Praying Hands- Albrecht Durer

The readings this Sunday (17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C) spoke of prayer and persistence. We heard Abraham bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom & Gomorrah. We heard Jesus tell his disciples to be persistent in prayer and to ask with the confidence of a child approaching a loving parent for something needed.

Our pastor, Fr. Ron Shirley, spoke of prayer in his homily. With his permission, I’d like to share it with you.

Lord, Teach Us To Pray 7-25-2010

July 24th, 2010

I’ve had a very rough week this week and I have found myself spending extra time in prayer. The Gospel this Sunday triggered some things about prayer that I had not thought about for a while, and I would briefly like to share them with you.

The first thing is that it is important that when we pray we must be honest and completely open with God; we must use real words that express how we feel and what is going on in our lives. Our relationship with God should be one place where we can let it all hang out – no safe and appropriate roles to play – no masks to hide behind. In a hospital waiting room, the following scene was observed. A man had been waiting  as the doctors and nurses treated his brother. When told that his brother has just died, he yelled and screamed at the Cross on the wall. Family members tried to make him stop, but a wise chaplain in the room simply assured them, “God is big enough to handle it.”

The second thing I was reminded about through the Gospel was that when I say I am too busy to pray (which I do at times), I may really be saying I am afraid to pray. Also, if I am so busy with what I want from God, I may miss what God really has to give me.

The third thing is, if we are to take prayer seriously we must dispel from our minds the notion that it is some kind of magic. Prayer is not an “Aladdin’s Lamp” which, if properly rubbed, will grant our every wish.

A student, rather lazily inclined, noticed that a classmate always recited her Spanish lessons well. One day he asked her, “How is it that you always recite your lessons so perfectly?”

“Before I study,” she told him, “I always pray that I may remember my lessons and repeat them well.”

“Do you?” asked the boy, somewhat surprised. “So that’s her secret method,” he thought. “Well, then, I’ll pray too.”

That night he prayed up a storm, recalling as many prayers as he could remember. However, the next day he could not even repeat one phrase of the lesson. Quite perplexed he looked for his friend, and, finding her, confronted her for being deceitful.

“I prayed,” he told her, “but I could not repeat a single phrase from yesterday’s homework.”

“Perhaps,” she told him, “you took no pains to learn the lesson!”

“Of course not,” said the boy. “I didn’t study at all. I had no reason to study. You told me to pray that I might remember the lesson.”

“There’s your problem,” she said, “I told you I prayed before, not instead of, studying.”

I close with a final thought on prayer: A friend of mine used to drop by his Church every evening around 5 PM, for an hour of meditation before supper. Every evening he noticed the same old man sitting in one of the back pews. The man was always there when he arrived and still there when he left. It began to haunt him.

One evening curiosity got the better of him and he approached the man, greeted him, and hoped he wasn’t praying: “I have seen you here for several months now, and I really admire your constant devotion. But I was wondering . . . I notice that you are always just sitting here quietly, never using a prayer book, Bible, or rosary . . . still obviously praying…I just wondered, when you pray to God, what do you say; what do you talk about?

The old man looked up at my friend calmly and gently: “I don’t talk to God; God talks to me.”

A lot of people think prayer (or meditation or religion or spirituality) is supposed to be like Alka Seltzers in a glass of water: non-stop, bubbly, effervescent, supernatural excitement. Wrong! Sometimes, maybe. But most of the time prayer is like any love relationship: it involves a lot of giving and listening. It’s like learning to talk: first, you have to listen, in the sure peace of God’s presence.

Time to celebrate

 This post was written by Rosie Pozos.

Recipe for How to Celebrate Your Saint’s Feast Day*

Ingredients:

1 bottle Sparkling Apple Cider or favorite wine
2 Pretty candles
1 Nice Table Cloth
4 Goblets
4 Settings of nice silverware and china
Ingredients for your family’s favorite dinner.
Approximately six servings of Pan Dulce (sweet Mexican pastry) – or other favorite dessert.
Family or other special people with whom to celebrate
Coffee or tea (optional)

Set table with table cloth, china, silverware, goblets and candles. Fix dinner. Light candles. Pour cider or wine. Have family and/or special people all sit down.

Enjoy dinner family style: that’s where everyone reaches for whatever dish is closest to them, serves themselves and passes the dish to the next person.

Bring out Pan (or other dessert) after everyone is finished. Pass plate of Pan around the table. Ask if anyone wants tea or coffee. If yes, fix it.

Take time to enjoy each other’s company with dinner and dessert.

Enjoy the rest of the evening.

Approximately 4 servings. (Can be adjusted for more celebrants!)

Recipe can be used for celebration of any saint’s feast day.

* If for some reason you are at a loss for which saint to celebrate, visit http://www.theologika.net/search for biographies of saints and for the “Saint of the Day.”

There is a growing cottage industry of books attempting to prove or disprove the existence of God. Today, on this spot on the Church calendar devoted to St. Bonaventure (July 15), reflection on his blending of the rational and the spiritual is even more important than when he formulated it seven centuries ago.

Unfortunately, we live in a time of two simplistic approaches. One claims that religion is literally a superstitious hangover from the time of Bonaventure – the late Middle Ages – and has no basis in rational scientific thought. The inhumanity to which we have been reduced by the rational technological world destroys our spirit just as surely as the dogma of the religious. The scientific rationalists show that there is no empirical proof for the existence of God and the literalist acceptance of the Bible only heaps on further irrationality. The spiritualists of the New Age, on the other hand, are concerned about energy flows, the design of built spaces and the sacred diffuse life force emanating from the planet, with its animate and inanimate manifestations.

As much as we might like to think that these debates are new, they are as old as recorded civilization. Christianity is unusual in the sense that it holds and affirms the supra-rationality of faith in the unknowable and then elaborates the faith experience and its doctrinal content in a rational manner. To say it in more simple terms, the Christian experiences and creates reality within the faith experience itself. Given the inherent order of creation itself, this experience reveals and elaborates that core capability of the human, which is critical reason. Creation is sacred and diaphanous and faith enlightens our minds and leads them to the perfect knowledge revealed in Christ.

These view are presented mystically, poetically, and rationally in St. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis Ad Deum (The Mind’s Road to God). This small book is in many ways a meditation on the the vision of Christ by St. Francis on Mount Alverno, in which the saint becomes so identified with the Risen Christ that he receives the stigmata and the five wounds appear on his body.

How can thinking people believe is the post modern question. How can people with systematic rationalized collections of belief be spiritual is the New Age question. In the post modern age, empirical science is truth. In the New Age there is my truth, my karma, and your truth, your karma. No faith is required. No revelation is possible. There is no enlightenment and encounter with the Divine - a Divine that we cannot control with mathematical models or the arrangement of crystals.

Bonaventure provides a guide to living for the post-modern / New Age Christian – delightfully encountering the “vestigia Trinitatis,” the footprints of the Trinity in creation, learning and understanding in enlightenment, and caught up in the wonder of the divine.

Fog near Monterey Bay

The Fourth of July dawned foggy and cold this morning in Santa Cruz. Not too surprising. It is, after all, “fog season.” Usually the fog lifts by early afternoon, but it’s after 3 now and except for it being a touch ligher, there’s no blue sky near the ocean.

It’s been an unusual Sunday for us. The celebration of the Mass we usually attend can’t take place when the 4th falls on a Sunday because the Aptos 4th of July Parade starts in the street beside the church (Resurrection Parish). Our pastor offered a “Park, Pray & Parade” special to all who wanted to attend the 8:15 Mass, but that’s a bit early for my family. So we chose to visit another parish community this week.

We arrived just on time for Mass at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz, after having been diverted by a detour due to closure of the road that passes the church. We came in the back way and parked behind the old school building. Arriving at the front of the church, the reason for the road closure was apparent. A brass band was playing, people were milling around, dressed in their “Sunday best,” (not a common sight in Santa Cruz on a holiday weekend) and lots of young girls were dressed in long white gowns, with capes and trains and wearing glittering crowns. We’ve lived here a long time, but this was the first time we’d arrived for this celebration.

We went into the church and discovered that the Portuguese community was having their annual celebration of the Feast of St. Elizabeth of Portugal. St. Elizabeth (1271 – 1336) was Queen of Portugal and noted for her devotion to the Holy Spirit and her care for the poor. Married at the age of 12, she was none-the-less a strong spirited woman who was not afraid to think for herself and even defy her husband. It is said that when he forbade her to take food to the poor, she continued to do so anyway. One day he caught her and asked what she had hidden under her cloak. She replied, “Roses.” He scoffed at that response because it was January and roses are not blooming in January in Portugal. He tore her cloak open and found, to his amazement, that she was indeed carrying roses.

St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Elizabeth (Isabel) was also known to be a peacemaker. When her husband and son, leading armies against each other, met on the battlefield, she marched out between them and made them come to terms of peace. Later, in her old age, she did the same when her son prepared to fight the king of Castile.

In Santa Cruz and around the world, where Portuguese communities live, the feast of St. Elizabeth is celebrated with special prayers to the Holy Spirit and blessings for the girls. This celebration occurs every year. I’d seen the procession after Mass – everyone walks from the church, up over the freeway and down to the Portuguese Hall in the park nearby for an afternoon of feasting and fun. It was a blessing to share Eucharist with them this year.

After the final hymn, in Portuguese, the choir led those who had not yet processed out of the building in the song, America the Beautiful. It seemed fitting. Here we all were. People literally from all over the world. Old folks and children. Parishioners and visitors to the community. People from all different walks of life. Social liberals and social conservatives. Gathered together to hear the word of God, celebrate Eucharist together and pray with thanksgiving for the gift of a wise and generous queen centuries ago, the gift of a nation with “freedom and justice for all” that we have received from our forebears in this country and to ask for the gift of wisdom for ourselves and our leaders now, in this time, with the challenges we face today.

The  original words of the hymn, and it is indeed a hymn, are worth pondering as we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this country today.

America the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Amen! May it be so.

Happy 4th of July!

"Let's play Sandwich!"

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
Madeleine L’Engle

I have known many fathers in my years. Each is unique. Each brings his own special gifts to his family, friends, and associates. Some fathers love to hunt and fish. Others are gardeners. Some come home and watch TV. Others get lost in a book. Some pack up their families and go traipsing around the country every chance they get. Others are content to stay in their own community, considering a picnic at the park a fine outing.

Regardless of the particulars of each man’s habits and preferences, there are some characteristics that I think are common among fathers. Probably the first is that they really had no idea what they were getting into by fathering a child. (I must say that in my experience, mothers don’t know this bit of reality in advance either!) Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of men have willingly entered into the path of fatherhood. And then the adventure began …

Fatherhood requires a willingness to be more than the progenitor of another human being. It requires a willingness to be vulnerable and to learn as you go. Parenthood brings out the best and the worst in each of us. We learn as we go along - making mistakes, making amends when possible and doing some things right the first time (even if by accident). We find out what deep darkness can lurk within us. We also find out what depths of patience and love can be tapped, especially if we remember to call for help from the Father of us all. We delight in watching our children discover the world and their own identities. We sorrow with them when they fall and help them get back up and try again. We grieve with them when something precious ends and can’t be regained.

To a child, the father is a powerful figure. He stands so tall and is so strong. He picks us up and twirls us around and the world whirls too. He comes home happy and the household sings. He comes home frustrated and tired and the household … Well, we hope the household reaches out to reassure and comfort him. Doesn’t always happen that way, but that’s the ideal. Sometimes he gets angry. Sometimes he laughs when he feels like crying. Sometimes he picks a flower to say, “I love you.” Sometimes he just lets his child crawl all over him and pull at his chin whiskers and ears.

Fathers come in many sizes and shapes. Some are old. Some are young. Once a man becomes a father, he never stops being a father, even if his children move far away or are estranged from him.

Being a father means being vulnerable. Vulnerable to love. Vulnerable to having your heart broken. Vulnerable to losing a precious person. Vulnerable to finding precious meaning in small, everyday ordinary activities.

Vulnerability is not necessarily a bad thing. Only hearts that are open and unshielded can receive the gift of love that is pouring into the world each day, keeping all in existence.

So as we approach Father’s Day and celebrate the lives of the men in our lives who have given their lives to us in so many ways - those who have physically given us life and those who have given us faith, hope and encouragement as “father-figures” or teachers or godfathers – let us be grateful and supportive of them. They have learned and continue to learn the great secret that by opening themselves and becoming vulnerable, they receive the greatest blessings of this life – the love and wonder of sharing in the work of creation with our Father.

Thank you to all of you men who have accepted the joys and challenges of being fathers to your children and to those who have come to you in need of a father’s guidance. May the Lord’s rich blessings be always yours as you do your best to share what you’ve learned and help the next generation along on their journey as well.

Happy Fathers Day!

I’m struck today by the contrast between the Lord’s gift of allowing us to eat of His body and blood, soul and divinity and the way in which those spirits not in union with God, the evil ones, feed on our energies when we choose to welcome them into our lives even for a moment.

It became very clear to me again yesterday how quickly and subtly they will move in and start draining energy away from individuals and families. I received a notice in the mail regarding a challenge we’ve been facing as a result of the problems in the global financial markets hitting “Main Street.” I don’t know what the notice means, but it’s not a great situation and it could be the first step of more challenges coming. On the other hand, it might not mean anything negative at all.

But I was tired and a bit stressed and I found myself fretting about it. Then other things started popping up with their “… and did you remember that he …” and “… can you believe the nerve of …” Nothing huge involved. Nothing to which I would not have agreed. Just that quiet, insidious little voice encouraging me to feel upset, tired, a little resentful, or whatever.

As I got more out of sorts, others in the family also got edgy, including the resident baby.

Finally, my children sent me for a walk with the baby and fixed dinner themselves. On the walk, a relatively quiet activity with a very young child in a stroller, I realized what was happening. I closed the feeding trough to the spirits who had crept in and I asked my Guardian Angel and the Holy Spirit to protect me and us from their influence.

One thing I’ve learned – that kind of prayer is never ignored. I was better immediately and we had a lovely dinner and pleasant evening.

So, how does this relate to Corpus Christi? We can choose to allow the evil spirits to invade. We can feed them. The expression, “What’s eating you?” is absolutely an accurate description of an unseen reality. Or we can keep closing that restaurant when they come around and instead feed on the love of God, the body and blood of our Lord.

The neat thing is this. To the extent we feed on the Lord, we can then help feed those around us in positive ways. Everything becomes manageable again. Problems can be solved. Joy returns.

I still don’t know what that notice means, but whatever it means, all will be well as long as I/we remember Who should feed whom.

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi.

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, that is, than
FALLING IN LOVE
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed
in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with
joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Pedro Arrupe, SJ

Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso

We celebrated the feast of Pentecost this past Sunday. It’s the Birthday of the Church and one of my favorite celebrations. Without the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, we would most likely never have heard the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His followers were just plain too scared to tell what they had witnessed.

At Pentecost, the Lord’s promise that He would ask the Father to send an Advocate to us, one who would continue to teach us what we need to know, was fulfilled. We entered the age of the Holy Spirit, an age that continues to our day.

I was musing on the wonders of the coming of the Spirit and the importance of the event yesterday while doing laundry and caring for my 14 month old grandson. (Yes, he’s a beautiful child and a rare delight!) I’d had a conversation on Sunday with a non-Catholic friend who had really never heard of Pentecost in her religious experience. We had talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the timing of the feast in relation to Easter and the effect of the Spirit’s coming on the early Christian community. I’m always surprised to find again that people are not aware of the story of the Church and the many twists and turns of its history. There is so often a sense that all was clear and settled from the start. The Acts of the Apostles makes it clear that the first followers of The Way were feeling their way and responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit just as we must today.

My grandson loves to fold clothes. Up until a week ago, he simply stood by the davenport (sofa, couch) and pulled the clothes off as fast as he could. Once they were all on the floor, he’d hand them to me as fast as he could. Then I’d pick all of them up and we’d repeat the process, with a few more actually getting folded at each repetition! Last week he discovered that he no longer needs to hold a big person’s hand to walk or even run. So now he grabs an article of clothing from the stack and takes off racing across the room with it, dropping it at some point along his way.

He was laughing happily and carrying a handkerchief when suddenly he stopped. Several of us, including the child, have had colds, including runny noses. He’s been fascinated by the blowing of noses that has been occurring around the household. He put the handkerchief to his nose and made a loud blowing sound through his lips. He was so proud of himself. He was certain he’d figured out how to make that amazing noise that all of us had been making. In fact, he was so delighted, that he raced back to the davenport, grabbed a shirt and repeated the feat. Then a sock… Then a pair of pants…  Each time he simply beamed with delight and laughed uproariously.

It struck me, as I watched and laughed with him, that we are blessed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit continue to be poured out among us, with the Spirit continuing to teach us in our day too. As we learn so much more in the worlds of science, math, psychology, anthropology and all the other realms of human knowledge, it is truly a blessing that the Holy Spirit is with us, enlightening our hearts so we can see the Lord’s hand in all of creation in ever more wondrous ways. Imagine how sad it would be if we were forever condemned to the level of understanding of a small child who believes that blowing his nose requires use of his mouth! It’s a fine step on the way to understanding of the real way to perform the task, but only a step. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, we too move forward in our journey, growing up a little more each day and each generation, to see the wonders the Lord has wrought for us.

Happy Birthday, Church.

St. George - 15th Century icon from Novgorod

April 23 is the feast of St. George. George was a Roman soldier in the third century, during the time of the Emperor Diocletian. He was from a Christian family and his father was an army officer. As a young man, he also entered the service of the Empire and rose to the rank of Tribune, enjoying a position of trust with the Emperor. When Diocletian turned against Christians and ordered the arrest of Christian soldiers, George went to him and protested the action. The Emperor was not swayed by George’s appeal and instead ordered him to renounce his Christian beliefs. George refused, was tortured and eventually was beheaded.

Most of the stories of St. George are non-verifiable legends. At least some of them seem to be confusions with the stories of others named George or others who had similar positions or histories.

The stories with which he is most often identified have him in the role of Dragon-slayer. They are found in many countries and cultures, even crossing religious lines between Christian and Muslim worlds. In most stories St. George slays the dragon. In some, he subdues the dragon.

I like the idea of subduing the dragon. I first came across it when my sons were young and attending Waldorf school. For the Feast of Michaelmas, in September, the second graders performed a play in which St. Michael faces a dragon that has been terrorizing a village. The play has a character more like St. George who is supported by St. Michael. In this particular version of the story, the dragon is tamed and provides energy to run the mill so the villagers can grind the wheat they have grown to make flour for their bread.

Dragons come in many sizes and shapes in stories from cultures all over the world. In China, dragons are respected and seen in a much more positive light than in Western European stories. In fact, when my first son was born, my Mother’s cousin who was a priest in Hong Kong sent a gift of a red dragon to us in celebration. The Dragon Wars stories of novelist Laurence Yep are some of my favorites. Written for middle school and older children, they present Chinese folklore in a very engaging way. Dragons are to be respected, held in awe and definitely not destroyed. Their presence and the gifts of passion and energy they bring are necessary for all of creation.

I like to think of dragons in these more Chinese terms. Having been born in a “Year of the Dragon” myself, and being somewhat choleric in nature, I have had to come to terms with the passionate, powerful energy within myself that can burst out in good ways and in not-so-good ways. That “dragonish” energy can bring forth wonderful things. It can also blast potentially wonderful things to smithereens if released inappropriately. I’m sure sometimes God winces in dismay as a carefully set up pattern of events that would lead to something really good gets derailed by such blasts. (Not to say that God can’t still bring something good out of it, but it’s so much more bother!)

So when I think of the feast of St. George and the stories of dragons slain or subdued or celebrated, I pray that the dragonish power within me - the Greek “dunamis” or power, potential, capacity – will be focused by the Holy Spirit for service of the Kingdom. I hope that will be your prayer as well.

April 21 is the feast of St. Anselm of Canterbury, Doctor of the Church and the first scholastic philosopher of Christian theology. For Anselm faith and reason were not mutually exclusive. In fact, they went hand in hand. The following quote sets forth his approach to faith and its exploration.

“Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand.”