The Safe House

 

*Note: I am back from retreat. Thank you for your prayers, they were efficacious. Many graces, and one small miracle as well. I am still letting things digest, and as we spent five days keeping silence and meditating often on the nature of the Mother of God, I would like to just imitate our Mother in the way she "kept all these words, and pondered them in her heart" (Lk 2:19-20 DRV). 

I am indebted to Dom Pius Mary Noonan, OSB, who flew over from Australia to offer this retreat for men, offered the Latin Mass daily, and made himself available for spiritual direction throughout the week to the 24 men who were there to "be broken apart, and put back together again" in the Lord's school of charity. The monk's budding monastery, Notre Dame Priory in Tasmania, is a traditional order of Benedictines very much worth supporting if you are able and feel called to do so, as they could truly use the financial help; if inclined, you may donate here. 

While I'm going to keep the particulars of my retreat to myself (for now, at least), I would like to share a little bit about something tangential I experienced this past week:

Off country road 274 in western Ohio two Churches converge. Not two local parishes, nor two physical structures even, but the meeting of the universal Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. The day I arrived to the Relic Chapel in the unincorporated town of Maria Stein, I was the only one representing the Church Militant--alone among the remains of 500+ friends who has walked the same path I found myself on, and who have won the crown of victory in the heavenly court (1 Cor 9:25).

I had driven six hundred miles to attend a retreat in the middle of corn and soybean fields near the Indiana border for the week and wasn't even aware that a quarter mile walk from where I was staying would take me to the second largest collection of holy relics in the United States. I really do think I was being led there by the Holy Spirit, as I was sitting outside on a bench in the middle of a clearing, struggling with something particular to my spiritual battle and feeling besieged by the Devil (who probably wasn't happy I was there), and just felt like wandering over to what I thought was just a church down the way to kill time in between sessions.

When I came to the brick church, there was a sign that said Relic Chapel, and the heavy wooden door was ajar. I curiously opened it and walked inside and was completely blown away. 

The space itself was small, maybe 30' by 30' but it was packed with the bones, clothing, and other remnants of literally almost every single holy heavy hitter in the course of Church history: 1,200 in all, including fragments of the True Cross. I had never been to something with holiness so...concentrated before. 

I knelt down on the wood floor and got to work on asking each saint represented there, by name, for special favors for those who needed them. There as an alphabetical guide of all the saints' relics that were represented, so I started with the "A's" and ended with the "Z's". It took me 20 minutes or so all in all to ask every single one for these intentions, just to cover my bases: "St. Abdon, martyr, pray for us. St. Abinius, pray for us. St. Abundus, pray for us...and so on and so on."

Now, I hate museums, and I'm not big on books either. But holy scripture is not dead letters on a page, but God alive in the Word. And this was no 'museum' in the secular sense, but a powerhouse of living holiness, if felt like. The relics of all my favs were here: St. Agnes, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, St. Antony, St. Benedict, St. Charbel...you'd be harder pressed to find a holy man or woman in history who wasn't represented or present. Because Satan was working hard on me over the past week, pummeling me at night and during the days, this chapel felt like a safe house of sorts, where he literally couldn't stand to be because my holy friends were protecting and surrounding me.  

What was strange was I was so excited, like I found an unclaimed treasure chest that washed up while at the beach for the weekend--and the place was empty! Why? Why weren't there busloads of pilgrims, people flying in from all over the country and world, to venerate and pray here? Did they not know it existed? 

In holy scripture, we see the sick and suffering healed who merely fell within Peter's shadow passing by (Acts 5:15). To expect that these friends in Heaven can and do want to intercede for us through divine favor is not only biblical, but congruent with one's faith in God, His saints, and His Church. I just couldn't believe it wasn't standing room only. What a divine privilege to be there alone, among so many friends and heroes. 

But then, why should I be surprised? This is human nature. We have the privilege of keeping watch with our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration less than ten minutes from our homes, and rather than being standing room only, there are empty hours. The Lord's best friends fell asleep on him in his hour of need, and all those who yelled Hosanna! on Palm Sunday have left him alone or lost interest. The road of discipleship can be so sparsely traveled that you get excited when you meet another disciple on the way, one who gets it, who has a burning heart to talk with zeal about the Messiah and the salvation of mankind (Lk 24:13-35).

I feel like an elementary school kid in these situations--I take Christ as his word, that anyone who prays and does not doubt can throw mountains into the sea, raise the dead, experience the same miracles that were happening 2,000 years ago when he walked the earth before he ascended into Heaven, leaving us these breadcrumbs of the fallen soldiers mowed down by the Romans or other hostile empires. It's like a secret nobody gets or cares about--yes, a pearl of great price that you find and run home to withdraw everything you have in the bank to buy it. 

I went back each day of my retreat, and each day I was the only one there. I spent the twenty minutes praying A-Z each saint by name for favors, for faith, for friends, for miracles so that the world might know that Jesus Christ is King and Lord, and LIVES (Col 1:17). Yes, work a miracle brothers and sisters for the glory of Christ's name. 

When you think about it, though, it can sometimes be easier to travel 10 hours by car to some random chapel in the middle of cornfields, or to fly to Lourdes seeking a healing, or touch the glove of Padre Pio, than it may be to cultivate the faith living in our hearts and commune with the Lord made truly present in the Eucharist at our local parish at holy Mass or in Eucharistic adoration. The relics we venerate are holy because Christ is holy, and the bones and scraps of fabric connect us to him. But we are in not shortage of opportunities to be intimate not in the 2nd or 3rd degree with Christ, but every time we receive Holy Communion is a pilgrimage of the heart. You literally cannot get any closer and more intimate with the Lord than you do when you receive him into your body. You can visit him in the flesh anytime at your local adoration chapel as well. 

Relics are awesome, like visiting old friends. It's more than just a museum, but a safe house where you can talk shop with your friends. But the Lord has not hidden himself. He is in plain view, in ordinary guise--bread and wine--just down the street from you. 

We think spiritual direction with a wise director is something complicated or in-depth. Often, it's the opposite. Over the course of five days, when I would meet daily with the Abbot Father, I would pour out the consolations and struggle mightily under the desolation. I would dig deep and scour the corners of my soul to bring the dust into the light, only to be met with rather ordinary and commonplace advice/direction: "ask Our Lady to help you;" "pray to your guardian angel;" "commit to mental prayer." Because I'm only at the lower rungs of the ladder of divine ascent, it's not spiritual brain surgery here. But the Dom's advice was spot on. I prayed sincerely for a particular grace (because he told me to), and the Lord unequivocally and unmistakably provided it. I asked Our Lady to help me conquer a vice, and lo and behold, the vice was conquered. Just like that. 

Faith is simple; we make it more complicated than it has to be. It is a gift, freely given when asked for in humility and without doubting. The week on retreat with these twenty three other guys was like being a schoolchild, an inmate, a cadet, and a novice all at once. We were doing the hard work of discipline under the deft guidance of the Dom for a limited amount of time, so we can learn to love better, pray better, serve better, and become holy. 

If we do not become saints it is not because the Lord withholds anything from us to make that possible. It's because we do not will it and want it enough.And what else is there in this life than to become a saint? Nothing! It is only thing that matters. We have evidence--in the relics we venerate, in the stories we read--that men and women just like us have gone before and received the crown. So, the only thing stopping us from joining them is not God, nor our sin, nor our weakness or past, nor the Devil, nor our family. It is ourselves! 

When I got home my wife told me the sad story of the billionaires that recently went on a $250,000 submarine ride to see the remnants of the Titanic, and all died. Tragic. All I could think of when she told me was, "all that money, and they still died like anyone else, albeit in the middle of the ocean." It wasn't able to help one as much as you might think it could, I suppose. And they too, like many of us, will be soon forgotten. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten (Eccl 9:5). May God have mercy on them, as they are now coming before the throne at their particular judgment and like all of us, will give an account of their lives (Lk 16:19-31)

So commit to Christ, to the work, to the suffering which is not without joy, that maybe one day a piece of our tee-shirts or a fragment of our fingernail might hang on a wall in some obscure church somewhere, to help give encouragement and friendship and favor to the next wave of cadets in the Lord's school of charity. The only thing stopping you from joining the alphabetical list of saints, is you.