Posts Tagged ‘purpose’

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Paradox and Transcendence

· Saturday, 8 Aug 2009, 4 pm · Saint Dominic, pray for us

In further reflection on the song “Laughing With” (see this post), the word transcendence has popped into my head.

Paradox points to transcendence, to something more. To transcend means to rise above, to see more. It does not deny what is, it just gives a wider vision of what is, depth, a larger point of view.

Grace also perfects. It does not deny what is. It makes it perfect, makes real, transforms into reality. God’s point of view is reality, not ours. Our point view contains parts of what is real, but also contains much of our own projections, wants, and desires. (We see things how we want to see them, not always as they are.)

So, it makes me wonder. If God is love and a loving God lets people suffer, than maybe my definition of love and suffering are not completely right (real). After all, Jesus was/is God, and He loved/loves. He also suffered and died. He did not avoid what that song described. Do I expect better than what Jesus experienced in life?

There must be more to the meaning of love.

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On Angels

· Friday, 19 Jun 2009, 9 am · Saint Zosimus, pray for us

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice—no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?)
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.

— Czesław Miłosz

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Sweet Darkness

· Wednesday, 27 May 2009, 7 am · Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing,
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your
aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

— David Whyte, from The House of Belonging

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Reaching

· Thursday, 5 Mar 2009, 12 am · Saint Eusebius of Cremona, pray for us

There’s a time I can recall
Four years old and three feet tall
Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar
And both were out of reach
And later on in my high school
It seemed to me a little cruel
How the right words to say always seemed to stay
Just out of reach
Well I should not have thought it strange
That growing causes growing pains
‘Cause the more we learn the more we know
We don’t know anything
But still it seems a tragic fate
Living with this quiet ache
The constant strain for what remains
Just out of reach

Chorus
We are reaching for the future
We are reaching for the past
And no matter what we have we reach for more
We are desperate to discover
What is just beyond our grasp
But maybe that’s what heaven is for

There are times I can’t forget
Dressed up in my Sunday best
Trying not to squirm and to maybe learn
A bit of what the preacher preached
And later lying in the dark
I felt a stirring in my heart
And though I longed to see what could not be seen
I still believed
I guess I shouldn’t think it odd
Until we see the face of God
The yearning deep within us tells us
There’s more to come
So when we taste of the divine
It leaves us hungry every time
For one more taste of what awaits
When heaven’s gates are reached

(Chorus)

I believe that’s what heaven is for

There’s a time I can recall
Four years old and three feet tall
Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar
And both were out of reach

— Carolyn Arends

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Culture of Death is an Idea Before It is a Deed

· Tuesday, 27 Jan 2009, 11 pm · Saint Angela Merici, pray for us

I heard this excerpt quoted from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (who passed away earlier this month) on the radio. It is from his closing address to the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee held last July. (Read the whole talk).

The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us…can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”

And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed.

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Oh ME! O Life!

· Sunday, 17 Aug 2008, 7 pm

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—
        of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself,
       (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—
       of the objects mean—
       of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—
       of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—
       with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—
       What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

— Walt Whitman

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You Don’t Have To Prove Anything

· Monday, 14 Jul 2008, 1 pm

There is a line from a William Stafford poem:

“It’s for the best,” my mother said, “Nothing can
ever be wrong for anyone truly good.”

And then I look at the suffering Jesus endured,
and the suffering of all people.
If any one was definitely good, it would be Jesus.
As for me, the only good in me is Jesus.

And yet he suffered.
I have suffered, and will again.
The people I love have suffered.
The stranger in the store has suffered,
and perhaps even now is trying to live with tragedy.

Why? I don’t know.
I do know that Jesus came and he suffered.
He was human. He suffered
with us, for us.

God never answered Job’s questions.
He is not going to answer mine.
God is the one who asks the questions:
How are you going to respond?
Are you going to receive or reject, keep or give?

The answer to the question is not a what, but a who,
not words, but the Word.
God is the answer to all questions.
And Jesus came
to show and to live and to be the answer.

I claim no deep understanding,
but I know—I know—with Jesus,
nothing can ever be wrong.

Near the end of the same poem,

“You don’t have to prove anything,” my mother said.
“Just be ready for what God sends.”

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Personhood

· Friday, 2 May 2008, 1 pm

From Br. Joseph —

What is a person?

Classical Christian theology and philosophy defines a person as one who has the ability to know, to love, and to choose (to will). This is the image of God in which we are made. (The angels, our spiritual kinsmen, are also persons made in the image of God.)

Saint Richard of Chichester (1197-1253, English bishop) wrote a prayer that fits beautifully into what it means to be a person.

Thanks be to you, my Lord, Jesus Christ,
For all the benefits that you have given me,
For all the pains and insults you have borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,
May I know you more clearly,
Love you more dearly,
Follow you more nearly,
Day by day.

The end of this prayer may sound familiar to some. It is the basis for the lyrics to the song “Day by Day” from the 1970s musical “Godspell”.

Through this prayer, we call upon God and grace to help make us a full person like Jesus—to know God and others, to love God and others, and to choose good for God and others, day by day.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

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Two Kinds of Freedom

· Wednesday, 18 Jul 2007, 4 pm

Freedom is about choice, and there are two kinds of freedom. There is a freedom to choose to do whatever you want, and another kind of freedom to choose to live for others. One freedom leads in, the other out. One freedom is living with responsibility, the other with disregard except for self. One freedom is full of meaning and purpose, the other is ultimately empty and worthless. One freedom leads to heaven, the other to hell.

Love is a choice…

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I love, therefore I am

· Wednesday, 18 Jul 2007, 4 pm

When I was younger, late high school and especially in college, I identified with Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” It was the motto for the Age of Rationalism. It is still often used in today’s postmodernism.

After finding faith, or rather faith found me, I believe that Descartes had it backwards—I am, therefore I think. My thinking, my thoughts and even emotions and such are part of me. They exist because I exists, not the other way around. You could make a case for that is what the original statements says, but either way, it causes one to over-identify ones being with their thoughts (and emotions). I am more than just my thoughts and emotions. (Perhaps over-identification with thoughts as being makes it easier to justify abortion and euthanisia?)

Today, I stumbled upon the title of book about an Eastern Orthodox archimandrite named Elder Sophrony, written by his grand nephew. The title plays off of Descartes famous saying while transmitting the real truth—I love, therefore I am.

I guess you could replace the word love with life and still mean the same thing, but love is a much more powerful word. It alludes to the very nature and essence of God, Being Itself (see 1 John 4:7-8). Love is the very essence of existence and being. Love is not a part of me; I am part of love. Life is not something I have; I am a part of life.

I love, therefore I am. When God whispers, “To be,” God is saying that your being is love; go and be and do what you are.

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