person who ever harms me. And give me strength, please, Lord, to withstand temptation, so that I do not create the opportunity or invitation for others to do wrong. In Jesus’ Name I ask it. Amen.

The Greatest Love

One of the Eucharistic prayers at Mass includes the beautiful words, “…though we once were lost and could not approach you, you loved us with the greatest love….” (Roman Missal, 3d ed., Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I). Although this prayer is commonly used during Lent, those words resonate for me here in this third week of the Advent season. With Adam and Eve’s decision to defy God and separate themselves from Him, the fate of all humanity was sealed: Lost in sin, we could not approach God on our own any more; we could not feel the fullness of His great love.

What’s it like to be loved with the greatest love? The prayer goes on to remember how God’s love resulted in His giving His only Son over to death on the cross for our redemption. It is actually painful to contemplate what this really meant. The mere thought of one of our own children being hurt makes the soul cringe and gets the adrenaline pumping; that such hurt might be deliberately caused by others does not bear thinking of for us in our human state. And yet God went that far for us, giving His Son. Jesus went that far for us, giving Himself. All this, not to preserve Himself as God. Not to glorify His Son – not yet. All this, so that we could once again approach Him. All this, so that we could be His children.

For this kind of redemption to happen, the Son of God first had to come into the world. God chose the humblest of beginnings, the simplest of human existences, for His Son – all so that He could bring about the greatest love. We can get lost during Advent, though. We like to wander happily through the sweetness and emotion of celebrating Jesus’ birthday, and enjoy the way it translates into happy family gatherings and gift-giving; for some of us, the season brings sadness or anger over estrangements or memories of loved ones no longer with us.

I think it is important, during Advent, to live and reflect in a larger and perhaps somewhat abstract perspective: That both the Birth and the Cross, together, represent what it means to be “loved with the greatest love.” And maybe at first, it’s enough to come away with the warm and sort of glow-y feeling of knowing that God loves us this much, that His Son loves us this much, and of knowing that He wants us for His own.

Maybe at first.

And then the soul wants to go deeper. The heart wants to know more. The self, the very self that God created in us and that Jesus wants to occupy when He dwells in us, wants to experience more directly what it is like to be loved with the greatest love.

How does someone behave who is loved in this way? How does someone who is loved like this encounter the world and the other people in it?

Better yet, how would we behave toward others if we saw them as people who are “loved with the greatest love”? Perhaps it helps, in thinking about this, to consider an analogy. Think about someone you greatly admire and respect, someone you love and feel certain loves you. Now imagine that person bringing someone new to meet you. How is your first impression of that new person affected by your relationship with your loved one? Almost certainly, you are predisposed to think well of the new person; at the very least, you will have an open mind toward seeing this new person in a good light. And even if there is something off-putting about this new person, you are probably inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, based on your relationship with the loved one who introduced you.

And so it is when we encounter others along the path of life. God has put them in our path. If we believe that He loves us “with the greatest love,” then we must necessarily believe the same of those we encounter. They are beloved of God, and He has brought them to us. Thinking of others in this way creates a predisposition to kindness and compassion and leads us away from judgment and ill will.

One of our parish priests, in a recent homily, reminded us that we are called daily to compassion, mercy, and kindness. Being thus called, how do we find ways to answer the call? When we make the choice to see others as beloved children of the Lord, we find ourselves kindly disposed toward them. When we choose to treat others as we would treat people who are valued in the same way we are valued, we will be an open spring of compassion, mercy, and kindness. It will start with an open smile that reflects our joy; it may continue in a kind word, an offer of help, a handshake, or sometimes simply in a prayer for that person’s physical and spiritual wellbeing. It will involve the complete suspension of any judgment as to their path, their intentions, their aspirations, their worthiness, or their need, as we simply trust God to lead us in the encounters He places before us.

It’s as simple as making the choice to think this way – a choice that surely will be led by the Holy Spirit, a choice that arises from being loved with the greatest love.

We live from Advent into Christmas, and we celebrate. The Cross inevitably follows, as it did in the life of Jesus. We need both if we are to truly embrace, in faith, our God and our neighbor.

Spirit of God, make Your place in my heart and in my mind, and dwell there so that by Your working and inspiration I may see myself and all those I meet as beloved children of the Father, beloved sinners whose redemption by Jesus on the Cross began with His birth in the stable, beloved souls embraced by You as they walk their own path in this world. Use me as a means to reflect Your love, so that my own sinful nature becomes powerless in the face of such love. Through Jesus, my Redeemer, I pray. Amen.

Who Do You Trust?

“Who Do You Trust?” was a TV quiz show hosted by Johnny Carson in his pre-Tonight Show days. The contestants were married couples; the basic play was to reveal the category for a question, and the husband would then either answer the question or “trust” his wife to give the right answer. I know, I know — but this was the 1950s.

Almost from the moment I climbed out of bed this morning, it seemed like the theme of the day was going to be around trust.

I read something yesterday that resonated so strongly with me that I added it to my evening prayer. Fr. Nathan Castle, in his book Afterlife, Interrupted [2018: Fluid Creations, Inc.], speaks about turning our consciousness over to God when we sleep, “maybe for safekeeping, or so that God can accomplish something in us that’s more easily done in the night.” When I knelt for my evening prayers last night and prayed in this way, it occurred to me what a wonderful expression of trust it involved. After all, we relinquish control of our consciousness when we sleep; how much better to relinquish it to God, Who created it in the first place, than to let it wander free in the night!

So I turned my consciousness over to God, along with my usual prayer for a safe, sound, and restorative sleep under the watch of my guardian angel to prepare me for a new day of service to Him.

This morning, I woke up thinking about trust, and the day’s readings and morning prayer took me deeper and deeper into considering what it really means.

On this Tuesday of the third week of Advent, my morning prayer began with Ps. 127, which warns us that all the great work we do is nothing unless we are partnered with the Lord: In vain is your earlier rising, your going later to rest, you who toil for the bread you eat: when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber. Readings from the Old Testament books of Isaiah and Jeremiah remind us of God’s promise of a Savior for His sinful people; and then we heard Matthew’s gospel story of how, when Joseph was prepared to “quietly divorce” Mary because of her thus far unexplained pregnancy, an angel came to him in his sleep and told him what was going on. Just as Mary, some time earlier, had completely trusted God in His astounding revelation and call, Joseph, when he awoke, simply “did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him….”

If Joseph had not trusted God’s call and revelation to him, the custom of the time would have required that Mary, with her unborn Child, be stoned to death for her presumed adultery.

Can we aspire to the kind of trust that Mary displayed when she responded to the angel’s announcement, to the kind of trust that Joseph lived out when the angel came to him in a dream? I think the question is even bigger, because I think that such trust is exactly what we are called to.

But like most things I am called to in my spiritual life, in my relationship with God, my response is usually flawed.

Of course I trust God. But most of us would probably admit that even while we are telling Him we trust Him, right under the surface of our prayer we are imposing conditions on our trust.

We trust in God, but we still want to do things our way and get the outcomes we want.

We trust in God, but we caution Him not to give us anything too tough, because we don’t want to suffer.

We trust in God, provided He doesn’t let anything bad happen to us or those we love.

We trust in God, but we ask Him for direct signs that we are on the right track.

We trust in God, but we don’t want to give up on our things and our attachments.

Like that old TV show, we want the option to formulate our own answer, rather than trusting God to provide us with the answers.

How, then, do we offer ourselves to God in complete trust? How do we stop setting conditions on our trust in Him? At first, I thought that this required a tremendous act of courage — possibly courage beyond what our human weakness and the pride that accompanies it would support.

And then I realized that instead, what this kind of trust requires is deep humility — the kind of humility that’s defined as understanding exactly who we are in terms of Who God has revealed Himself to be.

This kind of humility knows God as the almighty, compassionate, loving, and merciful Maker of all things and as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of His people.

This kind of humility knows ourselves as beloved children of that God, as sinful, flawed, and imperfect as we are in our human nature.

This kind of humility recognizes that God is always present to fill in the gaps our sinful nature leaves open. Our response to adversity would be as flawed as we ourselves are, without God to lead us.

This kind of humility looks to God to bring good out of the adversity and harm the world can cause us. It sees that God does not send adversity and harm to test us, but rather is always with us and always ready to hold us up and carry us through those times of difficulty.

This kind of humility leads us to trust God completely and implicitly, because the only hope we have of dealing with all we encounter is in leaning on Him.

When I turn to God in prayer — hopefully, often throughout my day — and tell Him that I trust Him, I like to think that that’s all He chooses to hear. I like to think that He chooses to ignore the conditions I try to put on my trust, that he uses my attempts to rely on myself as a way of teaching me a better way. In other words, God responds to my imperfect prayer of trust with perfect love, compassion, and mercy.

Who do you trust?

Father, fill my heart with the kind of trust I need. Fill it so that there is no room for doubt, nor any room for my own feeble attempts to control my outcomes in life, but only room for Your love. Let me learn from Your grace that my actions and my response to life will be right when they reflect Your goodness and mercy and love. Amen.

Rejoicing, Exulting in Place

“Then shall all the trees of the forest exult before the Lord, for He comes: He comes to rule the earth.” 1 Chron. 16:33.

The image of nature exulting in God recurs throughout the Old Testament:

• Ps. 96:11-13, “Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

  let the sea and what fills it resound; let the plains be joyful and all that is in them. Then let all the trees of the forest rejoice before the LORD….”

• Ps. 97:1, “The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad.”
• Isaiah 14:8, “…the very cypresses rejoice over you”;
• Bar. 3:34-35, “Before whom the stars at their posts shine and rejoice. When he calls them, they answer, ‘Here we are!’ shining with joy for their Maker.”

Have you ever been outside on a glorious morning when the beauty surrounding you just filled your eyes and soul? A few years ago, I went on a road trip with my grandson. We camped out in a tent as many nights as we could manage. One morning stands out in my memory. We were camped near Devil’s Tower in southeastern Wyoming. The Tower was visible when we stood at the front of the campground; the back of the campground lay along the top of a deep ravine, and the view across the ravine was of valley, high desert, and mountains. I stood on the edge of the ravine and I heard the sound of one lone cow, somewhere across the valley. And I remember thinking, This is what it sounds like when God’s creation praises Him.

Fanciful? Maybe. And yet the Psalmist and the prophets are pretty clear in telling us that creation praises God.

When the verse from 1 Chron. came up in my morning prayers today, I began to reflect on how and why nature praises God, and it led me in an interesting direction. It occurred to me that the greatest way nature has of praising God and exulting in Him is by being exactly what God created it to be, exactly where God placed it, doing exactly what God made it to do.

Isn’t that my own best way of praising God, of exulting in Him?

The greatest peace, the deepest contentment and joy, and at the same time the greatest challenges in life all arise from being who God made me to be, from being where He places me, and from seeking to do, then doing, what He wants and calls me to do.

The challenges come mostly from two sources: the noise and distraction and competing calls of the world around us, and our own resistance to the transformation that God requires of us in order to be drawn closer to Him.

The peace, contentment, and joy all come from a single source: God, in His own love, compassion, and mercy, gives us those so that we know when we are on the right track.

A few weeks ago, our family had gathered with a neighboring family for an evening of food and fellowship. As we began to enjoy our meal, the host invited anyone who wanted to do so to share something they were especially thankful for. When my turn came up, I said that I was grateful to the toes of my soul for being where God wanted me, doing what God wants me to do. And the host wondered out loud how I know that I am. My answer surprised even me, a little: I said that where I am and what I am doing in life is so far different and removed from what I planned when I retired a few years ago that I simply couldn’t have imagined it — in fact, probably would have rejected it out of hand; and yet here I am, finding in my life and in what I am doing with it the greatest peace, joy, and contentment I have ever felt in my entire six dozen years.

And so, with nature — both the nature around us, and our own human nature, created and given to us by our loving God — with nature, I exult in the Lord and praise Him with everything I have.

Dearest Father, You are glorious in all of Your creation — including Your creation of me. Let me remember to listen for Your call, each day, so that I may always be who You made me to be, where You want me to be, doing what You ask of me. The “me” of me is its best when I am letting You shine from me. Shine, Lord, and I will be filled with light and joy. Amen.

Jesus, Redeemer and Judge

The same Jesus Who was sent by the Father to redeem us is also the one Who will return, finally, to judge us.

What does it mean that our Redeemer is also our Judge?

The role of Jesus as Redeemer is summarized in the words of the Eucharistic Prayer: “…we were once lost and could not approach You, but You have loved us with the greatest love….”

His role as Judge is described in Matthew 25:31-46. In the end, Jesus will come in His glory to judge all people and separate them on the basis of what they have already done.

At the heart of these two moments – the moment of redemption and the moment of judgment – lies a single truth: Our response to the gift of faith, which we received at Baptism and in which we were later confirmed, tells Jesus what He needs to know.

His mercy and compassion are infinite; His love is infinite. He created us, not because we asked Him to or because He needed our permission to do so, but because He loved. He redeemed us out of that same love, so that we could again approach Him. It is, ultimately, up to us whether we choose to approach Him.

The words of Matthew 25:31-46 show us what it means to approach Him: that we saw Him hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, ill, imprisoned – saw Him in all these ways in those around us and even in the very least of them, and ministered to Him. In understanding our call to be present for and to serve all of the children of God – in finally understanding that we are called for others and not called to look out for ourselves alone, we begin to see what it means to live in faith.

Jesus as Redeemer shows us the path we must take, teaches us that He, indeed, is the Way. He as Redeemer teaches us the Word that He is and that He speaks into our hearts. He pours infinite grace on us, if only we will put ourselves in the way of it. He freely gives it all to us.

Jesus as Judge asks only whether we listened to and acted on His open invitation. His is a judgment born of love and mercy, and it will seem harsh only to those who continue to reject Him. He has told us in simple terms the basis for His judgment: that we saw Him in all those ways, and ministered to Him in the least of those we meet, or that we passed Him by in all those same ways and ministered only to our own material needs.

Jesus as Judge longs for us to be His own redeemed people.

And it is in response to this longing, to His loving invitation, that we begin to see how it is to live a life which responds to faith instead of obligation. Jesus, after all, has already paid the debt for sin. He has fulfilled the obligation by having “loved us with the greatest love,” and He has opened the way to reconcile us all to God our Father. We still are human, and we still are prone to sin; it remains only for us to choose to listen for and respond to His daily invitation: “Follow Me.”

St. John Berchmans, a young Jesuit scholar who died in the early 17^th century, said, “I want to be ruled like a day-old babe.” He was known for paying careful attention to the small things that led him to God. And it is that very simplicity that we should seek in living a life of response to faith. We are, in this realm of faith, like an infant who lacks the ability to make anything happen for herself or himself. We rely entirely on God’s love, grace, and mercy to bring forth our response. How ironic that in the same day, perhaps the same hour, the same breath, we may pray for God’s grace to lead us to live as people of faith – and then reject His grace when it leads in a path we don’t like.

Dearest Savior, my Redeemer and my Judge, pour Your love and compassion into my empty life, and fill my waiting heart and soul with a love that I cannot hold – such that in response to Your great gifts, I may serve You in each and every one of Your children I meet this day. Lead me so that my way is a way of love and service that always has You as both its source and its goal.

Alarmed in Prayer

When I tell someone I’ll pray for them, that’s a serious commitment. My life is very much about integrity, and part of that is the commitment to do what I say I will do, when I say I will do it. If you have asked me to pray for you, or if I have promised to do so, your name is on a list of people and petitions that I walk through with my Father God morning and night and sometimes in between.

If you are someone who thinks you have no one to, pray for you, think again. Because all the people who have no one else to pray for are high on my list of those I pray for.

If you are struggling with or suffering from addiction, mental illness, or serious physical illness, you are in my prayers every day, along with those people I know by name who need such prayers.

I used to think I prayed a lot. What I’ve learned is that prayer is a lot like cleaning house. While you are performing one task, two or three others pop up to get your attention. When I am praying, one petition leads to the next and to the next….

It occurred to me one day that there is more in this world that needs to be prayed about than I can ever possibly know or include in my daily petitions. What’s a girl to do?

You see, sometimes I can get lost in the part of my prayer time that involves putting myself in God’s presence and offering Him thanks, praise, and contrition. Then I get interrupted by the beginning of Mass or the need to fall asleep, with the part of my prayers devoted to petitions sometimes cut short while I am talking to God about all the things in the world I’m thinking need His help.

At first I thought, “Wow. I need to find the time to pray more.

Then I realized that what I really needed was to give myself the time and opportunity to pray more.

While I was having, and exploring, that realization, the alarm on my phone went off to remind me of something I needed to do, and in that moment an idea was born.

Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up. The idea came to me, fully hatched, to use my phone alarm as a prompt to pray throughout the day. My response to these prompts is, admittedly, subject to variation. Sometimes when the chime goes off (yes, I actually use the “chimes” sound!) I look at the prompt and think, “Oh, yes, please, Lord…” and tap the stop button. Other times, I’m much better about stopping what I am doing and really taking some time to pray. And the prompts are designed to lead me through a day of mindful prayerfulness, drawing to a conclusion in the evening where I look, with God, at where I’ve been that day in His service.

I’m sharing my hourly prayer prompts below, along with a brief explanation of each, in the hope that others might find them useful. The process is simple; set the alarm time, select the sound, and use the prayer prompt as the label or text for the alarm.

My bold suggestion: Don’t be too strict about turning these alarms off when you are around people. Some of the best opportunities to witness have come when people asked me why my alarm kept going off!

My prayer prompts start at 8:00 a.m. and go through 9:00 p.m. Others’ schedules may vary — and others may have different prompts that are more meaningful to them. Honestly, the prompts here just occurred to me as I was setting up the alarms, based on some favorite brief prayers and scripture verses.

8:00 a.m.: Here I am, Lord, ready to do Your will. I added this prompt after I had been using the others for awhile. It’s aimed at getting my day off to a good start spiritually be reminding me of my purpose. Even if I’ve been to Mass already, it helps me get my head right before the busy-ness of the day.

9:00 a.m.: Blessed are You, Lord, God of all creation, for in You is all our salvation. This prompt is based on the ancient custom of beginning a time of prayer with praise for God for something He does in our daily lives.

10:00 a.m.: To your Father, you are worth many sparrows. One of my favorite gospel passages is Luke 12:6-7. “Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” This prompt reminds me that God is looking out for me with infinite love.

11:00 a.m.: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. From Paul’s letter to the Phillippians, this prompt reminds me to reach into myself for the joy that God’s presence brings; it also reminds me of the joy that comes with knowing that I am where He has put me, doing what He wants me to do.

12:00 noon: Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. This ancient petition to Mary reminds me to turn to our Blessed Mother often. In the years I spent away from the Church, I lost touch with Mary. She, however, never gave up on me.

1:00 p.m.: Everything for the greater honor and glory of God. This is a prompt for humility. During my years in the convent, this brief prayer was a constant refrain for our activities. It reminds me that as I go about my day, my activities and my successes are not for my own honor and glory but for God’s. This means it is ok if someone else recognizes something good I have done, because it centers me on my service to God through what I’m doing.

2:00 p.m.: Lord, it is good for us to be here. Peter spoke these words for himself, James, and John after they witnessed Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountain. As a prayer prompt, they remind me to be where God has put me, open to doing His work. Often, when this prompt comes up, I take a moment to think about “where” I am, to be grateful, and to ask God what He has in mind for me right then.

3:00 p.m.: …and the disciples went and told Jesus. This prompt comes from the story in Matthew’s gospel of Herod’s execution of John the Baptist (Matt. 14:12). After the execution, “His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.” I’m pretty sure Jesus knew exactly what had gone on, just as He knows everything that’s going on in our lives. But in the true nature of the personal relationship He wants to have with us, He invites us and wants us to tell Him. When I imagine this scene, I don’t imagine Jesus telling the disciples, “Yes, I know all about it.” I imagine Him embracing them in sorrow and sympathy; the following verses tell us that he withdrew from the crowds for a time after receiving this news. In reflecting on this passage, I think of Jesus hearing me tell Him about my day, my life, my issues and wants and needs and desires. I feel His love.

4:00 p.m.: Jesus rejoices when we turn to Him in love. This prompt grows from the previous one and from thinking about how Jesus actively seeks a relationship with us. It also grows from a recent conversation with my spiritual director. I was sharing how I look forward all day to seeing the look of delight on my granddaughter’s face when I arrive at her daycare to pick her up. My spiritual director said, “You know, that’s how God reacts when we come to him.” I have been entranced, ever since, by the idea of His face lighting up when I come looking for Him.

5:00 p.m.: Pray for all the people you encountered today. Here, near the end of the day as I prepare to settle into my quarters for the evening, I want to take a moment and ask God to bless everyone who has crossed my path that day. Like Mother Teresa, I pray often to be made a blessing to everyone I meet.

6:00 p.m.: Pray always. Another exhortation from St. Paul, this one from 1 Thess. 5:17. In context, this verse is nestled within a number of exhortations. For my day of prayer, it reminds me of my intention to give myself time to pray, and it reminds me also that in offering all of my actions to God, I can make my life itself a prayer.

7:00 p.m.: Lord, let me be a blessing. From St. Teresa of Calcutta, this prompt is both a look back at the day that is ending and a look ahead at tomorrow. It is the beginning of a daily self-examination as well as a focus of intention for offering the upcoming day.

8:00 p.m.: How has God blessed me today? Another step in examining my day, this prompt reminds me to be grateful for all the blessings of the day; it also reminds me that everything comes from God.

9:00 p.m.: How have I served God this day? In asking myself this question, I remind myself to be grateful for any good I have done, and I also prompt myself to contrition for all the times I fell short of the service I owe. Sometimes I am surprised at how many small opportunities for service I have found. Usually those come from something unexpected happening, so that I am able to fill a need I didn’t know was there. I often start that day with one plan in mind, only to find that God has something entirely different in mind. Thinking of my day as one of service to God through the people around me is a wonderful blessing, one that keeps me from being irritated when things don’t go as expected.

And so there is my day of prayer prompts. It is not a stretch to say that my life has changed for the better as a result.

Lord, I hear You calling me to prayer. You call with that “still, small voice,” so I need to listen for it amid the noise and confusion of the wonderful world you gave me to live in. I hear You calling me to prayer, and I answer. I don’t know, God, is it a meta-prayer? Because I ask You, in Your infinite love and compassion, to make me through prayer an open channel through which Your grace might come into the world. Amen.

Here I Am, Lord

Sometimes when I sit down to write one of these posts, the title is clear to me as I begin; other times, nothing occurs to me as my mind begins to explore whatever I think I’m going to write about. And sometimes, I sit down at the keyboard and find that my clever plan for the day’s post gets tossed to one side and something completely unrelated finds its way through my fingers to the screen.

This morning, I sat down with a pretty good idea of what I want to write about, but no title occurred to me. It will be interesting to see what suggests itself when I am ready to publish the post!

What’s on my mind this morning comes from two directions: The psalm, which is one of my favorites, and the gospel reading, which always puzzles me a little. I think both of them speak to the theme of transformation which seems to be calling for my attention these days.

Both Psalm 1 and the reading from Matthew’s 6th chapter call us to transformation through a study in contrasts. Psalm 1 give us the just man, who gives all of his attention to the law of the Lord and so rejects the path of sin. I love the imagery the psalmist offers of “a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade.” The early verses of the psalm point to how our very walking and sitting — the simple actions of our daily lives — are directed toward God when we are firmly turned toward Him. Reflecting on this imagery brings a sense of firm foundations and constant refreshment.

And then the contrast: “Not so the wicked, not so” — in the wicked man there is no foundation, no substance, nothing solid. Instead, we see chaff in the wind. Without God, there is nothing to hold onto and nothing to anchor us, nothing to save us from being swept away.

The gospel reading today continues the theme of contrast. Jesus points out that He and His precursor, John the Baptist, had different approaches to their physical needs for sustenance. John fasted constantly; the Pharisees claimed that he was possessed by a demon. Jesus ate and drank; the Pharisees claimed that He was a glutton and a drunkard who befriended sinners.

Sometimes you just can’t get anything right.

I think what Jesus is telling us here is that we need to be watchful for that call to transformation.

It seems to me that He wanted His followers to understand that it isn’t the choice of  fasting or of eating and drinking that is important. The choice that matters is the decision to follow Him. When we do so, we are open to being transformed into the kind of person the psalmist described — delighting in the Lord, planted firmly by the stream of His grace and constantly refreshed and growing in love as a result. When Jesus says that “wisdom is vindicated by her works,” I think He is referring to the fruits of the transformation He works in us. When we are following Him — consciously responding to His call, openly living in His grace — we are changed, and we are changing. We behave differently. We are not fooled by the outward appearances or the judgmental definitions the world offers. We see God in the faces and events of our day; we constantly ask Him to show us what He wants us to see; we offer ourselves into His service.

There is a hymn that beautifully expresses the response I think He is looking for: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I can hear You calling in the night…..I will go, Lord, if You lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart.” (Here I Am, Lord, by Daniel L. Schutte)

Transformation, the call. Love, the response. Never mind what it looks like.

Just now, I knew the title for today’s post.

In Unexpected Ways

The Old Testament reading for today, the Memorial of St. Lucy, is a study in contrasts and a beautiful expose’ of how God changes things in unexpected ways to bring about His will. From Isaiah, Ch. 41:

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain,
their tongues are parched with thirst.
I, the LORD, will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the broad valleys;
I will turn the desert into a marshland,
and the dry ground into springs of water.
I will plant in the desert the cedar,
acacia, myrtle, and olive;
I will set in the wasteland the cypress,
together with the plane tree and the pine,
That all may see and know,
observe and understand,
That the hand of the LORD has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it. (vss. 17-20)

See how the Lord first reminds us that He keeps His promises. And then He goes beyond merely keeping promises. He is going to turn things upside down! He is going to quench His people’s thirst by putting rivers and fountains where they are least expected. He will change deserts and wastelands into forests of trees. He will go so far beyond merely quenching their thirst that there can be no doubt — no doubt whatsoever! — Who has done these wonderful things.

In this powerful and beautiful explosion of profound change, God is telling us that He wants to bring about the same kind of unexpected transformation in our own lives. He wants to fulfill His promises in us in a way that can leave no doubt as to Whose work is being done.

If we let Him, He will change us in visible, obvious ways — profound ways that are themselves the fulfillment of His promises. We will not be parched and afflicted. We will not seeking water in vain. Rather, we will be the refreshing water found in unexpected places. We will be the strong tree growing where no one expected to find a tree. We will be living witnesses to the One Who has worked such wonders.

But for our witness to be credible, for us to be poured out in service, we must be both open to the kind of change God wants to create in us and open to letting others see it.

Father God, let us be so filled with grace that we yield willingly to your love and carry it with us into the world each day. Show us, through the workings of Your Holy Spirit, how to find You in the unexpected moments of each day and how to change in the unexpected ways to which You call us. Let us, by the redemptive power of Your Son, Jesus, be bold in our willingness to be changed. And let Your refreshing Word flow through us like water to quench the thirst of all those we encounter this day. Amen.

Dewfall

The following reflection is one that came from a moment when certain words of the Mass suddenly stood our for me in a different way:

The priest says these beautiful words of the prayer over the offerings at Mass: “Make holy these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall….” Hearing these words, I feel my heart joining the gifts on the altar, to be made holy by the same Spirit, the same “dewfall.”

And my mind sets off in reflection. The dew doesn’t really fall, after all. It forms, and it forms only in certain conditions. The amount of moisture in the air, the time of day, the temperature of the air, a receptive surface, the temperature of the surface – the science books tell us each of these things must be just so, and must be in a proper relationship each to the others, in order for dew to form.

Just before I think to bring myself up short and end this distracting line of thought, I realize that if my heart is there with the gifts the priest is offering, the science has its spiritual application to this lovely prayer.

My mind begins to draw the parallels between my scientific reflection and the conditions surrounding me here. Some are created by God in the gathering of His people for this holy sacrifice of the Mass and by the priest through whom God’s grace comes to us in this celebration. The air is filled with God’s grace. The time is right, for any time that we offer ourselves in His presence is the right time. The warmth of God’s love surrounds us here.

Is my heart receptive? By the grace of God, we can be open to the workings of His Spirit. He does not force this grace on us, but when we seek it, it is always ours. Our open hearts and souls seek His grace, and it makes us receptive to His Spirit.

In science, the dewpoint is the temperature where the air, meeting the surface of a blade of grass or even a stone in the pathway, will yield its moisture to form itself and appear on that surface – provided that the temperature of that surface is itself just right.

The Spirit is always at exactly this point, always ready to be ours, and now – just now! – grace lights and warms my heart and soul, opened to His workings, so that the Spirit can yield Himself and be visible there.

On the altar, Jesus will soon be present through the consecration of bread and wine as His Body and Blood. In us, Jesus will soon be present as we receive His Body and Blood in the Blessed Sacrament.

And from here, we will go out as the visible evidence of His grace – all because He has made us holy by sending down His Spirit “like the dewfall.”

Holy Spirit, make of me a gift on this altar, receptive to Your grace and always ready to be made holy by Your dewfall. Make me a blessing to everyone I meet when I go from here this day.