En Communio

Have you ever watched a couple who are legitimately in love? They can silently exchange glances, communicating one thing or another. They seek to anticipate the needs of the other in order to help them. They gladly make sacrifices of their own will to see the other become over joyed.

Should this not be how our relationship with God the Son should be? Didn’t He make the greatest sacrifice to see us at the eternal level of joy? Didn’t He anticipate our need for redemption and mercy? There’s a story I’ve heard a few different versions of…

“Once there was an old man who would come to adoration every week. He would sit in the back pew and just stare at the Blessed Sacrament. No reading. No beads. Just gaze. And when asked what it was that he prayed during that time, he responded, “I’m not praying. I look at Him and He looks at me.”

Obviously this is prayer since prayer is a two way street. Is he not listening? Isn’t the lover and beloved silently exchanging glances? What great love the Holy Spirit must be doing in such a person’s heart! 

Recently, on EWTN radio, Johnette Benkovic was talking with an older man who had been away from the Church for over 40 years. He complained that since he’s begun praying he’s not heard God speak and wondered if he was doing it wrong. He’s felt nothing. Johnette’s answer was profound: “Like medical anesthesia, the Lord is doing such deep work in your soul that it would be too painful for you to feel it all at once, but He is there.”

So often we become discouraged in our prayers. Why isn’t God answering them? Why isn’t He giving me the answer in the time frame I want? Why can’t I feel Him? Love isn’t about feelings. Sometimes it’s not about getting what we want when we want, but receiving what it is that we actually need to become the saints God created us to be.

Like the lovers, we are God’s beloved, are we letting Him romance us? Can we listen to Him? Are we able to just spend quality time with Him? Or do we treat Him like a vending machine: put in a prayer, receive desired result?

“He is jealous for me. Love’s like a hurricane and I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. When all of a sudden of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realize just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me. (How He Loves, by David Crowder Band.)”

Pax Tecum.

Gifts of the Church

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” Mt. 16:18

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Romans 12:4-5

The Lord is so good. As if you don’t already know it! But over the last two days He allowed me to experience His love and majesty with a different perspective and solidly reiterated some reoccurring lessons. I was blessed with the opportunity to interview with St. Paul’s Outreach on OSU’s campus during the past 36 hours and while there they Lord presented how alive His body is. I've been wondering what happened to the Church that I once thought was in a spring time of its life. Where had it gone? Living in my current diocese, there’s not much persecution happening- praise be Jesus! – but it’s allowed a complacent blanket to settle on most of the Catholics here. We go do good during the day, we seek some good in the evening… it’s all honky-dory. Where is the zeal? Where is the fire for the souls we’re working next to that are dying? Perhaps this place is too focused on only social justice when we need to be balancing it with soul-cial charity too.

Arriving in Columbus, I showed up an hour early. My friends were unavailable and I have nothing to do with that hour. Turning some corners I came across Holy Name Church, which is gorgeous! It’s so pre-Vatican II with it’s lovely high altar, side altars (complete with their own tabernacles which now hide behind flower displays), and of course a marble communion rail. Kneeling before the Lord in this wonderful house of His, I was struck with awe at the fact that there’s a sense of home in each and every Catholic church throughout the world, whether it was built 5 years ago or 500, is ornately gothic or plainly modern, because Christ is still present in the tabernacle. It’s an other worldly gift that He offers us. No doubt to help in romancing us. How wondrous that He offers us the gift of coming home every time we enter a Catholic church! How blessed we are with this gift that many of our Christian brothers and sisters don’t have. If only we would allow our hearts to be empty so that He could completely fill them! How might the world reform with such joy and charity!

Since the beginning of January the Lord has just been crazy about giving me awe about the priesthood, another gift that many of our Christian brothers and sisters can’t experience. Who are these men that would lay down their life for us, the children of God, so that someone sacrifices everything so that we are spiritually nourished, protected, and healed? Where does God find these men? I think He makes them. He makes us all. But they allow Him to make them. Do we? He makes them feet, hands, and ears of His body. What is He trying to make of us? Are we allowing Him to work? Why not – He’s a skilled craftsman! But back to these men of His, His beloved sons. Are they not brave, courageous fathers? They are our spiritual fathers and they know in spiritually adopting us by accepting the gift of becoming a priest, that we will be disobedient, wayward, stubborn, weak, lost, hopeless, and wounded at times, but like all amazing parents, they know that it is the Lord’s will what happens in our lives and they are here, answering the call, to guide us to Him. They know they alone can do nothing, that it is God Who works through them. They know what our potential can be, if only we accept the mercy and truth of God that they want to share with us. What courageous men! Praise be Jesus!

They are more than just "priests" they are "priest-victims." Ven. Fulton Sheen once said that hyphenated part is too often left off their full title. This is evident because we all seem to have forgotten about that part. Let us pray for them, and know that those with other titles, such as "bishops," etc. are called to be even more victims/servants for the Lord and His body, the Church.

Pax Tecum.