Vocation: Moving from Despair into Mercy

Coming to dwell upon a momentary despair, one of the minor ones that precipitate a temptation to fall into a selfish burst, a moment turned inward—the following comes to mind, as though inspiration breathed in and a cool answer to a heated breath of dismay:

If one is tempted to self or unpurposed love of self, make an act of love in opposite, a small sacrifice of love—a prayer, a thought, a physical act (if possible) according to the state in life and relation, especially for those in the budding of vocation. Make it a point to cut against the grain, to rouse the senses to cooperation under the same mission as the intellect that ascends to and accepts in word a faith towards such a state, that begins in proto-form the desire to say "I do" or be consecrated towards the Kingdom at hand but needs a small act or, if you will, "a kiss to build a dream on." Make an act of love in this direction and in such a concrete way, even if the Beloved sees not. Do this, and you will have placed a brick upon the structure, the abode of love that you are building for the Other. Brick by brick, even if the Beloved does not accept such a gift, builds the home in which the Father bestows and desires each to dwell within. It is then a structure, an abode of love. Festooned with the flowers that burst into bloom and then fade as youth does, this abode will not later fade. Rather, it will be strengthened by each sweet act of charity. The investment being made will then pay dividends, not for oneself alone but—as one holding everything in common—for the community of believers. In this end, that immutable crown of glory will be yours and, with it, a Communion given by the One who has given it all, even His dearly beloved Son.

This is why it is right to say: "Conversion is where obedience turns into love."

So it is in pursuit, in the Courtship of the Daughter of the King... So must a "yes" be in preparation, for love requires a soil prepared in due time if the fruits of love are to be those that remain. Without Him, we can do nothing.

"And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way." - John 14:3-4

These words strike me... they hold me in a great peace. What has He prepared? Much! And yet Thomas questions. It is enough to be with Him along the Way, peaceful with the great good given each in their own way. This is gratitude.

I am reminded of last Sunday morning, in preparation for Mass and entering into and serving in the Mass. Looking beyond my place towards the Altar—and this among other reasons is why I love 8 AM Mass so much—the light pierced through the east-facing windows before me with its light resting upon the chalice and purificator spent. It was for me, a profound and yet sublime example of love. It was love in the hidden—in the invisible made visible. That is what the Blessed Sacrament is. It is love spent for the good of the people, multiplied, and distributed. It is the wedding banquet, and my heart was glad.

It is in these moments I find great solace and remembrance of His love, "for his mercy endures forever." Not only this, I remember those whom I am so bound in prayer and affection that tears of joy are recalled. I pray even now not out of a desire of being seen—this is the warning of Christ about the locked room of prayer—but out of deep reverence for the love He has placed for me that I am called to give in turn in specific, tender ways. These are like wounds that are opened and then re-heal, only to open again. This is the nature of compassion and of self-gift and love.

It is an honor to serve in lectoring at Mass, especially regarding last Sunday's reading and the rejoinder by St. Peter to be like "living stones." The greater gift received is the mere opportunity to see the work of God at work in us and through us that the light shines through and shows through the darkness of our own hearts His marvelous love. Namely, it is itself the receiving of Him in the Eucharist. There can be no greater, no further complete union of God and Man other than on Judgement Day. We must avail of it often and never grow weary to our need for conversion before approaching. Yet, through it all, we remember that "his mercy endures forever."

Amen.

Proclaiming the Word

In recalling the latest issues of communicating during these times of upheaval and questioning of morals and faith, face-to-face social interaction trumps online/social media interaction because it stings less when it is off-key. The bad word slips away never to be returned whence it came; it is still contained within the circle of speech surrounding the speaker. It may be carried again and again, yes, but as for the online world's interaction and its transmission... it is a wildfire without a firebreak, an echo chamber without dampeners, a cacophony in darkness, a canary in a coal mine.

Still, we are called to proclaim into the darkness to proclaim anew, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'"

These verses follow the other, and they should not be seen as disjointed or separate. They are in the same breath, and we shouldn't forget it:
"'This I command you: love one another.
If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.'" - John 17:17-18

We must still act with charity in our comments in person or online, but true charity never ignores the truth. No, it embraces truth with gusto and looks for the excuse of the other as ignorance of it. Then armed with no other weapon than the evidence before God and man, the one with true charity goes to meet the person where they are in fraternal correction and prays twice as long for him and his brother and the conversion of himself and his brother, for his brother is not the world but is in it.

"Have mercy on us, O Lord...
For we have sinned against you.

Show us, O Lord, your mercy....
And grant us your salvation."

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." - John 1:5

The Five Wounds of Christ

The Five Wounds of Christ are a very important area of devotion and a specifically helpful reality we ought to pray with, especially when meditating on the Life of Christ and gazing upon a crucifix. As it is, we share in His death with each of our struggles and hope to share with Him in His Resurrection for He Himself has conquered Death. Just so, we through the same mysteries can be united into His Passion, Death, and Resurrection mystically by meditating and applying these truths bound and renewed in faith as well as hope to our lives and offering these contemplations up to our Lord.

These Five Wounds, which become our own if we unite to Him in the struggle and sacrifice of the Cross, are of His Hands, His Feet, and His Sacred Side to His Sacred Heart. So it is, we are placed again in the formation and reopening of these wounds by our attachments to things not of Him, of distractions away from Him.

The first of these are of the Feet, ones that hold us from walking the Walk and of carrying the Good News to others. These are the wounds that keep us from fulfilling the Prophet Isaiah's words:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the one bringing good news,
Announcing peace, bearing good news,
announcing salvation, saying to Zion,
“Your God is King!” - Isaiah 52:7

The first of these wounds is the attachment to the esteem of others and to the opinion of others over God. It is the easiest to be swayed in following after Christ in His will for us. It is the one proverbial stoked by peer pressure and wanting to be in the "in" crowd, wholly being dependent upon the capricious human nature of desire for high esteem and human praise. The second Wound of the Feet is that of attachments of self, attachments that turn ourselves inward and consist of little desires that slowly inch ourselves away from a God who is infinitely good and desires the best for us. It is this one that is shown most especially in sloth towards need or the endurance in the Way to the Lord. Both Wounds, when turned inward, give opportunity for failure and separation from the wounds He bore.

The next two, those of the Hands, are ones of attachments to our understanding, both of the Future and of the Present. The more we hold on to a future devoid of His will and a present that isn't counseled by Him, we because onerous and cantankerous. These Wounds both show a prideful streak, a desire to be right and of high rank without purpose or service towards others. These Wounds lack most in charity necessary for service to others. These Wounds also are manifested in the impatience or hostility we are prone to show instead of the docility, obedience, and patience we are called to show. These Wounds, if separated from Him, from handing on and embracing others in Christ and His Love.

And the fifth and final Wound—to the Sacred Side—reaches the Sacred Heart itself. This is manifested in the attachment to the Past. This Wound, separated from Christ, is what stops all things from movement and is often caused out of fear and the belief that the past failures cannot be overcome or that the Love of God cannot heal the contrite of heart. This is the most pernicious of lies since it attacks the very lifeblood of the Person: Hope in Him Who Is. This fearful pride fails to let Christ into the very wounds He bore for us in His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. We cannot live with Him if we do not die with Him. Suffering itself must be purposed and not feared, and love must be shown in spite of the suffering we endure because even with our pasts His mercy endures forever. We must go beyond our shortsighted fears towards the Eternal, being contrite of heart and moving towards Him who is Love.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so the one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:18-19

The beauty of these verses isn't because it somehow validates each us or even our love for one another blindly. On the contrary, it shows how much greater He is in giving. And we mustn't confuse the Gift from the Giver.

The rest of Scripture and Tradition hang on the verses here, not because they promote a false, warm-fuzzy peace with its cookie-cutter loves, as though there is a one-size-fits-all. No, it is on God's love that we stand on the edge of the cliff and chance the vertigo to look down from its heights in awe. We often fear the irrational but more so here the rational. We try to diminish His love and its effects, but it is still there, as stern as ever. He has sealed our hearts for His Sacred Heart in the courts above. Let us not delay in sharing in the suffering given to us for the Love He has stored up for us in Heaven above. His Wounds bear the marks beautifully of how far a distance God has come down to make His abode with us. Let us go out to meet Him through it all.

Grace Abounds

When dealing with a life bereft with poisonous temptation, as though living in a foggy swamp of noxious fumes, let us not grow weary in prudent combat against despair and malady. This is our great boon. As St. Paul writes: "Where sin is, grace abounds all the more" (cf. Romans 5:20). So it is with us. Grace is not for those who are comfortable; it is for those who are afflicted, bereft, and in need. That is why "the last shall be first" (cf. Mark 10:31).

Grace abounds "all the more" because of need, not because we have earned anything! Our place is with the Lord, no matter if we are the Faithful Son or the Prodigal Son.

Remember this when worried about the appearances of others or oneself. It is better to seek after mercy for oneself or another than it is to be quicker to condemn than our Lord. To "settle on the way" (cf. Matthew 5:25) and, in haste, to return to Him is better than a thousand days of doubt before our Lord. Forgiveness is not first in the judgement but in the asking, and it is in the judgement that, faithful to this command to love one another, we may see not only the grace of Holy Communion in this age, though beset with persecution (cf. Mark 10:30) and temptation to despair, but also Union with him in the Eternal Life to come with Him in the next.

Let us not grow hasty in our understanding of this sublime gift of grace and Holy Communion, and let us not delay in making our holy confession of guilt before Him. Let us not deny His love or refuse to share it fully. This is our "sacrifice of praise" (cf. Psalm 50:23), that He might be glorified in His love for us. Take courage in His love.

"Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God." - Psalm 50:14, 23

"O God, who provide gifts to be offered to your name
and count our oblation as signs
of our desire to serve you with devotion,
we ask of your mercy
that what you grant as the source of merit
may also help us to attain merit's reward.
Through Christ our Lord."
(Prayer over the Offerings, Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time)

So much surrounds these words above, which came to me after a weekend at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, "the First Week After Pentecost" (in older usage) or, in the more commonplace, the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time. The Responsorial Psalm of daily Mass that Tuesday was that of a frequently used phrase in the the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite, which speaks of vows and devotion. It is used at the end of the period of announcements and blessings (especially birthdays and wedding anniversaries). It speaks so beautifully to the wedding feast that is just then about to commence... that wedding feast where, so beautifully, grace abounds.

Conversion & The Abiding Love of the Father

Faith is not the reason for God's forgiveness. Not even is hope the reason, though it does not disappoint. Even when we are off at a distance and on our way, He comes with haste to meet us and forgive the contrite. Faith is how we see His forgiveness in our lives because it is out of faith and hope that love, and, in it all, conversion comes to those who return Home.

In both the older and the prodigal son, we should see how we could fail. His love does not fail or falter, not even for a moment... His love remains no matter how far we run, but He will not impose the love He holds. Neither to the returning nor the remaining son does He desist in His abiding love. He waits for both sons' conversions. It is there that He reminds us of all the lavishing He wishes to impart on us and how He wishes everything He has to be our own.

"Conversion is where obedience turns into love." - Father David Konderla