Hopefully Move Forward

The last year has been lovely.  God has shed His grace upon me.  Through His grace, He has empowered me to do His will.  I feel that I have done what He sent me here to do.  And so it seems that the time has come to move on from here.  

And so on January 1 I will move back to the hermitage.  I feel God is calling me back there. 

I imagine you are wondering how this conclusion intersects with my previous discernment to leave the hermitage.  

Although I did not explicitly say so, when I left the hermitage to serve poor persons, I was overwhelmingly focused on rejoining the Peace Corps.  I re-applied to the Peace Corps near the end of 2015, and in early 2016, Peace Corps informed me that they could not offer me a position.  

I applied or at least inquired with other organizations serving impoverished people abroad.  Either I didn't hear back at all, or at other times it didn't work out with those other organizations.  
Thus in time I came to realize that one reason I left the hermitage, to serve poor persons overseas, was not materializing.  I let it go, and so the path I thought I was following turned out to be taking me not as far away as I had envisioned.  

Since it started becoming clear I wouldn't be moving to another country again, I began to ponder serving poor folks here in the states.  Having been a Catholic Worker in San Jose before I moved into the hermitage,  I began to think about once again being a Catholic Worker.  

After a brief stint last summer filling in for my friends at Casa de Clara, the San Jose Catholic Worker House, I moved in here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House.  After not too long, I began to get to know homeless folks here in Redwood City.  I came to witness the sense of community amongst those living on the streets here.  I became much closer with them than I had ever felt with homeless folks anywhere else.  And so I have felt much fulfillment as I have served people living on the streets here.  

And yet I have gradually, steadily, increasingly felt more and more spiritually malnourished despite how I have continued the spiritual practices I deepened at the hermitage.  I read Scripture.  I attend Mass.  Yet I have consistently felt that God has been calling me back into more solitude, more silence, more stillness, more contemplation.  I have felt that God has been calling me back into the deep prayer which monastic life fosters, and then will flow whatever service to poor folks naturally, organically arises out of monastic life.  

I feel too that God has given me the grace to make vows to Him.  I know that I can make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to Him.  If I were not to do so, I would be wasting graces God has given to me.  If you know me well, you know well that I cannot stand wasting what God has given to us.  God has given us marvelous gifts: we should not only appreciate and use well His gifts, but thank and praise and adore and glorify God who gives us such magnificent gifts.  Out of gratitude to Him, I do not wish to be the servant who buries in the ground a coin or coins he has received from his Master.*  I do not wish to be the servant who wraps up in a cloth the coin He has received from His Master.**  

I used to think that God had not empowered me to make a vow of chastity.  Perhaps I was correct.  What I do know is that at times I have prayed to God for grace, and He has given it to me.  I have recalled how Our Blessed Mother Mary told Saint Catherine of Laboure that so many people do not receive certain graces because they do not ask for them.  I have seen for myself how it is true that you can receive a grace you have not had if you but ask for it.  

And so I will be moving on with a desire to use well what God has given to me.  I wish to invest well the talents God has given me, so that I may make more,*** just as Jesus teaches us to do.  

I look forward to trying to use well the gifts God has given to me.  I face forward into the future, though parting under these circumstances is bittersweet, and not just for me.  

I think of the homeless woman who once again I'll call "Kimberly."  She has shared her pain with me, and so she and I have come to appreciate each other.  Despite her sorrow, she has expressed to me that she wants to understand my reasons for leaving, and the goals I hope to reach, so that she can better support me in my decision to leave here.  

I think too of the homeless woman who again I'll call "Anna."  As she has been considering my moving away, in the context of how she has been well aware that she must repent and do her best to sin no more, she has confidently proclaimed that at the very least, she will see me again in eternity.  

I am greatly consoled by these mature words of faith, hope and love.  I am encouraged by the spiritual growth these words of sureness convey.  I am comforted as I adjust to leaving here, knowing that such faith resides amongst those who are homeless here.  

Thus I know that I am not deluding myself when I say that I have seen homeless persons rising up here.  I can move on since I have seen real growth and progress among them.  

I am reminded that recently a certain homeless woman who I'll once again call "Jane" showed up here at the Catholic Worker House.  She had rung the doorbell, and in speaking with a Catholic Worker here, she expressed gratitude, saying, "Thank you for helping me to rise up."  Jane too has been rising up from where she had been, to a better place, proven by the gratitude she has expressed.  

I have also seen with my own eyes how a certain woman, who I'll call "Helen," has also moved forward in her life.  Helen used to be homeless.  Now she lives in her own apartment, which I have seen.  I need not doubt her progress, which is evident.  

I hear and see all this proof of rising up with my own ears and with my own eyes.  As my time here draws to a close, I am encouraged by what I hear and see.  

And so, as night has fallen today, so too the twilight of my time here as a Catholic Worker is also upon me.  Yet as this night is upon us, I am not in despair, for a new dawn is rising up in homeless friends I have made here.  This dawn I have been seeing break open in them gives me hope, a hope which stretches beyond them, into the wide community of humanity.  This hope extends beyond this lifetime, into the limitless expanse of eternity.  The fruits of this faith, hope and love will be seen in eternity.  In eternity, we will see the consequences of our faith, hope and love.  

Let us move forward in faith, hope and love now, so that we may live in love for all eternity.  Amen.  

* Matthew 25:18,25 
** Luke 19:20 
*** Matthew 25:20,23 

Look For Light

Tonight the doorbell rang.  I answered it.  Out of the darkness came the answer I sought.  

Before me stood a homeless man who I'll once again call "Manuel."  Suddenly Manuel reassured me, "God sees everything you do.  Do not doubt that God knows all the things you are doing.  So just keep on doing what you're doing."  

Often we can wonder whether we're making a difference, and if so, how much of a difference we're making.  We can sink into spiritual desolation if we start to think that we're not accomplishing much.  

I find it apropos that it was today that Manuel came and gave me this particular encouragement.  Today we celebrate the feast day of Saint John of the Cross, who wrote about how one can journey through spiritual darkness.  

We can feel that we are not receiving much spiritual consolation in the midst of our toil.  It might seem as if we are laboring without it being clear what we are really doing.  

Yet in the midst of this spiritual darkness, a light shines.  A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not put it out.*  

After night had fallen tonight, the doorbell here rang.  At the door I found a homeless man who presented me with a spiritual candle, lit in the darkness, and bringing to me light through the hope he was urging me to maintain.  

Jesus comes to us in those who are poor, in those who are outcast, in those who are the least among us.**  Jesus comes to us and encourages us to keep moving forward, even when we are in darkness.  

Jesus is the light of the world.***  He shows us the way since He is The Way.****  

When we find ourselves in darkness, if we look for the light He is giving to us always, since He is with us always,***** we will see The Way.  Even in darkness, we can see Him, and so we can see The Way home to Our Heavenly Father.  

* John 1:5 
** Matthew 25:40,45 
*** John 8:12; 1 John 1:5
**** John 14:6 
***** Matthew 28:20 

Lovingly Welcome Martyrdom

This afternoon I arrived back here at the hermitage for my first visit since I stopped living here at the beginning of last summer.  Being here again, I am reminded of why I entered formation here on the path to becoming a monk: the silence and solitude so conducive to prayer and meditation; the liturgical schedule which includes communal prayer three times a day, in addition to daily Mass; and the warm, welcoming hospitality of these gracious monks.  

Yet I recollect that while I felt that God called me to live at this hermitage for a time so I could learn to deepen my prayer life, I feel that it has been clear to me for quite some time now that God has not given me the grace to be a monk.  A while ago I also concluded that I have an inner monk, who I am to nurture consciously, deliberately and mindfully, through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, celebration of God's blessings, silence, solitude, simplicity and service, among other spiritual practices.  

God has given me the wisdom to realize that these spiritual disciplines help me to turn my attention toward Him, to focus on Him, and to hear Him and to listen to Him.  God gives us what we need to do His will.  We might get caught up in craving something that we would like to do to try to serve Him, but while we have our own hopes of how to serve God, in insisting upon them, we might be clinging to ideas which are our own, and are not according to the plan God has in mind for us.  

Today at Mass here, in his sermon Father Cyprian recalled how both Saint Francis and Saint Romuald longed to die as martyrs for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  Yet, Father Cyprian explained to us, God had not given Saint Francis and Saint Romuald the grace to be martyrs.  Father Cyprian went on to note that dying as a martyr is not something we can reach out and grasp; we must be given the grace to die as a martyr.  God gives us the grace we need to do His will.  

However, Father Cyprian gave us hope as he continued his homily.  He instructed us that God calls all of us to be martyrs for love.  We are to die to our own desires, so that, having emptied ourselves, God can fill us with His grace so that, filled with His love,* we can serve as the conduits through which God sends His love to our neighbors, so that they may receive what they need.  

I was reminded of these truths this morning when I received a message from someone I'll call "Paul."  God has blessed both Paul and me with the same certain person in our lives, who I'll call "Lauren."  Lauren is homeless and she also suffers from a drug addiction.  Paul and I have discussed much how we might be able to help Lauren, who keeps making decisions which threaten her spiritual, psychological and physical health.  While we can see Lauren as disappointing us, and based on that dissatisfaction, we could choose to isolate her and shun her, if we were to do so, we would be deciding to allow our emotions to control us.  Or we can choose to let our irritation with her not dominate us, but instead die to our natural inclinations, instead letting love rule us.  

When we forgive, we die to our selfish instincts to cling to our pain of how we feel we have been hurt.  As we forgive, we selflessly love the other person.  When we forgive, we also love ourselves, since we free ourselves from the prison in which we had been enclosing ourselves: when we forgive our neighbor, we let go of the pain which had been enslaving us, through the torment we had been deciding to impose on both our neighbor and on ourselves by previously refusing to forgive our neighbor.  

When we allow ourselves to be humbled, then God gives us the grace** we need to forgive our neighbor.  If we forgive our neighbor, we treat our neighbor as we would like to be treated, since we too would like to be forgiven.  When we forgive our neighbor, we love our neighbor as ourselves*** as Jesus taught us to do.  When we die to our own pain, we become martyrs for love.  Having let go of our pain, God can fill us with His grace, so that, filled with His love, we can give others the love they need.  In loving through the free gift of the grace of God,**** we glorify God.  In dying to ourselves, and in forgiving our neighbor, and thus loving our neighbor, we become who God has always meant us to be.  Amen.  

* Romans 5:5 
** James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5 
*** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14  
**** Ephesians 2:8 

Loving Is Becoming

I just got back from a memorial service for a dear friend.  I've told before about this friend I have cherished.  Years ago, after I had become friends with his daughters, he asked me to call him "Uncle."  

Uncle suffered a stroke nearly a year ago.  For almost a year, he was unable to speak, and could move much less than he used to be able.  He courageously endured these hardships while they were presented to him, and then a week ago, he passed from this life into the next.  

He lived his values, thus building a secure bridge from this life to the next.  In his tireless hope, in his tenacious faith, in his indefatigable love, he demonstrated to his youngest daughter the resilience she realized she wanted to study in her work as a psychologist.  In his eloquent musings he expressed in his poems, short stories and novel, he showed his eldest daughter the passion with which she realized she wanted to write.  In his silence, in his meditative pauses, in his carefully chosen words, speaking so mindfully that he seemed to be following a monastic practice, he implicitly and subtly encouraged me toward the monastic disciplines of silence and meditation which I have come to treasure.  

He showed us who we were to become.  He did not tell us who we were meant to be.  In being himself, he helped us to see who we were, and who we have been becoming.  

He loved himself, and so showed us how to love ourselves.  He loved himself, so he could love his neighbor as himself* as Jesus taught him to do.  

He could help others because he loved himself.  If we love ourselves, we can love our neighbor, and so we can become who God wants us to be.  Uncle loved himself, so he welcomed the invitation from God to become who God always meant him to be.  

In his life, he loved.  If we choose love, we welcome God into our hearts.  If we choose love, God welcomes us into Heaven.  

* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

Waste Not Tears

We are all faced over and over with the decision of whether or not we will love.  We all choose our relationship with pain.  We all decide whether we embrace suffering or reject it.  In what we accept or deny, we determine whether or not we love.  

We can cry out of hopeless desperation, feeling frantic, and convinced that all is lost.  Or we can profoundly weep out of great love for others.  

We can let tears fall from our eyes without realizing their value.  Or we can weep offering our tears as prayers to God.  

All we send out from our being echoes out into the universe.  As a tear falls from your eye, if you offer it as a humble prayer to God, when it drops into the liquid lake of spiritual solidarity we share, you can implicitly offer that tear to help others.  Your tearful prayers are effective when they are offered as the basis of humble and earnest prayer.  When such humble, ardent tears of yours hit the liquid lake of spiritual community we share, these tears send out ripples of love across that surface.  Thus through such tears you can seek to strengthen your spiritual brothers and sisters.  

I am not merely speaking in theoretical terms here.  Ever since earlier this week, when a dear homeless friend who I'll once again here call "Sally" shared with me how she views tears as liquid prayers, her statement of spiritual insight has been echoing in my soul.  Like a drop of water that falls into a pond and causes ripples outward, so her tender spiritual musing, coming into contact with my ears, has been echoing in my soul.  
Despite the struggle, Sally has chosen not to let her agonizing experiences dominate how she responds to life.  As I have mentioned in prior blog posts, Sally has endured domestic violence.  Despite having been hit hard many times by multiple men, Sally refuses to be enslaved by the pain she has felt.  Instead she offers up her tears to God.  Interwoven with her sensitivity and fragility, she also displays a courageous and admirable tenacity, and so she sends out a strong message of faith, hope and love, that pain can be the basis of a beautiful transformation of one's spirit.   

Knowing, then, that we can consent to our suffering being transformed into the joy that emerges out of service of others, we can come to experience a radical alteration of how we feel pain, see pain, and respond to pain.  Aware that God works all for the good of those who love Him,* we come to realize that even anguish can lead to joy, if we seize upon such opportunities to petition God.  Thus in all we experience we can be joyous,** if all we do is for the praise, glory and honor of God.  

Conscious that all we experience presents us chances to glorify God by assenting to call upon Him so He may show us His great love always, we come to give thanks always for all things.***  As we come to express such gratitude at all times, God comes to give us a deep, abiding and enduring peace, as, feeling His love, Jesus comes to abide in us, and we in Him.****  

Let us embrace every opportunity we have, then, including in the midst of our tears, to pray constantly,***** give thanks for all things always, and thus love God and love our neighbor.  Thus we come to live a life of love.  Amen.  

* Romans 8:28 
** 1 Thessalonians 5:16 
*** 1 Thessalonians 5:18 
**** John 15:4-7,9-10
***** 1 Thessalonians 5:17 

Proclaiming Our Dependence

Today is a day when people especially think of, give thanks for, and celebrate their independence.  Here in the United States on this particular day, we celebrate the independence of our nation.  We commemorate how we declared our independence from the British.  

It is often said, and quite rightly, that we must remain vigilant to preserve our democracy and the freedom that comes with it.  Some people especially crave power, and oppress others in order to keep it.  When people abuse power by using it to mistreat others, we witness a misuse of freedom.  

When we make choices which cause us to become enslaved to anything, we misuse our freedom.  Unfortunately we can decide to use our freedom to become slaves to many things.  We become slaves to possessions, to money, to power and to prestige.  We can even become slaves to food and drink if we do not remain in right relation to it.  If we become gluttons with food and drink, we have become slaves to our own desires for excessive amounts of food and drink.  When we allow our desires to rule us, we have lost our freedom.  

If we become addicts, we have become enslaved to our desires.  If we have become addicted to drugs or gambling or sex or anything else, we are no longer free.  As addicts, our desires rule us.  

I am not only speaking about others.  I am speaking about myself and about others.  I am addicted to sugar.  I do not lightly say that I am an addict.  If I go too long without sugar, my perceptions become severely skewed.  My outlook on life becomes dismal.  

Such is the state of an addict.  For one who is addicted, being deprived is being tortured.  

Some would respond to such circumstances by demanding how God could let people devolve into such a state.  They ask how and why God could let this happen to people.  

God does not wish anyone to stray from him.  Yet God gives us our free will.  Sometimes people make decisions which harm themselves.  Yet even in the midst of such debilitating situations in which there seems to be no hope, we can use our freedom for our own good.  When we feel trapped, we can use our freedom to declare our independence from what enslaves us, by confidently proclaiming that we will steadfastly rely on God.  If we utilize our freedom to proclaim our dependence on God, God will free us from being held in chains.  

Thus in such situations of suffering, there is a profound opportunity, if we choose to open our hearts to it.  When we are faced with challenges which we cannot overcome on our own, we are to pray to God to deliver us from evil.*  If we tell God, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, that on our own we cannot surmount the obstacles we encounter, then God will come to our aid.  When we let go of our egos, then we make the room for God to work in our souls, then we welcome God into our hearts.  Once we admit that we must have God's help, then we can begin to love Him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength.** 

When we pray in such a way, we pray with true humility.  If you truly pray, you have humility.  To the humble, God gives grace.***  With the help of God's grace, we can conquer what for us alone would be impossible.  As Jesus reminded us, everything is possible for God.****    

And so, with all credit for our success going to God, God truly is glorified.  When we admit that all glory, praise and honor is due to God, then God delivers us from evil and brings us into true life.  Amen.  

* Matthew 6:13 
** Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27 
*** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 
**** Matthew 19:26; Luke 18:27 

Returning Transformed Neighbor

If we keep on loving our neighbor, the little seed of love in the heart of our neighbor can bear much fruit.  With patience, kindness and understanding, we can come to witness the transformative power of the love of God.  As Jesus comes to us and abides in us,* the love of God can come to transform our neighbor before our very eyes.  Thus in time, our faith can be strengthened, and we can come to trust in God ever more deeply.  As we trust in God and open our hearts to Him, we consent to Him loving our neighbor through us.  

I have been reminded today of these truths.  Today a particular young man who has been homeless showed up here at the Catholic Worker House.  He asked me to tell my fellow Catholic Worker Susan that he is grateful for all of the help she has given to him over the last several months.  

I've previously mentioned this particular fellow.  Once again I'll call him "Brendon."  

In a prior post I'd written of how Brendon admitted that he needed to stop taking drugs.  In another blog entry, I'd related how Brendon had been trying to enter a drug treatment program.  Today he told me that he has been in a drug rehab program.  I saw the obvious results of how he has been taking care of himself and loving himself: he seemed full of life, vibrant, eager, attentive, considerate, respectful and grateful.  He seemed focused on those around him who were listening to him and offering to help him.  

Brendon explained that in about a week, he will be moving back east.  He quickly added that to reach his destination, he needed a bus ticket which would cost between one hundred and two hundred dollars.  As he was talking about the cost of the bus ticket, someone on the front porch of the Catholic Worker House heard him and offered to help to defray the cost of his trip.  The impoverished young man had appealed for help, and he got it.  

Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the least of those among us, we do to Him.**  Jesus is in the homeless people and the other poor men and women who plead with us for help.  Who am I, that my Lord and my God comes to my doorstep?***  Jesus comes to us in those who are impoverished, who come to our door, then go away, not to be seen for weeks, and then come back.  Jesus goes away, and a short while later, He returns to us.****  Jesus shows me that He is with us always.*****  Jesus shows me that He calls us to take care of each other, especially the poor, for Jesus is in our neighbor, and especially in the impoverished.  

In coming to me in the poor young man who knocks at my door, Jesus nurtures my faith, for He keeps His promise and He comes to me.  Jesus comes to make sure I am practicing the law of love.  Jesus comes up to me to make sure I am loving Him in my neighbor.  

Seeing Jesus come to us, then we can pray confidently to Him.  We can be sure of the hope we have in His promise, for we have seen that He has not left us alone; He has come to us.******  Knowing that we have not been abandoned, seeing the proof of His transformative power that has been demonstrated in our neighbor being healed, we come to trust in God.   

When we truly have faith in God, then we come to see that God is always calling us back home to Him.  If we utterly trust in God, we realize that God is always welcoming us back home to Him with open arms.  Grasping that God is always offering us His warm loving embrace in all that happens to us, we welcome Him into our hearts.  Empowered with the love of God, God transforms us, and we are healed, and we become who God has always intended us to be.  Loving ourselves, loving our neighbor, and loving God, we become the love of God in the world.  Amen.  

* John 15:7, 9 
** Matthew 25:40 
*** Luke 1:43 
**** John 16:16-17, 19 
***** Matthew 28:20 
****** John 14:18 

Peace Through Us

Jesus tells us first and foremost to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  He tells us second to love our neighbor as ourselves.*  

In these two most important commandments, Jesus directs us to love.  We are to let love flow out of us to God and to our neighbor.  God asks us to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, to help us to love Him.**  God asks us to consent to Him loving our neighbor through us.  

To love God, I must also love my neighbor.  Anyone who claims to love God but hates his or her neighbor is a liar.***  

To love my neighbor, I must not judge my neighbor.****  If I am judging my neighbor, there is no room in my heart to love my neighbor.   

We judge persons when we see what we do not like in them.  When I encounter thoughts, words and actions I dislike, I am to despise them in myself.  I am to be outraged at the appalling tendencies I notice in myself.  

I believe that the path to salvation is paved with despising my own horrible tendencies and begging God to forgive me out of His great mercy. We receive the infinite gift of God's immense mercy when we turn to look at ourselves, acknowledge our own sinfulness, and implore His mercy.  

Since I prefer to direct my energies toward how I need to improve, rather than on where other people might need to change, last week I made a choice reflecting this aspiration I have.  As I have previously mentioned, Catholic Workers regularly protest outside the facilities of a manufacturer of armaments here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Last week I was asked to choose the short writings we would read before and after our protest.  

In line with the sentiments I have expressed about trying to focus on how I need to improve, for our brief reading just before the protest, I selected a composition in which the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote 

Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all.  And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.  If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed--but hate these things in yourself, not in another.  

I strive to love my neighbor, though often I find it challenging, and although often I fail.  We love our neighbor by taking an honest look at ourselves and how we need to improve so we can better love our neighbor.  

Thus I prefer to focus on what I need to do to treat people better than I do.  To help work for peace, we can examine our own thoughts, words and actions.  As Gandhi suggested, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  

Herein rests the reason why I don't protest more than I do and why I don't write about protesting more than I do.  While I find it important to speak out against injustice, I strongly contend that it is far more appropriate to try to improve myself than it is to point out why others are inappropriately acting. Since I wish to witness to peace, I want God to bring about peace through me.  For God to bring about peace through me, I must open my heart to God so He can transform me and thus create peace in the world, right now, in this very moment.  

Consequently, for our short reading together immediately after the protest, I selected the prayer commonly attributed to Saint Francis, which beseeches God 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.  

We can agree to God's plan to be channels of His peace.  We can consent to God bringing peace to the world through us.  

In every little fragment of time, in the present moment God is always extending His hand to us, inviting us to open our hearts to Him.  He is requesting that we assent to His will and open our hearts to Him, and love Him, so that He may enter into our hearts and love our neighbor through us, and thus bring peace into the world through us.  Let us open our hearts to God so He may abide in us,***** love through us and bring us peace.  Amen.  

* Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:5; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
** Romans 5:5 
*** 1 John 4:20 
**** Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37 
***** John 15:7 

Liking This Trend

Within the last hour I was happy to see two people, who I'll call "Kimberly" and "Davey," whose company I so enjoy.  Kimberly and Davey are friends of mine who I've been coming increasingly to appreciate.  They come here to the Catholic Worker House often to check to see if there's anything they can use that's been donated that's sitting our front porch.  They're homeless, and so often their effects end up getting stolen.  Thus the porch is a place where they can replenish lost items.  

And so when I walked out onto the front porch tonight, I was pleased that I would get to enjoy the playful company of Kimberly and Davey, but not surprised to see them there.  I remarked to them, out of the hope that I would keep enjoying the precious recurring gift of their nourishing daily company, "You know, this is the fourth day in a row I've seen you.  I'd just like to say that I'd like this trend to continue."  

Song Of All

This day is a day on which workers are especially supported and encouraged.  Today in particular the common dream of bettering ourselves comes to the fore in a way it does not on other days.  

Today, the first day of May, has been known to many as May Day.  In 1886 workers organized in efforts to lead to a shorter work day.  In the course of those rallies and demonstrations, violence erupted between police and workers in an unfolding of events which has come to be known as the Haymarket Massacre.  In the outcry against that violence, workers became galvanized in solidarity with each other, such union still being expressed each year on May 1 in support of workers everywhere.  

Today is also the Feast Day of Saint Joseph the Worker.  In honor of Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, Pope Pius XII established today as the Feast Day of Saint Joseph who worked as a carpenter as Jesus did.  

Saint Joseph is the patron saint of workers.  Thus workers pray and ask him to intercede with God for them.  

All workers may look to Saint Joseph for his assistance.  All workers are engaged in a universal struggle, despite their being individual workers.  Regardless of their individual identity, all workers have common aspirations.  All workers are involved in a shared endeavor.  Thus employees often join together in solidarity with each other.  

Thus workers have the right to form unions.  Pope Leo XIII affirmed this right in his papal encyclical entitled "Rerum Novarum," or "Of The New Things."  

Workers share a common dream.  They are aspiring toward the same goal.  

As human beings generally as well we have much in common with each other in our deepest longings.  We resonate in our hearts with each other.  

We find this similarity in general amongst each other's aspirations.  We also see this basic sameness and congruence of yearnings in how people feel about their homeland.  

I have seen this theme of the universality of love of one's country in the hymn entitled "This Is My Song."  In this hymn, I have also found the idea that the love of country that one person has can peacefully coexist with the love of country that another person has for a different country.  

In "This Is My Song," we hear 

This is my song, O God of all the nations, 

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.  

This is my home, the country where my heart is, 

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.  

But other hearts in other lands are beating, 

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.  

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean, 

And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.  

But other lands have sunlight too, and clover, 

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.  

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations, 

A song of peace for their land and for mine.  

The lyrics of "This Is My Song" are set to the tune of the musical piece entitled "Finlandia," which was written by the composer Jan Sibelius.  Sibelius wrote Finlandia in the midst of the Finnish people feeling oppressed by the Russians.  The piece is evocative of the national struggle of the Finns for freedom.  Finlandia is electrically charged with a pent up sense of frustration and ardent craving to be liberated.  

I found the universality of this longing for personal freedom illustrated this evening in an unexpected way.  By my side was someone with whom I share a fundamental longing, despite the vastly different circumstances in which we have lived up until now.  

I am speaking of Samah, the Saudi Arabian guest we have been hosting for months here at the Catholic Worker House.  Tonight she too was at the performance of Finlandia which was being performed by my fellow Catholic Worker Susan and the rest of her musical band.  

However, I did not know that Samah was there at the performance tonight.  During intermission, an event organizer made an announcement that someone had left sunglasses in the lobby.  Next I saw someone raising her hand.  I did not recognize the person raising her hand and waving, even though it was Samah.  

I thought she was someone responding to the news of the lost glasses.  I thought she was saying she was the one who had lost her glasses.  I perceived her wave as responding to a call that perhaps she didn't even realize was being made.   

Later, in considering that moment of raising one's hand to get someone else's attention, and being mistakenly perceived as responding to a call, I recalled that pivotal scene in the film "North By Northwest."  Cary Grant's character happens to raise his hand to get someone's attention precisely at the moment when someone else's name is being called.  He gets confused with someone else, and from then on the rest of the film depicts the maelstrom of misfortune through which he is dragged, all because people think he is someone he is not.  

However, here, Samah has already been gravely mistaken for being someone she is not.  Someone has already tried to foist a false identity upon her.  

You see, she has been expected to marry a man she does not want to marry.  Others have their expectations of her, conceptions of her which, if followed, would subject her to a life of miserable slavery, trampling down who she has always been meant to be.  

In so doing, others have been turning her world upside down.  She has been subjected to a cyclone of trouble, all because others have tried to force her to be someone she is not.  She has been put through this hardship because they do not see her for who she is.  

And yet I too did not recognize her.  As she waved, she made a gesture as if to say, "Do you recognize me?  Do you see that our dreams are not so different?"  

We all seek to grow into that space that God has prepared for us.  Our work now, in this moment, is to live to our fullest potential in this life.  

We are to live out our lives as ourselves so that we may go to dwell in that space in Heaven that God has prepared for us.  Jesus told His disciples just as He tells us, "I go to prepare a place for you."*  

We all aim to throw off the societal shackles which bind us and keep us in the horrible prison which is created when we do not live as our true selves.  Although we may not consciously realize or acknowledge this truth, we all long to discard the false self which society has tricked us into believing is us.  

The Trappist monk Thomas Merton unmasked the cruel tendency of society to convince us into believing that each of us is to live as the false self that society expects us to be.  We are to believe that we need to buy unnecessary items, that we must listen to advertisements, that we must wear certain clothes.  In all this we are led to put on false personas.  Yet we all desire to be our true selves.  Each of us deeply craves to live out our lives as the true self we have always been meant to be.  

We all hunger to be ourselves.  We all thirst to live the life of love toward ourselves and toward others and toward God that we have always been meant to live.  

On our way, we are hungry because we are suffering from the malnourishment that results from not living as ourselves.  We suffer from the delusion that we are people other than ourselves.  We misperceive others to be people they are not.  When we pick up on these errors, then we are empowered to move past our incorrect assumptions about people and see them for who they are.  

Once I finally realized it was Samah who was waving, that she was waving at me to get my attention, and that she was inviting me over to her, I joined her.  I went and sat next to her.  

During intermission, we laughed at the failure to connect with each other during that moment when she was waving and I was oblivious.  As humans often we miss the message, even when we clearly see it right in front of us.  

Later, when the part of Finlandia was being played which serves as the tune of the hymn entitled "This Is My Song," my tear ducts opened.  As that part of Finlandia was being played, I began to weep.  

It was at that point that I realized that this is my song.  I saw that this song, which speaks of the irrepressible desire to live in true freedom, and thus grow into our true selves, is my song.  And in the very next instant, I thought of Samah.  I saw that this is her song too, that this is the song of the Saudi Arabian woman sitting next to me, even though she has lived a drastically different life from mine.  

This is the song of every human being.  Do we realize it?  Do we hear it?  Do we listen to it?  Do we follow it?  

Even when society tries to squelch this burning desire in our hearts to be free, it is an indefatigable longing in our hearts.  It cannot be repressed forever.  It yearns to burst forth, to get out and be free.   

It is this irrepressible bottled up vitality, of our true life within us, screaming to be fully released and honestly expressed, which is gradually boiling up within us, threatening to burst forth.  Here is an energy which is revolutionary.  This desire revolts against repressive societal expectations which make unreasonable demands upon it, ridiculously expecting it to be untrue to itself.  This pent up life force is volatile; it will not stand for being bottled up.  It is incendiary, threatening to explode if it is not released.  This energy of the true life within us is easily powerful enough to obliterate the false conceptions of ourselves that society has foisted upon us.  

This truth of who we truly are is so charged that it is far more than powerful enough to set us free.  We do indeed share this common desire to better ourselves, to join together, to express ourselves constructively through our work, so may become what we have always been meant to be.  It is this deep yearning that is part of what forges a common bond among people from vastly different backgrounds.  

This is your dream.  This is my dream too.  

Let us support each other in our dreams to be ourselves.  In how we follow our dreams, through being our truest selves, we implicitly encourage others to do likewise.  

This way we can truly love ourselves.  This way we can be empowered to truly love each other as we love ourselves.**  

This way, by being ourselves, by being who we have always been meant to be, by being who God created us to be, by consenting to God's will for us, we are pleasing to God.  Through this way we can enter into the place He has prepared for us.  Amen.  

* John 14:2 

** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

Fruits Of Discernment

This month I have reached some clarity in my discernment of my vocation.  At the same time, some questions remain.  

For the last few months, I was discerning whether or not God was calling me to serve poor persons in the context of consecrated religious life as a religious brother.  I have discerned that it appears that God is not calling me at all to consecrated religious life.  

I have come to this conclusion since I have discerned that God does not seem to be calling me to make a vow of chastity.  As best as I can see with my imperfect vision, indications are that God is not calling me to make this vow.  

In prior stages of discernment, I had focused on other vocational questions.  While I was at the hermitage, as I was discerning whether I would become a monk there or whether I was called elsewhere, I directed my discernment more prominently to my strong desire to return to ministering to poor persons.  Ultimately, I left the hermitage and returned to serving impoverished people.  

Once I had come back to being a Catholic Worker, the question arose whether I would not only serve impoverished people, but whether I would do so in the context of making vows in a religious order.  

I have felt strongly called to make vows of poverty and obedience.  For the first few months of this year, I felt like I was a piece of rope in a tug-of-war.  On the one hand, I felt as if I was being pulled by a desire to make vows to God.  On the other hand, I have felt an inclination to intimacy and affection with others.  

I have been driven with the desire to make vows to God because God has given me so much.  There is no way I can ever repay Him.  Since I feel so grateful to God, I want to give as much back to Him as I can.  We are called to love as much as we can.  Each of us is to love as much as we can within the context of the specific vocation each of us has.  Our fate will depend on how much we have loved.  Saint John of the Cross wrote that "At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love."  

For a while I endured the stress of feeling like I was being pulled in opposite directions, as I grappled with yearnings that were both undeniable yet irreconcilable.  I reached a point where I realized that I feel empowered by God to make vows of poverty and obedience, and those longings are part of me.  I acknowledged that I also desire intimacy and affection, which is also a part of me, and which I cannot ignore.  When I admitted that both of these desires are part of me, I felt great peace and calm.  I no longer felt tension.   

I had been feeling strain over this question since I had been trying to accept something that was not mine to have.  At times in the midst of thinking about this facet of my vocation, I have pondered words of Jesus which have been invoked regarding celibacy.  Jesus said, "Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it."*  If this is yours to accept, then accept it.  If this is not yours to accept, do not try to accept it.  

In connection with this vocational question, back when I was still living at the hermitage, one of the wise monks there counseled me that you can't give what isn't yours to give.  If God hasn't empowered someone to be celibate, then such a person can't give that gift of celibacy back to God.  Similarly, if God hasn't endowed a person with the gift of a vocation to married life, then such a person is not equipped for such a life.  

Since making vows in a religious order involves three vows, namely poverty, chastity and obedience, and I feel I can do two of them but not all three, I will be making none of these vows.  I do not know of a religious institution in which members make vows of poverty and obedience but not chastity.  

However, just because I will not be making a vow of chastity, it doesn't mean I'm going to get married.  I like the idea of getting married, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.  

It's not a question of "when."  It's a question of "if."  If God wills that I be married, then let it be so.  I am asking: what is God's will for me?  

It is not a question of improbability.  There is the temptation to think that, because I feel called to live in such simplicity, the potential population of compatible partners has been drastically reduced for me.  It is not a question of casting a line into the sea and hoping to net the perfect fish against the unpromising odds in such a large sea.  Rather, I hope I can listen, hear and follow Jesus when He tells me to cast my net into deep water or over the other side of the boat,** in whatever context He is telling me to do so.  I aspire to follow God's will in all matters, trusting in Him and having faith in Him.  If God wills that I be married, then let it be so.  For now it is in question whether it will be so.  

Similarly, the rest of my vocation also remains in question.  I continue to discern where God is calling me, to what ministry He is calling me, and with whom He is calling me to work.  In the meantime, I continue to enjoy a life of prayer and work amongst the homeless persons I have come to know and love, who I find right in front of me.  

* Matthew 19:12 

** Luke 5:4; John 21:6