Podcast on Contemplation....

Fr. Thomas Dubay, who wrote The Fire Within and Prayer Primer: Igniting the Fire Within,among others, has presented a podcast on contemplation on EWTN. They only leave these special podcasts up for a month and you don't want to miss this one!!!

Father Dubay has written and spoken extensively on contemplation. He has studied and taught, especially, about the great Carmelite Doctors: St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

Here is a quote from Pope John Paul II that I hope will motivate you...

Is it not one of the "signs of the times" that in today's world, despite widespread secularization, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer? Other religions, which are now widely present in ancient Christian lands, offer their own responses to this need, and sometimes they do so in appealing ways. But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Saviour of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.

The great mystical tradition of the Church of both East and West has much to say in this regard. It shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart. This is the lived experience of Christ's promise: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" (Jn 14:21). It is a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the "dark night"). But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as "nuptial union". How can we forget here, among the many shining examples, the teachings of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila?

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine "schools" of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love". Intense prayer, yes, but it does not distract us from our commitment to history: by opening our heart to the love of God it also opens it to the love of our brothers and sisters, and makes us capable of shaping history according to God's plan. Novo Millennio Ineunte #33

UPDATE: EWTN has taken the podcast off of their website. You can find links to download it from the Into the Deep site in the comment box of this post. Thanks to Brent for putting them up!

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta... A bit more...

I am reading a paper by a German theologian named Father Nobert Hoffmann. The title of the paper is: Atonement and the Ontological Coherence Between the Trinity and the Cross. Therein, he makes this statement that really strikes to heart of the issue of the 'dark night of the soul':

"The absence of the beloved, if it becomes privation and suffering, can be experienced as the painful mode of the beloved's most intense presence."

Don't be too quick in rushing past this quote. It takes time, silence, and prayer to break it open. We typically don't think of another's presence in this way, and, certainly, this type of God's presence requires a deep faith because of the tendency for doubt and despair.

It seems that God asks all of those who love him to bear this type of 'presence' at differing intensities and durations. In fact, this seems to be the primary mode of experiencing God's presence within the Church Militant. It is important that we are able to recognize this type of presence as such so that we can bear it with faith and joy. There are other times when God withdraws his tangible presence for different purposes such as the consequence of serious sin.

May we think differently so that we, like Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, can learn to love the darkness...the holy darkness of faith...

Two Weeks from Today!!!!!

I am stoked! Two weeks from today the Holy Father will be in Mariazell, Austria, which is about 40 km from here. We have tickets and the entire ITI will be going. I am sure we will be a long ways away, but it will still be a very special pilgrimage at the start of the new school year.

Speaking of start of school year, I must warn my vast audience ;-) that I will not be blogging much over the next few weeks. I am finishing up the three summer courses. Unfortunately, they are going to impinge on the start of the fall semester. Whew....finishing three classes as I start six more makes my head swim! I think I have my work cut our for me.

Oh, here is my fall class schedule:

• Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason)
• Existence and Attributes of God (St. Thomas' Summa)
• Scripture and Its Interpretation
• Patrology I (Study of Early Church Fathers)
• Latin I
• The Church in the Modern World

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta...

Please immediately go and read this article from Time on Mother Teresa. You'll have to bear up with the writer of the article and the psychologist they interviewed that simply don't get it.

The gist of the article is that a book is being published that contains personal correspondence between Mother Teresa and her spiritual directors over the years. These letters bring to light the fact that Mother Teresa suffered tremendous spiritual darkness throughout her entire life except for a couple of brief episodes. She felt completely abandoned by Christ for the majority of her life and deeply suffered, to the point of agony, because of that fact. What she models for us is what true love is: it isn't about feelings or what we get out of it. No, true love is a choice to prefer the good of the other to our own good to the point of complete sacrifice. She lived that out exteriorly and interiorly.

I think that as these letters are studied and discerned she will be one day known as one of the greatest saints in history - nearly to the place of a St. Francis of Assisi. She shows us how to love and to suffer in love and to suffer for love.

I have to admit that I fear that kind of holy darkness; goes to show how mature my relationship is with Christ (NOT MUCH). I pray that the Lord would strengthen me so I could love just a bit like she did. Furthermore, I pray that he would release from the fear and give me the courage to enter into the darkness of faith in love, confidence, and perseverance.

Don't listen to the voices that will try to shout that that proves there is no God since one who was supposedly so close to him felt abandoned by him. Her longing, her hunger, her thirst (Psalm 63), her love, her sacrifice, and her perseverance show that he was oh so close pouring his grace upon her - or she NEVER could have done it. She showed us the suffering Christ exteriorly, but also the suffering Christ in an interior fashion due to the fact that Christ experienced and suffered the separation of God from the entirety of mankind's sin he took upon himself.

She is my hero....

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - ora pro nobis...

The Mountain of Temptation (con't)

As a quick reminder, all references, unless otherwise stated, are from Jesus of Nazareth...

In the previous installment, we studied Jesus' baptism in order to understand the Mountain of Temptation better. (The previous blogs are here and here.)

Following the baptism, the Gospel of Mark tells us that "the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness" (Mk 1:12) to be tempted. All of Jesus' temptations strike at the heart of his mission and what is truly important in human life. Ratzinger:

At the heart of all temptations...is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. p. 28

He continues:

Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation. It does not directly invite us to do evil...it pretends to show us a better way, where we finally abandon our illusions and throw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better place...It claims, moreover to speak for true realism: What's real is what is right there in front of us - power and bread...God is the issue: Is he real, reality itself or isn't he? Is he good, or do we have to invent the good ourselves?...What must the Savior of the world do or not do? p. 28-29

All the temptations of Jesus come down to this: the bread, the pinnacle of the temple, and the high mountain are are temptations to use wealth and power to bring about a "kingdom" that makes sense to us but denies the primacy of God.

The devil approaches Jesus on this mountain to cause him to compromise his mission (and his very self) as the Messiah and the Suffering Servant by choosing the way of a political messiah by ruling through power and wealth. Ratzinger relates that this choice, between a worldly messiah (who rules through power and bread) and the true, "other-worldly" Messiah (who rules through the self-emptying and suffering of the Cross), was offered to the crowd in front of Pilate. Jesus, the Son of the Father, on one side with Barabbas, which means the "son of the father", on the other (cf. p.41). The one Messiah that rules through taking upon himself the sins of the world in humble surrender and sacrifice and the other a pseudo-messianic insurrectionist that rules through the sword and hatred.

Who will we choose? What kind of Savior did we expect? Couldn't have Jesus fed the world? Isn't that the most important thing? Isn't "justice" the one and only thing that Jesus came to bring? We all know who we chose. We crucified the Holy One of Israel and celebrated the one who brings us power and bread.

The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes. (emphasis mine) p. 41

Thus, the Mountain of Temptation is where we too must decide whom we will choose. How often do we pick the stable, sensible way! How often do we choose to "rule" by power rather than by love! How often do we push aside God for what is easy and expedient! We speak of "justice" all the while rejecting the One who is Just. Case in point: the concern of the first world Church for feeding the poor, healing the sick, and solidarity. These are fine things in themselves, but when is the last time that Evangelization was seriously spoken of in the context of justice? Jesus, Himself, did not heal everyone in any particular town but moved on to preach the coming kingdom! The sick of Capernaum were searching for him. Jesus responded to Peter's plea:

"Every one is searching for you." And he [Jesus] said to them, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out." Mk 1:37-38

Our position must be one of docility and obedience just as was Jesus'. We must do what he asks of us, which may go against everything we hold by worldly "common sense".

The Mountain of Temptation asks each of us the question, "Do you trust God?" Do we trust God to provide our daily bread and the bread of the world. Do we trust God to protect us? Do we require from God a proof of his Divinity? Who will we choose: God or ourselves? Our ways or his ways?

The way off this mountain is to trust God completely; that what he says is true because he says it. It is the path of loving, self-sacrifice. It is the path that seeks to give oneself to God first and foremost before undertaking the work that God calls us to. It is the narrow path leading to life through self-emptying, forgiveness of those that hurt us, and love for our enemies. It is the path of union with God and communion with our neighbor.

Saturday in Vienna...

Last Saturday we had the wonderful blessing of going to Vienna. Our next door neighbor if the Student Life Director here for Franciscan and gives tours of Vienna to the FUS students. They offered to take us on the tour. The trains have a special deal that we all could ride to Vienna and back for €28. That is cheaper than the gas to get there. Once there, we toured Old Vienna near the Hapsburg. It was incredible. We went to an outdoor market that every kind of fruit and spice imaginable and then some. We were able to visit several churches. The highlight was the Archdiocesan cathedral - St. Stephen's. There was a place on the outside of the church was there was an etching of the number "05" right into the stone. It was the place where the Austrian resistance would meet to exchange information. Also, the history of the Moorish invasions and the threat that was to the Austrians was palpable. Anyway, it was a fantastic day. Here are some pictures...

This is the main entrance to St. Stephens.

This is the main tower of St. Stephen's. We weren't sure why the church was so dirty. I've heard it has to do with the type of rock they used.


The side of St. Stephen's.


This is St. John Capistrano killing a Turk. He preached a crusade to save Christian Europe in the 15th Century.


Some of the many horse carriages willing to take you around Vienna.


Inside St. Stephen's. Sorry, it is dark in there!


St. Stephen's side altar.


Zach's favorite place in Vienna! ;-) We laughed about this forever, and, yes, there was Mozart coming from the toilet! (The sign says, "Opera toilet with music.")


Mozart.


The boys standing in the Swiss gate. The chapel for the Vienna boys choir is through the gate and to the right.


St. Michael's church.


Side altar at St. Michael's.


St. Augustine's church. Most of the Hapsburg family were married here. Many of the deceased Hapsburgs have hearts interred here.

It was an exhausting day but SO amazing to see the history. Vienna is a fantastic city. I hope we can get back and explore some more!

The Mountain of Temptation

Whooops. I made a terrible blogger's error. I assumed that people would have read the post prior (and related) to this one explaining this series I am doing. Bad Blogger!! I apologize. The references below are all from Ratzinger's book Jesus of Nazareth. See this blog to understand what I am attempting here. Again, sorry for any confusion.

Before we begin the ascent of the Mountain of Temptation it is important to remember where Jesus is immediately coming from, viz., his baptism. It was a moment of tremendous importance for Jesus' life. He had just spent the prior 30 or so years in quiet, humble obedience to Mary and Joseph as he "increased in wisdom and in stature , and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). Now he has been called to his public ministry: at once the Anointed One (Messiah) and ultimately the Suffering Servant. His entrance into public life is an entrance into the life of the world. We have to keep in mind that nothing in Jesus' life was accidental; it was a completely intentional life. Jesus willed his life in complete submission to his Father's will. So often life happens to us and we react to life rather than respond. We are scattered and dull; thus, so much escapes us. Not Jesus, however. He was drawn by the Father's will to the Jordan where John the Baptist was baptizing there for the forgiveness of sins. John was the "voice crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Matthew 3:3). John was baptizing at the Jordan one day when the unthinkable happened; He - the One who would baptize with water and Spirit came to be baptized!!

John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:14-17

Ratzinger tells us that the word "righteousness" here is to mean: "an unrestricted Yes to God's will and an obedient acceptance of his yoke" (p. 17). He continues on to make a very important point. This act was Jesus, already, identifying himself with sinners by taking their sins upon himself and then into the waters of the Jordan thereby anticipating the Cross as the Suffering servant:

Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind's guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross (p.18)

The Old Testament Scriptures tell us this about the Suffering Servant (there are four Suffering Servant songs. Isaiah 42:1-7; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12):

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all...Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:5-6, 10-12

Thus, we see in Jesus first public action an embracing of the Father's will in its fullness: the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King will rule through the depths of self-emptying love which takes on Itself the entirety of human sin and misery. An understanding of Jesus' baptism, where he is the Anointed Messiah and takes upon himself our sin, is crucial in understanding the Mountain of Temptation. Ratzinger states:

The conclusion of the baptismal scene tells us that Jesus has received this true "anointing", that he is the Anointed One - that at that moment kingly and priestly dignity were formally bestowed on him for all time in the presence of Israel." p. 26

What can we see in this that relates to our own life? First, that when we are baptized we are baptized into the death of the Lord, and, as we come up from the waters, we come up into his Resurrected Life. We, too, anticipate our Crosses in life as we are plunged into the baptismal waters that at once bring death and give life (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #1227). Thus, we must accept and even embrace the Cross; for Christianity ceases to exist without the Cross. Second, we are anointed as "little Christ's". The term "Christian" primarily means "anointed". Hence, we share in the Christ's Messianic mission to go and preach the Good News (Gospel) to the world. We are anointed by the Holy Spirit to go forth in power and charity into the world. Third, if we share in the anointing we must also share in the other aspect of the Messiah - the suffering servant. The suffering and sacrifice that is constitutive to charity we must not shrink from but embrace it as he did. We do this only through the power of God imparted to us through the grace received by our anointing. It is love and obedience to the end, the royal road that Jesus showed us, that will please the Father and bring about the Reign of God. Last, we must lay down our pride and allow God to call us to where he might. It didn't make sense that Jesus, the Perfect One, should be baptized - even to John. Jesus obeyed and so must we. All too often we ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit because it does not fit into our perceptions of what God should or shouldn't call us to. We must be open and willing to follow Christ wherever, whenever, and however he calls...

Next time, we will ascend the Mountain of Temptation and see that Jesus' temptations are ordered to his mission as Messiah, and if it is the case for him, then it is the case for us.

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration!!

It is hard to imagine that it has been a year! Yep, that is right. We arrived in Gaming exactly one year ago today. Time can go by so fast and so slow over the same magnitude of time. There have been days that seem they might never end and so many that have flown by.

Today, we can certainly say with Peter that it is good to be here. I am constantly amazed at the gifts the Lord gives us. It is a day to be grateful - in the present, for the blessings of being in Gaming; and deep in the past, where Christ Jesus revealed his glory to Peter, James, and John on the mountain and even more for the revealing of himself on the Cross.

God is so good to us that on the day we remember the Transfiguration of the Lord we get to see him Transubstantiated before us in the Holy Mass and, in fact, get to receive him so that we might be in union with him.

Upside-down world...

While I was in Meridian, I gave a talk titled Prepare the Way of the Lord; Make Straight His Paths (See here). You can download or listen to the talk in its entirety at www.friendsofmikelee.org. The slides I used are available there for download in .pdf format, also. The thesis of this talk was that Jesus came to turn values, ethics, and human existence upside-down. In other words, he did not come to preach a loftier ethic than the Old Law or to liberate us from "religion". He came to call us to a new life (John 10:10) that is so radical that is requires us not only to think differently (the Greek μετανοειτε - metanoeo that is typically rendered "repent" is better rendered "to think differently" from Mark 1:15 - "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.") but to have a different being - one that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit through the Sacramental character of Baptism and Confirmation (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) # 1121). In other words, what Jesus calls us to, as the model of our holiness (cf. CCC # 459), demands a completely new existence whereby we receive internal and external helps from God himself. One only has to read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 to see what this new existence entails. It reaches its pinnacle in the Cross. There, Jesus shows us what it means to be the most human. We, because of our love of God and through obedience, give our life through suffering (which is primarily the emptying of self of self: desires, opinions, and the desire to be independent of God) for the sake of the other - even so far as to give it for our enemy as Jesus did (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36; John 15:13; Romans 5:6-11). This giving of self must always be in accord with the Father's will. Jesus had an appointed hour. We must always carefully discern what God is calling us to. The giving of self in sacrifice to God is more than we can ever do unaided. We need the Holy Spirit to do the work in us.

With that preface, I want to return to the notion of thinking differently. Prior to the Fall, man was as he should be: his passions were under the control of his will, his will under the control of his intellect, and his intellect perfectly submitted to God. This is the way God intended man to be when he created him in his image and likeness. After the Fall, man was turned "upside-down" in his nature. Thus, the passions ruled man as they overpowered his weakened will and darkened intellect. Furthermore, man withdrew his submission to God in a vain attempt to be independent of him. Man's passions drove him to seek pleasure, comfort, revenge, and advantage. These sinful inclinations became a normal part of everyday human desires and considered "good". The Decalogue was given to contradict these worldly notions with the truth about our human nature, and how we are to relate to one another because of the dignity of that nature. Jesus came, not to destroy, but to fulfill the Old Law. Romano Guardini relates the disparity between our inclinations and the New Covenant well:

“Healthy common sense says that wealth is blessing; blessing the fullness of possessions; blessing, happiness and pleasure and fame. Our natural reaction to the Sermon on the Mount is one of distaste, and it is better to face the distaste and openly try to overcome it, than to unthinkingly accept Jesus’ words as pious platitudes. That is the last thing they are. They come from heaven, but they shake, palpably, the foundations of earth.” – Romano Guardini The Lord

The Revelation on the Sermon on the Mount does indeed shake the foundations of the earth. We must be very careful with our "healthy common sense". It can quickly lead us to oppose God in a way that puts us in eternal danger. Case in point: the High Priest Caiphas. He was charged with leading Israel's spiritual life. Along comes this enigma in the person of Jesus Christ, but rather that being open to the work of God, Caiphas could only see his own interests and "what-made-sense-to-him". His hardness of heart formulated in "what-we've-always-done"-type attitude brought him to this terrible place:

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Laz'arus, come out."
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him; but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death. John 11:43-53

Caiphas has the miracles of the Messiah that the Old Testament reveals put right in front of his face. So much so that they were concerned that "everyone would believe in him" if they didn't so something. Why can't they see? Why can't they perceive that since the miracles of the Messiah are performed by Jesus that he is the Messiah?? Yet, rather than rejoice at the presence of God's Messiah, they plot to kill him. They can't think differently!! They cannot bring themselves to see because it might cost them their position, their comfort, and their pride, and it would certainly cause them to reconsider who the Messiah is (not the political figure that was expected). This isn't just simple ignorance. This is a willed ignorance that refuses to see because of the demands of seeing. Their pride and selfishness blinded them.

My question is this: How often are we exactly like Caiphas? How often do we willfully turn away from Jesus because his message demands too much from us? We want pleasure! We want wealth! We want power! We want ease and comfort! We certainly don't want what God demands of us - that "losing oneself is the way to life" (Ratzinger). That just doesn't make sense to us. So we reject the only Way (Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - John 14:6) to that which we seek. We, like Caiphas, are willing to commit grave evil to the point of killing the Son of God - the Messenger/Revealer of the Father to protect our interests!! All of this hides under the masquerade of "common sense". We live with one foot in the world and one in the Kingdom. We want the benefits of God like peace, prosperity, eternal life, joy, and wholeness, but we want to retain our own independence: living for pleasure and wealth and ease. How can we expect to live like that when the Son of God, who came for our salvation, consummated his life on the Cross?? He showed us the Royal Road. It leads to Golgotha; to the Cross; to victory in defeat; to life through death.

We must make a choice. Will we choose the Son of God and live? (of course, that involves ALL of the demands of love, but also the promise of eternal beatitude if we follow him), or will we choose our self and our selfish ways desperately trying to be independent of God knowing that that our true independence is impossible?

We must imitate the Blessed Mother who "kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:51b). She didn't reject any of the amazing and demanding things that God sent her way. They were confusing, and great, and scary, and exciting, and went against common sense. However, she had already given her allegiance and obedience to the Father in perfect trust. Thus, this trust and faith carried her through her lack of understanding to God's perfect will for her. We must approach God with the faith and trust that allows us to think differently so that we might embrace God's will for us that always brings abundant life (John 10:10). Risk the fact that what God has said is true; that we will actually be "blessed" if we love, serve, and sacrifice.

It is here in this upside-down world of God's love that we discover who we are. We discover that we are children of the Father who desires that we spend eternity inserted, united, and partaking of his divine life. We come to taste and share in that life now to the extent that we live upside-down today...

Prepare the Way of the Lord, Make Straight His Paths...

While I was in Meridian this last July, I had the pleasure and honor of giving a talk at Holy Apostles Catholic Church. The Topic was "Prepare the Way of the Lord, Make Straight His Paths". I based the talk on four texts: the Sacred Scriptures (of course :-)), Josef (Pope Benedict XVI) Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth, Msgr. Romano Guardini's The Lord, and Fr. Jean d'Elbée's I Believe in Love. The talk, in its entirety, can be downloaded at www.friendsofmikelee.org. Furthermore, you will find there the slides that I used during the talk in .pdf format for downloading.

I hope and pray that somehow the Holy Spirit might somehow minister to you, challenge you, and encourage you through it.