Define Irony

It is Divine Mercy Sunday, and this evening I finally watched the movie, "The Stoning of Soraya M."  I emerged just in time for the 10 PM News announcing the death of Osama Bin Ladin and the assurance, with his carcass in the hands of the United States, that he is now facing Divine Justice.

My friends, as difficult as it is and even though I say this while gurgling blood thanks to my clenched teeth and bitten tongue - offer a Divine Mercy chaplet for the man. He needs it far more than Judas.

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On the movie, The Stoning of Soraya M, it came to me that this end was exactly what St. Joseph wanted to prevent with his betrothed, our Blessed Mother, when he learned she was pregnant even though they had not come together. Within the story of Soraya, within her Passion, I saw the metaphor of  the innocent woman as a Christ-figure, tortured, beaten, killed, the lamb sacrificed so that her spouse could follow his infidelity.

And in the end, no one was Redeemed, no one was freed from sin, there was no Justice, and there was certainly no Mercy. There was only death and destruction.

As the credits rolled, I prayed a Requiem and other prayers for Soraya M., and all those women of Islam stoned for their innocence for the guilt of the men who tortured them, only to find that I cannot, in sincerity, do the same for a man most in need of mercy as he stands before Our Lord in judgment. And yet, as a Christian, I know that it is necessary for our own salvation to pray for and forgive our enemies - even that criminal  Osama Bin Ladin.

Eternal Father, I offer you the body, blood, soul, and divinity, of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. 

Jesus I trust in Thee. Jesus I trust in Thee. Jesus I trust in Thee. 

Remember: There is no such thing as Justice without Mercy.

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

Jesus, Take Me With You!

A few months ago, while praying during Mass, as I gazed upon the crucifix after Communion, I found myself asking Jesus to take me with Him.  This is a variation of an old prayer from a few years ago, one of those things that spontaneously comes upon us, and we pray it even if we really don't understand what we are really asking in that moment.

This morning while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, I suddenly understood, at least to some degree, of what I was asking that day, and as I continued to pray, it all began to make sense.  As always, God's timing is impeccable.

Jesus answered my prayer long before I ever prayed it.

When Jesus went down into the Jordan river, He took on His mission, giving his formal fiat, taking us and the sins of the whole world upon His shoulders. His baptism is symbolic of his acceptance of death, through which we must all descend, and his rising from the waters points to the resurrection.  As He took us with Him into the river, so, too must we die so that we can rise again with Jesus in the resurrection. 

That means that when Jesus went into the Jordan to be Baptized....He took me with Him.

When Jesus preached His Sermon on the Mount, He was speaking directly to me and telling me not to live only according to the minimum requirements, but to go deeper, sacrifice more, and become more and more human. 

When Jesus healed the lepers, restored the sight of the blind man, and exorcised demons, he tooke me with him in tow to show me that it's not actually about physical healing, but spiritual, and that's what He REALLY wants to offer. And so I went with Him into the Confessional so that I, too, could become a sign to the world of His mercy and forgiveness. 

When Jesus broke bread and gave thanks, when He washed the feet of the Apostles, He brought me with Him there, too, to reveal the beginning of the Mass and the origins of the ordained Priesthood, so that not only would I recognize the fulfillment of the Covenant when he died on the Cross the next day, but I would recognize God's own authority in His ministers, and the ongoing presence of Christ in the Mass and in all the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist.

When Jesus prayed and wept in the Garden of Gethsemane, He took me with Him for He was not just weeping over my sin and those of the whole world, but He was fully entering into and taking on our own suffering so that He could weep WITH us and not just FOR us. 

When Jesus went before Pilate, He took me with him so that I, too, could choose to either wash my hands and walk away, or instead, become docile to His love and become the Cross that He carried for my salvation.

When Jesus was scourged at the pillar, He took me with him so that I would know the selflessness of love and the sacrifice that restores true dignity.

When Jesus was crowned with thorns, He took me with Him so that in his degradation, I would be brought to my knees, desiring to offer mercy to Mercy Himself, reaching out to remove the thorns He wore to fulfill the punishment for sin, only to find them piercing my own hands, drawing my own blood, helping me to enter into the suffering of my Savior.

When Jesus walked the road to Calvary, He took me with Him upon His own back, and only fell because I did and the weight of my sin was so heavy he condescended to fall even lower than I so that I would not be lost forever. 

When Jesus was nailed to the Cross, He took me with Him so that I would recognize the impact of sin not just on myself, but upon the world, for which He was willingly being sent to His innocent death.

When Jesus was lifted up on the Cross, He brought me with Him for He drew me into His embrace and gave me rest under the shadow of His wings, where I begged to remain, for I recognized the Cross as my only defense.

Yes, Jesus HAS taken me with Him, every bloody, painful, wretched, agonizing step of the way.  In spite of my obstinance, in spite of my rebellion, in spite of my willful disobedience.  He has taken me with Him and has not let me out of His sight, even when I tried to hide from Him. 

The price He paid for my redemption was so great that He would not, could not, let me go.  He chose instead to suffer in patience, knowing that my hardened and fickle heart could be softened, that His love could overcome my rebellion, and that one day, I might still have a chance to return to Him with all my heart, all my soul, and give Him my whole life.

He asks for nothing less. And I ask for nothing more.
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Take me with you, Jesus.  Always.

Amen.

Thy. Will. Be. Done.

Words of great impact. But have you ever really considered them?

People often finish their prayers, "In Jesus' Name...Amen."

But do they know what THAT means? Scripture cites praying in the name of Jesus, "For whatever you ask me in My name shall be given to you." Scripture cites "faith the size of a mustard seed." So why do prayers seem to go unanswered?

The first thing to understand that prayer is a conversation with God, a dialogue...not a shopping list of demands, which, if made with Jesus' name tacked on, makes the demands magically fall into place. Jesus' name is not a mantra, it's not magic, and if you're praying in His name, you'd better know what you're asking!

Names are important; they have meaning, and we only need to look to scripture itself for this reality. In Genesis, Abram became "Abraham", and in the New Testament, Jesus changed Simon's name to "Peter" (Petros or Kepha). This is significant. Names indicate a particular calling, a particular destiny, and when God offered His name to His people, He was making himself known to them. When we give our names to another, we are making ourselves accessable in some way.

The name of Jesus is more powerful than any name ever spoken, for it contains everything; it containes our entire Redemption. When we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, we should have in mind his suffering, his humility, his will to obey the Father, and his sacrifice on behalf of we worthless sinners. We don't deserve what Jesus did for us, and so when we pray in His name, we must remember the agony of his suffering and death, and the joy of His resurrection. And we must recall that we are undeserving of our salvation. It is a gift freely given.

Who are any of us to make any request of God, much less a DEMAND? Who are we to cheapen the name of Christ in the form of a magic mantra, thinking that only if we attach his name God will obey US?

There is only one proper disposition with which to approach the Almighty, and that is the disposition of humility. Jesus himself gave us the example in his humility and His own prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But your will, not mine, be done." Humility. Obedience. Agonizing love.

So it is, when we pray in the name of Jesus, we must remember to be humble before God and remember the prayer of Jesus himself. That way, when we pray, we will be open to the will of God and allow the Holy Spirit to intervene and request what we are truly asking, for we do not know how to pray as we ought. When we pray with humility, we must understand that God may not desire that our prayer be answered in ways that we expect, for He only wants our good. To provide an answer contrary to our own good would make God unfaithful to himself and his love; God cannot contradict himself.

This leads to the topic of suffering, a topic I've seen often of late. Many people are asking about suffering. Why do we suffer?

Suffering is an evil, and evil is the privation of a good. Suffering is in the world as a consequence of original sin, although that's not to say that it is a consequence of our own sin. We often suffer innocently, clear of any direct wrongdoing.

What do we do when we suffer? We ask questions. Why are we suffering? Why is there suffering? And at the heart of our questions is our true query: "Why ME? Why is this happening to ME?"

And there is God, waiting for our questions, ready to meet us there and show us the meaning of what ails us.

God allows suffering for our own good, for it is only through suffering that we are purified, only through suffering that we ask questions, and only through suffering that we come face to face with the suffering Christ. By his suffering and death on the cross, God himself in his humanity dignified suffering, just as he dignified the flesh in his coming. And there, he meets our questions with his own example, forcing us to look into his eyes, asking us to unite our own sufferings with his anguish. And it is here that we learn of the meaning of redemption.

God is not so concerned with our suffering, but rather, what we do with it. Do we seek Him? Are we willing to be docile to His will, and recognize a greater good may come out of the evil we experience? For God always intends to bring a good out of evil. Are we willing to cooperate with God's plan of our salvation, even though we don't understand?

So when we pray, we must remember the humility of the suffering servant, we must remember to allow God to speak, and we must be willing to be docile to His love for us. It is only through suffering that we will truly learn to pray.

So thank God for all the suffering in your life, no matter how much it hurts, for there you will truly meet God.