Mendicant Gratitude

A big Mendicant Thanks to the generous soul who sent me copies of Paul Helm's books, Faith with Reason and Faith & Reason.  These two were lost by Poste Italiane when I moved back to the U.S. from Rome.

Also, my thanks for Making Sense of Nietzsche and Experiments Against Reality. Both will be helpful in my upcoming seminar.

There was no packing invoice with these books, so I can't thank y'all by name; however, like all my Book Benefactors, you will go on my daily prayer list!

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That gate ain't gettin' any wider. . .

NB. Mass with the seminary community tomorrow morning, so here's a Vintage Fr. Philip Homily from 2007. The podcast link still works, so give a listen and leave me some feedback!

21^st Sunday OT: Isa 66.18-21; Heb 12.5-7, 11-13; Luke 13.22-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul Hospital, Dallas, TX

Listen here!

That narrow gate ain’t getting any wider, and the wider I get the more I worry! There are times when I make a run for the gate, hoping to hit it hard enough to squeeze most of me through. You know, just hope that momentum pushes me on through. And there are other times that I think I might be able to slowly twist and turn, wiggle and jiggle in the right angles and pop on through. It’s a matter of finesse and know-how. And there are still other times that I just fall on the ground in front of the gate, kicking my feet and squalling like a baby needing his diaper changed! Let me through! Let me through! But fits and tempers don’t widen the gate either. Here’s my theory about that Narrow Gate: the gate is inversely proportionate to the size of the Pride trying to get through. The bigger the Pride, the narrower the gate. Humility—that lived-knowing that we are totally dependent on God for everything—my humility, your humility widens the gate and our Lord will say to us on the other side, “Hey! I know y’all! Come, recline at my table.” Momentum will not propel you through. Spiritual fervor, religious athleticism won’t help either. Nor will finesse or knowledge or good family connections wave you through ahead of the line. Infantile belly-aching about fairness and justice won’t reward you eternal life. Nor will whining about what you think you are entitled to / help you force your way through.

Someone asked Jesus, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Notice, please, that Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. Instead he instructs, then warns, then prophesies. First, the instruction: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate…” Then the warning: “…many, I tell you, will attempt to enter [the narrow gate]...” And finally the prophecy: “...but [they] will not be strong enough [to enter].” Unlike most of what we hear preached in our Catholic parishes these days and taught in our Catholic seminaries, this teaching is unambiguously exclusive, clearly it is not the all-inclusive, gates-wide-open-garden-banquet that we’ve been taught to believe represents salvation through Christ. Jesus couldn’t be more straightforward, more plain spoken: after the master of the house has locked the door, those standing outside will knock and plead, “Lord, open the door for us.” And the master will say, “I do not know where you are from.” And those outside will remind him that they ate and drank with him, listening to his teachings. The master will respond, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” Much wailing and gnashing of teeth follows. Now, is this the nonjudgmental, all-inclusive, diversity and difference welcoming Jesus we’ve come to know and ignore? I don’t think so.

Our Lord is not a way to God among various but equally valid ways to God. Our Lord is not a truth among numerous but perfectly legitimate truths. Our Lord is not a life among different but equivalently honorable lives. Jesus says, “I am THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life, and no one come to the Father, except through me. Christ is the Narrow Gate of salvation; he is the door to perfect freedom, perfect joy, perfect life, and that door opens for anyone, anyone at all—no one is excluded by Christ from the invitation to eternal life through Christ Jesus. Every human person, everyone, all of us are invited to knock on the gate in humility, to show him that we have been of service to the least of God’s children, and that we have put ourselves last in the kingdom by training our hearts and minds, by teaching our hands and feet through the daily exercise of righteousness—our workout routine in God’s Gym!

You might be confused now. Didn’t I say earlier that the teaching in this gospel is unambiguously exclusive? And didn’t I just say that Christ invitation to the gate and the party beyond it is all—inclusive! No one is left out. Exactly right. Christ leaves no one out of his invitation to follow him. No one. Jesus says, “And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” No race, no sex, no color, no religious creed, no nationality, no sexual proclivity, no nothing is excluded from the call to holiness in Christ Jesus. Aight. So, who are those people on the condemned side of the locked door? Who are the evildoers that the master is cussing at? The ones who couldn’t squeeze through the narrow gate? Those are the ones who hear the call but do not answer it. The ones who come to the gate swollen with pride, envy, greed, self-righteousness. The ones who work hard to get themselves through the gate but never love. The ones who think that their mama and daddy’s money or family name or political connections would get them through ahead of the trash in line. The ones who plan on forcing their way in, bullying God with witchcraft and theologies of liberation. The ones who will not be disciplined by any authority, any instruction, any law. The ones who consistently and finally chose to use their freedom as license and squander their heavenly inheritance on a gamble against the house, God’s house. Those who stand on the other side of the gate, wailing and grinding their teeth, are there b/c they choose to be there: unambiguously excluded.

I said earlier that the Gate’s size is inversely proportionate to the size of the pride/humility of the person seeking to get through. How do we shrink our pride and swell our humility? The letter to the Hebrews tell us that the discipline of the Lord brings “the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” OK. What is this discipline? “Discipline” is an ordered form of learning, an organized means of attaining knowledge and/or enlightenment. Most anything can be a discipline: exercising, dieting, reading/writing, study, prayer. The key to discipline is that it is done in an orderly way under some authority—a teacher, a coach, a supervisor, a spiritual director. We are not to disdain the “discipline of the Lord,” meaning we are not to deride or disrespect the orderly authority of Christ in teaching us his truth. From Hebrews we learn that his discipline is our faithful way of enduring trial, our obedient means of suffering well under testing. This endurance, this suffering is a witness; this is testimony under duress and evidence for the Kingdom!

To repeat: Hebrews tell us that the discipline of the Lord brings “the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” Here’s your question for today: are you trained by the Lord’s discipline? Do you find yourself scourged by the love of the Father? He acknowledges you, so he treats you like a son; yes, even the women he treats like sons—as ones who will inherit His kingdom! Do you find pain or joy in your trials? Do you find peace or turmoil in obeying Christ? Do your hands droop and your knees grow weak thinking about the gospel-task in front of you? Do you give God thanks for your difficulties or do you complain? If you are made lame in your trials, it is better to make straight paths for your feet so that they may be healed and not disjointed. IOW, clear the path ahead of you by blasting it with gratitude to God! Yes, give God thanks for your diseases, your failures, your trials and persecutions, your disjointed bones and tired flesh. Thank Him and be disciplined. Be disciplined by the love that calls you to holiness, always calls to you to come to Him, and to pass through the narrow gate; you, shrunken in pride but swollen with humility; you, son of God, you, last of the least.

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New class

Great!  

Got word this morning that I'll be teaching a class on the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the pre-theologians at NDS this fall. . .

. . .along with Homiletics II and Proclaiming the Word. . .

. . .along with formation duties. . .

It's gonna be a BUSY semester.

Can't wait. . .

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Coffee Cup Browsing (Insomnia Edition)

More union hand-wringing over ObamaCare.  Shudda thought of that back in '09, guys! 

Welfare a better deal than a job.

GOP Guv, Chris Christie: latest Catholic pol to defy his faith.

Peter Kreeft's list of recommended books for the DIY philosopher.

Atheist debunks common atheist myth of the Christian Dark Ages. 

Will the LCWR work with the CDF? Remember: "dialogue" is dissenter-code for "stall."
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St Louis Cathedral Mass/Mendicancy

Celebrated Mass this morning at St Louis Cathedral with retired New Orleans archbishop Alfred Hughes.

The new seminarians -- all 27 of them -- were present.  

This was my first visit to the cathedral!

Also, much gratitude to the kind souls who've recently visited the Wish List and sent books my way.

I'm working on a seminar for the fall called tentatively, Preaching and Nihilism. 

The idea is to introduce the fourth year seminarians to the notion of postmodern culture and the inevitable nihilistic tendencies that come with eliminating transcendental referents (God, Beauty, Truth, Goodness, etc.) from our cultural vocabulary.  

Think: B.O.'s habit of editing God out of the Declaration of Independence when he quotes its preamble.

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"Devote oneself to [preaching] with love"

I'm collecting selections from ecclesial documents on preaching for the homiletics students. 

Here's one from Pope Paul VI's Evangelii nuntiandi:

42. [. . .] Preaching, the verbal proclamation of a message, is indeed always indispensable. We are well aware that modern man is sated by talk; he is obviously often tired of listening and, what is worse, impervious to words. We are also aware that many psychologists and sociologists express the view that modern man has passed beyond the civilization of the word, which is now ineffective and useless, and that today he lives in the civilization of the image. These facts should certainly impel us to employ, for the purpose of transmitting the Gospel message, the modern means which this civilization has produced. Very positive efforts have in fact already been made in this sphere. We cannot but praise them and encourage their further development. The fatigue produced these days by so much empty talk and the relevance of many other forms of communication must not however diminish the permanent power of the word, or cause a loss of confidence in it. The word remains ever relevant, especially when it is the bearer of the power of God.[70] This is why St. Paul's axiom, "Faith comes from what is heard,"[71] also retains its relevance: it is the Word that is heard which leads to belief. 

43. This evangelizing preaching takes on many forms, and zeal will inspire the reshaping of them almost indefinitely. In fact there are innumerable events in life and human situations which offer the opportunity for a discreet but incisive statement of what the Lord has to say in this or that particular circumstance. It suffices to have true spiritual sensitivity for reading God's message in events. But at a time when the liturgy renewed by the Council has given greatly increased value to the Liturgy of the Word, it would be a mistake not to see in the homily an important and very adaptable instrument of evangelization. Of course it is necessary to know and put to good use the exigencies and the possibilities of the homily, so that it can acquire all its pastoral effectiveness. But above all it is necessary to be convinced of this and to devote oneself to it with love. This preaching, inserted in a unique way into the Eucharistic celebration, from which it receives special force and vigor, certainly has a particular role in evangelization, to the extent that it expresses the profound faith of the sacred minister and is impregnated with love. The faithful assembled as a Paschal Church, celebrating the feast of the Lord present in their midst, expect much from this preaching, and will greatly benefit from it provided that it is simple, clear, direct, well-adapted, profoundly dependent on Gospel teaching and faithful to the magisterium, animated by a balanced apostolic ardor coming from its own characteristic nature, full of hope, fostering belief, and productive of peace and unity. Many parochial or other communities live and are held together thanks to the Sunday homily, when it possesses these qualities.

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Thanks!

My Dominican Mendicant Thanks to the kind soul who sent me The End of Apologetics.

I will have a chance to make use of this book very, very soon. . .
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Have you come to help our Lord set fire to the world?

20th Sunday in OT
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP 
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA 

Surrounded as we are by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask you all: have you come to help our Lord set fire to the world?! Have you come here to help him destroy the family; to divide the nation; and to conquer the Church? If not, remember: the waters of your baptism did not extinguish the Spirit's fire set ablaze in you; rather those blessed waters feed and spread the fire of the Holy Spirit like gasoline, consuming you, burning you to perfection. And your job, my job, our job together is to run shouting like lunatics—holy priests and prophets—to run shouting through the dry-tinder kindling of this world, setting everything cold and hard and brittle on fire with the Holy Spirit! If you will follow Christ, walk his Way, carrying his Cross as yours, then you will become a Holy Pyromaniac. 

We read in Hebrews, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that cling to us…” Fire burns its fuel first. The fire of the Holy Spirit burns away every burden and sin, releasing the grip of anxiety and freeing body and soul from the sickening weight of disobedience. Essentially, we are lightened for the race before us, unencumbered for navigating the Way and finding our Morningstar. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, “the leader and perfecter of faith,” every burden, every obstacle, every failure is lifted, surmounted, rectified, and we are propelled into the same joy that Christ saw before him through the Cross. Through the Cross. Not around it or under it or above it but through it. Only through the Cross did he and do we come to our long anticipated glory in the presence the Father's throne. 

 But what does “only through the Cross can we find joy” mean day-to-day, minute-to-minute? First, be warned: the race to the Cross is heart-wearying! It’s not a test b/c a test is too easy. You have the help of the Holy Spirit! What’s a test when the H.S. is your cheat sheet? There is no obstacle course, something like a heroic passage from Greek myth—no giants to behead, no mutant spiders to outwit. You don’t even have to memorize any arcane languages or master multiple sets of occult symbols or chase down any wizardly objects. No. What you have to do is actually much, much worse than all these combined; much more difficult and painful: you must release your pride; unclench your self-satisfaction and arrogance, your misplaced sense of duty and control; and you must be weak before the Lord, praying, “I too wish the world were already ablaze for you, Lord! Kindle in me the fire of your righteousness, burn away my burdens and sins, and make me a torch for your purifying love.” To joy through the Cross. . .

Going to the Cross for us, for our example and our benefit, Christ poured himself out, emptied himself in total subjection to the Father, becoming for us our sin. His kenosis, his abandonment to the worst of human depravity and his freely accepted death for our sake, is the spark for a holy fire, the match that pops and flares and sets all creation blazing in sacrifice. Every thing, every person and place, every relationship and bond, every right and wrong, all of it, our peace, our achievements, our grand plans and projects, our deeply held convictions and logical conclusions, our allegiances and sworn wars, our science, theology, philosophy, art, all of it, everything is transfigured, transformed in the perfecting conflagration of the Cross and the Empty Tomb. I tell you, Jesus says, I did not come to bring peace but division; neither comfort nor convenience but ferment and want. I will leave it all in ash and smoke. For I come to reorder, to re-establish, to resurrect and renew every bond, every promise, even life itself. Our Holy Father, Francis, said in his Sunday Angelus message in Rome, “. . .faith is not a decorative, ornamental thing, you do not decorate your life with a little bit of religion. . . Faith is not a decoration, as if it were simply the icing on the cake!” 

A decorative faith, a small religion cannot strike even the tiniest spark much less set the world on fire. A decorative faith, a small religion cannot resist sin nor can they proclaim the Good News. Have we resisted the world to the point of shedding our blood? Our brothers and sisters in the Egypt and Syria have. Those of us in the Sudan have bled and bled. In China, we bleed for the state’s fear of an all-consuming fire. In Louisiana? Probably not today or tomorrow. But it’s not impossible that one of us here or all of us together could be called to resist sin to the point of shedding blood. Is that frightening? Of course. Our faith, or rather our religion, is a comfort to us. We find settled patterns and rhythms here. Familiarity and peace. Should our faith be comforting? I mean, should the fact that we trust a man who willing died on a cross for us be a source of comfort to us? You have vowed to do the same for me, ya know? To die for me. And I for you. That promise of witness is greater than family or friends or neighbors. That promise to stand up and speak up and give witness to a mighty God is greater than the condolences of religion or the temporary excitement of spirituality. For the sake of your joy beg to be emptied of every burden, every sin, and then fix your eyes on Jesus. He is the only leader, the only perfecter of our faith. 

Again: surrounded as we are by so great a cloud of witnesses, I must ask you all: have you come to help our Lord to set fire to the world?! 

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Homily Podcasts 2006-2008

A faithful HA reader asked about older podcasts of my homilies. . .Where did they go?  

Well, they didn't float off into the ether!

Here they are:  Homily Podcasts 2006-2008. 

These were preached mostly to the folks at the Church of the Incarnation at the University of Dallas in Irving, TX when I served there as a campus minister.

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Dominicans: engines of ecclesial renewal!

Ran across a good article on the Order of Preachers as an engine of renewal in the Church:

[. . .]

Today the institutional effort at genuine renewal is palpable. There are notorious holdouts—especially among women religious, the Jesuits and the universities they influence (along with others like them), wide swaths of academic theologians, and some sectors of Catholic health and social services. But most dioceses have better leadership now than then, the seminaries have been largely reformed, the priesthood substantially revitalized, and the push for both the recovery of lost territory and a new evangelization is both very real and very strong. [What's striking to me about seminary reform is the role of lay professors in restoring orthodoxy to the seminary curriculum. Once again, the Church is saved by the laity!]

 
Happily, this is no longer your father’s Church.

The Order of Preachers Sends a Message

I bring this up today because I am about to describe a very telling case in point in the Dominicans of the St. Joseph Province in the United States. I have always been drawn to St. Dominic and his wonderful Order of Preachers (their initials, O. P., come from Ordinis Praedicatorum). My doctoral dissertation way back in the dark age of 1973 was devoted to the connections of the Dominican observant reform in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—a long struggle to return the Order to the observance of its original rule after a period of laxity—with the overwhelmingly Dominican defense of Papal primacy against Conciliarism and, later, Protestantism. Then as now, the most deeply committed Catholics were also the most devoted to the Holy See. [Alternating periods of laxity and observance are par for the course in every religious order, diocese, seminary, and parish. The cause of laxity is almost always the same: an initial relaxation of observance for the sake of ministry resets the highest standard of observance and further relaxation leads to laxity. The question is: when have we crossed the line btw observance and laxity?].

In the twentieth century, the Dominicans suffered from the rising tide of secularization just as others did, but not quite so much as many. I am reliably informed by those inside that the Order today is fairly healthy worldwide, though of course it varies from place to place. For years the Western province in the United States was more prone to Modernism (including the famous Fr. Matthew Fox and his sidekick, Starhawk the witch) than the Eastern province (the Province of St. Joseph) whose men are trained at the incomparable Dominican House of Studies at Catholic University. [Clarification: Fox was a member of the Central Province and he lived in CA after he was dismissed from the Order]. There is, for example, the famous story of men from the East sitting in on a lecture given by a professor from the West, and rising en masse to shake the dust from their feet when the lecture became heretical. Happily, the dichotomy is not so great now. [I've never heard this story!]

Similarly, the Dominicans in the Netherlands have proven spotty at best; some of them made news five years ago by circulating a pamphlet advocating priestless Masses. And yet is was characteristic of the Dominican Order as a whole, as it would not have been characteristic of many other groups, that these wayward Dominican priests were officially reprimanded by their more universal superiors (see Dominican leaders rebuke Dutch theologians, 1/24/2008). [A very mild rebuke that many friars read as tacit approval of the pamphlet. Though I think it was a repudiation, the rebuke should have been much stronger.]

[. . .]

Dominican provinces are like individuals.  Each has a dominant personality that's easily stereotyped. The West is monastic. The East is institutional. The South is missionary. The Central is pastoral. Like all stereotypes, there's some truth in there somewhere. But like individuals, provinces have personality traits that balance or complement the dominant one. You will find institutional friars in the South. Monastics in the East. Pastoral types in the West. And missionaries in the Central. Sometimes individual priories will be known as embodiments of the province's dominant personality and another priory will embody the complementary traits. 

If you really want to compare and contrast Dominican provinces and find the roots of difference, look at differences in resources: institutional commitments (universities, parishes, etc.); available funds for ministry; Catholic population and culture; number of friars; and historical presence in the region. Therein lies the real difference!

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Gnostic Gibberish from the LCWR

Assuming the following quotes are accurate. . .this is why the LCWR is currently being "monitored" by the CDF:

“If we are to rethink in terms of religion, we have to think in terms of cosmology. . .” [I doubt very seriously that she means "cosmology" in the same sense that physicists understand the term. She's talking about Brian Swimme's pseudo-mystical/quasi-scientific blend of eastern bumpersticker philosophy and bad 70's head shop poetry, The New Universe Story. This book has been The Thing among the LCWR crowd since sometime in early 2000.] 

“We have to understand the order of the whole. . .There is no cosmos without God, and no God without cosmos.” [We do have to understand the order of the whole. And there is no cosmos w/o God.  So far, so good. Then she loops into pantheism: no God w/o the cosmos?  This is a complete rejection of the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Creator, His creation, and our relationship to both. Pantheism is attractive to gnostic types b/c it allows them to claim authority/power through "specialized knowledge." In the 21st century, the most specialized knowledge out there is scientific.]

The reporter paraphrases: "A mixture of Scripture, philosophy from Plato and other Greek thinkers helped develop our theory of Jesus Christ — unchanging, static — a mechanical God." [This is the standard handful of ignorant mud thrown at the scholastic theological tradition. It's nonsense. Deus caritas est. How is that static, mechanical, etc.? God is pure act, according Thomas, and there can be no more perfect act. What she's worried about, of course, isn't an unmoving God, but an "unmoving church" that won't accommodate her personal theological preferences and those of her fellow-travelers.]

“We have an incredible, dynamic, expanding universe. Simply from the point of science, this is awesome,” Sister Ilia said, adding, “Literally, we are stardust." [True, we are stardust in the most literal sense. And this is awesome from more than just the point-of-view of science. In fact, we've pretty much known for a long time now that we're stardust. . .say, since Genesis, at least. But apparently she believes that cosmic forces somehow took stardust and randomly evolved human consciousness from the assembled particles. Remember: no cosmos, no God; therefore, God couldn't have assembled the particles or given them life. He had to wait until we randomly evolved before coming into existence, which means that in some sense, God's existence is contingent on us.]

“Does evolution continue through us? The physical structure of the universe is love. The way physical life works, it is not background to the human story. It is the human story.” [Is physical evolution the sort of process that "continues through" individuals?  I thought evolution happened at the level of species over billion of years. The physical structure of the universe is matter and energy. Love is not physical; it's relational. Of course, if you're a pantheist, God is identical to the universe and since God is love, then the universe is love.  Whoa. Dude. Pass the bong.]

No mas. I'm done. This is exhausting. St Irenaeus dispatched most of this nonsense back in the 2nd century.  

Next!
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How contraception destroyed a parochial school

A pastor laments the decline of his parish and the demolition of the parochial school. He points to the contraceptive mentality of most Catholics as the cause. There's another reason too: the Protestantization of Catholics. When Fr. Bob preaches in a way we don't like, or says stuff in his homily that we don't like, we go to another parish. 

Parish-shopping is the quintessential Protestant reaction to a pastor who refuses to tickle our ears.

A stranger came into the sacristy after Sunday Mass. In an incriminating huff he said, “I have been away from the area for fifteen years; where are the people? And now you are tearing down the school? I went there as a kid.”

I put my hands up to quiet him from further talking and I calmly said, “Let me ask you a question: How many kids did you have?” He said, “Two.” Then I said, “So did everyone else. When you only have two kids per family there is no growth.” His demeanor changed, and then he dropped his head and said, “And they aren’t even going to Mass anymore.”

Sad. Read the whole thing.
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Crowdsourcing: communication skills for priests

I'm working on the syllabus for my "Proclaiming the Word" course. Basically, the class is all about public speaking, oral communication/interpretation for the Catholic priest.  We cover how to proclaim the Gospel, conduct lectio divina, teach parish classes, etc.

Think about the priests you know. . .

If you could assign these priests to take a remedial class in public speaking, what would you tell the professor that these guys need help with? 

Think not only in terms of preaching (volume, tone, projection, etc.) but also in terms of how they communicate personally with parish staff, parishioners, etc.  

Think about how they communicate in oral presentations during pastoral council meetings, catechical events, groups meetings, etc.

What do we clergy-types need to improve?

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“This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .”

NB.  here's another one on suffering from 2009.  This one got 27 comments when I first posted it.  Apparently, I struck a nerve!

19th Sunday OT: 1 Kings 19.4-8; Eph 4.30-5.2; John 6.41-51 
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP 
Church of the Incarnation, Univ of Dallas 

Elijah, the prophet of God, prays for death: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .” How thick, how deep must your despair be to pray for death? How heavy must your desperation be before you can no longer lift it? When do you cry to God: this is enough! Here and now, I am exhausted, weary beyond living. Elijah killed 450 prophets of Baal. For this reason, he confesses to his Lord, “. . .I am no better than my fathers. Take my life.” Elijah challenges Baal's prophets to a contest of power. He pits the real power of the Lord against the demonic power of the Canaanite god. Baal loses. And so do his prophets. Elijah marches the demon's priests to the River Kishon and cuts their throats. Fleeing the wrath of Jezebel for killing her prophets, Elijah goes into the desert and there he discovers—among the stones and sage brush—that he no longer wants to live. “This is enough, O Lord. Take my life. . .” Elijah, prophet of God, touched by His hand to speak His Word, despairs because he has murdered 450 men. What weight do you lift and carry? How thick and deep is the mire you must wade through? At what point do you surrender to God in anguish, walk into the desert, and pray for death? When you balance on the sharp point of desperation, poised to ask God to take your life, remember this: “When the afflicted call out, the Lord hears, and from all their distress He saves them! Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!” 

To varying degrees and in different ways, all of us have discovered in one sort of desert or another that we are tired, exhausted beyond going another step. Overwhelmed by studies, financial stresses, marital strife, family feuds, personal sin, physical illness, we have all felt abandoned, stranded. We might say that it is nothing more than our lot in life to rejoice when our blessings are multiplied and cry when the well runs dry. These deserts look familiar. We've been here before and doubting not one whit, we know we will visit them again. We hope and keep on; we pray and trust in God. This is what we do, we who live near the cross. But there are those times when the desert seems endless and only death will bring rescue. We find hope in dying. And so, we cry out to God: “Take my life, O Lord!” Is this the prayer we should pray when we find ourselves broken and bleeding in the deserts of despair? It is. There is none better. 

 The witness of scripture pokes at us to remember that our God provides. Beaten down and hunted by Jezebel, exhausted by his prayer, Elijah falls asleep under the broom tree. An angel comes to him twice with food and drink, ordering him to wake up and eat: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” Elijah obeys. Strengthened by the angelic supper, he walks for forty days and nights; he walks to God on Mt. Horeb. The Lord provides. Jesus reminds the Jews who are murmuring about his teaching that their ancestors wandered around in the desert for forty years, surviving on angelic food. Though they died as we all do, and despite their constant despairing, they survived as a people to arrive in the land promised to them by God. As always, the Lord provides. Paul reminds the Ephesians (and us) that Christ handed himself over “as a sacrificial offering to God” for us, thus giving us access to the Father's bounty, eternal access to only food and drink we will ever need to survive. Paul writes, “. . .you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Therefore, “. . .be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” We always have before us the feast of mercy. The Lord provides. So, wake up! And eat! 

What are we promised, and what is provided? Even the slightest glance at scripture, even the most cursory perusal of our Christian history will reveal that following Christ on pilgrimage to the cross is no picnic. To paraphrase Lynn Anderson, “He never promised us a rose garden.” Sure, Christ promised us a garden alright. But it's the Garden of Gethsemane. Betrayal, blood, and a sacrificial death. He also promised us persecution, trial, conviction, and exile. He promised us nothing more than what he himself received as the Messiah. A life of hardship as a witness and the authority of the Word. The burdens of preaching mercy and the rewards of telling the truth. An ignoble death on a cross and a glorious resurrection from the tomb. What he promises, he provides. All that he provides is given from His Father's treasury. Food and drink on the way. The peace of reconciliation. A Father's love for His children. And an eternal life lived in worship before the throne. 

All of this is given freely to us. But we must freely receive all that is given. Elijah flees into the desert, seeking his freedom from Jezebel's wrath. The former slaves of Egypt flee into the desert, seeking their freedom from Pharaoh's whip. The men and women of Ephesus flee into the desert of repentance and conversion, seeking their freedom from the slavery of sin. Each time we flee into a desert to despair, we are fleeing from the worries, the burdens of living day-to-day the promises we have made to follow Christ to the cross. Our lives are not made easier by baptism and the Eucharist. Our anxieties are not made simpler through prayer and fasting. Our pains, our sufferings are not relieved by the saints or the Blessed Mother. Our lives, anxieties, our pain and sufferings are made sacrificial by the promises of Christ and all that he provides. We are not made less human by striving to be Christ-like. We are not brought to physical and psychological bliss by walking the way of sorrows. We are not promised lives free of betrayal, blood, injury, and death. By striving to be Christ-like, by walking behind our Lord on the way of sorrows, we are all but guaranteeing that we will suffer for his sake. And so, the most fervent prayer we can pray along this Christian path is: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life. . .!” Surrender and receive, give up and feast. Surrender your life and receive God's blessing. Give up your suffering and feast on the bread of heaven. 

What Christ promises, he provides. He says to those behind him, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Exhausted under a tree and running for your life; pitiful and despairing, wandering lost in a desert; chained to sin, wallowing in disobedience, yet seeking mercy. . .where do you find yourself? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you exhausted? Spent? Do you need to be rescued? Cry out then, “Take my life, O Lord. . .” Pray for death. Pray for the death of Self. Pray for the death of “bitterness, fury, anger, reviling, and malice.” Pray for the death of whatever it is in you that obstructs your path to Christ; pray that it “be removed from you. . .So [you may] be [an] imitator of God, as [a] beloved child[], and live in love, as Christ loves us.” Remember and never forget: “When the afflicted call out, the Lord hears, and from all their distress He saves them! Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!” The bread come down from heaven, Christ himself, is our promised food and our provision for eternal life.

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Suffering and suffering well

By request. . .a repost on suffering from 2008:

Recently, I conducted a one-day retreat for the local lay Dominican chapter. I was asked to give three talks on the theme, “Preaching Truth in a Lying Age.” During one of the talks I mentioned the notion of suffering and gave a very brief ferverino on what suffering means for Christians. That little piece of the much bigger retreat is still sitting with me this morning. 

When I am asked to recount my vocation story, I often tell the story of how I came to a better understanding of humility. In 1998, I had injured my back at work. For about two months my doctor thought I had merely sprained a lower back muscle and he treated me as such—mild muscle relaxers, milder pain meds, and physical therapy. I was in excruciating pain, often fainting and completely unable to bathe or walk. Only after I had lost about 50lbs. and nearly lapsed into a coma with a 106 degree temperature did he finally decide to send me for an MRI.

After the MRI and during one of my physical therapy sessions I was called to the phone to hear my doctor’s nurse order me to cease therapy immediately and return to the office. Her voice was insistent and slightly frightened. Obviously, I was terrified. They had found something. Once in the office, the doctor informed me that I had a large mass growing between my two lower vertebrae. He showed me the MRI films and ordered me back to the clinic for another MRI. This time they shot me full of contrast fluid. The mass shone like a mountain. My doctor, nearly in tears because he had ignored my pleas for better pain meds, told me that he was pretty sure I had cancer. Only a biopsy could confirm this.

 

The biopsy indicated that the mass was a staph abscess. They rushed me to the hospital where I was told that my heart had likely been severely weakened by the infection. Tests showed that this was not the case. However, the staph had infected my blood, sending my sed rate to deadly levels. My infectious disease doc confided to me that he couldn’t explain that why after almost three months of an internal staph infection I wasn’t dead. He ordered a PIC line inserted into my heart and I was fed two IV anti-biotics for seven weeks. During those seven weeks I was at home with my parents recovering.*

I was unable to keep food down. Couldn’t bathe or sleep. And I was dependent on my parents for everything. I was 35 years old and once again a child. The day humility came to smack me around I had a doctor’s appointment. Since I could barely walk, my mom had to dress me. The absurdity of my situation hit me hard when it came time to put on my socks. Sitting on a low bench in my underwear with my mom kneeling in front of me, struggling through a stream of tears to get my socks on for me, I started crying in frustration, anger, gratitude, and a sense of helplessness. It was all so absurd, so surreal, and yet also weirdly peaceful.

My point? I had been in constant pain for almost four months, and I grieved my loss of independence. But I had yet to suffer. Pain is not suffering. Grief is not suffering. Since I was merely experiencing pain and not giving that pain purpose, I had refused to suffer. There was no grace for me in simply being in pain. Once I decided to allow the pain to have a purpose (i.e., “to suffer the pain”) as a gift of humility, my recovery quickened, and I was able to go back to work in month or so. Now, when my oh-so-ready pride pokes its head into my business, I remember the scene of my mom struggling to get my socks on without hurting me—the two of us crying like babies at the absurdity of the whole thing.

The question is not “do you suffer?” but “do you suffer well?” Or, rather “do you allow your pain/grief to have a purpose?”

So, suffer well.

* About three days after the staph infection was gone and the PIC line was removed, I contracted chicken pox.  Oy.

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