CowPi
 Journal

Asking people to pray
is like telling the wind to blow
the ear to listen
the eye to see
We cannot not pray
anymore than not be
once given the gift of existence
We can only shut it out or deny it

Prayer is simply the conscious dimension of being
when it opens out to receive all that is
gift
marvelously
gratuitously there
word of communion with all things
who hears their silence of wonder
adoration before Him who is
the source and end of all

Prayer is also the birthing of the person
the creative revelation each is called to become
the etching of a mysterious face
reflected by the Mystery we contemplate
the knowing God
as we come to know ourselves
Spirit breathed
by the Thou who calls and loves

Silence then is the plenitude of the Word

Prayer ultimately is love

— Cyril, from Sounding the Silence

From Br. Joseph —

We have all seen pictures of the crucifixion. There is one particular picture, a bit different from most, which I want to describe. The viewpoint of the picture is from above the Cross, a little higher than His right hand and a little behind, looking downward over Jesus on the Cross, and this vast crowd of people standing around the hill staring up at Him. The angle prevents you from seeing the ground directly in front of the Cross where I presume Mary, John, and others were standing. Jesus on the Cross was the center with emphasis expanding into the crowd of people who seem to be standing in the shadow of the Cross. But there was no shadow. It was more of an illumination.

The people in the crowd represented all parts of the world from all of history. There was a caveman kneeling. There were Asians, Africans, Native Americans, Aborigines, Eskimos, and Europeans. There were people dressed in jeans and t-shirts, Victorian dress, medieval peasants, ancient Roman togas, tribal costumes, and so on. Off to one side was a nun dressed in her black habit standing next to a young woman in cutoffs and halter top giving the impression of a prostitute. Which woman was more attuned to her sexuality? In the middle to the right stood an astronaut in a space suit. The reflection in his visor was the Christmas Star over the small village of Bethlehem. There was a sense of peace in all of their expressions as they gazed at His death on the Cross, a gift meant for all people for all time.

As I meditated on this image and its meanings, my imagination took control and I stepped into the image. (My hope is that you will be able to step with me into this image too.)

There I was, in the middle of that picture, surrounded by other people looking up at Jesus on the Cross. I glanced down and noticed the dust of the desert on my shoes. I felt the pebbles and dirt shift ever so slightly as I shifted my weight to the other foot. The contrast of what I had expected and what the sky looked like shocked me. Instead of cold and gray and darkness, I saw a sky of soft powdery blue with a hint of white puffy clouds low on the horizon. The mid-afternoon sun was warm on my face. All was silent except for the gentle rustle of clothes in the cool breeze.

I looked back up to focus on Jesus on the Cross. He was dead. The drama of the Passion that lead up to this moment was complete. I knew what was going to happen later in the afternoon, and especially on Sunday morning. I understood the source of the peace I saw in the faces of the people standing next to me. I felt the peace too, but not completely. I had a haunting deep sense of guilt weighing heavy on my heart. My sin was responsible for this man being on the Cross. He chose to die because of me.

One by one, slowly at first, then more quickly, the people in the crowd started to disappear. In a few moments, I knew I would be the only one remaining. It would soon be time to face this guilt inside my heart. I would have to face it alone with Him. Instead of becoming anxious, I felt a certain measure of peace. I wondered if I should be afraid. How many times did He say not to be? As the others in the crowd disappeared, I expected the weight of my guilt to grow within me. There is anonymity in a crowd, a sharing of responsibility that falsely disseminates the guilt. No, the weight of my guilt did not change. I knew it was mine. There was no fooling myself. No fooling Him.

Then the last person disappeared. There I was, alone. Alone before the Cross with Jesus dead on it. I continued to look up at Him. The sun was still warm on my face. The gentle breeze continued to toss my hair playfully across my forehead. Should I prostrate myself on the ground before Him? I stood still. The silence of infinity enveloped me.

I bowed my head slightly as if gazing into my heart, searching for the heavy brick of guilt hidden in a corner. There it was. I looked back up at Jesus and said in my mind, “I’m sorry. So sorry.” That is all I could say. No excuses. No tears. “I am sorry for my sin. Please forgive me.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered reading something about Jesus asking St. Jerome in a vision why he had not given Him everything. Jerome replied, “Lord, I have devoted my life to your service. I have given you all my works, all my love, all my praise, everything.” Jesus replied, “No, you have not given me your sins.”

In an inward gesture of reaching my hands upward, I said in my mind, “Lord, take my heart. Take all of it. All my love, all my joys, all my sorrow, all my sins, all my guilt. It is all yours.”

As I dropped my head again, I softly whispered, “I am Yours.”

A moment later, I looked up at the Cross again, gazing deeply into His face. The crown of thorns still pierced His lifeless flesh. The trickles and streams of blood were dried and crusted in His hair and across His face. The cuts were still open and the bruises were blue and black and swollen.

On one side of the threshold lies pain, sorrow, loss, guilt, and death. By letting go—surrendering—one steps into the threshold of transformation, through the Paschal Mystery of the Cross, and emerges into healing, joy, victory, freedom, and life.

I looked one more time up at His face on the Cross. It seemed almost like He was smiling. The heavy brick of guilt was gone from my heart. He had died for me, and I was glad to receive His gift, a gratitude that only comes from grace.

The Way stood in front of me now.

“I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

From Br. Joseph —

This is the last reflection of a series on seven signposts. The first reflection began Lent, and now this one bridges us into the Easter season and beyond.

Signposts give us direction. They point to some place. They involve action, movement. Many signposts call us to remember something important, some thing that is already there but is often covered up by the minutia of daily life. Signposts represent a choice—to follow or not to follow. It takes grace to see a signpost and courage to follow where it points.

All is gift.

This signpost points to the attitude of gratitude.

Many people say “everything is gift,” but the word all seems bolder, more encompassing. All excludes nothing. Every thing, every person, every situation, every moment of time, every breath, every molecule, and every ounce of energy in your very existence, every opportunity to choose to love and to give—all is gift.

This means that the present moment—the now, and every thing about it, be it joy or suffering or more likely a combination of both—is gift, a present. It is an opportunity to be present to what is, and to be open to God. And the choice (another gift) is yours to receive or resist. Not in the past or in the future, but only now in the present moment can you have presence, awareness, being. Memories and wishes are good, but they are not reality; they are not what is. Receiving is being; resistance is pride.

The first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, is a be-like-this-attitude that all is gift, an awareness of our poverty. For if all is gift, then nothing is mine. All belongs to God. And in opposition to everything the world says, those who can accept the humility of this poverty, or accept grace to move toward it, are truly blessed, and “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Thus the words from Scripture, “In Him we live and move and have our being” are not only poetic, but are actual physical reality. All is indeed gift.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. (Meister Eckhart, 14th century German mystic)

All is gift. If we receive, then gratitude, and perhaps awe, is our response.

Keep hope alive.
Dare to trust.
Surrender to grace.
••• Reflect love. •••
Gravitate to humility.
Pray always.
All is gift.

Our Lady of Mercy is praying for us…

(See also Certainty and another post titled All is Gift.)

Signposts point to where we want to go. Follow, or don’t follow. There are seven signposts listed below because seven is the number of completeness. No claim of originality is made for the signs, excerpt maybe for their grouping.

Keep hope alive.
Dare to trust.
Surrender to grace.
• • • Reflect love. • • •
Gravitate to humility.
Pray always.
All is gift.

Keep hope alive.
This signpost comes from a priest that used to be campus minister at the Mount. He would always sign the end of his letters with this. It is a reminder the importance of hope. Hope and faith are like two sides of the same coin. Sometimes faith seems hidden, so hope pulls you through the dark times. Sometimes hope seems lost, but faith pushes one through. Faith is the muscle, the driving force; hope is the spark of light that illuminates the way and warms a cold heart.

Dare to trust.
This signpost is a shortened form of “dare to move faith to trust” as described in the short essay, “It is Not About Belief” by Jon Zuck. Believing in God is one thing; trusting God is another. Both are part of faith, but the real test of faith is not believing, it is trusting. There are times when nothing in your experience will confirm, support, or backup faith. The world says one thing; faith says another. Which one do you trust? In the Gospels, Jesus implies trust when He talks about faith.

Surrender to grace.
This signpost comes from a line in the book, The Lord by Romano Guardini. (An excellent book that contains short reflections on nearly every episode of Jesus’ life in Scripture.) Although the sentence was referencing something specific, it applies to everyting. God’s grace rains (or reigns?) down upon us every second to open our eyes to see Him and His love for us, and calls us into a deeper relationship with Him. We resist. We need to stop resisting. “Surrender” can also mean “abiding” as referred to in St. John’s Gospel.

Surrender to grace can also mean to stop resisting the present moment. Enough grace will be given to you to get through whatever you need to do. In other words, do what is right when you see that something or someone must be attended to—this is an opportunity given to you to love and God will help you through it.

• • • Reflect love. • • •
The center signpost. There is a signpost for hope and one for faith (trust). Love of course needs to be included. And being the greatest of the three, plus a direct reference to the nature of God, it has the three bullets highlighting it. All signposts ultimately point to this place. We are not the source of love. God is. We do not possess love. Love possesses us. We do not create love. We channel love. And love, unlike the limited nature of material things, grows as it is shared.

Scripture says we are made in the image of God. This means two things, and both are equally correct. One, we are created as a copy—a person imprinted or made from an impression from a master image, the master image of who/what God is. (Note, this does not mean we are gods. We have attributes like God, beings with a will and an intellect.) Two, we are an image as in a reflection—we reflect the image of God to others. This synchronizes with what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer as us looking at God looking at us. Another metaphor is that God throws us a ball called Love—are we going to keep it or are we going to throw it back to God through the next person?

Gravitate to humility.
This signpost points to the First Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit. Scripture and all of the saints and mystics call us to humility. Not humility as the world defines it, that is, as a sense of proper self-esteem where one does not elevate or demean ones self in relation to others. This is important, but Christian humility aims for the complete and total nothingness of pride. We have nothing to boast of to God. We have no entitlements or any thing to lay claim on God. We are nothing without God. All we can really ask for is mercy. (See the story of the Canaanite women begging Jesus to heal her daughter.) The verb “gravitate” implies that we should keep moving toward humility.

Pray always.
This signpost comes from Scripture. It is a reminder to be aware of God’s presence, our be-withness with God, throughout our whole day, every day.

All is gift.
This signpost points to the attitude of gratitude. Many people say “everything is gift,” but the word “all” is more encompassing. “All” includes all—every thing, every person, every breath, molecule, and energy of your very existence, every opportunity to choose to love and to give. The words from Scripture, “In Him we live and move and have our being” are not only poetic, but are actual physical reality. This signpost also points to humility. (See the post “Certainty” for more.)

Keep hope alive  ·  Dare to trust  ·  Surrender to grace
• • • Reflect love. • • •
Gravitate to humility  ·  Pray always  ·  All is gift

From Br. Joseph —

At some point in every faith journey, one finds him or her self taking an inventory of their core, central beliefs. Some of these beliefs are held very tightly, some loosely. The more central a belief, the more one aligns his or her identity.

Paula D’Arcy describes her seven central beliefs as certainties. These are listed below followed by some of my comments.

1) “I am certain everything is gift.”
This is the very foundation from which the first Beatitude speaks—blessed are the poor of spirit. (i.e. humility)

2) “I am certain we are entitled to nothing.”
See #1. Entitlement is an illusion that develops from one type of response to receiving gifts. (i.e. pride)

There is great freedom in realizing that one is not entitled to anything. All is gift. All comes freely from God. Why? Because God chooses to do so. God wants to; He does not need to. That is what love does. That is what love is.

With freedom comes responsibility to be good stewards of the gifts received. And with gifts comes, or should come, gratitude.

3) “I am certain the wells for pain and joy are not separate.”
See #1 and #2. This is difficult for many to accept. Not everyone can see the connection. One is not entitled to joy. And at the same time, one is not entitled to pain either.

The Buddhists say that the cause of all suffering is desire, and thus they seek to eliminate all desire. St. Ignatius of Loyola agreed that suffering comes from desire, but it is our disordered desires that cause suffering. Our drives, desires and wants, are energies given to us by God. They are gift. And because they are from God, they are good. By our re-ordering of these desires according to our priorities and our notions of happiness (not God’s), we cause dis-order and dis-ease.

4) “I am certain bitterness and healing are a choice.”
This is our response to #1, #2, and #3. You are free to choose how you respond.

5) “I am certain that running from your darkness leads to greater darkness.”
See #2, #3, and #4. Is this a definition of despair?

6) “I am certain the darkness is held ultimately by light.”
This is the source of all hope. See #1 and #7.

7) “I am certain that the words from Scripture, ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’ are not poetic; they are actual physical reality.”
See #1.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

Thomas Keating, in Manifesting God, says: “Worthiness is not the issue.” Get over it. Stop projecting your own self-esteem issues onto God. God is God, not the god you make Him out to be.

The Gospel is not about earning the love of God because we already have it. It is a matter of receiving it and of being grateful.

And this takes humility, the first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit…

Thank you Father. Help me to recognize and remember my poverty.

From Br. Joseph —

Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German mystic, once wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

From Ronald Rolheiser’s book, The Shattered Lantern:

The original sin of Adam and Eve, the prototype of all sin, is presented as a failure to be receptive and grateful. …

God makes Adam and Eve and places them in the garden and showers them with goodness and life. They are given beyond measure and are promised that life will continue in this rich and good way on one condition—they are not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.

The prohibition boils down to this: God has told Adam and Eve that they will receive life as gift, but they may never take life as if it were theirs by right. The condition God places on them is not an arbitrary or petty test. No. It expresses an entire morality: as long as you receive and respect reality as gift, it will continue to give you life and goodness. If you attempt to seize it or take it as owed, you will know shame, disharmony, pain, death, and loss of a connection with God.

Reminds me of the First Beatitude: Blessed are the poor of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All is gift.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

I was talking with an older friend whose wife is the middle of battling the second stage of a debilitating disease. They chose to adopt two children years ago instead of passing this 50-50 chance, hereditary disease on to the next generation. Early in their marriage, he witnessed his mother-in-law progress through the disease that prematurely took her life. And now his belove wife is in the middle of it. They knew it was coming. And now it’s here. They have a few years left together, and they both treasure each and every moment of life.

His wife recently had a milestone birthday and all her family (daughters, brothers and their familes, grandchildren, etc.) came to visit and celebrate. This disease stops with her. No more in her family. But she still must battle it, with her husband at her side. Near the end of our conversation, he said, “If I had received everything I had wished for, it would have been so much less than what I did receive.”

Wow! God is a prodigal father. His gifts are always so much more than what we ask for, even when we do not think our prayers are answered. We cannot see.

In the Gospels, Jesus never prayed from a need-base, that is, from what was missing, but always from the abundance of the Father, to fill, to make whole. I am reminded of the line from the “Soul of Christ” prayer:

Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given.

Help me to see this Father; help me to live this. Please continue to bless my friends. Thank You for everything.

At the end of the movie, American Beauty, the main character Lester Burnham reflects on his life:

…there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my…little life.

That is a sacramental moment, the gratitude that arises from pure joy. A grace-filled moment. Full awareness, full consciousness, fully awake. The false self, the little me, wants to hold on to it, on to everything; the true self knows and lets go, and just is.

I don’t claim full awareness. I am no where near it, but I have had a couple moments in my life, especially since accepting the gift of faith, that hint of this. It left me speechless. Words are inadequate. All I could do was be, exist in the moment, and let it flow through me, be apart of me. It let me be apart of it. The gratitude whelmed me over from the joy welling up from a source that is hard to describe. It came deep from within, but not really from me, somewhere different, apart from me, but me, from another place, from an area where the border of who I am is fuzzy, undefined.

Maybe it is the border between who I am and what God is? Maybe there really is no border?

All is pure gift. And if I am honest, if I am open to Love, how could I not be grateful? Joy and gratitude are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is a gift.

A moment later, Lester adds,

You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure; but don’t worry, you will someday.

Someday…in heaven.

Sound — music — prayer
no words — emotions, feelings, but more…
essence, existence, but more…

A lifting up of the heart from within the heart,
not the head, not the intellect,
a place reachable without words,
beyond words.

The space and silence between the notes,
between the sounds, between the harmonies.
Silence supports it all, defines it all,
giving simple existence to every song.

All is You. All is gift.
If I could only sing “thank you” without words…