Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in. The maid who kept the door said to Peter, “Are not you also one of this man’s disciples?” He said, “I am not.” Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves; Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself……Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him, “Are not you also one of his disciples?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”
“I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.” They said to him then, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world.”
And He (Jesus) answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?
Then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.”God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
St Peter of Alcantara ‘Treatise on Prayer and Meditation’
Strain not after tears, strive not for sentiments of devotion, do not force your heart. Rest rather in interior solitude. Dwell therein quietly, waiting until God’s will be accomplished in you. When it shall please him to send you tears, oh, how sweet will those tears be, for is not your impatience that has secured them: they are the fruits of humility and of peace. On your part, then, you must receive them with the deepest self-effacement, allowing God to work in you. Note well, that if ever you fancy this desire or the securing of these affections to be in any measure due to yourself, you will infallibly expose yourself to the losing of them.
If you wish, in all sincerity, to advance along this way (the path of perfection) and reach the goal you have proposed to yourself, have no other intention and no other desire than that of seeking God. Whenever you meet Him and he shows Himself to you, quit there all the rest, and advance no further tail He allows you.
Canticle of Canticles
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please.
One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus
Flexibility, patience, a willingness to detach from plans, seems to be the message early into an Easter vacation enjoyed at home. In other words, nothing has gone right on day one. After mass, Lilly never showed for our Spanish lesson. Once, we made contact I was surprised to hear a tremendous level of stress in her life. She was greatly agitated she forgot our lesson, apologizing over and over, explaining there are personal issues she is dealing with. Determined to convince me this is not who she is. I assured her I placed complete trust in her, explaining I had no doubt regarding her veracity, nor sincerity. I refused to allow her to go on apologizing, informing her of my decision to delight in my vacation at home, allowing an ease of altering plans. We will reschedule. I then received a series of texts, apologizing formally, explaining she has been overwhelmed with mental issues involving her adopted child from Mexico. More and more, I grow secure that within our Spanish lessons God is placing us to gather in order to exercise enriching fellowship. Maybe I am right and maybe I am wrong. Speaking of respecting married women, yesterday I spent the day with the one I am leery of, or rather with her Jewish husband. It was the dago’s birthday. She refers to herself as the ‘dago’ at times, enlightening me to the fact dagos and Jews marry all the time. It is a common love of knick-knacks that brings them together. Dago and Jews love to fill their homes with lots of knick-knacks that is why so many of them marry. However, although she is a dago, she does not like knick-knacks, yet her Jewish husband does. Those are some of the things she tells me. It was her birthday yesterday. Her and her friend Ruth spent the day at the casino in celebration. My watching her husband allowed for her respite. Leaving her home, her friend Ruth exclaimed what a wonderful conversationalist I am. She exclaimed, ‘Oh him and I cannot stop talking once we start. That man has so many girlfriends. I cannot keep track of them’. I could only think, ‘No I don’t’, chuckling to myself, adoring my time as usual with her and her husband. The time with the husband was blessed, we talked quite a bit. He kept pulling his glasses off, cluing me to the fact they needed cleaning. Once, I put them back on his face, he managed a ‘thank you’. I have conceded that everything is good with the couple. Nothing improper is happening. I do extremely enjoy my time with her, yet I perceive it is the fact she is such an adorable character. I have always been drawn to characters. People who are unique and odd attract me. I will accept the fact she will call me even though the Hospice has asked her not to. They have standards, regulations, and boundaries. She does not make trouble, and they are trying to protect me. Her resolution was that we just have to make sure they do not know she is calling me. My next visit s already scheduled. I will allow God to introduce friends into my life. She is truly a remarkable woman. Something that goes unstated is the fact this smaller woman takes care of her larger, standing about six foot three, husband alone and efficiently. She does everything herself with an absolute love for her husband. She has been doing this for almost a decade. Through all this, I do not see the slightest sign of feeling sorry for herself, never exclaiming the virtue of what she is doing. Her disposition is zestful, joyous, and upbeat. Her good looks, her maintaining of a fashionable persona, are intrinsic. She is not trying to be anything special. There is a quality about her quirkiness she is not aware of. She is strong in ways she does not recognize. I see it and I am honored to assist her, to bring male companionship to her husband. Her charm will not be reciprocated with undo emotion, nor improper admiration. I often highly respect a person who is moral, doing the right thing, not through faith. Lacking an overwhelming devotion to God, she does what is right and difficult without blinking an eye, simply insisting it would be wrong to do anything else. Refusing an easy path, such as placing her husband in a nursing home, or God forbid divorce, she performs the demanding with not the least bit of complaint, nor declaration, verbalized or silent, that she is performing the heroic. There is something of grace working within such earnest adherence–humble, natural, and simple–to ethics and morality.
I want to go to recent readings from Mass, reflections upon work intermixing with Divine Words.
Hear me, O islands, listen, O distant peoples. The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me…
Isaiah
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult, and shame covers my face. I have become an outcast to my brothers, a stranger to my mother’s sons, because zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for consolers, not one could I find. Rather they put gall in my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving: “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Away from work, I was thinking about work. My work environment is chaotic; ruthless in politics, survival, and vanity. I am spiritually exhausted from the chicanery, feeling as if I cannot plan a long-term commitment to such nonsense, always simmering the thought of a religious life on the back-burner. Basically, I simply do not enjoy working in a factory. I despise it. Within our department, there is a brutality, a constant maneuvering and harshness in order to maintain position with the pecking order. I simply refuse to participate, thus I am open to being perceived as weak. I am the ridicule of bitter and sarcastic words daily. Yet I am no different than others for all are treated in this manner. Others fight back, or are constantly finagling clichés and alliances in order to combat attacks. Attacks are prevented by attacks, the best defense being an offense. I refuse to play. I do not respond. It all wears me out, yet if my faith is relevant the above words of scripture are more than theoretical. They are a living reality. I do not fear, accepting the ways of the world. If permanency were to develop it would be through these ways. Already, I see some observing, comprehending I am authentic.
Enough, time for adoration and a jog. Another note on my introductory claim nothing was going as planned on the first day of vacation. The weekly rental car rate was out of the world expensive. There is a great demand for the Easter weekend, the weekly cost asked by Enterprise being a hundred more than I paid for the week going to Massachusetts. Yet somehow it works out that a decent weekend rate was acquired. Allowing God to alter, I am not going to attend the Tenebrae service in Toledo at the Rosary Cathedral. I will wait for all travel to Toledo and Ann Arbor to occur on Friday through Sunday. I called the Cleveland diocese, striking upon a wonderful conversation with a ‘Catholic living specialist’ who is making it her mission to find me a special Tenebrae service here in Cleveland. I assume I could find one at St Stephen, yet I will be patient and see what she tosses upon my plate. A further sign, the vacation is being launched under the command of Divine Will is a telephone call from the Hospice, presenting a four hour bedside vigil tomorrow after spiritual direction. God is good and all giving.
For contemplative downtime, a video from favorite musicians, the amazing Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
“So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
I was thinking about identity in Christ, scripturally based.
Our Holy Mother, without God, if such a thing were possible, on her own and with God and her Son: the Queen of Heaven.
Simon, a denier and too quick with words, on his own, contrasted with Peter within Christ: the rock of the Church.
Matthew the collector of taxes within Christ an Apostle, the writer of a Gospel.
Mary Magdalen, a miserable sinner, viewed aside a woman immersed in Christ, an identity of repentance and reform, an individual of sublime wisdom and insight, one content, contrite and at peace.
Saul, the vindictive man of the law, experiencing Christ in a vision, reformed to Paul, the spreader of the Good Word and more.
John the Evangelist, christened into a Son of Thunder, the Catholic mystic and writer extraordinaire.
John the Baptist, leaping in the womb, baptizing on into eternity, Christ his eternal Savior and friend. St Francis de Sales identities John the Baptist as the greatest follower of Divine Will with some intriguing thought. John the Baptist accepted his God ordained mission, a voice crying in the wilderness. He knew Jesus from birth forward. He knew Jesus in all his glory. He had to accept he could not follow closely to his beloved. He was not chosen as a disciple. He accepted his own mission, while surely in his heart he must have longingly desired to be near Jesus, to hear his every word, to witness his every breath.
Quick ruminations on lives lived deeply within Christ.
Men’s Sacred Heart fellowship today, and truly a blessing it is. The insight struck penetratingly that it is not the profoundness that is significant. New answers, life changing decrees, are not why I am attending. I do not need to be there, yet it behooves me to participate. The opening comprised of the singing of three hymns is actually enough, setting the tone of camaraderie and joy. Fellowship is healing. It is fun to sing together as a group of men. In number, I believe there were fifteen men today. We read the coming scriptural readings for Sunday’s Mass. In the first reading from Isiah words arose relevant: I am doing something new. God is doing something new, something never done before through His Son Jesus Christ. Us men gathering is nothing new, yet it is relevant. After the readings, we listened to a Bishop Barron homily on the readings. The Gospel reading was the adulterous woman dragged before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees. Bishop Barron expressed the poignant insight, defining the brutality of the religious authorities in applying God’s laws. There is a lack of love in their exercising of the commandments of God. Bishop Barron humorously points out the woman was caught in the very act of adultery. What in the world were these men doing to catch her in the act? Then they drag her to Jesus, humiliating and degrading the sinner. They do not want to heal, nor are they concerned for her soul. Even further, they desire to use the law to corner Jesus in a theological error. The men are treacherous and conniving in their perceived service to God. We must not judge them, concentrating upon their short-sighted behavior. Rather, we must see ourselves in the men. The woman is brought forth spiritually naked, brutalized in spirit, brought forth as nothing more than a means to a self-serving deceiving end. The sinner, a wounded broken soul, is stripped of all dignity, accused and accosted by those determined to bring about the laws of God. Jesus, doing something new, reaches into the heart, extending love and understanding. He heals the woman, bestowing grace. He forgives the woman. In the process, teaching those who would raise themselves above their brothers and sisters something new. There is something new under the sun and that something new is Jesus, the Savior and Son of God. Even today, over two thousand years after His birth, Christ is something new. I am grateful for the fellowship shared at Sacred Heart. I was scheduled for a bedside vigil this morning and afternoon, however a message waited for me after the men’s meeting. The patient passed away. I will recognize the fact as a sign, interpreting a calling to prayer at St Paul Shrine. It has been weeks since I have been able to attend.
Thus says the LORD,
who opens a way in the sea
and a path in the mighty waters,
who leads out chariots and horsemen,a powerful army,
till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,
snuffed out and quenched like a wick.
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
Wild beasts honor me,
jackals and ostriches,
for I put water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland
for my chosen people to drink,
the people whom I formed for myself,
that they might announce my praise.
And God gazed upon everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. –Genesis
And the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the LORD to gaze and many of them perish. And also let the priests who come near to the LORD consecrate themselves, lest the LORD break out upon them.” –Exodus
God did not wish to have man alone in the throes of evil. And so he turned his gaze to Mary.
How beautiful is the gaze with which Jesus regards us – how full of tenderness! Let us never lose trust in the patience and mercy of God. –Tweet from Pope Francis
I heard from the Maronite Monks of Adoration. Easter weekend is going to happen, a visit from Thursday to Monday morning manifesting, allowing Friday through Sunday exaltation. A thin place allowing God’s gaze acute attentiveness.
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