Met with Father Paul Bernier this afternoon. Nice, simple, a presence of holiness within an elderly priest, white hair and beard, a serious maturing adult in spiritual formation, a date for Monday, a cookout in the early evening, associates of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in attendance, gathered for an entertaining meeting. Father spoke about the huge complex housing the first order of the Aggregate of the Blessed Sacrament. It was originally built as a dormitory for seminary students for the previous Cleveland Seminary on Euclid Ave. He spoke of glory days, the history of Euclid Avenue and the sharp decline in seminary students with the passing of time. Things just did not work out as planned by those envisioning a thriving prospering future of many priests in formation for the Cleveland Diocese.  Years spent in Asia: the Philippines, Thailand, and wonderful wooden statues, stories of loving, caring a priest active in the lives of many.  I was charmed by a wooden kayak oar posed above his desk.  He told me of the purchase, his pride in attaining the beautifully crafted means of water propulsion.  He said he took it out to the river for use, however many more proficient kayakers were startled he would actually put to use such an elegant piece of craftsmanship.  It should be hung on a wall they proclaimed.  So he hung it on his office wall and agreed that it made for pleasurable viewing.  Yes his office is a place of holiness, serious thought, and most telling a man who has lived an intelligent, educated, generous, rewarding through giving, life as a priest.  i was intrigued by an image he supplied me with.  I mentioned my mother being from Spain, knowing his extended time in the Philippines and Spanish imperialism, inquiring if he witnessed a Spanish influence. He laughed saying Filipinos, eighty-five percent of the population Catholic, declare they spent five hundred years living in a Spanish convent and the last fifty years in Hollywood. Under Spanish control a deep Catholic imprint was made, and with the coming of General Douglas MacArthur, cameras rolling, the influence of Hollywood engulfed the islands. For good or bad, American influence and movies dominant. I think of the grand past of Euclid Avenue’s Millionaire Row, the admiration my Romanian friends possess for the United States, the Filipinos looking with hope to the United States, and now a generation of Americans who despise their own country. A casual thought entertains, asking whether we have become a nation of spoiled children. A selfish self-absorbed consciousness selling short its own past in order to elevate emotional short-sighted childish comprehension. Are we experiencing an immature generation in constant revolt against authority, a generation fixated upon free will, seeing only the faults of a patriarchal society? Do those who could never build a country as known by those residing upon Millionaire’s Row wish to destroy the means to prosperity, deconstructing a civilization of success in order to instill a society of misery, chaos, immorality, and lawlessness?  Is there truly a lasting vision to the attack upon the American way of life that can lead to anything besides communism? Life is a mystery, and I cherish reposing within the mystery of God and creation.

I would like to clarify what I mean by an adult spiritual life. A childish spiritual life is the constant imposition of self-will, a lack of depth due to dependence upon one’s broken self, a clinging and attachment to those things that brought comfort when we were children or teenagers. We are all broken, acceptance and thus understanding graced are the necessary building tools for maturing, utilitarian tools able to contemplatively craft and carve through surrender, stillness, pain and patience, prayer, detachment, and devotion to the Eucharist. Like a child, the one unable to grow, no matter age, nor devotion, the amount of reading and study, nor years of effort, or the intensity of application, self-will has always, and remains to dominate the worshiper’s life. They approach God and interact with others based upon the manipulation of their desires, thoughts, aspirations, and concerns. They are always busy; building, scheming, conniving, bigger and better ways to know God, new approaches, different methods and plans employed, new people and churches sought, spiritual directors and others telling and informing, important people high within the hierarchy, others to instruct and impose ideas upon, constantly conversing, sharing and imposing.  Everything of childish doing, acting and perpetrating. It has nothing to do with intelligence, talents, responsibility, worldly success or failure, nor dedication. Due to a lack of penetrating honesty, a true understanding of themselves, they work through delusion in futile attempts to do everything themselves. Many even become articulate expert speakers of faith, knowledgeable Bible scholars, intellectual masters of the intricacies of Catholicism. However they approach life as a teenager for that is the only further they have been able to spiritually and emotionally grow. All of their intense effort is not producing growth induced, infused, by God. It is so very very difficult.

  …the angels are a type of the union of the highest intelligence and freedom with perfect submission. They are the messengers of God, employed continually in obeying the Divine Will, yet doing it with the fullness of knowledge do to dwelling continually in the presence of God, beholding face to face his  glorious perfections, enjoying the light, not given to man on earth, of the Beatific Vision, and in the exercise of the freedom which flows from the conformity of their wills with the will of God. So again, in the perfect acquiescence of Mary in the divine purpose announced to her by the Angel Gabriel, we have another instance of the identity of submission, perfect submission to divine authority, and intelligent freedom. When informed of God’s merciful design, as comprehend in the mystery of the incarnation, in the free exercise of her will she assented: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.” Again, our divine Lord is the highest exemplification of the union in Himself of most absolute submission and of the most perfect intelligence freedom, submitting in all things to the Divine Law, yet doing it voluntarily and with the clearest, fullest knowledge.  –Catholic Quarterly

The angels and Christ, the highest of intelligence and devotion, knowing intimately the love of God to the highest extreme, possessing wisdom and understanding above human understanding, place themselves in obedience to Divine Will.  In all their splendor–their desires, impositions, and self-will are futile if exercised away from Divine Will. Satan opted for the exercising of free will. All is truly good except that which wanders away from the designs of God. Perversion is the corruption of creation, the infliction of self-will, a wandering from the path of God. Childishness is the reliance upon one’s self, an inability to grow up and rely upon God. There is the image of angels constantly facing God. I am not so sure it is a physical act, rather than a definitive statement in regards to their essence, everything about their being, perpetually aligned with God.  Below is an image from the former Cleveland Seminary, Mary as the Throne of Wisdom, Mary in obedience to Divine Will becomes the seat of wisdom, the loving, caring mother of her Divine Child.

St Mary’s, former seminary, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.