Prayers for Little Mary

Friends of ours are going through a real Way of Sorrows right now, and they continue to plead for prayers from the larger Church for their baby girl. You can learn more about little Mary’s story here but for now, this is the latest from the Coffey’s:

“Today was a difficult day. Now is the time, everyone please, to form one voice in pleading to God for Mary’s healing. Her surgeon told us today that he does not expect Mary to recover and it would be a miracle if she did. His words were kind, but the facts remain. Despite those facts, there is great cause for hope. God is good all the time. The doctors said she needs a miracle.. well.. there is no doubt that if Mary lives it will be all to the glory of God. So please pray hard, pray now, offer up whatever you can for Mary’s healing, and we will leave the rest to God in His infinite mercy….”

You can find special prayers at the website just for this intention, and more on Mary’s condition. This faith-filled family has been a powerful example to so many. Please remember them in your prayers.

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

What is FOCA?

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

Fire and Freedom

Before His gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with Him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves… His gaze, the touch of His heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.
– Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

I love the Pope. I love this challenging invitation from the Holy Father, a man anointed and appointed by the Holy Spirit to guide and govern the Church on earth. And though this invitation speaks of great pain, I take the greatest comfort from these “burning” words of his, because…

1. I know they are true, and
2. He has the courage to tell us this truth.

Christianity is not a sugar-coated religion, an escape, or a crutch. It is not unrealistic, or naive. It is standing arms outstretched in the midst of scorching winds; it is stepping into the white hot furnace where the three young man danced before an evil king of this world in the Old Testament. It is a New Testament. It is a test, it is our testimony…. a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

And as a dear professor of theology once told me, “Everything that happened to Jesus must happen to us.” So when we find ourselves in this fire of sorrow, then we find ourselves in the best of company.

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

New Podcast Up: The Ministry of Courage

In this week’s show, I spoke with Dominic Lombardi, Director of the Family Life Office in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and Richard and Paul, facilitator and member, respectively, of the Church sanctioned Courage Apostolate. The podcast is available here.

The Courage Apostolate (from the website)

Persons with homosexual desires have always been with us; however, until recent times, there has been little, if any, formal outreach from the Church in the way of support groups or information for such persons. Most were left to work out their path on their own. As a result, they found themselves listening to and accepting the secular society’s perspective and opting to act on their same-sex desires. His Eminence, the late Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York, was aware of, and troubled by this situation. He knew that the individual dealing with same-sex attractions truly needed to experience the freedom of interior chastity and in that freedom find the steps necessary to living a fully Christian life in communion with God and others. He was concerned that many would not find this path and would be constantly trying to get their needs met in ways that ultimately do not satisfy the desires of the heart. In response to this concern, he decided to form a spiritual support system which would assist men and women with same-sex attractions in living chaste lives in fellowship, truth and love.

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

Abortion Changes You

A new podcast is up on the very controversial topic of abortion. Michaelene Fredenburg is the creator of Abortion Changes You, an outreach for those affected directly or indirectly by abortion. Staying away from the polarization that often takes place in the culture, Michaelene instead focuses on the hearts left wounded by abortion, She has created a place for healing, sharing stories, and building a new life after the fallout of a practice that is taking its toll on countless unseen victims every day. Michaelene’s own story follows…. please consider passing this story on to someone whom you know needs support.

“When I became pregnant at 18, I had an abortion. I was completely unprepared for the emotional fallout. I thought the abortion would erase the pregnancy. I thought I could move on with my life. I was wrong. I experienced periods of intense anger followed by periods of profound sadness. When my feelings became too difficult to deal with, I reached out for help from a trained counselor. With counseling and the help of supportive friends, I was able to enter into a healthy grieving process. In addition to grieving the loss of my child, I slowly became aware of how my choice to abort had impacted my family. I was surprised and saddened that my parents, my sister, and even my living children struggled to deal with the loss of a family member through abortion. Over the years I’ve heard many heartrending stories about abortion. Although each story is unique, a common thread moves through them all—abortion changes you. Yet there is no forum to help abortion participants—and the people who are closest to them—explore this tragic truth. Although abortion has touched many of us, we rarely share our personal experiences regarding it. This is what led me to write a book that shares some of the stories I’ve heard. There was also a need for a safe space for people to tell their stories, explore the ways abortion has impacted them, and find resources. We created AbortionChangesYou.com to fill this need. It is my hope that this Web site will assist you as you seek to make sense of your abortion or the abortion of someone close to you.”

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

Faults and Flames and Forgiveness

I normally start my mornings at Malvern Prep with daily Mass (and I feel it when I don’t). Typically, there are about six or seven of us, sometimes just three, with Fr. Baker offering up the Perfect Prayer. With such a small number of people, it’s sometimes kind of “weird” giving the responses at Mass… you know what I mean?

Once in awhile you miss your cue, or a word is off, or your mind wanders and sometimes slips up without the blanket of hundreds of other voices covering over your own.

“…and also with you.” (easy)

“… thanks be to God.” (piece of cake)

“May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands, for the praise (glory?) and glory (praise?) of His Name, uh, for our good and … for the good? of all His (the) Church… I think.” (dang it)

One of the awkwardly beautiful parts of this daily Mass of sometimes just four souls (and all of Heaven of course, smiling at us in our awkwardness) is the Lamb of God sequence. I was contemplating it the other day. It was just before the Fire of Love descended from Heaven to consume our sins and set a flame like Prometheus in our hearts through the Eucharist, that me, Gary, and Fran said, three times…

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace…

Three guys saying this three times in a big, mostly empty, chapel first thing in the morning. Sometimes it’s muffled, sometimes robotic. But the other day it zapped me.

There’s a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting where the therapist (Robin Williams) says something three times (and then keeps saying it) to the wounded soul of Will Hunting (Matt Damon). “It’s not your fault,” he whispers.

To this tough on the outside torn on the inside young man, abused as a youth, he speaks these words again and again:

It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.

And Will Hunting, at first, says simply “I know.”

Then it gets awkward. The good doctor, himself a wounded healer, keeps saying it… It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Resisting at first, then angry, Will finally collapses in his arms as the terrible weight of guilt and shame and rage and bitterness at the abuse he suffered as a child breaks over him like salty waves. It’s a heart-breaking and beautiful scene.

Back to the Lamb of God…

Here, the tides have turned. Standing there in the chapel, we come to a realization that it is, in fact, our fault. It’s because of me and my family tree that Love was crucified on a tree. And we need to own that fact. That’s why every Mass starts off with the penitential rite. I have sinned! I messed up! Throughout my life I’ve added many a sour note to the symphony of God’s original plan, and sometimes it’s led many a fellow musician into discord and dissonance. So we take the time to look at this scribbled parchment and we turn it over to the Master Composer. And get this…. He rewrites it all…. using our notes (I love how He does that!). They are transformed, washed clean in the blood of the Lamb in a beautiful paradoxical spin cycle that can only be done by the Whirlwind of Love that is the Trinity. He takes away the sour notes of the world, the wounds and weeping and grants us peace. “By our very wounds we are healed,” so the Talmud tells us.

It’s unbelievable. I think that’s why we need to say it three times…. he takes away our sins, and the sins of the world. He grants us peace. And we collapse into His Heart at the great and intimate encounter that is the Eucharist… and every morning we get to stand in that Flame of Love, to consume and be consumed, and all our faults and failings become the kindling for that Fire of Mercy.

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

Carry On

I remember stumbling onto the works of Hieronymus Bosch, a 16th century painter, for the first time when I was studying art. I thought he was nuts. It was his famous painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Like a flash forward to a Tim Burton film or a Dr. Suess story gone bad, it was filled with bizarre contraptions, creepy creatures, and disfigured figures; surreal and completely unlike anything of his own era.

Then I found his painting pictured here; Christ carrying the Cross. Some of the same Boschian faces are back, but now they are juxtaposed with the serene face of Christ. His eyes are closed, He leans forward on His via dolorosa, His way of sorrows. Anger and rage swell around his peaceful, almost contemplative face. Screaming, laughing, conniving faces swirl in a sea of torment around Him. But He presses on. It is captivating. And in this cauldron of humanity, only one other face seems to mark the gravity of the moment, to be awake and aware of the redemption so near at hand. A woman, modest, pure, who has placed herself in the eye of the storm with Him Who walks towards the Hill of Calvary. She too has eyes closed in meditation and holds open for all to see (who dare to look) the veil that captured His Face.

In the film The Passion of the Christ, the scene of Jesus carrying His Cross becomes, in a sense, the climax of the entire story. It’s here where a verse from Revelation comes tumbling in, seemingly out of place and enigmatic to the core. Jesus meets a Woman, His Mother, on the way. Only they seem to feel the full weight of this moment, where the problem of evil, of suffering, of injustice, and all the sorrows of humanity are met head on. This is what God does in Jesus: looks Death square in the eye. Did you think He came to tell us to be nice to everybody?

In this one moment the only One Who could give an answer to the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of evil, is the God Who became Man, and He says to the Woman: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Now that’s power. He doesn’t come to erase our mistakes, or eradicate humanity’s gift of freedom, or even to pat us on the back and say it’s OK now. He comes to redeem our sins, to redirect our passions by His Passion, to remake the mold of what a Man should be and what a Woman should be in the face of sorrow and sin. The image, the posture, the position is…. cruciform. Arms outstretched, leaving the center wide-open, the heart vulnerable to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” We can take down Suffering by suffering, destroy Death with the death to self. If we let sorrow bite us and break us and then get up again and carry on, then Death, where is your sting?

Can we do this today? Can we look our suffering in the eye (and we know exactly where it is) and pick it up? Walk with it? Take it through the crowded streets of our life and bear it peacefully? Some see Christians as escapists, looking for a way out of meaninglessness and clutching at a crutch for comfort. Please look at a crucifix. Christians are the real realists. We are the ones called to name it, claim it and meet it head on. To take life in all its manifold complexity into the heart and there let His grace transform it.

So let’s carry on… Victory awaits beyond this Hill of Sorrows!

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

New Year’s Resolution #3 – Get Dirty

When I was in college, they called me “Nature Boy.” I had an adverse reaction to pavement. I would never walk on the sidewalks. This is true.

It wasn’t exactly a conscious endeavor on my part. I just found myself off the beaten path (well, pavement) en route to another building in the middle of the day, or heading towards chapel as the sun was tipping over and spilling its liquid light over the horizon. Then a guy would yell out, “Hey Thoreau! See any slate colored juncos lately! Ha hah!” … and stuff like that. I’d just smile and keep on…. meandering.

FLASH TO THE FUTURE!!
Just yesterday, I was contemplating the sad fact that I don’t wander as aimlessly as I used to. I travel from Point A to Point B…. POW! Mission accomplished. I’m running over concrete towards a linoleum floor, then back to the asphalt for the ride home. At the illustrious private boys school where I teach, the students are not allowed to walk on the grass because, get this, this would make the grounds “unpleasant” to look upon. You see, when you walk on grass a lot, it goes away.

FLASH BACK TO THAT COMMERCIAL FROM THE 70’s
Remember that image of Chief Iron Eyes Cody looking out on a sprawling modern mess of pollution, and a single tear runs down his ancient face? I loved that commercial! How far we’ve come from that respect for the land, from that love of the earth in all it’s beauty. Who doesn’t feel refreshed at the scent of spring rain, rich soil, fallen leaves, and the thick, warm breath of a garden or greenhouse crammed with life?

This Christmas, Santa got me a new pair of shoes (is that a song?). Oh they’re nice. All leathery and cushiony, great for standing on your feet all day teaching too. Smithsonians or something. The other day I was walking around campus and I felt the call to wander up the hill and along the path that circles Malvern. Like Sirens, those countless hours growing up in the pine woods of south central Jersey, the hikes, the walks, the ritual journey into the silence and the serenity of the cranberry bogs and cedar creeks of Browns Mills was whispering to me, tapping me on the shoulder with long flowery fingers.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION #3 – DIRTY SHOES…
Why do we choose a hard, slick, “artificial” surface when God has designed a soft, grassy carpet for us.

The Road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way, Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.
– J.R.R. Tolkien

I think the sign of a happy soul can be found on the sole. So let’s walk today, away from the things of man, and when duty calls, go back again…. but take the long way!

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

I Love Darkness

I’ve always loved darkness. The crisp, cold dark of winter, the thick, warm darkness of sleep, the pre-dawn darkness that shrouds the morning. Sound creepy? Nah… it’s creative. Think about it. All things good, true, and worthy of our contemplation spring from darkness.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss…

It seems darkness is the prerequisite of light. The very stars we love to count sprang from the dark womb of the universe. The flowers and trees we marvel over were born in the seed crushing stillness under the earth; in the wet, dark fodder of fecundity that lies beneath our feet.

Our lives began in darkness. We squirmed and struggled, wound and wrapped up in tiny balls of pulsating blood, brain, bone and tissue, and spirit breathed fresh into that darkness from God, in the wombs of our mothers. Our spiritual birth comes so often from the darkness of doubt and of fear, leaping up from the great Whys we shout up to Heaven throughout our lives, from the darkest of moments. Light and clarity come into the tangled shadows of our own minds, our own clumsy attempts to move about in darkness.

St. John of the Cross once said “If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.”

Abraham moved in the darkness.
Jacob wrestled in the darkness.
Joseph looked up from a darkened cistern.
Perhaps Moses saw that Burning Bush because of the darkness that surrounded it?

Mary was overshadowed….
Joseph dreamed in the darkness.
Jesus sweat blood in the shadows of Gethsemane, and died under the cover of clouds on the darkest of days.

The singer-songwriter Nichole Nordeman sings “Maybe I’d see much better by closing my eyes.”

Maybe in these dark, quiet December days, we’d do well to have a night unplugged, and move away from the tinsel and the lights, the malls and the Christmas movies, just for a night. And for a time, just sit in the dark. In the deep cold stillness like the cave in Bethlehem, where Love came wrapped in shadows. The Love that is the Light of the World.

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

August Rush Movie – Lookin’ Good!

“It’s all around us… only some of us can hear it.”
“Only some of us are listening.”

Wow, movie trailers are so often high octane, high adrenaline and packed with emotion. Perhaps that’s why I LOVE THEM! This looks like a film with a powerful message. Just heard of it today and I’m looking forward to seeing it! Here’s the official website.

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