Amazing Grace

I have read where it could happen that when an ovary is removed a hormone imbalance can occur and the woman can feel a bit of depression.  It has been a week since my surgery and today I am feeling that sense of depression.  Part of it I can probably attribute to cabin fever.  I did venture out a bit this past weekend but maybe I did a bit too much because today I feel a bit of discomfort and tiredness. Part of it could be because I have had enough of doing the same thing day after day. Part of it is loneliness as I haven't had any visitors.  I would venture that a big part of it is restriction of my busy and active life.

This got me to thinking about all those who are homebound, hospitalized or confined to nursing homes or assisted living facilities.  Many spend hours and hours alone, with no one visiting them, with nothing to do.  Many elderly experience depression.  I am experiencing it after a week but I know that I will be back to work by Sunday and hopefully be cleared to engage in my regular activity.  Most of these people face this day after day for years until the Lord finally takes them home. How difficult it must be for them.

Perhaps it is a grace that God is allowing me to experience some of this.  I have to pray with it, but what is it that God is telling me, what is God asking of me through this experience. Perhaps He is calling me to expand my ministry or just calling me out of my own selfishness and look toward the needs of the lonely.  I am not sure.

Grace works in strange ways sometimes.  Sometimes it is subtle and sometimes it hits us like a brick.  I know I like to think of Grace as something gentle, a wonderful consolation that comes to us and evokes good feelings and joy.  Yes, Grace can be like that, but it can also be something that comes crashing in on us, it could hurt and make us feel like running away from it.  This second kind is what Dietrich Bonhoffer calls "costly Grace."  He writes in the Cost of Discipleship:

Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I have been confronted this week with many new feelings and experiences. As I continue to heal my body, I know that God is also working on healing my soul.  Yes, Grace is amazing, isn't it.

On Beauty as a way to God

Zenit has published the text of Pope Benedict's Wednesday audience .  It was good to read that he included architecture as one of the types of art that express our faith. He said, in speaking about the great Gothic cathedrals, "We are ravished by the vertical lines that reach heavenward and draw our gaze and our spirit upward, while at the same time, we feel small and yet yearn to be filled."  Who does not stand in awe when confronted by this "theology" in stone.

The awesome majesty of God is reflected in nature, the work of His hands.  Yet, God also created us with the ability to create things of beauty. When we as artists produce works of art, we are participating, through the Grace of God, in His creative power, and we have a responsibility to create art that is truly beautiful and becomes "a moment of grace that moves us to strengthen our bond and our converstion wit the Lord."

Diet and Exercise

My annual medical checkup had been almost two years ago so I thought with summer kind of slow it is a good time to schedule appointments with my various doctors.  This week I had two doctor appointments for physicals, a complete blood workup, an EKG, and a bone density evaluation. Two weeks ago I had a mammogram, and next week I have to go for a sonogram.  So far everything seems fine except for one thing, my cholesterol is 235.  The doctor wants it to be 185. The good thing is that my HDL and triglycerides are good, but I still have to lower that LDL.  She said I need to lose weight (yes, I know that), stop eating animal fats, and get plenty of exercise. Also, to keep my bones healthy she wants me to lift weights and walk.

I took the news in stride, but when I got home I realized that means no burgers on the grill, and the sausage and peppers I made the other night will have to be eaten by someone else.  I'm not a big red meat fan, but the fact that I am now called to avoid it makes me feel deprived. As for exercise, well, I have weights just sitting in the corner of my room, and the 4 mile boardwalk, which is delightful to walk, is only a 10 minute drive away.  I guess it's time to make some changes and pay attention to diet and exercise to keep healthy. The truth is, when I don't pay attention to these things that might not be good for me, my body lets me know its time to start paying attention or pay the price of getting sick. 

This evening while meditating, I was reflecting on what the doctor ordered and started to think about my spiritual health.  My spiritual side also needs an occasional checkup and "diet and exercise" to keep it healthy and to help  me advance toward the goal of union with God. What kind of diet and exercise do I need?  Well, just as what I eat will have an affect my physical health, I have to ask myself what I let enter my soul that I really should be avoiding, and what should I be doing to keep a healthy spiritual life? What is my spiritual diet? The word diet is derived from the Greek word diaita, which means "a way of life." A healthy spirituality means following a way of life that is centered on Christ and on the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  Diet also derives from a Latin word dieta, which means "a days work." Being a Christian is work, more often than not. But what is the "work" of a Christian?  The work of a Christian is to continue the mission of Christ in this world, and to follow the will of God in all things. This calls for a steady diet of prayer, scripture, sacraments and avoiding those temptations that lead me to sin and away from God.

So how to we sustain this way of life? Here is where the exercise comes in.  All the great saints have engaged in any number of spiritual exercises.  Prayer is first on the list, in fact for a healthy spiritual life prayer is essential.  How do I pray?  It is simply routine or do I really communicate with God? These are important questions. I  also include some sort of meditation and spiritual reading as part of my daily spiritual exercise.   I know as a Benedictine Oblate I really should be engaging in Lectio Divina daily, but just as I make excuses against going for that walk on the boardwalk, I often find all sorts of excuses not to engage in Lectio. Acts of popular piety are also on the excercise list. Today many people reject some of these acts as old fashioned or not for them, but many traditional acts of piety such as the Rosary, chaplets, time spent in adoration, novenas, and dedication to particular saints, are ways to deepen our spiritual life.  Regular celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and confiding in a spiritual director or a close spiritual friend (in Celtic spirituality this is called anam cara), are good ways of being assured that I am on the right track in my spiritual journey as long as, like with my medical doctors, I give heed to the advice I am given. Having a prayer partner or having a Christian community to pray with helps keep me focused and accountable.

What happens when I don't stick to a diet and exercise routine? I gain weight, feel sluggish and put my body at risk for illness. What happens when I don't stick to a spiritual diet and exercise routine? I don't know about you, but I usually can tell that my life is out of sorts. I don't have enough patience, it seems that things start to go wrong, and I get restless and anxious. It also pulls me away from what I need to do to grow in my relationship with God. In other words, it keeps me from being open to God's Grace. So here we are in mid summer and I have been pointed on a way to good health physically and spiritually.  The important thing is to now stick to it!

Taking Another Look at Confession - part I

Over this past week the subject of Confession has caught my attention in several different ways.   On July 24th, the Congregation for Clergy released a document for priests titled "The Priest Minister of Divine Mercy: an Aid for Confessors and Spiritual Directors, which I took the time to read.  Although it was meant for priests, it gave great insight into the Sacrament. In the book I am currently reading,"Rediscover Catholicism" a Spiritual Guide to Living with Passion & Purpose," by Matthew Kelly, I was up to the chapter titled Confession. To go even further, in an online discussion I was engaged in, the conversation centered around the Sacrament of Penance.  Was God trying to tell me something?  It's only been about two weeks since my last confession, so I don't think that was it.  Perphaps God is asking me to write about it. 

I must admit, celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Penance, or Confession (what ever one cares to call it), is something that has caught my attention over the last twenty years, especially since I began studying theology.  If fact, I chose it as my ad libitum topic for my comprehensive exams at Notre Dame.  I have been fascinated by the history and development of the Sacrament and also the obvious decline in its celebration among Catholics today (although I think we are seeing a slight increase).  I also feel that it is a Sacrament that is much needed in today's world.  But I didn't always feel that way.

As a child I went to Confession every few weeks, but a bad experience with a priest in confession as an adolescent instilled a fear that stayed with me for years (and to some extent still rears its head at times).  I did still go, but over time it went from months to years between confessions. Also, I gave in to the mistaken notion that if I didn't commit a mortal sin then I didn't need to celebrate the Sacrament. That's what it might appear to say in Canon Law, but what I discovered is that my conscience formation was a bit flawed, and I also gave into a bit of relativism (OK maybe more than a bit), so that I had myself convinced that I really wasn't sinning mortally so I didn't need confession. But God was working on convincing me that this Sacrament was necessary, whether I commit mortal sins or not. When I finally came back to Confession after an absense of 9 years, I still did not feel that great about it, but made it a yearly "gotta do" kind of thing, until I started studying theology, reading about the saints, and looking into enriching my own spiritual life.

What I discovered is that this Sacrament is a beautiful encounter with Jesus, who is loving, forgiving and merciful. It is, writes Kelly, "the perfect spiritual practice to rekindle our passion for excellence in the spiriutal life."  What made ordinary people great saints?  I believe it was the realization that they were sinners and that they believed in God's mercy and accepted His Grace, becoming all that God called them be.  Look at some of our most beloved saints, Paul, Augustine, Francis, Ignatius, they all had less than perfect lives before they encountered Christ.  But, in being open to Grace, they confessed their sinful ways, abandoned their way of life, and drew close to God.

Broken Trust
by Natalie Holland

Taking that step to be open to and accepting of God's Grace requires trust. Perhaps that is another reason why I stayed away from the Sacrament for so long, having been hurt, I was unable to allow myself to trust. What I failed to realize however, was that my lack of trust was based on the fault of a human being, not on God. I let one priest, who was unable to be compassionate to an eleven year old girl, influence my relationship with Christ, who is full of compassion. I allowed one man to affect my trust in God. I wonder how many people have let a bad confession experience keep them away from our Lord's forgiveness and mercy? It took me a long time to rebuild that trust by finding good confessors and availing myself of the Sacrament regularly so that I can keep building my trust in God by experiencing His Love and Forgiveness. Have you been away from the Sacrament for awhile, for one reason or another? Why not take another look at Confession!

"I will be with you."

It amazes me sometimes how God lets me know when He is trying to get something across to me.  This morning, as I usually do before Mass, I was meditating on the scripture readings for the day.  In the first reading from Exodus (Ex. 3:1-6,9-12), God appears to Moses in the burning bush and tells Moses  to go to Pharaoh and lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. Moses protests saying, "Who am I that I should go...?" I was thinking, how many times in Scripture do we hear that argument, or one like it,  in response to the call of God?  I know Isaiah and Jerimiah both expressed it. So did Peter, and Paul, and many of the saints throughout our history. God calls the most unlikely people to do His work.; people who are too young, too old, cannot speak well, are afraid, don't feel up to the challenge, or simply don't want to or think they can't do what God is asking of them.

My meditation led me to reflect on my own faith journey and how God called me into ministry.  The first time I was called upon to give a talk for a retreat, I really felt frightened and anxious. While I was a teacher and had spoken in public before, this was different.  This was about my faith and I was being asked to call others to faith through the words I was speaking.  Before I was to speak, someone opened the Bible and read from Jeremiah (1:4-9)

"The word of the LORD came to me thus:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
"Ah, Lord GOD!" I said,
"I know not how to speak; I am too young."
But the LORD answered me,
Say not, "I am too young."
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them,
because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.
Then the LORD extended his hand and touched my mouth, saying,
See, I place my words in your mouth! "

Wow, did those words speak to me, and a whole new world was opened up. 

Mass began, and when it came to the homily it was about Moses reaction to God's call and how often we say to God, "Who am I that I should go...", or do, or say, or be something that is beyond what we ever thought possible. Father said that when God calls us, He gives us the Grace to see through to completion what He is asking of us.  I took this as a confirmation of my own meditation, but also as a reminder that I need to trust in God and be willing to answer His call, whenever that may come, and to do whatever God asks of me. 

The priest also made reference to the Gospel (Mt.11:25-27) and said that we have to have "childlike" trust. Somewhere in our "growing up" we tend to lose that trusting demeanor. Perhaps it is because the world is so untrustworthy that we carry that over to our faith life.  Perhaps the problems in the Church of late have caused people to lose trust. Yet, we have to remember that the Church is more than simply the people in it, that there is a Divine dimension to the Church that many overlook.  If we have faith in God, we must have trust that God will not lead His Church or us down the wrong path.

My meditation today, and the words of the homily, remind me to have childlike trust and be willing to believe that if God asks something of me it is because He knows that I will be able to do it with His Grace. I know that God will be with me, just as He promised Moses. God will give me what I need to carry it through. All I need to say is "Here I am."