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Triumph of the Cross

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“The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
    I have not been rebellious,
    I have not turned away.
 I offered my back to those who beat me,
    my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
    from mocking and spitting.
 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
    I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
    and I know I will not be put to shame.”

(Isaiah 50:5-7)

Anyone can give intellectual assent to Christ’s existence, his nature and purpose. Anyone can quote Scripture. Satan did both of those things. When the devil tempted Jesus in the desert he quoted Scripture just fine. The demons exorcised by Jesus proclaimed his truth screaming, “You are the Christ the Som of God!” as they left the scene at his command.. So it isn’t enough to know the Bible or to acknowledge Jesus in order to belong to him. Following him, identifying with him, seeking unity with him, living as he did, loving him in all of his mystery, that is what being Christian is.

His triumph was all of the things that most confound the forces of hell: sacrifice, obedience, love, surrender, acceptance, humility, non-violence, abandonment to God, suffering and losing a fight in front of the whole world, and on purpose.

Even we don’t understand it unless we console ourselves that he was resurrected on the third day, which he was. But in that moment he died with trust and abandonment. He gave himself over and faced his enemies in silence.

This throws Satan, and sadly it throws us too.

Even we Christians hold a deep attachment to violence and revenge. We cannot let go of the exhilarating high of vainglorious triumph.

And yet the Beautiful One admonished us to take up our crosses and follow him.

I don’t think that is simply putting up with the hardships of life hoping for reward though I know that is part of it. I think we need to respond to the violent world as he did.

Turning the other cheek to me means, “I will not be turned back from love.” That kind of power can only come from God and we have to want it.

We have to renounce ourselves and follow Jesus. That’s how we find life and even find ourselves.

I haven’t gotten there yet. I have been there sometimes but it is not yet my home, my way of being. Not yet. I suppose that is how it is for most of us.

I still want to win. I want to win, I tell myself, for others; for the poor, for those on the margins, for immigrants. However, like anyone, my motivations are mixed. There is still a selfishness and pride in it. We all want to force things, to feel powerful. It is the effect of the fall of humanity in us.

The real battle we have is against ourselves, as St. Teresa of Avila says. And this is hard, she points out, “because we love ourselves very much.”

God gave us an innate sense of justice and right. There is nothing wrong with this. We go wrong when we stray from the Gospel. A line in the Oscar Romero movie, Romero got to me. St. Oscar said to a fellow priest and advocate for justice, who tried to talk him into joining the rebels with him on behalf of the suffering people of El Salvador, “If you do this you will lose God just as they [those he would take up arms against] have.” Whether these were St. Romero’s exact words or not it is an incredibly powerful statement. It rings utterly true. If we persist in our attachment to violence we will lose God. Nothing, absolutely nothing is worth that. And we will “lie down in torment.” (Isaiah 50:11)

I have read that some people are starting to complain to their pastors when they preach on the Beatitudes, that the preaching was too left leaning. When confronted with the fact that these are the words of Jesus Christ, they retort that this is outdated, doesn’t work, is “weak.” Look at us. We haven’t changed. The Cross, the Gospel, is still a scandal, still makes no sense.

However, When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

There is really no way around that.

Even those of us who know and accept the teachings of Jesus have parts of ourselves still attached to violence and our own ideas of justice. We still hope Jesus will clear the world of bad people on his return.. Not us though because we are nice people, right?

St. John of the Cross said that even if the only thing keeping a little bird tied to a tree branch is the thinnest of threads, the bird is still tethered, still not free.

We have to cut the thread.

On this Triumph of the Cross in 2023, in this era of mass shootings, unkindness and cruelty, and the promotion of a lack of compassion as a good thing by a significant portion of society, even by a good number of our fellow Christians, lets renounce violence in the Name of Christ, embracing instead the way of Jesus.

We can’t belong to the Christ of Revelation unless we belong to the Jesus of the Gospels with all that he showed us.

Thank God he is with us to help us with his endless grace.

He who has begun the work in us will complete it. (Philippians 1:6)

We have only to decide, every day, and trust that he will triumph in us.

“I have promised it and I will do it, says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:14b)

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A ridiculous story

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I forgot something in my post about what I did this summer. It’s just a ridiculous story. My life seems to be dotted with crazy stories involving animals. Here is another one.

My eldest daughter lives out in the country. She had a neighbor she was going to get me some chickens from. I like to raise them from chicks (it’s more fun) but I was open to it. I wouldn’t have to wait until spring this way. I requested hens only, all different colors so I could tell them apart and get to know them, and I asked for only four of them.

I wasn’t ready yet though. My daughter helped us move and at the end of the day offered to go pick up those chickens. I said I hadn’t had the chance to get a coop ready for them or anything. She said they had told her it’s today or never.

I don’t think sometimes so I said OK I would figure it out. I worked on it but there is just no rushing something like that. When she pulled up in her truck I was still excited to meet them though. Maire said, “Well these look like a different kind of chicken. And there are six of them. I was’t sure what to do so I went ahead and took them.”

They sure were loud. I looked in at them. They looked like turkeys and seemed almost as big. They looked at me and started screaming at me. I said, “These aren’t chickens.”

Maire said, “What do you want me to do? I can take them but the coyotes will get them for sure.” “I guess for the moment we can put them in the garage.” So we dragged the large dog crate they were banging around in, those crazy things, into the garage.

After she left I decided to try hanging out with them for a while and see what they were all about. I was trying not to be disappointed. Chickens are funny and endearing. These things were a little scary. I noticed one of them seemed slower and more hapless than the others. She kept getting separated from them and freaking out. The others had to call to her and find her. I started to worry because by my reckoning it was probably about 120 degrees in the garage. I couldn’t leave them in there. I thought of a truckload of chickens that broke down years ago and how all the chickens got too hot and died. Hundreds of them. I couldn’t risk that. I didn’t have a coop for them but my yard was fenced. So I decided to let them out where at least they wouldn’t die of heat.

To let them into the back yard they had to come through a room that probably used to be a back porch. We call it the sun room. The birds shot into the sun room screaming their heads off. I opened the back door and most of them ran out to the yard. That slow one got stuck in the shower somehow and was hitting the walls and screaming like a banshee flapping her wings. My dog was barking and the cats went streaking from the scene. I finally managed to catch her and get her to her friends outside.

I went out with them to see what happened. My dog was going berserk at the back door. They poked around for a minute, checking out the situation and then they all flew away.

I don’t know why I was shocked. Maybe because chickens can fly but not really. I rarely have had a chicken go over the fence. Trying to roost in the trees on a low branch, yes but just… leaving?

So I was shocked. How disloyal of them!

Admittedly we didn’t really know each other.

Well what now? Should I try to catch them? That did not seem possible. And where would I put them? I didn’t have a place for them anyway.

Then I thought, “Did any of the neighbors see this?” I didn’t think so. I hoped not. They would surely not be any too happy to have me as a new neighbor if they did.

I was worried about the not-chickens. One of ,my employers has a background in poultry science. So I asked him if they would be alright. He said they were guinea hens and ill suited for “urban life.” He said they were very loud and obnoxious. I could agree with that. He said even if I caught them they would just leave again unless I caged them which sounded like a sad life. Apparently they would be fine. We even live near a creek.

I found out they will eat squirrels and other rodents or any small animals. My boss said that if I had chickens they would have attacked them and eaten them. They sounded like real charmers.

I actually was impressed with their loyalty to each other, though, and their care for the slower membr of their group. Also they mate for life which is cool.

However none of that mattered because the situation with those things was completely out of my hands.

We saw them from time to time over the next several days walking along the road or in a neighbor’s yard. Something about this cracked us up.

Just when we thought they had moved on we would hear them in the trees next door screeching. Taking the trash out one night it sounded like one of them got separated from the others and was calling out. The others answered back from across the street, like “Is that you Mabel?”

This happened again another time and the whole gang ran single file down the alleyway looking ridiculous and sounding insane, to reunite with their friend.

I had to laugh as they went by like a gaggle of old ladies on the attack. But it is cool how they take care of each other.

My youngest daughter saw them all the way over at St. Joseph’s walking along a busy road seemingly arguing with one another.

In fact I saw them today already walking through our front yard. They’re still hanging around the area. Screaming.

Sometimes people drive by those goonie birds, laughing when they see them. I guess it’s a “what the heck!?” kind of laugh.

I hope they haven’t killed too many squirrels or carried off anybody’s chihuahua.

Yes I confess I have released a terrorist avian gang into my new neighborhood.

Sorry.

If you want to hear what they sound like I found a video on YouTube.

2

What I did this Summer

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Brown and yellow leaves flutter to the ground from the trees outside my window; not because of the advent of autumn but from heat stress. This is common in Texas this time of year. However the heat has been relentless this summer. It wasn’t just triple digit heat now and then but every day every day every day every day. I would even say it was brutal. I’m content though. It’s been a great summer all the same.

My daughters traveled a lot but I didn’t. That means lots of extra child care has come my way. I would like the girls to settle down now, as much as I adore to distraction all three of my grandchildren, (ages 7, 6 and 4). However I am soon to have the boys for a few days. It should be both fun and exhausting.

A very consequential event this summer was the rescue of a box of abandoned puppies by my eldest daughter. Sadly one of them died at her house. After that my youngest daughter and I took the other two, both very ill. We did try to get them to the emergency room at the vet school here but they would not take them. They offered to euthanize them but we were unwilling. It was late at night so we took them home with us. For a couple of days I slept with both puppies cuddled up to me. The female was apparently blind, either from injury, illness or maybe she was born that way. Her eyes were a milky blue and she obviously saw nothing through them. The established dogs at my eldest daughter’s house kept attacking her. The remaining puppies clung to one another, often licking each other’s faces. They seemed much too young to have been taken from their mother. Before we could get them to a vet the female died. Her brother was so sad: lingering by the box where she had slept during the day.

At the vet we heard that the male puppy had little chance of survival. He didn’t have Parvo thank God but he was critical. Someone I know (thank you thank you) offered to pay his medical bills if we wanted to do the arduous work of bringing this mange covered, worm infested lethargic little boy back to health. We decided to try. We lived in a small already crowded upstairs apartment. We had four cats already. (Not really on purpose). We thought we would find him a home if he lived. He was a Great Pyrenees cross so we couldn’t imagine how we would manage a dog who had the potential to grow to an 150 pound animal.

He did live. In fact he just ran down the hall chasing one of the cats. We love him. He’s a joy. He is also enormous for a five month old puppy.

That’s no problem; we have room for him now however big he gets because…. I bought a HOUSE!

Now this is something I thought I would never be able to do again. I had tried to let the idea go. About a year before my brother committed suicide I had just sold my paid for house to go live in one he was to build on his land. After his death all of the money from the sale of my house had gone missing. It had been stolen out of my bank account. I’ll never know what happened to it.

Out of the blue my father and my step mom offered to give me enough money for a down payment on a house. They reasoned that since my dad and I are only 17 years apart we were nearly contemporaries. So when they left me money in their wills, when they died, I would be pretty old too. They decided the money would do me more good now. They were right about that.

After all that has happened this gift from my parents to make things right as best they could changed EVERYTHING. I cannot begin to tell you how healing it has been for them to do this for me. It feels wonderful. It’s a great experience of righteousness and mercy and love. Thanks Dad and M. Forever thanks.

This task of house shopping was daunting for me. I’m terrible at dealing with business type stuff. And I had never had to get a mortgage before or shop for houses. After the death of my first husband I was offered a settlement that provides me with a modest monthly income since his seat belt ripped out of the car when he crashed, causing his death. The settlement comprises the majority of my income and my jobs fill out the rest. I don’t know what we would have done without it. After I received that settlement I simply bought the rental house we were living in already. I raised my children there over 22 years.

The first thing I did with the down payment was try to buy my old house back. After feeling displaced for eight years, often living at other people’s houses or in apartments that didn’t feel permanent, and with my stuff still in storage, just going home sounded good. I have often wished myself back over the years. But it wasn’t to be. The current owners were willing to sell but the foundation had such severe damage that fixing it would cost more than the worth of the house. I couldn’t afford that. It nearly broke my heart. But not for long. God must be calling me to build a new life after all the losses. (We lost four family members between 2012 and 2015; all of them tragic traumatic losses and life has been upside down for us ever since).

So we started looking and dreaming. Then one day we walked into the right house. I knew it even the first moment the realtor let us in through the hot dark garage. It was the smell. It smelled like our old house. Turns out it was built almost the same year. and in a similar style. My daughter said it had “the vibe” of our old house. It did.

She said as soon as she saw the adorable kitchen and the shiplap walls she knew I was going to want this one.

If you have ever bought a house you know what a wild and stressful journey it is. But we got the house. And we’re here. And I can’t tell you how grateful I am every day. It’s been over a month and I’m still walking around smiling at everything. My granddaughter has her own room. She can play outside now because for the first time in her life she has a back yard. My grandchildren can play in the sprinkler. My dog can bark outside.

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It won’t be long before I fill my little patch of earth with antique roses just as I did my old yard; tangled in the trees, hanging down in graceful strands from the branches. I plan to get a few chickens again in the spring. I don’t even eat eggs. I just like having chickens around. I can give the eggs to others. (Unfertilized don’t worry)! They will be much better than store eggs. Happy chicken eggs are the best by far. And these will be very happy chickens!

I am always finding new things to appreciate about this place. We named it for my book: Casa Maria. “Mary’s House. “

Thats another thing. I’ve been working on Spanish all summer with my youngest daughter. We have an app for it and friends we can practice with. My granddaughter finds it annoying when we talk in Spanish at home. She is a nosey Parker and wants to know everything we say. She should learn Spanish too then we tell her, if she wants to understand.

Another cool thing that happened was my book won an award from the Catholic Publishers’ Association. YAY! Third place in the category of prayer.

AND Our Sunday Visitor would like me to write another book. Yay! So I am working on a new book proposal. That means I am making a possible outline, and writing a prospective introduction as well as some samples of what it would be like. They haven’t decided yet whether they are into my topic. That takes time, lots of time. Meanwhile I mull it over constantly, always writing in my head.

And here we are. Happy Mother Mary’s Birthday! I am reading at mass for the first time today, and at our new church! My parish has built a new gorgeous gorgeous church. That’s another good thing that happened this summer.

It’s really been a good summer. So good it’s kind of freaking me out.

As I leave you all four cats; Frankie, Annie, Dia and Buttercup, Joey the Great Pyrenees mix and my older daughter’s little brown (pit bull I think) puppy named Doo-dah are all asleep in my room. The blinds are closed now because it’s hot as a pistol outside. Hotter maybe. Still I’m having some coffee and listening to jazz and I go to work in a bit.

Grace and peace to you,

Shawn

P.S. Reading at mass went fine. 🙂 So yay.

P.P.S. It’s 108 outside today.

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Mary of Bethany; an oil poured out

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July 29 is the feast of Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the siblings of Bethany. Bethany was a little village not far from Jerusalem. It seems to have been Jesus’ favorite stop on his journeys, his home away from home.  Apparently these three friends were great company, and supportive of his mission. They had a house big enough for his travel companions, the food was great and Martha, Mary and Lazarus were always eager to be caught up on the latest adventures of Jesus and his itinerant followers.  

Martha and Lazarus’ sister Mary has been conflated with St. Mary Magdalene since the Middle Ages and this impression continued for centuries in Christian hagiography and art. Modern Biblical scholarship and a pronouncement of Pope Paul VI put an end to that mix up.  St. Mary Magdalen continues to be celebrated on July 22, and Mary of Bethany joined her brother and sister as her own person. 

This leaves us with three Gospel stories of St. Mary of Bethany. 

At the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42)

Poor Martha is hosting all by herself, running ragged, resentful and starting to bang the pots and pans in the kitchen. Finally she decides to get her feelings out. She unburdens her heart right to Jesus. Isn’t that what we should do? Maybe not in front of the company, granted, but we should lay out burdens before him and be honest with him. He knows what’s inside us anyway. 

I like to think the Lord’s answer gave Martha peace. All the times Jesus has straightened me out when I was wrong or off course I have felt instant peace. Whether what he asked of me was easy or unpleasant I felt peace and that’s how I knew he was speaking. It seems Martha had taken on more than she was required to.  I have taken on tasks and responsibilities God was not asking me to and the first symptom I have is usually exhaustion followed by resentment and self righteousness. Eventually there will be an outburst. I hope Martha felt unbound and freed by what Jesus said to her. 

It’s easy to see Mary feeling affirmed and freed, protected and understood by Jesus’ defense of her. I recently read that the way she is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching would have been controversial in her time and culture. It was something a disciple did. Rabbis weren’t supposed to have female disciples. The study of Torah and the pursuit of knowledge was for men only.  By sitting at Jesus’ feet as his student she was being quite bold and acting as an equal to the men. Jesus affirms her in this, allowing her to keep the place she has chosen.  

Of course we also see Mary of Bethany here as a beautiful model for Christian contemplatives. She is deeply attentive to Jesus, looking  at his face, internalizing all that he says, pondering in her heart.  

During a skit of this scene we acted out as a family my then four year-old daughter Maire had Mary get up, offer to take over the host duties, and invite Martha to take a turn at Jesus’ feet. I like that a lot. Maybe it was that way. 

Mourning Lazarus John (11:1–45)

Lazarus fell ill. His sisters cared for him and prayed over him, waiting for Jesus to come and heal him. They knew he could save their brother. They sent an urgent message. Mary would have sat by her brother’s bed keeping vigil, offering him her gift of profound presence and connection. Martha would have changed his blankets, kept a wet rag on his head, brewed medicinal teas, asked advice from the wise, sent for doctors, made favorite dishes she hoped he would eat. Sometimes they would have had to switch places and learn the other one’s ways of loving and serving. 

Jesus never comes, though they keep a lamp burning for him through every night in hopes he will. Every footfall outside, every stirring they hear they think perhaps it is Jesus or at least a message from him. They don’t understand. Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he respond? 

Lazarus’ illness becomes imminently  life threatening, their anxiety for him so intense, neither of them sleeps at all. They hold him in his struggle for breath and as life ebbs away. 

They try to comfort one another. They ask each other, “Why did Jesus never come?” 

They wash and anoint his body with the women of their family winding him in scented burial cloths to bury him in their family tomb.  

The house is full of family friends and neighbors sitting shiva with them. https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/sitting-shiva

Finally Jesus shows. Martha as we have seen her do before, makes her thoughts and feelings known to him. She confronts Jesus while at the same time expressing her faith in him. She knows he could have saved her brother as he has saved so many others. She also has come to know and believe he is the Messiah and Son of God, just as Peter had also done and she says so. “Even now,” Martha says hopefully, “I believe.”

She runs to get her sister who is in the house with all the mourners and tells her Jesus is here and asking for her. 

It’s when Jesus sees Mary’s tears that he cries too. This is important to me, to all of us. Yes for some reason Jesus does allow bad things to happen to us. At the same time, as Madeleine Le’Engle says, everything that happens to us happens to God too. 

Mary also confronts Jesus, falling at his feet, her movement a desperate plea of prostate grief. 

He doesn’t ask Mary for a declaration of faith. Maybe he knew she had it in abundance already. He only responds with his tears and his actions. He gives her her brother back alive. 

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Anointing Jesus (John 12:1-8)

This is the beautiful story that captures the imagination so powerfully; Mary of Bethany interrupts dinner, unbinding her hair, carrying in an alabastron of outrageously expensive perfume worth a year’s wages. 

Since she seems to have been unmarried (as she is living at home) perhaps it had been meant for her dowry. To me this brings out an extra meaning. Perhaps she intended never to marry and to fully dedicate her life to Jesus, pouring out her love and devotion to him alone. 

Her contemplative nature, her attentiveness and connection to Jesus lead her to anticipate his death; the only one of his followers who understood that it was imminent, and maybe even what his death would mean.  

With compassion she comes to acknowledge both what he is about to endure and what he means to her. 

Have you ever smelled spikenard, aka nard?  It is not a floral scent but a sharp, pungent smell. It would have filled the whole house and the scent would have lingered for days and days in every room and on both Jesus and on her hair.

The others at the table were offended at her extravagance, saying the nard could have been sold and used to feed the poor. Jesus defends her. We will always be able to help the poor but we would not always have him. “She has done a beautiful thing for me.” She dries his feet with her hair.  

Women’s hair was supposed to be covered in public and especially in the presence of men who were not their husbands. Here our Mary of Bethany unveils and not only that dries the feet of Jesus with her hair. I wonder what those present would have made of that? 

I’m thinking of the spiritual marriage written about and experienced by the great mystics of our faith such as Sts. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Rose of Lima, Catherine of Sienna among others, in which the soul becomes one with God. Maybe Mary of Bethany was experiencing this or had. Maybe this bold and lavish gesture was her response, her understanding of his destiny born of that union and love. 

Wouldn’t you love to be able to comfort Jesus with your compassion and love? To do something that is deeply meaningful for him? To pour out your love diffusing its fragrance through all his house, to smell it on your hair for days to remind you, knowing he also carried it? To remember his words, that you had done a beautiful thing for him? 

We can. When we love, when we serve, when we pray like an oil poured out to the One we love. 

 Your anointing oils are fragrant; 

your name is oil poured out; 

therefore maidens love you.

Song of Songs 1:3

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Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Walmart Memorial in El Paso

The shooter was sentenced to 99 life sentences this week.

Shawn Rain Chapman's avatarBethany Hang Out

Fifteen or more years ago I had a dream that is still vivid to me now. I was in a small, dimly lit church where the early arrivals were just sitting down before mass. Near the altar there was a large terra cotta colored relief of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was standing in the aisle gazing at this rendering of Our Lady and it started to become beautifully colorful. A man in the pews to my right started complaining about the image and saying there were too many (*racial slur*) around here already and the image should be removed. He continued to complain about dark skinned people being in the church and “taking over.” I was extremely upset of course and started begging him not to say things like that especially in the church. As I continued to try to persuade him, the corner of Mary’s dress began to…

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2

St. Maria Goretti; a different take


July 6 is the feast of St. Maria Goretti, a Saint I love very much.

Loving her was not immediate for me. My appreciation of her has been more of a journey. I had to take a prayerful look at her life and my own life too. She became a good friend and has always been there for me.

As a survivor of child rape the way her story has most often been interpreted is disturbing to me. Holding her up to young people as a “model of purity” does not fit out current understanding of the dynamics of sexual abuse. I often read she “resisted a challenge to her purity.” She was eleven. She did not want to be raped. No one does. Abuse is not the child’s choice or fault. We know that though usually that is not how the child feels. Those feelings are hard to get over and can last a lifetime. Saying she was pure because she managed not to be raped and was murdered… instead? Can sound twisted to us survivors and not only to us, to anyone who knows much about these things.

Maria had survived the death of her father. Her mother had to go out and work the fields by herself. They had to share a house with another family. The other family had a disturbed young adult son. Maria had to take care of the house and the younger children. She was very gentle and kind. The young man thought she would be silent about his advances (most children are) and he was right. He thought she could be cowed into doing what he wanted. He was wrong. It’s not that I’m not proud of her for resisting, and for the way her thoughts even in those moments were on God. It’s amazing. She tried to persuade him with concern for his soul. He was angry with her for this and certainly for her noncooperation. So he murdered her, stabbing her fourteen times.

At the hospital her priest asked if she forgave her killer. She said she did. A lot of us are asked to forgive our abusers. It’s inappropriate for someone to ask that of us. I understand she was dying but that still bothers me. So many of us are asked to do this so we don’t make other people uncomfortable or mess up the status quo. So we are expected to carry the load alone so nobody has to deal with the relational and systemic consequences of us telling the truth. So I don’t like that he asked her that.

Later she appears to her killer in prison with fourteen lilies, one for each of her wounds. I love this. I love it because it shows that she did have the wounds. They are real and have meaning. He is confronted with that truth. However in Heaven her wounds are transformed and can become a gift to transform others; even the one who did the wounding. And he is transformed. He is converted and joins a monastery. He testified in the investigation for her cause of sainthood.

Something that moves me is that when she was exhumed her body was (and still is) incorrupt. Like Snow White she lies in a glass casket now. People come and pray and look at her.

What is God saying by this?

St. Eulogius wrote to St. Flora when she was about to be sent as punishment for being a Christian into a brothel, that even if her body was violated, her soul would remain pure. When I read about that I was very struck by it and I have remembered it for years. Abuse survivors don’t feel pure. We feel gross. I felt deeply flawed and somehow dirty all through childhood. It has taken years of work not to feel intense shame all the time. The idea and the trust that my soul is still pure regardless was profound for me.

I am sure that St. Maria felt violated by what happened to her. She was groomed and sexually propositioned at eleven years old. She was afraid of that man. That is already not OK. Just because he didn’t succeed in penetrating her doesn’t mean what she endured was not a sexual assault. He assumed like the “incels” of today that he was entitled to the bodies of women and girls, that they owed him access. He didn’t see her as a person deserving dignity and sexual autonomy. Her refusals enraged him and he brutally murdered her.

And that beautiful girl found healing in the arms of Jesus. She had been extremely devout. The love she always had with God carried her to Heaven and she was given the work of healing, real healing where the truth is brought to light and with God’s touch becomes a light for others.

He left her little body free of corruption to reveal to us the beauty of her bright soul treasured and healed in his heart, in his light.

Yes she is pure. She was always pure whether a man sexually assaulted her or not. Her body is holy and precious to God. He wants to show her to us. He wants us to know.

The pure of heart shall see God.

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Mary’s life of letting go

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Today’s Gospel (Mt 10:37-42) made me think of how Mary constantly let her own plans go in order to embrace what God was asking of her. She did this over and over. “Whoever loves (fill in the blank) more than me is not worthy to be my disciple. Whoever does not take up her cross and come after me is not worthy to be my disciple. Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life with find it.” At the Annunciation Mary whole heartedly accepted a surprising and sudden radical change in the course of her life. She continued to do this again and again throughout her ministry as the Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church. She even accepted and offered to God the brutal death of her Son. She let him go at the Ascension. She left home and family to join the community of believers. She left all she knew again to go with John the Apostle to Ephesus. Again and again she let go and accepted change and loss for the sake of the Kingdom. So if you feel like there is a sign on your life that says “EVERYTHING MUST GO!” Remember Mary’s beautiful crown of stars. Remember that. Because you’re getting one too! 💫

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The Liturgy of the Hours

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Every morning as sunlight makes its way across the earth, the  praises of God awaken from the heart of the  praying Church. Behind  the sunrise the praises and petitions continue through the hours of the day. As each time zone turns into the darkness, Night Prayer is raised to God beneath the moon and stars. 

This is the official prayer of the Church called The Liturgy of the Hours, The Divine Office, “The Work of God,”  prayed by Catholics of every vocation, by Pope Francis, by our Bishops, priests, religious, and by many lay people as well; the same words of prayer in every language of humanity. 

It is an anchor in the day, a way to sanctify time, express unity with the whole Church, and to call our hearts back to God again and again. 

Morning and Evening Prayer are laid out for us daily as a hymn, two Psalms, and a Scriptural Canticle, (a poem or song in the Bible that is not a Psalm) each with antiphons, (a reflective one line prayer) and followed by “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.” 

After the  Psalms and Canticle there is  a Scripture reading; usually from  a New Testament letter. 

After that  there is what is called a “Responsory.” For example: 

 Just is the Lord, in justice he delights.
— Just is the Lord, in justice he delights.

He looks with favor on the upright man;
— in justice he delights.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
— Just is the Lord, in justice he delights.

This will be followed, for Morning  or Evening Prayer, by a New Testament Canticle. For Morning Prayer, this will always  be the Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79). In the Evening it will be Mary’s Song we call The Magnificat ( Luke 1:46-55),  each with their respective antiphons.. 

After this are the Petitions, similar to the ones we pray at mass. These are different each day. Then we pray the Our Father and a closing prayer that changes daily. 

The other daytime  “Hours” : midmorning, midday and mid afternoon are more abbreviated.  Night Prayer is brief and includes an Examination of Conscience and Act of Contrition or Confiteor, along with its Psalms prayers and canticles. It ends with a Marian antiphon such as the “Hail Holy Queen” to kiss our mother goodnight. 

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The “Office of Readings” will have a longer reading, usually from the Old Testament, and a Patrisric reading (from a Church father or from the writings of a Saint) and can be prayed any time. 

These prayers in their daily format can be found in the four volume version of The Liturgy of the Hours which unfortunately is a bit expensive for some. You can also buy  the one volume version called Christian Prayer if the expense is prohibitive. Christian Prayer does not include the Office of Readings. 

It’s hard to learn to navigate the volumes at first while you are getting used to this. You might want to buy what’s called The St. Joseph Guide, a little paper book that gives you all the page numbers for each day.  There is a lot of page turning and going back to a page and so on. I once heard a priest describe it as “death by ribbons.” Yes it feels like that! 

It was worth it to me to learn. The Liturgy of the Hours has become an indispensable part of my everyday life, connecting me consciously to God and to the whole Church at the times of day I pray it. As Secular Carmelite I am committed to pray Morning, Evening and Night Prayer daily. 

Through hard times I have prayed every available “hour” to help me get through the day, which was healing and helpful for me. At all times the rhythm of it grounds and connects me with the family of God. 

Morning and Evening Prayer should take about ten minutes for you to pray at a normal pace.  The other “hours” are shorter. 

When we pray the  Psalms of  Liturgy of the Hours we  are praying with Jesus who prayed these too as did the generations before him. We are praying with the whole Church, with the voice of the Church. 

I love praying with everyone. 

Another thing I love about praying The Liturgy of the Hours all these years is that the Scriptures they contain are written in my heart. A line from a Psalm that is just right will come to me at exactly the right time when I need it. The prayers , Canticles and  Psalms are woven into my life now like flowers in my hair. 

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I look forward to praying the Divine Office as I wait for my coffee to brew,  or when I start thinking about what to make for dinner, or when I am getting ready for bed. 

I enjoy praying it alongside others as well, especially my family and my Carmelites when we are together. When we are apart the liturgy connects me with them.  

Know that praying The Liturgy of the Hours does something. It is never just a recitation. 

“For the word of God is alive and active.  (Hebrews 4:12a) 

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I pupose

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:11)

We are praying God’s words, and the words of the Church spoken by the Holy Spirit. We are participating in the healing of the world. We are allowing ourselves to become conduits of God’s grace when we join our brothers and sisters spiritually for “The Work of God”. 

Now I will tell you a secret. The secret is that nowadays you don’t have to go through “death by ribbons” unless you just want to. I feel like a cheater because I use the app now though I still cherish the books. I have the app called Divine Office on my phone. You can also pray from the Divine Office website or the other one,  Universalis. 

So you see? It’s not hard. Come on and join us. You’ll be glad you did.   

From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the Name of the Lord be praised. (Psalm 113:3)

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*This piece originally appeared as my column in The Eagle Newspaper Saturday June 24, 2023

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The Ascension

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To us who celebrate it every year the Ascension of Jesus  seems to naturally follow the initial celebration of his Resurrection. 

However I imagine it was an earth shattering surprise to his followers that he would be leaving them yet again. 

When I reflect on this event as part of the rosary the virtue I link to the Ascension is detachment as I see him beautifully disappear before the eyes of his followers as “a  cloud removed him from their sight.” 

The family of believers had to let go of their expectations that Jesus as they knew him would permanently remain to walk and talk with them. Again they had to face that Jesus was not about to get rid of the Roman occupiers either. There would be no restoration of the Davidic Kingdom  in the literal way they had thought of it. And the One they loved was going to withdraw from them yet again. They must have felt as if they were back from the defining experience of their lives with nothing to show for it, as if they were just a rag tag group of people standing on a mountainside for no particular reason. They were shocked and bereft. They didn’t understand what Jesus meant about him having to leave that the Holy Spirit could come to them. How could they? 

When the angel said that Jesus would be back they must have shaken their heads. Jesus had said for them to go and baptize, to take his message to the world. This must have seemed like too much for them, an overwhelming task, especially on their own. 

They had to greatly expand their understanding of God even past the miraculous three years they had left everything for and deeply identified with now. 

They had to let go so they could be filled and receive Jesus in a whole new way, by his presence in their hearts, and to come to know the Holy Spirit who was new to them. 

How can we receive the Spirit without detachment, self emptying, without freedom of heart? 

“Love- the way God wants to be loved, and leave off your own way of acting,” said St. John of the Cross. 

Or, as Jesus said to St. Angela of Foligno, “Make of yourself a capacity and I will make myself a torrent.” 

Jesus said that if his friends loved him they would be happy he was going to the Father. (Jon.14:28) Is there something more to that than being happy for him? Yes, because he says, “for the Father is greater than I.” Maybe it also means that we have to let our current perhaps more comfortable understanding go to make room for the immensity he has for us. We can be happy he is going to the Father because then, in letting him go as we thought we had him, he then is truly closer than our breath, more accessible than ever. Detachment is hard. We feel that we are losing our Treasure.   

 St. Faustina said of Mary’s experience of the Ascension that she deeply grieved as any mother would  that her Son was leaving but that, “her heart could not want what God did not want.” 

In seeking a pure heart for God and a Marian detachment; a detachment with great love, a detachment even from the way we thought Jesus would be present to us, we open ourselves to what is even greater, beyond what we could ever have thought of ourselves.  But first we let go. 

“Bend  my heart according to your will, O God.” (Ps. 119:36) 

Then, 

“I shall run in your paths for You will enlarge my heart.” (Psalm 119:32)

In this is peace that comes from open-ness to God and freedom of heart.

These verses are a perfect prayer to cultivate holy detachment as the disciples struggled to do this, standing there on the Mount of Olives, not knowing what to do with themselves. 

Fortunately we don’t have to rely on our own strength in this and neither did they.

Jesus had said to wait in Jerusalem and to pray. They did. They trusted in simplicity. And prayer continually purified theirattachments and intentions as disciples, transforming their dismay into receptivity.   

They still longed for Jesus; his voice, his hug, the sound of his footsteps, “like a deer that longs for running streams in a dry weary land without water,” (Ps. 42:2)  However they soon found that once emptied, their muddled and broken hearts were then open to the new gift of God’s presence; the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, filling them past overflowing, their thirst for God more than quenched.  “Your torrents and all your waves swept over me.”  (Ps. 42: 8)

Come, Holy Spirit, come. 

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