An Augustinian Journey

Shutting Down

2012-01-06T16:13:00.001-06:00

Friends,

It has been a wonderful journey on this blog, but I am moving in a different direction with my online presence. I will now be blogging at Beauty is Lived, a WordPress blog (GoodBeautifulTrue.com). The blog is still not running at full speed, but it is going to focus more on artistic endeavors - poetry, photography, and the like. I will keep this blog up for a bit longer, but eventually will shut it down completely. Thank you all for your prayers and support, and I hope you continue to follow me at the new blog. God bless you all!

Beauty is Lived

Beauty, Art, and Social Networking

2011-12-21T16:06:00.000-06:00

I mentioned before about my desire to bring a greater sense of vision and mission to my online presence. Now that I am in break from classes it is really starting to come together. I won't go into details just yet, other than to say I am finally discovering the intersection of art and technology and hopefully in a more disciplined and mission-oriented way preparing to unleash the inner artist in me. I will write more in a few days or weeks when I have a clearer sense of precisely what this means, but it feels good to have this moving in a positive, organized fashion. I would ask that you might keep this in prayer, if you don't mind :)

The Wisdom of the Jews

2011-12-07T14:05:00.001-06:00

Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal.

He'd have a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy; if the Pope won, they'd have to convert or leave.

The Jewish people met and picked an aged and wise rabbi to represent them in the debate. However, as the Rabbi spoke no Italian, and the Pope spoke no Yiddish, they agreed that it would be a 'silent' debate.

On the chosen day the Pope and Rabbi sat opposite each other.

The Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.
The Rabbi looked back and raised one finger.

Next, the Pope waved his finger around his head.
The Rabbi pointed to the ground where he sat.

The Pope brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine.
The Rabbi pulled out an apple.

With that, the Pope stood up and declared himself beaten and said that the Rabbi was too clever. The Jews could stay in Italy.

Later the cardinals met with the Pope and asked him what had happened.
The Pope said, 'First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up a single finger to remind me there is still only One God common to both our beliefs.
Then I waved my finger around my head to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was also right here with us.
'I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin.
He bested me at every move, and I could not continue.'

Meanwhile, the Jewish community gathered to ask the Rabbi how he'd won.
'I haven't a clue' the Rabbi said. 'First, he told me that we had three days to get out of Italy, so I gave him the finger.
Then he told me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews and I told him that we were staying right here.'
'And then what?' asked a woman.
'Who knows?' said the Rabbi. 'He took out his lunch so I took out mine.'

Jimmy Fallon and Catholic Liturgy

2011-12-06T06:22:00.001-06:00

An interesting interview with Jimmy Fallon about his Catholic faith, particularly what he says about the way the modern Mass has developed into something so unrecognizable to Catholic tradition:

http://www.sacatholic.com/2011/12/05/catholicism-jimmy-fallon-wanted-to-be-a-priest/

Positive Campaigning and the Future of Political Discourse

2011-12-05T15:34:00.001-06:00

There are few politicians in recent memory who evoke more visceral reactions than Newt Gingrich. He's been around forever, and love him or hate him, people tend to have strong reactions to him.

In all the analyses of his person and his candidacy going on right now, looking at "Good Newt vs. Bad Newt," looking at his troubled marital past and his contentious relationship even with his own party members during his time in the House, I think what is often being overlooked is how this campaign fits into a greater narrative of redemption in his own life. There are few who know him - whether favorably or unfavorably - who I have heard speak of his conversion to the Catholic faith who doubt its sincerity. That doesn't mean they necessarily forgive him for all that led to his marriage to his current and third wife, but no one seems to doubt that her influence on him has, perhaps ironically, led to an authentic conversion of faith. Furthermore, it is difficult to watch him on the campaign trail and not notice that he genuinely seems happy, seems to be enjoying himself, and seems really to believe in what he is doing.

None of this is to suggest that suddenly he is a brand new person whose character flaws have suddenly disappeared. He can be bombastic and filled with an inflated sense of self-importance, no doubt. But what has struck me about his campaign so far, and I think potentially what presents the greatest opportunity for positive effect he can have on our political future, is the overwhelmingly positive tone and demeanor he has maintained throughout these past months. He has rarely attacked his fellow Republicans, but instead sought to portray a voice of maturity and temperance. He embraces a very Reagen-esque positive vision of American exceptionalism (even if too often portraying himself as another Reagen). I think his latest (or is it first?) campaign ad running in Iowa says it all.

If he can continue to campaign like this, if this becomes indicative of the ads he would run in a general election against Obama, then perhaps we can finally have a candidate who demonstrates, for the first time in a really long time, that a politician can be elected not based on a purely negative campaign, but rather primarily by focusing on the good to which he or she longs to lead us, on the positive vision of what we can hope to be under sound leadership. This sort of campaign, if it is matched with a generous spirit in governance, can perhaps offer the best opportunity to break the pattern of bickering and gridlock that dominates our political culture today. It is true, Gingrich has made many enemies over the years. But he has also proven a skilled negotiator who is willing to compromise, who recently won some pretty strong praise from one of his noted rivals, President Clinton. For all his baggage and all his frustrating egoism, I believe Newt Gingrich really may have the best opportunity to lead the United States to a positive future once again.

A Kiss in the Night

2011-12-02T13:21:00.001-06:00

As the frosty morning dew begins to thaw

along the solemn fields of expectation,

and the winter sun returns the rain through

the porous veil separating heaven and

earth, the dying hope within my heart

again begins to tilt towards the light. The world

is quiet here, where creation sings the

silent chant of awakening, the song which

permeates the chilled air with divine

consolation, love's sublime expression

of being born anew each day. Life is a

prayer knowing only this moment. Love is

reflected when you open your eyes. A kiss

in the night quiets the mourning as the

longing heart groans for peace no more.

The Waiting

2011-12-01T00:35:00.001-06:00

Where lively shadows move no more,

and stars hide behind the midnight veil,

so my love comes to me at night,

kissing me with silence. We are no

lovers of the daylight. I will wait for you.

I will wait to bathe you in my tears.

I will wait to clothe you with my heart.

I will wait to drown you in my love.

I will wait in silence.

O darkness, my love's delight!

If my beloved is hidden in your depths

then swallow me with the night! If hiding

from me gives you pleasure then take these

wretched eyes, for there is nothing more

to see. I will wait in darkness. I will

love you in the night.

Hugging the Mountain

2011-11-27T15:09:00.001-06:00

There is an image I have used for some time now, adapted from St. John of the Cross, to describe the dark night of faith, and the trust that is involved in it. For me it has always been like driving a car up a mountain in the dark of night, along a winding path. The headlights only allow you to see so far in front of you, and the dark night for me was always a way of saying that I don't need to see the top of the mountain, I only need to see what's right in front of me, knowing that even if the ultimate goal is not known, the next step ahead is, and so I just take that and trust that I will know when it is time to make a turn. Something like that.

Lately, however, it has taken on a different characteristic. It's as if I've been asked to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. Whatever little comfort I drew from the light of the headlights is gone, and now I'm walking up this treacherous path, and the only thing left for me to do is hug the mountain and trust that if I do so, I won't fall off the cliff, even if I have no idea where I am going. The car, I think, represents certain crutches that I have leaned on in bringing me to God, things which in themselves are good - the structures of religious life, the sweetness of the Eucharist, the comfort of community, the beauty of prayer - but ultimately which hold me back from total abandonment to God. So now in the darkness my relationship with the mountain - that place of my encounter with God - is being transformed, and in the pitch black of night I am feeling the sand between my toes, my hands pressed against the coldness of the rock, the cool damp air pressing against my face, all while my eyes remain totally blind. There is no sight, there is no God, and somehow in all of this God is being revealed - the perfect paradox.

This is dramatically changing my prayer. Recently in one of our community meetings we were discussing loneliness, and how ultimately our lives as consecrated celibates means not that we are to experience intimacy in community and with one another, though that is certainly an element of our lives, but rather that we are called to a deeper experience of intimacy with God. Thus, one thing we often hear is that in the experience of loneliness we are often called to throw ourselves more fully into prayer. One friar pointed out, however, that even this can be dangerous, because it can be as if we are going to prayer trying to find some special "experience" of God, as if God is a faucet we can just turn on when we need our fix. Prayer then becomes just like all the other things to which we turn to fill the void, just like some people turn to television, or to alcohol, or to shopping, just a way of creating a kind of buzz that dulls our sense of loneliness.

For me, though, this isn't the case, and this isn't a danger, precisely because I have been stripped of all expectation that God will show up in my prayer. God is totally absent, and so now when I go to prayer, when I sit in silence calling on the name of Jesus, I do so knowing that He is not there, that He will not come, that He does not listen - and yet I give myself to Him fully anyway, because somehow I know that this is all I can do. I know this will scandalize some, but the irony is that as faith has left me completely, I somehow have greater faith than ever. I don't know how to articulate it better than this.

So I keep on hugging the mountain. It's all that's left to do.

General musing...

2011-11-18T15:33:00.001-06:00

I think it might be good for me to come up with a plan and purpose for my online presence. As it is I basically just involve myself randomly in all sorts of social networking sites, with little rhyme or reason. This I believe engenders the sort of ill-disciplined wasting of time, using the Internet and social networking as a means of avoiding the uncomfortable growth of solitude and loneliness - a social addiction that numbs underlying problems in the same way that alcohol and drugs did in the past. I have a tendency to bounce between extremes - austerity on one side, total indulgence on the other. Having a rationally conceived concept of my online interaction, a sense of mission, might help me to forge that necessary middle ground.

Just a thought...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:S Cornell Ave,Chicago,United States

Confessional

2011-11-13T22:35:00.001-06:00

In the confines of a drab and narrow room
he crosses the veil and wanders through my
capacious pain brushed in acrylic hues, a
borderless frontier of self-inflicted wounds
bearing all the weight of gravity. His love
knows no limits, but neither does my sorrow,
and so we race to the outer reaches of
eternity, he with the patience of a lover,
me with sin's delusion convincing me
that I can outrun, only to find myself
buried in his violet embrace, baptized in the
fresh and living waters of my confessional
tears. Gravity doesn't feel so heavy
anymore - if only for a moment.

Embracing the Unknown

2011-11-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has known me throughout the years of my movement towards and in religious life has perhaps gotten used to my frequent ups and downs regarding my vocation. In reality, I established this pattern of polarity right from the beginning, when, while certainly engendered by an authentic experience of conversion, my announcement of a vocation to priesthood was ultimately an act of impulse. Having been away from the Church for so many years, after one retreat weekend I not only committed myself to returning to a life of faith, but indeed announced to my family and loved ones that I was going to be a priest.

My initial discernment began with a diocesan formation director, and in reality I can truly say that God was at work in leading me away from that experience. He was a good man, to be sure, but I think his desire to see men enter the seminary formation blinded him to the haste with which I was acting, and he was very eager to push me through the approval process. Fortunately my timing was such that it was too late to get me in front of the vocations board, and so a slowing down was imposed on me that I did not want, but which served me well. It was soon thereafter that I met the Augustinian vocations director, who, in a direct contrast to the diocesan director, kept telling me to slow down, that we needed to take our time, and so forth. It was he who encouraged me to enroll at Villanova, and set me up with an Augustinian spiritual director, who had a similar mindset.

Despite the signals from the Augustinians that I needed to take things slow, I nonetheless outwardly was just as certain as from that first day - it was a tenuous certainty, to be sure, and artificial, too. It was a certainty that I needed to trust, because I was so fearful of falling back into the life that I had lived before, a life that led me far from God and into the depths of despair. The certainty I projected onto my calling to priesthood was in fact rooted in fear, not in any authentic understanding of being called. Because it was so precarious, it was destined to crumble, and indeed it did, when within a year of my studies at Villanova I met a girl, fell in love, and, with equal projection of certainty announced to the world that I was no longer going to be a priest, that I was in love and hoped one day to marry.

This ended up being the cycle of my time at Villanova, always impulsive, always living with a sense of need for a definitive call in life. What I've realized recently is how rooted this desire was not only in fear, but also in a sense of shame. My entire adult life has been dominated by a sense of shame, shame for the life I lived before 2005 when I came back to the Church, shame for falling into those same patterns, albeit more hidden, after my return to the Church. This sense of shame is typical of recovering alcoholics, and in fact is dealt with extensively in the literature we read. But it requires a real sense of awareness in order to release oneself from the suffocating grip it holds on a person, as it has held on me.

This sense of shame is coupled with a real sense of disappointment - a belief, however untrue or unfair, that I have been a disappointment to my family because of the mistakes I've made. My sense of disappointment often puts an unfair and unhealthy pressure on myself to be great, to do something great and admirable so that I can replace the man who has disappointed his family with the man who makes them proud. This then gets further projected onto my discernment, because what better way to please a Catholic family with a sense of doing something good than by becoming a priest? Yet, of course, what more unhealthy reason to become a priest? One of my greatest fears is that when it comes time to profess solemn vows, I will do so not out of an authentic sense of calling, but rather because I fear disappointing my family or putting them through the stress of another change of course at this stage of my life.

For me, then, there are several key components that my formation has necessarily taken on in order to lead me to a true and authentic sense of vocation. One, I need to allow myself to let go of a false sense of self by which I identify myself according to my sins and my past failings. I need to let go of the past and the grip it holds on me, and instead learn to trust in God's unconditional love for me, and let myself be identified by that.

Related to that, I need to learn to trust in my family's unconditional love for me, and recognize that all they want is what's best for me. I can't expect them to understand the ups and downs of my discernment, but I can expect them to love me no matter where my life takes me. They've certainly proven that beyond any doubt already, and so I need to trust in the love they have proven over and over again throughout my life.

Finally, I need to embrace the uncertainty of my discernment - something I am finally just beginning to do. The truth is that the vows I have taken are temporary for a reason. I have not made a commitment to be a priest or a religious for life. I've made a commitment to live a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience for one year only, and to deepen my discernment of God's call in my life and see where that takes me. It is true that I have again entered a phase of doubts about whether this is where I am ultimately being called, but the truth is, these are the healthiest doubts I have ever experienced. Doubts just mean uncertainty, and it is an uncertainty that I need to grow more and more comfortable with in order to break free from the destructive pattern of projected certitude. This is the only way truly to discover where God is calling me, the only way I can be sure that where I end up in life is due to my following the initiative of God, rather than imposing my initiative on a life that I call ordained.

Uncertainty is not natural for me, nor for anyone, I suppose. But the God in whom I believe is shrouded in mystery, is infinite and ineffable, and the only way to attune my soul to God's divine initiative is to allow myself to sit comfortably with the silence of his mystery. Certainly cultivating my prayer life is essential, and in that a certain necessary dedication on my part has been lacking. What I can say, though, is that the effects of a long walk towards healing are starting to become more manifest to me, and I can finally trust that this uncertainty is exactly where I am supposed to be. I can truly say that I do not know where God is calling me, and for once, I'm becoming okay with that.

The Splendor of the Moon

2011-10-28T11:14:00.003-05:00

Is there a mystery deeper than the midnight sky,

that black sea which swallows dreams as they toss

about among the frothy waves of constellations?

What else to do but drown in the enveloping currents

of darkness! Yet the darkness does not prevail, for

in every nocturnal abyss there is the pale silver

glow of radiant light, which scatters the fearsome

shadows and draws the midnight tides ever upon

the shores of hope. Yet even the moon is not a light

unto itself.

The moon, the moon- what else is its light but a

reflection of the beauty of her face? What else is

its glow but a refraction of the fire by which she melts

my heart? If the dark of night is where my love is

forever consigned to hide, then as my heart sleeps

at least I can recall the love that never is to be

in the blissful memory of the splendor of the moon.

Possibility

2011-10-25T12:19:00.000-05:00

Like swaying boughs in the gusts

of autumn's torrents of change, where

living and dying are the same moment,

and the vibrant echoes of season's

palette speak eternal truths of

love and fear - so now the movement

of my weary soul. Who can prepare

for winter's fast? My dying is a love

that has no tomorrow.

Yet winter is a season of silent hope,

and my heart is warmed in the gentle

fire of her ambient smile, a smile

which radiates the incarnate light of

divine blessing, where God has the

strength and grace of a woman

in love. In this fire my prayer

is consumed, and my soul is forged

in the indestructible armor

of possibility. Tomorrow is a

love that has no dying.

Sacrament of Dying Dreams

2011-10-23T17:15:00.001-05:00

Under this baldachin of pale blue glory,
the tide as priest offers my sacrifice
and carries it far away from the altar
of your heart. I will not profane your
innocence. Yet the wordless liturgy of your
mahogany eyes carves deep into my wooden
soul, the proclamation of a gospel that I dare not
hope in, dare not believe, dare not surrender
all the security of my miserable comfort to.
Your love speaks to me like God - in silence.

My soul remains a granite monument to
dying dreams, unmoving against
the persistent waves of longing, afraid
to believe in the sacrament of your love.
I am not worthy to receive you. Prayer
alone can keep my heart alive and fill me
with the hope of love's miracle, where
angels sing the song of our first and
everlasting dance.

Empty

2011-10-21T16:52:00.000-05:00

I live where I can only
die, where neither love nor
solitude take in the breath
of life. My lungs are sand.

My senses grieve when she
does not fill them. I call her
name, or her essence,
from the space between my

percussive heart. There can
be no salvation in living,
when the life I live is
a lie. God's dearth consumes.

She is springtime in herself,
full of beauty and hope
and life, but autumn in my
heart, the vivid burst

of a love destined for death.
This empty tomb can see
no Christ. The gardener
is nothing more.

Potsherds

2011-10-21T16:27:00.000-05:00

Who will one day read the broken
stories of the potsherds of
my heart - fragments of love
poured out in fables from the
intimate distance of my beloved's
unknowing mind. Future's history
is my greatest hope for joy,
when someone fills in the
missing pieces and weaves a
tale of love's embrace, of
our kiss and how it made
me cry. Forgive me if I
grieve for the ever after that
never was, nor can ever be.

Mourning song

2011-10-21T16:17:00.000-05:00

The violet sky bounces off shimmers of the
anxious lake, while the soaring and circling
birds drink in gulps of anticipation, and shadows
appear like midnight horses galloping across the
naked sky. While God yet sleeps, at least
He dreams in beauty and song. The world awakes,
yet unaware of the sadness that awaits this day,
yet to be confronted by the distended nightmare
of neglect, yet to drink deep of the bitter stream of
our fabricated despair. Poverty has no one to dream.
No one to dream.
No one to lull her to sleep in the peaceful security
of a well groomed fantasy, immune to the death
of imagination. No, poverty can only live
among the dying. Yet God still dreams
in beauty and song.
So let the world arise, and wipe away the crust
of selected ignorance. Sleep no more,
O world, for soon God will awake, and who
can withstand the dread terror of his mourning song?

Janet McKenzie and the Feminine Spirit

2011-10-18T22:59:00.002-05:00

I had the most providential day today. A friend mentioned that she had off today and wanted to check out a museum downtown, since several are free on different days. After some research we discovered that there was a Janet McKenzie exhibit at the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA). As it also turned out, the artist herself was going to be there to talk and discuss her art. Full disclosure, prior to today I had never heard of her before. After today, I won't be able to get her or her beautiful art out of my mind. She has made an impression that my heart will never forget.

As an artist she is best known for her painting Jesus of the People, which was selected in a 2000 contest by National Catholic Reporter as the Jesus icon for the new millennium. Her artwork calls upon the image of Christ in the marginalized, captured in this image both by her use of a person of color, as well as the fact that her real life model for the painting was a woman.

All of her paintings for me evoked a sense of, on the one hand a deep, primal woundedness, but on the other hand, a quiet strength and grace which encounters that woundedness and brings it to a place of healing. It was a deeply emotional experience for me on many levels.

It also disturbed me on a certain level, particularly when I met Janet and listened to her speak. She was herself so graceful, so strong, so meek, so humble, and more than anything, so authentic. So when she spoke of the nobility she brings to otherwise marginalized groups of people, I couldn't help but be confronted with my own role in such marginalization. That's what I mean by disturbing. Encountering her art and her strength and grace moved something inside of me that I can't yet articulate.

Perhaps all of this was magnified by the fact that I attended the exhibit with three strong, graceful, beautiful women, servants of a Church that too often does not take them seriously. Without them there I think I could have more easily pushed the feelings being stirred up aside, kept them abstract. Their presence made manifest what I would have been more comfortable denying.

Janet McKenzie's art is about more than just her choice of subjects, about more than the attention she draws to the marginalized of society, though obviously that is nothing insignificant. The appeal is something deeper, something more universal, I think. In all of her art there is the sense of a deep encounter with God, a silent communion where God not only sees our broken hearts, but sees that beauty in us that our brokenness does not allow us to see. In all of her images perhaps what strikes most deeply is her strong maternal power. She is above all a mother - the first person she introduced, with such love and pride, was her son, who beamed with love for her, as well - and through her own embrace of her motherhood, she brought a much needed sense of the maternal dimension of God, a way in which the one gazing on her art can see God holding them, caressing them, loving them. Her art is strongly evocative, to me, of that beautiful passage from Isaiah, "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem" (Is 66:13).

Nights like tonight further remind me of how essential art is to the experience of life. We need new and creative ways of expressing ineffable truths, of expanding our minds and stretching our souls. Providence was at work this evening, through the art, through the artist, through beautiful friends, and through the tiny whisper of hope that all of this brought to my soul.

To contact Janet McKenzie or order prints of her work, visit her web site at www.janetmckenzie.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Night prayer

2011-10-18T11:27:00.001-05:00

A vespers stroll through the dark and narrow alleys
of a haunted soul, led onward by the
pale candescence of the harvest moon,
reflecting what was and is, a truth
which hides behind shadows of sadness -
a veil of opacity where love is
unseen, and God is silent. Who
will be your minister, commanding
that the veil be lifted? Who will be
my icon, my Christ, who touches my
weary heart and gives me rest? I have
no faith to heal me.

Yet a vigil I keep, and a candle lit,
allowing my heart to sing a psalm
of hope, or desperation. An atheist
prayer is greater than apathy. I won't
deny you, Lord, even as I am denied.
I'm not afraid to pray alone.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:E 53rd St,Chicago,United States

Seeing with eyes of beauty

2011-10-13T08:42:00.001-05:00

The way we can be sure we are in union with him
is for the man who claims to abide in him
to conduct himself just as he did. (1 John 2:5-6)

I've never been entirely comfortable with the popular slogan, "What would Jesus do?" Part of it perhaps is just my discomfort with the necessary superficiality of slogans. But I also think it misses the mark, if only subtly. It's true, this reading from 1 John calls us to conduct ourselves as Jesus did, but it does so from the premise of our deep and abiding union with Christ. This union with Christ shifts the emphasis, I think, from what would Jesus do, to what does Jesus wish to do in and through me? It's a subtle shift, I suppose, but it's a shift that I believe better embraces the frailty of our humanity and relieves us from the unhealthy burden of a flawlessness that we can never hope to achieve and that we can too easily mistake as the true measure of holiness. We are not Jesus, but rather we are the beloved of Jesus, the chosen people whom Jesus longs to be with, and in his being with us, and in our allowing him to be present and at work in us, we become more like him. But we become more like him in a way that also respects the uniqueness of who we are, the particular giftedness of our own hearts, our own minds, our own personalities, and even embraces the gift of our weakness and our frailty, knowing that by the presence of Christ within us, our weakness becomes the space where empathy grows, and our tears become a river of understanding, and the dark night of our wounds becomes an open sky of compassion.

I think the real tragedy of sin is the way its rootedness in us causes us to fight against this hope, to fight against the realization of who we are in Christ, who we are as people in and through whom the God of love, of peace, of compassion, of kindness, is always present and at work. It is precisely our fighting against the beauty that God wishes us to see, in ourselves and in others, that incites the restlessness that I know I experience so frequently, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Sin then is ultimately its own punishment, because it distorts our spiritual vision in such a way that we see as ugly what God sees as beautiful, and we take that distorted lens into our own self-reflection and into our judgment of others.

For me, that's what this journey is all about. Regardless of where I end up in life, the key is always allowing Christ to abide in me and draw me deeper into that healing place of his own heart, so that through my union with him - through my sacramental life, through growing in community, through my prayer and study, through holy friendships, all of which are manifestations and vehicles of that union - through all of this the love of Christ heals and restores my spiritual vision, so that I see with his eyes, so that what is beautiful I truly see as such. That then becomes the key to discernment,that by being able to recognize beauty, I can see the beauty to which I am being called, I can see the beauty of a vocation from God, whatever that may be.

I think ultimately this vision of beauty, this purification of our interior lens, is the true measure of holiness, and is the true fruit of contemplation. When we can see as God would have us see, when we can perceive that God truly abides with us in Christ, and when we can know how beautiful we truly are as a result, then we can say with sincerity, "In God alone is my soul at rest, from him comes my hope." And with that abiding hope, we can do, not what Jesus would do, but what he is calling us to do here and now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Passersby

2011-10-11T15:51:00.001-05:00

A man tells of a boy who drowned
as his lady friend listens in a
distant silence, her gazed fixed
in rapt indifference. She smiles at
me, and I shiver.

A young black man with kind eyes
sits to my right, whose silence
speaks of compassion, while he
seems to scrutinize my distant
gaze, lost as I am in my vagrant
mind. Finally he leaves,
but smiles.

By myself, but not alone,
I sit in silent communion with
the shared woundedness of
my companion passersby.
Sometimes a glance, a smile,
a nod is exchanged, that
tacit understanding of hearts
attuned to the quiet echoes
of loneliness.

Time moves by, and I sit, knowing
that somewhere, from this
pain-tilled ground, prayer
is waiting to bloom.

Intrinsic vs. Grave Evil in Considering the Death Penalty

2011-10-10T10:16:00.001-05:00

There does not seem to be an insignificant number of American Catholics who take very seriously the Church's teaching on abortion, yet at the same time support the death penalty. Their logic is usually along the lines that while the Church's teaching against abortion is infallible because abortion is intrinsically evil, meaning the very act itself is morally wrong, regardless of circumstance, the Church teaches that the death penalty is not, meaning that at least theoretically the death penalty can be justified. As a result, such Catholics argue, support for the death penalty as a Catholic cannot be qualified as rejecting Church teaching in the way that supporting abortion can. I believe this reasoning to be faulty because in focusing solely on the intrinsic nature of the the moral act it fails to consider the question of gravity.

But first let's examine what the Church actually teaches regarding the death penalty. We read in Par. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

Too often Catholics who justify their support of the death penalty stop at the part just before the bolder section (emphasis mine), seeing there an opening that allows them to support this practice since it is at least theoretically possible to do so. But the Church makes the conditions for such support abundantly clear: only when no other recourse is available to protect society against unjust aggressors. Notice here the Church makes no consideration for the cost of supporting a criminal for life imprisonment versus the cost of execution - a strange and twisted argument too often heard in this debate - and this is because a price cannot be placed on a human life. Human life, innocent or guilty, is still life from God and cannot be measured in monetary ways.

To drive home the point of just how high a standard the Church sets regarding the permissibility of the death penalty in a just society, read what comes next from the Catechism:

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

Already it should be clear that just rooted in the Church's explicit teachings on a theoretical basis - meaning an abstract consideration of the death penalty as such in our world today - particularly in the United States with our technological advances which do in fact basically eliminate all circumstances where the death penalty is necessary to protect society against unjust aggressors - the Church's standard- it should be clear that supporting the death penalty simply is not an option for Catholics in good conscience. However, I think it goes even further than that.

One of the most troubling aspects of the manner in which the death penalty is carried out in the United States is the obvious institutional racism at work in the legal system. This racism is demonstrated in two ways: one, the rate of black defendants sentenced to death versus white defendants convicted of identical crimes; two, and perhaps even more troubling, the rate of execution sentences when the victim of homicide is white versus when the victim is black.

The statistics for the latter are nauseating. In a non-partisan study conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1990, it was discovered that in homicide cases where the victim was Hispanic, a death sentence was given six percent of the time; when the victim was black, 15 percent of the time; when the victim was white, 77 percent of the time. A white victim is five times more likely to elicit a death sentence than a black victim, and 13 times more likely than an Hispanic victim. There are many other studies which show this pattern throughout the states that currently allow for the death penalty as a legal recourse. This is blatant institutional racism, and undeniably so.

The second factor to consider is how the poverty of the defendant affects the likelihood of a death sentence. This is considered in a variety of ways. In many states, there are laws limiting the out-of-court compensation for indigent defendants, which means that a poor defendant is going to be extremely limited in what sort of legal counsel he can afford, what quality of experts he can hire, and so forth. In Alabama, for instance, this limit is $1,000. In many rural parts of Texas it is a paltry $800. The old adage, "You get what you pay for" certainly rings true here. A rich defendant not only can hire a team of lawyers, but can also pay for a wide array of expert witnesses whose testimony can be extremely persuasive to juries, thus significantly increasing the likelihood that a rich defendant will receive life imprisonment ( at most), while a poor defendant will be sentenced to death. Instead of going into more statistics here, I will direct the reader to Steven Bright's excellent essay published in 1994 in the Yale Law Journal, "Counsel For The Poor: The Death Sentence Not For The Worst Crime But For The Worst Lawyer."

What I am getting at here I hope is obvious. On the one hand, we have the fact that the Church sets a clear and strict standard by which the death penalty may even theoretically be justified, and this standard is not met in the United States. What's more, while the theoretical possibility of the death penalty means that it is not intrinsically evil, racism is intrinsically evil and thus must be opposed in every instance. Furthermore, the economic disparity evident in the application of the death penalty directly opposes the Church's clear teaching of a preferential option for the poor (cf. CCC 2443-2449). What is interesting, many of my fellow opponents of abortion, myself included, will often call to mind the historical reality of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and her explicit support of eugenics, seeing birth control as a way of ridding the world of blacks and the poor. Yet is this not exactly what is at stake here with the death penalty in the United States? Given the racist and classist disparity in the application of the death penalty, I cannot see it as anything else but a form of eugenics - an attempt to eliminate blacks and the poor while preserving the lives of whites.

As the election season heats up, there will predictably be a resurgence of the debate among Catholics regarding whether or not Catholic politicians who publicly support abortion should be denied the Eucharist. The justification of this position is rooted in Canon 916 of the current Code of Canon Law, which reads, with my emphasis, "Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.

Let us note that this canon says nothing about intrinsic evil, but only manifest grave sin. Given all of the above, I can see no other means of classifying support for the death penalty in the United States than as manifest grave sin. While I make no argument regarding whether or not pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion, I will simply suggest that if a bishop is going to apply Canon 915 in such a way, then the same must be done for those politicians supporting the death penalty. Our bishops need to be consistent and fair in their application of canon law, and I would suggest in this instance to date they have not been.

One final point I wish to make, and this applies more broadly than just to this particular issue, but it relates specifically to it. I believe that in many cases, those Catholics who do support the death penalty are in fact placing political ideology over fidelity to the Church. While many factors go into this, I think perhaps a lot of it does go back to the abortion issue, in that because the Republican party tends to be strongly opposed to abortion (and other hot button social issues), that many Catholics have naturally gravitated to the Republican party, but in a way that now the Republican identity has become more important than the Catholic one. Thus in order to justify certain positions that are important as Republicans, Church teaching has been twisted in such a way so as seemingly to provide cover for a position that in fact is at odds with the clear teaching of the Church.

Obviously this is not simply a Republican tactic, and it is seen equally among Catholic Democrats, who because of a historical allegiance with the Democratic party over issues such as labor unions have grown into Democrats first, Catholics second, which leads then to all sorts of convoluted reasoning over issues like abortion, such as we regularly see from Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. This is a problem that we need to face as Catholics, recognizing that in fact neither party perfectly suits our Catholic ideology, but that our Catholic identity is always first, and that it must be the first teacher of our conscience. Regardless of which party we identify with, we must always be Catholic first, and within the political structure of our party's politics we must seek to work for a more just and fair society, one which recognizes the dignity of all human life.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:S Cornell Ave,Chicago,United States

Consecrated Loneliness

2011-10-08T21:39:00.002-05:00

One of the challenges of consecrated celibate living is the frequent encounters with loneliness. Yet precisely because this is consecrated living, meaning a way of life that is set apart in a special way for the work of God, this loneliness itself is a place of ministry. By learning to experience the sacredness of our own loneliness, we as religious become better prepared to minister to the loneliness of others, which is one of the most beautiful gifts that this vocation has to offer.

It is a challenge, though, because loneliness itself brings so many temptations, can lead to such confusion, and often leads to a depression that makes it difficult to grow spiritually in the way that we are being called to do. This loneliness, when encountered in patient, faithful prayer, draws us to a depth of our existence, a depth of our soul, that is truly sacred - a place where even God is silent. The key to this silence is learning to sit with it, not to run away from it or strive to fill it with all sorts of superficial things - whether it be our own internal chatter, or filling it with the company of others (community is to be embraced, of course, but not just as a way of filling a void - then community becomes superficial), or something more insidious like drugs, alcohol, sex, and so on. For this truly to be a consecrated loneliness, it requires patience, stillness, and prayer.

Entering this space where God is silent, this place of prayer, we must resist the temptation to speak to the loneliness, but rather instead learn to let the loneliness speak to us. Speaking to the loneliness is its own temptation - trying to figure out what it means, speculating on its causes, fabricating a secret agenda that this loneliness is behind. This can lead to all sorts of spiritual crises - am I really called to be a religious? Am I supposed to be with her? How do I know this is what God wants for me? It's not that the answers to these questions aren't important, but rather that asking them in the midst of the loneliness is a deception itself.

Letting the loneliness speak to us, however, requires a great patience, but ultimately it brings us into contact with our own existence, the reality of our very humanity. It leads us directly to the Cross, to the Passion of Christ, because it is there that Jesus had his own experience of abandonment, of loneliness. Yet precisely because Jesus is both truly God and truly human, his own experience of loneliness means that ours becomes a place of encounter with God. It is here then that the Passion truly speaks to us, not in words but in silence, and reveals to us that the emptiness of the tomb is a sign not of death, but of resurrection.

That empty tomb - a reflection of our own seemingly forsaken souls - also tells us that God is not always found where we expect him to be. Mary went to the tomb expecting to find Christ, and he was not there. Yet she sat there - yes, weeping, mourning, saddened by her sense of loss and abandonment and confusion, but nonetheless she sat and waited. And then Jesus appeared, and called her by name, so that she became the witness to the resurrection - a witness of hope! This is the challenge of our own loneliness, not to run, not to perceive the emptiness of our own tomb and go seeking Christ elsewhere, but rather to sit, patiently awaiting the one who will never abandon us, no matter how confused we may be. Then we too may become witnesses of hope and can minister to the sacred loneliness which permeates our suffering our world.

You are beautiful

2011-10-03T23:59:00.001-05:00

Behold, you are beautiful, my love;
behold, you are beautiful;
your eyes are doves.
Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,
truly lovely. --Song of Songs 1:15-16

Perhaps one of the most tragic ironies of the world in which we live is that an increasingly superficial obsession with beauty has assisted in so many of us failing to see how beautiful we really are. We can so often see beauty throughout God's creation - I thought of this especially yesterday walking along Lake Michigan as the first hints of autumn's crimson glory began adorning the swaying boughs of oaken scepters. Yet when it comes to our inner eye, that secret eye which gazes into the very depths of who we are, a vision which should reveal to us the incomparable and unspeakable beauty of the image and likeness of God, so often we are blind.

It is in the silence of our own prayer that we come to see ourselves as we truly are, as God sees us. St Paul tells us to have the mind of Christ, the very same Christ who says to each of us, "Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely." How hard it is to hear this as a word spoken to each of us, individually, personally, in the secret depths of our God-breathed souls.

I think this inability to see ourselves as beautiful often lies behind our seeing ugliness in others. Perhaps this is a too easily overlooked dimension of our own redemption in Christ. Allowing ourselves to perceive and embrace the truth - I AM BEAUTIFUL! - about ourselves sensitizes us to the beautiful reality of the person in front of us, enabling us to see the beautiful hand of the Creator in them, and to be bedazzled by the splendor of their being.

None of this is to suggest that there is not true ugliness in the world - sin is real, and it is ugly. But the lie of sin is that it makes us think that the ugliness is who we are. Our prayer then should be that we indeed might have for ourselves the mind of Christ. Then we can embrace a Beauty that transforms a darkened world and gives us eyes to see the image and likeness of God in every human person - ourselves included!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:S Cornell Ave,Chicago,United States

Spiritual Direction, Prayers

2011-09-23T19:49:00.001-05:00

One of the challenges of moving to a new place is the task of finding a new spiritual director. Last year I was very happy with the person of my spiritual director, a Discalced Carmelite friar and a good and holy man, but the frequency never seemed to work out well. In the course of the year I only met with him maybe six or seven times, which is not enough. It's important that I can meet with a director at least once a month. So this week I began the task of finding a new director here in Chicago.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote quite frequently about her struggles to find a good director, and the importance of a good one. She had several very bad experiences with unholy and/or uneducated directors who led her astray, and so in her writings the importance of a good director is paramount. For me, there are several things I look for in a director: one, someone who leads a good, well disciplined prayer life, who is a true contemplative; two, someone who will push me, who will not let me get away with my lack of effort and my lack of discipline; three, someone who knows the Holy Fathers well, and can guide me along the spiritual path that they lay out.

Additionally, my own spiritual life is very drawn to the Eastern Christian tradition, particularly with my use of the Jesus Prayer. After speaking with one of my brothers, I decided to inquire of an Orthodox monk in the area and see if he would be willing to take me on. It is not usual for a Catholic to seek spiritual direction from an Orthodox priest, or vice versa, but I suppose it's not unheard of, either. This monk very much fits the description of what I seek in a spiritual father, though certainly there would be challenges, which he mentioned in his email response to me. Nevertheless, he agreed to meet with me and see how it goes. So today we had our first meeting.

When I arrived, he led me through the magnificent church, where my eyes rested briefly upon so many holy ikons, into a back meeting room, very dark, with only one candle lit. He explained to me that they were having electrical problems and that he was still waiting for someone to come out to work on it, so he lit two more candles, and it ended up being such a beautiful atmosphere for prayerful spiritual direction. The room had several more ikons, and a very large ikon crucifix. He had a thick Greek accent, a young priest with a full beard and a long, braided ponytail in his dark hair. He spoke in a deep, rich baritone, softly yet with force, and we began.

He again reiterated his concerns about directing me, because of the difference of our traditions. His fear was that his hands could be tied in some areas, and primarily it was a concern for the sacredness of holy obedience between a spiritual father and his child. Some of his fears I think came from not exactly understanding the Catholic faith - for instance, since he knows that we do not regularly fast the way the Orthodox do, he thought he might not be able to direct me to fast, since Catholics don't fast. I explained to him that we do fast, and though it's not required in the way that it is with the Orthodox, it's certainly encouraged and welcome.

We went on to discuss many things, the Jesus prayer, a prayer schedule or canon, fasting, prostrations, differences in our traditions. He was always open, honest, direct, but gentle. We spent over two hours together in that candle lit room, and there was much holy silence that passed between us, in a way that I've never experienced in direction, or really in any conversation with anyone. He remains uncomfortable being my "official" spiritual director, and he wants me to find a spiritual father, but at the same time, he invited me to come visit with him again. We'll see how it goes.

I know what is lacking in my spiritual life, I know what I want to be, who God is calling me to be, how I am being called to prayer, and how far short I fall of this ideal. I do not tend to my soul nearly the way that I should. I watch too much television, I spend too much time on the computer, I spend way too little time in prayer. I do not give my time to Jesus in the way that expresses that He is truly the love of my life and there is no one else I would rather be with. I don't know what will come of any future relationship between myself and this holy monk, but hopefully at least our talk today will compel me to make the changes that I know I need to make, to begin taking my spiritual life seriously in a way that I do not right now. My own hope is that he will warm to the idea of being my spiritual director, my spiritual father, but I will also begin looking elsewhere in case he does not.

With that in mind, I ask for your prayers, prayers for wisdom, prudence, and humility, prayers that God will provide me with the director that I need, prayers that I will hold nothing back from Jesus and that I will begin to embrace Him truly as my own Beloved, that I will place no one and nothing ahead of my relationship with Jesus Christ. Thank you.