Abbey-Roads2

With recent events in Poland - the discovery certain priests cooperated with the communist regime, and the subsequent resignation of Archbishop Weiglus, I became convinced John Paul II knew there were ’spies’ around him throughout his career.  He had lived with repressive regimes throughout his priesthood, he knew danger lurked around every corner, even in the next handshake.

One day a priest commented to me that a certain Archbishop expressed his approval of Pope Benedict XVI when he stated, “At least he looks at you when he shakes hands and isn’t looking for who may be more important as he moves down the line.”  (That may say more about the Archbishop’s ego, than JPII’s demeanor, don’t you think?)

One may notice this trait in footage of JPII while he ‘works’ the crowd, as media likes to say, while  he is greeting people - he often appears to be looking over the person he is with, while surveying the crowd.  (When he greeted Sr. Lucia at Fatima, he appears to be  looking over her, seemingly uninterested in her and what she is saying.)  Many have insinuated that while he worked the crowd, he was also ‘performing’ for the camera.  I disagree.

Today, I read a report in an article titled, “Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican“ referencing the Kremlin’s plans to discredit the Church, including efforts to eliminate JPII and his influence.

I don’t think John Paul was either ‘performing’ or ’on stage’ at public functions, nor was he ‘playing the media’, ‘working the crowd’, as media savvy people, as well as his critics, often suggest.  Not so much.  I believe he was always aware he was a potential target, even in Poland before he became Pope.  JPII was an extremely sophisticated man.  I am convinced his ‘looking down the line’, his visual awareness at all times of who was in the crowd, is a habit he developed from living under repressive and murderous regimes, intent upon wiping out the Catholic church and Polish culture.

We in the West, and most especially, we Americans haven’t a clue as to what it is like to live in a society wherein all rights are at the disposal of a repressive regime.  Although some day we may understand it if we make the likes of Hilary Clinton our next president.

Yet with anti-depressants, we probably can endure anything - right?

The Conversion of St. Paul, Caravaggio

I’ve never had a special devotion to St. Paul, unless constant rumination of his Epistles counts for devotion to him.  However, I do love the story of his conversion.  St. Paul’s personality, like that of John of the Cross, is often misunderstood.  As far as his personality goes - he was tough, perhaps provocative, nevertheless, I believe he was aflame with charity, love, compassion, and great humility.  Brutally honest, challenging, argumentative, as well as sometimes critical personality traits do not mean a man is not humble, nor devoid of charity.  One has only to remember St. Jerome.

This feast day also marks the day I entered monastic life, for a short-lived stay in the novitiate of a community of Discalced Carmelite friars.  I discovered their life was anything but monastic.  We had cocktails and cigarettes while watching television programs such as “Hawaii Five-O” at recreation before compline - that was in the early ’70’s.  I went to the Fathers believing I was entering a monastic situation similar to that of the Carmelite Nuns at our Carmel in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.  They laughed at me when I expressed my surprise and disappointment that their life was so different.  They also wrote off the strict enclosure and observance of “my” Carmel as out of date and pre-Vatican II.  Needless to say, I didn’t stay long.

After that, I tried the Little Brothers of Jesus, but found them a bit too “Marxist” - not that they were so much - yet it seemed so to me at the time.

Then I found Trappist life.  I loved it.  Something was off however…sort of difficult to pinpoint.  As it turned out, the abbey wasn’t a healthy community, and it was good that I left.

After living for a month in a charterhouse, I was convinced I found my home with the Carthusians, yet I wasn’t allowed to enter…sort of like St. Benedict Joseph Labre - there was something in my temperament that wouldn’t do well, long term, in an eremetic lifestyle.  I was so disappointed.  After much time, I finally understood that my vocation was to be a simple layman, a pilgrim of sorts…a nobody.

Ultimately, I have understood this is what I am, a pilgrim,  a simple Christian - which happens to be one of my middle names as well.

The feast of the Conversion of St. Paul is January 25.

The State of the Union Address.

Yawn!

We’ve so heard this before.

Year after year.

We are in decline, nearing our fall.

The Introduction to the Devout Life.

My favorite book.  (Although I’ve read it about 10 times in my life, I never live up to it.)  Francis De Sales wrote for lay people.  He is also the patron saint of journalists, and therefore bloggers.

His spirituality influenced St. Therese and the entire Martin family.  Within his little book, “Introduction to the Devout Life” one may find evidence of the “Little Way” of St. Therese.

Opening St. Francis’ treatise, I came upon this:

“To scoff at others is one of the worst states a mind can be in.  God destests this vice and in past times inflicted strange punishments on it.  Nothing is so opposed to charity, and much more to devotion, than to despise and condemn one’s neighbor.  Derision and mockery are always accompanied by scoffing, and it is a very great sin.  Theologians consider it one of the worst offenses against one’s neighbor that a man can be guilty of.  Other offenses may be committed with some esteem for the person offended, but by this he is treated with scorn and contempt.” - Introduction, III, 27

See - good advice for bloggers!

January 24th is the feastday of St. Francis De Sales.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Jeremiah 1:5

That is simply awesome.

He knew all that would happen to me…

He knew me.

He knows me.

It is awesome.

Indeed.

It is a great blasphemy to destroy life, to abuse life, it is the ultimate rejection of God and His eternal plan of salvation.

I’ve been going through a lot these past months.  At night I sleep with St. Therese’ reliquary next to my bed.  I simply ask her to pray for me - nothing else.  Today, when I visited Roman Catholic Blog, I saw this post, and it seemed it came straight from Little Therese herself:

Seven Disguises In Which God Frequently Sends His Graces

In the disguise of ingratitude from friends.
In the disguise of being misunderstood.
In the disguise of failure.
In the disguise of being dishonored.
In the disguise of sickness.
In the disguise of poverty.
In the disguise of our daily work.

Our Lord isn’t anxious for us to suffer so let’s not complain to Him any more than is necessary! He sees us in our misery and looks forward to our final victory. If we could only appreciate the great work He’s doing in preparing these crosses for us. - St. Thérèse of Lisieux

“The suffering endured for God are the greatest proof of our love for Him” - Saint Alphonsus Ligouri  - Roman Catholic Blog

Today is a day of penance and prayer in the United States, on this the anniversary of Roe v Wade.

It is also the day when Right to Life advocates gather in Washington.  Although, media pretty much ignores the event.

For a long time I did as well.  I just didn’t think about contraception or abortion.  I was celibate.  While for years I believed as I was told - it was a woman’s choice - after all, men don’t have babies. 

In 1996, I watched a documentary by the Swedish film-maker, Lennart Nilsson, entitled “Miracle of Life” on PBS.  It is the most astonishing documentary I have ever watched.  It is filmed inside the woman’s body.  Filming takes place during the act of intercourse, filming the moment of ejaculation to that of the sperm uniting with the egg and so on.  We see a single cell embryo, developing before our eyes into the foetus, growing into a fully developed infant, culminating in birth.

The film was an epiphany for me.  Not only did I witness the end purpose of sexual intercourse, I understood how the pursuit of sexual pleasure, in any other fashion, is simply unnatural and a perversion of God’s gift of sexuality.  This of course has become obscured in our contraceptive age, which has resulted in many people thinking sex is just another form of recreational pleasure.  As a result of viewing the film, I no longer could see how anyone would approve of any sexual deviancy after viewing the complementarity of the male and female bodies, engaged in the beautiful act of love and procreation.

My greatest revelation came about as I understood that the single cell embryo was indeed a human being, a real person - I knew it because I actually watched the person develop!  I came to understand the evils of contraception and that abortion is the murder of a living human being.  It completely changed my thinking.

Since then, I’ve seen the gruesome photos of aborted babies, along with the horrible illustrations of what a partial birth abortion is.  They are indeed effective and mighty revealing of the horrors of our Nations silent holocaust.  Nevertheless, in our day and age, when sex is equated with pornography, I believe we also need to teach and show the real meaning of the sexual act, as well as it’s place in society.  This documentary might be an added tool for that purpose.

(Note:  I never again saw the film on PBS - Although it is available on line and at Amazon.  I assume it is now used as a teaching aid, which is good.)

Pictured, “The Temptation of St. Anthony” by Claudio Bravo

What if our life was the same as a desert father living in his hermitage, and we discovered at the end of our lives, all the conflict, sufferings, sins and temptations were nothing more than illusions sent to test our faith?

Yet these sins and temptations are indeed real, no matter if we are the hermit in the desert, or a person living out their salvation in the world.

The healthy, normal person, has always looked upon others less fortunate as a loser in some way or form, oftentimes unconsciously.  It is only revealed in our attitudes towards others, albeit camouflaged by certain self-righteous moral judgments that incriminate, even demonize another.

I read the most interesting post ever on The Cafeteria Is Closed, by Gerald.  (A daily read for me!)  Without any sarcasm whatsoever, the post, “Gay and Catholic“ was especially poignant, and revealed to me a very real shortcoming amongst ‘devout Catholics’.  Gerald is sort of a “man’s man” yet his response to another  man with homosexual inclination, having left a same-sex relationship for Christ, was simply beautiful, thoughtful, compassionate, sensitive, and decidedly very Christian.  And most of his commentators would agree with this critique.

The man, his name is Josh, wrote this:

“It is very difficult, sometimes, to do my best to follow the Lord and live my life according to the Church’s teachings when fellow Catholics trot out statements such as “homosexuals are incapable of a spiritual life”.

God called me to the Catholic Church. There’s a deeper, more profound joy, that is almost unexplainable, in the Holy Eucharist. “Behold, I am with you always…” A few days after I was certain of God’s call to the fullness of the Faith, I sat down with my lover and talked to him about what was going on with me. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, to relinquish a long relationship that gave the both of us a great deal of stability, peace, and love.

Yet I did it, because I was and to this day remain absolutely certain that the Catholic Church is the way that God desires to save my soul. Yes, I still struggle, as most men do, with various sins of the flesh. All I can do is to keep praying, keep returning to confession yet again and again, and learn more and more how to make Mary my example, and with her intercession and that of the angels and saints, overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.

All I can do is place myself before the Tabernacle and pour out my heart to the Lord; He alone can truly know and understand what it means to be hated, to be rejected, to be unloved. It’s a sacrifice each and every day to look at happy couples (of whatever gender) and realize that I can never have that again, and remind myself that after my purgation here on earth and after my life, I will see the face of God, and all the pain, the sorrow, the struggles will vanish as I look upon the face of my Father in heaven.

It is a major slap in the face to say that these things are unattainable just because I have homosexual desires and inclinations. There are people who aren’t as convinced, aren’t as persuaded of the truth and love of God that may very well turn away from the Church because of the thoughtless words of a few. I see people here all the time talking about millstones around bishops’ and priests’ necks…what about your own?” - Gay and Catholic

Possibly, few people will recognize in Josh’s actions heroic virtue, a necessary qualification for sainthood.  (Although, if he had made a novena to St. Joseph, I’m certain St. Joseph would have made accommodations for Josh and his friend to continue living together as chaste and celibate friends - even brothers.  St. Joseph has done this with others.)  Some may argue, that Josh simply renounced a sinful life in obedience to Christ’s call to repentance, without their fully realizing, much less accepting, the heroic scope of such a decision and what a totally counter-cultural change he has made.  After all, there are elements within the Church that claim one can be actively gay and remain Catholic.  Josh opted for the life of holiness the Lord calls gay people to, in and through their special capacity to love.

What struck me most about Josh’s comments is the hurt he continues to experience by the harsh judgments made by Roman Catholic faithful who continue to disparage and condemn people with homosexual attraction.  I felt indicted in this respect.  In previous posts I have come down pretty hard on persons with same-sex attraction.  I feel I have  consistently tried to separate those who advocate and embrace this lifestyle, from those who struggle with the temptation, while attempting to live a chaste life in accordance with the teachings of the Church.  I’ve often been misunderstood in my posts, although have tried to make a distinction between the two types.  (It is always a complex issue to write about.)

Nevertheless, Josh exposes a blanket prejudice which often remains in heterosexual attitudes towards people who have left the lifestyle.  It exists.  I prefer to believe it is unconscious, like that of a deep seated suspicion of Jews, or a fundamental racism, based upon racial stereotypes, which affect people of all races, black, brown, Asian, or white.

I’ve worked with people who refer to all people with homosexual inclination as sodomites.  They are assuming these people are sexually active.  If they discover two men or women live together, they immediately assume they are gay.  If a person has gay characteristics - these people label them as gay.

Oftentimes, homosexuals, having left the lifestyle to live a devout Catholic life, remain branded with that “Scarlet Letter” - Gay.  In discussing a certain person who once worked at the same job I had, a principal of the Company said, “But he’s gay”.  I later learned he is not gay, never has been, yet the perception was there - and it didn’t matter to the person who said that to me.  The man accused is a devout Catholic, and being such, even if he was gay, he had been immediately labeled and condemned, not to mention slandered, by another devout Catholic.

What is one to conclude?  That a person with homosexual attraction, actively living the lifestyle, or having renounced the lifestyle, is “damned if they do, or damned if they don’t”.  What everyone fails to understand, persons in each category, have genuine worth and value.  They are people, they are persons.

We Catholics, especially those who wear the faith on their sleeves, have a tendency to be a bit smug, even triumphalist, not to mention exclusive towards others.  As Catholics we always must be seasoned with charity - charity in our hearts - not the charity that simply gives to the less fortunate, while preserving a sense of superiority over others;  but the charity that sees no evil - especially where it is not.  St. Paul wrote about this, yet few practice it.

Today, that was me…I didn’t leave my cell…but it’s not a hermit’s life that kept me in.  I wasn’t feeling well enough to go to Mass.

It is the first time in over 20 years that I missed Mass on Sunday.  I always drag myself there no matter how ill I am.  Hence, I feel terribly guilty for succumbing to physical weakness.

Sunday Mass is the highlight of my week - I look forward to it all week.  I love Sunday for it’s prayer and recollection, being the Lord’s Day.

As usual, I did my lectio on the readings from Mass, made frequent spiritual communions, and read from the desert fathers.

It is just not the same however.