Worship Fearlessly: Christmas 2008

This Advent I've had the experience of being a reader for Meredith's next book. I've done this before on other books she's written, but this time her writings about the Jewish roots of my faith led me to a new understanding of the importance of worshipping fearlessly. Reading about how forms of worship have changed and how rituals developed made me realize what kind of world Jesus Christ was born into - a world of lightness and dark, a world where he sought to bring peace.

He challenged many, teaching that there are both public and private ways to worship God and that's why we, as humans, need to be careful about judging each other. Those who may appear to pray most earnestly in the pew next to you may be thinking about the last episode of Heroes!

Yet, on the other hand, He taught us that truly worshipping God fearlessly means being willing to have our motives questioned, to take risks, to follow a path that others may not understand. It means following the teaching to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and treat them as equals. It means not worrying as much about what others think of us in this world.

May we all choose to worship fearlessly as we celebrate in joy this Christmas, acknowledging God's great mercy and love as we strive with hope to follow His will in our lives.

Discovering ourselves in the love of God

"St. Bernard of Clairvaux describes as the highest degree of love the  love of ourselves for God's sake.  Thomas Merton calls this the high point of St. Bernard's humanism which shows "that the fulfillment of our destiny is not merely to be lost in God, as the traditional figures of speech would have it, like a 'drop of water in a barrel of wine or like iron in the fire', but found in God in all our individual and personal reality" [and, ultimately,] "that we see his will done in us."-The Genessee Diary, pg 85, Henri Nouwen

 

God's love isn't reserved for saints and mystics. It's there for the clueless disciples, the reluctant prophets, and even those of us who doubt, who struggle with the most basic of human faults in ourselves. It doesn't matter, you see. The love of God isn't reserved for a special few.

I was once on a retreat. One of the retreat-ants went to talk to a priest and spent an entire twenty minutes complaining to him about her life. Knowing that her problems were more from her perception of things than actual issues, the priest  said to her "We aren't at this retreat to talk about our problems. We're here to find spiritual solutions" and sent her to the chapel to pray, where she met me.  I was deep in prayer when she came in and began complaining to me, as she had done the entire weekend, how no one understood her.

I've been on staff at retreats for terminally ill people and found them less challenging than this woman, who had an excellent career, good childhood and lacked nothing in material wealth. Her external circumstances just were meaningless to her  however. All she could see was what she didn't have and that one thing - not being married - caused her so much emotional pain that she dieted down to a size six. When that didn't help her find the right person, she came to the retreat, full of grief. The way she showed that grief was to vent. It was very hard to be around her.

So there I sat in my wheelchair in the chapel, fresh back from a retreat with terminally ill people, praying for a dear friend who died from MS. Perhaps because of this I could see that she was grieving for the life she did not have.  Many of us run into these feelings as we get older and discover that maybe we won't get the education we need for that career we wanted or perhaps can't have children or may have things happen in our lives we just don't expect.  What can happen is that we lose gratitude for what we do have and grieve for what we don't. And we don't get sympathy from others, but turn them away if we stay stuck there.

Her first words were "How could that priest understand what I'm going through? He can't get married!"  I almost laughed, but instead turned to her and said "You're so sad that you haven't found the right person to marry", addressing her need openly. She nodded and began to cry, then leaned down and threw her arms around me, sobbing. "What's wrong with me?" she asked. "I've done everything to make myself better and no one loves me."

Gently, I told her that God loved her. She predictably scoffed at me, but I suggested that instead of feeling sad about the life she didn't have, why didn't she try to find ways to discover herself in God's love while she waited to find the right person. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me as if I had lost my mind, but then she said "I suppose I have nothing to lose."  "And everything to gain," I said. And I shared the above passage with her. 

Two months later, I received a phone call from her. She told me that the plans we drew up at the retreat, which included volunteering and reaching out to others without making the goal finding a husband, were working out.  "I like myself better," she told me "and I made some new friends. In fact, I'm happier than I can remember being. I feel -" she hesitated- "loved, which was what I really wanted in the first place."

And after spending ten minutes on the phone with her, I even liked her better! Gone was her venting and complaining, gone was her self pity. Instead she spoke about her new, exciting life and shared that she signed up for a few more trips to help people out. "I took a lot of what I have for granted," she told me. "And I couldn't see that because I couldn't get out of myself."

Someone probably could have told her that at the retreat, but that wouldn't have helped her heal. What she needed was to feel lovable - even though many of us didn't think there was much hope of that when we met her.  

If I die, just tell everyone I'm enormously grateful...

Those are the last public words of Henri Nouwen, the Dutch-born priest who wrote over 40 books, after he had his heart attack. He is featured in the documentary Journey of the Heart: Henri Nouwen, which I saw last night on Netflix. (It was aired last April on PBS, according to this article about the documentary.)

Nouwen spent years teaching at both Yale and Harvard and gave up his tenure at Yale to spend a year in a Trappist monastery. While there, he worked alongside the other monks and struggled with loneliness while being out of the limelight. Later he was to move into L'Arche, a community where people with disabilities formed the "core group", living alongside others based upon the Beatitudes. Nouwen wrote about his experiences there. He was a complex man, who was admired for his genius, yet surprised people with his ability to engage in a child-like spontaneity. One author wrote that Nouwen dealt with the spirituality of imperfection.

In The Genesee Diary, Nouwen kept a journal of his experiences at the monastery, both external and internal. He was seeking a total commitment to God, away from the academic life of Yale. I am struck by his experience of silence, written about on page 133 of the diary, where he says that he finds "with words, ambiguous feelings enter into my life. It almost seems as if it is impossible to speak and not sin...In some strange way, speaking makes me less alert, less open and more self-centered." He then talks about St. Benedict, who wrote about the importance of silence. Nouwen wrote "Many people ask me to speak, but no one yet has invited me to silence."

I think of my Quaker friends, with whom I've spent hours in silent community. The silence is broken only by an occasional sharing or remark. There is a comfort in the crackling of the fire in the 200 plus year old fireplace, the warmth of my friend's guide dog's face in my lap, the ever present hum of electricity, added to the stone meeting hall. One time all I was able to do in that silence was imagine the schematics to put electricity in the old meeting hall. So unused to silence am I that I couldn't reach any other place, and afterward I recommitted myself to my prayer life.

Sometimes I yearn for the company of others who dare to be silent. I cherish the friends with whom I can sit and not have to perform, to speak, those with whom I can just be. Perhaps, in a way, one of the gifts I've received over the last decade since I acquired my disability, is that many of those who demanded things from me have gone on their way. Those who are left are indeed friends.

Sometimes all that there is left to say to others is that one is enormously grateful.

Pope urges mercy toward inmates

"Chaplains must be heralds of God's compassion and forgiveness to prisoners who can be overwhelmed by feelings of isolation, shame and rejection, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this today to the participants of the 12th World Congress of the International Commission of Catholic Prison Pastoral Care, being held in Rome through Tuesday.

About the theme of this year's congress, "Discovering the Face of Christ in Every Prisoner," the Holy Father said it "aptly portrays your ministry as a vivid encounter with the Lord."

"Indeed," the Pontiff continued, referring to his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est," "in Christ the 'love of God and love of neighbor have become one,' so that 'in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in him … God.'

"Your ministry requires much patience and perseverance. Not infrequently there are disappointments and frustrations."

Via Zenit

For those who do prison ministries, we offer our prayers of support.

"Sick of love? Me too!"

"Is this what we’re about? Cute love? Jesus suffered the whip and died on a cross so that we are free to shoot sugary looks at one another and drip cutesy clichés about warm-fuzzies and teddy-bear hugs? Do I need to go put on the creamy-pink vestments and my Bunny rabbit slippers? No. Thank God and all the Saints…no. ....If you think love is best expressed with chocolates or a Starbuck’s gift card or perhaps you think real love is best signified with a quickie in your dorm room, then you don’t know what love is. Love makes you. Love saves you. Love delivers you to the throne of the Most High! You are not loved b/c you deserve it. You are not saved b/c you’ve earned it. You were not created b/c God needs you. Your being, my being—we exist, gratuitously, without merit or debt b/c our God, in His Goodness, draws us out of nothingness and makes us body and soul. We exist in Love because of Love for Love so that we may return to Love to be Love forever. And this is sometimes a terrible pilgrimage—painful, disillusioning, exhausting and dirty. But, at the end, you will be the newest creature b/c you are now a new creature.
Love perfects the imperfect. It shines up, buffs off, and sharpens. If you will become a well-oiled, surgical tool for God’s Word, you will love. You will speak the truth, spread goodness, honor beauty; you will correct error, confront sin, forgive offenses; and you will build up the Body in service and open the doors of faith to the stranger. Your life in Christ is a gospel epic not a Hallmark poem. Love us as Christ loves us…right to the cross, to the tomb, and on to the Father’s right hand."

Fr. Powell writes a very powerful sermon about love (hat tip to Amy at Open Book for finding this) on his blog (click above for a link to read the entire post).

For love is the life of the soul.
– St. Francis de Sales

Known for his gentle nature, St. Francis de Sales said he spent 20 years overcoming his bad temper. Although his parents wanted him to be a lawyer and he did take a seat in the Senate, he followed his calling and became a priest and, eventually, a bishop.

He wrote the Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God and many pamphlets. He has been named patron of the Catholic Press.

"Dare to Love" Via Open Book

Amy over at Open Book writes about God's love , sharing Pope Benedict's message for World Youth Day.

"It is hard to believe in this love. In a book by Hugh of St. Victor which I read once on the way from St. Paul to Chicago, there is a conversation between the soul and God about this love. The soul is petulant and wants to know what kind of a love is that which loves all indiscriminately, the thief and the Samaritan, the wife and the mother and the harlot? The soul complains that it wishes a particular love, a love for herself alone. And God replies fondly that after all, since no two people are alike in this world, He has indeed a particular fondness for each one of us, an exclusive love to satisfy each one alone."
Dorothy Day, To Die for Love, Catholic Worker magazine, September 1948