That with Thy saints I may be praising Thee, forever and ever

THE SAINTS. I have always loved them. I remember as a young boy kneeling by my bedside praying a prayer to Saint Aloysius out of my prayerbook. Moonlight illumined his picture on the opposite page. But we have canonized so many nuns, religious order priests, bishops, popes and consecrated virgins, I can't envision heaven as a place of great fun.

To tell you the truth, I get annoyed or uneasy when I hear there's going to be more canonizations in Rome. I automatically expect it will be  another round of celibate, 19th century religious order founders and foundresses.

I hope for a truly Catholic Church that canonizes a married Haitian man and his wife who came to Brooklyn after their lives were reduced to rubble in the earthquake. He's a livery cabdriver working long hours and she's a mom, who takes the subway into Manhattan to work in an office. They work hard to pay their rent for an extremely modest apartment. He's got to secure his own insurance because he's free-lancing, and yet they put aside some money each month to send back to Haiti to help their large families, struggling to get back on their feet. They're God-loving people who keep the faith and love their neighbors. They thoroughly enjoy making a baby. They're hospitable, generous with the poor,  honest as the day is long, patient,  kind and merciful. They worship and pray, and for heaven's sake, they know how to laugh and laugh. I want to spend eternity with folks like them.

...I may be praising Thee forever and ever. What do these words, praising Thee, mean? That we be singing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, eternally? That we be posing eternally for a great saint, photo-shoot, like we see painted on the ceilings of churches - everyone posed looking at God, holding the symbols of their martyrdom? Does praising Thee mean having become an angel and  sitting on a cloud with an instrument? Many people don't think beyond these kinds of images or they are comforted by them or totally okay with them. But I don't think it will be like that at all.

I awoke the other morning and this line from seminary came to mind: Saint Irenaeus wrote,  "The glory of God is a human being fully alive, and to be alive consists in beholding God." Now we must know that people behold God who don't believe in what we believe.

There's a  little joke about a man who died and when he went to heaven Saint Peter met him at the gate, and after welcoming him, took him on a tour of heaven. The man was utterly impressed. Along the way they passed a very high wall with sounds of fabulous partying coming out over the wall. The man asked, "Who's that, so happy on the other side of the wall?" And Saint Peter answered, "Oh, it's the Catholics; they think they're the only ones here."

Now of course we could use the name of any group in place of Catholics. It's: the Greek Orthodox, the Hasidim, the Southern Baptists, the Muslims... Notice too that Saint Irenaeus doesn't say, "The glory of God is an orthodox Roman Catholic whose life is lived in Full Communion with the magisterium."

When I did a bit of research to see if I had the Irenaeus quote correct in my memory, I immediately found web pages that went to some lengths to be sure we all understood that "human being fully alive" didn't mean any of the new-age, self-actualization, fully realized, psychologically well adjusted stuff we hear so much of today. I think these people are afraid of what it might mean to be a real human being, fully alive. Jesus, of course is the human being fully alive.

I suppose that's where we get the term Alter Christus, which means that we are to be another Christ. Most often that term refers to priests, but by baptism we're all supposed to be other Christ's. And what does that mean? Carl Jung asks the question: "What does it meant to be another Christ?" And then answers: "Does it mean to ape his stigmata? No, but rather that I should live my own unique self as truthfully and as beautifully as Christ lived his." I can't think of another way of living. And to live this kind of life, in a world often gone ugly and weary with selfishness, violence, lies and earth-bound greed,  requires a tremendous awareness and resolve.

Forever and ever. Like the word Alleluia, it's almost baby talk. "And they lived happily ever after." Or with a kiss a mother will say to her little child at bedtime, or newlyweds will whisper on wedding night:  "I'll love you forever and ever." It's a lovely way of wrapping up the things of love.

At the hour of my death, call me and close to you, bid me

In the 1991 film, Black Robe, young, French Jesuit Father LaForgue has come to North America. Escorted by Algonquins, he is being sent up river to start a mission to the Huron Natives. The river scenes are uncomfortable: full of suspicion and alienation.

Along the way, Father LaForgue is being questioned about heaven by the doubtful chiefs. They want to know if there will be women and tobacco in heaven. Father LaForgue is uneasy and resorts to a catechism answer. The chiefs effectively roll their eyes and mutter among themselves, why bother? The young priest is well-intentioned, but he's failed to make heaven in any way real for these men, who are asking a legitimate question.

In  The Green Mile, Arlen Bitterbuck is in State Prison's Death Row awaiting execution for having killed a man in a drunken argument over a pair of boots. Arlen is a silent man, deeply introspective and remorseful. One night as his execution approaches, he opens up to the Tom Hanks figure, Paul,  who is in charge of the inmates, wondering aloud about heaven:

"Do you believe that if a man repents enough for what he done wrong, that he'll get to go back to the time that was happiest for him and live there forever? Could that be what heaven's like?"

Paul answers: "I just about believe that very thing."

Christians haven't done a very good job of convincing people that heaven is especially desirable. Lots of people, so unable or unwilling to explore what heaven means, have us all becoming angels when we die. In Emily Dickinson's poem, Going to Heaven! she doesn't sound especially excited about the prospects saying, "How dim it sounds!"

Jesus knew how to talk about the Kingdom of God - the full realization of which we call heaven. He more often than not made references people could identify with in happy, sensory and satisfying ways: a great banquet, a wedding feast. Food is one of the most memorable aspects of life on this planet: This food is heavenly, we might say.

But here the author of the Anima Christi uses the words call and bid in reflecting upon one aspect of heaven. Calling and bidding can be understood in many ways, perhaps signifying danger or trouble: the soldier being called-up for active duty, or being called to the Principal's office, or a refusal to do someone's nasty bidding. But here the sense is a warm invitation.

Keeping Arlen Bitterbuck's thoughts about heaven in mind, perhaps we're able to think of some time in our lives that was particularly wonderful, when we felt most alive, perhaps when, if even for a few moments all was well, when we were called or bidden into something that was, happiest. 

I have in mind when I was 8 years old, the third graders took a field trip to Farmingdale Agricultural College on Long Island. It was spring and when the yellow buses pulled onto the college property, the lambs were literally jumping up vertically in the air.

I was fascinated as we spent the day seeing all the animals: calves, turkeys, horses, chickens. This was a working farm and not agri-business. I was typically an introverted boy who would have moved throughout the day staying on the edges and in the rear - silent - almost invisible.

The last stop was the sheep pen with the lambs. The farmer-professor took the class right up to the fence and told  us about  the newborns. He ended by saying, "Would anybody like to hold the lamb?" I don't remember anything else except that my right arm shot up in the air from the back of the group and the voice calling - bidding: "You there, in the back, come on up!" and walking up to the front and having a lamb, just days old, put into my arms. And I doubt I had the words for it, but I remember feeling this happiness could last forever."

There's a death-bed for all of us. This week an 8 year old boy was killed by a bomb in Boston.  Saint Irenaeus says that we should think of death often. I think we should think of life often - real life, then death will take care of itself. Maybe Arlen Bitterbuck is very right, that when death comes we might go back to that time which was happiest for us and live there forever. And Jesus-God will be there, who has said, "I have come that  you may have joy and have it fully," (John 15:11).

From the malignant enemy, defend me

MALIGNANT IS A SCARY WORD. And the author of the Anima Christi lived in a world that was much more spiritually attuned than our own. Some would at once dismiss that to mean superstitious. But that's too easy. The Medieval world produced arguably some of the most refined responses to God in music, painting, architecture and poetry the world has known.

Perhaps we're unable to fully comprehend how the author understood the words, malignant enemy, followed by defend me, but it surely sounds as if he believed there could be something ruinous poised against each of us. I'd say it this way: it seems that there is something personal to each of us that wants us down, not good, not whole or holy, undone, un-realized. I'd call it personal as it seems to be somehow tailored to each of us as we struggle to live our own unique lives truthfully.

A Buddhist occultist visited Athens in our own time, and while being taken around the city, he stopped his guide and said to him, "I see demons hanging off of people's lips, eyes, ears and throats. And who are the men in the black robes and beards?" The guide answered, "They are our priests." The occultist said, "I see demons swirling around them looking for a way to get in." When I shared this account with a Greek monk here in the United States he said, "Regrettably, demons do find a way into the priest's life too often."

Some will say, you'd expect an occultist to talk that way. But there are lots of people whose seeing is inexplicable. If that were not so, then police departments wouldn't employ certain clairvoyants to help solve crimes. Admittedly, it seems like dangerous business. Contemporary Christians are often embarrassed by these kinds of references. Maybe we've become too sophisticated.

But whether we frame it spiritually,  psychologically or socially - there does seem to be a malignant enemy against which we need to be defended. If the Medieval or Buddhist images are metaphoric, I'd suggest again that metaphor doesn't mean not real - but rather most real. So we can name these things for ourselves.

When I was a boy in the 1950's and 60's, the first vestment the priest put on over his street clothes before celebrating the Catholic Mass, was called an amice. An amice is a rectangular piece of white linen with strings attached to the two top corners. The priest would pass the opened amice over the right side of his head, and touching it to the back of his head he would begin a prayer. Then lowering the vestment to his shoulders he would arrange the amice around his neck, pass the strings around to his back, cross them over and pull them around to the front where he would tie them. The other vestments would be placed on top of the amice, making it essentially unseen, except for a little around his neck. A medieval amice kept a priest's throat warmer in a winter-cold church, and collected perspiration in a summer church. But like all the vestments, the amice had a mystical significance. You'd have to stand in a sacristy these days while priests are preparing for Mass to understand just how neglected this mystical awareness is.

One Sunday morning, when I was about seven years old, my large family was early for Mass. Taking up the front pew I had an unobstructed view of the sanctuary. Before the Mass began the old pastor appeared in the doorway leading out of the sacristy (priest preparation room) to the sanctuary (where the Mass would take place). He seemed to be checking things: are the candles lit, is the tabernacle key in place, are the people arriving? He was wearing a black cassock and the amice, which I had never seen before. But very clearly I heard in my mind, "I want to wear that." And on my ordination day, twenty-one years later, I did, and have ever since.

Some years later I became chaplain to a school for young people who were in trouble. Some had done dangerous things, illegal things, terribly hurtful things. Most had some kind of drug-alcohol involvement which resulted in not a little life-damage. Early one Wednesday morning as I was in the school-chapel sacristy getting ready for Mass, the teen-aged altar server stood nearby watching me. As I put the amice on my head and lowered it to my shoulders he asked, "What's that?" I told him "It's an amice and the little prayer the priest prays while putting it on asks God to protect the priest's thoughts." The boy answered, "We should all wear an amice." He understands.

Here's the Latin prayer and its English translation, with a final thought about the power of words. And indeed we can all pray the prayer, even each morning, asking to be defended against the malignant enemy, as in the course of the day, perhaps the place of the greatest ruinous and unholy toxicity might well be the place of our thoughts The amice is called the Helmet of Salvation, which clues us in: this is a kind of warfare.

Impone, Domine, capiti meo galeam salutis, ad expugnandos diabolicos incursus.
Place, O Lord, the helmet of salvation upon my head, that I may overcome the assaults of the devil.

The word expugnandos is translated here as overcome. But we get the word expunge - which is a stronger word - suggesting a violent pushing back or driving out of what is dirty, evil or seriously undesirable. The word incursus is translated here as assaults. But we get the word incursion - which again signifies a hostile, frightful, enemy invasion or raid.

Thoughts can be like that, can't they? Like J.R.R. Tolkien's Orc invaders!

Suffer me not to be separated from Thee

HERE IS A PAINTING OF SAINT ANTONY OF EGYPT who is said to have been the first Christian monk or hermit. The new Butlers Lives of the Saints (January 17) says this about Antony:

"Anthony was born to Christian parents around 252 in Corna...in Upper Egypt. His parents were fairly wealthy landowners; they died when he was eighteen or twenty. Around this time he heard the Gospel words, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor...then come, follow me" (Matt. 19:21). Taking these quite literally, he gave some of the family estates to neighbours, sold the remainder, giving the money to the poor, and became the disciple of  a local hermit. Around 273, he retired to an old burial ground, where he stayed for thirteen years. By the time he was thirty-five, this was not hard enough for him, and he moved to an abandoned hill-top fort in the Arabian desert, some three days march from the populous area of the Nile valley. There he stayed for the next twenty years. He is said to have lived in near complete solitude and to have followed a regime of great asceticism (spiritual discipline)."

Holy people who live alone are soon enough discovered and so we have a report of some things Antony said to visitors and followers. Anthony said: I no longer fear but, but I love Him." We don't know where Anthony would have ever learned to be afraid of God. Could his parents have mistakenly taught him that? Or did he pick it up from friends? Or in his earlier years did he do something very wrong that caused him to be afraid of God? At any rate, it's clear he ultimately learned the most important thing: the love of God.

The expression Fear of the Lord then must mean that I would be afraid only of whatever could take me away from God. That I would dread only the loss of God. There are written accounts and paintings of Anthony undergoing horrifying temptations to abandon the love of God.

But what could cause me to lose God? The core teaching of Jesus is found in Matthew's Gospel, chapters 5,6 and 7. Christians should have a look at it now and again. In Matthew 6:19,20 Jesus teaches:

"Do not store up riches on earth, where moths and rust destroy them, and where thieves break in and steal them, but store up your riches in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy them, and where thieves cannot break in and steal them. For wherever your treasure is, your heart will be also."

And again, in Matthew 6:24-34 Jesus says:

"No slave can belong to two masters, for he will either hate one and love the other, or stand by one and make light of the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore, I tell you , do not worry about your life, wondering what you will have to eat or drink, or about your body, wondering what you will have to wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body than clothes? Look at the wild birds. They do not sow or reap, or store their food in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more account than they? But which of you with all his worry can add a single hour to his life? Why should you worry about clothing? See how the wild flowers grow. They do not toil or spin, and yet I tell you , even Solomon in all his splendor was never dressed like one of them. But if God so beautifully dresses the wild grass, which is alive today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more surely clothe you, you who have so little faith? So do not worry and say, "What shall we have to eat?" or "What shall we have to drink?" or "What shall we have to wear?" For these are all things the heathen are in pursuit of, and your heavenly Father knows well that you need all this. But you must make his kingdom, and uprightness before him, your greatest care, and you will have all these other things besides. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries of his own. Let each day be content with his own ills."

This is a very difficult teaching for those of us who live in the first world. This is the world which is characterized by shopping. One Trappist monk upon entering one of America's mega-stores said, "It's not the kingdom come but the thingdom come."

Is it possible to live this teaching of Jesus literally? Alessandro is a young Franciscan Friar in Italy. He doesn't own a car and so once (that I know of) he walked from Assisi to Florence, which took three days. He slept wherever someone offered him hospitality. He ate only what was offered to him; one little boy gave him an apple. He carried only a small cloth bag which contained a toothbrush, a change of underwear and a pocket bible. He had only non-material things to offer: listening to those he met, a word of  encouragement, his smile, a song, a wave.

We can gain a new appreciation for the gifts which are non-material and also begin to practice the rule of Saint Basil of Caesarea who said: If you have not used it in a year, it no longer belongs to you but to the poor." We might also begin to get into the habit of buying only what is essential. In this way we'd be freeing ourselves from the culture  built on lies. We only need to listen to the attractive promises of television and radio commercials to understand this: Take this pill and lose thirty pounds in a weekend!

The other way we risk losing God is through resentment, which is negative feeling about people. The injunction of Jesus is that we don't become stuck or grounded in resentment. I expect Jesus is especially tolerant and understanding of our difficulties in getting free of resentment as he lived surrounded by tedious, obnoxious, spiteful, malevolent people who wanted him gone, if not dead. But Jesus knows that when we're grounded in resentment we become sleepless, distracted, weary and frustrated. Here's the teaching of Jesus, again found in the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew5:43-48).

"You have heard that they were told, "You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, so that you may show yourselves true sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on bad and good alike, and makes the rain fall on the upright and the wrongdoers. For if you love only those who love you what reward can you expect? Do not the very tax-collectors do that? And if you are polite to your brothers (and sisters) and no one else, what is there remarkable in that? Do not the very heathen do that? So you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is."

I"m not free if I'm stuck in resentment. A friend said that resentment is like taking poison and hoping that the other person will sicken and die. I wonder if whenever Jesus speaks of being free he has in mind my own inner freedom from negativity, fear, cynicism and resentment.

I learned a wonder-working prayer from a friend who lived the Twelve Steps of AA. He suggested making a list of every person with whom I have any negative feelings. As I  create the list I should go as far back in my life as memory will allow: teachers, parents, siblings, old friends, relatives, people whose names I don't even know, fellow school mates, neighborhood people. Then I should make a list of those names and if I don't know the name I should write down, "The person who..." Then everyday, twice a day for two weeks, I should slowly read the list of names and then pray this prayer:

Lord, as you know I have resentments with all of these people, and even if I don't feel it right now, I ask you to remove them. Take my stony, cold, hard heart and make it into a heart of mercy, compassion and love. Amen.

Notice that the prayer asks God that I would change, not the other person. The  soul who wrote the Anima Christi prayer understood loss. It was a world and time of deadly plague, slavery, great poverty for so many, brutality and seemingly endless wars. Yet, he or she prays to be kept from the suffering of only one loss - the loss of Jesus. Talk about a different world! Jesus gives us a heads-up in his great Sermon. And the two things which seem to  matter most to Jesus,  if I am to live in a happy and close relationship with him, are: attentiveness to things and resentment. And in my prayer I thank Jesus for his kind patience with me.

Within Thy wounds, hide me

A NON-BELIEVING PHYSICIAN WAS WORKING IN A CATHOLIC HOSPITAL and one night ventured into the hospital's chapel to look around. He evidently had seen the Stations of the Cross on the walls, telling me, "How ridiculous, a god who suffers and dies."

I can only imagine he didn't know the story doesn't end with the sealed tomb, but an Easter morning Resurrection. But it also occurred to me as strange that a doctor, who ought to be searching everywhere for meaning in suffering, would so readily dismiss this story that has endured and encouraged people for over two thousand years. It is the story of God, who rather than watch us from a distance, perhaps even laughing at us, has chosen to join us in our own human story so filled with self and communal rejection, sadness and loss. That Jesus has gone through the death, the doctor saw depicted, to the other side, where we discover the promise that death, which claims us all, has been defeated and that we can wait in joyful hope, for the full realization of the victory Christ shares.

Within Thy wounds, hide me

Hiding can be of different kinds. We play hiding games when we are little. Children squeal with delight over things hidden and then suddenly found. But as we age, we start to hide ourselves or the evidence which will land us in trouble: too much spending, a ticket for speeding, a failed test, a poor report card, drug paraphernalia, something stolen, a dirty book or DVD, forbidden cigarettes, alcohol or drugs.

For some the hiding becomes a lifestyle: the person who is unfaithful to a spouse, the teenager who won't come out of his/her room, the person who is cutting or throwing up food, the addict who keeps saying, "I'm just tired" when asked about drug use. Criminals hide money and weapons. They even speak of their hideout.

Very religious or pious people can hide in religion. Sometimes religion is called a vaccination against the real thing. These people live in a world of religious teachings, vocabulary, morality, worship and said prayers. And like a vaccination, it keeps them from experiencing the real thing - the little bit that prevents them from the transforming, freeing, joyful relationship with a living God. They seldom know how deep their hiding is. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. said, "I would have considered a vocation to the ministry if the clergy didn't so much resemble the undertaker."  And it is known that Gandhi was never baptized because, while he was fascinated with the person of Jesus Christ and his teachings, he never met a Christian who he felt was authentic.

Animals hide by their camouflage and people do too: dressing, talking, acting, walking, laughing, posturing so as to blend in and belong to the group. It's ultimately a way of hiding; were they to be themselves they might wind up being rejected, tormented or hurt.

But there is also a kind of holy hiding. Here is a Carthusian hermit- monk wearing his cowl up. He's kind of hiding, but so that he won't be noticed by the other monks who might think: Oh, there's Brother Stephen; he's so holy, so devout, such a good monk. The monk kind of hides in the room he creates with the hood around his face, so to be alone with God.

There are other monks who live in caves and on the tops of plateaus and mountains. Their food is pulled up in a basket by ropes. As the world goes, there are very few who live this kind of life, but some men and women do indeed choose to hide in God this deeply. When the rest of us are asleep or going about the busy-ness of the day or even being very sinful or silly, they pray for our weary world in all of its troubles.

Psalms are the poem-prayers of ancient Israel. Psalm 17:8 prays to God: "Hide me in the shelter of your wings." This is a very intense image. In desert climates a mother bird will stand the better part of the day with her wings open wide, umbrella-like, over her chicks hiding them  from the sun's heat. And after a great California  fire, which incinerated miles of forest, a group of fire fighters was walking through, putting out the last of the hot spots, when one of them kicked over a totally charred and blackened bird with its wings outstretched. As he did so, six agitated chicks came out from under their mother and scampered down the hillside. She hid them from death.

And in Matthew 23:37 Jesus likens himself to a mother hen, eager to gather her chicks around herself. An Ohio farmer told me that at the first sign of a vulture or hawk in the sky, the mother collects the chicks, hiding them under herself until the coast is clear.

When human mothers nurse their babies, often they cover them with a soft blanket, perhaps not so much for modesty but so to create a place of  safe intimacy, comfort, rest and calm. Hiding in Christ's wounds might be like that. But they are not raw,  bloody wounds. While they are real: Jesus showed and even invited the apostles to touch them (Luke 24:39,40)  they are now the transfigured signs of victory - heaven's signposts of life and love around which we can gather, all of us, finding ourselves and one-another as accepted and loved.

Father James Janda has written a great gift of a poem titled: Russian Easter. It appeared in America Magazine in April of 1997. I'd invite us to use it as an Easter time prayer, paying careful attention to the lines about Christ's Easter wounds.

Russian Easter

Gold onion
domes
rise
above the
snow in

Kiev

above the
leafless
trees

the gold

and in dark
woods
the silver wolf
watches

and in the
brush
blanketed
with snow the
rabbit chews

roots

and in the
church icons
glow in candle
light

and opening
lilies
scent
the air and

near

the icon of
the Mother
holding the
Child whose
shoe
unloosed running
from

fear

the priest
whispers
to
the penitent
that sins are seeds

from
which flowers
may grow

but only after
they
are buried

in Christ
our earth

whose wounds
after
the Resurrection
did
not disappear

but shone
more
than rubies
on a stole

or flowers
in snow

gold onion
domes
rise
above the
snow in
Kiev
under the
leafless
trees

the snow

can look
lemon
yellow
lavender blue
and
rose

O good Jesus, hear me

THIS PAINTING IS TITLED: JESUS RAISES THE WIDOW'S SON AT NAIN. Painted by  Johann Zick in 1752, it depicts the gospel scene found in  Luke 7:11-16. The young man has only been dead a short time, as Jews bury persons quickly, before sundown.

Jesus notices. He is seeing not just a series of events, but rather it is a seeing which  is reflective, interior and comprehending.  He discerns that the boy's mother is a widow, as there is no mention of a husband's presence. He notices that the funeral is that of a young man, perhaps an adolescent. Jesus puts two and two together and understands that now this woman has lost everything: she has lost her last means of support, there is no place for a woman in the work force and no social safety net to secure her.

In the painting we see her to the left of Jesus at the edge, perhaps coming out of shadow. The white light focuses our attention on the boy in his coffin, but I think Jesus really had the mother in mind. She hasn't  spoken a word, but Jesus has heard her, telling her not to cry. And while we may be tempted to think of the account as merely the restoration of the boy to life, there is perhaps the greater restoration which is that of the mother. She has been given her life back too and her place within the community.

We notice the right foot of Jesus is raised up on a stone, step or block of wood. Can we say that in his goodness, Jesus has stepped up in a confrontation with death and whatever seeks to leave us marginalized, desperate, broken and in the shadows?

"Hear me," the Anima Christi prayer asks. All human beings need and hope to be heard. I sat in a diner once and a young dad came in with his little son. They took up a booth, and while the dad set up and played with his lap top, the boy shredded up paper napkins in un-engaged boredom.

Many people who live in trouble have rejected themselves and so it's important yet again to send out the message: the Christian insight about God is that God knows and cares that we each exist:

But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name,; your are Mine!" (Isaiah 43:1).

And we're invited to trust this. Sometimes the need to be heard is very deep:

The person who comes to court hoping for a fair hearing
The young adult who wants to come clean with his confession
The addict who sits at the AA meeting
The young woman who has had an abortion; the man who insisted on her having it
The patient who has just learned of cancer
The man or woman who has carried the story of abuse for decades
The people who are first responders to terrible tragedies
The girl who is cutting herself and throwing up her food

O good Jesus, hear me. The little prayer understands our dilemma: life is very complicated and dangerous. Lots of people suffer trouble or know others whose lives are stressed with difficulties and tensions. Psalm 129 was written in another part of the world, in an ancient world many centuries ago. The person who composed it understood trouble. We can only imagine. And as he has not shared the specifics of his pain, we can fill in the blanks and make the prayer our own. The psalm is called the De Profundis.The Latin word profundis gives us the word profound. We might name and touch the inner place which is deep in sorrow, loneliness, heart-ache.

Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
To my voice in supplication.

But then the psalm moves beyond troubles and ends with joy and confidence:

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
And for his word I hope.
I wait for the Lord
More than watchmen for the dawn,
Watchmen for the dawn.

Hope, O Israel, in the Lord,
For with the Lord is kindness
And with him is plenteous redemption.

But the Christian believes that the waiting is over, and God has come to us in person, with a face of his own. God has become picturable in Jesus Christ. We can sit and simply contemplate his face. "I'm all ears" someone says who is intent on giving us his or her full and undivided attention. What a gift this person makes to us in a culture of incessant talking.

I sat in a hospital waiting room and nearby there was a man who obviously was emotionally troubled. His body movements were uncontrollable, and he was unable to stop talking out loud. A nurse came through on her way to somewhere else. Recognzing him she sat down, and putting aside her papers, she listened to him intently. God is like that. O good Jesus, hear me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me

IN EUROPE PRIOR TO THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, all flowers had Marian connotations. A few holdovers remain: Marigold, Madonna Lily, Lady's Slipper.... In the 16th or 17th  century, Jesuit priests in South American missions seemed to continue the practice and named this lovely flower-discovery, the Passion Flower. Like young boys who observe natural things closely, they likened the flower's tendrils to the whips that scourged Christ. In the central flower column they saw the pillar of His scourging. They discerned Christ's Crown of Thorns in the seventy-two filaments that circled the inside of the flower, and the three stigma; the nails of the crucifix. They saw the five wounds of Christ in the flower's five anthers, and the top of the centurion's spear that pierced Christ's side, in the plant's pointed leaves. The red stains of the petals reminded them of Christ's Blood, and the round fruit which the plant produces - the world that Jesus came to save. What a different world - to detect Christ at every turn.

Passion of Christ means that God has gone to a lot of trouble and placed Himself at great risk, coming into our world to love us, to retrieve what was lost to God, to show us the way to the happiness we long for. Love takes risks. Love goes to great lengths. Love can be a bother. Love endures inconvenience and suffering. Love does seemingly unreasonable things. Love survives the advice of others which says:  "It isn't necessary." "Don't go too far." "Enough is enough." "Let someone else..." "The cost will be too great." Parents will understand.

Here a cross to which have been applied a number of symbols called in Latin, the Arma Christi. This translates literally the weapons of Christ. These are the  physical items or instruments kept to remind us of the gospel accounts which tell the story of the Passion and Death of Jesus. Here we see: the hammer which nailed Jesus to the cross, the centurion's spear, the pliers which pulled the nails from the hands and feet of Jesus, the crowing rooster which signaled Peter's denying Jesus three times, the crosses of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus on his left and right, the ladders which were needed to take Jesus down from the cross, the reed on which the sponge of sour wine was lifted to Jesus, Pilate's Latin sign: Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum - which  means Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

There are many other Arma Christi as well: the rooster, the lantern, the skull reminding us of the name of the mount of crucifixion, the crown of thorns, the chalice of the Last Supper, the bag of thirty silver coins, the hand that slapped Jesus at his trial, the ropes, the dice and the Lord's robe, the sun and the moon, Peter's sword with which he cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. These symbols help us to contemplate the Passion of Christ, which surely means the story of Jesus' physical suffering and death, but perhaps all the more, Jesus' inner passion for us, for which he suffered to death.

And the Anima Christi prayer asks that His Passion would strengthen us. This elderly woman lives in a leper colony along the Amazon River in Brazil. She's reduced and utterly helpless, having  lost just about everything. Her family doesn't' want her; her limbs are gone. She knows that she will stay in this place until she dies. When the documentary photographer came into her room he found her smiling and seemingly filled with light. He asked her, "How are you today," and she answered, "Very well, thanks be to God."

The issue is not that any of us seeing her would say, "Oh I should just buck up and be grateful; she's got it worse than I do," but rather that I would reflect upon what it is that I have to do and for which I need new strength:

• the breakdown of my own or a loved-one's health,
• the dissolution of family relationships,
• the struggles with addiction wherever it invades my life or the life of my family,
• the worries I face for the safety and well-being of the children I love,
• the challenges made to faith in a world of often disbelief and ridicule of sacred things,
• the temptations to give in and surrender to cynicism.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me

A pieta is an image of Jesus after being taken down from the cross and lying on the lap and in the arms of his grieving Mother, Mary. This pieta, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is found in The Cloisters Museum in New York City.

Immediately we are taken into the image by the wound in Jesus' right side. Saint John's Gospel (19:31-37) tells us:

As it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, in order that the bodies might not be left on the crosses over the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was an especially important one, the Jews asked Pilate to have the men's legs broken and the bodies removed. So the soldiers went and broke the legs of the first man and then of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus they say that he was dead already and they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers thrust a lance into his side, and blood and water immediately flowed out. The man who saw it testifies to it - his testimony is true; he knows that he is telling the truth - to lead you also to believe. For this happened to fulfill what the scripture says:

"Not one of its bones shall be broken." Moreover, it says in another place.

"They will look at the man whom they pierced."

Crucifixion was an ordinary means of executing a criminal in ancient Rome. And when a man was crucified, a large amount of water accumulated around the man's heart, making his breathing increasingly difficult and otherwise stressing him. When the soldier put the lance into the side of Jesus, this bag of water was punctured and the water and blood poured out.

Of course, the image causes us to think of Baptism and Eucharist. But there is more. When we are conceived we spend the first nine months or so in our mother's watery womb. In order to be born, to exit the womb and enter outer life, we have to pass through the gush of water. Indeed, one of the indicators that we are on our way is that mother's water breaks. In the gush of water from Jesus' side, humanity is born again, born again to higher things, heavenly things, and the spiritual realities Christ opens to us. First among these realities is the awareness that in Christ, we now have an access to God's heart as never before - that God's heart has been effectively torn open to receive us and to flood us with his love and life. No other religion makes this kind of claim. How different from the ancient gods and goddesses who came to earth to tease, trick and provoke us.

The Anima Christi prayer now asks: that the water from Christ's side would wash me. Pope Paul VI said, "The sin of our time is that we have lost all sense of sin." Indeed, many people don't think of their own sins. We are quick to excuse ourselves. Watch any court room show and observe how no one accepts any responsibility for crimes or mistakes - each accusing the other of being a liar and even defending himself/herself against the judge's insights or application of the law.The realization of our own sin before God and the minimalizing of our failures in love is perhaps our greatest resistance. "I haven't killed anyone and my shoes are under my own bed," a man might tell the priest.

But truth be told, spiritually speaking, some people need a good scrubbing. The light goes out at night and we are left with our own last thoughts before we fall asleep. We know where the bones are buried, we say. There is the nagging feeling that won't leave us alone until we tell someone. A sorrowful soldier returns home and confesses what he has done in war. He has begun to heal.

No one is exempt. We all need to be washed. A priest friend says, "Where there are many words, sin cannot be avoided." And another saying goes: "When the devil goes to church, he sits in the choir loft."

Pope Pius XII said: "Never ask a man to choose between his church and his country; he will almost always choose his country." That's nationalism: an identification with one's country that precedes his affiliation with God. Yet no matter how closely we live, country first, when it comes to the nation's sin, we distance ourselves: the nation's abortions, wars which call dead children collateral damage, always funding for new armaments while school budgets are cut, the obstruction and self-interest of political parties, the national sins by which the children and the weakest are failed, the sins of our national system which promote vigorous competition rather than solidarity. It's said that if we ever visited a slaughter house we'd never eat meat again. Perhaps if we knew where our tax dollars went we'd be overwhelmed with grief. In truth, we are talking about so many billions or trillions of dollars that our own personal culpability may be very small, but it remains. In my thirty-three years of priesthood I have met only one priest who  understands this. When we walk on the beach - just walk on it - sand inevitably sticks to us. Maybe this is what the Orthodox Church has in mind when the prayer asks to be forgiven sins known and unknown. 

In a Benedictine Monastery, after night prayers, the monks or nuns make a silent procession, coming forward to have Holy Water sprinkled on them. They are thinking of their Baptism. They might also have in mind the gospel accounts in which  Jesus tells us to stay awake  or wake up, but spiritually: that we wake up to what God continues to do for us in each moment, that we wake up to gratitude and goodness, that we wake up to the opportunities presented to us for kindness and mercy,  that we might wake up to see others rightly - as God sees them.

And so, Water from the side of Christ, wash me, doesn't mean a tender washing of the face with a soft cloth - but more, Water from the side of Christ, stun me awake! Perhaps Mel Gibson's depiction in the film The Passion of the Christ shows it more dramatically and actually. When the lance is put in Jesus' side a tremendous gush of bloody water pours down on the soldier, stunning him, even to his losing balance.

Lastly, at the center of the Christian faith is the Incarnation: God has become one of us in Jesus Christ. God has a human body and face like our own. And so all things human take on a new importance. The distinctions between sacred things and secular things is done away with. Saint Benedict makes this very clear when in his rule for monks he says, the garden tools and kitchen utensils are to be shown the same care as the golden chalice on the altar.

And so, as water flows from the side of Christ, to say that the issues surrounding the water of this planet and that so many people don't have water, can't be disregarded or dismissed. "I'm not into justice issues" a church-goer claims. It is said that 1.1 billion people have no access to drinkable water. Many of the world's 24,000 children who die every hour, do so because of waterborne diseases.

There are numerous organizations which place their resources and energies in the service of improving and making more available, especially to children, the potable water we all need. They would be grateful for our support.

Blood of Christ, inebriate me

THERE IS A LEGEND THAT WHEN GOD CREATED THE ROBIN, God made the bird gray, with no trace of red, yet called her Robin Redbreast. Long confounded, the bird returned to God one day and asked about the discrepancy. God reassured the bird that the name was correct but that the red breast would need to be earned. In time the little bird neared Jerusalem, building a nest where eggs hatched and chicks emerged. And in those days the timid gray bird witnessed a great crowd surrounding a man who was being taken outside the city to be crucified. The bird said: "This man is so beautiful and looks about with such mild glances that everyone ought to love him."

The bird flew in wide circles around the crucified man, and little by little gaining courage, she flew closer and closer to Jesus, observing the crown of thorns around his head. Then the bird drew so near it was able to pull a thorn from Jesus' brow. The blood spread quickly, flowing out and coloring the feathers of the gray bird's breast, whereupon she returned to her nest to announce the news to her brood. And no matter how often the bird bathed in water, the red color never vanished but even spread to her chicks. We should never laugh at these legends or dismiss them as naive; they are expressions of a different world that loved Jesus with great warmth.

Keeping with the ornithological-spiritual theme for a moment, there is another legend about the Blood of Christ. The sixth strophe of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Eucharistic Hymn, Adoro Te Devote (O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee ) says:

O loving Pelican! O Jesu Lord!

Unclean I am, but cleanse me in Thy Blood:

Of which a single drop, for sinners spilt,

Can purge the entire world from all its guilt.

According to medieval legend, in a time of famine a mother pelican would self-sacrificingly draw blood from her own chest and give the blood to her chicks to sustain them. Of course the image symbolizes Christ as caring and life-protecting Mother.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) has left us a fine collection of devotional prayers in which he likens Jesus to a mother, mindful of Jesus' own use of that image recorded in Matthew 23:37-39. Saint Anselm writes in his prayer addressed to Jesus:

You have died more than they,
that they may labour to bear.
It is by your death that they have been born,
for if you had not been in labour,
you could not have borne death;
and if you had not died,
you would not have brought forth.
For longing to bear sons into life,
You tasted of death,
and by dying you begot them.
You did this in your own self,
your servants, by your commands and help.
You as the author, they as the ministers.
So you, Lord God, are the great mother.

Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion

Saint Anselm is praying that on the cross, Jesus suffered the pains of childbirth. Crucified, by labour pains and blood-letting, Jesus gave re-birth and life to the new humanity we see in the saints. A student of art wondered aloud if perhaps this maternity of Christ is depicted in Cimabue's crucifix, (1287-1288) in which the body of Jesus seems to bear the pregnancy from which will issue that new humanity.

Now the word inebriate refers to the Eucharistic Blood of Christ some Christians receive in the Mass of the Roman Church; the Divine Liturgy of the East.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who according to the will of the Father, through the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, by Your death gave life to the world: deliver me by this Your most holy Body and Blood from all my transgressions and from all evils; make me always adhere to Your commandments and never suffer me to be separated from You; who with the same God the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Priest's Prayer Before Receiving Holy Communion)

In our own time, translations of inebria tend to: fill all my veins or fill me up. But clearly we see in the Latin our own English word inebriate - a much stronger choice. Inebriate or inebriated is a negative word meaning drunk or intoxicated. But here it poetically suggests that in the Eucharistic Blood of Christ, I would be knocked off my feet by Christ; wonderfully beside myself in Christ; opened up, saturated with Christ. Seen this way it expresses a very beautiful and intimate desire: asking for a fullness of Christ which is more than I can handle!

Body of Christ, save me

I RECENTLY ASKED A PSYCHOLOGIST WHY the Roman Catholic Church is so often portrayed by the media in a negative light?  She thought it's because the Catholic Church makes claims that the world considers to be outlandish and beyond the possibility of belief. There is  in particular the claim that at the Catholic Mass bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. It's just too much, many claim.

Most of the Catholics I know believe in what's called, The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist simply because Jesus said it is so (Matthew 26: 20ff). Friends believe each other. This post isn't concerned with making believers out of those who reject the teaching, but more to consider the second part of the line: save me.

Save me is the cry of the desperate person - the one who's going under, who's losing strength, losing consciousness, running out of time. The poor author of Psalm 69 understands and gives poetic expression:

Save me, O God,

for the water mounts to my chin,

I am sunk in deep mire,

where there is no foothold.

I have got into deep water,

and the flood overwhelms me.

It seems that no one is spared this kind of experience. The Dali Lama tells of being invited to a penthouse dinner with people who were extraordinarily wealthy: more than one boat, several high-end residences in first class cities, a fleet of cars, servants. He writes that when he visited the bathroom the medicine cabinet was left open, and the shelves revealed all kinds of medications used to counter depression and anxiety. You would think....

It's not easy living on this bloody, dangerous, often frivolous, disintegrating planet. People smile or laugh with understanding when I tell them Beetle George Harrison wrote:

Sometimes I feel like I'm actually on the wrong planet; and it's great when I'm in my garden, but the minute I go out the gate I think,"What the hell am I doing here?"

But we might also understand the cry, save me, as a personal plea: that I would  be spared or saved from my own inner undoing, from my own inner worst possibilities. After her husband's funeral, an older woman, perhaps doing some self-reflection, asked her brother-in-law, "Why am I so mean?" Many people never come to this woman's kind of self awareness or at least give no indication they have any knowledge of their shadowy or down side. The sad thing would be for the woman to have simply asked the question rhetorically - never stepping up to that personal investigation by which she  might answer her own question.

In Eastern Christianity there is a little prayer to the Mother of God which seems to get at it:

"O our Lady, grant me compunction and contrition of heart, humility in my thoughts, and a release from the slavery of my own reasonings."

Can I name the slavery of my own reasonings? When was the last time I heard someone (including myself) say, "You know, I never thought of that before." or "You know, I was really wrong about that (or him/her/them); thanks for setting me straight."

There's also another sense of save me - not just saved from - whether it's sin and death, but also saved for. We say things like: I'll save this for dessert or I'll save this money for a rainy day. More importantly I might consider how God might be saving me for: the poem that I'll write, the garden I'll plant, the children I'll raise, the poor I'll serve, the painting I'll paint, the friendships I'll make, the sick person I'll tend, the insights I'll come to, the love I'll know, the personal life I'll evolve. Saved FOR!

Anima Christi

I'VE PRAYED THE ANIMA CHRISTI  PRAYER AFTER RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION since I was a boy. The websites only present the Latin/English verses and perhaps something of the prayer's history but none reflect on the lines themselves. So perhaps over the next days we can think about the meaning of the lines in light of our own lives. We might be mindful that there are more than a few translations, so I've chosen the one that uses stronger, attention-getting words like inebriate and malignant. We have the phrase, "That's pretty strong language...." when someone is making an accusation or threat. So if people are used to pretty strong language, we ought not pray with soft or powerless words. The intense feelings of the heart aren't communicated with baby talk.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within thy wounds, hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee
From the malignant enemy, defend me.
At the hour of my death, call me.
And close to you, bid me,
That with thy saints
I may may be praising thee,
forever and ever.
Amen.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me

There's a difficulty in speaking about the soul because it is immaterial. My soul is the inner man; the inner woman. The soul survives our bodily death. Some people will at once disdain the idea of the soul simply on the grounds that it's not seen. The soul is that aspect of ourselves that aspires to the notion of God and God's existence. The soul is independent of our physical bodies and is what distinguishes us from animals, plants and inanimate things.

Human beings are more than just the electricity, chemicals, water and DNA that make us up. Jews speak of there being a divine spark in each person. In the Book of Genesis 2:7, when God blew his breath into Adam and Eve, God was putting something of God's self into us and not just air. This is who we are. 

Soul is that aspect of the human person which searches for meaning and holds the desire of eternal life. Indeed, all cultures from even primitive times have held some sense of immortality. Turtles, oak trees and the sand on the beach don't do that. We have high aspirations and the ability to make decisions for good or ill because we have a soul.

In my working with young people I have met many who have been taught nothing about the existence of God, let alone the characteristics of God, and yet have believed in and loved God. We might use the word infused, which means I haven't accepted someone's advertising, teaching or suggesting, but the idea or longing has come from some other inexplicable place - a place within.

On a bright afternoon I saw a young mother walking along a stream in a park with her two pre-school age children. When Mallard ducks gathered at the shore, the mom directed the children's attention saying, "Look at how the sun makes the green and  purple on the duck shiny and very beautiful." That moment of calling children to pay attention to beauty is from the soul.

Here is a picture of an old monk watering a flower that has grown up in the crevice between the building and the pavement. Indeed, that the plant is flowering so nicely might well indicate that the monk waters it regularly. To notice and to respond for the sake of life, originates in the soul.

Sanctify has to mean more than just make me holy, because those words don't  mean much to most people. Soul of Christ, sanctify me, seems to be asking that the deep and beautiful  inner life of Jesus, with all of its aspirations for the highest things, the divine things, the true things, would invade or be shared with me: that I would somehow catch who Christ is. 

John the Baptist spoke of Jesus, saying: "He must grow greater and greater, but I less and less," John 3:30. I'd suggest this means that there would be more of the authentically lived person God created me to be and increasingly less of who I think I am. That would be the outer person that I have created or learned: my MO, my style with the labels I wear, the tickets I have, the laugh or sound I affect, the knowledge I claim, my politics and teams, the brands I use, the channels I watch, the groups I belong to, the things I read, the tastes I've cultivated, the job I hold, how I vacation or use my weekends, where I shop and what I buy, what I'll do to be appreciated or acceptable.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me is a lovely prayer that might well stand on its own; a request to be evolved and changed  into someone new.