Success To the Work of Your Hands

He is Risen! He is Risen INDEED!

Lent was difficult this year, and the Triduum was no exception, and although I had difficulty in prayer and was, for the first time in recent memory, tempted to NOT attend the Triduum liturgies, I went and worshiped as planned. Non-Catholic friends of mine sometimes question why we Catholics are so "ritualistic", and my answer is this: because our rituals do not let us fall into the dictatorship of emotions, but rather help us to honor God because He wills it, even though we may will the opposite.

I am grateful, therefore, for our Triduum "rituals", for they help to sanctify we weak souls who would prefer to flee and "do our own thing".

One of the blessed things about the Triduum, however, was time off from work and because I plan my life to avoid "errands" and other things, I was able to spend some time working on my Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. During Lent I went on retreat and my wonderful teacher and friend, a dear, faithful Religious Sister looked at it with her discerning eye and explained to me some new techniques required by this particular Icon. So it was that during the Triduum, even though I had difficulty with mental prayer, God drew me into the Icon. Even though I am still a student and therefore still focus on technique, it was very prayerful for I was able to speak to our Blessed Mother, to Jesus, and to the Archangels Michael and Raphael.

They responded by guiding my clumsy hand that held the brush, and I was amazed at the effects. Although I continue to make mistakes and see them long after the paint has dried, more and more I am gaining confidence, wondering if, perhaps, one day, I will truly be able to call myself an Iconographer.

The Homily on Holy Thursday was given by a priest ordained only a year ago, and he revealed to us the Bible verse engraved upon his chalice, from Psalm 90, "..Give success to the work of our hands."

His homily struck a chord with me, for ever since, when I approach the Icon I have been praying those holy words. The Icon I write now is ultimately not for me. For whom do I write it, but for God? I write it to give Glory to Him, to ponder on His Incarnation, to meditate upon the Mystery of the Redemption. It is the most Sacred of arts, yet I do not know where it will end up. So it is that I pray it as I go, begging for intercession, praying for success to this work of my unworthy hands.

Who am I to open a window to Heaven? Who will gaze through this window? Who am I to co-create it with God?

Success. What is "Success"? 

In God's eyes, I do not know the definition of "Success".  When I was in high school and college, and in my young adult years, at the "threshold of the universe", I thought "success" was primarily defined by financial means, and the elevation of status within one's chosen field. These days, I see things differently and I have learned the hard way that "success" according to God may not be anything I envision in my fallen perception.

We have all come through Lent with varying levels of earthly "success". What does that mean?

Many of us think we have 'failed", but have we really? If our failures have brought us to the Throne of Mercy, they are not failures but successes in self-knowledge, a huge gift of Grace. If our "failures" have revealed to us something that keeps us from God, then we must recognize a gift given from God's heart to our own.

If our Lenten "failures" have reminded us that of ourselves, we can do nothing, and therefore we have NEED of a Savior...then we have not "failed" so much as been brought closer to Jesus through a breakdown of our Pride.

When we pray, therefore, for "Success", we have to recall that the ways in which we define that word may differ drastically from God's own definition.

As of now, as I pray for success for the work of my hands, specifically for my Icon, I don't know, exactly, what that means. In practice I am praying for my hand to be guided, for my intellect to be informed, for my will to be strengthened, for my Pride to be overcome; for I will and I MUST make mistakes and accept those as I go. It is the mistakes that teach us the most.

It is the mistakes we make, whether in Iconography or in other areas of life, that lead us to ask the most heartfelt and sincere questions.

Difficult Lent - Difficult Easter?

It doesn't matter if our Lent was a big Ol' "FAIL". It doesn't matter. It is behind us now. For those of us who got out of Lent with nothing but this lousy FAIL t-shirt, it is time to let it go and rejoice, not in ourselves, but in Our Lord who foresaw our big fat FAILS long before He was crucified for them.

It is time to celebrate, and if we have failed, then we have a great gift; that of being able to celebrate, purely, the Resurrection, for we can recognize it has nothing to do with our own merit, but Our Lord's. It is a great gift, and we should recognize it as such, for this gift is meant for our own humility. It is my untried theory that we who have difficulty in Lent both need to grow in holiness and need to grow, most specifically, in humility.

And yes, that hurts, and it hurts even more to admit it in public. But then again, for those who know us...is it any surprise that we need that lesson?

Is there, truly, anyone who WOULDN'T benefit from an increase in humility?

We have to remember that none are perfect, we are still being created, and like an Icon, are incomplete until we are with God for eternity. An Icon is not truly an Icon until it is Blessed in a special way, and that is what makes it worthy of veneration. So it is with the Saints - and we are ALL called to be Saints, should we choose to cooperate with that Divine Invitation.

Therefore, let us all pray together, with and for each other, to rejoice in the Resurrection of Christ, and for the blessing of success to the work of our hands...all for Him and for His Kingdom, unto Eternity with all the Blessed.

A Holy Easter to you all, and may God grant you all success to the work of your hands. Amen!

Abandoned at the Foot of the Cross

I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him but found him not. I called him but he gave no answer." ~ Song of Solomon 3:1

Every so often I have a sense of "abandonment."  It is not loneliness or sadness, but something different, perhaps a sense that words cannot describe. I find that this "mood" is often a catalyst to prayer and contemplation if I take the time to, in a way, enter into it.

I have been working on my second icon; Our Lady of Perpetual Help (or as I prefer, Our Mother of Perpetual Help), and it's a very slow process. This icon is very large, which means it takes much longer to fill in the colors, and I find that, because I am working directly under a ceiling fan, the paint dries out more quickly than I can adequately control, but yet, I often have to pause to wait for my freshest layer to dry before I can continue.

This kind of slow process definitely helps me to remain in prayer, as with each brush stroke, with each repetitive motion I am able to pray for a particular purpose. Maybe it's for help in writing this icon, perhaps for those I know have a devotion to her, perhaps for those I know are grieving.

A friend of mine is still grieving the loss of her dear nephew who was recently killed in an accident. Today we prayed the rosary for him in the chapel, and so today, as I worked on my icon, she, her nephew, and their family remained close to me so that I could offer them to Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

I began to see a connection, then, to my sense of abandonment today. I contemplated this solitude of mine and offered it up in union with Christ in his abandonment on the Cross, and Our Lady when nearly everyone else fled, leaving her to her grief and utter abandonment.  Even though others loved Jesus, even though John and Mary remained with her a the foot of the cross, none could truly enter into her grief; she is the Mother of Sorrows, who invites us to fly to her with our own.

As I worked on filling in her cloak, I considered how often I have left her to her grief, abandoned a the foot of the Cross. I wiped away a mistake when my brush had gone over the line into another color, grimacing at the residue left behind, and considered how my willful sin abandons not just Jesus, but His Mother as she prays at the foot of the Cross, her tears mingling with the blood of her Son.

I thought about how often I had willfully been distracted at Mass, perhaps entertaining other thoughts that took me away from the Holy Sacrifice being made present, and therefore, abandoning Our Lord at the very moment of salvation. How I have added to Our Mother's sorrows by being so distracted!

And still I worked, for I know that in the spiritual life it is important to recognize mistakes and their effects.

It is good for me to recognize how often I have abandoned Our Lord, and it puts my own eerie sense of abandonment into perspective. Perhaps it is proper for me to experience this while working on this particular icon, for the sense becomes a vehicle to deeper prayer and deeper penetration of the Mystery of our Redemption.

Mary always points to Jesus and always draws us to the Cross. She helps us seek and find Him whom our hearts desire.

We are never really abandoned.

"I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares;

I will seek him whom my soul loves.

I sought him and found him not.

The watchment found me, as they went about in the city. 

'Have you seen him whom my soul loves?'

Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves."

~ Song of Solomon 3:2-4

Cross and Sorrow

I have a huge devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, and am also developing a deep devotion, consistent with the Passionist spirituality, of devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, whose memorial we celebrate today.

Recently in my Mariology class, the connection was made for me between OLPH and Our Lady of Sorrows. One of the two possible Gospel readings today spoke of the prophecy at the presentation of Christ at the Temple, where Simeon praised God even as he revealed to the Mother of God that her own heart would be pierced.

When we look upon an icon, any icon, we are drawn in to the mystery through the eyes of those portrayed. Our Lady of Perpetual Help portrays the Mystery of our Redemption as she holds the child Jesus, who sought comfort in her arms as the shadow of the Cross and the implements of his crucifixion and torture fell over him. The very point that pierced the side of Christ was the very same as that which pierced her own heart. She is revealed both in the cited gospel

and the other for today, her presence at the Cross, as the Mother of Sorrows.

She invites us into that sorrow, for she is our mother and knows that without sorrow, without suffering, there can be no redemption. We are invited to penetrate the Mystery of our salvation by becoming a willing part of it.

So you see, it is no surprise that the Memorial of Our Mother of Sorrows follows upon the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross.

Although so many want to look at the Crucifixion of Christ as a one-time event (which it was), they ignore the second part of the teaching on the Cross; that we are called to it as well. We cannot experience the exultation without the experience of sorrow, for Christ Himself was a man of sorrows. Consider His Agony in the Garden; His sorrow in recognizing the need for our redemption was so great that it was not His Passion that caused Him to sweat blood, but the reality of sin in the world. It was that reality that made His Passion and Death necessary, and even as He meditated upon the sin of the past and future from that point....Jesus said yes.

But Our Lady had to say Yes before Jesus could in His humanity. It is said that "All of heavenand earth held their breath" awaiting her fiat to the Angel Gabriel. Our Blessed Mother greatly pondered the greeting of the angel, and in her humility bowed her head and said, "I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to Thy Word." And the Word was made flesh, the living Torah, as the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary just as God had once overshadowed Mt. Sinai, the tents of the Hebrews in the desert, and the Ark of the Covenant, and the Holy of Holies. He overshadowed her and she conceived, saying "Yes" not just to that moment, but to every moment.

Mary didn't just say "yes" to bearing the Messiah, but to everything that came with that. When we gaze upon icons portraying our Redemption, we realize that she said yes to that, to sharing Our Lord's suffering, and that of the entire Church. We see her ongoing fiat as, in the Gospel of John, she remained at the foot of the Cross when all but the Apostle John had long run away. She remained, keeping vigil in her great sorrow, trusting in the Triumph of her Son

...for she knew who He was.

Mary is the woman of Revelation 12, whose offspring (Jesus) was taken up to heaven as she fled into the desert, and the dragon (Satan), angry, went off to make war on her offspring. It is we, the Church, who are her offspring. That day, at the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave her to John, who Himself stood in for Christ, and Mary, for the Church. At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit overshadowed she and the Apostles together, the day we celebrate as the birthday of the Church, we see her expanded maternity.

Mary is the woman of Genesis , John and Revelation who is in travail; not at the birth of Christ, but at the foot of the Cross and forever after that. Her greatest suffering comes not from a single point of agony, but from the reality of sin in the lives of her children, we, the adopted sons and daughters of God. She is in travail because we run from the Cross, and she calls us back, pointing to Christ, pointing to the Cross, for our redemption is there.

We cannot run from that shadow, for no matter how far we go, we cannot escape suffering. It is only through understanding the suffering and triumph of the Cross that we can give definition to our own sorrows. It is the Cross that brings us through everything that comes our way, and there, in union with Christ, it is overcome.

Psalm 57 reveals this truth:

Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy.

Under the shadow of your wings

I will take refuge

Until the storms of destruction pass by

We must be willing to flee to the shadow of His wings and embrace the Cross, letting it change us. Let the Cross be our guide, recognize the suffering of Our Lord that brings us through that terrible Cross and into His Glory.

Look at Our Mother of Sorrows, perhaps in the comforting light of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. She gazes at us, pointing to Christ, but inviting us into the mystery, her own sorrow exposed. She invites us to join her Son, to feel the cold shadow of the Cross and know that it is our destiny as well, if we would only stop running away.

Will we let our own hearts be pierced, or will we continue to flee, to fight the suffering that in the end, if we embrace it, conforms us to Christ Himself?

If we aren't willing to live the Cross, we will never find our way to eternal life.

Lord, by Your cross and resurrection, you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world.

Our Mother of Sorrows....pray for us!

Our Mother of Perpetual Help Rosary

A few days ago I was contacted by the Redemptorists, who are offering a new Rosary CD. Most of you know of my devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help...after all, her icon graces my sidebar! And if you could see my house, and my office - well, she's come into my life via several avenues. I'm thrilled to be called upon to assist in what I see as Our Mother's work.

While the focus of my blog is not commercial, at the same time, any of us can recognize worthy causes and the need to be a voice in the wilderness often means promoting other voices much stronger and more effective than our own. Such as the Rosary. After all...who has a problem with praying the Gospels? And this CD is a special treat. Read it in the Redemptorists' own words:

First Rosary CD to Feature the Music of a Saint

First time St. Alphonsus Liguori’s music will be heard

CD to be dedicated to Our Mother of Perpetual Help


DENVER, CO...November 1, 2007...The first Rosary CD to feature the music of a saint will be released in November by the Redemptorists of the Denver Province. Titled, “Praying the Rosary with St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori,” the 2-CD set will be dedicated to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, the name by which Redemptorists “make her known throughout the world,” as stipulated by Pope Pius IX in 1866.

A percentage of the proceeds will be used to fund the work of our Redemptorist missions in Brazil and Nigeria.

Original music composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorists, will be played during the reading of the Rosary and the twenty meditations, also by St. Alphonsus. A majority of the meditations are taken from his great spiritual masterpiece, The Glories of Mary. It will be the first time the music of St. Alphonsus will be heard by a mass audience and certainly the first time in English.

Rev. Peter Schavitz, C.Ss.R. will lead the listeners in the Rosary.

Produced and arranged by Little Lamb Music, St. Alphonsus’ words and hymns will be performed and sung by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Padre Serra Children's Choir. One of the selections includes his famous Christmas carol, Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle, which is performed every Christmas Eve as part of the Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy.

Ray and Theresa Herrmann, co-founders of Little Lamb Music, produce and arrange Catholic music for families and their young children. Ray and Theresa have dedicated their company, their family and their lives to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Ray is one of the finest instrumentalists working in the music business today. He has played with and arranged music for the likes of Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Mathis, Herbie Hancock, Chicago, and George Benson.

The release of the Rosary CD coincides with the 275th anniversary on November 9th of the Redemptorist Congregation, founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in 1732 in the hill country of Scala, Italy, overlooking the Amalfi coast.

The 2-CD set will retail for $17.95 through Little Lamb Music. To order the Rosary CD, go to its website at littlelambmusic.com or call 1-800-231-1207 or 1-805-492-5302.