Part of the Agony

Came across this old journal entry - thought I'd just go ahead and share it as is.

The sorrowful mysteries begin with the Agony in the Garden. He went a little ways and fell on his face. He fell on his face. I am imagining that peculiar collapse of the legs that occurs when we are completely emotionally overwhelmed, as though everything but our consciousness faints. I see that now, not earlier. (Sometimes I fear I will use up all the useful and beautiful thoughts of meditation way too soon, and have nothing further to (God forgive me, pique my interest)… Nothing further to ‘successfully’ meditate on. No doubt my mind is in need of mortification. How hollow and fearful that thought makes me feel. Abandoned, even.

But He fell on his face. There was grass and dirt and stones and sticks there, with smells and crunchings and grittiness. And perhaps he wished the earth would just there open up and let him hide, swallow him and preserve him from the terrible prayer he had to pray next, knowing, as he must have known, that there was no other way but the Cup. Tim Keller calls the cup the Cup of justice, reminding us that He took upon Himself the full, unmitigated weight of the punishment for the sins of the world. And perhaps He pressed his gentle face to the earth, allowing its solidness to bear the weight of his body, for just a few minutes, before He would stand and walk and carry himself all the way to Golgotha.

He fell on his face, and He prayed, “If possible, let this cup pass from me.” In our translations, the words, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done,” follow immediately. But who knows how long his own words rang in his ear, how long he strained to hear something from the Father that would give him hope that there WAS some other way, that there was a ram caught in the thicket nearby… but no, He was the ram. And so He suffered anew the crushing reality that it truly was the will of His beloved Father that he should experience the wrath of God, suffering in so many ways, and die a long, slow, painful death, completely exposed to the gaze of his enemies, abandoned in some terrible real way by His very own Father.

The second mystery, the Scourging.

At this point, I find myself filled with delight at my own writing. And it feels wrong. I want to show this to Don and hear his affirmation and praise. And that would be a cheap ending to what is not cheap. And yet I can’t imagine that I will be able to resist the temptation to show him. Isn’t that sad; God give me strength. I want my meditations to be pleasing to you; the meditations of my heart. I don’t know what to do with this, Lord, you must guide me.

What sorrow and pain must have engulfed his heart as he watched his loved ones choose Barabbas over himself.  He knew these people; many, many of their faces were not strange to him. He had memories of being with them, loving them, comforting them, teaching them. Healing them, forgiving them, enjoying them, feeding them. He had seen love on their faces, he had seen their desire for him to BE King. He had received promises of fidelity from some of them. All gone like the flower of the grass of the field. Was it even real? Did Jesus feel some sense of failure, then, as a man would in that situation? If there could have been a question in his mind about the Cup, then could there not also have been a question, however small, about the efficacy of his own public ministry? How many thoughts did he have to chase away, but not before he felt the sting of their barb?

They chose Barabbas, and he was scourged. Thirty-nine lashes, marring him beyond recognition, and yet only the beginning of his sufferings. And as each lash fell, and as his flesh was torn and flung about, was he thinking of his flesh being broken and given to his people? Did he find comfort in knowing that this was, indeed, what he had come for? He must have caught the gazes of some of the people who looked on, some in horror, some in amusement. Did the pain of the lashes take his mind off of the embarrassment that had to be part of this experience?

The carrying of the cross came next, an extension of the scourging in a way. The public humiliation, the gazes following him as he went, the face changing, a mosaic of sorrow, glee, pain, indifference, disappointment, terror, horror and despair. And every gaze exceedingly painful to him, feeling with his own pain, the pain of his loved ones who are sorrowing beyond sorrow, watching him suffer so. The gaze of the mockers, painful as well as he is reminded that some never will believe and come to know the truth. It seems that nowhere could his eyes rest and find any comfort or even momentary relief from the abyss of emotional and spiritual pain that He was destined to experience.

St. Veronica – what a blessed refreshment she is for those of us who must walk the long road with Him in the Rosary and elsewhere. How many of us hope that we, too, would be brave and in love enough to move toward him with the intense desire to do something, any small thing that might bring him comfort… what a pang of bittersweet joy must have pierced His breast upon her loving approach, what painful burst of love and intense desire to do something, anything, himself in order to shield and protect her, to reassure her, to wipe the tears from her face.

Surely this love must have given him a burst of courage, as well, a sweet and timely reminder of the purpose, the goal of his suffering. Perhaps he was transported in that moment, to the time when He knew He would be wiping HER face clean of the marks of sorrow and pain. Perhaps Veronica was sent from the Father for the express purpose of offering His Son a glimpse of the eternal comfort. Bless Veronica for her obedience, born of love and compassion.

Defeating Sin in Our Lives is a Process...

June 15, 20--    (Happy Birthday RGS! Think of you every year...)

Perhaps defeating the sin in our lives is like dealing with certain weeds in our gardens and yards. We have loads and loads of wild raspberries in our yard, complete with thorns. I have been pulling what could be pulled up by the roots (not many) and clipping at ground level what won’t pull, for years, now. They grow profusely among the other wild plants that I would like to keep for their beauty...

When I first began this endeavor, I often had to deal with a discouraging, even mocking, inner voice that kept telling me I was wasting my time, they would just grow back. But I enjoyed watching them be gone, even for a little while, so I continued. It was satisfying and therapeutic to see the area after I clipped, free of the offensive brambles.

As I continued doing this, I began to think about what was going on with the plants, and applying my limited knowledge of plant biology. I understood that plants get their energy from the sun, which they use to make sugar for themselves, and they store some of this sugar in their roots and branches to use for later. And I came to the conclusion that they can’t continue to grow back if I continue to clip them down when they pop up, because they are using their stored energy to try and grow again, and they only have so much stored energy. Eventually they won’t be able to ‘try again’. And apparently, I came to the right conclusion, because now, after four seasons, very few and tiny raspberry plants come up in the areas where I consistently clip.

So, how much of the energy of the sin that hinders us is stored in its roots?  Perhaps what seems like a hopeless task, defeating the sin in our lives, is actually just a matter of persistently cutting it off when it appears, over and over until it loses strength? And how much of the effective ‘cutting’ is in the form of the sacrament of reconciliation?

This year I began a campaign against another unwanted weed in my yard – bracken ferns. The send up very stiff, tall (up to 3 feet) ‘arms’ with little fists on the end that uncurl into very large leaves that shade everything beneath them. They are easy to clip, being tall and obvious, and I thought they would be piece of cake to get rid of. But within a few days of clipping every one of them in a certain area, twice as many would shoot up. Maybe more than twice as many, but I don’t want to exaggerate!

So I went at it again. I am expecting that more will pop up, but I know they are growing up from roots that only have so much stored energy in them, so I am expecting that they will pop up smaller and smaller until they can’t pop up any more. And that next year they will come back with less vigor, and the next even less, until they come back no more!

The biggest thing I came away with from this for my own spiritual life was that I need to be patient with myself, and as persistent as I can clipping off my own sinful attitudes and practices. It helps to recognize that the sin that keeps coming up is rooted in something, and that while the Lord has already weakened it for us (indeed, he has essentially killed it already), I needn’t be surprised that it keeps popping up, drawing on some energy source that will be exhausted at some point, if I am as consistent as I can be clipping away at it. But I can’t give up. Because if that sin is allowed to grow up long enough to start making its own food again, I am going to have to start at square one all over again. My current efforts are NOT wasted, no matter how many sprouts seem to pop up triumphantly waving in my face. I cut them off, and keep going, trusting in the Lord’s plan for my ultimate triumph.

Learning to love Mary

Today, February 1st,  is a day dedicated in the Catholic Church to Mary, Jesus's mother.

   Now, there’s something for a convert from Protestantism to muse on... 

I came into the Catholic Church full of joy, but with a few big question marks still lurking in my head. And devotion to Mary was one of them. But in the years that I’ve been Catholic, my understanding of her importance to the Church has grown - delightfully and powerfully. Mary’s role in the Church and for the Church is a most beautiful thing.

For me, it started with falling in love with the rosary (a whole other story). In the rosary prayers, we ask Mary to “Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death”. Just the possibility that she, being who she is, would do those two things, leads to solemn and hopeful contemplation. And it continued in the very real comfort it brought me a few years ago when my brother-in-law died and I found out that as a child, with a child’s faith-filled heart, he used to love to pray these words... I was beginning to be quite open to the possibility that I was missing something because of my attitude toward Mary. 

There was actually one huge moment when all doubt left me, and I most willingly opened my heart to whatever I could receive from this new (to me!) idea that I had much to learn from Mary. The moment occurred when I suddenly realized that as a perfect man and as perfect Son, Jesus himself was delightfully bound under the injunction to honor his father and mother... my heart leapt when I realized the importance of this. If He was to honor her, how much more should I honor her! And I was sorry that I hadn’t up til then, and I found myself apologizing to Jesus. 

Then my own wonderful son, my only son, joined the Marines. I was filled with terror at the idea of losing him - both to the Marine Corps for at least four whole years and perhaps to death in the war - and suddenly my relationship with Mary became quite a bit more real, and intensely relevant. Because here was a woman who knew what it was like to carry a beloved son in her heart, to have him taken from her, to see him suffer, and to watch him die. And she had to let him.

My son has since come home, safe. But what I learned sitting with Mary and walking through those parts of her life with her has never left me. Having just a hint of the depth of a mother’s anguish, having just a hint of the intensity of a mother’s love, being familiar with the truth that a mother would willingly give up her own life to save her son and take away his suffering: using these insights to go deeper in my thinking, to put myself in her position, thinking about what must have been going through her head, how completely unique her experience was, how lonely she must have felt knowing what she knew, carrying what she carried, loving Jesus as much or more than we can because he was her Lord and Saviour, and loving him intensely in a way we never will be able to – as his mother...  I saw something.

Jesus was born a baby on this earth, literally born, in a barn. He was raised walking on the dirt, and eating the food of this world, breathing its air. He learned to walk, to talk, to feed himself, to take care of his own hygienic needs – under the watchful eyes of his loving mother. They had a relationship and that relationship continues. To deny this is to deny the truth of the humanity of Jesus.

 

Jesus will never cease to be his mother’s son. Their mother-son relationship is eternal. How any one can contemplate that, and then deny that Mary deserves honor, I don’t know. Jesus will honor Mary in heaven. He will expect us to honor her. She is his mother. He loves her with a love far, far more profound than we can even begin to imagine.

Yes, I honor Mary, and the more I think about her, the more I talk to her and gently ‘imagine’ how she might respond to me, the more that through this contemplation I come to understand how much she loves Jesus, the more I learn to love him, too. Until I could burst with love. And I love her, for loving Him, whom I love so much. And he loves me for loving her, whom he loves so much. And I'm pretty sure we’re describing family, here. And I'm part of it, increasingly so, every day.

So, yes, I honor and adore Mary. And I thank God for bringing me beyond my doubt, and the fear of being wrong, and for helping me to enter into this most beautiful facet of life in the Catholic Church.

And I am grateful to the Church for setting aside days when I can be reminded of the wonderful gift she is to us all. And especially to Jesus.

Blogging about Him in the Now...

Well, I did it. I started a Blog. Not an easy task, getting by the barriers that would blog me down. I mean, bog me down, of course. Coming up with an address for it was a challenge; there's not much out there for addresses anymore. Seems like all the clever appropriate ones weren't 'available'. But I like the one that finally did work; "knowingHiminthenow". That has become the goal of my life, and becomes a more fervent and desirable goal as each year goes by.

"Him" being Jesus, of course, and the Father, and the ever elusive Holy Spirit (no wonder He is characterized by 'wind'!) Interesting formulating sentences about God in his trinity-ness - it makes a mess of our grammatical rules, doesn't it! But it makes me smile, because it reminds me of the delightful and unpredictable complexity of this God who we can hardly understand and yet who loves us so much!

I must say that this feels different than I thought it would, to be beginning to write to who-knows-who about the greatest passion of my life. I thought I'd be more intimidated, yet instead I feel like I am writing to some people who I am already close to, although I don't know them. It feels very comfortable, after all. I think my feeling of comfort is related to the whole idea of the communion of saints - that somehow, those of us who know and love Jesus are already connected in some unfathomable, eternal way. I think about that a lot...

I was delighted to see that 'knowingHiminthenow' was available as an address. I must give credit to Michael Card for this phrase, though. He wrote a song years ago; the main theme being a heartfelt request that God would let him 'know Him in the now'. Beautiful song. Someday when I figure out how, I'll do things like put a link on this blog to things like songs. If I could, I would give you a link now to his Christmas song about Joseph - absolutely wonderful - Joseph's Song. Michael Card has a way of putting you 'there' and bringing the gospel stories to life in a very powerful way. I've learned a lot through his songs.

Well, there's my first blog. Tomorrow I'll take a look at all this and see what I can do to 'personalize' the site. I've seen some beautiful blog sites; I'll try to have some fun seeing what I can do.

I trust that if you are reading this, the Lord himself has brought you here. He's slightly on the sovereign side...  I pray He blesses you richly in your own search for more of him, and that you will be able to know him more and more in the now, even as I strive to. It's the best.

CM (the man), I'm especially thinking of you, tonight. He has graven us on the palm of his hand...