Ukraine Invades Russia... Wait, What?

This is old news, in one sense. After months and months of bloody and mostly deadlocked defensive action holding back Russia's attempts to move forward on the frontline in Eastern Ukraine, something totally unexpected began on August 6. Units of the Ukrainian armed forces turned north and crossed the Russian border into Kursk oblast.

But this remains current news, because Ukrainian troops continue to advance successfully into Kursk. Their stated objective remains defensive: many of the drones that continue to bomb Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure have their point of departure in this region. The goal is to take out the most proximate launching pads of Russian bombs and secure a "buffer zone" against aerial aggression while holding whatever territory is taken under a temporary (Ukrainian) military administration. Civilians are not targeted. There appears to be no indication of any intent to carry out "reprisals," although there may be other strategic motives at play.

The strange feature of this manoeuver has been its ongoing success. The Russian border has proven to be poorly guarded, and the troops in the region have been surrendering to the Ukrainians in large numbers.

For a long time, NATO and the West have been limiting Ukraine from using the weapons provided in their assistance packages against targets inside Russian territory, fearing that such use might result in further escalation with perhaps Russia retaliating directly against NATO states, or even using "tactical nuclear weapons" - a threat frequently rattled by Putin's regime over the past two and a half years.

Perhaps there has a loosening of these proscriptions, although Ukraine executed this move on their own, preserving operational security so tightly that they evaded all advance intelligence. They surprised everyone with a brilliant small-scale but (in a certain respect) "full-on" military incursion into Russian territory, with boots on the "Mother Russia's" own ground.

A red line has been crossed.

It's too soon to say what the long-term effects of this shift may be. War is awful and wildly unpredictable, and future scenarios could evolve in many directions.

For the moment, nevertheless, certain indicators are striking. Once again it appears that Emperor Putin has no clothes. Nothing like a coherent response has been forthcoming. The Russian armed forces are not well placed, not well-trained, and not prepared to bounce back from any surprise deviations from a script dictated from the top down. They have lots and lots of human cannon fodder to throw at enemy positions, lots of cheap drones, and weapons supplied by their North Korean and Iranian allies. The whole enterprise remains a disgrace for Russia in every respect. We don't know the extent of Western "disgrace" at present or in the future in terms of drawing out this conflict for their own benefit, abandoning Ukraine at some crucial moment yet to come, or playing the game of "intervening" by using money as a substitute for a real solidarity that is willing to share the risks and responsibilities that the Ukrainian people are bearing in their efforts to defend themselves as a free nation.

What about the nuclear "threat"? While no one wants to underestimate what might be brought on by an act of suicidal fury, there has been very little nuclear rhetoric coming from the Putinistas since August 6. There are factors that make nuclear escalation (and perhaps even conventional escalation) more remote the longer this war goes on. In February 2022, Putin's regime embarked upon the "project" of their "Special Military Operation" not only with their own expectations, but also with what were no doubt the assurances they provided to their relatively new "silent partner" in their investment in Eastern hegemony.

One can only speculate on the details, but appearances indicate that the "silent partner" [not so silent, really] finds itself increasingly burdened by the consequences of Putin's mess, and finds itself more and more bearing the cost (not without some benefits to itself) of Russia's long war and Russia's isolated economy. We are talking, of course, about that Special Unlimited Friendship that was proclaimed just prior to the full scale invasion of Ukraine, that visionary gleam that illuminated the eyes of Emperor Vladimir of All-The-Russias and his "friend," Emperor Xi of the Middle Kingdom and All-Under-Heaven. The latter Empire has the larger claim, but—as has been the practice since antiqutiy—it exercises its claims primarily through "soft power" and its confidence in the superior wisdom of its own system.

I have begun to think that Xi Jinping and his 90 million bureaucrats (a.k.a. the Chinese "Communist" Party) really believe in their own system of maximum political and social control combined with widespread material prosperity. They see it as a viable option for the governments of emerging nations that China wants (and perhaps needs) to do business with. Russia was supposed to be an asset but has turned out to be liability. I think Xi Jinping would strongly object to Putin crossing the nuclear threshold and throwing the world into a panic. Now more than ever, Xi needs “win-win” international projects, lots of trade, and a secure environment that facilitates investment. China is trying to build a global business, and has its own economic problems in its vast homeland. I’m inclined to believe that China would exercise its “soft veto” (which can be hard too, if necessary) against any nuclear adventures Putin might be dreaming up.

Is Russia falling apart? I hope not. I don't want to see Russia become a junior partner in "the Chinese Dream," even though right now things seem to be moving in that direction. Rather, I want Russia to repent of its own 20th century atrocities in the Bolshevik era and disown the leaders who perpetrated them. Then Russia can begin to build anew. 

They also must give up nationalistic political control of the Russian Orthodox Church and allow that great spiritual tradition complete freedom to embark on a path of reunion with its sister churches, especially the too-often-persecuted Ukrainian Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church and a re-emerged Russian Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church (which shined briefly for a few months in 1917).

Peace and community in Europe require the healing of the profound underlying wound that has afflicted Europe for nearly a thousand years. We need nothing less than full communion between Eastern and Western Churches. This will be the fruit of a grace for which we must pray ardently.

Meanwhile, the Chinese need a bigger dream—something greater than controlling people's minds while filling their stomachs. This too is worth praying for.

Pray for the courageous Ukrainian people--a people of great hearts and immense suffering. Pray for Russia and China and all the nations of the world.

Saint Stephen of Hungary

The feast of Saint Stephen of Hungary is August 16. The Hungarian people have a strong Catholic faith, which is expressed in many ways as they continue to affirm their historic identity, dignity, and stature in Europe. Saint Stephen obviously plays a crucial role in bringing together the Hungarian people even today. The text that follows is the “conversion story” of Saint Stephen, which I wrote for the April 2019 edition of Magnificat magazine. I thought it might be helpful to re-present the text now. Here it is:

The story of the conversion of Saint Stephen is inseparable from the story of the thousand year old Hungarian nation. Stephen was the protagonist who forged a warlike and unstable ethnic group into a Christian Kingdom in central Europe. Several new nations emerged during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Europe. At the beginning of this  period, a variety of tribes and migrants dwelt at the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire and the remnants of Charlemagne’s realms (that were undergoing a process of Germanic revitalization).

Among these were the Magyars (called “Hungarians” by the Byzantines), a nomadic confederation originating around the Ural mountains. In the ninth century they crossed over the Carpathians, and conquered and settled the plains around the Eastern portion of the Danube river. From there they began to raid and pillage the Western and Byzantine Empires. At the same time, as they adopted a more settled lifestyle, they were influenced by the older European societies and gradually welcomed Christian missionaries and converts among themselves.

Missionaries approached primitive, dangerous, violent new peoples by seeking to gain converts among the leading families and, if possible, the chieftans. Both Latin and Byzantine missionaries began to have success among the Hungarians by the middle of the tenth century. But it was the intrepid Saint Adalbert of Prague who finally baptized Geza, the Grand Prince of the confederacy in the year 985. Baptism was mostly a political arrangement for Geza, but it was clearly something more for his adolescent son who was also baptized on that day.

Young Prince Vajk took the name “Stephen” at his baptism. He also found a mentor in the learned, wise, and energetic Adalbert. Illuminated by faith in Christ and the guidance of this great missionary bishop,  Stephen sought to become more than just another Magyar warrior chieftan. He aimed for something  that, in retrospect, we might call an achievement of Christian humanism: to transform the barbarous, theiving, raping, murdering pagan Hungarians into a civilized nation at the crossroads of Europe, a nation whose people were suffused with the hope of salvation in eternal life, and who lived in peace and freedom in the present world.

We often forget that the ideal of the Roman Empire was very much alive in the Middle Ages. It was an ideal that developed not only in the direction of a universal earthly Emperor, but also in the direction of identity and freedom for a wide variety of peoples under their own local rulers. The ideal aimed at both solidarity and subsidiarity, although these two aspects nearly always conflicted in practical life.

The Hungarians, moreover, were positioned between two Empires, the Byzantine and the newly invigorated Holy Roman Empire. When Stephen became Hungary’s first king, however, he received the crown directly from Pope Sylvester II, insuring both the political independence and Catholic identity of his people.

Uniting and Christianizing these people, unfortunately, was not accomplished without the use of force and even brutal tactics. However we must understand the many actions and flaws of King Saint Stephen in the context of their time and place, where “imposing Christianity” was often inseparable from establishing the rule of law and basic human civility on a collection of warlords and bandits. The Hungarian people to this day remember his legacy with gratitude and devotion.

Mary Goes Before Us on the Journey to the Fullness of God

Some words from Pope Francis from the Angelus for today’s Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Mother. (Courtesy of CL Instagram)

Mary’s “Dormition”/Assumption, Anonymous carved ivory, 13th century.

Love Stretches Out a Hand to All

Saint Maximilian Kolbe offered to take the place of another prisoner designated for reprisal-execution in Auschwitz. 

He gave his life on August 14, 1941 as a witness to the Love that is greater than the most hideous violence, the Love that redeems and saves the world.

Saint Jane de Chantal: “Hold Your Gaze Upon God”

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641) was a noblewoman, a baroness, a wife and mother, and then a troubled young widow who encountered Saint Francis de Sales and—under his direction—found a deeper vocation to serve God wholly: first through raising her children and caring for her estate, and then as the foundress of a women’s religious congregation, the Visitation Order. 

In a life of diverse experiences and responsibilities, trials and sufferings, she became a woman full of great Christian wisdom. Her counsels on trusting God in every circumstance and in the whole of life continue to encourage us today:

“Do not trouble yourself anymore because you have no feeling... It is not a feeling of faith or of hope that will save us, but rather what we do, supported by the mercy of God.... Hold your gaze upon God in patience and let him do what he wills... Stand firm and endure, without reflecting on all that is going on within you. Leave all that to God without giving it a thought... 

“All you have to do is, from time to time, to utter a few words, above all the following, which may be your only prayer: 'My God, into your hands I commend my spirit," or perhaps: 'My God, my soul is in your holy grasp…. To you I leave all care of it and wish nothing further than to take heed of your will alone…. My joy will be found in heaven and none other holds my heart….' ”

Edith Stein: Sharing the Sufferings of Christ

"Human action cannot help us, but only the sufferings of Christ. My aspiration is to share them" (Edith Stein, Cologne, Germany, 1938). 

#SaintTeresaBenedictaOfTheCross #August9

The Day The Summer Green Vanished

August 9, 1945.

The mountain, “which had been covered with a luxuriant carpet of green, was now changed into a mountain of bare, red rock. And all that summer green—the green leaves on the trees and the green grass—had vanished, so that not one leaf, not one blade of grass remained. The universe had become naked!” (Takashi Nagai, from The Bells of Nagasaki).

“Free to Serve, in Love and Joy”

“ ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Corinthians 3:17)… A free person, a free Christian, is one who has the Spirit of the Lord. This is a very special freedom, quite different from what is commonly understood. It is not freedom to do what one wants, but the freedom to freely do what God wants! Not freedom to do good or evil, but freedom to do good and do it freely, that is, by attraction, not compulsion. In other words, the freedom of children, not of slaves…

“Brothers and sisters, where do we obtain this freedom of the Spirit, so contrary to the freedom of selfishness? The answer is in the words Jesus addressed one day to his listeners: ‘If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed’ (John 8:36). The freedom that Jesus gives us. Let us ask Jesus to make us, through his Holy Spirit, truly free men and women. Free to serve, in love and joy”

~Pope Francis

Archbishop Romero on Transfiguration and Transcendence

I’m taking this opportunity to post some excerpts from Saint Oscar Romero’s homilies regarding the relationship between the eternal and the temporal, and the significance of the Transfiguration of Jesus (which was the feast day of the Archdiocese of San Salvador) for his understanding of evangelization addressed to the integral human person.

“Transcendence means looking toward the eternal, toward God, toward the divine. Only when the material things of the world and the wealth of the earth are viewed in relation to God who created them do they have any meaning. When we view the riches and the goods of the earth without taking God into account, all things are vanity. That is what the Council says in a succinct phrase from the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: ‘Without the Creator, the creature would disappear’.… Things have no meaning in themselves; they have only that autonomy of which the Council speaks. That is, things have their being, their beauty, their own value because God has given it to them. In this sense, things recover their full beauty when they are viewed with that transcendence, with that orientation, with that basic perspective toward God. Then they are no longer vanity but have their proper beauty even while mindful that that they are receiving it all from God….

“The mission of the church, as clearly stated by the Council, is not social or political or economic; it is a religious mission (GS 42). The mission of the church is to give a religious, transcendent dimension to politics and to all earthly affairs. That is why the church feels intimately connected to the things of this world: she knows how to unite them with the will of the Creator. When people subordinate these created realities to sin, then the church must denounce this. That is not how God wants things to be used. Greed is not the law of earthly things. Nor is it selfishness. Things are not possessed only to make a few people happy. The will of God, who has created all things for the happiness and welfare of all persons, demands that we in the church give these things a transcendent meaning, their true meaning according to God’s will.

“This is, then, the mission of the church in today’s world: urging people to view with transcendence their own attitudes and all the political, economic, and social realities of earth. Temporal duties, human rights, everything belonging to the earth—all of these are of great interest to the church, not because they are the goals of her mission but because her mission is precisely to give them a transcendent meaning and to orient people’s hearts toward God. Once converted to God, these hearts will create a better world, a world more in conformity with the will of God, a world in which we feel we are brothers and sisters, all with a sense of transcendence toward the Creator….

“Life and the things life gives us have no meaning in themselves. They are emptiness, they dissipate, they become diluted as long as we do not see their origin, which is God who gives them their being, their beauty, and their consistency. If God gives beauty and consistency to the earthly things we possess, then we cannot use them without having our eyes set on God in order to ask him how he wants us to use them. Let us not forget God, and let us not forget that one day we will have to give an accounting. Our attitude with regard to the things of earth will receive a response from God, either a reward or a punishment. Let earthly things be used the way God wants them to be used and not in any other way.

“In fulfilling this obligation the church suffers persecution and incomprehension, but the church cannot speak in any other way. She is bound to disturb those who want to rest on the laurels of their goods, their triumphs, and their power. The church must remind them, ‘Senseless ones, do you not know that you must give an account to God for these things? Have you forgotten that things have their reason for being, their existence, their consistency, their value, their beauty only because God is giving these qualities? So use them as God intended them to be used, with a sense of transcendence.’” (July 31, 1977)

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“The church is a lamp that must shed light, and therefore it must involve itself in concrete realities in order to enlighten those who are pilgrims on this earth. This is the church’s job; without leaving her proper sphere, she undertakes the difficult task of shedding light on our realities. The church defends the right of association, and she promotes the dynamic activity of raising consciousness and organizing the common people to bring about peace and justice. From her vision of the Gospel, the church supports the same just objectives that the people’s organizations seek, but she also denounces the injustices and the acts of violence committed by the organizations. That’s why the church cannot be identified with any organization, not even with those that call themselves and feel themselves to be Christian…

“We encourage the organized forces to struggle with honor and to use legitimate means of pressure. Never place your trust in violence. Never allow your just demands to be poisoned with ideologies of violence. The church, sisters and brothers, is a lamp in the night; not only does she shed light on these present social problems, but she also illumines the moral intimacy of matrimony, the moral intimacy of the source of life. The church is also against abortion and against all immorality. She is against vice and everything that is darkness, everything that leads people along paths of perdition. The lamp of the transfigured Christ desires to transfigure our people!

“And so Christ turns to us, and I make bold to interpret his words this morning. In thefirst place he turns to the people, to those who suffer, to those who bear the cross of tribulation, and he tells them, «Become worthy of God’s love». The church is with the poor not just because they’re poor. The poor also must be called to account when they claim only their rights and aren’t mindful of their duties; the poor must try to develop themselves, get an education, and work to succeed. Poverty is not just a matter of lacking things; it means having a spirit open to receiving everything from God.

“I also want to tell those who have abundant goods to learn to share. On this morning that anticipates the morning of the final judgment, our Divine Redeemer still holds out to us the opportunity: ‘Whatever you’ve done for them, you’ve done for me’ (Matt 25:40). This is not a request for alms; it’s a demand for social justice.…

“As for the political parties, the professional organizations, the cooperatives, the people’s movements—this morning the Lord wants to inspire in you the mystique of his divine transfiguration in order to transfigure you as well, not by organized force and not by futile methods or mystiques of violence, but with a truly authentic liberation. Keep in mind the spectacle we behold this morning: people who believe, people who hope in God. Let us not despise this religious sense of our people. Let us not import forces from outside, where they know nothing of the marvels of El Salvador. Let us know how to find in the soul of our own people the power that Christ is giving them for their own redemption.

“To those who bear on their hands or in their consciences the burden of bloodshed, of assaults, of victims (whether innocent or guilty, they are victims with human dignity), I say this: be converted! You cannot find God on those paths of torture and brutality. God is found on the paths of justice, conversion, and truth.

“To those who have received the tremendous charge of governing, I remind you in the name of Jesus Christ how urgent it is to find solutions and pass just laws for the sake of that vast majority of people who have pressing problems of livelihood, of land, of wages. For Christians the good of everyone, the common good, has to be an impulse like charity. Keep in mind that all the people desire the right to participate because everyone can contribute something to the common good of the nation. Now more than ever a strong authority is needed; it should not be authority that unifies mechanically or despotically but a moral force based on the freedom and responsibility of all. Strength is needed to bring all the diverse forces together for the welfare of the country despite their differences of opinion and even hostility toward one another. Give people the opportunity to organize. Repeal the unjust laws. Grant amnesty to those who have broken laws that do not serve the common good. Stop intimidating the people, especially those in the countryside. Either set free or prosecute in the courts those who have been disappeared or unjustly jailed. Allow the return to the country of those who have been expelled or kept from returning for political reasons.

“Finally, dear sisters and brothers, the voice of Christ becomes more intimate for those of us who form his church. I’ve made it clear that the people of God, those who will one day be the holy people of the Most High, are not the same as the non-religious groups that the church sometimes helps. They are a people close to Christ; we could almost say they are Christ’s clothing. We are his bishops, his priests, his religious, his catechists, and his communities; we are nourished by the word of God and try to follow the Lord closely. For us more than anyone else the word of Christ becomes a command so that we truly become a church that shines like a lamp in the night, a church that is not confused with other lights but always gives forth the pure light of Christ. The church, sisters and brothers, reveals the transfigured Christ. In a word, dear sisters and brothers, Salvadorans and foreigners, we are all God’s people. Let us create in the midst of the Salvadoran nation a people of God that is truly the church of the Divine Savior.” (August 6, 1978).

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“The feast of the Divine Savior of the World bestows a transcendent meaning on all of our efforts to apply the spirit of Puebla to the archdiocese. Through his transfiguration Christ is telling us that this is our goal: to become new, transfigured men and women, clothed in God, people of whom God can say, ‘My beloved child with whom I am well pleased’ (Mark 9:7). In the first reading Daniel saw the figure of a man surrounded by the glory of God (Dan 7:13). Scripture scholars say that this figure is the glorified Christ, surrounded by all those who are saved. This is the transfiguration we long for: a church that will be glorified but that never loses sight of her exalted destiny while still on pilgrimage.

“And the second thing we want to say today is that each one of us, according to his or her own vocation, should accept this challenge that the Divine Savior of the world presents to our people. All of us who are church should be more identified as church within our particular charisms, within our own congregations, within our personal vocations as married or single, rich or poor, professional or laborer. Let us incarnate Christ’s challenge to us so that each one of us collaborates fully in the transfiguration of our homeland.” (August 6, 1979).

Life is “Walking on Water”

The pericope that follows immediately after today’s reading from the 14th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel recounts the miracle of Jesus walking on water toward the storm-tossed boat that the disciples were trying to use to cross the sea of Galilee. It was a miracle especially directed to the disciples, to help them grow in their adherence to him. This is a story that strikes us especially in our present time, where our human aspirations seem meaningless in light of the fact that the last remnants of what was left of our flawed but also once-Christian-inspired civilization appear to be collapsing all around us.

We do indeed live in a time of great “storms.”

Yet Jesus is calling us to a new life in the Spirit even as we live in this world. It’s a participation in his life, a joy beyond anything that we have ever imagined, which frees us from being overcome by any of the anxieties that threaten our plans and concerns of today. Nevertheless it doesn’t erase the significance and value of our lives as we understand them on earth. Our vocations are concrete, and within the history of our lives the “pieces” of what will become the definitive form of our new humanity are brought together mysteriously by the grace of Christ—with our cooperation, wherein our reason and freedom (enlightened by the “luminous obscurity” of faith and the often-secret ardor of caritas) follow Jesus with a passion for all that is good in creation and authentically human in ourselves. We are called to appreciate and gratefully affirm the goodness of this life and seek to share it with our neighbors, but we strive in hope to move beyond the limits of things—their incapacity to satisfy us or to be “enlarged” to the full scope of the desire of our hearts. Following Jesus means following the Source of all good, the One who constitutes things and gives them meaning in relation to himself (without which they would be nothing, but with which they are realities with their own proper existential character and destiny). 

We are empowered in the Spirit to live “beyond” and “above” the limited attractions and/or dangers that we confront in the circumstances of life—not by pretending they don’t have value, but on the contrary according to their true value which is to signify what is beyond themselves. When we see reality as a “pilgrim’s way” that we follow in faith, we don’t worry about grasping at life or things or aspirations with the desperate intent to control them or “infinitize” them by our own power. We “lose them” in Christ; but in another sense we “find” even them. Insofar as we live “beyond” their finitude, we are not captive to the fear of losing them (“Do not be afraid,” Jesus always says). Jesus is the super-eminent superabundance of all that we love in this life. And he is the Source of a New Creation; our humanity and the good things we seek are not destined to be lost, but to be transfigured in his glory.

So let me return to the Scripture passage I alluded to earlier. We are so easily inclined to be afraid, because life takes us so much beyond ourselves. But this is life lived in the context of a relationship with God who creates us in his image and gives a vocation to our freedom to say “yes” to his grace and be transformed into his likeness. Our lives in this sense are even greater than walking on water, but this miracle conveys the image of the radical and miraculous character of humanity redeemed by Jesus Christ. The journey through this life to the fullness of redemption is arduous, but when our freedom desires to undertake it, we are sustained by his presence and companionship. He lifts us up.

Life is “walking on water.” Perhaps this point will become a bit clearer if we ponder this Gospel text and reflect together on its details and implications.

"Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’" (Matthew 14:22-31)

Like the disciples in this Gospel passage, we find ourselves on a journey. We're in the human "boat," and the wind and the waves of our lives are preventing us from getting anywhere.

It's dark. We're frustrated. There's bizarre stuff going on all over the place. We're barely afloat.

But then suddenly, we are surprised by a man. Not only is he moving freely. He's doing the impossible. He's "walking on the water"—all the human problems that frustrate our plans and our designs are raging and he is right there in the midst of them. Yet they do not trouble or hinder him at all. He has complete freedom and mastery over everything that's threatening to sink us, but when we see him we are scared.

This is to be expected.

Jesus's disciples were scared when they first saw him walking on the water. They were first century Palestinians, children of Israel, not terribly well educated, and maybe a bit superstitious. In any case, they were "spiritual" men, so they were understandably scared that a ghost was approaching them.

"What the heck is this?"...they wondered. "It's not human; that's for sure!"

We are twenty-first century cosmopolitans—global villagers—and most of us know that there must be something more than just this physical world that we see, hear, and touch. Something is "out there" that we might "see" in strange moments, like after we die. Or this "something" has to do with certain deep experiences we have from time to time. We know this, because—after all—we identify ourselves as "spiritual" people.

But right now, we're in this capsizing boat—the "boat" that is the place where we are actively engaged and concerned with life, where we place our hopes and expectations for here and now, where we look for concrete solutions. This is not the place for "being spiritual," we think. This is the place where we need to get down to business.

And business is not going well.

We are also superstitious, in old fashioned ways perhaps, but surely in subtler ways that we wouldn't readily acknowledge. We are afraid of something new happening in our lives, something good and beautiful that really challenges us and changes us but that is also beyond our calculations and our control.

So what are we going to do with this "someone" we now see, who is accompanying us in our lives, who seems to know us better than we know ourselves? What are we to make of this? How can we bear it?

And then he speaks: "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid."

He is a man walking with us, a real "someone," a friend. We see that there are some among us who recognize him.

And we recognize him too. In his face we see the promise of life, the hope that moves us, the fulfillment that we have been trying to reach as we flounder in the waves of frustration and failure.

We recognize all of this in his human face.

This man is walking with us, and he is walking on the water that we fear is going to drown us. This man is with us and he is our friend. He is also offering us a possibility beyond our calculations and beyond our own power.

He says to us, "Come."

He says, "Trust me. Walk with me. Stay with me and you will walk on this water, you will do the impossible, you will walk and you will go onward and persevere even amidst the highest waves and the wildest winds. Come with me!"

He says even more to us through this Gospel story. He says, "Even if you get scared and start to sink—you who are so small in your heart, with so little faith and so little trust—I will catch you! I will not leave you alone. Trust me!"

This is the decision we must make every day. We hear him say, "Come!" And we must decide, we must choose to trust him, and to take that first step onto the water... and then the next, and the next. Step by step, moving, halting, struggling, sinking, letting him catch us and pull us up again, and then taking the next step....

Life is walking on water with him.

Benedict XVI: "A Pedagogy of Desire…”

We have completed the 17th liturgical week of “Ordinary Time” (and the 11th week after Pentecost), living the rhythms of the Church year during this Summer of 2024 [or Winter, if you’re down in the Southern Hemisphere]. Because several important saints were memorialized this past week, we didn’t have many opportunities to pray the week’s ordinary Collect (introduced last Sunday). It is one of several particularly noteworthy Collects of this time of year, connecting as it does “the good things that pass” with “hold[ing] fast even now to those that ever endure.”

Much emphasis has been placed in recent centuries on the spirituality of asceticism and detachment from earthly things. This emphasis underscores an important part (but only a part) of the Christian position in front of the realities of this life. Sin distorts our perception of reality and leads to delusions about the value for our personality of things in this world. Ascetical work is an effort to correct this distortion, and it therefore presupposes a more fundamental and positive significance of the goodness of things created by God. These goods awaken our human desire, and the human vocation involves a generous affirmation of this created goodness as it truly is—namely, as reflecting the infinite goodness of the Mystery of God who alone can satisfy the human heart. Good things are signs and gifts that educate us on our journey toward God. When experienced with true recognition, these goods—and our desire in relation to them—do not lead us astray off the path toward God. Rather they are constructive particulars that should help to open up and shape the realization of our freedom as we move toward the fulfillment that God has prepared for each of us individually in His eternal Kingdom, through Jesus Christ.

It is necessary to correct disordered desire just as (analogously) it is necessary to correct impaired eyesight: the problem is the impairment, whereas eyesight in itself is good and allows us to see and distinguish things. So also with human desire. Following Christ doesn’t suffocate desire. It frees desire and leads its longings to their true fulfillment.

Pope Benedict frequently took up this theme in his teaching, especially in his profound first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (2006). Here, however, I present a few selections from his catechetical homilies in the final year of his papacy:

“It is possible also in this age, seemingly so blocked to the transcendent dimension, to begin a journey toward the true religious meaning of life, that shows how the gift of faith is not senseless, is not irrational. It would be very useful, to that end, to foster a kind of pedagogy of desire, both for the journey of one who does not yet believe and for the one who has already received the gift of faith. 

"It should be a pedagogy that covers at least two aspects. In the first place, to discover or rediscover the taste of the authentic joy of life. Not all satisfactions have the same effect on us: some leave a positive after-taste, able to calm the soul and make us more active and generous. Others, however, after the initial delight, seem to disappoint the expectations that they had awakened and sometimes leave behind them a sense of bitterness, dissatisfaction or emptiness. 

"Instilling in someone from a young age the taste for true joy, in every area of life – family, friendship, solidarity with those who suffer, self-renunciation for the sake of the other, love of knowledge, art, the beauty of nature — all this means exercising the inner taste and producing 'antibodies' that can fight the trivialization and the dulling widespread today. Adults too need to rediscover this joy, to desire authenticity, to purify themselves of the mediocrity that might infest them. It will then become easier to drop or reject everything that although attractive proves to be, in fact, insipid, a source of indifference and not of freedom. 

"And this will bring out that desire for God of which we are speaking.

“A second aspect that goes hand in hand with the preceding one is never to be content with what you have achieved. It is precisely the truest joy that unleashes in us the healthy restlessness that leads us to be more demanding — to want a higher good, a deeper good — and at the same time to perceive ever more clearly that no finite thing can fill our heart. In this way we will learn to strive, unarmed, for the good that we cannot build or attain by our own power; and we will learn to not be discouraged by the difficulty or the obstacles that come from our sin.

“In this regard, we must not forget that the dynamism of desire is always open to redemption. Even when it strays from the path, when it follows artificial paradises and seems to lose the capacity of yearning for the true good. Even in the abyss of sin, that ember is never fully extinguished in man. It allows him to recognize the true good, to savour it, and thus to start out again on a path of ascent; God, by the gift of his grace, never denies man his help. 

"We all, moreover, need to set out on the path of purification and healing of desire. We are pilgrims, heading for the heavenly homeland, toward that full and eternal good that nothing will be able to take away from us. This is not, then, about suffocating the longing that dwells in the heart of man, but about freeing it, so that it can reach its true height.”

~Benedict XVI, General Audience, November 7, 2012

“Grandparents and Grandchildren…Together!”

“Our future depends a great deal on how grandparents and grandchildren learn to live together” (Pope Francis).

I agree!😉❤️❤️

Saint Ignatius: "Take, Lord, and Receive..."

Today is the feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose profound personal conversion led to the founding of a new religious order—the Society of Jesus—in 1540.

I wrote about Ignatius's "conversion story" ten years ago; it appeared in my monthly article series in Magnificat all the way back in May 2014. I have written so many articles presenting the conversion stories of men and women of many nations and peoples in every part of the world, from various times, places, and circumstances over the past 2000 years. Although the series is ongoing, I have often thought of gathering together at least some of the articles already published, providing some additional introductory and contextual material, and representing these stories in one or more books. I would welcome any editor who might be able to help in this process (it's the kind of thing I used to do in my younger days as a publisher and editor, working with scholars and writers who were often over 60 years old).

Now I am in the position of being an "elder," and although I have very little of the wisdom that I ought to have at this age, I do have much experience of life and many ideas to convey and stories to tell. I have studied intently and read more books than I can remember (as well as writing a few of my own), and consequently have some small measure of accumulated learning (which I continue to pursue with, if anything, more ardor, more humility [I hope] and openness, and more passion for truth than ever before).

I still struggle with serious physical and mental limitations, but I continue to find ways to "work within them," trying to bear with many frustrations and with what I fear is the beginnings of the diminishment of my mental powers. I want to give from the gifts entrusted to me, and fulfill this dimension of my vocation. I also probably still care more about "worldly success" than I am willing to admit to myself.

The great Offering Prayer of Saint Ignatius is beautiful, although I cannot entirely pray it without hypocrisy. The prayer itself makes clear why it is ridiculous to "hold back" anything from the God who loves, who gives and will give us our true, transformed, definitive "selves" if we entrust to Him our poor struggling broken "selves-of-this-moment" (our journeying selves). I pray that the hidden and mysterious work of the Holy Spirit will prevail in me, clearing away the barriers of my pride, my illusions, and my fears and drawing me closer to the heart of this prayer.

Life is a "school" for learning to trust in God. Our journey is an ongoing conversion toward entering into this trust as a total act of abandonment and self-giving love to the God who is Himself Infinite Love and Infinite Gift.

"Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief"! (Mark 9:24). The man whose son was so terribly afflicted gave this response to Jesus's call for faith. It doesn't sound heroic or grand; it's an ordinary prayer from an ordinary man. But it's a true prayer, and the Lord answers it (the boy is cured). The beginning of prayer is already prayer; it is already the miracle of Christ's saving love, changing us and beginning to transform us.

With our hearts, our time, and our honest still-messed-up-selves, we pray that God will enable us to pray. Turning the infinite hunger of our souls to Him, we trust that He will enable us to trust. I beg Jesus to give me, and to continue to give me, the grace to enter into this great prayer of Saint Ignatius:

"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me" (Saint Ignatius of Loyola).

Martha Comes To Believe that Jesus is the Son of God

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were beloved friends of Jesus. We see Saint Martha’s exemplary faith expressed in chapter 11 of John's Gospel. In this account of the miracle in which Jesus restores Lazarus from death, He first has a magnificent conversation with Martha, in which He reveals Himself to her as the One who conquers death and brings eternal life. In this encounter, Martha is not “worried about many things” as she had been in Luke’s account (in Luke 10) of an earlier event when Jesus had come dine at their home. Now, rather, she is entirely focused on Jesus and has complete trust that God will do whatever Jesus asks of Him. And by the word of Jesus and the grace working within her, Martha’s “trust” will be transformed into a recognition and profession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, who has come to save the world. This Gospel reading deserves our attentive meditation.

In the text, we see Jesus invite Martha to believe in Him. Her response shows clearly that she—like her sister Mary (see Luke 10:41)—has come to know in a very deep way the "one thing necessary."

From the Gospel for the feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (July 29):

“And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. 

“When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. [But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.’ 

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.’ 

“Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 

“She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.’” 

~John 11:19-27

Growing in Love Takes Time

There seems nothing more obvious than the fundamental importance of love for our lives. We all want to love and to be loved. But why is love so hard? We are drawn to love within the ordinary circumstances of every day; drawn, prompted, but then sometimes afraid, paralyzed, or apparently just too lazy to respond. In fact, the call to love challenges our hearts to open up to the incomprehensible Mystery that sustains all of reality and is signified by everything that attracts us. 

We think we want love to be simple and “safe,” commodified, subject to our control, and if we ever think of "growing in love" it is usually only in superficial and manageable terms. We find it overwhelming when we consider that we are made to love the Infinite, that all the turmoil inside of us is the anguished cry of our being, the cry for this love. Even underneath our laziness is a kind of desperation to hold onto what we have, because we don't know what there is out there "beyond ourselves" and we don't want to take the risk.

But really, are you satisfied with what you have now. Really?

Another aspect of our hesitancy to love might be discouragement. "I have tried to love before, but all I've done is mess things up. I don't know how to love and I don't want to try. It's too dangerous!"

This is a moment where my freedom is challenged in a crucial way. I have a choice. I can give in to discouragement. Or I can acknowledge my poverty, and beg from the heart of my great need for love. If the Infinite calls forth my true desire, and if nothing less than the Infinite corresponds to my heart, what else can I do? 

We cannot master, conjure, or control the Infinite Mystery that fascinates us as the Source of the meaning and goodness of all things. Yet we have this inexhaustible desire, and even a kind of “expectation” that this desire—the underlying energy that moves forward all our aspirations and purposes and relationships—is not in vain. How do we know that we are not alone with an impossible desire for a love that we cannot achieve by our own power?

All we can do is cry out for help. 

And maybe it feels like a waste of time, because help doesn't seem to be coming. But that is not true. Look! We have already begun to grow. In that begging is already the recognition that the Infinite Someone can be addressed by our plea, and that we can hope for an answer. If we were really alone, it would never even occur to us to ask. Someone is already here, helping us now. Someone is already loving us. The One who loves us is calling us to a relationship of love, awakening our freedom by inspiring us to ask for the ways of love we cannot build by ourselves—the ways that take us beyond ourselves.

So we begin to love. And when we fail, we must not get discouraged. We must ask again, get up and try again. Because growing in love takes time.

“Summer in Motion”

“Summer in Motion” (July 2024), by JJ.

Saint Mary Magdalen: “New Things Have Come”

When Mary Magdalen encountered the Resurrected Christ, she did not know Him until He spoke her name. He enabled her to see in His risen life the radical beginning of a “new thing” beyond all the hopes and searching of human history: the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s gratuitous gift of His love poured forth for the salvation of humanity and the transformation of all things—the beginning of a “new creation.” He sent Mary to reveal this to the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit inspired within her heart a great desire to witness to them.

So it was also with Saul of Tarsus, when He encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus, when Jesus changed his heart and gave him the mission to announce salvation to the peoples of the earth (as we see in the first reading for today’s feast). So it is too for each of us who have encountered Jesus in the Church, where He touches the personal depths of each of our hearts while also uniting us with our brothers and sisters and calling us to serve every human person made in God’s image and called to share in God’s Eternal Joy.

We may not feel “impelled” by the love of Christ, as was Mary Magdalen, the Apostles, Saint Paul, or the many great saints of history. But through Baptism into His Body, He has begun to transforms us —even if we usually forget, or fail to live coherently. He calls us, and insofar as we recognize this call we want to share it with others. The Spirit of God lights a flame in our hearts to spread the hope of Christ all around us. Even if we break away from Christ and reject His love, still He calls us to return to Him, and is always ready to rekindle the fire of our hearts.

Christ is King of the Universe, and He seeks out every human person—including the great majority that do not know Him, or fail to recognize the true significance of His name. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for every person, the impetus and the goal of every human journey. Still, the “way” He chooses to make Himself known and loved throughout the world is through us, His Church.

If this were merely a human project, it would overwhelm us. But it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and He brings it to fruition in Christ in God’s time, with much that remains hidden and mysterious but which still pertains to the fullness of Christ in His Church. What matters most for our vocation is to stay with Christ and to follow Him. It is to respond, like Saint Mary Magdalen and Saint Paul, when He calls our name with love, and meets us in “places” in our lives where we never expected to find Him. It is to believe in Him and adhere to Him with the strength of faith, hope, and love He gives to us, to allow Him to refashion our hearts and move our hearts by the “new things,” by the miracle of His presence with us as the Life of our lives, the One who reveals the Father’s love for us and for the world, the One who shines light on everything, who is the meaning and fulfillment of all things.

We are weak, we fall short, we make a mess of so many things; we repent, return, and begin anew, we learn and grow in Jesus Christ in the communion of His Church. He is here, the New Adam, the beginning of the new creation. He is God-with-us and He is with us all through this life, sustaining all things, drawing all things and all people to Himself. The more we grow in awareness of His enduring victory, the more we will share it with gladness and joy and thanksgiving, and the more it will illuminate even our most unbearable sorrows.

As Saint Mary Magdalen learned, He turns our sorrows into joy. And Saint Paul says in the reading in today’s liturgy:

“The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

“Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17).

“God Does Not Forsake Us…”

This piece is titled The Dusk of July 2024, and it seems to match the mood I find within me. My illness has reasserted itself. Once again, I am crashing into a wall. This is the struggle of the past 25+ years, and it has been very frustrating and sometimes humiliating. Meanwhile, I’m getting older, and I'm feeling even more vulnerable to all the ways that Late-Stage Lyme screws up one's body.

.

I’m scared.

Yet, listen to what Pope Benedict XVI says, only a few days before resigning the papacy. This is what I want to take to heart.

“God is a Father who never abandons his children, a loving Father who supports, helps, welcomes, pardons and saves with a faithfulness that surpasses by far that of men and women, opening onto dimensions of eternity. ‘For his steadfast love endures for ever,’ as Psalm 136 [135] repeats in every verse, as in a litany, retracing the history of salvation. The love of God the Father never fails, he does not tire of us; it is a love that gives to the end, even to the sacrifice of his Son. Faith gives us this certainty which becomes a firm rock in the construction of our life: we can face all the moments of difficulty and danger, the experience of the darkness of despair in times of crisis and suffering, sustained by our trust that God does not forsake us and is always close in order to save us and lead us to eternal life” (Benedict XVI, General Audience of January 30, 2013).

“I Will Give You Rest”

This Gospel passage always brings encouragement, as well as a profound sense of being understood and loved by God. Jesus knows each person’s suffering.

The “Mantle” of Mary

According to Carmelite tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the Superior the Carmelite Order in the thirteenth century (during a time of uncertainty and turmoil for them and other “new” religious movements—such as the “Dominicans” and the “Franciscans”) and gave the Carmelites the long brown double-sided “apron” that is worn over the shoulders in their religious habit (this portion of the habit is called the “scapular”). In this way the Blessed Mother enfolded them in a special way in her mercy and protection.

In the ensuing centuries, lay people associated themselves with the Carmelite charism and Mary’s special protection by enrolling in a broad association (a “confraternity”) that connected them vitally and particularly to the prayers and sacrifices of the Carmelite Order. They were symbolically “clothed” in Mary’s “mantle”—the garment of the Carmelite brown scapular—by taking up and wearing a cord with two small pieces of brown cloth (for the front and back). According to the reports of the thirteenth century vision, when Mary originally gave the Carmelites their brown scapular, she said, “Whoever dies clothed in this will not suffer eternal fire.” Not surprisingly, the brown scapular became a very popular and widespread devotion in the Western Church, to the point where many parishes enrolled (and gave a brown scapular to) every person when they received their First Communion. 

I’m not sure whether or not I was enrolled thus (in the olden days), but I did formally receive the scapular from a priest at my University, according to the proper (and simple) “form” at that time for enrolling in the Confraternity. I wear it day and night and I cherish it. I don’t “think much” about it. It’s a gift from Mary. I’m grateful for these little tangible pieces of cloth that “enfold me” in the maternal love of the Mother of God. Mary wants to be with me on my journey to her Son (who is also—thanks to her “fiat”—my Brother) and His Kingdom: this journey that is beautiful and full of faith and love and building up the good, full of the “hundredfold” of the zest for life, and at the same time arduous and steep, extreme and so hard, with stumbling and wounds and dark places that make one cry out, “Where am I?”… with failure and humiliation, pain and disappointment, but also those inexplicable joys that persist in the still center of the soul in whispers and sighs too deep for words.

I know that the Carmelites have revised their norms regarding their confraternity and have emphasized its specific relationship with the worldwide Carmelite family and its spiritual tradition. I’m not sure what that entails, but it’s not a kind of “third order” (Carmelites have a proper Third Order, just like the Dominicans and Franciscans, which diocesan priests and lay people can join). The Confraternity of the Scapular (I would think) involves more of an “awareness” of a relationship with the Carmelites, their charism, their profound tradition of penance, prayer, and the ways (even mystical ways—remember Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and of course the astonishing “little” Thérèse) to abandonment and union with God through the grace of Jesus Christ.

The proper enrollment in the brown scapular is important. I don’t know if it has become more “difficult” or whether parishes in North America have just neglected it in recent years. I haven’t researched this point much, to be honest. [UPDATE: this current CARMELITE WEBSITE gives a thorough explanation.] I recommend to you the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Ask your parish priest or any priest who helps guide you in your faith about how this devotion might be helpful for you. [UPDATE: refer to LINK above for information about various ways of more-or-less “formal affiliation” with the Carmelite spiritual family that are possible through the brown scapular. I have given what I think is a reasonably accurate “general sense” of things, at least as I have understood them over the years—but current Carmelites can explain the specifics and answer many questions that people may have. A link like THIS ONE is very useful.]

It is important to understand properly the “promise of not suffering eternal fire” within the context of living a life committed to Christ. The scapular—like so many other physical gestures and helps and objects that Catholics integrate into the practice of their faith (and which can seem so complicated and confusing to our Protestant brothers and sisters)—is a sign of the fundamental promises of Jesus who is God made flesh: “Whoever believes in me has eternal life.” “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). 

These are not promises that allow us to disengage from living our relationship with Jesus in the Church; they are promises that “move with us” as we adhere to Jesus in trust, abandoning ourselves to Him, cooperating with the grace of the Holy Spirit who empowers us to do His will, keep His commands, worship and love God above all else, and love one another in Him. We live these promises in the hope that the Holy Spirit instills in us on our journey every day, as we trust that the love of God our Father is shaping our lives for the glory of His Son Jesus, which it is our destiny to share as His brothers and sisters. 

This too is the concern of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and us. She knows we need signs, gestures and objects that we can touch and wear and carry and gaze upon with our eyes. The scapular is a sign—something we wear that is physically linked to Christ’s Body, the Church—a sign of the new life that has already begun for us in Baptism, that is nourished or restored by the Sacraments, that enables us even now to engage life in this world with the transformed knowledge and love of Christ. In hope and prayer we open our hearts to Him, living and hoping to remain in Him, to persevere in Him, to die in Him who has conquered sin and death.

Wearing the scapular is sharing in a gift from our Merciful Mother who is full of tenderness toward us, who is abundant in maternal solicitude and gifts that are close to the heart (the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe reminds me of this too).

Here are a few words from someone with a deep devotion to the brown scapular that he wore from his youth, the great Pope Saint John Paul II:

"Mother of Christ, let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the Redemption: the power of merciful Love! May it put a stop to evil! May it transform consciences! May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope!" (Saint John Paul II).