Thursday, April 30, 2015

Christ as a Mirror - The Fourth Letter of St Clare to St Agnes

This is one of my favorite letters mostly because of the part about running with our Beloved and His embrace.  I took private vows at one point in my journey and renewed them every year and on the day I would read the Song of Songs.  I felt like I was truly the spouse of Christ on those days.

I also think that the contemplation of Christ as a mirror is one that is easier and more understandable to me, but Ina good way.  I think I got that contemplation wrong in the past.  I was holding up that mirroepr as a way to contrast myself with Him.  To chastise myself and berate myself.  I see now that isn't what Clare, a so loving mother was doing.  Clare is asking us to look in the mirror of Christ and see ourselves, honestly.  We should see that we are Christs brothers and sisters, there is a resemblance.  How can we see Christ in others if we can't see Him in ourselves?

The start of Clare's letters always seem strange to me.  We see Clare as a saint, almost someone unreal.  It is almost like a lie or a strange boast to write how imperfect she is.  We would never revel I our imperfections like she did.  But maybe because she sees her self honestly in the mirror of the Beloved. She knows herself and loves herself as she honestly is.  She knows she is saved by Him whom she adores, she isn't afraid of who she is.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Carrying Christ within us - St Clare's third letter to St Agnes

Wow!  What an idea, that we should spiritually carry the Beloved in our bodies at all times.  We take the Eucharist within us at least once a week, do we realize we are carrying the Lord within us?  What would it mean if we really contemplated the idea of carrying Christ within us at all times?  What would we have to change?

If we carry Christ within us we carry Him out to others in the world.  Can we be selfish or mean or just uncaring if we carry Christ with us?  To carry Christ within us would mean to carry Love with us at all times!  What Joy to carry love everywhere and to everyone!  We would have to look at each person the way the Beloved sees them, desiring always to be united with that person for eternity.

We would also have to look at ourselves with both love and honesty.  We would have to honestly see our faults and yet still love ourselves.  I that if we could honestly both see and love ourselves we could both honestly see and love those around us.  I think that looking at the world with Him would be to see the world as the thing He loving created and so not as something I would need to possess.

This will be my contemplation this week, but I think I will need to go to confession first.  The funny thing is I know He is already there, but I am the one not ready to recognize the fact.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Stay the Course - The Second Letter of St Clare to St Agnes

In reading the second letter of St Clare to St Agnes the theme that strikes me is to stay the course and don't let anyone dissuade you from that course.  The course is her life as a bride of Christ and living in poverty.  Agnes has given up a life in court and a chance to be married to the Emperor.  Instead she has chosen to live the life of the Poor Ladies of Assisi.

Clare tells her to walk this path of happiness tranquilly, joyfully, briskly, and cautiously. You can undstand the first three.  We are usually told to take whatever path we choose and run with it, but Clare also adds to walk that path with caution and to follow the Minister Generals advice over others.  Everyone these days tries, and back then as well, wants to tell us we don't need to do anything difficult to be a Christian.  There are those who say all you have to do is give your life to God and then live your life the way you want, all sins are forgiven.  If you have really given your life to God how can you lead your self centered life.  You life is Gods life now and if you are living for Him you can't just live your life your way.

Luckily for us, God's life is a life of love.  Clare Reminds us that this is a life contempt able to the world.  If your life is not contempt able to the world you maybe on the wrong path.  If you live a life of love, filled with Christ and not concerned with worldly things, the world will think you are a fool.  That is a good sign that you have chosen the path of happiness.

Clare ends her letter reminding us to spend time gazing on and contemplating Christ.  Without that it will be impossible for us to follow Him.  We will lose our way and the strength to continue.  Christ is both our guide and our strength.  He is literally the food for our journey.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Trusting in Christ - St Clare of Assisi's first letter to St Agnes of Prague

I am reviewing some of the writings of St Clare and St Francis this month because it is part of the formation of new Secular Franciscans and because as a Franciscan I need to from time to time.  Some of my favorite writings are the letters of St Clare to St Agnes.  They are so beautiful and full of truly passionate imagery.  From her letters you see that Clare was no repressed passionless nun, but a woman who's heart is full of love and passion for Christ.

In the first letter she explains to Agnes how she has chosen the better spouse.  She has given up the riches of Ceasar for the riches of Heaven.  This letter reminds me that detachment is not a giving up on the "good things" comfort, stability, self reliance, but a reliance on God.  If I rely on God, he will provide what I need and I don't need to worry about anything else.  The lack of worry then gives me freedom.  The lack of dependence on my self means that I can hold closer to God and respond quickly to what He asks of me.  The image of two fighters one clothed and one naked demonstrates this perfectly.  The naked hatred of the devil for us and all the worldly cares we clothes ourselves with hampers us in our fight with him.

I love the sort of poems embedded in the letter describing the Beloved and how He loves us and cares for us, they are like passionate love letters of any you g girl for her love.  We can love Christ that way.  We don't have to love Him in some detached distant, Oh yes, I love the Lord kind of way.  We can love Him deeply and passionately, and loves us in the same way.

I will continue to review the rest of the letters in the next week or so.  You can read all the letters at the link below.

http://www.franciscanfriarstor.com/archive/stfrancis/St_Clare_of_Assisi/stf_st_clare_of_assisi_writings.htm#The%20second%20Letter%20to%20the%20Blessed%20Agnes%20of%20Prague%C2%A0

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Matt 28: 11-20 - Just How it Continues to Be

Starting with verse 11, chapter 28 of Matthew's Gospel talks about what happened when the guards found Jesus's body was gone.  The funny thing is that if the Chief Priests really felt completely sure that Jesus's body had been stolen would they have responded as they did?  I think they would have laughed at the guards and told them to away.  I think they doubted what they had done and feared it would be found out that they had killed the son of God.  They were so afraid they paid the soldiers to lie.

The same thing I think happens today.  Those who most fear that there is a God and that they have denied Him are the most outspoken that He isn't real.  Fear makes us do stupid and regrettable things. Those who mearly doubt but keep an open mind and seek are not the ones we need to worry about.  We should pray for those who fear there is Lord and calm their fears by showing them what a loving God He is.

"When they saw Him, they worshipped, but they doubted", this is us.  We can see Him, if we look, but even when we see, we doubt.  Doubt is not our enemy.  Doubt keeps us looking and seeking the Lord.  I think many of us, if we truly knew the Beloved was there in every moment we would grow bored with it, just like we do in our human relationships.  Having doubt doesn't keep the Lord from commissioning us either.  Just because you doubt sometimes doesn't mean that you have not been commissioned by God to proclaim the Gospel.

Why does God do that?  Why send out those who doubt?  I think most of us think that Saints didn't doubt. But if you read their own writings and the fantasy that is often written later, you find they did doubt.  Saints are humble, doubt comes with humility or humility comes with doubt, I think.  Those who are arrogant think they know everything, even God.  They make God in their own image and use that against other people.  Be happy you doubt, and seek the Lord always.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

John Chapter 21.- Gods Love

This is by far my favorite Easter story.  As an addict I really identify with those who have fallen and how hard it is to seek forgiveness because of shame.  Peter so loves the Lord and is so happy at seeing Him that the joy and love over comes the shame.  Still once Jesus starts to question him it must have been painful.

Seeking forgiveness is painful at times, and I think that the more hurtful the sin the more shame is associated with it and the more painful it is to seek forgiveness and restoration, but when you do receive forgiveness the greater the relief.  If it wasn't that way, if it wasn't so difficult, I doubt the relief would be as deep and fulfilling.

The Lord doesn't just forgive Peter though, He forgives Peter and also gives him a job to do, leading the whole church.  God is often that was.  When we return to Him, He forgives us wholeheartedly and then sends us on a mission.  We all have a mission, we are all called to live our faith and to spread it.  Those who have been forgiven much are great ambassadors for God.  They know the Love of God, they have experienced that love.

We can only profess the Love of God if we know that love and live that love.  Belief in God is only the starting place, you have to love God and know He loves you to bring anyone else to God.  God is love, to know God you must know His love, you have to know His forgiveness.  If we don't spread the faith out of that love, we will fail.

Monday, April 13, 2015

1 John 5:1-6 Loving God, His Children, and His Commandments

How can keeping God's commandments show love for all His children?  This only works if we keep those commandments out of love and not legal observance and if we keep them all.  The two greatest are to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves andes Jesus loved us.   There are times when we as Christians forget this and go for the more legalistic view.  Legalistically keeping the Sabath and holding it over others is not loving so is it really keeping His commandments?  

If we start by loving God, getting to know Him, spending time with Him, having a relationship with Him, we should come to love all His creation.  By loving His creation without whole hearts we will want to keep His commandments out of love for God and His creation and it will not be burdensome.   

If we try to keep His commandments without coming to know and to love Him it will be a great burdon to keep them, because we will not love His creation.  This is the key, we do not obey God out of fear of punishment, but out of Love.  Our God is Love.  This is the only way that it is possible without becoming bitter and angry. 

 Those who keep the God's commandments out of fear or legalistically and not out of love will see those laws as slavery, keep them from what they want to really do out of spite.  When we see God's love and know God's love for us and love Him in return sin loses its glamour.  We want to love God and all He created with same love we are given.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Mary, why are you weeping?

Mary Magdalen was the first one to see the risen Christ, except maybe His mother.  How devoted was Mary!  The deciples are sitting in a room with door locked but Mary is at the tomb, crying.  She doesn't understand Gods will, she thinks that not only have they crucified the Beloved but now they have stolen His body.  She goes from following the Teacher and having so much meaning in her life to having it all taken away, or so she thinks.

The reality of the situation is so completely different, but she doesn't know, only God knows.  She thinks that she has lost everything, but I reality she has gained eternal life.  She thinks she has lost the Beloved, but in reality, He will never leave her again.  The angels ask her, Mary, why are you crying?  They know the will of God, and there are clues for her to see, but in her sadness she can't see them.  It  isn't until she turns around and see the Lord that she has any idea that things aren't what she thought they were.  Even seeing the Lord she has no clue how good things really are.

How often does this happen in our lives?  We lose a job, a house, a loved one and we think the world has come to an end.  We become ill or get hurt and our life changes and curse our bad luck.  But we don't know God's will for us.  We don't know what He will accomplish through us because of "bad luck" in our lives.  I have had cancer and lost people in my life to suicide.  I had a miscarrage that devastated me.  I became an addict.  All of these things were tragedies but they made me who I am.  They lead me back to God eventually with a much deeper faith and a fuller life.  I still wish those things didn't happen for the most part, but I see they made me less self centered and more compassionate.  We, like Job, can not fathom what God had done and is doing.  We have to have faith that in the end we will see God and then we will know.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Easter!

Oh happy day!  Our Lord and Savior is risen!  For most of the world Easter was over on Sunday, but for us it is still Easter, we have a whole 8 days of Easter and then more than a month of the Easter season.  During this season we should immerse ourselves in what Easter really means for us.

We need this time to be reminded of all that happened, to contemplate the events between Easter and Pentacost.  Take time during this season to contemplate each of the events that happen between the rising of the Beloved and Pentacost.  Meditate on them and what they mean to you.

My favorite story is when Peter and the Disciples are fishing and find Jesus on the shore.  The love shown by Peter and Jesus in their meeting overwhelms me.  This is truly what love looks like.  Even though Peter was embarrassed by what he had done, he runs back to God.  Peter knows he needs the Lord.  Jesus does berate Peter or demand an explanation, he simply askes Peter, do you love me?  Peter denied Jesus three times so Jesus asks Peter three times do you love me.  When you love the Lord, He gives a mission.  Peter was to lead the lead the church but if you run to the Lord and tell Him you love Him, He will send you on a mission as well.

If you love the Lord, He has a job for you.  It maybe leading the church that is your home if you have a family or He may be calling you to the priesthood or religious life or something else.  Please pray during this season and ask God what it is that He wants you to do for Him.  Open your heart to do things that are uncomfortable or scary.  Don't be afraid!  He loves you and wants what is best for you, he would never ask you to do something without giving you the tools to do it.  Take that leap of faith.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Holy Saturday - Waiting

Of all the days of Holy Week, this is the one that I find the hardest to contemplate.  I know to a much smaller degree about suffering and watching someone you love suffer, so I have some small comprehension of Good Friday.  Not only that but I can sit with my Beloved on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I can walk the Way of the Cross.  Holy Saturday is different, this is the day He wasn't here.  Our Lord was with the dead.  It seems so lonely.

I imagine the Apostles, still traumatized by the day before, many of them unhappy with how they had behaved, missing Our Lord.  Unlike me they didn't know tomorrow would be a day of joy.  They must have wondered, Jesus had mentioned things, hints.  Did they dare to hope at all?  Our Beloved Mother must have been with them, did she know?  I imagine this was a day of mourning.

We all spend today preparing for tomorrow.  This is a day of bunnies and pastel colors.  We cook and get ready to wear our new Easter clothes.  We should take some time today to remember a day where Our Lord was in hell and there was no Eucharist anywhere.  We were physically alone again.  We had had the God of the universe here with us but we killed Him, we got what we wanted.  No one to remind us that we should do better.  No one to show us that love isn't all hearts and good feelings but pain and suffering too.  Today is the day the world was empty.

There are many people in this world who want Holy Saturday to be everyday.  They want a world without God, claiming it would be a better place.  It would be a place where we would act better just because we wanted to.  A place somehow with out all the things we have now.  I think like Holy Saturday, it would be empty and full of mourning.  The thing I do know though is that no matter what there would still be an Easter Sunday.

Friday, April 3, 2015

The Hour of Grace

The hour of grace is here.  Our Beloved is on the cross, arms stretched wide to hold the whole world. Blood and water gushes out for us, to baptise us in His mercy.  Our Lord literally washes us clean with his blood.  He gives Himself to us and for us.  His only cry as he suffers is for us, for Our Father to forgive us.  We should sit retched at the foot of the cross and thank Him for showing us how to love.  Love is something to held and hoarded for ourselves, love is to be poured out.  We are to be poured out.

Friday Morning

Here I sit in front of the tabernacle.  My day and the Beloved's day are so different.  I have to make cakes today for the Easter bake sale, He is waiting to go before Pilot.  I think I have done such a good thing, I waited here last night for a whole hour and a half last night and now I am here again this morning, He was beaten last night and not allowed to sleep.

Today I am worried I won't have enough time to do things around the house I need to do.  He will have the skin whipped off His body.  I will take a nap before coming back to the church, He will be led through the streets, bleeding and dying.  I will read a book and feel superior for having given Him so much of my day off, at least a couple of hours, He will die for me to save me from eternal damnation.

That is the difference between us.  I do nothing and think I am superior, He does it all and asks for so little.  What more can I do for Him, and how can I do it so as not to draw attention to myself?  Am I doing all this for show?  I do the easy stuff, the stuff others can see way too often.  His hands, feet, and side are pierced for me, what can I give Him?  What can I do for Him?  He suffered for me, why should I shrink from being inconvenienced for Him?

Thursday, April 2, 2015

The Gift

Tonight we commemorate the second greatest gift that Our Lord gave us, the gift of staying with us.  The greatest gift I'd the gift of salvation, but I think the second greatest gift is His presence in our churches.

We can come to Him at anytime and lay our burdens at His feet.  He is there for us just to look at and talk to, and adore.  He also comes to us and joins with us when we receive Him.  If we allow it, he will transform us with His gift.

I will never forget the first Holy Thursday Mass I attended.  We never went to these celebrations as a family growing up.  The first time I saw the tabernacle empty and the alter bare, it was a violent act to me.  I cried so hard.  He was taken from me.  At that time we didn't set up an adoration area, it was just empty.  Have you ever gone into a church and the light wasn't lit?  It feels empty, the Beloved is missing.

That night I had a small idea of how it must have felt for the Apostles.  Of course, I knew how it turned out so it wasn't so bad, but still it hurt.  Now we don't have to be without Him, He is in a little side area tonight.  We should sit with Him.  Remember, the one who suffered all those years ago, who went through all we are about to recall, is sitting there.  In a different spot than usual but it is still the one who was whipped, stripped, abused, tortured.  He heard our cries to crucify Him then and he hears it now.  He hears it as the Passion is read and in how we live.

Sit with Him tonight and do not fall a sleep as the Apostles did.  Stay awake and visit with Him.  Say the rosary do the stations but also just sit and talk to Him and listen, and think of the Gift He left for us.

And so it Begins

Ever since I returned to my faith I have taken at least Good Friday off and sometimes the whole week of Holy Week.  I want to have the time to enter into and walk with the Beloved on this journey.  I want to stay with Him and meditate on what is going on.

I walk the way of sorrow with Him by myself so I can really meditate on each step.  I want to be near Him and share His suffering.  To just sit there with Him is a comfort.  A few years ago I was in Rome for Holy Week, there are thousands of small churches in Rome, from Holy Thursday until the Easter Vigil there are people in the churches waiting with Our Lord.  It was so beautiful.

 How often do we take time out of our busy lives to just sit with God?  Talk about fasting!  Fasting from food is the normal way we fast, and that is great, but why not also fast from being busy.  We spend so much time running around getting ready for Easter by cleaning house and cooking but how about preparing for Easter by prayer.

Don't run home tonight after Holy Thursday Mass.  Stay, at least an hour with Our Savior.  He is about to undergo the supreme trial and give His life to save yours, stay with Him, tell Him in your own words how much you love Him.  Don't run home and turn on the TV or play with you phone.  Stay with Him who loves you above all others.  Thank Him for all He has done for you, then sit silently and wait for Him to say something to you.