December 24th

Jesus Carries the Cross

Merry Christmas.

I thought about switching mysteries to match the holiday, but I think there is something actually very appropriate about the decades set for today and tomorrow. Jesus was born to someday die for our sins, and Christmas Eve is a good time for reflection on carrying our burdens when many of them feel most heavy and reaching out to help others with theirs when we feel most charitable.

Honestly, it's rare that we, even if we want to, can carry another person's burden for them. We say Jesus did that for us, and He did, but we still feel the weight of the load of our sins. Guilt and consequences and the separation from God. Now we can be forgiven and welcomed home and absolved, but that's about dealing with our crosses. That's usually the best we can do for those we are trying to help - making their burden less heavy or irksome, forgive and restore some part of peace of mind and heart.

I don't think we realize how much we help with all the little ways we try to ease someone's burden. We don't have to do much, really, to make a big difference. Jesus did all the hard work.

But then, that's the easy message this time of year. By bringing peace and joy into others' lives, we touch them more profoundly than we know. And it's true. The work the Holy Spirit has done through me in my life, without much if any conscious compliance from me, is actually staggering. Things I didn't think before they came flying out of my mouth don't always get me into trouble. Ever so rarely, the Spirit speaks through me.

But what's harder is when we can pay the debt for someone else. It's a rarer chance, by which I mean that I believe there are more people who would be willing to do so than are given the chance. To take the burden of loneliness on yourself instead of a more fragile soul or give a win to someone who needs the success more or relieve someone's financial burden at the cost of your own security. Because usually the burden is so much more personal than something that can be borne by anyone. It's family pain or physical injury - nontransferable stuff.

We don't all have the chance to mount the gallows on behalf of another; we don't get to know if we would.

Jesus did both for us. He took the punishment, the final damnation. He took our sins on our back. But He also bore our burden with the warning that we would still have to carry our own. He also lightened our burden, rather than just taking it away. It's as complicated (and to a nonbeliever embarrassing) of a thing to say as Jesus was 100% human and 100% God. He took all of our burden, and He reaches out to help us carry it because it can't be transferred. Because we live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but God Almighty walked among us.

He came down tonight, over two thousand years ago, and still His light shines. Most prominently in those who have the chance to lighten the burden of others or take it away completely.

---

To finish off this Advent meditation, I want to leave you with my favorite Christmas song (my favorite carol is probably "The First Noel" but this song is only officially nonreligious, especially the last verse captures Christmas at its best). It's from Muppet Christmas Carol and I've been singing along all night with the Kermit the Frog in my head.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (not that I won't see both members of my readership in person before the New Year).

There's magic in the air this evening,

Magic in the air.

The world is at its best, you know,

When people love and care.

The promise of excitement

Is one the night will keep.

After all there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas.

The world has got a smile today;

The world has got a glow.

There's no such thing as strangers when

A stranger says "hello."

And everyone is family;

We're having so much fun.

After all, there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas.

'Tis the season to be jolly and joyous

With a burst of pleasure we feel it arrive!

'Tis the season when the saints can employ us

To spread the news about peace and to keep love alive!

There's something in the wind today

That's good for everyone.

Yes, faith is in our hearts today,

We're shining like the sun,

And everyone can feel it;

The feeling's running deep.

After all there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas.

After all, there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas day.

December 23rd

The Crowning of Thorns

The second-to-last blog entry for this Advent season, here we go.

Taking a turn from the rather deep plunge into my religious insecurities and returning to the theme of the Rosary as a guide to the faith journey, this post will look at the most obvious lesson to take from this decade. Honestly, this one is fairly straightforward.

As true people of faith, we will be mocked, we will be misunderstood, we will be put through the ringer. The things which bring you spiritual honor available in this life are, to one degree or another, bitter. They are painful. It is painful to be poor, whether or not the Kingdom of God will be theirs. It hurts to mourn, whether or not we will be comforted. It sucks to be meek, whether or not we will inherit the earth. It aches to be hungry and thirsty, it burns to hunger and thirst for righteousness, whether or not we shall be satisfied. It hurts like hell to be merciful, whether or not it promises you mercy in turn. It costs a lot to be pure of heart, whether or not you see God. It galls to be a peacemaker, whether or not they are called children of the Lord. And, of course, it hurts to be persecuted for the sake of righteous, whether or not the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

And it will be your best friends that do it, like Peter who denied Jesus three times on what was already the worst night of His human life. If you're lucky, these days, it'll be gentle scorn or confusion, a subtle banishing from certain aspects of their life or a pointed lowering of their opinion of you. If you're less lucky in where you live and what situation in which you find yourself, it'll hurt more.

Someday someone will demand of you the equivalent of "Prophesy! Who was it that hit you?" If God is your Shepherd, then why did X happen at all? If God is your Shepherd, then why don't you just pray your way out of debt or off this cross? Or if God so loves me, why did Y happen to me?

The worst bit is that there's really nothing that we can say to such things. There are established, go-to lies, but the honest answer - despite whatever that book might say - is that there is no good, satisfactory reason why bad things happen to good people or vice versa. Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world. He resigned jurisdiction of it to us long ago.

That's why the values He told us to live our lives by hurt and burn. They peel away our worldly selves to make room for something better. And that looks silly (at best) to people who cannot see what is happening. I don't just mean non-religious people. I mean those who can't see spiritual change and growth in the lives of others and measure that as a significant gain.

At one point in our lives, that will mean mocking. It will mean having to stand firm when we have no little comeback ready. It will mean keeping faith and holding to the counterintuitive principles when there is no worldly argument we can make for their legitimacy, much less supremacy to earthly common sense.

There's a long tradition of trying to find earthly logic to defend theological values. Some have more credence and have better stood the test of time than others, but they are all ultimately unsatisfactory in one way or another. Because Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world, and the reason to follow Him has nothing to do with anything that makes earthly sense. That's the beauty of it.

That's what we need to hold to when we sit there with nothing to say as those around us mock, as we remember that even Jesus suffered this. Sometimes there is no answer to a creature of the world's demands, not one they would understand. That does not make the spiritual truth we have found any less true or profound or important. It only makes it more precious and more difficult to hold to.

May we all remain strong when the time comes.

December 22nd

The Scourging at the Pillar

If the Agony in the Garden is Jesus' model of how we are to accept God's Will for our lives, then Pontius Pilate and Barabbas must be the enactment of the clash between the world's values, the world's needs, and the call of the spirit.

These days, after Peaceful Protest and Mahatma Gandhi, we wouldn't want a revolutionary murderer over a messiah who preached to turn the other cheek - or we'd like to think we wouldn't. I think that's one way to see Jesus' influence on our world, generally not just specific to His followers, but the decision made by the people of Jerusalem and the preference of both the Chief Priest and Pilate and his wife show a focus on the world.

Pilate, a Roman official, would certainly have preferred a religious fanatic with a message of peace to a political insurgent with blood on his hands. Likewise, the Chief Priest would prefer a revolutionary who, whatever his methods, sought to regain sovereignty for the people of Israel without actually disrupting the Church hierarchy.

Perhaps more importantly, in Matthew 27 you get the stark contrast between the spiritual warning given to Pilate's wife in a dream and the bravery with which she went to her husband to warn him - a budding visionary receiving a message about the foreign religion which had surrounded her for years and immediately having the strength to share it with her political husband - and, in contrast, the political maneuvering of the church officials to seed the crowd with discontent and rage at Jesus - the man they only recently welcomed to Jerusalem with rejoicing.

Pilate was caught between these two tactics - the spiritual warning for his soul and the political reality thrust upon him. His solution to "wash his hands" of Jesus' guilt has fooled no one two thousand years down the line. The story differs about when Pilate decided to order Jesus whipping - whether it was his initial sentence for Jesus which failed to disperse the angry mob demanding blood or if it was tacked on before he handed Jesus over to be crucified. Pilate didn't have the strength to trust in the spiritual - his wife's dream and his own judgment of Jesus - in the face of worldly pressure. And really, how many of us do?

Spiritual warnings and truths feel silly when you say them out loud. It sounds "fruity" or ridiculous to put your trust in - especially with hardnosed business or political sense coming out against a course of action that refuses to make worldly sense. Because Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world, or His followers would be fighting for His release.

Jesus' Way and the vocation and lifestyle He asks of His followers do not make worldly sense and those who will always approach situations from that perspective will find themselves totally at a loss - as Pilate was - to fathom a man life Jesus - or how to get him out of trouble.

My prayer for myself is that, even if I do not believe that I will prevent the eventual death of Jesus, even if I believe the crowd's rage will take my prisoner's life no matter what I do, I pray I have the strength to never think of harming another human being to make a worldly situation more tenable. I pray that I never have to make such a choice, but that if I do, I have the wisdom to approach the problem from the spiritual view. That I have the strength to believe in the warnings of dreams and the judgment of my own heart and soul. That I have the strength to approach all of my dilemmas from the perspective of a servant of God rather than a citizen of the world.

And I pray that, when I find myself inexplicable to those in a worldly position of authority dealing with worldly problems, I have the fortitude to never let go of my spiritual perspective and to take the same kind of dignified pride in my part in God's Plan as Jesus did in front of Pilate. Because what God asks of us makes no sense to someone like Pilate. I pray I have the strength to let that be true, no matter what the consequences, rather than turn away from spiritual truth. However floofy it might sound when I try to explain it with words.

December 21st

(again)

All I've had in my head since posting that last message is a series of confusions and counterarguments running through my head - mostly the song "Through Your Hands" and often just that phrase in my head. Over and over again.

I don't really know what I'm called to do.

Maybe I do. I realize that's a direct contradiction of what I just said in my last post.

I'm confused right now. Maybe I shouldn't be posting any of this. But I think I am hoping for a little help. I don't know what I do from here.

December 21st

The Agony in the Garden

This is a step, a hard step, in any faith journey. In ways I probably don't have to spell out for anyone who has taken up the burden of faith, this step happens in every faith journey.

I've always resented it, personally. Mostly because I always felt that the path had been decided. I always hate that in more earthly matters - when my consent or path has been determined but I have to go through the motions of pretending to agree freely. There is a right way. I know that. I know what I will eventually decide to do. Why do I have to go through this temptation?

Because otherwise my choice means nothing.

And maybe that's too easy of an answer.

I've resisted - hard - a lot of plans I've felt God had for me in life. All through high school, I was convinced of my vocation to become a nun and, if I am being honest, there has been nothing in my life since to dispel that calling except that I don't want that for my life. I know I could probably be happy enough in that life, and God knows (clearly) that it would do wonders for my spiritual life to have the structure laid out for me (to say nothing of other benefits). But I don't want it. The job I want and the life and family I want preclude that calling. Rather than facing that dilemma - the confrontation of what I personally want for my life and what I feel God has called me to do - I sidestep it. I spent a few painful minutes or even hours in Gethesemane, and then I bail.

Jesus' rebuke of his followers that they could not stay with Him as He prayed for the strength to make this choice certainly has reason to resonate with me. I can not stay in that state of crisis long enough to force and immediate choice. The reason is probably fairly simple: I know what that choice would have to be.

I am the servant of the Lord, who has done great things for me. I know that He knows best. I will do as He asks.

I wish He would ask for something else. If nothing else so that what I am doing with my life now didn't feel like it was working toward the wrong kind of life.

So I connect with this Mystery, with the agony of knowing the proper course and of knowing that you will take that course outlined for you - but of the desperate bargaining and begging: don't let this be what You're really asking of me, oh God. Let me be mistaken about what You really want for me. Don't ask this of me, please. And the inevitable pain of: but not my will be done but Yours.

And maybe this isn't the worst moment (although I've thought so over the years). Maybe it's not even close to the worst moment, but it's where I feel stuck. I try to walk one way or another out of the Garden, and I know that I refuse to leave because I hope that I can still find out, magically, that the vocation to the religious life is not what God is calling me to after all. Maybe I'm even right, I'm very confused.

And, my dear readership, I don't know if I really want answers from you about this.

But since I'm working through my issues, I will say of this Mystery - I know this pain (to a lesser degree of course), and I feel trapped at this stage of the faith journey. And maybe that's more because I'm afraid of the steps that come immediately after than anything else, but I wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew if I already know what to do. I wish I knew less - that I wasn't wishing so hard that I didn't.

I wish I could make heads or tails of God's will, and I wish I made less sense of it. I wish my mantra wasn't: God if it is Your will, let this cup pass from me. Perhaps I even just wish that I didn't know that this sentiment must finish: but not my will be done but Yours.

I don't think I really wish that I didn't have this choice, but I do wish that I were better at making it.

December 20th

The Institution of the Eucharist

I was still thinking about my elaborate call out of myself for my fear of the contemplative life this morning when I prayed my decade in the car. I was trying to work some of the issues that arise with this admission out, and it occurred to me happily that the Eucharist is a large part of the answer - or at least a healthy portion of the conversation.

After all, the closest I have ever come to such an experience is definitely the Eucharist. I've even done stints of Eucharistic Adoration - even a couple attempts at regular visits (this never lasted long - possibly because they tended to be at around 5 o'clock in the morning). I remember every time I would think how blessed I was to have come here and how I would not remember that when deciding to get up in the morning the next time. It would be guilt or obligation that got me to the chapel, where all the rewards lay.

As for the actual experience of receiving the Eucharist, I wondered if the reason I could so often truly connect to God in that way, respond to Him and allow myself to really pray and feel that blessing fully (if you can experience such a thing "fully" ever) was, in part, the guarantee that it will end.

I actually know (possibly because of Eucharistic Minister training and possibly just because of childhood - or childish if it was later in life - curiosity) how long the experience of having God Himself present literally within us lasts: fifteen minutes, the amount of time it takes our stomachs to dissolve the wafer.

There's something completely literal about the Catholic faith - something very tied up in the body itself (our bodies, not just the Body of Christ). Everything exists physically and actually, not symbolically and metaphorically. The body is important and fully incorporated. At the end of the world, our bodies will be returned to us and then our salvation will be complete. Our bodies are a part of us and belong to us and experience God as much as our souls, in a way now found in many other religions.

Jesus didn't come down just to dwell in our souls, as the Holy Spirit does when we let Him(/Her/It). Jesus comes down and dwells in our bodies themselves. That's magnificent. A truly magnificent gift.

And perhaps that's why it's easier for someone like me, in love with the world, to connect to God in that way that involves my earthly body. I'd like to think it's not just the guarantee that it'll last fifteen minutes rather than three years. But the actualness, the reality, the literalness, the physicality and perhaps even the earthliness of that connection to God - that I can work with easily.

The connection to God through the Eucharist has been an important part of every saint and contemplative's life that I have encountered in enough detail. I remember a discussion in a prayer group once about the children of Mejugorje (or perhaps it was Fatima but I think that group focused much more on Mejugorje) who would rather go to Mass than have a vision from Mary. And I remember I always totally got that.

I recently thought for some time about whether or not the contemplative life, rejecting earthly joys in pursuit of heavenly ones, was in some way a betrayal or at least rejection of God's gift of an earthly life. I realized (fairly quickly?) that what the contemplative is doing is reaching out for the highest and closest relationship with God available in this form of life. And that is beautiful. It's not rejecting the Earthly means of having a relationship with God in favor of trying to cheat into heaven sooner, because our relationship there will be very different I imagine. Religion is its own reward, here and now on earth. Otherwise it's just a Posthumus Fire Insurance Policy.

The Eucharist is at the heart of that goal to reach out for God in the ways available to us on Earth, in our present form. Because I don't know if we will ever have that kind of experience, of receiving God literally and physically into us, after death even after the Second Coming. This is our only chance for this magnificent gift, because the beauty of it is how God made it so that He could be a part of our physical, dirty earthly lives in a very literal way not just once two thousand years ago but daily (though most of us prefer weekly, including me). He didn't meet us halfway, He came all the way down. Still is.

How amazing that God made the same thing, the same gift, the same ceremony both the gateway and the pinnacle. At the very least, every Catholic experiences this, and every saint who has seen more of God than almost anyone else says that still this, this thing that happens every day, is the ultimate - by far the best. Like if the first step out the door had the most spectacular view.

If the top of the mountain is our call to which we must climb and from which we must descend, if the Mountain is so real and important it scares the pants off of me, then the Eucharist is the experience of the divine, more profound of a connection than even the mountain has to offer, available at the corner church (as I'm fond of saying, fifteen minutes of Heaven before the pancake breakfast).

Heaven on a street corner, I read once.

That's magnificent. And so lucky for someone like me. He loves us enough to join us in the world, although He wishes we would stop making such a mess of it I'm sure. But He loves us enough to join us down here not just once but again and again.

Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

My favorite part of Mass, every time.

Better Than I Ever Could Have Said It

http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/thu-december-16-2010-amy-sedaris--paul-simon

Thank you, Stephen Colbert. I agree with you completely.

(Wow, that was weird.)

December 19th

The Transfiguration

So we're back to the Mystery which gave me this idea.

I mentioned my name, Katherine, in conjunction with this Mystery last time and my recent reconciliation with St. Catherine of Siena as my name saint. This summer I learned her life story, and I was quite impressed. I had read about her in saint books before, of course, but somehow it never really sank in until I took the class Saints, Witches and Madwomen - which covered visionaries, the witch trials and the over-commitment of women to madhouses as historical phenomena.

I had always preferred St. Catherine of Alexandria - a queen with an exciting story with the Wheel and everything. St. Catherine of Siena wasn't even really a martyr (apparently hunger strikes don't count when you're a kid), though I can't for the life of me figure out why her being the only woman to be declared of Doctor of the Church didn't impress me until now.

For one thing, she was quite devoted to St. Catherine of Alexandria herself, so I feel grandmothered in to Alexandria with Siena. But really - her story totally wowed me. The twenty-third child of a fisherman and his wife (no idea how many of the siblings survived or if more came after) whose family was incredibly, even heroically, tolerant of her giving away of family possessions to the poor. They had arranged a marriage for her when she declared that she had made a vow to be a nun three years back (I think it was) - upon hearing this, they simply asked why she hadn't just told them that. She even spent three years locked in her room communing with God, becoming/being a visionary.

She was apparently happy that way and said more than once that all she had wanted was to remain so. But she was called to leave the room and become a determined warrior in Church politics. She mostly wrote letters, but my favorite thing she did was walk right into the papal palace at Avignon in all of its luxury and corruption to tell the pope that he had to leave this worldly palace to return to Rome (where a hefty population of city and Church wanted to kill him). And he did. (He died just after doing so and the Schism was the result of the election of a new pope but that doesn't make what he or she did any less impressive.)

Much like she had had to leave the place that was as close to heaven as Earth could bring her to go out into the world and try to help the situation. How successful the pope's return or her letters and eventual hunger strike to end the Schism (she died before it was resolved) were would take a more thorough knowledge of Church history and politics than I have the patience to acquire - especially since it would no doubt boil down to a matter of opinion at some point in any rate.

I actually considered going back and deleting the mentions of how the pope coming back didn't quite work out (and her unsuccessful hunger strike), but I think it's an important part of what I want to say today. An important step in the spiritual journey is the fulfillment of the promise, like that made to Simeon that He would see the Son of God before his death. The glorious revelation, the direct contact with divinity at the top of the mountain. The fire of pure Holy Spirit. However it manifests itself, that blissful moment of faith as a given, hope much the same and love overwhelming all. We could stay there forever.

Most of us don't get to.

Much of my life I feel has been spent in fear of such a moment. A really, really stupid fear, I know. I'm afraid of getting stuck - of getting caught and losing my will to return. Because I love this world, this life. In all its wonderful bright colors and crazy people and radical changes of weather. Because I want to continue moving and acting in this world - and not only because I want to do good in it. I don't know if that is what has held me back from it or if God simply knows that I am not ready or meant for such a thing.

Because all of my life I've been afraid of two things: going or being accused of being crazy and of being called to be a prophet. Because I want to move and work in the world. Because I love it down here.

I really shouldn't worry. We're all asked to come down the mountain eventually. To walk out of the room after divine ecstasy for three years and then go out and make a difference in the world. And down here, it's never as simple as it was on the higher plane. You are not given the worldly proof that your actions and sacrifices were worthwhile. Everything is murky and covered in politics compared to up there.

Maybe it's simple from up there - the view. Maybe it's more complicated but still more glorious. Maybe someday I'll find out.

But perhaps I've written so much about this Mystery - scoffed at Peter for wanting to stay up on the mountain forever and dwelled so much on how we must come down - because my great sin is that I love the world and choose it over growing closer to God. Especially silly because I really needn't fear: it always ends. We are always asked to rejoin the world.

It is the most beautiful and perhaps the hardest step we have to take in our faith journey - and perhaps for different people "the hard part" is different. For St. Catherine of Siena it was probably that first step out of the room where she touched bliss after three years. For me, it would be the first few days in the room.

December 18th

The Coming of the Kingdom

The new way of looking at the rosary is really proving a boon for writing these daily entries. The last time I wrote about this mystery (the first one of advent I believe) I was psyched out the same way: this should be the easiest one for me to write because this is my main thesis. We are living in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God is not to come or in the past but is happening now so let's live like it does.

Not that I do a great job of living that way myself.

We've gotten very used to the Beatitudes and the rhetoric of Christianity, humility and love of neighbor. But "Who is my neighbor?" seems to be less our question these days; we have that answer all figured out. I wonder if it's almost easier to say that the slain of the Sudan are our neighbor, so we send money and prayers, than to say that, for example, the bum on the corner we're worried will attack us or at least get his smell on us if we roll down the window at the light (happens a lot in Houston). But that's an easy soapbox. The real problem, as I see it, is our refusal to allow certain groups of people to be fully human.

We're better these days, don't get me wrong. Bigotry isn't dead though. The outright racist can find fewer places where he or she is tolerated, and homophobes, though prevalent, receive at the very least contemptuous looks from the general population.

I keep thinking of things like the Bechdel Test, however. It's a test that's fairly simple. It's meant for movies but works for most mediums and originally sprang from a television show: to pass the Bechdel Test the movie must 1) have at least two women in it, who 2) have at least one conversation 3) about something other than a man or men. It's shocking how many movies and televisions shows just don't pass. And gay characters on television shows are far more likely to be caricatures flaming into the night in sequins than fully fleshed out characters. And the movie 21 felt that the main character, an Asian based on the true story, had to be changed to a white male.

What I suppose I'm on about is that it always upsets me to hear Christian Values lumped in with prejudice because I've always felt that this was the sort of thing that Jesus came down here to explain was inappropriate. So that He moved from the protective and exclusive God of the Hebrews to the God of all mankind, accepting a Samaritan woman, a sinner at that, as a human being worthy of His attention and love, worthy of being His messenger. Making the Tax Collector the hero of a parable and another Samaritan the only kind soul in another. People it was okay to hate Jesus insisted that we take into our hearts, that we view as people.

Church isn't about money, He told us repeatedly. The Church isn't about power or influence, He rained down scorn on the Pharisees. The Church isn't even about a kind of fire insurance policy for eternal life, as shown in Jesus refusing to dignify the Sadducees' hypotheticals with a direct response but instead explaining that they were misunderstanding God and heaven.

Religion isn't about control or perfection, because what I see as the main reason Jesus had to come down was because free will was given to imperfect apes on a little round ball circling an insignificant star in the cosmos. Because love doesn't count the same way unless it's a choice. So He came down and suffered - not so that suddenly we would be perfect, but because that was never God's aim in creating us so the inevitable consequence of that choice had to be resolved.

But, getting back on topic from the far flung cascade of ideas on display above, this Mystery, the Coming of the Kingdom of God, is the point in the spiritual journey when you realize that this means that the entire world is different now. That for the rest of your life, the things that you do just won't quite make sense to the rest of the world. That they'll be off-kilter with what the world expects. Because we're called to operate on a different moral system than the eye-for-an-eye or at least get-what-you-can or succeed-at-any-cost mentality. And that's a harsh way of looking at it, but even more favorable moral compasses based on worldly values are no longer applicable to a person of faith.

Because we are living in the Kingdom of God, where there is no real currency as we think of it (currency is a thing to pay bills with and do good with, preferably not in that order but being reliable is also a virtue) and there is no single person on the face of this planet who is not a child of God with the right to be treated as such. There is no offense unforgiven by God, after the Crucifixion, so there is no reconciliation we can refuse to make (not that we do not have to have justice on earth or that we condone any sin).

Honestly, I still stumble over this step in my faith journey and perhaps that's why I muse over it so often and in so many disguises. This is most of what I'm talking about in this blog, this Mystery, and it flummoxes me every time. Our actions aren't meant to make sense to the rest of the world. Our moral compass isn't suppose to be practical. It's not supposed to follow an agenda that leads to power or follow blindly in any worldly authority's path.

We are meant to suffer and weep and love God, miss our families and friends so that we can go out and do good, and treat every person on this earth as a free and equal brother or sister in Christ. We like to think that we do already, in many cases, but have we really turned our entire world upside down to really build a model of what Jesus described in His teachings? Or did we just become a bit nicer and hope that we were doing well enough? At least to be getting on with.

When Jesus came down, He changed the whole world. We are living in the Kingdom of God. Those still on Earth should find us strange - or we probably aren't doing it right.

December 17th

The Wedding at Cana

So apparently I've been spelling it wrong. This is also the first repeat (thanks to the Bonus Entry! in honor of Haley and Cameron Cooper's wedding - I wonder if they would approve of such an honor incidentally). Luckily the first full rotation through the rosary has a unified theme, so hopefully there will be a new perspective on each mystery.

I started thinking about this one and how I have covered this story through most of the players' perspectives. I mention this mystery often, both jokingly and seriously, for how much I love that Jesus' first 'public' miracle was changing water into wine (not the other way around! har har). The more serious bent is a meditation on how you have to become wine from water, and then later the Blood of Christ from wine.

I also see the players as symbols of the different roles we have to play in the wonder of Christ. Are we the lowly laborers drawing water because we were told to, disbelieving and eventually, if we are lucky, dumbfounded or, if we are not, sending water off to the steward in terror and some kind of stubborn faith. Are we the steward who has no idea what's going on but is the one to state and affirm the miracle ignorantly? Are we the couple, blessed unknowingly by the presence of God Almighty at our wedding and saved from embarrassment by Him? Are we Mary, ever helpful and willing to let our Son take the first step toward Calvary for the sake of helping a friend? Are we His disciples, sitting by as witnesses and little else?

Chances are we are all, however briefly, each of them in turn. I think I have most often identified with the steward myself because I often feel that the best things that I do are not things that I consciously choose to do.

But I don't think I've ever really thought about the incident from Mary's perspective (with the exception of the chapter in Fulton J. Sheen's book on the story) until I thought about keeping the thread of steps in a faith journey of Mary consistent. Sheen called this incident the blessing of His earthly parent on the beginning of His ministry, Jesus having already received the blessing of his heavenly Parent in the Baptism by John. It struck me before then how painful must have been Jesus' warning, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come," and that this step would bring Him to the Crucifixion all the sooner. Would we, any of us, answer with Mary's echo of her first words to the Angel, "Do whatever He tells you." As she did, as she was willing to accept the consequences of doing.

Honestly, in our modern world how many of us would a) notice the problem our friends were having and b) think it was our problem enough that we would c) go to the person who could fix it d) even if it means that we would suffer greatly sooner - e) all for no thanks or even recognition?

But that's exactly what we will likely, at some point, find ourselves called to do. Do a great act of good that will cost us greatly without any hope of thanks or even realization from the benefiting party. And we must keep our eyes open to see it.

Jesus' miracle was the main event in this story, but first Mary asked Jesus for something that would cost her more time with her Son - both in cutting short His private life and ending sooner His life on earth.

May we follow humbly in the footsteps of Our Lady.

December 16th

The Baptism of Jesus

The traditional (official) end of the Christmas season and the transition back into Jesus's teaching and miracles from the long interlude dealing with His birth. We take time out of the year to think about how mad it is that Jesus came here at all and remember that He will be coming back. Or at least that's how I've seen Advent and Christmas.

I meant to write about how this next step in a faith journey is the formal acknowledgement - in Church, yes. Like my friend Dan is doing, taking steps and making a journey - going out of your way - to publicly declare your religious beliefs. The addition of these mysteries to the rosary certainly show the importance of doing that in our world - and doing it for the right reasons.

I think about how religious rhetoric is used like another political tool in this country. Can you imagine any earthly rivals for power insisting on the other prophet's prominence? John kneeling before his cousin, with whom he presumably grew up, and declaring as he did even within the womb what he was born to declare: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

I usually think here about how even Jesus - surely above any of these ceremonies - submitted Himself to the forms and outward shows of baptism. Ceremony and ritual does matter. He was initiating Himself into the human process of seeking God through the flawed method of religion. He joined a religion to save it from its own foolishness.

And honestly, with the spectacular results of the Baptism, it's really fairly surprising that only two of John's followers peeled off and went home with Jesus. Perhaps it's even more surprising that, in last week's gospel, John later had to ask. For all Father Rolo pointed out that John was imprisoned almost immediately after the Baptism and did not witness the preaching and works of Jesus or maybe even hear much about them, John the Baptist knew Jesus even in the womb. And then He saw the face of God in the face of a man he had every reason to see as just that - a man - without the slightest help of any sign. And then, after the Baptism, God spoke from the heavens and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove came down to rest on Jesus's shoulders.

After that, doubting just seems silly.

I'd like to make three days in a row saying that this is something that, older now, I understand better, but it's actually just tonight I've sat down to puzzle any of this out (and I haven't spent all night at it either, so forgive me if this is rough).

There are moments in a faith journey where believing isn't hard. I said to myself for a good while a few years back that I felt I had been blessed with the gift of certainty. My faith has always been rock solid, and I thank my upbringing for that but also God revealing Himself to me so early in life.

But you begin to doubt your purpose all the same. Because once the moment is gone, all those things you seemed so sure of start to sound silly. Perhaps too many people asked John to describe how he knew about Jesus or retell the story. That's almost always been where it falls down for me. All the words sound silly - especially because I don't quite have the courage to use the good ones.

Or it was just a dark and terrible place in the prison of Herod. Or John began to doubt because Jesus did not come for him and take him out of there.

When moments of such shocking certainty come, when God speaks from the heavens and descends with the Holy Spirit, we have to hold fast to those moments. We have to remember when times grow dark and the light refuses to shine with that clarity. When we step away from the situation, we have to remember the lessons we learned and own them.

Even the Voice Crying in the Wilderness began to doubt, when certainty and the ability to recognize Jesus for the Son of God He is was John's entire life, an ability he had from the womb.

We have to hold on to that certainty, because it is a gift but not an omnipresent one unless we hold to our faith and our surety. The Gift of Fortitude is perhaps a better name for that gift in its proper form, because we all have moments of revelation and we all, down not so deep, recognize truth and right from wrong much more than we'd like to pretend. We know, we feel in our soul, when we should do more, be more, believe more. The difference is having the strength of will and courage of our convictions to act on that certainty - every time. Even in Herod's prison.

We must continue to believe, hold on to our certainty. We must love God even in our darkest hour. Even in our greatest doubt, we must remember how He spoke and how He touched us with His Spirit. How surely we knew that He was the Son of God.

December 15th

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

[I would just like to note that this post is being beamed into the Internet from the STATE OF TEXAS! WOO!]

To bring another memory of explanations given in religion classes at St. Anne's for the occurrences of Bible stories, this was a big one that got a lot of explaining. In a way, it's nice to see that taken seriously as a problem. We believe that this actually happened, yes, not some elaborate metaphor for losing Jesus and finding Him back at the temple. So how did that go down exactly?

And the story is that groups travelled back then with Women and Children separate from Men. I always imagined two entirely separate caravans with a gap between them. Now I think about it, that strikes me as a supremely dumb way to travel in a bandit-laden road. Wouldn't the men ringing the enclosed circle be a better battle plan? If nothing else for safety?

Of course, with age again, this whole business started to make more sense. There weren't separate caravans, making Mary and Joseph's meeting at the end of the first day a big reveal that Jesus had travelled in neither group. Men and women and children certainly would have traveled in one big amorphous group, but we've all seen the splitting up neatly. Especially if Joseph did have to do a tour of "guard" or at least "looking tough" duty Mary might have imagined that Jesus was coming along on to learn the ropes (being thirteen).

When I was younger, I couldn't quite imagine a loving mother and father making this mistake - barring some huge and comical miscommunication about which entirely separate traveling group the Holy Family would have divided itself between. Now that I've had a go at juggling ten thousands balls at once (it feels like at times), especially in travel situations I totally get it. Of course your child is the most important ball you are juggling and of course that is your top priority. But when you have ten thousand going, the most immediate can become mistaken for the most important and even the really important balls you'd like to think you keep in your hand at all times often are the ones to drop by the wayside.

Especially if you have a partner you can trust to pick up the slack, I can see even the most vital ball, even the only child, falling by the wayside. Communication is key to parenting!

But this metaphorical step in the faith journey, seen through Mary, isn't what I usually think about - why didn't they check the Temple first or learning that you always know when to find God when you think you've lost your connection to Him.

One think I still agree with that the religion teacher explained about this story (and I don't disapprove of any of the explanations given by my religion teachers, they dealt with a lawyer's kid with a lot of grace) is that Mary and Joseph weren't going to the Temple because they suddenly had an idea where He would go (as dramatized in most movies about the life of Christ or Mary that I have seen), they were going to pray for help finding their lost son.

We've all seen - and probably lived - this story. We let our daily devotions or our charitable obligations or just our attempt to truly connect deeply with God go for awhile. Because we're busy (I love the first Screwtape Letter for precisely this, the story of how demons don't debate the big issues anymore, just distract their corruptible human with something shiny or remind them how busy they are), we let our relationship with God suffer. We do it in human relationships too. Then when we get into a dark place, when we realize that God is not with us, protecting and loving us the way He was (because we're always mixing up cause and effect), we go into a tailspin. We may not even recognize that as the problem. At our lowest, we cry out to God again: help me, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why did you leave me?

Our Cry: "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you!"

His Answer: "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know that I had to be in My Father's house?"

We knew where to find Him. He was right outside the door, waiting for us to knock.

Even when His parents did not understand what He was trying to tell them, how God never leaves you but you leave Him, He returned home with them and was obedient to them. Even when we do not understand what He really means for us, when we return to God He is always there waiting. He has been waiting for us, every time we stray.

The distractions do not change God's proximity to us. But when we stop paying attention to them or assume that someone else has that part of God's Work covered, we can lose Jesus and drive ourselves to the point where we demand of Him why He left us.

We left Him. Even Mary.

But God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. Do we really think He is not still waiting for us right where we know (if we would bother to think rather than indulging our panic and our thoughtless busyness) to find him.

December 14th

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

I remember when I was little this Mystery was explained to me (by a religion teacher at St. Anne's but I can't for the life of me figure out which one) that the Presentation was a ritual dedicating the firstborn son to God - and God would, of course, give the baby back, He wasn't going to keep it, but it was a symbol. Which seemed kind of silly to me. In the Old Testament story, Hannah promised to dedicate her firstborn son and she dropped Samuel off at the Temple and visited him once a year. That must have been hard.

If Mary went to the Temple expecting the more symbolic gifting of the firstborn son, then what she was met with was considerably more Hannah's parting with Samuel, her long-desired child. In fact, this is the first of the seven sorrows of Mary. An old seer, a holy man who had had promises made to him (the person I usually focus on in this story, wandering if I could do as he has done and wait in patient prayer) came up to her and made it clear that it was Hannah's heartbreak she was to endure. Her son, who would return with her, would someday die.

That's a really terrible thing to say to a baby and his mother. True and powerful, it certainly was, but undoubtedly terrible. “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” [Not the most poetic translation, but it's late and I fly out tomorrow.]

This step in the faith journey, then, must be the moment you realize what this path in life will cost. The world has opened up in beauty and love, faith has opened your eyes to a new reality, and then suddenly you realize that prophets tend to end in flames. You realize that the world hates the man who stands in the street and yells almost less than the more sane fanatic. You realize that your journey with God will often be incompatible with an easy life (that great illusion) or simply the life you wanted to lead.

Mary must have known the role of the Messiah, but she is a new mother and spelling it out just then was a terrible thing to do. Perhaps, in the end, all of these realizations are blessings; the end is foreshadowed so that we can begin to prepare to handle it. We are told "The world will not be kind" so that it will not come as such a shock. Like the Mystery tomorrow, when Mary lost track of Him. That story is often told as the prelude to the three days in the tomb and the preparation or rehearsal it gave Mary as His mother.

But I think this incident is a more powerful example of that. A brutal realization, designed to bring the new believer or the newly refreshed believer of a high of bringing Light into the world back down to the world around them. So that we don't lose the ability to move and work in the world. So that we don't lose the ability to function as faithful human beings. So we can't be ripped down by the world, which would never take us away from self-fulfillment through charity and religious bliss so kindly as Simeon.

Being a person of faith can suck. It's hard in the world to hold fast to principles and to negotiate the most loving and the right way amidst a sea of complicated issues.

The first crash down can also be a way of teaching us how to reach out to God when we need Him. Even when the reason we need Him is that He is making our lives harder than they might have been (or we imagine they would have been), we can learn here to reach out to God and receive His blessings and His help. When the stakes aren't as high, we can find our personal anchor to our faith. The strengthening and gifts of the Holy Spirit that sustain us in hard times.

The first of seven sorrows is terrible and seems unnecessary, but it is a gift of sorts. It brings us down before we wander off down the path of faith that doesn't truly reference God or charity for the wrong reasons that can happen because the first bringing of Light and Joy feels so good for us. It helps us find our way to make faith a strength even when it rips us off the pedestal rather than helping us up. Before the real tests come.

December 13th

The Birth of Christ

It's a little weird to be doing this Mystery during Advent. It feels like skipping ahead. We're supposed to still be in the Waiting Period.

I almost had more trouble, however, with which step this is in the progression of faith. Is it the first time that we bear true fruit? When we first bring Christ into the world, become a window for God to work His wonders? Is it our first true contact with the Divine?

If the Rosary is the story from Mary's perspective, if she is the example we are meant to follow, then the first suggestion seems to make the most sense.

Honestly, I usually get caught up on Joseph. Probably because of that rosary book I had growing up that had Bible verses for each Hail Mary. The focus for this Mystery was God explaining matters to Joseph, so I often tend to think of how God takes care of you. When He asks the impossible, He goes out of the way, where He can, to make sure that we can bear the load, that it is not harder than it needs to be.

Or I focus on the macro - the shock of Christmas. Honestly, it's amazing we have made it sweet (that's not really the right word but you get the idea). This is the most shocking thing that ever happened. As I talked about in the Sorrowful Mysteries, there are all kinds of stories of gods who die or priests who die representing gods. But for the Almighty, the Infinite to become human...

A being of infinite power, knowledge, love, influence, terror, wisdom - limited Himself. The Creator of the universe (and all the others) limited Himself. Became less. That's shocking. World-changing.

And all words cheapen it, so let that just sink in.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

There's a Medieval Miracle Play called The Second Shepherd's Play that I performed in (Third Shepherd) last year. It's a farcical romp about three shepherds (an old coot, a middle-aged man weary of his wife and a young wipper-snapper (me)) who have a young lamb stolen from them by a conman. The conman and his wife attempt to hide the theft by pretending that the lamb is their newborn child. This actually works briefly before the shepherds come back with gifts and apologies and discover the truth. Then, once they catch the pair, they forgive them and only "toss him in a canvas" before going back to sleep. Then an Angel (probably doubled with the Conman for contrast) shows up and proclaims the Birth of Christ; so they walk from Wales to Jerusalem in the length of three short monologues and meet Mary and the baby (probably doubled with the conman's wife though probably not the sheep for the baby).

It's a thoroughly ridiculous prelude to a Nativity Scene. But the part where God became man is much more absurd. They are three simple men, and they get it best. They offer grapes, a bird and, my favorite, a tennis ball to the newborn as offerings. Mary is very kind about their attempts to offer tribute. But really, what tribute could we have given?

Simple men who worried, respectively, that their time would come in the bitter winter, they were not happy in their marriage and that the end of days were upon us, found forgiveness and were rewarded with the revelation of the divine. They found compassion - they found no need for punishment since in the end no permanent harm was done - and they were shown the face of God.

May we all be so lucky.

Christmas is an earthshattering story of cosmic significance - and, honestly, it's a huge absurdity from any angle I can tease out with my human brain. That God Himself would become less, would limit Himself, for the sake of the silly little humans who misunderstand Him so regularly. About whom the best you can really say is that, though dim and worrisome and suspicious, they can find forgiveness and compassion if no real harm was done.

And those flawed little creatures see the Face of God, made human so that they can survive the sight. Made less so that they can hear His words. Limited so that they can know Him as much as humanly possible.

The manger and the stable is the least of it. A palace would still have been an utterly ridiculous place. In this one act alone is more love than this world can hold. God Himself so loved the world that He let Himself become less, long before He let Himself die. He became human so that we might live.

And may we, like Mary, bring that Light, that glorious and shocking and wonderful Light, into the lives of others. May we bear fruit, as He told us almost thirty-three years after this event. May we be a part of bringing Him back into the world for others.

Merry Christmas.

December 12th

The Visitation

[It is snowing here. It snowed! Right as Diana and I got out of dinner, so that we could come out in the brief snowfall. It will snow more tomorrow. This is awesome.]

If the rosary is meant as a template for the faith journey, then the Visitation strikes me as the First Sacrifice, by which I mean the first offering that God asks of us after the call. In what I have seen, this first step is easy, at least relatively, and often something we are glad to finally be doing. It's something that makes us feel good for doing, a sacrifice that gives back a hundred fold.

Mary's visit with Elizabeth, going to see her also-miraculously-pregnant cousin, certainly fits that bill. Perhaps more importantly, the story also stands in for discovering the strength of a faith community, the fellowship that comes with shared faith and miracles. A new member of the faith sees how easily Jesus can be seen in others and has their first experience (or first big experience) with someone else seeing Jesus in them.

My mother is the one who first introduced me to this message in the Mystery: how others should be able to see Jesus in us as Elizabeth immediately did for Mary.

Any way you slice it, this is a really nice part of the faith journey. There is love and fellowship and discovery of the beauty of a soul on fire with the light of God.

It's important to remember where that light comes from, as Mary did with the Magnificat. My soul glorifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in my Savior.

But perhaps the most important thing to take away from this point in a spiritual journey, whenever it falls in the path, is to keep the Magnificat close, to hold on to that praise and love of God and strength of fellowship when time grow increasingly hard. We must praise God, we must realize that our souls are glorifying the Lord, even when we are listening to a strange prophet tell us how our baby son will die, even when we stand beneath the cross. This first taste of the wonder of God must be carried with us always, never too far out of sight, as we pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

God is always with us, He will never abandon us, but it can be hard to hold on to this image of God: the all-powerful God who fulfills all of His promises, who lifts the lowly and humbles the proud, who works great deeds through the least likely of His children. When the world seems terrible - the kind of world that cannot be the will of a loving God - we must remember that He still is every bit as powerful and all-knowing and beyond our understanding. We must remember to praise Him, even in the darkness. Otherwise, we can lose sight even of the comforting side of God, even of the mystery.

The Magnificat is a beautiful time in a faith journey, but the point is building a foundation that will stick through thick and thin.

May we all be so beautiful as Mary and her speech, and may we all hold it as closely to our hearts as we march closer and closer to Calvary.

December 11th

The Annunciation

Something I never really noticed, or at least thought about, until this blog, was that the Rosary begins well before Jesus's birth and ends well after his return to Heaven. It begins and ends with Mary. Which makes the Rosary her story. And, until the recently added Mysteries of Light which sideline her in all but one, Mary was present for every single one of the Mysteries (or at least she could have been - she probably wasn't actually at the Garden and I have no idea if we believe she was at Pentecost, etc.).

So I wondered - is the Rosary about Mary? Rather than Jesus?

I suppose the real question is: why would that be?

For all Jesus was a human being, His life isn't really one that we can realistically take for a model of our own. He came to Earth knowing His purpose and the path His life would take. I don't mean to diminish His humanity with that, the line He walked is too baffling for me to judge it.

[Wow, I just spent an hour on a grammar blog, and it's really distracting. Is my grammar awful? Because it's really throwing me to try to make proper sentences. I am a grad student! In Shakespeare!]

But Mary we could imitate. We could hear the call and respond with her love and strength and duty. We could be willing to completely change our plans when He calls and toss the plans we tried to make for ourselves out of the window. Defenestrate our plans, if you will.

The original progression of Mysteries also walks us through a common transformation in a faith journey or a vocation. At first, the experience is joyous as we open our eyes to new truths and deeper realities. Then comes the sacrifices demanded and the pain of loss. On the other side of that, we find the glory of God.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Mysteries of Light change the fundamental structure and perhaps the primary purpose of the Rosary. That's rough, because I love the Mysteries of Light and the upgrading of those stories that, at least for me, their designation as a Mystery gave them. However, if the story of the full rosary is supposed to be a journey through faith, then the Mysteries of Light are a bit out of place.

If we are supposed to use Mary as a our model to move through the promise to the carrying of the cross to the revelation of the divine, then the Mysteries of Light seem a bit like the preachy interlude. Or perhaps it's an acknowledgment of the Formal Initiation, the Formal Worship, part of a religious journey. Here, I think, we have a very good reason for the inclusion of the new Mysteries. You hear a lot these days about faith as a private matter - not just in the sense that people shouldn't vote faith or mix it up with government or bother someone about what they believe in - but as something that doesn't depend on the community or any formal ceremony.

I am not a very active sponsor, in all honesty. When we both return after the new year, I am going to attend the classes with him, but I have recently felt a bit lax. Am I supposed to be his friend or a spiritual resource or straddle the line? I don't know how well I am prepared to negotiate those two things. On Wednesday, for example, upon suddenly remembering that it was a Holy Day of Obligation, I called his girlfriend to ask if she wanted a ride and a reminder but not him. I felt less close to him and worried he would resent me for, on five minutes notice, demanding essentially an hour and forty minutes of his time from whatever he was doing on finals week.

But what I have learned from this experience is that the formal ceremonies do change things. Dan may occasionally resent the "hoops" he has to jump through (and early in the process I did feel his complaints were very justified), but the formal process has changed a lot of how he thinks about faith and the place of religion in his life.

So the extra step to the rosary as a journey of faith is one that I like, in the end.

Now that I have worked that out with myself, I suppose I should return to the first step in any faith journey: the ability to throw your entire plan for your life out the window and trust in a rather crazy-sounding alternative out of the love for and trust of God.

Her response is looking more remarkable all the time, isn't it?

Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you have said.

The first step is supposed to be terrifying. If it isn't, you're not looking at it right.

Jump.

December 10th

The Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven

While I will endeavor NOT to repeat the double-duty of days in the future, the point I made for the previous decade is related to this one.

The Immaculate Conception is usually thought of as the conception of Jesus, rather than the conception of Mary without original sin. But what's often added to that, in our thoughts and in our words, is the presumption that therefore Mary was born without the tendency to sin or the inevitability of sin the rest of us are subject to.

And that's the thing. I remember when I was young I once asked my mother why people said we had no choice but to sin when each of our individual sins was avoidable. This is true. And Mary is our shining example of someone who avoided them completely. The sinless human, like her Son.

And usually here I think how shocking and remarkable that God chose a human being to be Queen of Heaven, but I'm going for something a bit more challenging today.

Because the idea of not having a choice but to be sinful made more and more sense as I got older, and not just because my sins piled up and I wanted more excuses (although there is that). Also because I began to really know what it felt like to sin without realizing, without consciously choosing. And not just when you feel out of control in anger or, what often happened with my sister, that some combination of emotions and habit took over so that there was no thinking or choosing or anything that felt like me involved. It felt like it wasn't me.

And then there are cases like the boy in high school I unknowingly (except I did know) bullied my senior year of high school. I was shocked to learn he took it as such, but I did know I was making him furious. I did know he wasn't happy with our exchanges. I thought we play-fought, but I saw how angry he became. The fact that I become that angry and brush it off is no excuse for not seeing.

So you think: Mary must have been blessed to not have that - that thing that makes it not your decision any more even if you can later admit that it totally was. All the subconscious stuff that gets stirred up without you paying attention and just explodes out in ways that don't feel like they are in your power to control or choose to do. And so we tie that up in a bow with original sin and blame the apple and Eve.

Anything to keep it from being our responsibility.

But that's just the thing: all of our subconscious issues, all of our inner demons and bad habits and internal pressures and dark tendencies are our property. We own them. They are our responsibility. We have enormous power in our world. We make decisions that change lives. All the freakin' time. It is our responsibility to have all our, pardon the language on a religious reflection blog but there's no better word, all of our shit together. Because we can keep it together.

We choose not to. Because we don't want to deal with all of it. We want to lock it away, pray it away, just shove it in a corner and say that it's not a part of who we are, of who we choose to be. We cut away a part of our selves.

What happens when you repress something?

Um, it goes away?

No! It comes back all scary and pissed off!

It comes bursting out in sin, in anger we didn't know we could snap to that fast, in bullying we don't want to think we know we're doing, in sarcasm and hate that we spew casually. In things we say without thinking, things we only barely mean. But they wouldn't be in our head unless they were a part of our thoughts. And even if it's a subconscious thing that put them there, that is still our job. That is still part of ourselves and thus our responsibility to keep from hurting others.

It's part of one of my overall theories of life, but this is a better way to say it. The way I usually express it is: At the end of the day, who you are is how you treat people; your secret pain may explain your actions, but it does not excuse them.

What I really mean is that all of the terrible things that have been done to you and the chaos that has created in your psyche is still you. It is still your stuff to deal with. And in so many cases, all that stuff was put there by someone else's shitty actions, but now that it's there it is your shit - and if you pass it along in damage to other people then that is on you.

So what this has to do with Mary, way back up there, is that I think she did. I think she wasn't blessed to be without all of these internal pressures. I think (or like to think) that she took charge of all the parts of her self and she made sure it was a choice, that she recognized that choice and kept everything together so that she could make a choice, and that every time she was given the opportunity she chose not to sin.

As we could do, if we would stop repressing. We're human, we're flawed, the flesh is weak - but if the spirit is divided into parts some of which we shove away in closets not realizing how much power we are giving them in the process, then our better natures don't stand a chance. Because we refuse to even look properly at what they're fighting against.

And I don't mean everyone needs therapy or something. I mean that everyone has a responsibility for their id as much as their superego. You can't just negotiate between your best and worst self, pat yourself on the back if your best self wins out more often than your worst self. All the parts of them are you. Every thought you have ever had came from you.

You have to take responsibility for keeping everything that makes you sin and lash out in check, in your control. Take ownership of all parts of your mind, psyche and soul. If you shove them away, you give them the power to control you as if they are some other entity. Maybe, in the worst cases, that's exactly what they become - tools in the hands of the Devil.

Every part of you, beautiful and terrible, is your responsibility. Every sin is avoidable.

Mary did.

[December 9th]

The Assumption

I swear I'll get more reliable with these. Someday. My celebration of finishing the semester involved alcohol and then I would have been no good to you.

I often think here that the reason the Assumption of Mary into Heaven had to happen is because her body, the first tabernacle, the body through which Christ came into the world, was something too precious for us to have. We would make an idol of it or destroy it. We would sully its true meaning.

And maybe that's still partially true, but why this had to happen has more to do with the fact that then it would be ours. Her body would then become something for us. A powerful thing, a faith-creating thing no doubt, and perhaps she would have been fine with that, but it seems unaccountably wrong to take her body, the great Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, away from her control. Out of her hands.

Especially because not so very long ago that's like all we wanted to do to women. Take away their bodies. And that rhetoric is not used by the pro-choice movement, but I'm talking about things like the creepy "Junior Dad's Weekend" that recently happened at Mary Baldwin College in which junior college girls receive a ring from their father upon promising to maintain fidelity to him until their marriage (evidenced by their chastity). Which is creepy on so many levels as the ceremony basically is a wedding for fathers and daughters and was started in the 1970s.

And St. Jerome, a Father of the Church, once wrote (after murdering through excessive penance-encouraging a woman named Blessilla) that it was a shame that Blessilla would only be in the third room away from God - because no matter how holy she became (praised by him for coming to the point where she mourned the loss of her virginity more than the death of her husband), her place in heaven was determined by, essentially, the state of her hymen. Virgins are in the closest room, then mothers in the second and married women without children in the third. Presumably any other kind of woman was not granted admittance.

Women as property. Women's bodies as something outside of their control.

Spirituality as a way of women to get out of their bodies.

You should see the crazy stuff men wrote about women's bodies in ages past. And not just the Dark Ages or the Renaissance stuff I study. Freud was all messed up about women. Wandering uteruses were nineteenth century. Incapable of understanding masculine thoughts was twentieth. Forty years ago, Mary Baldwin College started making each of its students swear to remain chaste as their fathers placed rings on their fingers.

It's a good thing God didn't leave Mary's body down here. Think what we would have done to it or demanded of it or treated it like. Think how many men would have tried to own it (isn't that actually exactly what The Da Vinci Code was about for Mary Magdalene? The story of a massive two-thousand-year-old cult, mostly of old men, trying to get possession of the body of a woman who was supposedly married to Jesus Christ?).

But this is also important as a message for us: Mary, the Queen of Heaven, is in full possession of her body. She never lost it. She never gave it. She used it to serve God, and she was permitted to keep it past the threshold of death, so that she could take her seat in Heaven in the fullness of herself.

Our bodies are our selves. Giving away your body is giving away your self. Every time.

And I don't just mean sex or pregnancy. Whenever you let something or someone else tell you what to do with your body, you are giving away your self. When you let someone else define your body, you are giving away your self.

We know these things, and yet we still do this nonsense.

Mary, our ultimate role model, never lost possession of her body. Never let a man control or rule it. And God would not let it be a pawn in any man's (or other woman's) game down here as we make a mess of religion for over two thousand years.

We shouldn't let ours be used thus either.

December 8th

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Sometimes I wonder if my most common interaction with the Holy Spirit isn't the gentle reminder - like the only I received at approximately 6:28 today, exactly enough time to drive to St. John's for the last mass of the day. This one was more convoluted then just my not untypical "Oh yeah! That!" My roommate met up with me at a friend's house and mentioned that she couldn't even remember what day it was. I immediately returned that I knew exactly what day it was because it's the day after Pearl Harbor day so December 8th which is the Feast of...oh, right! Church!

Also thank you, Mr. Thompson, for suspending our piano lesson that one year to tell me off royally for not knowing that it was Pearl Harbor day and thus ingraining December 7th into my head for all time.

[As a post-writing warning - this entry came out a bit weird. I considered not posting it. You really might consider not reading it.]

So today I wondered - is the Holy Spirit awakening something in us? Unlocking that best self, taking away the ten thousand things that keep us from being who we are - or is it adding something Else, something Other to us? Gifts like Tongues seem to suggest the latter, while Discernment could exist as either and more run-of-the-mill courage and eloquence could be naturally endowed but repressed or unused. I'm not sure what I "want" it to be.

Within us is more inspiring, in an afterschool special sort of way but still, and there's something more Romantic and fairy tale-esque about the other. And maybe both are irreverent comparisons, but I don't mean them that way.

Then again, maybe that's just the watered down version of the Holy Spirit. The description of Pentecost is anything but tame. Ecstatic contact with the divine. Transformation in the presence of God. Becoming a vessel for Him to speak through. The prophets, the saints, the visionaries. Those are the ones who feel the Spirit like that.

Perhaps we all have the little doses, even the minute ones. On retreat. In a particularly powerful prayer session. In sudden moments of clarity and brilliance.

Those tend to scare the pants off of me as often as inspire. Maybe that's good - and it's always a good thing in my life.

But perhaps we've let the idea of the Holy Spirit moving within us become too tame. To become something easy and simple and "just feels good." Shouldn't it always, at least to some degree, feel like going crazy? Feel like losing control? Even losing yourself?

And I feel like now I'm talking about abandon or the ecstatic religions...but there was wind and tongues of fire over every head and then they spilled into the crowded streets and shouted in every language the truth of God in a way that made people listen. That's not a tame experience. And then their entire lives changed and they roamed around the globe doing and speaking wonders. There's nothing comforting about a story like that. It's powerful, and it's good, but it's not comforting.

Perhaps I'm painting the picture too "wild" when what I mean is "powerful." That is what the Holy Spirit undoubtedly is. And the only reason The Spirit doesn't take us over is because God decided long ago that He would ask to be invited in, that our souls were our own property to do with as we pleased and thus He would only touch them upon request. So we give The Spirit permission for small doses - to bless our lives and give us strength and patience and help us love, to comfort us, to inspire us and help us to do good beyond our intentions. But perhaps only the visionaries, only the saints, only the prophets, allow the Holy Spirit to take over, to enter fully. To flow through until we are a part of The Spirit rather than The Spirit being apart of us - or that we are within the Spirit rather than the Holy Spirit within us. Or until it's both, or it's impossible to tell which.

Maybe that's okay. Maybe it's not. Maybe it hasn't been truly done since Pentecost, when the apostles were lonely and broken and had no idea how the world would change - not just them, the entire world.

But I wonder if the reason we see fewer miracles is because we clutch at more of our souls, our minds, our bodies. If we try to keep them solidly in our possession, by protecting them and locking them away rather than using them and owning them, choosing what to do with them.

Maybe it's because we're afraid of going crazy, or of looking crazy, or of suddenly realizing how crazy we've been all this time. Maybe it's because wind and fire are frightening and so is the idea of shouting in a language you don't know. So is the idea of screaming on street corners and realizing that now this is your life.

Maybe we're afraid because the moment you come out of that feeling, the crash back down to earth is brutal. We feel foolish or empty. We feel lonely or ashamed. Maybe we just forgot how it felt to let the Holy Spirit in, to let the Holy Spirit work within us. We forgot how it feels to be ecstatic, because if we remembered we would go mad. Maybe we're afraid to stay there, even in ecstasy, and maybe we're supposed to be because these bodies weren't made for permanent direct contact with the Divine.

Maybe we're just flawed vessels, but I can't help wondering if we have made the Holy Spirit tame with how many feelings we associate with Him or if we have merely arranged for a thousand degrees of communion to seek with the Holy Spirit - to spare us the choice of divine contact and the danger of madness.

December 7th

The Ascension

I am stuck on three small things with this mystery today - and one of them isn't even directly connected. So of course, that's the one really occupying my mind.

When I was at St. Anne's, one of my religion teachers once said, "Think how glorious it would have been to be there, that's why it's in the Glorious Mysteries." I don't know why or what about it made me remember that moment so clearly (except for all the real details of who and where and why). How glorious to see Jesus ascend into the heavens. To see God returning home. To see the promise for us.

So glorious that Luke wrote about it twice, ending the Gospel and beginning the Acts of the Apostles. Neither time in great detail, however. Nothing like the Road to Emaus or the Coming of the Holy Spirit. But it was simultaneously an ending and a beginning, the end of the Follower phase of the apostles' experience and the beginning of their ministry. The beginning of God's grand decision to let us muddle through doctrine and Church policy and how to best spread His Word throughout the world. To leave us alone in the stymy of truth and morality and hope that we remembered the basic tenets of love thy neighbor and could extrapolate the rest out of that.

And normally, that's precisely what I think about. That last in a series of unfathomable choices to our little human minds (also dramatized in a middle school play for St. Anne's once, I believe, or perhaps a story in a homily there - where an angel cross examines Jesus about the decision to leave without having announced Himself globally or even really locally besides about forty people - to have done His greatest work in secret).

But what keeps catching my thoughts is the idea of Doubting Thomas. Because he really got screwed. Like any of the other disciples wouldn't have looked around at the cramped, rundown (I imagine) little room at all the delirious faces so different than the heartbroken ones he had left and thought that they had gone crazy. Like any of us, after we had our heart broken by faith, would immediately embrace it again on the word of grief-stricken fellow cult members.

I wonder if Thomas spent his entire life looking for the Messiah, if he followed Jesus because he thought they would be delivered from Rome rather than death, if he had already weighed and measure half a dozen false messiahs (which were apparently creeping up everywhere at the time) and found them wanting before he found the real thing. If that is why he was one of the apostles. And I wonder if he felt betrayed by Jesus's apparent end, by death touching God, by the end of the revolution he might have imagined. If that was his real crime, feeling betrayed by God because it didn't turn out like he had believed it would. Like he thought the scriptures had promised him it would.

If his real crime was turning away from God who didn't say what he wanted to hear, what he thought he was getting. When God was strange and thus seemed human and small. If his declaration that he would only believe if he touched His hands and side was Thomas's desperate need not to be fooled again.

And what a moment then, when Jesus came to him. To reward even his lack of faith. To show him that it wasn't what he expected, what he thought he knew to look for, what he had thought he had in his hands - it was something better. Even if it was cruel first.

And the Ascension was the decision that no one else would have that moment as literally again, save the visionaries who usually had faith before the visions. And even they would have less of a literal, physical, actual 'touch my hands and side' moment.

And that was a gift too. Because Jesus told us, blessed are those who have not seen and believe. Blessed are those who can believe in a world outside of their heads, who can believe in the word of others, who can see God's plan and accept it as it is rather than trying to figure it out.

Blessed are they who can choose to love God rather than worship at the throne of a divine king. Blessed are those who return from warning family to lay low, from fear and guilt for putting loved ones in danger, and hear the good news that a victory and a blessing beyond their wildest dreams has occured. Blessed are those who can have faith even though it comes from men and women who look mad, even when it has burned you and those you love so thoroughly already, even though nothing in your life has prepared you for what God really had planned for you.

Blessed are we too that the apostles could come down from that mania and learn to speak in tongues, learn to speak to the world itself. Blessed are we that God chose to spread His message through human means, however flawed, so that we could have that great leap of faith - taking a crazy sounding story from the mouth of someone alight with what can be a frightening power.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Blessed are they, mad souls.