Thoughts for Easter 2008

When I was in grade school, I always had a difficult time dealing with the story of the Passion. I disliked the Stations of the Cross because I hated to see Jesus suffer. And I hated the thought that men could do something so terrible to Him.

The one thing which made the Stations of the Cross bearable for me was the “added” fifteenth station—“Jesus rises from the dead”. It made me feel that after Christ was finished dying to save the world, God would undo all the damage and thing could get back to normal. That is, we could all resume our business of loving God and trying to be good, and then live happily ever after.

I suppose in my heart I knew this wasn’t the case. Jesus did rise from the dead, but things could never go back to the way they were before the Crucifixion; just as we could never return to Eden, even while we were redeemed from original sin.

Even though I understood intellectually that Jesus’ risen life was truly better and more perfect then His earthly life, it took me a very long time before I could see this with my heart. What could be better or happier than a comfortable, mundane life with Jesus? Jesus’ post-Resurrection life may have been glorious, but it was still so strange and foreign to everything I thought I knew and loved.

But when I finally did come to understand, I found that it was something too deep and too beautiful to put into words.

I see my vocation to consecrated virginity as a reflection of this aspect of the Paschal Mystery.

If I did not have this vocation, I think I still would have lived a good Christian life. I imagine that I would have been a wife and a mother. I would have made a happy home for my family, and I would have tasted all the highest, best, and most lasting joys this created world has to offer.

But God called me to live in this world as though I was already a citizen of the next. Being called to stake all my hope in Heaven has been slowly teaching me to “walk by faith, and not by sight.” (Which, to be perfectly honest, can be really hard at times.)

Yet in forsaking marriage, I found that I truly could glimpse “the love for which it is a sign.”* In letting the risen Christ lead me to places I didn’t understand, I found that in Him there is a life deeper than life itself.

* from the Rite of Consecration

A Reflection for the Last Friday in Lent

(This is a reflection I wrote for a program at my university on the "seven last words" of Christ. As it wouldn't seem right being on the computer on Good Friday, I thought I would share this today.)

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Many unbelievers have suggested that while crucifixion is certainly a horrific method of execution, Jesus’ death was no more terrible than the deaths of countless ordinary Roman criminals, or even that of the average cancer victim. They hold that we give undue significance to Christ’s Passion.

This verse more than any other shows us Christ’s agony as unique in its intensity. We only feel pain at someone’s absence if we love the person; and our pain increases in proportion with the depth of our love. No one will ever love as deeply as Jesus loved, and Jesus loves no one as much as He loves the Father. The suffering that Christ endured in His experience of the Father abandoning Him is most likely beyond what any of us are able even to begin to comprehend. Compared to this, all Christ’s bodily torments must have seemed almost negligible.

Christian martyrs throughout history have frequently met brutal deaths with a sense of peace and holy resignation which baffled those around them. St. Agnes was said to have gone to her execution more joyfully than most people go to their wedding; St. Thomas More told jokes on the scaffolding; and St. Maxamillian Kolbe led his fellow prisoners in hymns until they one by one died of starvation. Undoubtedly, these martyrs were strengthened and consoled by their faith in and love for God.

How paradoxical that Christ Himself—the source of the martyrs’ strength—was not granted similar consolation at the hour of His death! Yet perhaps this agony of agonies is what made His sacrifice complete. And in this, Christ, who now sits at the right hand of the Father, was actually fulfilling the Father’s will more perfectly than it had ever been fulfilled.

How does this apply to our lives today? I think for Christians of this century, and especially for us young Catholics, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” has become sort of the antiphon for our own sufferings.

We live in an age where we see multitudes of once-vibrant religious orders dying, churches closing, and families simply falling apart. Secular humanism has become the dominant intellectual view even in numbers of Catholic universities. It seems sometimes that the “lights of the world” are dimming, or that “the salt of the earth” is losing its flavor.

The spiritual pallor of our world finds its way into our interior lives. Probably most of us have felt it difficult or even impossible to believe in God at one time or another. For all the moments when our faith has been a comfort to us, there have been times when we have had to fight bitterly against the tide to hold on to what looked like the last shards of it. It may take every ounce of tenaciousness in us to resist the easy dullness of a life without faith for the obscure and difficult beauty of the God whom we barely understand…

But there is hope. We always have hope, and we should never forget this. We have hope in even in the most wretched and profound darkness because Christ has already been there…and He has risen from the dead!

Some Helpful Books

As it's notoriously difficult to find reading material which is really useful and pertinent to someone discerning a vocation to consecrated virginity in the world--I think people discerning priesthood or religious life may have it easier in this regard--I though I would share some of the books which I lately have found helpful.

Virginity, by Raniero Cantalamessa. I read this book for the first time when I was nineteen, and I just loved it. This is a very warm and "human" introduction to consecrated celibacy in general, but at the same time it is also intelligent and even poetic. It does a good job of presenting virginity in an appealing way without watering down the impact of some of the underlying theology.

Virginity, by J.M. Perrin, O.P. This is an older book (c. 1955), and I don't think it's still in print. However, I would think any reasonably well-stocked Catholic library would have a copy.

This book focuses on the nature of consecrated virginity specifically as it is embraced by women. Although he certainly refers to some conditions unique to religious life, Perrin doesn't restrict the discussion to religious. He frequently remarks on the particular issues which pertain to women living some form of consecration in the world. Though the revised rite for consecration to a life of virginity was not promulgated until 1970, Perrin was obviously amenable to the idea of women living these "newer" forms of consecrated life (and I believe co-founded a secular institute for women).

The places where he describes the blessings of virginity basically functioned as spiritual reading for me, but I think I most appreciated his discussion of the challenges and dangers inherent in a consecrated life. I'm always grateful to find an honest presentation of these issues which isn't tinged with an undue pessimism.

We Look for a Kingdom: the Everyday Lives of the Early Christians, by Carl Sommer. This is a popular description of the culture in which the early Church was born. While it is not a book on consecrated life, it helped me understand how the earliest consecrated virgins would have understood their life and their vocation. I was particularly interested in the parallels that could be drawn between the Church as it existed in its first few centuries and the Church as it exists today.

Even though this was not written as a scholarly work, I think it was intended for an educated audience. Its footnotes are very good. I learned a lot from this book, and I had a lot of fun reading it. (Would that I could say the same about some of my Philosophy texts!)

Will You Be My Methodious?

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodious. The rest of the United States is celebrating St. Valentine's Day.

I'm not quite sure why St. Valentine isn't on the liturgical calender, as he seems to be the object of so much popular devotion (or at least pseudo-devotion). I had always heard that he was a Catholic priest in ancient Rome who helped couples by witnessing their Christian marriages, and that he was later martyred. Perhaps when they reformed the calender they determined these legends to be overly apocryphal. Oh, well.

But Sts. Cyril and Methodious are interesting, too, and they're also historically important. Not to mention the fact that they actually existed. They are mainly famous for preaching the Gospel to the Slavic nations, a byproduct of which was their invention of the Cyrillic (a.k.a. the "Russian") alphabet.

A seminarian friend asked me today, jokingly, "Will you be my Methodious?" To which I could only respond, "If you'll be my Cyril!"

I decided that I am definitely going to make cards along this theme for next year, as it's the perfect "St. Valentine's Day" greeting for those of us who aren't dating for spiritual reasons! Sts. Cyril and Methodious were friends whose friendship was based on Jesus Christ, and this bore fruit in the conversion of an entire culture. I find this to be an excellent example for me as I value my own friendships.

Happy Ash Wednesday!

I have been wishing everyone here at school a happy Ash Wednesday. Not surprisingly, I've gotten a few protests that Ash Wednesday isn't a "happy" day.

Maybe these people were a little cranky from fasting, but I beg to differ! For the past couple of days friends and I have spent our lunch conversations deciding on a "top ten" list of great things about Lent:

Top Ten "Coolest" Things About Lent

10. Purple is a much more elegant liturgical color than green.

9.You can save money on all the food you won't be eating--although you should probably be giving this to the poor!

8. All the good fish recipes come out of the woodwork.

7. A convenient excuse to watch The Passion of the Christ. (I've heard in some places they even bring it back into theaters.)

6.Catholic camaraderie. E.g., when you see someone else with ashes today, you know they were at Mass, too!

5. You don't need to hide or make excuses around your penance and sacrifices--because everyone else is supposed to be doing the same thing.

4. Priests are generally more enthusiastic to hear confessions--so I don't have to worry about becoming the "scourge of the clergy" by going frequently.

3. More opportunities for organized communal prayer, especially on the campus of a Catholic university.

2. Cool antiphons.

and the #1 coolest thing about Lent...

...is the chance to become closer to Jesus Christ!

Some of our list items are silly, but we really should be excited about the chance to renew our spiritual life. So I will continue to wish everyone a happy Lent.

"Super Tuesday" and the March for Life

I was able to go home and visit my parents this weekend, so I had a chance to fill them in on some of my "adventures" this semester. Among other things, I told them about the trip I took two weeks ago with my school's campus ministry to Washington D.C. for the March for Life.

Apparently, my mother had heard that there was an unremarkable turnout, and that there were plenty of counter-protesters.

I don't know where she got that news. First, I didn't see a single pro-choice protester--my thought is that if you were carrying a pro-abortion sign, everyone would just have assumed that the "don't" or "stop" part of your poster had fallen off!

In my group, we heard that there were 200,000 people at the march, and I certainly believe it. I don't think I've ever seen that many people in one place before. And the funny thing is, you still manage to find people you know (even from other regions of the country) unexpectedly in the crowd. While I was there, it occurred to me that Heaven might be a little similar in this regard: billions and billions of people, but you still manage to find your friends and connect with people personally. But this was just a thought.

Of course, most of the day was far from heavenly. For one thing, it's sad that we have to come out and march in the first place. Also, January 22 was declared a national day of penance by the U.S. bishops, and I can assure you that the day was adequately penitential for everyone in my group.

We had a LONG and grueling trip by bus and train, and we spent a lot of time standing in cold and rainy weather (and I had a migraine on the way home). But in one sense, I was almost grateful for these trying conditions. They made our being there more meaningful. I think it says a lot when people, especially young people, are willing to put up with this discomfort in order to take a stand on what they believe.

At the end of the march, there was a huge rainbow across the sky (and some say over the Supreme Court building, but I wasn't there at the time). A friend of mine said that this was the first rainbow he had ever seen in D.C. We're all hoping it's a sign!

Participating in the March for Life was a great thing to do as a Catholic, but also as an American citizen. I'm sure that all the marchers will bring their convictions into the voting booth with them on this "Super Tuesday". Today let's pray that more people--especially Catholics--will listen to their consciences as they choose which candidate to support.

Feast of the Presentation

Today, forty days after Christmas, the Church celebrates the feast of Jesus' presentation in the Temple. February 2 is also the day the Church chooses to commemorate (non-liturgically) the gift of the consecrated life.

I have always assumed that this feast was selected as an appropriate occasion for the "World Day of Consecrated Life" because this was the day when Jesus was presented, i.e. "consecrated" to God in the Temple.

Of course, Jesus' life was the most "consecrated" of anyone who ever walked the earth, and all consecrated people strive to live as He did. (Although He was not presented in the Temple to be ritually set apart from other children. Rather, in presenting Him, His parents were fulfilling the Jewish law and custom described in Exodus 13:1-3a, 11-16.)

But as I reflect, it would seem that the lives of modern consecrated people also find a parallel in the figures of Simeon and Anna. Like Anna, who spent most of her time in the Temple, consecrated people spend their lives occupied with the things of God. And like Simeon, their life is completed only by seeing Christ.

This feast can serve to remind us that the pure in heart will see God. I hope and pray that a life spent eagerly waiting for His coming will serve as my own purifying "refiner's fire," so that I too may have this as my reward.