Peace and Pain

“Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
– John 20

“Peace be with you”…

Peace is what we all long for, deep down. Often we imagine it lies on some white sandy shore or on the winning side of a Powerball ticket. But ironically, peace is often found not in the absence of sorrows and responsibilities but in the quiet acceptance of them. So often, it’s in the still center, the eye of the storm, where there is peace.

The story of Thomas above is a powerful reminder of this truth. Jesus returns. He is glorious, alive, healed. But he has scars. Good Friday cannot be separated from Easter Sunday. Incidentally, it’s been said that there is only one man-made thing in Heaven: Christ’s wounds. What a sobering thought. Christians are not living in a fantasy world. Dreaming up pipe dreams. Walks through rose gardens. In the immortal words of Guns ‘n Roses, we know that “every rose has its thorn…”

Unconditional Love, the force that Jesus unleashed upon the world by his life and death, is a curious mix of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. So even in the midst of that first Easter, that shockingly beautiful, scandalously incredible, dream of all dreams miracle of the Master’s return from Death, there was death’s reminder. Scarred hands. A pierced and open side. So let’s not deceive ourselves. Love is pain. Love hurts. Peace has a price. Without this wound of Love could we ever peer in and behold the very real, beating and pleading Heart of our incarnate God?

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

Grace is Everywhere

Hello All,

We’ve shared this invitation/request with a few friends and family already, but we are “sending” it out officially now.

Last year, we lost our precious baby daughter Grace Elizabeth. She was born on January 4 and died the same day, just 10 hours later. The full story of our day with Grace is linked here – http://missionmoment.blogspot.com/2009/01/our-amazing-grace.html. Needless to say, those 10 hours, and the 9 months she lived with us in the womb will never be forgotten. To celebrate her short life on earth, and especially her peace and joy now in Heaven, we want to invite you to “seek grace” with us in the signs all around us… literally.

If there was anything that Grace taught us (and there was so much) it was that most blessings in life are unseen, or easily missed, passed by, or even unlooked for. So now, let’s look! If at any time you see a “Grace” sign, ie. Grace’s Nails, Grace’s Deli, Grace’s Chapel, please take your photo in front of it (that’s key), attach it to an e-mail, and send it to contact@missionmoment.org

We are compiling a photo album of Gracie’s pics, and we’d love to receive one everyday, until we’re old and grey. It will force us to slow down and think of her especially in that moment. Please keep a look out, Grace is everywhere!

Peace and Prayers,
Rebecca and Bill

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

The End is Here!

How many times have we seen a movie or a TV show with the iconic “crazy” person on a street corner wearing a placard with “The End is Near” scribbled on it? And how many times have we quickly dismissed that person as extreme, ludicrous, ultimately sad? But have you ever gotten the itch that invites you to scratch and see below the surface? What if it was true?

It seems Hollywood has the itch…. really bad. She can’t make the budgets big enough for these gloom and doom dramas about the End of All Things, from Armageddon and Deep Impact to The Day After Tomorrow and last weekend’s latest installment “2012.”

The box office seems to be saying something as well; people love it. People want to see it. It may be out of a morbid desire to see historic landmarks crumple under a 900 foot tsunami, but behind that, I think there’s a bit of good ‘ole fashioned Catholic spirituality at work.

Memento mori, as the saying goes. “Remember death.”

As creepy as it sounds, we’re invited to reflect on our death many times throughout the liturgical year. We’re actually entering into the season for this right now. Advent is beginning, and it is more than just a glance backwards to the Birth of Jesus two thousand years ago. It’s a glance to the future, to the End, when we believe He will return. This story, History, will indeed end… and simultaneously…. begin.

The readings from this week’s Mass matched up quite perfectly with the debut of “2012.” (I wonder if Hollywood was reading the lectionary?)

Jesus said to his disciples: “In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

– Mark 13:24-32

The twist however is that Christians look to this End with, now get this, joyful expectancy. “Lift up your heads, Scripture tells us, for your redemption is near at hand!” Now this doesn’t mean we sit around with hands up high like kids waiting for Daddy to pick them up and take them to his warm chest and carry them home. (Although that sounds like the orans position of prayer and a great way to live to me!) It means we keep our feet on the ground and keep working. And we whistle while we work, too, like little dwarves, keeping the Palace of our hearts clean for the arrival of our King and Queen. St. Francis was once approached by a nervous brother friar, who was a bit stressed about the End and perhaps more so, about his conscience. Francis looked up from the patch of earth he was tending in the garden. “Brother Francis, what if our dear Savior were to return this very day. What would you do!”

“I would keep gardening, until He found me” smiled the saint. Now that’s peace.

For the believer, the End is not at some remote or proximate point, not a number like 2012, or 3012 for that matter. The End is… here, now. The Kingdom of God is within you, here, now. It is already, and not yet. All of the world that we see is simply a veil pulled over the Eternal Now where God abides. Why should we be afraid?

Can the unborn child in its dark and watery womb imagine the vibrant life that moves about just past that veil of mommy’s flesh? Can it be so near and yet seem so distant? Perhaps our End is closer than we think. Maybe our true birthday is about to begin, as it has for the saints. Their death is remembered as their feast day, their birthday into Eternal Life.

In the meantime, as we close off another liturgical year, and step closer to 2010, 2011, and 2012 (wink wink), let’s not panic, let’s pray…. and keep smiling, with our heads and hands busy in the garden of this world, preparing a harvest of good deeds and much love for the World to come.

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

Prayers for Little Mary’s Family

For those who have followed the story of little Mary Coffey, please know that she went home to God yesterday morning. Having lost our daughter Grace this past January, their story has been especially close to our hearts. Grace lived just 10 hours, little Mary was nearly three years old, and now these precious ones will always be remembered… always! The cross of their pain and suffering has been planted deep in our hearts, and has already touched so many! Now Grace and Mary both dance in Heaven’s Song; as Catholics we believe in this reality! But the notes to that Song can sometimes seem very distant. May God comfort the Coffey’s now, and all who have lost a little one, with the healing balm of His peaceful Presence. 

My friend Tony has captured a beautiful memory of seeing Mary Coffey the day before yesterday  and I wanted to share it with you below. His blog is here – The Joyful Faith

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2009
Mary Coppa Coffey

Our great friends Jim and Felicia lost their beautiful and wonderful daughter this morning. We are so sad to lose this amazing treasure, but as Jim said to me this morning, they are at peace knowing that they have a Saint in heaven watching over them forever. they have all ready fullfilled their role as parents, they raised a Saint, they brought to the world a saint, and now she will be spending her time in heaven doing good on earth for her family and for others.

I wanted to relate a story about Mary, I went and saw her yesterday, and it was really a very meaningful experience for me. Here was a little child who just underwent heart-surgery, but she was performing heart surgery on me, literally, staring at her was ripping my heart open. In the 20 minutes I was with her, I was beginning to understand something of beauty, and how much the world needs Mary. I thought to myself many times, wow, she is so beautiful, it taught me an amazing lesson, to look past the surface and look right to the heart, look right to the soul. Her grandpop said something to me that also struck me, without souls like Mary, the world would fall apart,” Its good for our human hearts to burst when we see such beauty.

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

"Be Empty and Stagnify"

“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Like a splinter in your mind… driving you mad.”

– Morpheus, The Matrix

The more deeply I delve into Pope John Paul II’s new sexual revolution (found in his teaching on the Theology of the Body) the more I come to realize the absolute insanity of the present state of things.

WARNING: The following words will either ruffle your feathers or unbind them so you can take flight.

Look objectively for a moment at the way the human body is treated today. Look at the magazine covers in your local supermarket, assess the value of the human person by spending 10 minutes watching television, and you’ll be tempted to believe that sex is a drug and we are all inextricably addicted. (Sex, that is, torn apart from its true meaning.)

We’re gorging ourselves on feelings and casting away our fertility. We’ve severed the life-line that is tied to the ship that is meant to take us home. The most God-like attribute we possess, that of generating a new human life, is stripped away from the sexual embrace. Something tells us that there must be more to sex than just feeling, bonding, pleasure, comfort. A still, small voice in our hearts whispers…. “in the beginning… it was not so.” There is a deep mystery welling up in this act that has always drawn us along, like the fragrance of the Orient in the Song of Songs. But our vision has been disoriented. Our senses have been desensitized.

How and why did this happen? Who told us that separating the fruit from its roots would bring us true happiness? Let’s review…

1. In the beginning, God creates many different things to compliment each other and form one thing – the Universe; sun and moon, earth and sky, land and sea, then man and woman in His image, that is, in the image of the Blessed Trinity, that Divine Whirlwind of ceaseless infinite Love that made all thing

s out of love. It’s a beautiful dance and an exchange of opposites that attract. To quote the old song – “You are the sun, I am the moon, you are the words, I am the tune…. play me!”

2. This play was the first word God spoke to us (nobody remembers this today!), He placed the man and the woman naked in a garden paradise. God’s first command to the happy couple is “Be fruitful and multiply!” Notice it does not begin with “Thou Shalt Not.” It’s actually more akin to “Let’s party!” God offered them the freedom to enjoy the Gift of one another as husband and wife; to love and begin a family of persons (just as God Himself is a Family in the Trinity).

3. Now this party is not, however, about a quick fix or some hedonistic indulgence. Through the sincere gift of self, the first man and woman enter into the mystery of that one flesh union that has literally spawned the human race (again, just as God’s generous Love generates the Universe). Adam and Eve’s embrace is a glimmer or a foretaste of that heavenly rapture that awaits all who love God. The Catholic Catechism says that in the “joys of their love, God gives spouses a foretaste of the joys of Heaven.” Amen! The gift is a total gift; free, faithful, and fruitful. It keeps the totality of the person (fertility and all) intact. Anything less would be a diminishing of love.

So far so good! But what happened? Well, there was one thing they were asked to respect and refrain from taking from; it’s the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we grasp at that tree, we die.

Fair enough. God is the Creator after all; He’s the One Who alone reveals the Good and warns us of the consequences of not choosing what is Good for us. Good and Evil, God is showing us, are constants, objective realities as steady as the stars. They are meant to guide us. Good is what the human heart is made for, Evil is the dark hole left when Good is stripped away.

Was the Original Sin a refusal to trust this Truth? Was it an abuse of human freedom, a misdirected grasping at pleasure or power over the purpose of human life? Was it a failure to image God?

Today, across the boards we see the counter-sign, the alternate reality, and the twisting of the Truth we were made for all around us. God’s call to us to “Be fruitful and multiply!” has become a “Be empty and stagnify.”

And empty we are. The results of the so-called sexual revolution of the 60’s surround us. Are there better marriages, happier relations, peace in the battle between the sexes? Is Life celebrated, family loved and respected, children seen as a gift and fertility valued as a woman’s greatest power? Quite the contrary. By grasping at pleasure apart from procreation, we have left in our hands only withered remains of the dream of happiness.

But there were two trees in that First Garden. Beside the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the Tree of Life. And God’s mercy invites us to rest beneath its shade. This is the fruit that lasts and the love that truly satisfies. And God invites us to it! Did not Jesus, the New Adam, die on this Tree to save us? Isn’t the Wood of the Cross the One Tree that has borne fruit for so many centuries? To this Tree of Life the men and women of our time are invited to “taste and see” and to “take and eat.”

This Tree alone can plant the seeds that will finally blossom into a Culture of Life!

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

Mercy Me

There’s an old Greek myth by Sophocles that I’d like to borrow from and reshape for my own purposes. Two lovers are separated by a war, and the woman hears that her beloved has been killed, forever sundered from her heart. An urn with his ashes in it is brought to her and she clings to it night and day, weeping bitterly that love has been taken from her. But one bright day her lover returns! It was another who fell in battle, and here he is, full of joy to be reunited to his heart.

But she does not recognize him… She cannot believe him, and she wanders off in darkness, clutching at the urn.

Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” He went out and began to weep bitterly.

But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”

“…the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.”

I often miss the incredible emotion of these Easter days, just because the stories are so familiar. I’ve been hearing them for over 30 years! But what did it really feel like to experience the pain and the loss of Jesus? What did it feel like to have him returned in glory only days later? What a roller-coaster ride those first disciples were on. And the gospels recount that emotional roller-coaster with pristine accuracy, crisp detail, and the words still seem as fresh as that first Morning that remade the world.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

What tenderness he has for her, for us, when we are in sorrow. And what a stream of deep joy must have been surging up in his Sacred Heart knowing that in seconds, if she would lift up her head from that sorrow, she would see him!

She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”

This scene to me is one of the funniest in all of the Bible (for the others, we’ll need a fresh post). The Son of God returns from the dead… the DEAD mind you… reuniting body to soul and healing that cosmic scar that has plagued us and continues to haunt us today, recapitulating all of creation in Himself, defeating sin and the curse of mortality once and for all, and he comes now shining into the lives of those he spent years training and teaching, and she thinks he’s the guy who trims the hedges at the cemetery.

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

I can see the subtlest smile on his Sacred Face. Why didn’t you believe me? All shall be well…. in all things all shall be well. And to those who doubted and denied, those who ran, those who hid themselves for fear in an upper room that was locked to all, he comes. To those who would still cling to the past, to what seemed lost, to those bitter souls, those angry and resentful hearts, he comes. Not to judge, not to scold, not to lay on a guilt trip…. but only to speak our names…. Mary! Thomas! Peter! Behold it is I! And my name is Mercy!

And this Divine Mercy we celebrate today.

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

Hooked

I’m sure we’ve all had movie moments that stick with us; scenes that combined character, catharsis, music and meaning into an unstoppable force that broke into our world and suddenly, lifted us up into theirs. Like modern parables, a great Truth was conveyed in a story and it bypassed our security systems. “Hey,” we whisper to ourselves, “that’s about me…”

I’ve been hooked on the above scene from Hook for years now. In the movie, Robin Williams plays a much older, stressed, and well dressed Peter Pan; a Peter Pan who has forgotten who he is and subsequently become a merger and acquisitions lawyer (crazy, I know). He’s married to Wendy’s granddaughter and now his kids have been captured by the infamous Captain Hook.

The scene above is Peter’s great awakening. At first we find him utterly confused, ripped from the “real” world of comfort and security into a fantastic place of dreams and magic. But what does he do? How can he live? All is wild and blazingly bright in this world, so unlike the foggy gray and ease and comfort of the world he came from.

The Lost Boys (those perpetual and unsupervised 5th graders) cannot fathom that this is their fearless leader, trembling as he is with fear before them in his suit pants. What’s a suit?

A line is drawn by the new leader of the Lost Boys, and Peter stands alone on the other side. Then, dramatically, one little boy crosses over the line, into his fear. He takes Peter by the hand, pulls him down to his level, and touches his face. Pushing and pulling at his cheeks, peering into his eyes, the Little Boy is searching for the truly Lost Boy, Peter Pan. Robin Williams in this scene, manipulated like silly putty in the hands of a Child, cannot help but smile. A light breaks through his weary eyes and suddenly the Child before him whispers “Oh there you are Peter!” The music swells, the Boys rush to Peter’s side and all begin the process of rediscovery with him. Eventually, after a long training period, Peter learns again how to fly.

Inspirations, insights… how does this speak to me?

I am lost. I need to be found again. I need the Christ Child to take me by the hand and pull me down to His level, to that place of humility, of smallness. I need Him to touch me and to push aside the worry and the anxiety and the sin and the weakness. I need Him to cross over that line and believe in me. And if I let Him have His way with me, I will hear those words “There you are Billy!”

And by His Grace I will learn again just how to FLY!

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

“Where Are You?”

It’s one of the perennial questions we ask ourselves throughout the whole of life, as we live and sweat and work out our salvation, both as individuals and as a human family – “Where am I? Where are we?” We look into the deep pool of our human experience (again, as individuals and as a human family), and we hope that we find an answer in our reflection.

We hope that we are where we are “supposed to be.” We hope we are happy, at peace, at home with ourselves. Too often, though, we discover that we are exiles. We are, for all of our efforts at settling down, strangers in a strange land. Nomads…. homo viator – man on the journey.

How did it come to this? When we look to the book of Genesis we find the answer, and we discover the golden key to finding our way back home as well. God’s plan from the beginning was that we find our home in His Heart – that we find our peace in His Will. That Will, that Eternal Heart, is the model for every person, every family, and every home; it’s a will and a heart for others, for a community of Love and Communion. A place where there is a vibrant exchange of self-giving that moves always in the perfection of the circle. This Love is the dance, the whirlwind that feeds the Other and at the same time is fed by the Love of that Other. God laid out the blueprint for this Dynamic of Love in the Garden of Eden. To the first man and the first woman, created naked in a garden paradise, He spoke the first commandment – “Be fruitful and multiply!” (Notice the lack of any thou shalt not ’s in this directive, by the way). This command is a joy-filled call to Love as God loves! It has the same ring to our ears as that first word given after a bride and groom pledge their love at the altar – “Kiss the bride!”

This call to be fruitful and multiply, to give and receive each other completely as a gift, holds within it the key to the question “Where am I?” The answer is, or should be, I am in You. And you are in me. Isn’t this the last wish of the true Bridegroom before He laid down His love on the altar of the Cross for us?

“As the Father has loved me, so I love you. Live on in my love.”

Our founding father and mother, Adam and Eve, were invited into this dance of self-giving love. But through fear and mistrust, or pride and a grasping at self-autonomy, they failed to step to that Rhythm, to let go and let God take them up and away. After the fall, Genesis tells us, they cover up in shame the very signs of that self-giving love that God called them too, stamped right into their bodies. And through fear, they hide from God. Times are hard, and suffering comes in varied forms for us all. We wonder where we are, where we’ve been, where we’re going. We often retreat to the shadows in our minds, shadows made darker by the abuse of power around us, or by the failure of love to save us. We question God. “Where are You?” I wonder though if the question is misdirected. Has He moved, or been removed by our lack of faith? In Genesis, the first question God asks our first parents after they betray Him is “Where are You?” It is not for His sake that He asks, for He sees all. God asks the question for them, huddled in the dark, so that they can speak it to themselves and step out into the Light again.

“Where am I?”

Adam and Eve unveil their fear as a reason for hiding from God. Is it fear that locks us in today? Fear in its many splintered forms? Speak it. Step out and make it known. His mercy pours forth in Genesis 3:15, for He is a Loving Father, and we are promised a Redeemer. What door will open for us today, if we just take the time to ask this question of questions? Perhaps opening up to the question will lead us back into the Answer, into that Circle of Love again, that Garden enclosed? For perfect love casts out all fear… and in love we find our way home.

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

Life…. Imagine the Potential

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

Wait Watchers

Waiting. Some of us just can’t stand it. We can’t wait in a line, on a phone, or for a table without getting our cranky pants on. You’ve seen it yourself, I’m sure. “I need it now and you’re not facilitating my needs fast enough!”

Black Friday was as black as ever this past week when an angry mob’s impatience led to the death of a Walmart employee. Death… in a department store. Hordes of people trampled over a man and killed him in a reckless pursuit of things. May God forgive us, and bring peace to his soul and his family!

This waiting, however, is absolutely critical to the Christian way of life. Advent begins our whole Liturgical Year as Catholics with a call to patient waiting. It’s a period of watchfulness for Christians across the planet. This holy expectancy is at the very heart of a believer. It’s name is Hope, and if Hope is not filling the cavern of the soul, then a person tries filling it, in vain, with something else. But no thing can fill us like Hope. It is not a waiting is not in order to clutch and grasp at a thing the moment our turn is up, but to receive the gift of a Person, like a sunrise fills the eyes of a sentinel at the start of the new day.

So what will be our posture, our attitude, our position this Advent? Will it be restless with activity (probably at some point), or will rest dominate these weeks? Will we be a churning sea of whitecaps and swells of impatience, or a quiet pool that reflects the sky? In the quiet things are seen more clearly.

I know I can be restless, not just in this time but in all my daily work. Thank God for our newborn baby boy, who by his very existence has caused me to put the brakes on more often. He gives me cause to waste time, to simply be with him for an hour, or two, or three; just gazing at each other, smiling, sleeping, nestling in my arms. What a meditation he has afforded us this Advent! We must all become as the little children, utterly dependent on the Father in Whose arms we are invited to rest and receive.

And just to hammer it home, I’m building another devotion into my Advent schedule: the Friday Fast. It will become my Desert Day. I will be “unplugging” myself each Friday of this season – no blogging, internet, iPhone, radio, iPod, TV…. nuthin’. I’ll only use technology for teaching and of course, the cell is on for emergencies at home. Anybody game for this? I could use a little team support!

May this holy time be a fruitful time for us all! He is coming, may He find us watchful and waiting, preparing our hearts, sweeping then clean, warm, open and ready for His Abundant Love to come down and to be born in the Bethlehem of our hearts.

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