Monthly Archives: March 2016

Mar222016

Home is where the heart is

I have made the decision to center myself within my surroundings. Private in calling, there is serious discernment forming the decision. Massachusetts, the Maronite Monks of Adoration, provide pilgrimage, immersion in the Eucharist, an authentic contemplative retreat. The longing properly exist, yet I will stay home. I will remove myself from work, preserving energy, furthering the fellowship nurtured throughout Lent. Praying upon matters, a sign was perceived when Father Roger asked me at St Paul Shrine on Palm Sunday if I would participate in having my feet washed during mass on Thursday. In addition, the extern sisters implored for treats after Easter Mass for distributing. The thought of celebrating in Cleveland and with family in Toledo was already simmering. Thursday there is a dinner for all the ‘Arise’ groups throughout St Paschal Baylon and St Clare. There were various groups meeting on different days and times. Plus Thursday morning is a morning of sprititual direction. I will conduct a retreat within my life, within my existing environment. I have notified the Hospice informing them my schedule is open. My experiences with the Hospice only grows in relevancy. The patient in Huntsburg astounds with beauty. She has been removed from the By-your-side program, meaning she is not actively dying. Her body is not shutting down. I can spend extended time at the Jennings Center. I will rent a car for the week allowing unlimited mileage, allowing numerous trips to Toledo. My own life will be granted a retreat and celebration of Easter within all the good things God is doing for me. I have also made plans to enjoy the Tenebrae Mass at the Rosary Cathedral in Toledo with a Lebanese friend of special calling. The acoustics in the Church are phenomenal, the large space wonderfully carrying sound. The darkness of the Mass is powerfully broken by the thunderous percussion of a symphony kettle drum. It is a favorite Mass. The Eucharist will be adored, contemplative quiet prayer graced with profound hours, the quaint chapel at St Clare and Sacred Heart as well as St Paul Shrine providing.

spacer
Mar212016

All we need is love

We do not think that detachment from creatures is the same for all, whether for the greatest saints or for those souls that have reached a minimal perfection. And the principal reason is, that perfection excludes not only faults that are directly voluntary, but also those that are indirectly voluntary; those which proceed from negligence and a relative tepidity, from a secret and semi-conscious egoism that does not allow the depth of the soul to belong completely to God. Likewise there is a certain co-relation between the intensive growth of charity and its extension, in consequence of which charity gradually excludes even those obstacles which we more or less unconsciously oppose to the work of grace in our souls. –Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

spacer
Mar202016

Palm Sunday

God is good and all giving.  An incredible day, witnessing aside, Mary joined in, a companion in experiencing, my Sancho Panza.  We visited the ninety-eight year old Hospice patient in Huntsburg, Ohio.  The Hospice called while driving to Palm Sunday Mass, informing me the patient did not need Hospice care today.  I was scheduled to sit with her from noon to four, however my scheduler informed me the visit was unnecessary.  The patient was doing much better, up and walking about.  I was startled, disappointed as I really looked forward to the visit.  I felt we accomplished a lot praying together.  The thought of continuing our prayers brought joy to my waking this morning.  After dining with Mary on the Ox tail soup she prepared, I decided to initiate a personal visit with the patient–Mary tagging along.  I promised the patient I would sit with her today.  I had to honor the promise.  Her eyes held steady in my consciousness, dominating my good will.  There was a moment when I brushed back her hair from her eyes, in between prayers, when we locked eyes.  She was beautiful.  I know she understood what we were doing.  When Mary and I arrived, we discovered her daughter, granddaughter, and the granddaughter’s boyfriend visiting with the patient.  The patient was sitting there in her wheelchair, and sure enough she looked much better.  She was fully awake, still only partially responsive, dressed in a Sunday outfit.  She looked wonderful.  God is gracing me with an appreciation for beauty.  Utilizing my loneliness, my longing to love, He allows the patient to attain an immense attraction.  I cannot help but wrap my heart around the patient, fascinated deeply by the patient, a call of unabandoned love sent and received, grace abounding.  Conversation with the patient’s daughter flowed beautifully, detailing the woman’s life.  The granddaughter and boyfriend would often chime in.  Mary as well.  When I told the daughter I prayed a Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet with her mother, she became excited, informing me how much the Rosary meant to her mother.  I told her that at the end of our prayers her mother thanked me twice, clearly pronouncing the words.  Ending the visit, I knelt and took the patient’s hand in mine, clearly stating gratitude and a goodbye.  The patient proved I was not a liar, by looking me in the eye, raising her chin, and clearly thanking me in front of everyone.  I could only chuckle.  Her daughter exclaimed ‘mother’ and started clapping.  Then Mary approached the patient, pleasantly taking her hand and introducing herself.  The patient maintained her air of attentiveness, holding her head up in greeting, verbally responding to Mary, although the words were not clear.  She made one heck of an effort.  It was a very meaningful visit.  Then Mary and I ventured over to the world’s tallest Our Lady of Guadalupe statue.  It is truly a spectacle.  The size is astounding, and most enjoyably the quality tile work is truly fine craftsmanship.  The weather was not so nice, the shrine built by a private family, now hosting a church for the celebration of Mass, tabernacle abiding, deserves a future visit.  Mass is celebrated every first Saturday.  Mary had already been to the Shrine built in 1995 with the extern Poor Clare sisters.  The evening concluded with another visit from John the Hermit.  Our relationship advances subtly, amazingly intimate in spirituality.  Contemplatively, we are brothers.  He is convinced that God is obviously placing us together.  The conversation and details I cannot share.  John has stressed the importance of confidentiality in the deeper things he speaks to me about.  There is nothing to speak about since there’s nothing happening.  Silence is the mandate.  Not to disrupt his confidence in me has become important to me.  Mary witnessed our words.  Driving her home, she exclaimed over-and-over what a blessed day it was for her.  All for the Glory of God and the salvation of souls.

spacer
Mar202016

Being flexible in spirituality

Nothing is so opposed to true repose and peace as anxiety to achieve an enterprise one is bent on bringing to a conclusion.  When the intention is set on the necessary accomplishment of this or that, God can no longer dispose of us freely nor lead us along the pathway of His choice.  What is this, in reality, but to force Him to accommodate himself to our fantasy?  It is to prefer our will to his, to wish to please him on one side, and to disobey him on the other; in a word, to seek him while flying from him. —St Peter of Alcantara ‘Treatise on Prayer and Meditation’

St Peter of Alcantara

St Peter of Alcantara

spacer
Mar192016

Vamos aver

A pleasant day of no work, free time a blessing, leisure an activity in itself. John the Hermit spent the evening visiting, the two of us setting up the Dragon dictation program on his laptop, establishing the means for voice control and writing through dictation, a practice I am using more and more, although I find editing burdensome. I tend to read what I think should be there rather that what is really there. A poor attribute for an editor. I spent the afternoon in Huntsburg, Ohio, driving east on Mayfield Road for twenty miles or so. The terrain is hilly in contrast to the low laying areas I am use to in Southern Michigan and Northwest Ohio. I was visiting a Hospice patient, a ninety-eight year old woman somewhat responsive in a wheelchair. I pushed her to a window overlooking a wooded area and a creek. She was Catholic so we spent the time in prayer, a Rosary, Divine Mercy chaplet, an elaboration on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, also a prayer to Saint Joseph. She was another one that I felt the calling to touch, constantly maintaining contact: a hand on her knee, pulling up her socks, brushing her hair out of her eyes, holding her hand. I learned nearby, in Windsor, Ohio, is the tallest statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, standing over thirty feet tall. Possibly tomorrow I will visit, or in the near future with Mary from the Philippines. It turns out John the Hermit is staying a block and a half from my home–convenient, surely a sign, a friendship solidified. It turns out he knows Mary, Shirley, and when I mentioned Ann’s friend Myron Saad he said he knew of the man, although he made it clear he just knew who he was. He did not know him distinctly. John use to take part in a Franciscan group at the Shrine many years ago.  It is astounding we would meet in Massachusetts at a Maronite Monastery, two of four men staying in the guest house.  Tomorrow we will work further on establishing his speech recognition aptitude. I will also return to Huntsburg, able to give the woman four hours of my time. God is good and all giving. I also wanted to express gratitude. I mentioned the other day my readers hover around eight to nine daily, comfortable in this regard. I do not check that often, yet when I did look into matters I saw the numbers now range around twenty, somewhat surprised with the find. I tell no one of this blog.

Windsor, Ohio Our Lady of Guadalupe private family shrine

Windsor, Ohio Our Lady of Guadalupe private family shrine.  Notice the Crucifix is the head of Rosary beads surrounding the pond. 

 

A St John of the Cross poem in anticipation of a three day Easter weekend retreat:

Stanzas Given a Spiritual Meaning

St John of the Cross

I went out seeking love,
And with unfaltering hope
I flew so high, so high,
That I overtook the prey.
That I might take the prey
Of this adventuring in God
I had to fly so high
That I was lost from sight;
And though in this adventure
I faltered in my flight,
Yet love had already flown so high That I took the prey.
When I ascended higher
My vision was dazzled,
And the most difficult conquest
Came about in darkness;
But since I was seeking love
The leap I made was blind and dark,
And I rose so high, so high,
That I took the prey.
The higher I ascended
In this seeking so lofty
The lower and more subdued
And abased I became.
I said: No one can overtake it!
And sank, ah, so low
That I was so high, so high,
That I took the prey.
In a wonderful way
My one flight surpassed a thousand,
For the hope of heaven
Attains as much as it hopes for;
This seeking is my only hope,
And in hoping, I made no mistake,
Because I flew so high, so high,
That I took the prey.

z13(695)

spacer
Mar192016

Breathing out Joseph breathing in Mary

…Joseph is in charge of making known to all humans: the art of eliminating—eliminating idle thoughts, not by fighting them off but by gently slipping out of their hold, of their implacable logic, as Joseph slipped away from the clutch of Herod’s soldiers.  To fight against evil thoughts, when teaching in the temple, is the best way of making them still more obsessive, more dangerous.  Let us leave the task of facing up to the forces of evil to St Michael; with Joseph who is but a human being as we are, let us learn the precious art of evasion.  It is the art practiced by Jesus at the time of his first confrontation with Satan.

How can one escape the evidence of pride which underscores the superiority of this one, the insignificance of that one, going exactly from one to the other to arrive in both cases to the same inflexibility?  How can one escape from the morbid suggestions of the senses, from attraction for alcohol, drugs or very simply, from the fatal return of fixed ideas?  How can one escape this obsessive past when the Devil easily finds ways of accusing his unfortunate victims, by night and by day, before the throne of God?  Too often, this victim in question agrees with these accusations and thinks that no one else but God could stir up so many truths.

If we learned to practice interior silence with the one who does not speak and who is in charge of teaching it to us, we will be amazed to see mountain’s slide away and disappear…..

What does not come from God, as all masters of spirituality have noted, from Saint Catherine of Siena to St John of the Cross, is often brilliant, inspiring at first, then becomes a source of uneasiness, sadness, perturbation.  What comes from God is often quite bitter, exercises little attraction at first but quickly becomes a source of profound peace…..

We must find the ways of silence in ourselves beginning as we have said in passing, with breathing: to breathe calmly while becoming aware of the symbolic aspects of the operation is, so to speak, the spiritual initiative, the first form of intelligent obedience of the creature to its Creator.  To breathe out with Joseph, (the patron saint of the art of expiring, of eliminating, of dying) in order to breathe in the same way with Mary (the woman inhabited by the Spirit, source of all “inspiration,” divine breath).  Breathing thus experienced becomes like the balancing pole of the tightrope walker, which allows him to move forward on his rope without falling.  Breathing is the only psychic reality on which we have a direct hold to help us cross certain difficult passage where we run the risk of panicking, getting lost, and allowing ourselves to be alienated (with the complicity of the powers of darkness to which one must not give the slightest importance, but whose harmful effects it would be predicted list to ignore).  —Father Andrew Doze ‘Saint Joseph Shadow of the Father’

Joseph

spacer
Mar182016

Friday, last day of twenty-two days of work

I slept late this morning, missing mass at St Clare, heading directly to the Spanish lesson with Lilly. We are accomplishing amazing things. What a refined and cultured married woman God has blessed my life with. All properness in order, a profound friendship is blossoming. The Spanish is coming together. Lilly is an intelligent educated woman of the world. What a tremendous hour at the coffee house being instructed and talking about life and foreign cultures. Lilly and her husband are fallen away Catholics, however she mentions an interest in reading about saints sweeping over her life. She is curious how devout people of religious practice lived their lives. Her cousin is a noted Jesuit priest, an author writing literary criticism. She gave me his name. I will explore. I mentioned St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila. She eagerly wrote the names down, promising research and reading. We will meet again Wednesday, a day before my retreat to Massachusetts. On a discerning level, I am convinced God is introducing all these married women for a reason. Proper behavior and thought is demanded for one always willing to give his heart away. It is enough to have God grant the blessing of so many pleasant women in my life. Friendship is a grace of the highest regard. There is no need to stay attached to dramatics. Enough said for the time being. There is only one I am leery about, and that one, in all honesty, is so adorable in humility, goofiness, and beauty that her charm may be her undoing. In truth, as I seek maturity, in her extreme uniqueness, magnetism, loneliness, devotion to her husband; maturity is a lacking regard—written with do charity and respect. Remember this mischievous kind-hearted one was lying to all the boys in the fifties that she was eighteen when she was fourteen. Now in her seventies, that little girl still lives on. God is good and all giving. Advancing the fellowship, I attended noon Mass at Sacred Heart, astounded by how many people I know. Sacred Heart is a spiritually mature congregation, offering a plenitude of prayer and authentic Catholic fellowship.

spacer