Serving in the Divine Light

"Your word, O Lord, is truth: consecrate us in the truth." - John 17:17b,17a

Are there not days we wonder, "Does the Lord trust me too much?" Well, can He trust too much? No, for with trust, there is grace, and with grace there is much mercy, and with mercy there is much love—with much love, there truth rests.

Monday had startled me, immediately being thrust into an ongoing anxiety. Yet, it is the Lord who trusts imperfect instruments that we are. We can desire to delve deeper, to write more, and to share more, putting to paper with broad strokes of the pen the welling, the throbbing of our hearts. Within these lofty reflections, by God's grace, dwell His love and thus His truth. Yet, we are broken instruments, or, at least, flawed ones. Still, love must win out. We have been told this—no, SHOWN it!

Yes, it is so. He has shown it. Love has shown the Way. What other desirous act or thought should supplant it or surpass it? What human endeavor would increase the worth of life or existence if it was not first imbued with such grace? And these words today, "Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!" What searing words! We must let these words sink into our depths. It is not a competition with the Other. No, we are in competition in service to the Other!

We are a people called to service, to thinking of others more deserving the honor, the glory, the joy. Yet, He does fill our hearts with great joy, if we but let Him in.

We must let this golden light stream in each day, especially at the close. With our hearts open to this light, how can we not ourselves radiate this same joy to and for others? We are called to do it, and He himself has done it. He has promised it, if we but enter faithfully into this work.

Tuesday began a series of deepening introspection which gave even greater depth to this continuing gift of prayer and presence of the Beloved. He still trusts though imperfection. Through this imperfect response of ours, He trusts. This he does in a manifold series of ways, some more perceptible to our human eye or ear and others more sublimely.

One for me, as of late, are the dreamlike notes of the second movement of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. They continue to resonate with me like a dream and, yet, here I am. It is no dream.

Like the Impressionist pieces by Claude Monet, such as the one above, Towing a Boat, Honfleur (1864), things focus at a distance and lose clarity up close. It is the paradox of the long distance view of joy. Pain seeps in as though points and sharp strokes of paint, yet the joyous picture is completed at a harmonious distance.

That is what I dwell upon recalling this week and the amber-lit evenings, as the sun drenched the church in those beautifully warm hues. I could not leave the place where I first beheld the beauty of the week nor the reminder of the Beloved as evening fell each day before the Presence of the Lord.

It felt as though the sunset of Creation, that dusk to darkness before the next day, the Renewal of our hearts before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. As every sunset shines, whether painted or seen, it shines back to the deathless sunset of the One who is our Light. We are called to reflect it.

Beauty Magnified

Beauty without sacrifice isn't beauty. It's a cheap illusion. The beauty of a rose comes with thorns, with little pains and sorrows. Beauty isn't diminished with the thorns—it's magnified.

Beauty uncrucified is a love that is missing its crown of thorns. A love without thorns is a love without service. Without service, love is empty words reserved for a dust heap, branches to be pruned, and blossoms withered.

With each day let us give thanks for beauty crowned with sacrifice and find joy within beauty that is tested and found worthy of Him. We are loved.

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.

Let Us Give Thanks...

Conversion is a day by day experience, as I was reminded to me in a homily a week ago, and day by day I know more why I continue to return... With the eyes of faith I recall the words of Peter: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69)

But this isn't a begrudging answer or a return based on fear or weariness, even when I fail... It isn't as though it is a crutch. Why go to Mass then? Why return in community to the Eucharist?

Indeed, the Eucharist is having eyes for forever. It is the onward look towards Eternity, wrapped in a love deeper than the depths of the human heart. It is a Thanksgiving, rightly called so, because we do not earn it, but we are given it in our feebleness. It strengthens; it fortifies. It gives us new life... All because of HIS words... "I am the Bread of Life."

Let us "give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever!" -Psalm 107:1

Today I give thanks "for his mercy endures forever" (Psalm 107:1), and His beauty is ever before me, whether before me at home or in Rome.

The beauty I seek, that I yearn most deeply for, is before me always. It is his mercy that endures forever and my heart is glad, glad for a shepherd whose voice I hear from the ends of the earth to home. My heart is glad for Him Who Is and for the gifts of Him.

My heart is glad for the gift of love for ones that are His, and I pray I may recall this even when that love is tested and purified, most especially when all that I desire is before me at the Altar of Salvation, at the Table of His Great Love, at the Banquet of the Great Communion of His Love. May I place it all upon the altar with the unblemished gifts and the works of our hands—all of it!

He purifies because He loves, and He loves because He wants us, all of us, to have life more abundantly.

Let us love through Him. Though Him, With Him, In Him... Now and Forever. Amen.

—Sunrise from the Coast of Italy, May 2, 2014

Keeping Company with the Lord

"I keep up the Holy Hour to grow more and more into his likeness. As Paul puts it: "We are transfigured into his likeness, from splendor to splendor." We become like that which we gaze upon. Looking into a sunset, the face takes on a golden glow. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain. Something happens to us similar to that which happened to the disciples at Emmaus. On Easter Sunday afternoon when the Lord met them, he asked why they were so gloomy. After spending some time in his presence, and hearing again the secret of spirituality - "The Son of Man must suffer to enter into his Glory" - their time with him ended and their "hearts were on fire." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Treasure in Clay)

This reminds me again of the Polish proverb I've shared elsewhere previously, which is translated loosely: "You become like the company you keep."

Indeed, it is holding a Lover's gaze. And to be in that Gaze! We all desire love! We all wish to be loved! To be forgiven! To have all of our sins washed away!

His presence is enough.

Indeed, if we would recall this important reminder, we would so readily run to the Blessed Sacrament.

We would not run to it because of its semblance of bread and wine. It would be in spite of it. We would go despite our disbelief, others' disdain, even mockery of it. We would go because of His very Word: "THIS IS MY BODY GIVEN UP FOR YOU."

Today as we did at the close of Good Friday, we stand watch at the Tomb. We are inconsolable, but we have knowledge that the first disciples knew not... Easter is on its way.

"They have taken His body!" we think in sadness as the third day draws near and horror sets in on Easter morning of the empty tomb. But what is horror at first blush is rejoicing with the morning. For when He calls our name, we hear him. When He casts His gaze upon us, He sees us. And when He draws near to us, we remain in Him (cf. John 15).

His Presence never fades. Love wins.

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 Presence of the Lord: "Ite Missa Est"

Oh, this Presence! What shall I say of this? This is more than a binding of flesh and blood. It is submission to the greater Mission. It is an outward sign of an inward reality of Love. There is more to this than can be seen by our own eyes.

To be privileged to be given the opportunity to bring the Presence and to not betray Him or His love... It truly is the better portion and is given as a undeserved gift without any reward but His glory. This is Love.

This Presence remains with us even after we leave the Mass. We are "sent forth" ("ite missa est") to bring such a gift, such a pure gift. We become the outward sign of the inward reality. But why? Why do we leave this behind so easily? Why do we forget to love more purely? If we truly loved the Other more than words can describe and want what is ultimately the best for them, why do we hide such a profound gift as though it is a blemish instead of a blush? Is it because we are afraid of that Love's power? It is not without trial and rejection. No, His very love was rejected far worse! Is it that you do not believe because of others' human failures? Do not do this! For have you not seen with your own eyes His divine success?

To love is to be vulnerable, as C.S. Lewis once said, and that love is without question a test in trust. What if the beloved does not love? Love anyways. Love anyways but love in far more inventive ways. If by their rejection out of foolishness it becomes a game of responses out of shrewdness in love, do not be unlike the old widow before the judge and persist in seeking a just judgement. If such an incompetent judge can, out of sheer personal relief, issue a just judgement, how greater is the One who judges justly in Heaven? Love anyways! There are so many little rejections that must take place to say YES to HIM.

Do not grow weary of the endurance required for this Love if it is to be a seal set upon your heart (cf. Song of Songs 8:6). Do not betray the deep consolations He has given you in times of peace during those storms of desolation and half truths. They are greater than the storms we must traverse.

Let us not be like the foolish virgin who on the way ran dry of her oil and snuffed out her lamp waiting on the Bridegroom to pass by. We have all that we need for the way. Remain in Him.

If one loves another deeply with the depths the Lord has uniquely provided each to persist against all sorts of trials that image His trials born because of His love for us (cf. 1 John 4:18-19), then let us as that one do all the good works that He has prepared for us to enter into (cf. Ephesians 2:10) and do so without mental reservation. His sacrifice lacks nothing but our very own participation in it. Let us not stray from our cross but daily carry it after Him.

May He be present to each us and thus through the Church He established for Himself and washed in the water of His word "to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" (cf. Ephesians 5:27).

May His love reign supreme.

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." - Ephesians 5:21-33

The Marks of Love: Fruit That Remains

It is into the final hours of the day, the deepest recesses of the mind that one reaches... as set upon the shores of an Eternal sunset, as slumber sets into sight.

All the desires, the deepest dreams of the heart bear out to the Creator from the Created... as a whisper into the cold, dark night.

Love has its end, not in the take, but the give. Therein is the wellspring of every dream, of every request: to see his Maker, to make his redress.

But to the human heart there is more: to love whom Love has given, to give to whom one has striven... To confess of all the hopes and desires and the dreams on the one whom Love has blessed.

The heart requires both the Creator and the Other. It requires the Triune Love of the Other with the Divine.

Love does not die out; Love does not return to the Creator without first bearing fruit. And with that Love, it is fruit that remains. It does not die on the Vine.

Love bears it all into one, for the endurance of the Spirit is greater than the failures of the flesh and the weakness to believe not the Truth in Love and the Love in Truth.

The rejection does nothing to mute the Truth, nor does it demur the ardor of the Love. It is still the same; it is still the Faith confessed.

Love presses onward undeterred, without ceasing. The chorus of the divine music of the heart resounds again and again: "Perfect love casts out fear."

Love never ceases.

Rooted in Love

How is the Domestic Church to be built? How are the Living Stones of it to be built? How can we ignore this necessity in the present day? How can we not see its need?

I pray for the clarity of this point, and in this point that I too may make this plunge into the Deep. No, the jump is not soon for myself. The Truth doesn't change with the delay of timing—it remains Truth. Truth remains timeless as does Love because both are one in the same.

It is because both Truth and Love is at its heart Sacrifice, not vain sacrifice, but rather it must be sacrifice with purpose. Dying to oneself and picking up one's cross is senseless without purpose and so it must be there to be seen and experienced. Purpose must reside where sacrifice and, therefore, where Love and Truth exist. Therefore, the day of the Domestic Church and its fruition of its Holy Desire is to be rooted in love to the sacrifice of the glory of the Lord, in His Sacrifice and His Resurrection.

Where He places each one of us is not our own wills in isolation; it is His will anchored in our individual free will to choose His will for the greater good of our individual souls and the multitude of the souls of others.

I pray for my Beloved for these reasons. I must be purified for the glory of this union that prefigures the one to come in Heaven with Christ the Bridegroom and His Bride, the Church.

My love lifts up his voice, he says to me, "Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come.
For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
Flowers are appearing on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree is forming its first figs and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come." - Song of Songs 2:10-13

Anew has this Springtime come. Time has no place for this new springtime; the prefigurement brings the Reality to come to the very Ground we walk upon. We are on Holy Ground because He has made us and, thus, this ground Holy.

Patience in love endures all things. Love endures all things because He is Love. No tribulation extinguishes love because "perfect love casts out fear." We must remember this Truth. Love find its way. Through all things—Love finds a way.

I pray for the Little Ones for these reasons. We must first be purified for the glory of this gift, this glorious gift, of the blessed union to be. Fatherhood flows from the gift of adopted sonship with the Heavenly Father, Motherhood from the gift of the Fiat to Love Himself. The Little Ones are the glorious gift of this blessed union. They are the fruits of Love. They are the fruits on the Vine.

We are the Vine's branches; the Father is the Vinegrower. As Christ is the Vine and we the Branches, we are to transmit the Holy Faith of Ages Past, the Holy Faith in Christ Jesus. We must be the Vine's branches that unites the Little Ones to Christ and His Church.

We are called to grow the Domestic Church in all Her glory for the Love of Christ. For the Love of Christ, we are given to the Other. Love's fate is to fully give Itself: freely, fully, fruitfully, faithfully. Love must be transmitted for Faith and Hope to even branch out and blossom. Love must come first.

This is the Call—to love, know, and serve the Lord. Too often we get caught up in how, but the most important fact is that we must first be rooted in love. Faith and Hope can only supplement this one virtue, and—in the End—Love is all that remains.

This is where my heart and my prayer rests, for my Beloved and the Little Ones: let us first be radically rooted in love, to Love Himself, and all the rest will be added unto this. To be radical is to be rooted in that which you believe, as the 1350-1400 Middle English word came from the Latin radix, root. Let us be rooted in His love. Let us go to the Root of Love.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another." - John 15:1-17