Day 26 Migraine day

 Developed a migraine today, probably due to warm moist weather coming in.  I did manage to read today.  Thomas has informed Columbia that he will be leaving next year to enter the seminary.  They shake their heads and tell him they will accept him back when he comes to his senses.  He has an appendicitis and spends time recuperating and then goes on holiday to Cuba. He talks about having to be fed right after surgery and how this was appropriate as he was an infant spiritually.  I tried to meditate on this but couldn't focus.  Sorry.

My prayer today, Lord, I know that my pain is nothing compared to Your suffering on the cross but it does hurt a bit. My prayer is for all those suffering much worse than I today; those who are sick, being bombed or displaced by war.  Help me accomplish the holy grind as cheerfully as I can today and forgive me that I can't meditate.   Amen 

Pax

 

Joe

Day 25 Thomas Merton's decision

 Day 25, we keep chugging along.    So the fall term starts and Merton is back in graduate school.  He is still living his current life and one late morning when he gets up [ he hadn't gotten to bed till after 4am due to partying] he decides, " I ought to be a priest."  He tells his 2 friends [ including one lady] who had stayed overnight at his place.  The idea grows in his head during the day so in the afternoon he goes to church where they happen to be having veneration of the Blessed Sacrament. As he enters and looks at the alter he states:

And then it suddenly became clear to me that my whole life was at a crisis.  Far more that I could imagine or understand or conceive was now hanging upon a word-- a decision of mine.  pg 255

Then further down the page:

It was a moment of crisis, yet of interrogation: a moment of searching, but it was a moment of joy.  It took me about a minute to collect my thoughts about the grace that had been suddenly planted in my soul, and to adjust my weak eyes of my spirit to its unaccustomed light, and during that moment my whole life remained suspended on the edge of an abyss: but this time, the abyss was an abyss of love and peace, the abyss was God.   pg 255

So I don't know about you but I have had some pretty big decisions in my life where I have prayed hard, seminary or medical school, getting married, retiring from the Air Force and from Civilian life and I wouldn't describe it as falling into an abyss of God.  I was scared to death by all of them but maybe I was getting better because the last three I really felt that God was telling me what to do and I did have a sense of calm peace about the decision. Unlike Merton, I really had to ponder on the decision ( with my wife praying as well) to seek what God's will was for us. I really do believe God directs us if we ask him.  While I would love a handwritten note it seems to come as a calm feeling of what to do.  

That said, the idea for this blog just popped into my head while I was meditating 26 days ago so maybe God is mixing it up with me.  The point is if we want to do God's will we have to ask.  We will get an answer.  We have to be willing to carry it out.  

My prayer for today is Lord, thank you for the many gifts you have bestowed on me.  Help me to continue to place my trust in You and Your plan for me.      

Pax

 

Joe 

Day 24 Are you called to be a saint?

Day 24.  So Thomas continues to work on his PhD and starts to write a novel.  He spends the summer in upstate New York with 2 of his close friends busy writing away.  His novel was called The Labyrinth. He sent it to several publishers and it was rejected.  He has a great line about that:

...to my great sorrow never got printed--at least I was sorry about it in those days, but now I am full of self-congratulation at the fact that those pages escaped the press.  pg 240

I thought that was humorous.

One of his friends [Lax, who is Jewish] asks him what he wants to be?  Thomas replies that he wants to be a good catholic.  His friend challenges him and says, "What you should say is that you want to be a saint."  Thomas says that he can't be a saint.  He isn't good enough.  But Lax said:

No. All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one.  Don't you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you will consent to let Him do it?  All you have to do is desire it."  pg 238

Wow, this really blew me away. And Thomas isn't even the one saying it.   It makes perfect sense if we don't limit our definition of "saint" to someone canonized by the Church.  I think "saint" here is anyone who lives a truly holy, spiritual life. Someone who allows themselves to trust God and is drawn into Himself like we talked about 2 days ago.  This person might do the "holy grind" day in and day out but do it for God so joyfully and trustingly that they are a saint.  Given the above definition, I think we are all called to sainthood.  I find that scary because I like to think of saints as holy people, people with infinite patience and grace who had it all figured out.  That way they aren't like me and I don't have to aspire to their level.  If it is just a matter of my will and trust then I rapidly run out of excuses.  How about you?  Are you called to be a saint?

My prayer today; Lord, I want to become what You created me to be but it is scary.  Give me courage to follow You more closely and to trust Your path for me.

Pax

 

Joe    

 

Day 23 We are not self made

 Time is flying by, thanks for reading.  So Thomas is now a Catholic but says he was still living for himself not for God. He gets his Masters so now signs up for his PhD in Literature.  He wants to be an intellectual, a poet and a scholar, but not for God-- for himself.  He states, 

How could I love God, when everything I did was done not for Him but for myself, and not trusting in His aid, but relying on my own wisdom and talents?  pg 236

How often throughout my career have I trusted in my talents and brains to get me where I wanted to be?  Talents and brains that God gave me.  I didn't chose to be smart anymore than I chose to be left handed; both were given to me as gifts from God.  Now granted I studied hard and spent long hours becoming a surgeon but that was developing intellegence that God gave me freely as a gift.  I did and do try to remember to thank him for the many blessing and talents He has given me.  But it is so easy to get caught up in the sin of pride and think that we are self made.  Then we rely on our selfish plans, centered on our desires and wants, and become constantly frustrated when things go wrong at worst or surprised that we are unfulfilled when things go right. It is so simple to say and yet so hard to do: Trust in God. Try to do His will and things will work out.  

My Prayer today, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...   

Pax

 

Joe 

Day 22 The 7 story mountain

 Happy Sunday!  Thomas finally gets baptized and has first communion.  There is so much in these 25 pages that I could just concentrate on this section for the rest of Lent.  Thomas became a mystic, particularly in his later years and you can see this even in his first book.  Interesting, the seven story mountain that the title refers to that Thomas starts to climb occurs after his baptism.  He felt he needed to atone for his 23 years of sins and said he did not realize how steep and arduous the climb would be.  The section I would like to concentrate on today is his thoughts on receiving the Eucharist:

For now I had entered into the everlasting movement of that gravitation which is the very life and spirit of God: God's own gravitation towards the depths of His own infinite nature, His goodness without end.  And God, that center Who is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, finding me, through incorporation with Christ, incorporated into this immense and tremendous gravitational movement which is love, which is the Holy Spirit, loved me.

And He called out to me from His own immense depths. pg 225

My first thought was, "How very Zen!" Now Thomas didn't feel all that during his first communion. These are his thoughts about it later.  I certainly don't feel that every time I receive the Eucharist but that is what is happening, for I have Christ physically inside me and God is calling out to me from his own immense depths to let go and stop fighting the gravitational movement towards Himself! Do you remember back on day 17 we talked about God's grace?  I asked you if you were brave enough to let Him in.  I told you I was brave enough to let him in a little but not too much for if I did I was afraid it would turn my whole world upside down.  This is exactly what I was talking about.  I am still afraid to "Let go and Let God".  How about you? 

My prayer today; Lord, thank you for the Sacraments and all the graces you rain down on us.  Please don't give up on me but continue your patient ways and soften my fears so I may put all my trust in You.

Pax

 

Joe  

Day 21 What is Hell?

We continue to roll along.  First I have to give a shout out to St Peter’s and their amazing run to the elite 8.  After their first victory their coach was asked if he was worried during the game.  He answered , “ No, it is only basketball.”  What a great Jesuit answer!  Okay, back to business.  Thomas continues to work on his masters but he also finally has his conversion moment.  During the year (I think we are in 1938 now) he finally goes to Mass one Sunday.  He states it is his first sober Sunday morning in New York in his life.  He gets scared after the homily, when they start the Eucharistic celebration, and leaves.  He doesn’t go back.  Several weeks or months later he is sitting alone in his apartment and a voice inside his head says, “what are you waiting for?” He argues with himself for several minutes then gives up and marches down to the church where he tells the priest he wants to become a catholic.  He is disappointed that he is given several books to read but he feels even more strongly that he wants to be a catholic. He then starts the year long process of initiation.  He goes on a retreat and hears a sermon about hell.    He states:

My opinion is that it is a very extraordinary thing for anyone to be upset about such a topic.  Why would anyone be shattered by the thought of hell?  It is not compulsory for anyone to go there.  Those who do, do so by their own choice, and against the will of God, and they can only get into hell by defying and resisting all the work of Providence and grace.  It is their own will that takes them there, not God’s.  In damning them He is only ratifying their own decision—a decision which He has left entirely to their own choice.  Pg 217

Now this is NOT what I was taught growing up.  It is what I was taught in high school and college, however.  If we love God, try, and are sorry for our sins we get to heaven!  Isn’t that wonderful news?  Jesus died to save us.  Only if we reject God  does God ultimately grant our wish and finally leave us alone.  What would you call a place where God is not constantly showering down his grace on us but finally says sadly, “ okay, have it your way” and turns His back?  That place my friend would be called “hell”.

My prayer today Lord, thank you for saving me!  Please give the gift of faith to those who seek you and soften the hearts of those who resist you.    Amen 

Pax

Joe

Day 20 Don't fool yourself!

 We have made it to day 20!  Woo Hoo.    Hang in there!    Merton is still in grad school working on his masters.  Intellectually he is primed to become a Christian and feels he is living a better life.  But he says he was fooling himself.  He was still carousing, chasing women and thinking only of himself.  His actions hadn't changed yet. [ Much like we discussed yesterday.]  He goes on to say:

I think that if there is one truth that people need to learn, in the world, especially today, it is this: the intellect is only theoretically independent of desire and appetite in the ordinary, actual practice.  It is constantly being blinded and perverted by the ends and aims of passion, and the evidence it presents to us with such a show of impartiality and objectivity is fraught with interest and propaganda.  We have become marvelous at self-delusion; all the more so, because we have gone to such trouble to convince ourselves of our own infallibility.  pg 205

So don't be thrown off by the philosophical language that Merton is using here.  He is saying that while we try to be impartial in our thinking it is constantly blinded by our passions yet we don't see it because we have become masters of our own infallibility.  Now he was referring to his spiritual life.  Are we doing as well as we think we are?  This ties back to our modern person discussion and our discussions about christian friends. Do we have mentors and friends that can cross check us?  Are we brave enough to give and receive honest, loving feedback? Remember, the Pharisees thought they were doing a great job. Jesus gave them feedback multiple times, most didn't take it well!  When we ask God for feedback what do we hear?  

My prayer for today; Lord, enlighten me as to my actions.  Keep me from self-delusions and pride of my accomplishments.  Give me a pure heart to follow you more closely.    Amen

Pax

 

Joe    

Day 19 The life of the soul

 I believe we are over halfway through Lent and I am not halfway through this book.  I really need to get hopping.  So Thomas has graduated Columbia and he has decided to pursue a graduate degree in Literature as he has decided he wants to be a college professor.  He picks 18th century English Literature and decides to focus on the poet William Blake. [ I had never heard of him, google says he is a poet, artist unappreciated during his life but now considered one of England's greatest poets.] Blake convinces him that the only way to really live life is to live in a world that is charged with the presence and reality of God.  So now he realizes that he should believe but confesses that it was more an intellectual realization than anything else.  He then continues with;

The life of the soul is not knowledge, it is love, since love is the act of the supreme faculty, the will, by which man is formally united to the final end of all his strivings--by which man becomes one with God.  pg 191

So knowledge of God is great but that is not enough.  We have to love God and love one another--that is life for the soul.  I am reminded of 1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of men or angles, but do not have love, I am only  a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  In other words we have to act.  Are we going to move the world closer to God today or not?  

My prayer for today; Lord, thank you for giving me knowledge of You, help me move my will to love You more dearly by acting out my love for You.  I don't really want to be a clanging cymbal.    Amen

Pax

 Joe

Day 18 We all need friends

 Day 18, we are rolling now!  So Merton is going to talk about how God is going to take him from this low and bring him to Himself.  Apparently he had 6 good friends that worked in the various journal clubs he was in and they took several classes together.  He states that salvation begins with ordinary things.  For him it began with books, ideas, poems and stories that this group would write and discus, he states:

Yet strangely enough, it was on this big factory of a campus that the Holy Ghost was waiting to show me the light, in His own light.  And one of the chief means He used, and through which he operated, was human friendship.

God has willed that we should all depend on one another for our salvation, and all strive together for our own mutual good and our own common salvation.  pg 177

So as I meditated on this once again it all made sense.  We are social creatures so why wouldn't God use us to help each other with our salvation?  Let me be clear on one point; we don't save anyone, only God does that but God can use us to help each other by listening, supporting, even babysitting.  Way back at the beginning of Lent we talked about our actions and how they either move the world closer to God or away from Him, this is a big way we can help each other.  It is a long hard road to live a Christian life in our society, it is a lot easier when we have friends to lighten the load!

My prayer today, Lord, thank you for friendship and the many friends I have supporting me on this blog.  Guide me to write what You want to say and help me see opportunities to help my neighbor and not pass them by.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe

Day 17 God's Grace

 Thank you all for continuing to read.  It makes me feel connected to a greater community. Merton is in his last year at Columbia.  Externally he continues to do well but inside he is hitting rock bottom.  Both his grandparents die within 14 months of each other.  He gets rejected by one particular girl and he fears he is getting an ulcer.  He states,

"Here I was, scarcely four years after I had left Oakham [ his high school] and walked out into the world that I thought I was going to ransack and rob of all its pleasures and satisfaction.  I had done what I intended, and now I found that it was I who was emptied and robbed and gutted.  What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself, In grasping things, I had lost everything." Pg 163-164 

He is downtown and buys a book he sees in the window, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Etienne Gilson.  He finds out the book is Catholic because it has a "Nihil Obstat" in the front and feels tricked. He almost throws it out but reads it and it gives him his first look at actual coherent theology.  The next four pages took me back to undergrad as he speaks about the most important terms he learned in the book.  I will spare you the philosophy lesson except for one term that I think is important, " sanctifying grace".  We have used this term a lot already in 16 days though we normally shorten it to "God's grace" or even "grace".  

What is "grace"?  It is God's own life, shared by us.  God's life is Love.  Deus caritas est.  By grace we are able to share in the infinitely self-less love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends.  pg 169       

So I meditated on this.  God shares His own life with us daily, wow!  If that doesn't make you feel special I don't know what will.  Do I let Him ?  Do I share my life with Him?  I don't know about you but I do, but only to a point.  I am afraid if I really, really let Him in He will turn my life upside down and that scares me.  

My prayer for today; God, let me say "Yes" to Your grace, let me share my life with you unconditionally as You do with me. 

Pax

 

Joe

Day 16 The Modern Person revisited

 Read another 10 pages today.    Merton is going through his college years at Columbia.  He is busy with the school magazine, yearbook, cross country and his fraternity.  There was nothing that really caught my eye though.  What caught my eye was a comment that Joani did yesterday about my post back on day 9 about the “modern man”.  Now several of you have told me that you have trouble commenting, and I had trouble too. Maybe I need to switch sites.   We will see.   

I would like to try to answer comments once a week.  It takes courage to comment and I would like to acknowledge that plus hopefully readers will find it helpful.  Back on day 9 we discussed Merton’s modern man and then I commented that I thought he was a bit harsh, you could be modern and still follow God.  It was challenging but we had ways to do so.   Joani responded stating that while she has struggled with the concept of God she decided to live the best life of always being a helper, administering to the elderly, children etc.   “Isn’t that what God wants? “is how she ends her comments. 

First Joani I don’t know anyone who hasn’t struggled with the concept of God!  If you havent struggled then you haven’t thought about Him/Her.  Perhaps you aren’t done thinking yet?  God is waiting there for us to seek Him.  Merton would tell you that you are responding to God’s graces instinctively because your heart and soul are open to them and Him.  Man and Woman want to know God and to accept His graces and bring the world closer to Him but we get clouded by sins such as greed and selfishness.  Your heart and soul have not been closed off so you are indeed living a good life.  So a shorter answer to your question is “yes that is what God wants”

My prayer today is Lord, help me continue to look for You and give me the courage to walk this modern world loving You more each day.  

Pax

Joe

Day 15 Our materialistic society

 Thanks for sticking with me.   Joani, thanks for your comment yesterday .  I couldn’t get in to reply, I apologize.   I think it is a great question.   So everyone doesn’t have to go back it was “why can one evil person run roughshod over a country?  Shouldn’t good people be able to overcome him? “ I think we are back to free will.  Putin used free will in a corrupt system to cause terrible harm but let’s face it he has help.  I do think good people banding together WILL eventually stop him.  I really do appreciate the comment.  If you think I should post less so we can discuss more let me know. I know others are having these thoughts. 

For today  Thomas has made the voyage from England to the US and he has been examining why he is unhappy.  He has decided capitalism is the reason so naturally he has now decided to become a communist.  He writes,

So now, when the time came for me to take spiritual stock of myself, it was natural that I should do so by projecting my whole spiritual condition into the sphere of economic history and the class struggle.  In other words, the conclusion I came to was that it was not so much I myself that was to blame for my unhappiness, but the society in which I lived. Pg 133 

How often, I thought, do I look for excuses and scapegoats rather than confronting the truth about myself?  It is so easy to blame others or circumstances rather than admit I was wrong or that there are areas in my life that need work.  Humility is hard!  

He then goes on to talk about the evils of capitalism and why he was attracted to communism.  He goes on to state that he readily saw the evils of capitalism but didn't see that communism really didn't have any answers to the problems of man's greed and selfishness.  But one section on capitalism caught my eye.  I would substitute materialism which Thomas actually does several sentences earlier:

We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.   pg 133

And this was published in 1948!  What would Thomas think of tic tok and instagram and Iphones?  We have gotten almost perfect in "exciting every nerve in the human body" 24/7.  Now I am not anti-technology.  I am blogging and you are reading this over the internet.  Remember, all things are created for good but man can choose to use them to either bring the world closer to God or to move the world away from God.  What if every songwriter, scriptwriter and advertiser thought: is my song, show or product going to bring people closer to God or push them away?   I don't mean to imply everything has to be overtly religious; entertainment and joy are good and are gifts from God.  But what morals do shows reveal today?  Sorry for the rant but our society scares me.  I think it makes it hard to live a Christian or any type of religious life. 

My prayer for today  Keep me on your path Lord and catch me when I fall.  Help me to live in the world and to see all it's glory without becoming chained to it.

 

Pax

 

Joe      

Day 14 How can God let war happen?

 Feel much better today.  Merton describes his year at Cambridge as one joy ride.  Sounds like he partied into the wee hours most nights and missed morning classes most of the time.  His guardian tries to talk some sense into him several times without success.  Amazingly he does manage to pass his classes.  His guardian is so disgusted he suggests he doesn't return to Cambridge and arranges for him to move back to New York with his grandparents.  War clouds are on the horizon in England [ 1934]  and Thomas briefly digresses to talk about war, sin, man's greed and lust for power.  Then he has a great paragraph that caught my eye:

People seem to think that it is in someway a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars.  On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity.  How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us?  Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?     pg 128

 

Wow, that is said way better than what I tried to say yesterday! It is amazing to me that this was written 80 years ago yet can easily apply to the Ukraine.   Clearly there is evil working through men ( or at least one man) and yet there is good working too with all the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and in the neighboring countries. We are seeing people respond to evil with good, hatred with love. 

My prayer for today; Lord, continue to pour out your grace on all those involved in the Ukrainian crisis. Please enlighten the world's leaders so they can put an end to this tragedy.  Finally Lord, show us ways in which we can help even if it is through simple prayer.    Amen

Pax

 

Joe    

Day 13 Migraine day

 Sorry everyone but had a migraine during the night.  Normally I am able to focus through the pain and pray but my mind was wandering.  I thought about Ukraine and how they were only supposed to hold out for 3 days and it has been about a month.  I did briefly imagine a thousand people praying to God saying, " Lord how could you let this happen!" and God looking at the world shaking his head saying "My children, how could you let this happen!"

My prayer for today, Lord, thank you for walking with me even when I fail.  Help me treat others half as generously as you treat me.

Pax

Joe

Day 12 What is liberty?

 Day 12 and my reading is picking up steam.  I am a little concerned that we aren't having any discussions on this blog though.  Maybe I should post less often so people could have the time to discuss some of these ideas?  

So Thomas has graduated High School and taken an entrance exam to the University, not just any university but Cambridge and he is accepted with a scholarship no less!  I am not clear why but since this is Christmas time he has 6 months before classes start.  He is now 18 and has time to kill so goes off to the south of France.  He ends up having a miserable time.  He states;

So there I was, with all the liberty that I had been promising myself for so long,  the world was mine.  How did I like it?  I was doing what I pleased, and instead of being filled with happiness and well-being, I was miserable.  The love of pleasure is destine by its very nature to defeat itself and end in frustration.  But I was one of the last men in the world who would have been convinced by the wisdom of a St John of the Cross in those strange days.  pg 106

So I meditated on this and it makes sense.  How many times growing up did I want just one material thing and I would be happy.  In high school all I wanted was to letter in baseball.  After college all I wanted was to be a doctor.  In medical school all I wanted was my wife to go out with me--wait, bad example, skip that one.  The point is after achieving all these things they themselves didn't bring the happiness I desired. [ Except being with my wife, that is perfect of course!] I am reminded of a quote of St Augustine, " My soul does not rest until it rests in thee."   I really think it is true.  Things won't make us content for long.  People, real friends can make us content but only God can make us truly happy.  It is the way we are wired.  I think many people are caught up in the fake mysticism of the world looking for the next high and they are destined to be disappointed.  I think the richer you are the harder it is to see this because you can keep buying and buying.

 

So what is true liberty?  Are we really free when we are caught up in the world chasing the next fad, the next promotion or the next 1,000 followers on tic toc?  Or are we free to become who we can become by submitting ourselves to God and His ways?

My prayer today is Lord, Help me joyfully submit to Your will more fully and not be afraid to become who You want me to be.   

Pax

 

Joe

   

 

Day 11 The prayers of others

 I read a lot today.  Thomas finishes high school, falls in love twice and continues to feel he knows it all and will do things his own way.  Not unlike many people's experiences in high school I expect.  He develops an abscessed tooth and becomes septic.  Remember this is before the days of antibiotics, so they drain it and hope for the best.  He becomes very ill and almost dies.  He describes the indifference with which he faces death.  

Religious people, those who have faith and love God and realize what life is and what death means, and know what it is to have an immortal soul, do not understand how it is with the ones who have no faith, and who have already thrown away their souls.  pg 98 

And I thought how very sad. 

Then he goes on to say that;   

What is more, there was nothing I could do for myself. There was absolutely no means , no natural means within reach, for getting out of that state.  Only God could help me.  Who prayed for me?  One day I shall know.  But in the economy of God's love, it is through the prayers of other men that these graces are given.  It was through the prayers of someone who loved God that I was, one day, to be delivered out of that hell where I was already confined without knowing it.  pg 99

Now do I think Merton would not have turned to God if someone hadn't prayed for him?  I don't think so.  We have talked about God's graces all around us.  But could prayers have softened Thomas' heart to make him more receptive to God? Sure, I believe that.  God has asked us to pray and prayer is powerful stuff.  I think of multiple times in my life when I had important events that turned out great and how many people I had praying for me.   Many people think Catholics pray to multiple Gods like Mary and the saints.  That isn't true.  We ask for Mary's and the saints' intercessions. We can ask them to pray for us to God. Since they are holy people and in heaven they can help guide us and pray for our needs; but they aren't God and can't grant anything by themselves.  Still being in heaven with a halo over your head can't hurt right? 

My prayer for today; Lord, thank you for the gift of faith, thank you for Mary and the saints and thank you for all the people that love me and pray for me.  And I pray for all those without the gift of faith that You will continue to rain down Your graces Lord so that like Thomas You will reach them in Your due time.  Amen

 

Pax

 

Joe           

My bride’s birthday

 Today was my wife’s birthday so we went to the beach house and had a fantastic day.  I thought a lot about God and marriage and the many blessings that I have and have had.  It is easy to be reflective at the beach. People often call upon God in distress but do we remember to invite him to celebrations? So no Merton today, it was a day of celebration and of giving thanks.  

My prayer today is thank you God for the many blessings you have given me.  

Pax

Joe

Day 9 The modern man ( or Woman)

So we begin week 2.  Thanks for reading.  Thomas is in English boarding school which he likes better.  His dad has gotten a brain tumor and lies in a London hospital undergoing numerous surgeries which won't help.  Thomas feels his spirit becoming more and more rebellious.  Shortly after the new year ( 1931 I think) when Thomas is 16 his father dies. He is obviously sad as he was close to his father.  He writes:

"It was in this year too, that the hard crust of my dry soul finally squeezed out all the last traces of religion that had ever been in it.  There was no room for any God in that empty temple full of dust and rubbish which I was now so jealously to guard against all intruders, in order to devote it to the worship of my own stupid will.

And so I became the complete twentieth-century man." pg 85 

I love the imagery Merton uses here; "hard dry crust of soul", "empty temple full of dust".  How many times have I been mad at God for something and told Him, "Enough! I will not follow you."  How empty is my soul right now because I continue to worship my own stupid will?  It is so easy to justify our actions, to give into the glitz and fake mysticism of the world.  And once we have done that we become, according to Merton, the definition of a modern man or woman. 

Now I would hope that I can be a modern man and not have a soul that is hard crust but I admit it is a hard road to walk and not go down the path of compromise.  But who is to say if I am doing a good job?  I doubt a man with an empty, dusty soul knows he has one.  Here is what I think, first, pray for God's guidance and grace.  If we continue to earnestly ask, we shall receive.  We might not like the answer but we will hear the answer.  Second, we can check in about our behavior with people who have moral compasses we trust; family, pastors and good friends.   I think with these two checks we can be modern people close to God. 

My prayer today; Lord, soften my soul and sweep the rubbish out so that I may serve You more faithfully. Thank you for providing me companions along the way to help guide me on the journey.  Amen        

Pax

 

Joe 

Day 8 Our individual pride

 We made it a whole week; happy Sunday!  Hopefully you all are finding this helpful.  

Thomas is now describing his time in english high school.  He seems to have had a knack for literature and not math.  He also is feeling increasing independence from his family and his teachers.   The lines that struck me today are:

But in Scotland I had begun to bare my teeth and fight back against the humiliation of giving in to other people, and now I was rapidly building up a hard core of resistance against everything that displeased me: whether it was the opinions or desires of others, or their commands, or their very persons.  pg 76 

 As I meditated on these words I thought about how often I have wanted to do things MY way.  I will follow God's commands that I agree with when they are convenient to ME. As humans we have so much pride that we consider it "humiliation" to say someone else is right or we are wrong.  God gives us so much grace but we have too much pride to humble ourselves and take His gifts freely given.  

 

My prayer for today is Lord, Give me the humility to do YOUR will not MY will.  Allow me to accept Your grace each day so that I might bring the world closer to you.    Amen

 

Pax

 

Joe

Day 7 God's Grace

Feeling better today; finished chapter two. 

Thomas' father has now decided to move to England allowing Thomas to finally escaped the French catholic school.  He is now 14 and starts in a proper English school.  The line that stuck with me today is:

It is a terrible thing to think of the grace that is wasted in this world, and of the people that are lost. p 66

First to make sure we are all talking about the same thing, "grace" is an undeserved  gift from God. As sinners we never deserve any gifts from God but we get them anyway.  The sun shines every single day, oxygen is created for me to breathe every single day without me having to worry about it.  Now the scientist in me can ( or actually could at one time!) explain that the sun is a ball of gas going through chain reactions that let off heat and the Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide cycle was a lucky stroke that happened after millions of trials and errors that allowed certain species to survive and grow on this planet.  However, the believer in me knows that God set this all up through His unbridled love for us.  Thus we get to see ( and scientifically understand bits of) His grace everyday.  

 

As I meditated on the sentence above I became joyous that we have a God that showers us with so many graces each day. And these graces are showered on us no matter how much we believe.  He is always there ready and willing to listen and help, all we have to do is let Him in.  I am embarrassed that I am afraid to trust in Him more.  If he stood on the water and asked me to walk to Him would I make it?  Or would I too like Peter, lose focus and start to sink crying out "save me Lord".

My prayer for today is; Lord, thank you for the many graces that You give me each day, help me respond more deeply to Your love.     Amen

Pax

 

Joe    

Day 6 Migraine day

 Today I had a migraine.  I am guessing due to the storm that is coming towards the east coast.  I also had patients scheduled at the free clinic.  Ironic that my post yesterday was about "The Holy Grind"!  I got through my clinic well enough but just couldn't get through Merton today.  I apologize.  

My prayer for today is: Lord, Help me through this day of pain and strengthen me to accomplish what needs to be done. Forgive me for what I will not do today and instill in me hope for tomorrow.

Amen

 

Pax

 

Joe 

Day 5 The Holy Grind

 Readership is rising; thank you!  It is giving me confidence to continue.  I only told  8 people about this and we have many more than 8 viewing so thanks!

Thomas is now in a Catholic boarding school which he hates because everyone there is mean.  For summer break he joins his father in a new french town of Murat.  His father is staying with a simple french family called the Privats.  Thomas states they are among the most remarkable people he ever met. He remembers their kindness, goodness, peacefulness and utter simplicity.  Thinking back on them he calls them saints.  

"And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within, and from the habitual union of their souls with God in deep faith and charity."  Pg 56

I suspect we all know people like the Privats.  People that are awesome and quietly get the job done with a smile. These people are often under appreciated by society and paid little if they are paid at all.  The nursing care partner who doesn't cut corners when cleaning up a demented patient, the janitor who takes pride in the way the floors are spotless in the cafeteria and the daughter who foregoes work to look after her aging parents.  When I was a hospital executive I told folks to "do simple better".  It was a way to improve care.  It does improve care but that is not the real reason we as Christians should be doing it.  We should be doing our tasks to the best of our ability because that is what God wants of us. If you remember back on Day 1 of our journey we talked about  moving the world either towards or away from God each day. Our common daily tasks are a huge way to do this if done with the right intent. This is what I call the Holy Grind.  

 My prayer for today is; God, strengthen me to do the tasks you set before me today to the best of my ability and to do them with deep faith and charity.

 

Pax

 

Joe   

Day 4 Turn back to Me

Day 4 and still going strong!  Thanks for visiting! 

Got through another 10 pages today.  Thomas is traveling in France with his dad looking for inspiration for painting for his father.  He gives a lists of towns then states:

"This land was long wild with heresy, and with the fake mysticism that tore men away from the Church and from the Sacraments, and sent them into hiding to fight their way to some strange suicidal nirvana."   pg 38

So yesterday, one page earlier in the book if you are paying real close attention, Merton is talking about how great the land and all the structures are.  How everything is, according to its nature, ordered to God.  Now all of a sudden the land was wild with heresy?  Dude, make up your mind! 

I think to understand this we have to talk briefly about intent.  While by its nature everything is ordered to God, man  can mess this up.  Let's take a knife for example.  A knife is a good thing.  It can cut food and carve wood into art which makes people happy. But man can use this good and useful object to ill intent to stab people.  This stabbing can kill and maim. Make sense?  

What strikes me in Thomas' statement is how much wonderful stuff we have been blessed with often turns to fake mysticism.  It is so easy to be tempted to use these things to move the world away from God which to me would be the definition of a "strange suicidal nirvana". [ not the band Nirvana though, I liked them!]  We have cell phones, internet, social media, 24/7 productive schedules, stuff that should make this world a much better place but I am not sure it is.  Loneliness is on the rise, as is suicide.  So what can we do?  WE make a difference where WE can.  Let's not give in to fake mysticism that our current culture is trying to sell us. The truth has been with us for thousands of years and will be with us till the end of time.  All we need to do is stop and listen, even if just for a moment.  

My prayer for today Lord; Help me hear Your voice through all the clutter of today.  

 

Pax

Joe     

Day 3 God in All Things

 Third day, people are still viewing so I will keep posting; thanks.  Today Merton lays a big one on us:

"The whole landscape, unified by the church and its heavenward spire, seemed to say: this is the meaning of all created things: we have been made for no other purpose than that men may use us in raising themselves to God, and in proclaiming the glory of God. We have been fashioned, in all our perfection, each according to his own nature, and all our natures ordered and harmonized together, that man's reason and his love might fit in this one last element, this God given key to the meaning of the whole."  Pg 37

 

The background here is Thomas' father has come home and taken him back to France.  They settle in a small French town with a church in the center of the town.  Thomas describes that visually the church dominates everything in the town, all roads lead to it.  When he is hiking in the hills and looks towards the town it is the church he sees. 

This statement really spoke to me.  I could probably spend a week on it.  One of St Loyola's tenets is that God is found in all things.  I think that Merton is beautifully summarizing the thought that all creation is there for man to use to praise God.  The Pope's encyclical on the environment, Laudato  Si speaks to this. Anything man creates or does should be to help proclaim the glory of God.  This obviously doesn't happen but that is what we should strive for.  What a great world this would be if everyone tried this for one day!  Baby steps my friends, baby steps. 

My prayer for today is; Lord, help me to remember that the earth is a gift to be cherished.  Give me wisdom and strength so that all I use and all I do will be done to give glory to You today.  Amen

 Pax

 

Joe  

The second day- transparency is God’s way

Thank you for all the support I received yesterday, it meant a lot.    Joani, thanks for the discussion.  

Yesterday I finished the first chapter.  He is still only nine!  The section I want to highlight is:

“The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin.  And he does so not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance , but by dreams and creatures of psychosis.  And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spines will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.”    Pg 26-27

Background here is young Thomas and his brother are living with his maternal grandparents in America, New York City to be exact. His grandfather isn’t religious but hates Jews and Catholics.  Thomas grew up thinking all Catholics were thieves.  Remember this is white middle class America in the mid 1920s. 

When I was young I believed in the devil with horns and a tail.  As I became an intellectual I stopped believing.  I knew there was the opposite of good as a concept of course but that was just man failing.  I believe in evil again, I have seen it here in America and in Africa. I don’t know if it is a “he” with horns and a tail but there is a force working against God’s plan for us.  This passage reminds me that the devil works in “obscurity and shadow”.  In my dealings with others I should be truthful and clear. 

The second point I take away is how little does it take for me to have a poor opinion of someone?  I easily believe negative things about other people particularly if it fits my preconceived notions.  I guess it doesn’t take much to “send chills down my spine” with my poor intellect!

My prayer for today is Lord, help me to be honest in my dealings with others, and own my actions.  Help me to give others the benefit of the doubt when I hear things and not be quick to judge others particularly based on race, economics or gender.

Pax

Joe

A Lenten journey

 Every Lent I try to read something spiritual to bring me closer to God.   This year I chose The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton.   I try to devote an hour to reading and meditating.  I say an hour because I never actually put in a full hour.  It takes me a good 5 minutes to get in the groove then about 10-15 minutes in I start to lose concentration.  Either real life pulls me away or my mind starts to wander.  If I shoot for an hour I may actually get 30 minutes in!  

Yesterday, after reading about 7 pages, I was meditating on one of the three main points I took away.  I then thought that one of my co-workers from work would really like to know what this point was and we could have a discussion.  In a flash I saw that I should start a blog about my reading of The Seven Story Mountain.  Many of my co workers used to love to talk about Zen with me before I retired. Well, here is your chance to know my "deep thoughts"!    

The point I was meditating on was "...since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were bound to be affected, some remotely, but some very directly and near at hand, by my own choices and decisions and desires, as my own life would also be formed and modified according to theirs.  I was entering into a moral universe in which I would be related to every other rational being, and in which whole masses of us, as thick as swarming bees, would drag one another along towards some common end of good or evil, peace or war." pg 12 The Seven Story Mountain

For background, Merton is talking about when he is "coming of age" in regards to his will.  He says he was neutral because he had not been trained yet.  Also note he wrote this right after WW II [ 1946 some folks say though not published until 1948]

Several things struck me about this quote.  First, it is coming from a cloistered monk yet he is saying we are all connected and "dragging each other towards a common end".  I think there is some irony there.  

Second, it reminds me that our actions, far from being isolated, effect others.  As Americans, particularly now, we like to talk about our rights and individual freedoms.  I forget that how I interact, the products I buy, even how I answer the telephone effects others. 

Third, we are all connected; we are social by nature.  This war in Ukraine really has me thinking about this. I think it is important to understand that we are connected and to look for opportunities to make a difference in areas that are in my control as the Spirit reveals them.  But I have to be looking and to have the courage to say "yes".

My prayer today-- Lord, help me remember that my smallest actions can either bring happiness or sorrow.  Give me the courage to see we are all connected and that today I can either move the world toward or away from You.

Amen

 

 

As this is my first post, and a lengthy one at that, I hope my friends will either laugh or say "good job". For readers that don't know me, yes I actually think this way.  Hopefully you too will either laugh or take something away positive from this post.  Either way, hopefully, I will have brought the world closer to God. Let's have a great Lent!

 PAX

 Joe