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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
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Archive for the ‘JOY’ Category
The Boy Wonder Chronicles – First Steps!!
December 10, 2009The Boy Who Saved Us
May 29, 2009
God sure knew what He was doing when He decided that the human species would be able to procreate and raise little humans. For one thing, I see it as His ingenious way of getting the male component outside of their own heads once and for all. Ladies, I imagine you need sweet liberation from your own mental gymnastics of self-seeking fulfillment too, from time to time.
I have discovered that babies have the potential to pull the selfless out of the selfish. When you become a Mommy or a Daddy, powers are unleashed that could not have been extracted in any other way, except perhaps through some great trauma or suffering or epiphany. It’s amazing, exhausting, exhilarating…. “It is life nearest the bone where it is sweetest.”
Our nearly 9 month old baby boy continues to astound, capture, and captivate our hearts on a daily basis. We wake and walk the halls at 3am, and love it. We hear him cry and we run to him. He poops, or should I say explodes, and we think, get this, that it’s cute. And we want to clean it up. We sing to him all day long, and Daddy, over-productive, always reading, writing, e-mailing, planning, or presenting Daddy has been wasting time, squandering time, spilling out time doing nothing (read here everything) with his son. Including making random YouTube videos of his antics… The Boy Wonder discovers the Blues!
Rebecca and I look back at the now seemingly short 5 years of infertility that began our marriage; the days of waiting and longing for a life to share our life with, of the periods when literally everyone we knew was pregnant, or holding a little one in their arms. Our days of seeking help, of discovering adoption at the embryonic level, of Snowflakes, of more sorrows, of miscarriages and then moments with our little Gracie, so sweet and so sad and so short-lived. We were in the Barren Desert, again and again. We were trying hard not to grasp at children as if they were a right. We still hold fast to the truth that all life is a gift, and the timing is in God’s time.
That time is now! Now this most unexpected gift of our son has come! And the years dissipate like thin wisps of mourning mist. And the years of “just us” (which in itself was so full and so rich) has only served to heighten our senses and sensitivities to this Small Wonder of a Boy. Every smile, every giggle, every tear, every thing is a grace. So God surely knows and knew what He was doing. We just had to wait it out, and will again in some new form down the road, I’m sure. I just hope we remember the simple truth that “good things come to those who wait.”
And that, my friends, is the understatement of the year!
Mercy Me
April 19, 2009
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.
What’s Inside You?
February 7, 2009
One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
– Blessed Mother Teresa
Some people are seemingly always happy. Like the Psalmist says, “They have heard no evil news.” They float, they roll, they fly, they bear it and wear it well in all manner of circumstances. They actually believe Blessed Julian of Norwich’s famous phrase “All shall be well, in all manner of things. All shall be well.”
Please understand, I don’t mean a kind of flaky, out of touch, dilusional happy. I mean content, satisfied, fulfilled; actually possessing a deep peace at their center, regardless of the choppy waves on the surface of things.
I think the better word here is JOY. Happiness is too often the effect of happenstance, stuff happening to you.
“Hey, it’s stopped raining!”
“Ooo, a quarter!”
“I don’t have to pay for my parking?”
Real Joy flows more from convictions than it does from conditions. That’s why when the saints were suffering in such terrible conditions, they could still smile, be at peace, love. They had conviction. Their hearts were not shallow puddles that could tremble at the slightest atmospheric changes, but rather were deep wells of trust in God.
So there it is… a goal to shoot for; to place your pursuit of happiness not in feelings but in the freedom of your will. To begin to construct your conviction that all shall be well. To build the well within, and let God fill that well with His Grace. We’ll discover that even as bad as things may feel, they can never again rob us of His Joy.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Rom. 8:35-37)
It’s been said that if the joy Christians proclaimed with their lips were shining on their faces, there would be no unbelievers. Well, “peace begins with a smile” (Mother Teresa). So let us “rejoice always…. I say it again, rejoice!” (St. Paul) There’s a gloomy world out there that needs some serious silliness and “There’s no such thing as a sad saint.” (St. Theresa of Avila)
Thanks to Cecilia for the video below! The ending just about sums it up!
Joyness
December 14, 2008
“Brothers and sisters: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil. May the God of peace make you perfectly holy…. spirit, soul, and body…”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:16…
I believe joy should be the undercurrent in the soul of every Christian. That’s what this third Sunday of Advent is about, and so it’s traditionally called “Rejoice” Sunday (Gaudete). After all, compared to the horrific death of Jesus on Calvary, to the crucifixion of Love Himself at the hands of His creatures, is there any sorrow that cannot be undone? So our crosses all combine and meet and meld into One at Calvary, and this is communion. And then they are buried in the earth, break open in the darkness and then push, pine, and blossom forth in the Spring into something holy beyond our wildest dreams. And this is redemption! The joy it births is evangelization….
“Joy is a net of love by which we catch souls.”
– Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Again, everything that happened to Jesus must happen to us. And didn’t He say that He came to give us joy, and joy in abundance? So rejoice always. Mind the words of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. He was a realist, not an idealist, and he himself knew sorrow, and beatings, abandonment, imprisonment, rejection, and hunger. And in them he rejoiced for what was to come. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him! Rejoice! In the words of the French sculptor Rodin “The victory of Truth is certain.”
Three is the Magic Number…
August 1, 2008
Who knew back in grammar school, while munching down on me Lucky Charms cereal, waiting to make that hike into Alexander Denbo Elementary School (I was a “walker” not a bus kid), that there was a deep theological mystery being piped through the TV on that awesome cartoon between the cartoons – “Schoolhouse Rock“?
I don’t know who wrote this song, but it gave me a glimmer of the truth about God and ourselves…. in a Saturday morning cartoon! Just look at these lyrics…
Three is a magic number,
Yes it is, it’s a magic number.
Somewhere in the ancient, mystic Trinity
You get three as a magic number.
The past and the present and the future.
Faith and Hope and Charity,
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number….
A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did. They had three in the family,
And that’s a magic number.
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So often we hear people say “Things happen in threes.” Perhaps it’s because Three is the watermark behind everything, for the Trinity is the Truth behind all of creation! That Ancient Mystic Trinity is the ceaseless whirlwind of Self-giving love that is the interpersonal relationship of the very life of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! God is not a solitude, said Pope John Paul II, but a family!
It’s deep, it’s mysterious, but it has it’s echo in every family…. and the reality that a “man and a woman had a little baby” is a little glimmer, a little icon of this great mystery of God. That He should will that His Life be reflected in human love, in its giving and receiving of love between persons which “makes love” and brings life into the world is…. well, magic!
And all of this is a build up to a very real and personal experience of mine…. or should I say… ours.
A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did. They had three in the family,
And that’s a magic number.
Coming January 20! Baby Donaghy….
Wooohooooooooooo! (to be continued 😉
Carry, Push, or Draw?
July 30, 2008
Well, my nephew and I have returned from a refreshing and simultaneously exhausting trip up North…. yes, even the word North conjours up sweet memories.… of mosquitoes.
For some cosmic reason out of my control (what is in my control anyway?) the usual blissful, warm days, cool nights, birches, balsam, and sea breezes that I was accustomed to tasting in my trips to Maine at the end of July were… gone. Thanks to some Tropical Storm hundreds of miles away, we were sogged with fog, rained on by rain, and hugged with humidity. And those winged harbingers of doom… oiy!
Mosquitoes the size of small mammals were everywhere. They could bite through jeans! JEANS! I’m not making that up! I think they’ve been genetically manipulated or something… but why? and by whom? Ah, that’s a thought for another day.
Seriously, the trip was great. It wasn’t all rain and pain. What’s life without bugs and suffering anyway? My dad says the skeeters are here to remind us that “this ain’t heaven.” Fair enough. We still hiked, and biked, and kayaked; swam, jumped, swatted, laughed, ate, sang, ate some more, spoke of deep mysteries and prayed… so that’s pretty good stuff. Here’s the blog link if you care to peruse the pics!
Now this experience of seven days with my 14 year old nephew (and Flapjack, our mascot) got me thinking about the ways we encounter life… I mean Life. I mean the Truth and Beauty and Goodness and Unity that Life contains deep within because God planted it there. It’s an encounter which many of us (14 to 38 to 98 years old) have sometimes achieved, missed, ignored, or still seek. So how and when do we “get” it? And can we facilitate the encounter?
I had some serious plans for last week. Perhaps too many. You know the old saying “How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.” Well, I came to realize that the invitation to such mysteries has to always remain just that…. an invitation. It can’t be forced, faked, or fabricated. It’s best if it’s simply unveiled, pointed to, released simply with a look or a silence. You drive and you look out the window, and there’s life. And you watch it unfold like a road before you.
I was reading a fantastic book called Three Philosophies of Life by Dr. Peter Kreeft this summer (for the second time ’cause it’s that good) and I came across a line about this encounter. He said that there are three ways to enter into life:
1. We can be carried. No work involved, no will, just lifted here and there like a pile of heart and bones. We don’t learn much or stretch our spiritual muscles this way. We’re like jello, and we simply fill the mold we’re carried into (Realistically, we need this until we’re oh, ten or eleven… I think. And other times too, it’s flexible).
2. We can be pushed. Just do it because I said so. It’s not always pleasant but it gets the chores done. It’s kind of like the Purgative Way of the spiritual life. I don’t wanna but I gotta.
3. We can be drawn. Oh here it is…. this is the moment when the alabaster jars of God’s fragrance, stored up in the things of earthly life, break open and lift our eyes to Heaven! This is more akin to the Illuminative or Unitive Way of the spiritual life. To be drawn is to give in to the tractor beam of Grace, to let down our shields and allow ourselves to be taken in by that Death Star that is the Pierced Heart of Jesus. Yes, death to self, death to self-absorption, and to what others think of me. That’s a trap with a strong gravitational pull. But everything created by our Loving God has a stronger magnetic property. We just have to orient ourselves towards it. “To see the miraculous within the ordinary is the mark of highest wisdom.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
My prayer for Sean, as he enters high school this fall, is that he surrenders more and more to this magnetism of grace and truth and goodness, in his friendships, his studies, his prayer, his looking at life as it unfolds before him. I was privileged to be drawn to God by Sean’s easy laugh, quiet peace, crazy quotes from Nacho Libre, and his willingness to journey into the unknown with me. This is one extraordinary young man; I know he’ll navigate well through the trails ahead!
Just bring some bug spray, Sean. There could be mosquitoes.
Pai’y!
Summer + Rope Swing = Happiness
June 10, 2008
Maybe it’s the fact that summer is here, or that school is finished, or the fact that at 6:31 am this morning it was already 89 degrees, but I’m going back to my salad days for today’s reflection. Let’s talk about ROPE SWINGS!
Ah yes, I remember it well…. The year was 1980something, and the summer broke over us like the peel of bells, and our freedom flashed like light from brandished swords, and the slamming of our lockers was definitive! Peaceout Mr. Biscardi! Your jokes were lousy! And thanks for the B – in Algebra! Yeah!
For my brother and I, and our motley crew of friends, it was to the woods that we would go, to live deliberately. And so it was, one fateful day in June as we slithered down the Rancocas Creek in canoes, as furtive as Iroquois, as reverent as the Sioux, that we stumbled upon a single strand of rope, dangling down from heaven like a silken cord, suspended over the water like a magic wand.
“Holy crud!” we all cried in unison.
There is something magnetic, something even cosmic, that occurs when youth and rope swings encounter each other for the first time. Weary as we were from paddling, a new fire coursed through our adolescent veins, and in seconds we were clambering up the grassy knoll to this Tree of Life. What we found (pictured above in a snapshot with my cousins Mike and Tommy, circa 198osomethingish?) was a platform that was apparently built by lumberjacks in the 1800’s. At least 15 feet off the ground, with a second platform for the real thrill seekers another 6 feet higher, was the launchpad into summer that became a second home to us.
We’d waste away the hours, discovering new ways to fly off of the rope, freestyle moves, the Jumping Jack Johnny (expertly done by John Moyer), the Classic Cannonball, the Triple Lindy… you name it. Gazing up at the green canopy, dappled sunlight streaming through, laughing, exploring, looking deeply into the cedar water of the Rancocas, the color of sweet tea, the smells, the sound of the hermit thrush, the chickadee, eating store-bought hoagies and Cool Ranch Doritos while batting away green flies. Ah summer! What a gift, and we knew it all along.
I dream of this freedom for kids today. Some have it. Some have never tasted it. Some find the virtual world of video games and media more appealing (a tragedy). And granted, the world seems a more violent place than ever. I know the risks. I know it’s scary out there. But I thank God I had the chance to run through this playground, to taste it and savor that taste. Those were the salad days and I’ll never forget them.
I think fear and comfort can lock us in, but what a price to pay. The freedom we had formed us, the risks we took made us stronger, and I’m so grateful for this….
Let me turn off your TV before you go crazy.
Come out for a while with me. No, don’t be lazy.
Tall trees whose shadows fall along Sheep’s Meadow.
Never know what we will see. Come take a walk with me.
– Edie Brickell, Take a Walk
Fly Away
May 15, 2008
When I was a kid I wanted to fly. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in that desire. I think everybody has a deep-seated longing for the freedom of the birds, the freedom to simply lift off, float, ascend, sail away. From the Greek myth of Icarus to Leonardo’s sketches of flying machines, human beings have never been completely content as muddy-shoed bipeds.
TODAY’S QUESTION: What’s up with that?
Just imagine this scenario: Someone clearly exhibiting supernatural powers walks up to you and offers you the chance to either pay off your car, your mortgage, and get that new washer/dryer combo in the cool new colors for the basement, or…. you can fly… which would you choose?
When I first saw Superman in 1978, I wanted to fly like crazy. When I saw E.T. and watched Elliot and his alien friend cruise over the heads of those mean grown ups on his dirt-bike, my eyes were like saucers. I dreamt about flying across the moon on my sweet Huffy Pro-Thunder BMX Bandit with the star rims for weeks!
Where am I going with this one? Excellent question!
I’m not sure yet….
I’d like to leave the cap off on this one for awhile; open, like the sky itself. Part of me doesn’t want to bring closure to these dreams! Adults are good at putting lids on things, limitations, caps and ceilings. Being realistic and stuff…. Boo hiss! Wonder leaves it wide open.
Remember C.S. Lewis’s quote about desire. If there’s a longing in the heart, there must be a locus in the world for it (or perhaps Another World yet to come). Jesus ascended into Heaven, Mary was assumed body and soul. Am I that crazy in my own longing for flight? There are stories of saints levitating… sailing up to the rafters of a Church after receiving Communion, or even hearing the names of Jesus and Mary! In the immortal words of my niece Ella…. “What ‘da!?”
Why is our culture filled at the moment with so many movies about super heroes or supernatural beings that have amazing powers? We give them the gifts we wish we had. From Neo to the X-Men, Superman to Ironman. The animals don’t dream like this! Why are we not satisfied?
QUICK ANSWER: The animals are home here, we are not. In a certain sense, it’s our home away from home. More accurately, we’re exiled. The stuff of eternity is in us, and earth can’t contain it.
Now I’m not saying we should try and fly, or levitate for that matter. St. Teresa of Avila, one of the Church’s greatest “superheroines” (aka mystics), once hinted that she would rather have one normal experience to a thousand mystical experiences any day. She thought it too distracting for others I suppose, and the gift of her mystical experiences became a burden when people came for the show rather than for Jesus. That’s humility!
And the flight of St. Joseph of Cupertino? Where did that power come from? LOVE. It comes unbidden, it fills us up like helium. Maybe I was trying too hard as a kid. Flight is not something we can master or muster at our own bidding. It’s a natural byproduct of Love. Love is the fuel.
“Love lifts us up where we belong, where the eagles fly on a mountain high…”
I’ll trail off with a rather lengthy word from the MAN…. Clive Staples:
We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
– C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Our Hope
May 8, 2008
If you think about it, we don’t have to look too far to see on the faces of our fellow human beings a profoundly simple truth. When properly understood, it’s a truth that can really liberate us and start some deep healing. The truth is: we are living in a state of exile.
… But certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile.’
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Separation, death, divorce, heartache… We’ve all tasted this bitter cup. Drive down a few blocks in any forgotten corner of a city, spend some time in a bus station or a DMV. Listen to the news ANY time of day. Look at our movies, so many of which seem soaked in blood and lust. We’re crippled by our fallen condition, and we look up and wonder if there is any way out. “It is what it is” we mumble.
Oftentimes, we are removed, distant, doubtful, cynical. Has life turned out the way we dreamed it would, playing in the school yard, with our little crushes, and our wonder and awe at the smallest butterfly or bug making its way along the path? What happened to that sense of home, of happiness, of seeing the universe as a big playground with God as our Daddy always smiling at us? Our experiences have weathered us, soaked us with the sense of homelessness.
“We are on the wrong side of the door” in the words of C.S. Lewis. This side of the wardrobe is dingy, drab, and seems more often just a bundle of old coats and mothballs. Nothing so new and dazzlingly clear as Narnia’s cold ice castles and verdant, emerald fields full of dryads and centaurs. We’re we just delusional children? Unrealistic? Naive to think that the universe was made in music? Foolish to think we could ever get back inside? Go home again?
Well, if this were all there is… why would we even ask those questions?
Last Thursday was the feast of a homecoming. A return of biblical proportions… Jesus ascended, was lifted up, soared up up and away… out of this mess and back Home! Now He “sits at the right hand of the Father” (that’s biblical for an intimate share in the Power and Love of the One) and now…. we have a way in.
No longer exiles, we have a Man inside! This next truth is almost too much to swallow, so drink a glass of grace to help it go down easier….. THERE IS A HUMAN BODY IN HEAVEN (two in fact!)
Jesus and Mary, with their whole selves; arms and legs, hearts and bones, eyes and ears, breathing somehow that air of Deep Heaven, and looking out somehow with immortal eyes! They are IN. Is this insane or what?! And they, like sentinels, stand at the “Door” of that Undiscovered Country and wait for us, their children, who can and should believe that the fairy tales are much nearer the truth than we ever thought possible…
“The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility…. in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved….
– St. Paul, Romans 8:16-24
The Heart of Things 
