Seeking After Gratitude

Now I crash again against the beachhead, a wave of compassion washing ashore. The dash to Mass was one that had me come up short so many days of the past weeks. I recall one day, especially, where I didn't hear the Gospel that day, but I did experience it. I grew bitter and uncharitable, all of it bitter fruit and without much mental or spiritual acuity. Again this happened today. The interesting truth about this?

God works with even that brokenness and lack of self worth and hardness of heart in the moment. He allows the hardness so that He can break our stony hearts and expand them for a greater capacity to love.

I knew once I came tumbling into the church one weekday evening, that, in spite of these setbacks of getting to Mass, I had made the right decision to press on. I recall those sonorous words of Fr. Trahan on 1 John 4:19. God does not love us for some sort of response. He loves us because we are lovable, and we should do the same.

I'm still working on this... but it makes each day worth living.

"The saints do not contemplate to know, but to love. They do not love for the sake of loving but for the love of Him whom they love. It is for the love of their first beloved, God, that they aspire to that very union with God that love demands whilst they love themselves only for Him. For them, the end of ends is not to bring exultation to their intellect and nature and thus stop at themselves. It is to do the will of Another, to contribute to the good of the Good. They do not seek their own soul. They lose it; they no longer possess it. If in entering into the mystery of Divine filiation and becoming something of God, they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in the world approaches, it is by forgetting all else so that they do not live, but the Beloved lives in them."

— Jacques Maritain

A Great Boon in the Tide of Love

"We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become."

- St. Clare of Assisi

This is an epigraph that encompasses the great boons of a love grounded in this heavenly courtship of the Other. First, because the Other is worth that price of sacrifice. Secondly, because, even if one discounted the intrinsic value of that person and therefore also that love between, its value is too much to be rendered inconsequential. No! It, rather, gains more day by day in dividends. This movement of dying to self and to every expectation opens for oneself a great boon in the tide of love.

As it is our passions, rightly or wrongly, push the waves ashore, crashing upon the beachhead, but it is always that great gift of love which raises the tides of the whole sea. Love in proximity itself increases the level for those further along. Every attack on love affects the members of this vast body. Likewise, the more pure the act in opposite, for the Banner of Love, wins a great salve for the ones adrift in this body. It brings hope, like a life raft in a sea churning within a storm... which informs us further despite the tempest: "Be not afraid!"

And so it is, "We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become."

Taking on the Fragrance of Compassion

Passing in the midst of the subtly divine, do not fail to breathe it in. Do not forget to share this breath of fresh air. Opportunities are rare, unless you make the most of them in the present. Paradoxically they grow with the embrace of their scarcity, and the sharing of their beauty unlocks them for the return to them again both as a reusable gift of grace passed forward and also as a fond memory recounted in the heart. When we learn it isn't in the lethargic hoarding of gift for a future that may never be but rather the frantic budding of gifts given... When we realize love meted out as a scarcity does nothing but smother it in jewel-encrusted reliquaries without needed effect... We lose the immediacy, the intimacy, the humanity of our love. We should see this in the everyday, in our homes, and in our everyday places. We must be close to the ones we love, lest we lose their scent, their sweet fragrance of compassion. For to be void of it, we would be without passion with the Other. And I know of no worse death than to be without passion for another.

Let us take on the fragrance of those whom we love... before it is too late. This is the Little Way.

The Question of Suffering & The Joy of Life

We ought to realize in the everyday the profound reality that we are faced with a choice of perspective and framing of mind: either God is keeping something from us, or else He is intending something else to transpire before the gift of the secondary comes. Both still must lead to Him in the telos of the endeavor, but we shouldn't discount the real possibility our desires do not have the fullness of His love in mind (thereby missing the mark) or lack the order found in Him who orders all things (timing).

We, especially in Western society, think of it as a zero-sum game. We either get what we desire or we don't. We lose sight of the value of prayer and of certitude with the end game. We try our damnedest to get what we want this moment, in a race of instant gratification, without realizing good things are good not because they are quick but, rather, because they are abiding. The good invariably comes in sequences. We can try to "game" the system, but virtue isn't a magical game. It requires hard work and dedication.

Dedication often takes doing things that aren't natural to our sensibilities or to our patience levels, but then how would virtue grow if not with a bit of resistance? Certainly the satisfaction of something doesn't come from its consumption, for it would mean we would wish to consume nothing more. No, satisfaction comes from the growth of spirit through the tedium and the lengthening of time between desire and its consummation. The larger fire isn't necessarily a flash explosion but a growing fire that burns but doesn't consume. Love, in its purest forms, does purify through this growing fire and not from the scorching explosion of a exploding blast, burning away the impurities but not pushing away the greatest richness found within. This nugget being refined within is the virtue and good works we seek and, in its deepest forms, the insatiable desire for love and to be in communion with the Other.

So it is, timing must come from the understanding that gratification and gift isn't predicated on our readiness of receipt but our willingness to give of ourselves in the service to the Good. Who is the greatest good but Him who made all things and did so in all knowledge of the good works He called us to labor in, under, and in response to His grace?

It is His grace that leads us on, whether it be in outward suffering or in joy contemplated. No matter, joy mustn't remain inward, self-effacing. Joy is always the outward expression of the inward ponderings of a God so great as to give us His Son for expiation of our sins... and for the fulfillment of our deepest longings for Him as One. It is the joy of being filled with His grace.

Ave Maria, gratia plena...

"Ite Missa Est"

I haven't been able to make it daily Mass much these past two whirlwind weeks, but it is moments like these... these successive moments since... that have pressed me forward, have stretched me, have made me grow in ways not expressible. As I am wont to do, I analyze and theorize the eventual, the plausible, and the possible of the future. I see this as, in part, a dry run not only of future ails but also of future joys.

This is the "ite missa est" of the Mass. It is the going forth that cannot be ignored or encased in a shiny box and disregarded. It is integral to the Christian life.

I still cannot get over the spiritual and mental mementos given to me walking the halls and the streets since, especially on the long walks of the first visitation. It is a surreal state of things that makes me pause and wonder. It also brings me to the chapel and church (if it isn't locked). It makes me wonder and pause as I see the sight out of the window a stone's throw away—the iconic as well as the destitute, the chill of the morning, the dreariness of the fog or rain, the beauty of a bright, sunny day. All of it makes me pause, as though it is pregnant with possibility but also pain.

I suppose it is these moments, these lucid thoughts that are pondered, which in some small way reflect all the things Mary did as it was written that she "kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (cf. Luke 2:19). So it is, as with bated expectation, I must do. I must merely reflect His light, as though a lantern on a cold, dark night, and "with dawn there is rejoicing" (cf. Psalm 30:6).

“Frost and chill, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.

Nights and days, bless the Lord;
praise and exalt him above all forever.” - Daniel 3:69, 71

Sacramental Life: A Fiat to Truth

The moment one forgets that the imperfection isn't an end but merely an illusionary setback, that it isn't an indictment alone but a vindication based upon the One Who Saves, upon His mercy, and upon the grace that flows from Him as a font of every blessing here on Earth below; not until then do we realize that His love, which is mercy and truth itself, is reason enough to strive for perfection in and by, and through His grace. Love has no further end but to beget further love in the deepest recesses and places of the heart of one's beloved and in the heart of whom, who bears Love's origin. It becomes senseless and without meaning, which it is to say life itself, when man forgets that primordial truth which springs from existence itself—that we are loved and that we are called to love within the boundless confines of eternity. Without a fiat to this truth, man cannot love, and if he cannot love then mercy and salvation cannot be fully accepted.

Love has no end until Love is espoused to the Other and in that espousal the Lover becomes fully known to the Beloved and the Beloved becomes fully known in the most intimate of espousals to the Lover.

This is the meaning of the Sacramental Life. That is to say: everything has meaning between the Lover and the Beloved, and the one who is loved—that is, the Beloved—wastes no time in reuniting with the Lover and desires nothing less than Communion, blessed Communion, with the One who loves without any reservation or fear.

We love the Other, not because we are first, but because "He first loved us" and because He first "espoused us."

To the One Whom Heaven Has Hidden

To the One whom Heaven has hidden... What glorious vision,
He for whom Time obeys and space diminish!
Sight remains obscured and the distance hidden,
This the Royal Road He hath given!

Speak of the one whom You have held from me, O Gracious One...
Speak of her as radiance that reflects the Light of Your Son!

Love, O Love, won't thou speak of the Other and in us indwell
Love's Spirit, and in all the tyrant temporal tempests quell.
O Love come now to us and dwell!

Make of us a shelter to weather the storm,
Out of the dust and air to form
Us in your likeness and to us transform,
That which is Love Outpoured.

Come to us, O Love in hiding...
Give us the grace to trust Your timing.

Tota Pulchra Es: The Virgin's Example

Love requires action, and thus sacrifice, at the very least to prove that our faith is not dead, to provide the fruits of the hope of what is to come in the Vineyard when the Springtime comes and the Wedding Feast is upon us. The action is but a kiss of truth to the beautiful words: "I love you."

Without the fruits that follow, the words are but bitter fruits not yet ripened for the harvest and are best disregarded until the maturation process has begun. Love, like new wine, cannot bear itself from unripened fruits. Even when borne the process takes years to age a wine or mature a love that is not easily forgotten or is utterly praiseworthy.

We must say yes to the love that abides, not because it depends on us, but rather, because it depends and begins with Him who is.

What better earthly example of these gifts put into action than our Blessed Mother, the Virgin conceived without Original Sin? Why should we limit those whom God so richly blesses? Is it a matter of Scripture? Who is this is so "Full of Grace?" And why? Because of her merits? Hardly! However, for God's own plan and desires has she been made spotless and yet still complete in free will! Why denigrate the mother of our Lord and Savior? Why is there no reverence at the gift of His mother to the Beloved Disciple? Are we not called to be the Beloved Disciple, too? Are we not to take her into our homes?

Can we live a life of love in action, not simply of movement but also contemplation, to the love that has been so richly poured out to us that we, even in graced moments, cannot fully fathom here during our limited time on Earth with our limited purview?

Even the most graced souls, as it was with our Blessed Mother, did not have full view of God's plan and yet, in Mary's example of her fiat, proclaimed in her graced words, "Be it done unto me according to thy word" (cf. Luke 1:38). It was Simeon who foretold that a sword would pierce her heart for the sorrow to be experienced and so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (cf. Luke 2:35-36). We must share in that sweet burden if those thoughts are to be revealed.

We are called to be faithful and fruitful in whatever we do, so that His glory may be shown through us, not for our own sake but for His glory. With this simple truth in mind, let us unite our prayers with those of our Mother in gentleness and kindness, that God's mercy and love will endure through our many faults. Let us love with the Heart of Mary the Sacred Heart of Christ, who bears all things for He, in union with Father and the Holy Spirit, is Love made manifest.

Let us rest in this ineffable truth, this beauty too wonderful for words and, like our Blessed Mother's example, let us treasure all these things and ponder them in our hearts (cf. Luke 2:19).