CowPi
 Journal

Accidentally and pleasantly discovered this song by William Fitzsimmons called “Passion Play.” (listen)

I should not have hid
Where my heart can’t follow
Cause this grace gets so far
And too hard to swallow
I’ve been running from Saul,
He’s been giving chase
When I look in his eyes
All I see is his face

Are you still on my back
After all these years?
Chasing my out of hell
And my nice veneers
I don’t know how you stand
When you’ve got no floor
Or how you can breathe
With your hands on boards

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

Do you hear when I call
    In the midst of wrong?
Do you hear these here words
    While I sing this song?

Are you caught up in me
Like I heard you say?
Or just some big cashier
That I’ll have to pay

I just want to be not what I am today
I just want to be better than my friends might say
I just want a small part in your passion play

— William Fitzsimmons

In the fallout now
It’s hard to feel like we can turn around
With the damage done
It’s hard to see how far we’ve come
We could not be proud
Of where our feet have walked along the ground
In the silence now
We play it back and forwards again

There’s a sound in our guiltiness
It’s a warning bell that rings
It’s a call to our loneliness
And we can’t see

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It’s like a hurricane is coming our way
We’ve all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can’t believe it now the time has come

Play the victim here
You know it’s nothing but your pride and fear
But the more you hurt
The more you love the one you were

There’s a sound in our guiltiness
It’s a warning bell that rings
It’s a call to our loneliness
And we can’t see

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It’s like a hurricane is coming our way
We’ve all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can’t believe it now the time has come

In the light of the morning
Can we change what we felt and heard
Can we turn it into the glory
Break the paths of our fathers before us
Though we stand on the outside
We will find what we once believed
And will crawl our way to the clear skies
Standing up we are
Standing up we are

We roll the dice we play like fools
We plead with time to change the rules
It’s like a hurricane is coming our way
We’ve all been warned but we still chose to stay

I can’t believe it now the time has come

— “Hurricane” by Needtobreathe (sound clip)

I was listening to the homily for today’s morning Mass on EWTN radio as I drove to work. The homilist, Fr. Joseph Mary, paraphrased Dietrich von Hildebrand:

The essence of purity is reverence.

Fr. Joseph Mary added, “…reverence for the person, reverence for my own dignity, and reverence for God. That is what the essential element of purity is.”

reverence = noun, a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe

To put it in the negative, impurity is irreverence (to the person, to my dignity, to God).

In other words, to be not pure means that I don’t care enough about the good of the other person. I am willing to use the other person for whatever I feel or want. This can be from the typical connotation of purity as lustful thoughts to outright sexual activity, but it also extends to how we treat other people in general—do I manipulate or exploit people, do I gossip about them, etc. It goes back to treating people as persons and not as objects. You use objects; you love persons. Purity is about the whole person, not just about their sexuality as most people refer to it.

Kierkegaard wrote, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” It is to revere others, to will—to choose—the good for them. It is to be sensitive, mindful as the Buddhist would say, to the needs of others. It is to love them.

So what is missing in me—what hole am I trying to fill when I do not revere other people? I can be so selfish at times. Do I not trust God enough to know that He will indeed give what is needed, in other words, to feed me? Give us this day our daily bread.

Father, I believe. Help my unbelief. Help me to be more open, more mindful, more reverent.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I ventured out recently into the blogsphere and discovered this meme via Sarx (with some links in the chain A and the original).

1. if the nature of god is omnipotent, benevolent, and anthropomorphic (that god is a person, who sees suffering as wrong, and can change all of it), why does god not act to relieve all suffering, or at least the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest amount of people the greatest amount of time?
2. if you were god, and you were omnipotent and benevolent, how would you respond to suffering?
3. if this is not the nature of god, what is the nature of god, that allows suffering in the world?
4. if these are the wrong questions to ask, what are the right ones?

— — — — — — —

The problem of evil is probably the best argument from atheists and agnosics against a belief in God. It most definitely causes much problems for the faithful too. Why would an omnipotent and good God allow evil in the world?

There is an intellectual and an emotional response to this question. Neither are direct answers to the question, but rather a response to the mystery of evil. Mysteries about God, and evil, have no final solution. They are not problems to be solved. We can only learn from them, experience them, but in the end, we are still puzzled by them.

This discussion is rather long, and so it is has been broken into several parts. First, an intellectual approach (or jump to the second section, an emotional approach).

I discovered an old interview with Father Gabriele Amorth on the internet concerning Satan and exorcism. It is an interesting article, but this particular piece near the end jumped out at me.

How does the Devil go about seducing men and women?

AMORTH: His strategy is monotonous. I have told him so and he admits it … He convinces people that there is no hell, that there is no sin, just one more experience to live. Lust, success and power are the three great passions on which the Devil insists.

I am reminded of Jesus’ three temptations in the desert, Luke 4:1-13.

“Command this stone to become bread” tempts Jesus to use his power to satisfy his desire. Disordered desires and wants are lusts.

All the kingdoms of this world would be given to Jesus if He worshiped Satan. This at first seems like a temptation to power, but it fits better with the idea of success. What do we give up in order to be successful, to be the best, to win? What do we worship, what do we idolize, what do we sell our soul for in attempts to be successful? How do I become fractured, less integrated, less whole, compromised, in an attempt to gain some thing?

Finally, Satan tries to get Jesus to put God to the test. That’s where the power comes in, to use God as if He was an object for our manipulation and control. Do we try to use and manipulate people for our own success and desires?

Notice what is hidden between the words of lust, success and power—pride. Did you also notice that all three are temporary? The devil has nothing to offer that is permanent or eternal, except spiritual death.

And what is the antidote to pride? Humility and love.

Know your enemy.

I think Walker Percy, in Lost in the Cosmos, sums up the situation between man and God via Jesus:

If you’re a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you.

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 —

St. Jerome, best known as the translator of the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew, is reported to have had a vision of the child Jesus. In the vision, Jesus asked Jerome why he had not given Him everything. Jerome was puzzled. “Lord,” he protested, “I have devoted my life to your service. I have given you all my works, all my love, all my praise, everything.” “No,” replied Jesus. “You have not given me your sins.”

A not-so-subtle reminder of the Cross…

All of this reminds me of a question I once heard in regard to prayer. Do you pray in the front room or the back room of the house in your heart?

The front room of most houses is the room where most guests are received, the living room or parlor as it was called in the old days. The front room is where the best furniture is placed. This room is kept clean, neat, and presentable. On the other hand, the back room, like my bedroom, is messy. There are clothes lying across a chair, an odd sock or two lying in the corner next to a pair of shoes. The bed is not always made. A pile of small boxes sit in the corner. Books lay around here and there, unshelved. Outsiders very rarely see the back room.

The same goes with our prayer. Do we try to meet God on our terms in the front room of our heart, where we have things all tidy and neat? Do we try to show God only our best side? Or do we pray in the back room of our heart, where life is messy and untidy? Broken pieces of our life are lying about here and there, raw, naked, and exposed. Do we try to show God our perfect side, our good side, the side we are proud of? Or do we let God see our imperfections, our dark side, the side we are ashamed of?

Which room allows God to transform us? In which room do we relinquish control and hand it over to God? Which room are we afraid to be in ourselves? Which room requires you to trust God?

Dare to move belief into trust.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

Gossip is a community killer. It is a cancer. It separates, isolates, and destroys a person. It literally kills something inside, not only for the victim, but those who spread the gossip. In the victim, it kills self-esteem and spreads to other things. In the gossiper, it kills compassion and love, and then spreads to elsewhere. It blackens everyone’s hearts.

It was gossip about God by the snake in the garden that lead Adam and Eve to separation from God and from each other. It literally lead to death for them and for us. Gossip is one of the most subtle and insidious form of pride.

In Back to Virtue, Peter Kreeft links the virtues of the Beatitudes with the vices of the Seven Deadly Sins. The Beatitudes are the antidote to the Seven Deadly Sins, leading to life, not to death.

Pride vs. Poverty of Spirit (Humility)
“Pride is self-assertion, selfishness; poverty of spirit is humility, selflessness.”

Avarice vs. Mercy
“Avarice is greed, the centrifugal reach to grab and keep the world’s goods for oneself; mercy is the centripetal reach to to give, to share the world’s goods with others, even the undeserving.”

Envy vs. Mourning
“Envy resents another’s happiness; mourning shares another’s unhappiness.”

Wrath vs. Meekness and Peacemaking
“Wrath wills harm and destruction [separation]; meekness refuses harm and peacemaking prevents destruction [coming together].”

Sloth vs. Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness
“Sloth refuses to exert the will toward the good, toward the ideal; hunger and thrist for righteousness does just that.”

Lust vs. Purity of Heart
Lust dissipates and divides the soul, desiring every attractive body [and thing]; purity of heart centers and unifies the soul, desiring God alone [the one thing necessary].”

Gluttony vs. Bearing Persecution
“Gluttony needs to consume an inordinate amount of worldly goods; being persecuted is being deprived of even ordinate necessities.”