One Man Can Make a Difference!

Yes, you’ve probably heard this before, in many a movie trailer or inspirational talk. But ponder anew the fact that it’s true! By grace poured into the open heart of a man or woman in love with God, incredible things are possible! I heard or read somewhere a story about St. John Vianney, the simple parish priest from rural France who took the world by storm with his transforming holiness. The devil revealed that if there were two more people as open to grace as St. John Vianney alive in the world in his day, then the devil’s plans to ensnare souls would fail. Whoa…

So here’s a piece of Spiritual Dynamite for you…
“One silent, solitary, God-centered, God-intoxicated man can do more to keep God’s love alive and His presence felt in the world than a thousand half-hearted, talkative busy men living frightened, fragmented “lives of quiet desperation.” – Fr. William McNamara

Hmmm, what do you think ’bout that one?

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Great Divide, Part 2

In yesterday’s post, with the inspiration of St. Augustine, we looked at the sad division that exists between the spiritual and the physical. We found that God’s original plan for us is one of union and communion, not division and disruption. But sin has weighed us down; our bodies and our souls are often at war. We all have such deep wounds, and twisted truths that the culture has been cramming down our throats our whole lives. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Grace gives us the upper hand. Openness to Grace transforms heart and mind and, in a certain sense, restores us to our origins. Grace teaches us the truth about our bodies: that they are meant to be shining sacraments that house the Divine Mystery!

What’s that?

Listen to Pope John Paul’s thought: “So in man created in the image of God there was revealed, in a way, the very sacramentality of creation, the sacramentality of the world.”

Huh?

Back to School: A sacrament is a visible sign given to us by Christ to communicate grace (His very life). There are 7 capital “S” sacraments, but we could also say there’s a whole host of little “s” sacraments; visible signs that inwardly speak to us of God. I bet you could think of a half a dozen right now.

The human body, and the call of man and woman to be one flesh, is the primordial sacrament!

Pope John Paul II spent the first 5 years of his calling as Pope to teach this truth to the world, a world still ravaged (like today) by the confusion and disorder of the sexual revolution. From 1979 through 1984, John Paul gave 129 short talks from Rome on the meaning of the body, marital intimacy, and the call of man and woman to become one flesh! Have you ever heard of this teaching? Sadly, many have not. It’s called the Theology of the Body.

Spiritual Filet Mignon (chew slowly)

“The body, in fact, and it alone is capable of making visible what is invisible; the spiritual and divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden in God since time immemorial.” (Pope John Paul II, Feb. 1980)

What is that mystery hidden in God that the body reveals? It is His very own LIFE.

God Himself, the Catechism tells us, is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange! We are destined to be drawn up into the very heart of God!! To enter into the Great Dance!! And God wanted this mystery to be so clear to us that He stamped it’s image right into our bodies, by creating them male and female. Think about it: Man gives himself to woman, woman receives man and from their union a Third person soon emerges. In a tiny, earthy, sacramental way, three persons make one family, one family as three persons. Coincidence? I don’t think so!

This is crazy. This is beyond our wildest dreams. Have you ever heard of this? Is your image of God that of an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud? Has the image of Heaven you’ve grown up with ever felt, well, kinda boring? A little disconnected from the life you experience here and now? Pope John Paul II taught us in this Theology of the Body that the closest image we can fathom here and now of God and Heaven is by the image of the marital embrace of husband and wife and all the joys they experience through that embrace.

Whoa.

Now this is the best analogy we can have, he says, but at the same time, all analogies that we can conceive of in our human experience still fall infinitely short of the transcendent reality of Who God is. But the best analogy we can have is this embrace.

Again, I say… wow.

This Bliss, the resurrection of our bodies and their ultimate union with our souls and our total union with God in a heavenly marriage, is foreshadowed and already happening in the Holy Eucharist. This is where we can become, really, one flesh with Jesus! This is why he called Himself the Bridegroom! Marriage as we experience it here below is a foretaste of the Heavenly Marriage. The Eucharist is a foretaste of Heaven! And we are called to become walking tabernacles that tell the world this truth of our deepest identity and our ultimate destiny!

Whew…. let’s take this to prayer. Let’s be still. This is nuts. This is Catholicism!

Find a quiet corner and ponder this Mystery. Take a coffee break, hide in your cubicle. Take a walk. Better still, make some time today to sit before Jesus in a silent church, bring Him the twisted truths you’ve grown up with, open up your heart to this Divine Doctor of your body and soul and say “awe.”

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Great Divide

There’s something disturbing about this week’s Mission Moment from St. Augustine…

You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
– St. Augustine

I thought that God and the soul and spiritual things were, well, spiritual. What’s with the breathing and smelling fragrances, the panting and thirsting? Augustine sounds so… sensual! Wasn’t he off somewhere? Wasn’t he getting a little carried away? Haven’t we progressed from this 4th century, pagan outlook on God and the soul?

Actually, we’ve regressed. In some ways, we’ve fallen prey to the very heresy that Augustine was set free of back in the “old days.” It was called Manicheanism: a gnostic belief system that espoused that the body and the material world as we know it are bad, bad, bad. Material things were made by an evil god and the Manichees believed the only path to salvation was to hate the body, discipline it, and escape from it through their own secret knowledge of God. For the Manichees, God was always and only a pure Spirit, so far removed from the earth that only the wise and initiated could find Him. For them, God would never touch this evil earth, let alone take on a body Himself!

Hmmm. Now the Church and Her heroic saints dealt heroically with this heresy, especially our saintly Augustine (it’s an amazing story, check out his book Confessions). But let’s look at the ways this heresy about the body has crept into our minds like a black and oily smoke. Let’s peer into the Great Divide that surrounds us making us believe that the body and soul are at best, battling brothers.

Is this part of the plan? Did any of us grow up thinking that the body is somehow less good than the soul? That the body is somehow dirty or a distraction or a hindrance to my “spiritual” self; like some intrusive piece of luggage we have to carry with us on the way to Heaven, where we’ll finally “shuffle off this mortal coil?” Well, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be!

In the beginning, God made a harmony out of humanity, marrying the material to the spiritual! And we are His master work. The body is good, God made it! The world is a gift, His Hands shaped it! God’s plan is always this union, this communion of the two. The Devil’s plan, in his insane jealousy of humanity, is always to divide, to pull apart, to separate. Death, which is the consequence of sin, is the epitome of this Great Divide. Death separates our souls from our bodies. But this is not God’s original plan! That’s why death is so ghastly, a horror and a smear on the face of the universe. Ghosts and corpses are frightening because they were never meant to be (see Peter Kreeft’s article for more on this thought!)

But it will not always be this way. For God Who is Love is stronger than death. There is a promise we’re given and to which we must cling like the sick woman on the hem of Christ’s garments; we will rise again. Our very bodies will rise again! It’s to this hope that Augustine sings his love poetry: You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. And he is only echoing what he had read in the Scriptures, written so many centuries before:

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God (Psalm 42:2-3).

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1-3).

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; even my body shall rest in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let your beloved know decay (Psalm 15).

To be continued…!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Masterpiece Monday # 6

Today’s masterpiece is Domenico Feti’s “Moses before the Burning Bush.“ He was an Italian painter, living from around 1589 to 1623.

This portrait of the shepherd of Sinai is one of my favorites because of it’s weight and it’s warmth. You can feel in the tightly packed space the intimacy of this Encounter. Moses is strong and his flesh browned by the years he’s spent tending the flocks of Jethro. As he moves to undo his sandal, his gaze remains fixed on the theophany before him, the shimmering manifestation of that Other World, a World that is now breaking into his own. This mission moment will forever change him, and there will be no turning back.

The types are all here, the Lamb appears below, as if to nod in affirmation that God Himself will one day prepare the sacrifice, and the fire pulsates, a heart of flame pointing to that Sacred Heart that will soon be formed in the womb of a Virgin, and beat with the deepest love for humanity. And in the middle of the canvas, Moses gazing on the Mystery, ready to open up his mind to the Inconceivable and accept the call to lead. May his fiery resolve and burning determination light a fire in our own minds and hearts. May we too look to the Flame that burns without consuming, the flame that shines beside every tabernacle where the Holy of Holies dwells; Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the True Manna from Heaven!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Be Nice to One Another?

If you’ve grown up in the midst of a cool Christianity (see the On Fire entry), you might think that the call of the Gospel today is to “be nice.”

And Jesus said unto them “Be nice to one another as I have been nice to you.”

But I think we’re called to step beyond “nice.” To be “nice” is the secular equivalent of being virtuous, but with the fire taken out of it. “Nice” is like bizzaro holiness. It’s not a hot word, but it’s not cold either. It’s like Cream of Wheat without the brown sugar.

We say so often today that a given person is “nice” and what do we really mean to say? That person is innocuous. There is no spice in them. They are about as tasty as a meatloaf dinner at a diner (by the way, you should never order a meatloaf dinner at a diner. My wife thinks it should be illegal).

Nice is not a heroic adjective. People are called nice if they don’t do bad things. It’s a word that serves more as a filler than a flattery. What do you say when there’s nothing else to say?

“Oh, it was… nice.”

“No, it looks really… nice.”

“He’s a nice guy though.”

I was talking to a friend awhile back about the etymology of the word “nice” – we were smoking rich maduro cigars on a balcony (trust me this is like once a year), and trying to blow smoke rings like a couple of hobbits. (Many people do not believe cigar smoke is a nice thing to subject people to, by the way). We thought maybe the word “nice” comes from the Latin nescio, which means “I don’t know.”

“What do you think of this outfit?”
“It looks…. nice.”

“How was your date last night?”
“He was… nice.”

Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said “God is not nice. God is not an Uncle. God is an earthquake.”

I love it. The gospel today, no matter how it may be translated through the heart of a given priest or deacon, is still a gospel of radical fire. It is an remains a two-edged sword, slicing through our common everydays and calling us out into the deep! One step beyond mediocrity, it’s been said, and we are saved! It’s with the deepest love and reverence for our priests that I say this now:

Some of you are handing us Cream of Wheat on Sundays. There are so many insipid homilies and catechetical blackholes in Catholic parish life today. Challenge us! Speak the Truth in love! Call us higher, even if we kick and scream on this path to holiness like kids on the way to the dentist. Be our fathers and fearlessly lead us.

Today, ironically, a visiting priest came to our parish. In a quiet tone, he preached a challenging word to us. It was so refreshing. May God stir more hearts to the radical love of the gospel! May we move from the nice to the new, from the bland to the beautiful banquet that Our Father has prepared for us!

And… have a nice day.

(By the way, New Zealand has a website devoted to Nice People. I’m not making this up)

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

WORD UP!

Hooray! It’s time for a new addition to The Heart of Things blog! Along with such classics (and I use that term very loosely) as Masterpiece Monday, Filmables, and the Mission Moment quote of the week, I now introduce “WORD UP!” – an occasional attempt to redeem the meaning of words!

Without a doubt, many of the words we use today have had the soul taken right out of them by a culture that often just can’t get beyond the surface of things. Words like love, passion, purity, and God can sometimes fall like empty shells on our modern ears. We think we know what they mean, so the rich seed within is left to wither. But we’ve got to get to the heart of things, remembering that words are like jewels to be treasured and never tossed around lightly. The WORD UP! for today is humility.

Today’s gospel is from Matthew 23, and the last line is well known to most: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Now I think the smeared lens through which we can view the word humility often leaves us thinking that it means, “to be walked upon like a doormat.” Or to be humble means to have a low opinion of yourself, to always demean yourself when complimented. You’re 6’3″ and someone says “Wow, you’re really tall!” and you reply with downcast eyes, “Oh, I’m really 5’6″” Or an admirer watching Michelangelo finish his last stroke in the Sistine Chapel says “Unbelievable! What an amazing gift you have!” and Michelangelo sheepishly replies. “Really, it’s nothing…”

What the!? Nooooooo!!! The fact of the matter is HUMILITY IS TRUTH!

I heard an explanation once of the roots of this word humility. It comes from the Latin humus which means earth. Humus is the rich, dark soil that’s left when it has broken down and been purified. The Greek root would be chamai<!–i, meaning on the ground. So humility is not puffing oneself up and placing oneself on a mountaintop (Woohoo! Look at me everyone!) and it’s not digging a hole in the ground and burying yourself in it either; hiding under a bushel basket as if the beauty that’s in you wasn’t really in you. Humility is to stand on the ground of who you are. No pretenses, no puffing up, and no self-deflating remarks either.

HUMILITY IS TRUTH!

And what a freedom there is in true humility. It’s accepting ourselves for who we are, and in that acceptance of our own reality, in true humility, we send down roots into the rich, dark soil of our humanity. Then we let our gifts spread up and out like branches into the wide air all about us. And we are free! The truth has set us free! Now others can see the good that God has done in creating us, each unique and unrepeatable in the cosmic stream of human existence. Humility then is the grounded acceptance of our own deepest identity: we are creatures created and redeemed by a loving God, who Himself was humbled so that we could be exalted! True humility is born when we receive ourselves in this truth.

Here’s an excellent thought from Marianne Williamson to close:

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Nothing News

Let’s face it; the news is ridiculously depressing, most if not all of the time. Call me aloof or out of the loop or an escapist, but most of the time, I’d really rather not read it. I love G.K. Chesterton’s insight on how unrealistic the reports can be (if this is your first taste of Chesterton, read slowly and savor it like steak!):

We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe,” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet.” They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.
– The Ball and the Cross (1910)

Thoreau once said we should “read not the Times, but read the Eternities.” The Times, so often, are full of our falleness: the gashing disobedience, the destruction, the diabolical division that our greed unleashes upon the world. But in the quiet of the every day where we live, I believe most of us are making heroic choices; selfless leaps into the lives of others in a million little ways. I believe most of us work and sweat and offer up our being for the betterment of our families, friends, and communities. Maybe we volunteer time, or we pray for those who ask; we go to church on Sunday and maybe more often than that. We read some scripture (even just a little of that antidote can kick the poison out of our Times). We appreciate kindness, and offer it ourselves from the roadways to the foodstore, throughout the day.

When we put God or others before ourselves, we open a door that lets Eternity enter the Times. The doorways are all around us! It’s a “thousand times more common.” This news, that God is REAL, that life is GOOD, that we are LOVED, is rarely printed or shouted from the rooftops. But this good news (so good!) is the quiet revolution that keeps the planet spinning.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Mission Moments

I need to stand at the gate of wisdom every morning. If only for a few moments, I need to sit still and listen for a word from God. I started the simple practice of sending the moments I came upon to friends in 2001. I figured with the huge cacophony of words we're bombarded with every day, why not send a small envoy of ones that might stick? Maybe inspire, comfort, stir things up if necessary?

These words are in our midst; in Scripture, in books, poems, songs and scattered conversations. And they have unlimited power, if we listen to them. They have dropped like jewels from God and only wait for us to pick them up and treasure them. I call these Mission Moments, inspiring insights from humanity that, if received with an open heart at the right moment, can alter our attitudes, even change the very course of our lives.

What word will you hear today? What word will you speak? Is there power in it? Does it come from Heaven? Is it bigger than you are, stronger? Does it seem to be leading you somewhere? I know these words are out there, in here. Maybe the first move is to build a culture of silence in my heart. Then there's a space for the word to fall, to sink in, to germinate.

There may be mission moments buried in the songs you'll hear today on the radio. Maybe a child will whisper a word and it will sparkle in a new way for you. Maybe you'll read something that has the fragrance of eternity in it. Maybe an e-mail that says Fwd:fwd:fwd:Must read! Do not delete!

It could happen.

Who can say what it will be or where it will be found? Let's listen, wait and see…

+

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Photo Fraud

I just caught this from Steve Ray’s website. Photo Fraud regarding the Israeli and Hezbollah conflict. Do our eyes deceive us?

http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Talon or My Near Death Experience at Dorney Park

Slightly Stale but Still Relevant

I have to apologize to my readers. My intention in starting this blog was to share fresh experiences – the thoughts, insights and inspirations that come through daily encounters. I neglected to comment on the event in today’s “post” the day after it happened, because… well… my subconscious was trying to block it out.

FLASHBACK: My wife’s family came down a few weeks ago from NY, and we planned on dazzling them with the many spectacles that can be found in and around the Greater Philadelphia area (no, we did NOT have cheesesteaks). We visited the Franklin Institute, jumped in Logan Square’s fountain, paid alot for parking, etc… but the key experience was when we broke the chains of the city and headed north to Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom (I don’t know why they don’t just call it Dorney Kingdom or something).

It was a perfect day to visit Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom – that conglomeration of metal, plastic and tubular structures – because that day it was 237 degrees in the shade. We parked in the lot (about 3 miles from the gate), and like nomads crossing the Sahara, we trudged over the steaming asphalt, got to the “Welcome” booth, and emptied our entire wallets into the hands of the teenager with the “official” Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom polo shirt (don’t except imitations!). Then like kids at Christmas, lost in a mountain of ribbons and wrapping paper, we pounced into the nearest pool, laughing, giggling, splashing. Then the kids in our group jumped in.

I think our parched bodies took in at least 6 tons of water throughout our day at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom. And that was really NICE. Everywhere you’d turn, there was a place to submerge. We surfaced only to eat a homemade lunch, because it cost $713 to eat anything there. Our makeshift meal was eaten in the Sahara, I mean parking lot, on top of a boogie board resting on two traffic cones we found. Then we ran back in to Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom as if a pack of wild saber-toothed dogs were after us! It was at this point where the details get a little foggy and why today is the first time I’m writing this down. My brave young nephew said to me, “It’s time for the Talon.”

Now the Talon is a “rollercoaster”, which in Latin translates as “a voluntary near death experience.”

Ride Stats on the Talon
Height: 135 feet
Drop: 120 feet
Top speed: 58 mph
Inversions (whatever that means): 4
Length: 3,110 feet
Train Mfg: Bolliger and Mabillard (can these guys be trusted?)

More Information
Vertical Loop, Zero-G Roll, Corkscrew

What are those… Ninja moves? Is this legal? Whatever, let’s do it! (I hope you’re sitting down. Of course you are, who stands at a computer?) They locked us in. Metal scraped on metal. I think a little whimper noise came out of my lips, but I quickly coughed. “This is gonna be…. cool.”

Spinning, tumbling…. I think we broke the sound barrier. I know what a Zero-G Roll is now. I shook his hand. Zipping, swirling. We just tore through the time-space continuum like scissors through paper. I saw my life flash before my eyes: those happy childhood days, watching the Donny and Marie Show, playing with Star Wars action figures in the backyard, the first time I saw Indiana Jones (so cool!), and the time President Carter went driving past in a limo when I was 8 or something. Then I realized these weren’t images in my mind, they were in the car with me! We had broken the time-space continuum! AAAAHHHH!!!!

The ride was over. I heard a swoooosh sound. I looked around me and the universe and all the people in it fell back into their proper places and times. My nephew (oh yeah, he’s here too!) was the color of skim milk. But then a little smile of gratitude cracked on his face. He would see the 7th grade after all! I looked down and saw my one hand still gripping the cushioned handlebar, and in the other was a Luke Skywalker action figure.

“Let’s do it again!”

Human beings are curious creatures. Squirrels don’t construct rollercoasters. Chickens do not bungee jump off of bridges just for kicks. But we do stuff like that. We push ourselves, we flood our senses to the breaking point sometimes. Why?

Well, we can ponder that one another day. I’m exhausted.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org