On Christmas Eve the Holy Father knocked on a normally sealed (with bricks) door in St. Peter’s Basilica and gave it a push. Symbolically and ceremonially the holy door was opened wide, ushering in the Jubilee Year of Hope for the whole world so in need of it now.
The holy door represents Christ, who said, “I am the gate,” and “I am the Way.” He is our door, his heart open wide in welcome, beckoning for us to step in to him, to open the doors of our hearts as well, to him, and to others.
This door and this holy year are not merely a symbol and a theme, not only a call from the Pope to renew and intensify our faith, to remember hope and to give hope, though they are those things too. Something very real is happening here, a release, a flood of grace from the treasury entrusted to the Church by Jesus, and to Peter who can unlock and lock, release and forgive.
Veteran Vatican journalist Gerard O’Connell described on the podcast “Inside the Vatican,” being present for the opening of the holy door for the jubilee year 2000 by Pope St. John Paul II. He said we often talk about “ being in the now” but this felt “beyond the now.” I think he was talking about a transcendent present. “Like being in another dimension” he said. I think that sense he had points to the truth of what is actually happening as the Church opens these holy doors all over the world.
Pope Francis urges us to remember that we are a people of hope, a people on a journey, and we have confident assurance that we are on the road with and to Christ. We know where we are going though we cannot see it with our eyes.
He also asks that we turn and give hope to others who need food, shelter, freedom, human dignity, people under relentless attack in war, the refugee and the migrant, the prisoner, the poor.
He is speaking not just to individuals but to nations, urging them to work for peace and to protect human life and dignity. He calls for rich nations to forgive the crippling and impossible debts of the poor ones. He asks for the richer nations to be mindful also of ecological justice for poorer countries as well.
He wants to see restorative justice for prisoners emphasized more than the punitive emphasis we tend to favor. Francis went so far as to open a holy door in a prison (that leads to their prison chapel) and asks that society help these people have hope for their lives beyond prison.
We are called to works and an approach of mercy for all of these brothers and sisters in need of hope
We can also take advantage of the mercy and grace of this holy year by making a pilgrimage. Most of us can’t get to Rome but each diocese will announce pilgrimage sites closer we can journey to.
Here are the ones for the Diocese of Austin. For pilgrimage sites near you check your Diocesan website.
St. Mary Cathedral, Austin
Holy Cross Parish, Austin
Holy Vietnamese Martyrs Parish, Austin
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Temple
Our Lady of Wisdom University Parish @ Texas State University, San Marcos
Santa Cruz Parish, Buda
St. Joseph Parish, Bryan
St. Mary Church of the Assumption Parish, Waco
St. Mary Catholic Center @ Texas A&M University, College Station
St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish, Lampasas
University Catholic Center @ University of Texas, Austin
In order to receive an indulgence:
Visit and Pray at a Pilgrimage Site
Perform a work of mercy or penance
Recitation of specific prayers (If you are homebound and cannot participate in pilgrimage)
We can apply this grace and mercy of the Jubilee Year to our beloved dead to help them in their journey through eternity, for their purification. This is commonly called a “plenary indulgence.” We share spiritual goods with the dead and with the living in the Communion of Saints. So we can access the special graces of the Holy Year for ourselves as well as others.
Another thing a plenary indulgence does is release us from temporal punishment for sins that have already been forgiven. In current parlance you could think of this as the antidote to “what goes around comes around.”
This is also a year for repentance and penance. We can take advantage of the grace of this holy year by returning to confession, making amends to anyone we have hurt, amending our lives, beginning again.
It’s a year of reconciliation and forgiveness. Any forgiveness we are holding back, this year we should let go. Forgive everyone, everyone. Don’t let anything anyone detain you on your way to Christ.
We are Pilgrims of Hope. There is a renewal of Christian Joy afoot! Grab your pilgrim’s staff, put on your pilgrim’s shoes. Let’s go!
Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the toddlers and babies killed by Roman soldiers at Herod’s orders after Joseph fled to Egypt with Jesus and Mary.
I have never liked the traditional way of describing these kids as martyrs. A martyr chooses death rather than betraying Christ. Little children suffer and die before the age of consent and from the terrible things adults do.
I also am not sure abortion is exactly the best modern comparison to what happened that day. As far as we know the tiny innocents in their mother’s womb do not have consciousness yet. I imagine them, at least early on, as in a dreamlike bliss, violently but quickly disturbed and ended by abortion. Abortion is violent and tragic in several ways. However, as Pat Benatar sang, “Hell is for children.”
This is a good day to pray for children around the world who suffer the violence and callousness of adults, especially from state sponsored terror and genocide where there is no safety, no relief, where parents cannot protect them, such as in Gaza where parents write their children’s names on their limbs in case they are killed so they can be identified, where children are orphaned, maimed, under the rubble, starving, sometimes being operated on without anesthesia if they are lucky enough to find care at all. Surely their blood cries out to the Lord. We all know the outrageous numbers. Hell is for children.
Ukrainian children suffer war as well, and I am struck by the fact that Russia is taking the children away from their parents and into Russia. It reminds me of our child separation policy during the last Trump administration; something a lot of us lost sleep over, protested but felt powerless to stop. The damage to those little ones is profound and many of them were sexually abused as well, or never reunited with their families. It’s a method of torture I believe, to do this to kids and their parents. Some of those children were nursing babies.
In many countries life is so dangerous or poverty is so great that parents are forced to flee with their children to find safety or go where life is possible only to be rebuffed and unwanted, subjected to detention or camps or sent back to the dangers they fled after an often long and dangerous journey.
In Sudán, famine threatens and children die of malnutrition as parents look on helplessly. This is happening in so many countries.
I haven’t heard what life is like for the children of Haiti as their country descends further into chaos, violence, and gang rule.
We know children are forced to fight and kill in parts of the world. Children are trafficked and live lives of nightmarish abuse.
Children are abused in their churches, schools, and families and too often the abusers are protected instead of the children.
And here in America, the leading cause of death for our children is gun violence. .
These are things adults have done or conditions the world of adults have created that massacre the souls minds and bodies of children who deserve safety and love, freedom to be kids. These are the holy innocents of our time.
This is overwhelming. What are we supposed to do? Jesus was stern about any harm done to little ones.
We need to be a part of lessening their suffering, advocating for them, of challenging the structural sin of our world, and the wrong headedness of the powers that be. Nothing will change if we don’t.
Hell is for children, but we are allied with Heaven and we hold the gift of prayer given to us by God. As we stand up for children and help as we can, God makes our prayers and actions big and far reaching. We can be everywhere he is, holding frightened children, drying tears, giving strength, transforming the world.
Holy Spirit, we pray for the Holy Innocents of our time and we dedicate this day to them. You are the comforter and the giver of life, the one who strengthens, uplifts, transforms, the Spirit of Love and Truth, Father of the Poor. Make your way through this world bringing light and nourishment and peace. Make us repent of the sins of the world and show us what we must do. Guide our prayer for every child everywhere in need of rescue and relief of sorrow and fear. May our leaders prioritize the needs and rights of children to safety and freedom and family life.
Bless every little heart on earth on this day of the Innocents.
None of the women of her family or village were there to help her. Men were not used to being part of the birthing process. But Joseph, surrounded by the kindly witness of the animals who seemed to understand, did his utmost for Mary that night in the dark, in the hay of a stable. Maybe she told him what she needed since she would have seen many births by then, going with her mother to help the other women. Joseph held her close and they prayed, wiping tears from each other’s faces, telling each other “You’re so brave!”
Mary laid the Baby in a feeding trough after his first nursing and after wrapping him in swaddling cloth she had brought with her, while Joseph cleaned up and brought her water. Then they would have placed the baby between them and slept, waking to feed him, to gently laugh and touch his soft little head wondering what was going to happen now as beyond the stable the rising star of Bethlehem shone out to the three wise men on their travels, and the angels sang to the shepherds in the fields filling the sky and their hearts with awe and joy.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, coming from the Father, full of grace and truth.JOHN 1:14
It is Our Lady of Guadalupe day today. It is the only divine portrait of Mother Mary we have. And she chose to appear as an indigenous young woman, one of the little ones, the poor and oppressed of this world as we tend to forget she actually was in her earthly life. She deeply identifies with the poor and marginalized just as her Son does. And we can find her in all the places he said he would be; among those we tend to reject. Let’s not miss an opportunity to catch a glimpse of her beautiful face when she comes to us with hidden roses. May God imprint her image in our souls.
It must have seemed to Mary that the sky smiled at her, that she was infused with tenderness and peace. When she looked around her at the world maybe she felt God telling her, “All this is yours, and you are mine.” At night when her family was asleep maybe she let herself into the quiet space of her heart to ponder the prophecies of her people, marveling at how vivid and alive these words were to her now. There was so much she didn’t understand but her trust left a gentle smile on her mouth as she drifted into sleep.
“The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. In those days, in that time, I will raise up for David a just shoot ; he shall do what is right and just in the land. In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure; this is what they shall call her: “The LORD our justice.” Jeremiah 33:14-16 💜
Our king is not a king of this world who has to seek or cling to power. He would never scrabble for control of others. He did not seek wealth. He did not fight for victory over anyone, or use force on anyone who disagreed with him. Everyone was and is free to walk away or to take on his gentle yoke.
When asked to show force or use vengeance he refused. When asked to punish someone, the ones who asked ended up walking away in silence, contemplating their own sins.
He was clear about who he was but he never had to brag about anything. Why would he? He was quietly in charge of every star, every atom, every quark, every beetle, every galaxy. His spirit upheld all things. “I am that I am” God told Moses when he asked him his name. He just Is.
And he knew who he was.
When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king Our Lord’s answer showed us we didn’t understand the kind of king he really was.
Our worldly minds, even as his followers, still find it hard to understand someone who has absolute power but instead chooses dusty feet and sacrificial love.
Can you imagine a mosquito landing on you and biting you? And instead of smacking the mosquito you die for it to save it? We are less than mosquitos given the scale of creation and the absolute power of God. But we are everything to him because he loves us, each one like the only one.
What kind of king is Christ? The kind of king who is infinite but makes himself small for us so we can be friends. The kind of king who washes our feet, shares his rule with us for the small exchange of our love. Indeed we are crowned with the stars in his eyes when he looks at us. He makes us like himself, he lifts us up, he washes our feet, feeds us, dresses us in his own bright finery.
What does this kind kind of Christly kingship mean for us? He summed up his expectations of us by saying “love one another as I have loved you.” He would have us love humbly, sacrificially and completely. He said that if we had authority in this world we should never lord it over those in our charge. He never did. He didn’t have to. It means that we should be grounded in the dignity he gives each of us, in his gift of free will, his unfathomable and tender humility. We reflect his heart, keeping him always at the center seeing with his eyes.
I heard in a homily once from Bishop Bill Wack that 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 could be taken to describe the Lord. We know God is love. So we just read the passage replacing the word love with his name.
“Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. He does not dishonor others, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres
Jesus never fails.”
To see how you are doing following this King of ours, go back now and this time put your name in in place of “Love.”
I think we all have a way to go. It’s a good thing we have him to help us.
How can we serve a King like this one? A king who washes feet? Who gives freely? Who rules by love and asks for nothing else?
By washing feet, by giving freely, being ruled by love alone.
if you’re dealing with a profound loss, the after effects of tragedy or post traumatic stress you may be feeling spiritually dead. Maybe you think you’ve lost your faith or that God has left you. It may be helpful for you to know there are neurological reasons for this apparent loss of your spiritual senses.
When there is a traumatic event or a terrible loss in our lives, our brains are actually affected. Trauma can disrupt the brain’s ability to process spiritual experiences by affecting its prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal lobes. These areas are also involved in emotional regulation, memory, and our sense of self, even our feeling of connection with something greater than ourselves. Dysfunction in these regions can lead to a disconcerting loss of or distortion in a person’s spiritual life. It’s difficult for us to feel God with us, or to reach the peace we used to find in prayer and the practice of our faith.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for self-reflection and focus. It helps us in practices like contemplative prayer and meditation by supporting awareness and attention. When this part of the brain is dealing with trauma we can’t seem to relax. We may feel void of any spirituality at all. Even the sacraments we believe in feel oddly empty as if we are merely spectators. Everything may seem meaningless to us now because the brain is preoccupied with stress and survival due to its injuries from trauma.
The amygdala and hippocampus process emotions, especially fear and joy. It gives us a sense of our life stories, of our own history. Spiritual experiences often evoke intense emotions and build on a relationship with God that we have developed over time. Trauma can even shrink the hippocampus . It may be hard to remember the love we once knew with God. Without this memory of the lived experience of God’s love and mercy, it’s hard to trust the Lord or that he is still there at all.
With post traumatic stress the amygdala becomes hyperactive, keeping our brains in a state of fear and hypervigilance. We might also feel emotionally overwhelmed and dysregulated making daily life difficult let alone communion with God.
The temporal lobes of the brain are associated with mystical experiences, and our perception of religious imagery. They also help us integrate our sensory experiences in life into spiritual meaning. Sustaining trauma can cause either overactivation or underactivation of the temporal lobes. This can lead to either intense visions or else fear-based religious thoughts. On the other hand, we may feel emotionally and spiritually blank. Where is God?
“God my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:33-34
Our anterior cingulate cortex helps us feel empathy and compassion. It’s also involved in the regulation of emotions and our sense of the Divine.The damage of trauma can impair the ACC. We may feel lost, cut off emotionally from our friends. We feel empty and alienated from people and God.
“Friend and neighbor you have taken away.
My one companion is darkness.” Ps. 88:18
The insula processes sensations and emotions, contributing to a sense of the nearness of God or a feeling of transcendence during prayer or meditation.Trauma can impair the functioning of the insula leading to either low body awareness or too much of it. We can feel a strange detachment from our bodies, unaware of even our physical needs. Conversely we may be overwhelmed by physical sensations, making it hard to relax or focus when we want to pray.
The good news is that contemplative prayer and meditation have been shown to be healing and even restorative to these areas of the brain impaired by trauma. Interior prayer practices and meditation can calm the amygdala, improve prefrontal cortex regulation, and enhance the connectivity of the ACC and insula, restoring emotional balance and renewing our sense of connection.
It means a lot to me that Jesus experienced trauma and that he allowed himself to descend into the depths of the abyss of abandonment when he cried out from the cross his desolation.
St. John of the Cross taught about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a phase of the spiritual life of many Christian contemplatives and mystics, which seems to have similar effects as trauma does on our prayer life. St. John of the Cross wrote that “in the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” He teaches us that God is nearer than ever before at times we feel he is farthest away. He says to go on “naked faith” and not to give up.
I have found it true that “God is close to the broken hearted, those whose spirit is crushed he will save.” (Psalm 34:18)
So if you are grieving a tragedy, experiencing trauma or post traumatic stress, and your’re having trouble with spirituality as a result don’t blame yourself. You haven’t done anything wrong. Nor have you lost God.
We know Mary and Joseph were holy and faithful people but they still lost Jesus for three days. Maybe you feel bereft but he is still there in the temple of your heart and you will find him again just as they did.
It’s ok to pray in ways you can handle. Don’t hold yourself to what you used to do. For me emotional overwhelm kept me from deeper methods of prayer after a tragedy in my life. I talked to Jesus about it. I told him, “I still love you. I just need you not to come so close for now. Can you sit farther away but still nearby?” So he sat with me but not too close. I chose what felt to me a less personal or emotional method of prayer. I memorized psalms, set prayers or passages from the mystics I love like St. Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. When I could handle it I sat quietly and slowly went over them in my mind as a form of prayer/meditation. Other times all I could do was hold my rosary. These things slowly began to bring me peace again.
My friend Jim had said “the devil will try to kick you when you’re down and darkness tries to overwhelm you at times like this so keep doing the things that are of light: the rosary, going to mass, whatever you can do.” He said that would keep my lamp alight no matter what I was going through. He was right.
And after all:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5
“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.”
St. Teresa teach me how to find Jesus within myself where you say he is enthroned in the center of my heart. Show me how to go within, to see his beauty, know his tenderness. You overcame impediments from the world, and reluctance of your own, to seek him and keep him company with growing love and joy. Lead me in the first steps onto the Royal Road of prayer meant for me, so that I may walk in the glow of your lamp held high to light my way.
Pray now a slow, attentive Our Father.
Day 2 The Sacred Humanity of Jesus
“Never set aside the Sacred Humanity of Christ. To do so is to lose your anchor.”
We are not Angel spirits as St. Teresa pointed out. We are human. We need a hug. We need to know that Jesus had and has hands and feet, had to blow his nose sometimes, that he sweated over his work, that his feet were often dirty in his sandals from all that walking he did, that he cried, that he laughed that he needed his friends as well as time alone. He knows all the stars by name but he also knows and cares about every tear we shed. He is glory beyond glory but when he takes our hands we can feel that they are work roughened and warm. You can trace your thumb along the deep scar in his palm.
Let yourself be captured by his eyes; dark and lovely. Ask him now: Jesus be real to me.
Day 3: Friendship with Christ
“It is a great thing to have experienced the friendship of Jesus Christ, because the friendship of His Majesty is full of love and reward.”
St. Teresa’s spirituality is rooted in friendship with Jesus, which implies intimacy, informality, and mutuality. She cautioned us not to be irreverent toward the Lord. She often called him “Your Majesty” when she spoke to him. At the same time she had a complete trust in his love and regard for her as his friend, his dear friend, a friend he trusted and loved to be with. She loved him back in a deeply personal way. She strove to bring her loving attentiveness to his presence into all that she did throughout the day, and to make time to be alone with him in conversation or sweet silence.
Jesus no longer calls us servants but friends. Try thinking of him as the Friend who you know loves you and who you love back.
Make friends with Jesus. Teresa says the best way to start is to ask him humbly for his friendship.
Here he is. Ask him now.
Day 4: Come into the castle of your soul
“I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.”
“The door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation.”
Oh Teresa what a beautiful vision you had of what I look like inside and Who lives there!
Help me to find my way to the Lord within. Show me how to open the beautiful doors of my heart to see the One I love so intensely. I want to sit at his feet. I want to be in his arms against his Sacred Heart listening to its beating.
Call to me Lord, draw me, help me to love you truly, to be all yours, to listen to you, know you, to walk through the rooms of the castle seeking your hand.
Let me hear your voice and see your face for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.
Day 5 Solitude and silence
”Settle yourself in solitude, and you will
come upon him in yourself.”
“Silence is God’s first language.”
Sometimes Jesus went off by himself to be alone and to pray. How much more do we need to do the same, to go into our inner room, close the door on the outside world with its sights and sounds and interruptions for a time.
Teresa talked about this as recollecting the senses and bringing them within ourselves like bees returning to the hive to make honey.
Let’s find time to be alone today in quiet, even for a few minutes, to go within ourselves where Jesus waits.
Greet him by the name you most love to call him.
Do you have anything you need to say to Jesus? Does he say anything to you?
Maybe you have a conversation with him.
Now sit with him in silence in a comfortable kind of way, the way friends do.
St. Teresa pray for us that we will come to love silence and solitude where we can be alone with God.
Day 6 Talking to Jesus
“But above all things, I want to impress upon you that, when we are speaking to him, we should look at him and remain in his presence, and not turn our backs upon him.”
Have you ever heard the rosary being prayed in church and thought it kind of sounded like an auction underway? It’s so easy to slip into vain repetition – meaning not paying attention to what we are saying or to Whom we are speaking. If the Lord is our friend we want to look at him when we talk to him, to know what we’re saying to him. To be attentive and not mechanical it’s important to slow down, and make conscious contact rather than reciting a formula. Jesus is here wanting us. He is the Friend, the Brother, a Father, our Spouse. St. Teresa advised us to speak to him one way and at other times another. She wants us to speak from the heart whether with our words or with silent love.
Speak to the Lord today, either in the words of a set traditional prayer, your own words, or in quiet attentiveness. In all of these keep the eyes of your soul on him, present within you, listening to you and loving you.
Day 7 Determined determination
St. Teresa you faced so many trials along the path of your spiritual life. Sometimes you laughed at threats like the Inquisition being suspicious of your work and ways. Other times like when a spiritual director thought your prayer experiences were from the devil you cried and you wanted to die and were afraid to be alone.
But God blessed you all the more with the consolations you were told to reject.
At times you even gave up prayer, feeling unworthy.
You dealt with other people’s fears and resentments toward you, opposition and obstacles. Somehow you accomplished all that the Lord asked of you. Once you knew what it was to pray with satisfaction, and once you truly knew the presence and love of God you were unwilling to ever give up prayer again.
You urged us on, reminding us that life is like one night at a bad inn and the prize, Christ himself was worth anything at all we could go through to get to him. You called this single minded persistence determined determination. Pray for us as we make our way inward and ultimately to Heaven, that we will proceed with “determined determination” as you did. Lead us straight into the Heart of Jesus.
Day 8 Holy Mary
It seems to me that there is no better teacher for prayer than the glorious Virgin.”
”Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
Mary had a listening heart, attentive to every sign of God’s will and inspiration. Immaculately conceived and free from spiritual impediment she had a clarity of perception and relationship with God. She had one great visitation by the Angel Gabriel but we have no record of any visions and extraordinary signs she received otherwise. Mary live by faith as we do, living an ordinary life that was nevertheless quietly extraordinary.
In her heart she pondered and treasured the Word of God himself within herself, then in his daily presence, and remained United with him just as much in spirit as he began his ministry.
Teresa assimilated Mary’s spirit of contemplation, cherishing the Lord within, remaining attentive and united to him at all times. This is why Teresa’s Order of Discalced Carmelites sees Mary as Mother. Sister and Queen, and our primary devotion to her is meditation in the heart, contemplative prayer, perceiving God as within ourselves.
Oh beautiful Flower of Carmel, holy and singular, who brought forth the Son of God, ever still remaining a pure Virgin, assist us in our necessity! Show us that thou art Our Mother! Our Lady if Mt. Carmel, pray for us. .
Day 9 Love
”Amor saca amor.” Love draws out love.
Prayer leads us into union with God and union with God fills us with love, his love becoming ours. Teresa taught us that we should “make many acts of love.” She knew that love was active and effective, more than emotion it blossomed into friendship and service and compassion. The love of God is transformative and the more we pray the more we see that love of others deepens our prayer and prayer deepens the love with which we serve and our desire to serve.
Not only that but prayer becomes almost indistinguishable from love. Prayer becomes love and love becomes prayer.
St. Teresa pray for us and lead us into the depths of love with God. Brighten our way along the Royal Road of the spiritual life. Help us to truly know the Lord we love and live for. Remind us that love is both the means and the goal of this journey. We wish you a happy feast day and we pray for all the intentions you have for the Church, for priests, for the sanctification of the people of God, that Jesus will have the best and trustiest of friends and that we will be among them, that he will be followed and loved and praised and known by all of us. In your special honor we ask all of this of the Lord and in the sweet Name of Jesus.
St. Teresa pray for us. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.
Bethany Hang Out 