Spirituality, sin, and the ordinary

It is amazing how very predictable life is, especially when I begin to pay close attention and endeavor to live in the manner of disciple of Christ. I always convince myself that I am doing very well, making progress as it were...and, then, BOOM! Something happens. I respond to what happens by reproaching myself, by focusing on my failure, my lapse, before coming to understand all over again how merciful God is, how good God is, what Jesus meant when he said: "No one is good except God alone" (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). It is too easy to read this verse as a reproach, to reduce it to a condemnation instead of a simple statement about reality. Experience is the only way to learn this truth, to know it.

It is always nice to receive sound spiritual advice because it is so rare. Sound spiritual advice is simple, not complicated. This is why the desert fathers are as relevant today as they were more than a millennia and a half ago. So, here's some simple advice: read C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters in a serious way, not as a fable, but as serious literature, like The Brothers Karamazov. It is very easy to reduce this work to a funny little exchange between one fairly harmless and one almost hapless demon. That this work is meant to be taken seriously is indicated in Lewis' preface when he writes: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. The sort of script which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but disposed or excitable people who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me."

To give an example of what I am trying to express, I offer an excerpt from the first letter written by Screwtape to Wormwood:

"Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch."

Gaudete Sunday

Today, which marks the Third Sunday of Advent, is Gaudete Sunday. The word gaudete is Latin for rejoice and is taken from the introit for today's Mass, which, in turn, is taken from Philippians 4:4-5: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice! The Lord is near."

This year, Gaudete Sunday falls on St. Lucy's day, which, along with St. Nicholas' day, is a big deal in our house. I always find it delightful when a the feast of a great saint falls on Sunday because it reminds us that it is all about Jesus, our Lord, to whom Santa Lucia gave witness through her matryrdom.

I especially like the alternative prayer for this Sunday, which can be used as the Opening Prayer for Mass and the final prayer for Lauds and Vespers:

"Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
ever faithful to your promises
and ever close to your Church:
the earth rejoices in hope of the Savior's coming
and looks forward with longing
to his return at the end of time.

"Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness
that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope
which his presence will bestow,
for he is Lord for ever and ever"

I am slowly learning that life in Christ just has to be lived, through living comes joy. There are so many silly things that can distract me. Preaching spontaneously at a baptism a few months ago, I said something like "The Gospel is simple: love God with all you heart, might, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. What clouds this simplicity is sin. First, my own sinfulness, then that of others. Even so, the simplicity remains and in order to be holy I have to live this simplicity, which is difficult, but with God nothing is impossible."

Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe- ruegue para nosotros

Following closely on the heels of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is today. I was in Ft. Worth, Texas for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. I went to a midday Mass at a small church that was about one third full. I had to stifle a very juvenile chuckle when the lector, a lovely lady from Texas, reading the first passage from Genesis, said "nekkid" instead of "naked." Truthfully, I prefer nekkid because, in keeping with the spirit of the reading, it has a naughty undertone. Anyway, the glorious feast we celebrate today comes just before the half way point of Advent and a day before Eastern Christians and we Latins who follow the Eastern discipline intensify our Nativity Fast in preparation for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord. Following the Byzantine discipline, from 13 December to 24 December, this intensification consists of abstaining from meat and meat products, dairy products, fish (excluding shell fish, which can be eaten), and olive oil. However, olive oil and wine can be taken on Saturdays and Sundays. It also means that on Wednesdays and Fridays no food is to be eaten between meals and that meals should be moderate in quantity, ideally only one per day, or even fasting from food altogether.

I do not write this to get others to do it. In fact, do NOT do this on the spur of the moment because fasting requires preparation and discernment. So, do something more manageable, but penitential, and start planning ahead for Lent!

This morning also marked the first ever Communion and Liberation Advent Retreat in Utah, which built on the Fraternity's Spiritual Exercises, From Faith, the Method. I was powerfully reminded that my encounter with Christ is not merely an idea, it is a fact, an event that not only happens in history, but in my history. My on-going encounter with Christ is always more than than I can express, will always be more than I can ever express, whether in a given moment or over the entire course of my life. As Fr. Erik told us, when it comes to the mystery of Christ I am always an ant looking at elephant, but even what I see from my limited perspective is glorious, awful at times and awe-inspiring at others, but no less glorious for all that. My inability to express the fullness of my heart is what has kept me from posting this week. Like Mary, this Advent I am trying to treasure "all these things, pondering them in [my] heart" (Luke 2:19).

"Surrender don't come natural to me...

...I'd rather fight you for something I don't really want than take what you give that I need"

I needed this song today. I am thankful my friend Michael made me remember Rich, his music, and Hold Me Jesus- our Friday traditio.

"How can I display what I know I'm worthy of"

I didn't post a traditio yesterday. In order to correct my error, here is Tom Jones singing A Boy From Nowhere live in Cardiff, Wales.

"Where good honest men grow weak and the rich grow strong, something's wrong "

Tom is was a Welsh boy from nowhere and now look at him, a great singer and a good and gracious man with a few flaws!

A brief take on the importance of marriage

I am hard-pressed to write anything really meaningful or even heartfelt at the moment, not because there is nothing on my heart or mind, but because I have been so very busy. I finished all my coursework for my graduate degree and now have to begin writing my Integrated Pastoral Research paper on the emerging ecclesial identity of the permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, much to ponder there...

In light of the USCCB's document Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan and the Manhattan Declaration, both of which set forth very well the Christian view on marriage and take on many of the very shallow arguments in favor of altering the fundamental meaning of marriage, my mind is very much on this subject. If you look, you will find good things in the most unexpected places, like in the British tabloid-like newspaper The Daily Mail. Of course, it was in The Mail this past spring that A.N. Wilson announced his return to Christian faith. In yesterday's on-line edition, author Sally Emerson recounts the importance of marriage and family by recounting a torrid affair she had with Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, early in her marriage. She also recounts how she came to her senses about life and love, something many who go down that path never do. Towards the end of her lovely article, 'My wild affair with author Douglas Adams and how returning to my husband taught me the true value of marriage', she writes: "I can't understand in whose interests it might be to allow this most ancient institution to crumble. The facts and figures of countless research studies are devastatingly conclusive: children with two devoted parents tend to do better at school and have fewer behavioural problems. It is not hard to work out why.

"A government should not be trying to knock down the edifices which make us happy, but should be trying to build them up."

Prayer and the heart

It is amazing how busy my life is! Once in awhile it catches up to me. It certainly has this week. Instead of spending time writing, I am spending it reading and praying more. It's always amazing to me how much a little more effort yields, how much it changes my perspective on life, people, things. I suppose this is the purpose of Advent.

There is certainly a lot going in the world at present, including Pres. Obama's announcement that we will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan for an eighteen month period. What bothers me is that, like the Bush Administration, Obama, in declaring Afghanistan not lost, has yet to spell out in a succinct manner just what our desired end state is, what we want to achieve politically and in terms of security (i.e., number of Afghani army and police troops trained, equipped, fielded, etc.). In other words, clear benchmarks against which we can measure progress. It seems to me that this is more important that saying by July 2011 we will begin reducing troops levels, which seems kind of arbitrary to me.

A picture taken by my friend, Carlo, last Thursday
So, many things, perhaps too many. It becomes increasingly clear to me how much prayer is needed. I am always bothered by how ambiguous that statement is. When we pray for someone or some other specific intention, we, too, need to be specific. What exactly are we praying for in any given situation? It is important for us to pray in God's will, which means to subject what we pray for to judgment. We judge our intentions against the criteria of the Gospel, not some subjective standard. While we certainly ask God to intervene, to get involved, to change the person or circumstances. What means does God use? Among the means at God's disposal, which are literally infinite, God primarily uses us, or at least wants to use us, as far-fetched as that may seem. This puts me in mind of Tolstoy's famous quip to the effect that everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change himself.

It also seems that we use in far too sentimental a way sayings like Ghandi's "be the change you want to see." By what criteria do I judge the change I may want? In other words, how can I be sure that the change I seek is for the better in the service of the good? Even assuming that the change I seek is for the good, how do I become that change? These two seemingly disparate things connect. The primary means God has for intervening is us, as far-fetched as that may seem. So, the change we pray for most of all is a change in me, in my heart. Of course, I also pray for God to powerfully intervene in affairs and in the lives of people in ways that are beyond me, over and above me, or even ways too subtle for me to detect. I do this in the confidence that God is already involved and at work. I think of what St. Paul in that beautiful passage from his letter to the Romans: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect," then pray for that God's will done in you and through you (12:2). Prayer is not calling on a God who is otherwise absent. As Pope Benedict said at the start of this Advent: "God is here, he hasn’t retired to his world, he hasn’t left us alone." This was perhaps the major point I tried to make in my homily on Sunday.

It is crucial that it all start with gratitude, not gratitude generally, vaguely, and sentimentally construed, lifted up as a half-hearted gift, as some kind of God-ordained prerequisite, but genuine thanksgiving, a movement of the heart toward God for what you face right now, which is nothing other than a step toward your destiny. I think this goes some distance to unpacking what Paul means when he exhorts us to "be transformed by the renewal of [our]mind[s]."