Death

 Given the comments I had from people last week I thought I would talk about death this week.  [ this will not be a morbid blog I promise.]  This topic does flow from endings and I talked about my own Dad's death last week.  

Let's face it, western society doesn't know what to do about death.  We value youth, energy and new ideas.  TV hawks products to make us look and feel young, tablets and diets to make us live longer.  No one talks about aging gracefully, learning from people who have "been there" and how to live better not longer.    So what does our friend Lao Tzu have to say?

This is a powerful quote that frankly doesn't need much from me.  

For Christians death is a portal to new life.  How can we not be happy for the person who died; particularly if they were suffering?  It is an ending so we mourn for us like I spoke about last week.  As a matter of fact there was an article in America magazine last month by Kerry Weber that laid out a perfect way to celebrate a funeral experience.   The wake is where you celebrate the life of the person. [ This is as far as society often gets.]  The Mass is where you celebrate the new life of the person.  The burial is where we grieve in the moment for our loss of the person here on earth.  I thought it was a great way to look at a funeral.  [ We substituted reception for wake for my Dad I guess without realizing it.] 

So to wrap up, death is sad, but really, it is sad for those of us left behind; as it is an ending.  But it is also a beginning in a number of ways as I spoke about last week.  Life is a gift and we need to cherish it but death is also part of the process and we need to understand that they are inexplicably connected on one thread.     
 

Endings

So lent is over and we are into the Easter season.  For the next 50 days we will pivot to "Wisdom Wednesdays".  We should have ample time during the week for comments and even discussion.  Check here every week for deep thoughts, who knows maybe they will even be wise once or twice!

So I went to a retirement party over the weekend and that got me thinking about things ending.  This particular couple is ready to go but it will still be sad for the co workers he is leaving behind. I thought of my departure from my civilian job.  Even though I had trained folks well for it everyone was still sad.  I thought of my Dad's death two years on now.  I was very happy for him but sad for me.    I thought about the disciples after Jesus died.  All their hopes for a better world shattered. These were all moments where a way of life was ending, and that is always somewhat sad. 

So many of you know I like to read Lao Tzu, the founder of Zen.  Thomas Merton actually introduced me to this great thinker.  So I wondered if Lao had any snappy quotes that would teach me about sad endings.

   

So let's take a look at this.  While leaving my job was sad for everyone, it allowed several others to step up and take on new responsibilities.  Folks learned they could do things that I always knew they could and it has given multiple people a chance to shine.  My Dad's death gave me a new appreciation for living in the moment and led me to start really planning on retiring. It has allowed me to get to know my Mom in a different way and allowed me to grow in my relationship with her. Finally, Jesus' death conquered death for all of us and made us sons and daughters of God.  Clearly these things aren't evident at the moment, but with time we come to understand.    

So while Lao was way before Christianity he knew that God had our back. So if you are faced with a moment where something is ending, take time to grieve;  things will be different.  But while we might not see it in the moment, if we trust God it really will work out. New Beginnings disguise themselves as painful endings.

 

Pax

 

Joe  

Day 43 Easter Sunday!

 Happy Easter or Passover everyone, we made it!  I posted everyday during lent once I started.  A couple were pretty weak but hopefully you have found several that have been helpful.  So what about Thomas Merton?  Well yesterday he gave us the roadmap to freedom.  His brother does get baptized and has first communion.  He then leaves the next day.  Merton gets several letters from him postmarked England.  Merton finishes his first year and professes vows.  During Holy Week of 1943 his brother is killed on a mission to Germany.  Merton feels he finally did something useful for his brother by getting him baptized and now prays for him constantly.  There is an epilogue which has two main points.  I will save these for later posts.  But the first paragraph of the epilogue is a great place to end our lenten journey:

Day unto day uttereth speech.  The clouds change. The seasons pass over our woods and fields in their slow and regular procession, and time is gone before you are aware of it.  pg 407

So ends the season of lent and the Easter season begins.  Did you have a good lent?  Will you have a great Easter?  The choice is ours to make anew every second, every minute and every day.  For we have a merciful God but our time on earth does end before we are aware and God will ask us, "Did you try to move the world closer to Me each day?"

My prayer today, Lord, help me move the world closer to you today.   Amen   

Pax

Joe  

 

PS  Thanks for reading.  I will try to continue this blog though not at this pace.  I will shoot for posting on "Wisdom Wednesdays".  We won't always be discussing Merton and it won't always be religious but it will always be spiritual.  We can try comments again as well as with a slower pace it should work better.

Thanks and Happy Easter and Have a Great Passover! 

Day 42 A roadmap to freedom

I hope you have a very Holy Saturday!  Thomas continues his novitiate year.  His brother has joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and trained to be a bomber pilot.  He visits Thomas for a week before he goes off to war.  Thomas asks him if he wants to be baptized and he says yes.  So Thomas goes about spinning him up on Catholicism in one week in the hopes that the Church will baptism him.  He states that his brother doesn't want a lot of abstract ideas, just the plain truths so Thomas teaches him all he knows in 4 days and ends up more exhausted than if he had worked in the fields.  They talk about their lives growing up and Thomas writes:

Was there any possibility of happiness without faith?  Without some principle that transcended everything we had ever known?    pg 396

And then Thomas breaks down how it all works.  He writes:

I spoke about faith.  By the gift of faith, you touch God, you enter into contact with His very substance and reality, in darkness: because nothing accessible, nothing comprehensible to our sense and reason can grasp His essence as it is in itself.  But faith transcends all these limitations, and does so without labor: for it is God Who reveals Himself to us, and all that is required of us is the humility to accept His revelation, accept it on the conditions under which it comes to us: from the lips of men.

When that contact is established, God gives us sanctifying grace: His own life, the power to love Him, the power to overcome all weaknesses and limitations of our blind souls and to serve Him and control our crazy and rebellious flesh.

"Once you have grace", I said to him, "you are free, Without it, you cannot help doing the things you know you should not do, and that you know you don't really want to do.  But once you have grace, you are free.   pg 397

As I meditated on this it all is very Zen. We can't really know God due to our human limitations that is why it must take faith.    And we come to learn about God from each other.  We talked about how we can learn God's will by talking to others.  The second paragraph then follows nicely.  Once we have contact with God and believe in Him we are ready to accept at least many of the graces that He  showers down on us. These graces give us the strength and courage to due God's will, not our own.  And then the third paragraph tells us that once we are doing God's will we are truly free. We are free from the piddly things that tie us down in this world and are free to become what God wants us to be.  Quite a paradox isn't it?  I liken this to a roadmap to freedom.  

My prayer today Lord, thank you for the gift of faith, thank you for your sanctifying grace.  Help me continue to grow with your graces and work on my weakness and limitations.  Help me to move the world closer to you each day until I am truly free.  Amen

Pax

Joe 

Day 41 Good Friday

 Fitting for Good Friday I had another migraine.  I also had patients scheduled at the free clinic.  Talk about a holy grind!  I pushed through all my patients but felt terrible the rest of the day.  No Merton, no meditation.  The dog is still getting better.  I apologize yet again.

My prayer today, Lord thank you for giving me the strength to do what I had to do today.  I knew you would.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe

Day 40 True Freedom

 Day 40!  You think we would be done with Lent but the Church doesn't count the Sundays.  I wonder if Jesus took Sunday's off when He was in the desert?  

I digress, and another digression, it appears my dog will be okay!  Apparently he has an infection of the intestine and not an abdomen riddled with tumor; God be praised!  Thank you Dad and St Francis for your prayers.  

 [ Warning, the above picture is old, both of us are a lot greyer now, I am on the left.]

Back to Thomas since I have electricity!   He talks about his time as a novice at the abbey.  Nothing too spell binding here except that when he arrives at the abbey the Monk who greets him asks, "This time have you come to stay?" He replies, "Yes, Brother if you'll pray for me."  And the monk replies,

"That's what I have been doing, praying for you." 

I would like to go back to something Thomas writes about how he felt on the way to the abbey.  When he wasn't sure if he would be accepted, if he would end up in the army or what exactly would happen.  He writes:

I was free. I had recovered my liberty. I belonged to God, not to myself: and to belong to Him is to be free, free of all the anxieties and worries and sorrows that belong to this earth, and the love of the things that are in it. What was the difference between one place and another, one habit and another, if your life belonged to God, and if you placed yourself completely in His hands?  The only thing that mattered was the fact of the sacrifice, the essential dedication of one's self, one's will.  The rest was only accidental.  pg 370

 I suspect I could spend all of lent on this paragraph.  This is akin to Loyola's surrendering of the will to God.  But it isn't that simple is it?  We can't just sit around giving ourselves to God [ even if we could]  because we have to love one another.  Dealing with "one another" is often stressful.  Remember the "holy grind" from the beginning of lent?  

To keep this post from being 25 pages we will concentrate on one aspect of the human experience in light of the above paragraph.  My dog is very ill.  Ideally I am not concerned because God has it under control.  " Not a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing," and all that... Loyola would tell me to pray for whatever will bring greater glory to God.  That is great but I have a relationship with my dog which is also a good thing.   And God has asked us to pray for what we want.  So I think I did okay, I prayed for my desired outcome and enlisted St Francis and my Dad but realized that God had it under control and if Turner died that it was okay.  I will grade myself out as a B.

My prayer for today, Lord, thank you for hearing my prayer for my dog.  Help me to better realize that "Your ways" are not the world's ways and "Your thoughts" are not the world's thoughts.  Help me trust in you even more fully.  And again, Thanks.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe       

Day 39 Not a great day

 Sorry to be making excuses but my electrical power was out most of the day so we had to deal with that.  On top of that my dog is sick and I fear he is dying.  My friend Fran recently lost her dog and I think we are next. I will spare you my medical analysis but he has required frequent trips out today.  Now I realize that my house wasn't bombed, no person died and no one was unfairly incarcerated.  I have much to be thankful for and I am not complaining.  I am just letting everyone know why I didn't get my reading done today!  

My prayer for today Lord, thank you for the gift of electricity which I missed most of today. Also, I realize there are way more important things for you than my 14 year old dog, but if you could grant him a remarkable recovery I would be really grateful. St Francis and my Dad, you both loved animals and you think Turner is pretty cool, if you could ask God to grant him a recovery I would appreciate it.  Amen

Pax

Joe  

Day 38 Knowing God's Will

 So a lot has been happening with Thomas.  After everyone and their brother keeps asking him if he wants to be a priest he visits his friend and former teacher Mark in New York on the way down to Harlem. Over lunch Mark mentions that he talked to some of his friends "in the know" about Thomas' rejection from the Franciscans. They said that if Thomas took "no" so easily that he probably is right, he doesn't have a calling to be a priest.  Well this news turns Thomas' world upside down!  Up until now he had seen this rejection as "God's will".  Now he was given a different way to view it, as a challenge to get through to accomplish God's will.  This settles it for Thomas.  He goes back up to school and talks to one of the Franciscans and lays out his whole life.  Fr Philotheus says, "Of course you can be a priest." He is filled with an inner peace and decides to go enter the Trappist monastery. He writes if he can spend Christmas with them but doesn't say he is planning to stay in case they ask alot of questions.  They agree.  As if this isn't enough drama he gets another notice from the draft board saying they want him to come in for another medical exam.  He writes the draft board and states he thinks he is going to be a Trappist monk if they will have him.  The draft board gives him one month reprieve. Thomas gives almost all his possessions to the Baroness in Harlem and boards a train for Kentucky.  With every mile he is filled more and more with peace.  

Whew, there is a lot to unpack here. It is amazing that Thomas spends about two years feeling that by not becoming a priest he is doing God's Will.  There are three points I take away from this.  First, he was given bad advice from a priest.  Now I am a big fan of priests, I almost became one, but they are not infallible and some are better than others. [ We don't even have to go to the Sex abuse scandal here in America.]  So if you were given advice that was hurtful from a priest on behalf of the Catholic Church or any church I would like to apologize.  Talk to another priest or go to my second point.  My second point is that Thomas' eyes are open to how best to interpret events by talking to a friend of his.  Wow, I bet Mark didn't know what great force for God he would be unleashing with his words!  This brings me back to what we discussed on  Day 36 about God reveals Himself when we talk with others.  My third point is that doing God's will brings peace the world can not give.  If you are constantly troubled by something there is a message there.

My prayer today Lord is Help me to know Your Will.  I realize text or a call would not take faith so keep pounding me with the grace of friends, family and my prayers.  Like Thomas I should eventually catch on.

Amen

Pax

Joe  

  

Day 37 Mother's Day

 My mom and I crossed swords over the weekend and it came to a head today.  Details aren't important.  My mom and I are very similar and I count my blessings that she is my mom but sometimes... : )   So less than half a week after my great clean slate from reconciliation I failed to honor my mother as well as I could. We worked through it but the day was too exhausting to do any meditating on the Merton I had managed to read.   I did watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ.  Maybe after lent I will compare it with Jesus Christ Super Star.  

My prayer today Lord, Thank you for parents and all those who teach us in Your ways.  Give me greater patience and understanding now that they need support from us.  Amen

Pax

Joe

Day 36 Contact with God as a living reality

 Day 36 Palm Sunday!  1 week to go.  I have actually had to slow down my reading as I only have about 60 pages to go.  So Thomas continues to yearn to be a monk and everyone around him recognizes this.  He is corresponding with Baroness de Hueck, she asks him, the president of the university asks him, but he always gives the same response, No I don't have the calling.  He is afraid that if they know of his past he will be rejected again.  Boy that first priest really messed him up.  God is clearly calling out to Thomas.  The Baroness comes back to school to talk with the friars and they are all excited.  Thomas realizes that she is ministering to them.  He tries to figure out why they are drawn to this lay woman for spiritual advice and nourishment.  He writes:

And I could see that they were drawn to her by the tremendous spiritual vitality of the grace that was in her, a vitality which brought with it a genuine and lasting inspiration, because it put their souls in contact with God as a living reality.  And that reality, that contact, is something which we all need: and one of the ways in which it has been decreed that we should arrive at it, is by hearing one another talk about God.  pg 358

Two points struck me about this paragraph.  First, hopefully we all have met people that just ooze God's vitality.  That certainly makes God real.  I think this gives me and all of us something to shoot for.  Second, by talking about God we can come into contact with Him. It makes sense.  "For where two or more are gathered in my name there I am." But how often do we talk about God?  In the military it was strictly monitored and mostly forbidden. In my civilian life a couple of Christians found each other and we would gain strength from each other while working in today's money/value driven society.  I probably need to talk about God to my friends more often.  I don't mean preaching, just talking, sharing ideas; like this blog. How about you?  

My prayer today; Lord, thank you for today's saints living among us for their inspiration.  Help me be an inspiration to others.  Help me live and talk so others may come in contact with You as a living reality.  Amen

 Pax

Joe   

 

Day 35 saints

 So Thomas is teaching another year at St Bonaventures.  He continues to pray.  He discovers another saint  through his reading, St Therese of Lisieux.  He writes:

It is a wonderful experience to,discover a new saint. For God is greatly magnified and marvelous in each one of His saints: differently in each individual one.  There are no two saints alike: but all of them are like God, like Him in a different and special way.  Pg 353

Back on day 11 I explained that Catholics don’t worship saints but we sometimes ask them to pray for us to God.  After all they are sitting in heaven already so it can’t hurt.  They can also teach us various aspects of how to lead a holy life.  Their lives tend to be very interesting and relatable, at least to me.  They are people who struggled with doubts.  Some were great thinkers like St Thomas Aquinas.  I learned to think methodically through him.  St Ignatious Loyola was a soldier so he founded a rapid response force for God.  He also was a deep thinker and mystic.  St Frances Xavier was one of his first commandos who was a fearless missionary in Asia.  St Elizabeth Ann Seton and Dorothy  Day were woke before people knew what that was. St Mother Teresa had decades where she didn’t feel close to God but look at all she accomplished. 

My prayer today Lord thank you for giving me shining examples of how to live a good holy life.  All the saints mentioned above and my dear Thomas Merton, please ask God to increase my faith and strengthen me to do God’s will.   Amen

Pax

Joe

Day 34 Reconciliation

 Day 34  Busy day.  I saw patients in the free clinic all day and they added on an urgent patient and then I went to a reconciliation service at church.  Then I went to the sacrament of reconciliation. [ Confession to you old time Catholics]  No time to read Merton but thought I was living my faith so I would be excused. 

I haven't been to reconciliation in years as the Church says you only have to go if you have committed a mortal sin.  [ Venial sins are forgiven at the beginning of Mass.]  But I was filled with the Spirit and went.  The priest was funny, he said, "Don't go through a laundry list, just tell me what sins are really bothering you that you want to bring to God."  That was perfect because I couldn't remember all my sins anyway.  I did and was absolved and I have to say even though I had nothing very heavy on my soul I really felt joy; like I was worth forgiving.  I walked out feeling like the world was new and I had a clean slate! I vowed to do better.  I wonder how long before I screw up?  

My prayer today, Lord Thank you for dying for my sins.  Thank you for your infinite love and mercy.  Give me the strength to do Your will better and bring the world closer to You each day.  Amen

Pax

Joe  

Day 33 The lure of our society

 So Thomas continues his teaching at St Bonaventures.  He continues to wrestle with his desire to enter the Trappist monastery.  He hear Barroness de Hueck speak about the appalling conditions in Harlem and he goes and works there for a week.  [ This is back in 1941] He sees the residents there trapped in squalor yet trying to get ahead anyway they know how.  He writes:  Apologize for the use of the word "Negro" this was written in 1946.

The most terrible thing about it all is that there is not a Negro in the whole place who does not realize, somewhere in the depths of his nature that the culture of the white men is not worth the dirt in Harlem's gutters.  They sense that the whole thing is rotten, that it is a fake, that it is spurious, empty, a shadow of nothingness.  And yet they they are condemned to reach out for it, and to seem to desire it, and to pretend they like it, as if the whole thing were some kind of bitter cosmic conspiracy:...   pg 346

 As I meditated on this I thought about our culture in the US.  It doesn't value the poor, handicapped or the elderly.  It values those that add "value" to the bottom line.  As much as I like to think racism doesn't exist in the US, it does.  I have friends who have experienced it first hand.  

And yet the lure of our society is strong.  I went on several "winning hearts and minds" missions overseas with the military and what did the people want to talk to me about America besides their health?  Freedom, Justice and God you say?  Nope, movies, music, surfing and computer games. Our society looks nice and shiny on the outside but scratch the surface and there are a lot of problems that need fixing.

My prayer today Lord, I am but one small piece of our country, our society. Please help the US return to You, help our society return to You.  Help me be part of the solutions to these problems by listening to Your voice, not societie's and standing up for what is right. Amen

Pax

Joe

Day 32 How do you define success?

 Day 32, we are making it!  So Thomas thoroughly enjoys his week at the Trappist monastery. He would love to join but after being told "no" by the Franciscans he is embarrassed to bring it up so doesn't.  He feels he needs to accept that he doesn't having a calling to be a priest.  He marvels at these men, who the world would not see as successful, doing great things for God.  He meets a novice monk who quit being an airline pilot to join so he could praise God. He writes:

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men!   pg 330

 How true this has been in my own life. How often I am worried about what others think, or am I looking for praise from others?  Shouldn't I be more worried about what God thinks?   Think back about our discussion on Day 5 The Holy Grind.  One of the things that makes these people so special is they are doing the virtuous thing despite not getting the applause of other men.  They perform their tasks joyfully without expectation of worldly notice but our Father in heaven notices; they are successful in bringing the world closer to God each day.  So how do you define success?   

My prayer today, Lord help me remember that I was born to love you and my success is measured by that standard, not by any standard the world knows.  Help me measure up today a little better than yesterday.

Amen    

Pax

Joe 

Day 31 Learn from this Cross

 So Thomas decides to go on a week long retreat for Easter.  He decides to go to a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.  One the first day he is blown away by the simplicity of the monks, and the simple, powerful Mass they say.  He writes;

See Who God is! Realize what this Mass is! See Christ here, on the Cross! See His wounds, see His torn hands, see how the King of Glory is crowned with thorns! Do you know what Love is? Here is Love, Here on this Cross, here is Love, suffering these nails, these thorns, that scourge loaded with lead, smashed to pieces, bleeding to death because of your sins and bleeding to death because of people that will never know Him, and never think of Him and will never remember His Sacrifice.  Learn from Him how to love God and how to love men! Learn of this Cross, this Love, how to give your life away to Him.  pg 323

Wow.  What a great meditation for Good Friday.  Up until now Thomas hasn't focused on personal sin/suffering except in an abstract way.  Now all of a sudden Jesus is smashed to pieces, bleeding to death because of MY sins?  Let's go back to the abstract please, and while we are at it please delete my whiny post about my migraine.  

I often shy away from the cross; from any suffering I  have to do or I have caused.  But here is a reminder that I (and we as society) have to take responsibility for our actions.  We introduced sin into God's perfect world.  I am a sinner and I need to be saved.  God is more than willing to save me but I can't forget that I need saving.  If God did this for me and I am to follow Him, what should I be willing to do to Love?  Even if I don't want to I need to remember the cross and learn from it.

My prayer today, Lord, Thank you for taking the sins of the world on for me.  Thank you for saving me.  Strengthen me to follow you when the going gets a little tough and teach me how to more fully do You will.  Amen 

Pax

Joe

Day 30 Peace that the world can not give

 It is now 1941and Thomas continues to pray for God's grace.  He gets drafted.  He decides as far as he can tell this is a just war to fight but many of the means to fight it are unjust, such as bombing of civilians.  He registers as a non-combatant objector so he will be in a non combat role which he is pleased with.  He is at peace with his decision and is ready to go but  fails the physical.   The section I wanted to bring up today is when he has been drafted and is getting ready to go.  He takes a look at the school in the sunlight and thinks it is beautiful.  Then he states:

My eyes opened and took all this in.  And for the first time in my life I realized that I no longer cared whether I preserved my place in all this or lost it: whether I stayed here or went to the army.  All that no longer mattered.  It was in the hands of One Who loved me far better than I could ever love myself: and my hear was filled with peace.

It was a peace that did not depend on houses, or jobs, or places, or times, or external conditions.  It was a peace that time and material created situations could never give.  It was peace that the world could not give.   pg 314

Now I will be the first to admit I have thought, "Gee wouldn't it be great to have a sports car." or "Wouldn't it be nice to have a place on the beach." We have talked about using worldly goods to praise God but Merton here is reminding us that all these temporal things are not the goal; they are a means to the goal.  Praising God and doing His will is the key, don't get tied up in material things.  We will be rewarded with God's peace which is greater than anything on this earth.

My prayer today, Lord help me keep my eye on You and not get distracted or bogged down by the things of this world.  Focus me on using the goods of this world to bring people a little closer to You today.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe

Day 29 The long climb up the mountain

 I am feeling much better today, sorry about the whiny post yesterday.  I feel much better.   

So Thomas is rejected by the Franciscans and his dreams about being a priest are shattered.  He doesn't know why God is doing this but decides if he can't be a Friar he can still live like one as best he can.  He goes up state to a Franciscan college, St Bonaventure, and gets a job teaching English.  He states,

It was a difficult and uncertain business, and I was starting again to make a long and arduous climb alone, and from what seemed to be a great depth. 

If I had ever thought I had become immune from passion, and that I did not have to fight for freedom, there was no chance of that illusion any more. It seemed that every step I took carried me painfully forward under a burden of desires that almost crushed me with the monotony of their threat, the intimate, searching familiarity of their ever-present disgust.   pg 301

Several things struck me about this passage.  First, you can see how despondent he is and why the book is call The Seven Storey Mountain. How many times have I had a perfect plan only to see it blow up in my face?  How could this possibly be part of God's plan?  There must be some mistake.  Well, Thomas Merton, the one who is our spiritual guide this Lent and is telling us to trust God's will had this happen to him.  He has been there and is still telling us this. 

The second thing that struck me was the idea of "fighting for freedom from sin."  I often think of following God's rules as limiting freedom but here Thomas is giving us insight that while we are in sin we think ourselves as free but we are actually slaves to our passions.  Am I really free if I am addicted to my cell phone or have to have seen the latest movie?  Following God is what we are called to do to fulfill our nature.

My prayer today Lord, help me to accept and do your Will even when it makes no sense to me. Give me faith to trust in You no matter how bad the situation may be.  Also give me courage to follow you even when it isn't trendy.  Amen

Pax

Joe

Day 28 Migraine day again!

 Sorry folks.  I percolated along yesterday but it hit me again today pretty bad.  I feel bad for my wife.  I do little as it is but I am doing even less.  Not sure what the lesson is here for me.  Am able to pray but can't meditate, it hurts too much.  

Did read about 8 pages.  Thomas was going to join the Franciscans. 2 weeks before he is to leave he feels he is unworthy because of his past life so goes to see the priests.  He is hoping they will say "don't worry about it" but they agree with him!  Fascinating.  Would love to know the story behind that one.  Here one of our greatest modern spiritual thinkers is rejected from the seminary.  More to come I am sure.

My prayer today, Lord my head hurts and I don't feel well.  I am trying to see the good here going on day three but can't.  Give me serenity to accept Your will, give me courage and charity to accomplish the tasks of the day and forgive me for not meditating on Your Glory today.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe   

Day 27 Merton has a close encounter with God

 I feel better today but not 100%.  That happens sometimes with my migraines.  They are slow to clear.   I picked a passage that was fascinating to me.  Merton has a close encounter with God.  Non believers will say "he worked himself up and imagined the whole thing"; certainly possible.  I often think of another quote from a different saint of mine, St Thomas Aquinas, "For those with faith no explanation is necessary. For those without faith no explanation is possible."   I hesitated to use it because it concerns the Eucharist and I don't want to turn off my non catholic friends or have them feel that I am trying to convert them.  I am not.  Thomas Merton ended up very ecumenical, so much so that he study Zen and felt that the whole human race was interconnected regardless of whether they even had any faith or not.   That said, catholics do believe that the Eucharist is actually the body of Christ and this is a great reminder of that.  

Thomas is in Cuba and is attending a children's Mass.  As the priest raises the host for the consecration and the children start to say "I believe" Thomas senses rather than sees a light so bright and so intimate that it neutralized every lesser experience he had ever had. 

When I call it a light that is a metaphor which I am using, long after the fact.  But at the moment, another overwhelming thing about this awareness was that it disarmed all images, all metaphors, and cut through the whole skein of species and phantasms with which we naturally do our thinking.  It ignored all sense experience in order to strike directly at the heart of truth, as if a sudden and immediate contact had been established between my intellect and the Truth Who was now physically really and substantially before me on the altar.     pg 285

Thomas goes on to say he thought:

Heaven is right here in front of me: Heaven, Heaven!

It lasted only a moment: but it left a breathless joy and a clean peace and happiness that stayed for hours and it was something I have never forgotten. 

However, lest you think that now Thomas is a miracle worker he goes on to say that he could never reconstruct this experience and he wouldn't even know how to start.  It was a gift beyond and above myself.

However, let no one think that just because of this light that came to me one day, at Mass, in the church of St Francis at Havana, I was far advanced in prayer.  No, my prayer continued to be largely vocal.   

Now I don't know about you but I have never had this experience at Mass before.  I will often feel joy or calm but never a heavenly light.  Sometimes I can't even concentrate on the Mass if I have a headache or am agitated but this is getting rarer as I am learning to disconnect from the world and focus on what matters.  I always remember that Jesus Himself is on the altar, and that always perks me up. 

I thought it was neat how God came down and touched Thomas in such a profound way.  I have had a close encounter with God several times in my life when I knew God was there.  Granted it wasn't as dramatic but I was convinced to my core that God was real and was reaching out to me.  Sometimes it is easy to forget when times are hard and things go badly but we are asked to be faithful.  

My prayer today, Lord Thank you for the extra ordinary ways you reach out to us.  Help us to be open to these experiences and to remember your goodness when times get tough.  Amen

Pax

 

Joe