Listen To Echoes

The truth of who we are echoes over our lives.  The persistent emergence of our identity resounds in our souls, a message which, in its recurrence, repeatedly encourages us to stay true to who God faithfully calls us to be, and to evermore become.  

During my present stay here at the hermitage, I have been witnessing how my life continues to unfold consistently in ways which reinforce how God calls me to be who He has always meant me to be.  In the midst of this stay here, I hear my life echoing who I am.  

These few days of retreat seem like they can be taken as a tiny version of the year and a half I lived here.  In the ebb and flow of my emotions now, and in the present stirrings in my soul, and in the current movements of the Holy Spirit within me, I am reminded of similar interior shifts when I resided here.  

Much like when I moved in a few years ago to live here, similarly a couple of nights ago I was filled with joy and excitement at the prospect of basking in the stillness and silence and solitude here, so conducive to prayer and meditation.  Upon both arrivals, I deeply breathed in this contemplative atmosphere.  

Both three years ago and two days ago, I calmed down soon after arriving.  I began to take stock of who I am, namely someone with monastic tendencies, yet also with great love of those who are poor.  Then I came to see myself, and now I view myself, as a servant of those who are impoverished, and as having an inner monk I am to nourish through spiritual disciplines I can follow even in the midst of whatever activity occupies me.  

I practiced such attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit amidst busy days while I still lived here.  After I had lived here for about half a year, I started driving monks who couldn't drive, usually to their doctor appointments.  Today, about halfway through this visit, I drove to Carmel and picked up a monk; he was on his way back from monastic business with other Camaldolese monks in Italy.  After meeting him in Carmel, I brought him back here to the hermitage.  

As I progressed in my residence here, I concluded that it didn't seem that God was calling me to become a monk here, but that God had been calling me to be here so I could deepen my prayer life.  Similarly, while I have been deeply nourished during the last couple of days here, it seems clear to me that I am to ponder in my heart, as our Blessed Mother Mary did.*  I feel I am to retain and treasure what has so nurtured me and allow it to guide me and to empower me and to light my path** as I strive to serve my neighbors, many of whom are poor.  As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton noted, we are to bring the contemplative treasures we have been given and share those spiritual fruits out in the world.  We are to share with others the great love which God has bestowed upon us.  

To properly serve, we must show great love.  If we empty ourselves, God can fill us with His love.  Nourished by the presence of Jesus, especially felt in stillness and silence and solitude, we can help others to feel the presence of Jesus.  If we remain in Jesus, and Jesus in us,*** we can bear much fruit in His name; conversely, without Him, we can do nothing.****  If we are filled with the love of God,***** we can recognize Jesus in those who are the least among us,****** and we can welcome Jesus into our hearts.  

When we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we hear and welcome The Word which God has been speaking in eternity.  The Word, the love of God, has been echoing for all eternity.  We hear this echo calling to us in the depths of our souls.  When we hear, and listen to, and respond with open hearts to this repeating invitation, we become who God has always intended us to be.  

* Luke 2:19 
** Psalm 119:105 
*** John 15:4,5,6,7,9,10 
**** John 15:5 
***** Romans 5:5 
****** Matthew 25:40,45 

Plainly Loving Language

When we speak with someone, there is much left unsaid.  And yet we do not want to have regrets.  We want to express what is in our hearts that is longing to be released.  

If we but listen, we can hear the love of God that is knocking at the door of our hearts.  If we have let that love into our hearts,* that love in us is meant to be let out.  God calls us to love our neighbor** through our actions, and to speak plainly the language of love with our neighbor, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are luxuriously living in a mansion, or are huddled and shivering in sleeping bags and tents in the bushes.  
I have been trying to demonstrate to the homeless folks I love here in Redwood City that there is a deeper meaning to interactions they have with people who help them.  Recently I have told certain homeless friends of mine that when they receive food from people who aim to help them, it is not just about food.  Really, I have said to them, I have been trying to tell you that I love you.  

We wish to show you that you are worthy of respect.  You are receiving this love God is giving you through me because God loves you.  

And so when I have spoken so directly to my homeless friends who I so cherish, I feel as if I could say to them, that the time has come when I am no longer communicating with you in figures of speech, much like what Jesus said to His disciples just before His passion and death.***  It seems as if I could tell these dear homeless brothers and sisters of mine that now I am no longer just speaking with you through the metaphors of my actions.  Now I am speaking with you plainly.****  Finally I am talking with you in the plain language of love. 

Throughout much of His public ministry, Jesus spoke in parables and figures of speech.  Then on Maundy Thursday, He sat down with His disciples for the Last Supper, just before He was handed over to be condemned to death.*****  In that meal that night with His disciples, they saw a prefiguring of His sacrifice on the Cross.  While His disciples sat down to a meal of bread and wine, they received much more than food and drink; in the Eucharist, we receive nourishment of love from Jesus.  Having shown us on the night of the Last Supper how we are to celebrate the Eucharist, Jesus was about to die on Cross, and do what He had just said He was about to do.  He was showing them the greatest love one can have for one's friends, as He laid down His life for His friends.******  

When we try to show the greatest love we can have for our neighbor, when we die to ourselves, we live for our neighbor.  When we forget who we are, who society thinks we are supposed to be, when we disregard the message from society that we are to shun our brothers and sisters who are outcasts, then we can die to the disordered desires and hurtful ideas and selfish tendencies we have, so we can embrace our needy neighbor, and thus live for our neighbor.  

Once Jesus had spoken plainly to His disciples, just before He was handed over to be crucified, He told them that He did not have much more to say to them.*******  He had spoken The Truth honestly and openly with them, and thus there was not much else for Him to say.  

In telling these treasured homeless friends of mine that in trying to care for them, I am truly trying to tell them that I deeply love them, I have spoken plainly to them.  I have said what I really have to say to these homeless friends I so love.  And so I don't have much else to say.  

And so in a certain sense, I would be content if this were to be last blog entry I were ever to write.  Since this is the core of the message I feel that God brought me into the world to declare to my brothers and my sisters, I feel I have been embracing the vocation of love to which God has been calling me.    

For were I left to my own devices, I would be hesitant to say both that I am an unprofitable servant, and that I have only done my duty.  If I had not been instructed otherwise, I would lament that I am an unprofitable servant, and that I am not even sure that I can say that I have even done my duty.  However, since Jesus directed us to say in the end, "We are unprofitable servants; we have only done what we were obliged to do,"******** then I do proclaim those words.  Knowing that I have done what God has called me to do, to declare the truth to my homeless brothers and sisters, that they deserve respect and are clothed in dignity, since they are loved by God and by me, I rest secure in the loving promise that God, in His great mercy, will forgive me to the extent I have failed in performing this duty.  

And so, whether it is today, tomorrow, or fifty or more years from now, secure in the knowledge that I am called to lovingly embrace my homeless brothers and sisters, and that God, in His immense mercy will forgive me insofar as I fail in my best efforts to overwhelmingly love them, I joyfully proclaim that I am going home to the Father.*********  When I finally get back home, my dear brothers and sisters, please do not grieve for me, for it will be the most glorious day I have ever seen.  For my tiny, paltry, measly efforts to love will be overwhelmed by the unbelievably warm tender glow of the infinite love of God.  And thanks to His magnificent mercy, I shall bask in the glory of His infinite love for all eternity.  Amen.  

* Romans 5:5 
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
*** John 16:25 
**** John 16:29 
***** Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20 
****** John 15:13 
******* John 14:30 
******** Luke 17:10 
********* John 16:16-17 

Abandoning Our Plans

We do not see what we are offered.  We are standing inside of a grand tale.  It is much larger than we are.  We cannot see how we fit into it.  We cannot even see where we are in it.  And yet we propose to determine our own place in this great drama.  However, the Master Storyteller knows and assigns the role each one of us is to play.  He will tell us, in the midst of our discernment, if we only ask Him.  We will hear Him if we merely listen.  When He tells us, we must choose if we accept the role he offers us.  In this decision, we determine our own destiny, which is inextricably interwoven with that of others.  

So Joseph, the husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus, had to decide.  Earlier this week, when we celebrated the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, we heard in the Gospel reading of the day 

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.  
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, 
but before they lived together, 
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.  
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, 
yet unwilling to expose her to shame, 
decided to divorce her quietly.  
Such was his intention when, behold, 
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 
"Joseph, son of David, 
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  
For it is through the Holy Spirit 
that this child has been conceived in her.  
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, 
because he will save his people from their sins."  
When Joseph awoke, 
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him 
and took his wife into his home.*  

In how he began to relate how the birth of Jesus came to be, it is as if Saint Matthew was saying, "Let me tell you the full story."  Within this story, Saint Joseph had an idea of what he was going to do.  It was his own scheme.  It was not God's plan.  

In our lives, we are living a story larger than we realize.  We have our own plans.  Are our limited conceptions the same as God's boundless immensity?  

Our minds are finite; God is infinite.  God can, and wants to, and does devise and execute plans far greater than what we can ever possibly envision.  

Joseph and Mary were betrothed.  They were engaged to each other.  They were not living together.  She became pregnant.  

When we have committed to a course of action, sometimes does something unexpected happen?  How do we react?  

After Joseph learns that Mary is expecting a child, he devises his strategy.  He is going to divorce her, but quietly, because he doesn't want to disgrace her.  

We come up with our own approach to what unfolds in our lives.  Are we trying to stray from where God wants to lead us?  

God told Joseph that He had intended that Mary had come to be with the child within her.  Through His angel, God told Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary his wife into his home.  He explained to Joseph that the child had been conceived in her through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Joseph was to name Him Jesus, since he was destined to save people from their sins.  
Do we trust God when God tells us not to fear?  Do we rest secure in God?  Do we welcome how the Holy Spirit seeks to work in our lives?  

God seeks to give us gifts.  If humans, as evil as we choose to be, know how to give our children good things, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?**  God wants the best for us.  God wants such good for us, and so loves us that God sent His Son, Jesus, the Messiah, to save us from our sins.***  

If we abandon our own plans, then we can welcome what God has store for us.  If we empty ourselves, then we can be filled with what God wants to give to us.  

This week I've heard from both Larry and Susan, my fellow Catholic Workers here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, that when one is discerning one's calling, one does well if one is indifferent.  That is, if you are detached from all vocational possibilities, then you can dispassionately evaluate the courses of action which rest in front of you.  When you're unattached to any particular choice, then your mind is clear enough to be well-disposed to hear and listen to what God is trying to tell you.  

If we stop clinging to our ideas about where we think we are supposed to be, and what we think we are supposed to do, then we are turning onto the road of objectivity.  When we let go, and stop trying to demonstrate our strength, instead admitting we do not know, allowing ourselves to be humbled, then we are given the strength we need.  Then we are able to discern well-reasoned, wise decisions.  

Saint Joseph gave up his plan, which he had formulated without understanding where he stood in God's master plan.  After he had been told what he was to do, he let go of the idea he had had to divorce his wife Mary.  Joseph did as he was told.  Once the angel had told him to take Mary his wife into his home, he did so.  Upon being told to accept Mary as his wife, he offered his own fiat.  He awoke and proclaimed through his actions that it should be done to him as he had been told by the angel.****  

For his obedient submission to the will of God, Saint Joseph was rewarded.  For his acquiescence to the will of God, Saint Joseph became the foster father of the Savior of Humanity, inextricably and intimately linking his destiny with that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  

Do we cling to our own ideas?  Will we open our hands and let go of our own plans?  If we merely unclench our fists, then we are able to open them to what God wants to hand us.  In what God wants to give to us, we will receive what is far better than anything we can even imagine.  

We do not see what we have been promised, for we cannot see it this side of eternity.  As Saint Paul wrote, we fix our hope on what is not seen.*****  Yet as Saint Paul also wrote, we strive toward this goal.******  We are able to make this progress since The Way we follow is illuminated by the light of faith, as Pope Francis has told us.  And so we are encouraged as we move forward, knowing that we are bound in love as part of a communion of brothers and sisters stretching out over centuries.  We are inspired by the examples of faith our brothers and sisters have provided to us over the centuries.  Encouraged by their witness, we are confident that we too can hear and listen to how God is also calling us to abandon our own plans and turn to Him so we can be who and what He has always intended each of us to be.  

* Matthew 1:1-18, 24 
** Luke 11:13 
*** John 3:16 
**** Luke 1:38 
***** 2 Corinthians 4:18 
****** Philippians 3:14 

Keep On Loving

Today I write to you of love.  I write to you about the love of a woman for a man.  I have seen it with my own eyes, and so I testify to it.*  As usual, I write to you of what I know.  And as I typically aim to do, I witness to how the Gospel is being lived out in front of me.  

I see my neighbor forgiving my neighbor.  I recognize my neighbor consenting to the love of God being shown through her.  I hold in high regard when my neighbor lets God love others through her.  We love our neighbor when we forgive our neighbor.  Jesus instructed us to keep forgiving our neighbor.  Saint Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?  As many as seven times?"  Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times."**  God calls us to forgive our neighbor over and over and over again, and to keep on forgiving our neighbor after that.  We are to keep on loving our neighbor despite how he or she keeps falling.  

I have seen this tireless love and devotion shown by a particular woman to her boyfriend here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Countless times I've interacted with a certain homeless woman, who I'll call "Jocelyn" here, and with her homeless boyfriend who I'll call "Jonny" here.  Despite Jonny's repeated self-defeating choices, Jocelyn has remained with him.  

I had heard that Jonny was addicted to a hard drug.  Someone had also told me that Jocelyn could easily stop being homeless.  This person opined that Jocelyn was obstructed from moving out of homelessness because she was persistently staying with her boyfriend.  This person insinuated that Jocelyn could help herself, but she was refusing to do so because she was insisting on remaining with her boyfriend.  

Essentially Jocelyn has kept putting someone else before herself.  She has kept loving her neighbor without counting the cost to herself.  

Jocelyn imitates Jesus.  Jesus gave Himself up on the Cross to save us, who are sinners.  

While He was on the Cross, Jesus was mocked by the soldiers who told Jesus to save Himself if He was the King of the Jews.  The leaders who were there jeered at Him that if He was the Messiah, that He should save Himself.  One of the two criminals being crucified next to Jesus also abused Him, demanding that Jesus save Himself as well as the two of them.***  Jesus could have saved Himself but He did not.  Rather than save Himself, He died on the Cross from love of us, praying for us even though we had ignored, mocked, disrespected, tortured and abused Him.  

It might seem foolish not to save yourself when you can.  Maybe it seems like deciding to die when you can live.  Yet in the perspective through which you choose to view the world, you determine whether your outlook is setting you on a path to being saved or to being lost, being on the road to life or to death, both for yourself and for others.  Saint Paul explains that "the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."****  

Those who do not love will perish.  People who do not give of themselves are doomed.  When you love, you choose to be saved.  When you persist in loving, despite all indications that your demise is imminent, actually you are working not only to be saved but also so that others may be saved.  When you love despite all evidence suggesting that your love is ineffective, you are loving from faith.  When you love not paying attention to appearances, you are putting credit in faith.   

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich assures us, "All will be well."  When we say that all will be well, despite what we see to the contrary, we make an assertion of faith.  

If we truly have faith, we are fixing the foundation of our souls, our hearts, our minds and our bodies on what we do not see.  As Saint Paul wrote, "We look not to what is seen, but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal."***** 

Do not think that I am speaking merely of rewards that we will see only in the next life.  Certainly here I address the glory which will be revealed to us in the life to come.  Yet if you have faith and trust in God, you also reap the fruits of that faith now in this life.  I am not speaking in hypothetical terms, trying to assure you of things which I believe but have not seen.  As I have already said, I tell you of what I have seen.  

I have seen the change in his appearance.  I have seen the deep crevices disappear from Jonny's face over the last few weeks, deep lines which are symptomatic of abuse of hard drugs.  

I have witnessed the change in his behavior, how this month he walked up to me and greeted me with a wholeheartedly warm embrace.  Months ago he would barely acknowledge my presence upon crossing paths.  

Upon greeting him a few weeks ago and asking him how he was doing, I heard him excitedly proclaim to me, "Doug, I've gotten a job!"  After I had witnessed all of these and other signs of improving health, Jocelyn told me, "He stopped using the needle weeks ago."  

Jocelyn kept loving Jonny.  She did not give up on him.  She did not like what she saw, and she told him so.  I was present one day when in public she loudly and vehemently made clear to him that he did not look good, and that she was displeased with his behavior.  Yet she did not abandon him.  She kept loving him, despite his appearance, which was not promising.  Although she was not encouraged by his behavior, by what she saw, she moved forward in faith, in the hope she had for a better future.  

For centuries people have trusted in God, having hope in God's promise, having confidence that God can and will work wonders.  Indeed God will show us marvels if we will but have faith in Him.  In the fourth century, Saint Monica prayed indefatigably for years for her son Saint Augustine of Hippo.  After years of praying for him, he experienced a conversion: his life was reformed and he repented of his sins.  Having such faith in God, and being miraculously transformed from such faith, we enter into a new kind of life.  In the film "Restless Heart," Saint Monica says to her son Saint Augustine, "We are already living in eternal life."  Saint Monica and Saint Augustine lived such lives of faith in God, with such hope in His promise, that even in this lifetime, they had already begun living in eternal life.  

In this time, right now, the work before us is that of faith and hope, for we hope for what we do not see.******  The work of love is also now.  Jesus instructed us to love one another as He has loved us.*******  As Jesus has loved us, and died for us, now we are to die to ourselves for our neighbor, so that we and our neighbor may be saved.  Now we are to love out of faith and hope.  

Later, in the next life, we will see the fruits of our faith and hope.  In the next life, faith and hope will be realized in the love we will then experience.  For those in Heaven, that love will never end, for God is eternal, and God is love.********  And so love is eternal and will never end.  For those of us in Heaven, when we are in eternity, we will be with God, and so we will be with love forever.  

So keep on loving now.  In the end, love will rule.  Love will reign in Heaven once we get there, just as it rules there now.  Love now, and keep on loving.  Step onto the bridge of love which Saint Catherine of Siena described, that boundless love of Jesus, which will take you on The Way into eternal love.  Step into eternal life now.  Live the life of love now you are meant to live forever.  

* 1 John 1:1-3 
** Matthew 18:21-22 
*** Luke 23:35-39
**** 1 Corinthians 1:18 
***** 2 Corinthians 4:18 
****** Romans 8:25
******* John 13:34 
******** 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16