An Observable Proof of the Fewness of the Saved

 

“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!" 

(Mt 7:13-14)

If Sensus Fidelium videos are any kind of litmus, I find traditional Catholics generally amenable to the idea of the "fewness of the saved." You have websites like this one devoted entirely to the idea, and a plethora of historical quotes from the saints on the topic, such as St. Louis de Montfort's sobering observation: "The number of the elect is so small — so small — that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief: one here and there, scattered up and down the world." 

Of course, like many Calvinists and their view of the Elect who are predeterminately saved, Catholics who hold that few are saved may generally count themselves among those on the path to salvation. For why would a good Presbyterian bother attending church every Sunday if he was helplessly reprobate? Similarly, a Catholic who espouses the fewness of the saved: a) recognizes he is on the right path, and at the very least will be saved by the fires of purgatory, or b) if he thinks he is indeed damned by his way of life, at least he has the integrity to support the correct soteriology.

Then, of course, we have theologians and other figures on the other end of the spectrum (including the holy pontiff) who hold the optimistic hope that hell will be empty. This is a tenuous wager, since it does not seem to have the support of scripture, tradition, or the spiritual insight of the saints. It seems in the same line of thinking as the justifications for adultery through divorce and remarriage: our Lord was very clear in Scripture regarding this teaching, but we don't like the answer so we do theological acrobats to try to justify one more to our liking. Thus we take comfort in this life by way of these justifications, but may wake up one day on the other side of eternity in a less settled state of mind by minimizing the words of our Lord and listening instead to men.

All that being said, if I had to wager with my own spiritual currency, I am more apt to believe the words of the Lord in Matthew 7:13-14: the way to hell is wide, and many meet their fate by way of that path, says the Lord. Those who find the true path to life are few. This would seem to support the idea of the "fewness of the saved," sober as that "pessimistic" soteriological view is. 

And here is why I would wager, through general observation, that we underestimate our own sinfulness, and overestimate the number of the saved when in fact it is the opposite: we are much more sinful in the Lord's eyes than we ourselves see, and much more apt to be traversing through life on the wide path that leads to destruction.

Take any worldly event--be that a presential Trump rally, or a Taylor Swift concert, or free Rita's water ice, or the launch of the latest iPhone 20--and you will generally see sizable queues, packed stadiums, and/or a lot of "buzz" around the event. Parking lots may be jammed, admission prices may be gouging, and seating limited. 

Now, visit your local Adoration chapel where the King of the Universe sits on His glorious throne, in quiet repose, waiting for people to come and give due worship. There is no admission cost, no parking issues, no onerous travel requirements, no barriers to entry, no fighting for room in the pew. 

And yet when you enter, you will generally not find a packed house or limited seating--in fact, you may be the only person there. And this would track pretty similarly no matter where you were in the country, what town or church: the proportion of people outside that adoration chapel to those inside of it, I would wager, would track pretty closely the proportion of the damned to those who will find themselves in the heavenly court at death.

What does this say about us and our priorities? Well, for one thing it shows that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23) because we have failed to live out the first and most fundamental Commandment, which is to love the Lord thy God with all one's heart and soul and strength and mind. (Lk 10:27). For if one truly believes that the Lord God is present in one of these chapels, what horse or guard could keep the ardent man from adoring his savior? No, the fact is, we are not ardent, and have put other priorities (idols) on the altar of our hearts, violating this most fundamental Commandment. And thus have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We pay nothing for the ticket to Heaven, and yet it costs us everything. Were we able to truly see, and not through a glass darkly (1 Cor 13:12), we would lament every wasted opportunity to fall at our knees in worship and adoration in this life when we prioritized the most trivial of trifles over a private audience with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords...and then only too late. The fact that when we do make time to be with Him in the flesh that there are so few there kneeling with us is, I think, reasonable proof that Hell will not, in fact, be empty as some wish to believe. That we do not, in fact, love God with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind means we, too, are in need of purification after death assuming we fall asleep in His friendship and not cast out as one He never knew. That love can grow weary, grow cold over time and need periodic renewal. Similarly, even when we have found the narrow way that leads to life, we sometimes get sidetracked and detoured by temptation--to shortcuts, easier routes, wider ways--and need to be brought back in line by grace. 

Rather than lead us to despair, this general observable "proof" of the fewness of the saved should encourage us to keep vigilant, taunt, sober and awake. Take the words of St. Leonard of Port Maurice to heart:

"Brothers, I want to send all of you away comforted today. So if you ask me my sentiment on the number of those who are saved, here it is: Whether there are many or few that are saved, I say that whoever wants to be saved, will be saved; and that no one can be damned if he does not want to be. And if it is true that few are saved, it is because there are few who live well.

What is the use of knowing whether few or many are saved? Saint Peter says to us, "Strive by good works to make your election sure." When Saint Thomas Aquinas's sister asked him what she must do to go to heaven, he said, "You will be saved if you want to be." I say the same thing to you, and here is proof of my declaration. No one is damned unless he commits mortal sin: that is of faith. And no one commits mortal sin unless he wants to: that is an undeniable theological proposition. Therefore, no one goes to hell unless he wants to; the consequence is obvious. Does that not suffice to comfort you? Weep over past sins, make a good confession, sin no more in the future, and you will all be saved. Why torment yourself so? For it is certain that you have to commit mortal sin to go to hell, and that to commit mortal sin you must want to, and that consequently no one goes to hell unless he wants to. That is not just an opinion, it is an undeniable and very comforting truth; may God give you to understand it, and may He bless you. Amen.

Attaining Heaven has little to do with "earning" entrance and so much to do rather with the desire to enter. Remember St. Thomas' words: You will be saved if you want to be. And the Little Flower's confidence that "when we love, we can't go there" (ie, Purgatory). The question is, do you really want to be saved? Or do you prefer your trifles to the Kingdom?

When you look around in the chapel during times of worship and wonder where everyone else is, be reminded that the wide road is a well-advertised toll highway, and the path to life one that is not so obvious and generally requires the help of a local (the saints) to find with directions (scripture and tradition) and four wheel drive (virtue and the grace of final perseverance). You are in good company in that lonely pew wasting away the hours at the feet of the King, contributing nothing and needing everything. For if you spend enough time there learning how to love you will, eventually, find your way home.

What It's Like To Be An INFJ Catholic

I take all things with a grain of salt, including personality type indicators such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. But I do find them interesting and somewhat helpful, the way someone with various mysterious ailments would find a medical diagnosis helpful in explaining why they do the things they do or feel the way they do. Hippocrates put forth the idea of the Four Temperaments in the 5th century BC and many Catholics find this useful in regards to their spiritual life. So using a personality type indicator for personal insight and self knowledge is not at odds with our faith, provided we regard it as a servant and not a master. 

The MBTI identifies 16 personality "types" using the following identifiers:

I/E (introverted/extroverted)

S/N (sensing/intuition)

T/F (thinking/feeling)

J/P (judging/perceiving)

I took a test years ago and as it ends up I was an INFJ (introverted-intuitive-feeling-judging). From what I understand, this personality type comprises 2-3% of the general population, which can be a challenge sometimes. I saw a comment once that seemed accurate: "They understand everyone...but no one understand them. The INFJ personality truly is a major gift that comes at a major price." Some of the more peculiar character traits of this type are:

-All-or-Nothing syndrome

-inability to settle

-perfectionism (this isn't a big one for me)

-solitude vs friendship

-contradiction

-writers not talkers

-seeing both the big picture and the details

-empathetic/compassionate visionaries and doers

God made us all different for a reason, and we all have gifts and talents to share with the world; being cognizant of our weaknesses while capitalizing on our strengths can help with that, in my opinion. 

I won't go through point by point on these particular INFJ traits for myself, but I've noticed a few things worth mentioning with how it relates to my prayer and community life, as well as how I relate to God.

First off, I think the more we understand the energy aspects of introversion vs extroversion the more experts are recognizing it is not a binary distinction, but rather a spectrum. Personally, I have an introverted core with an extroverted shell, what my wife calls an "extroverted introvert" or ambivert. This actually can come in quite handy because I like talking with new people and being social, but get very turned off by small talk and typically do hone in on one person in large groups to talk to (ideally, about something meaningful). My social battery also does need to be recharged with solitude, with is necessary in the creative process. But I do tend to vacillate between the two: shorter periods (1-3 days) of prayer and solitude are great, but more than that and I'm climbing over the monastery walls; I miss people when I'm around them, but then when I am can get my fill very quickly and desire the solitude again. It's....complicated, haha.

The All or Nothing syndrome is accurate. One silly example is when I was doing the Carnivore diet briefly for a couple days I was already looking up where to buy a whole butchered cow (thankfully, I pumped the brakes since that diet didn't last long). What's helpful to realize, spiritually speaking, is that virtue is the wisdom between extremes. It can also be a challenge because if I'm going to do something, I want to do it completely and well; otherwise, in my mind, it's not worth doing at all. Maybe that's where the perfectionism trait comes in (though I would hardly consider myself a perfectionist in strict terms).

The contradiction trait is probably the hardest one for me--not so much for myself, but because I feel very misunderstood and lonely a lot because it is hard to understand where I'm coming from, or what I really mean when I write. I feel like I'm threading a needle a lot of times with holding this string of tension together, sometimes with two seemingly incongruent ideas (that do relate to one another, however). 

I do get very annoyed with people who have lofty ideas but don't carry things out; this is interesting, because I feel like I have both. My wife is a 100% "be-er" and I, by contrast, am a "do-er." I'm as much pragmatic as I am idealistic. When I started a men's prayer and fraternity group at our parish, I had a vision for it, but was very clear with the other men that I started it with that it needs to have structure and consistency to work. We got it off the ground pretty quickly, and it's been going strong for a year now. So, I'm as much concerned with the "forest" big picture as I am about the practical details ("the trees").

In terms of prayer, I think my personality type does lend itself to Adoration, particularly. I'm with my best friend, the Lord, in Adoration, 1:1, in a "feeling" capacity where I don't have to think or be structured. It's a mystical-bent, but very practical as well in terms of the hour spent in this kind of prayer. 

I trust my gut. A lot. I don't analyze things like an engineer or a data scientist, but go with intuition 99 times out of 100 with regard to decisions. Also, I have a strange ability to get "vibes" from people within a few moments of meeting them: whether that's a "bad man" vibe or a positive one that draws me in. I've learned to trust this, and it has not let me down often. It can be a little weird sometimes though, because I've had instances when I really get to know someone quickly and they don't even realize it, so you can sometimes anticipate the things they are feeling or are going to say without them always knowing it. 

With regards to writing, it is as much a burden and curse as it is a blessing. It is how I feel most comfortable expressing myself and working out my thoughts on things, because I have time to think about what I want to say and can articulate it; I am ok in interviews, but I would never host a podcast or anything like that. So I just try to use it for God's glory and as an oblation, rather than navel-gazing or strictly journaling. 

In terms of career, I'm grateful I fell into the field I did because it tends to suit my personality well. I do a lot of data/practical things, but also have a counseling and marketing role, so this adaptability in introversion/extraversion is an asset there. I do a lot of different things each day, which I like (inability to settle, maybe?) I have to feel people out when I'm speaking to them about their programs of interest, where intuition is a boon, as well as the ability to listen rather than speak. And my job is a combination of solitude and interaction, which I like, as well as mission-driven (rather than corporate). So, I'm thankful for all that. 

Knowing ourselves is not the end-goal--we know ourselves so we know who we are in Christ and how we can best serve him given the way we were fearfully and wonderfully made. Not to mention understanding others not as "bad" or "difficult," but simply endowed with different personality traits. And we compliment each other as well when we are different--whether that's in a marriage, a friendship, the workplace, or our parishes. God knew what he was doing when He created us! As St. Francis de Sales said, "Be who you are, and be that well."

Keep Watch With Me

I will be giving a talk at two masses this weekend at a local parish that hosts perpetual Adoration to encourage more people to sign up for a Holy Hour. Here is the draft of my short talk. 

I have been coming to the Perpetual Adoration Chapel here at IHM for the past few years, sporadically at first, though I have always held Eucharistic adoration as one of the pillars of my own spiritual life. It is one of the most intimate, simple, and powerful opportunities our Lord and the Church gives us to fulfill what our lord in scripture says, “come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.”

For those who may be unfamiliar with it, Eucharistic Adoration models the posture of Mary (who is the sister of Lazarus and Martha) who “sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he said,” as it says in scripture. Let’s not overly complicate it—the Lord is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament: body, blood, soul, and divinity (even though according to a pew research poll of Catholics, only 1/3 actually believe this tenant of the faith). When he is exposed in the monstrance, he is as present before the adorer as if he was in the flesh 2,000 years ago. That is because he did not leave us orphans after he ascended into Heaven, but gave us his literal body as food for our journey. But it is also the gift of himself.

And Eucharistic adoration here at IHM truly is an unmerited gift. Think of how fortunate you are for a minute…to essentially have one of your most loving, intimate friends essentially available and on retainer for you to see him, any hour of the day or night, 24/7, free of charge? He listens to your sighs and cries, your petitions, and accepts the humble gift of praise that you offer him without judgement or condemnation.

My father told me shortly after I had met the woman who would become my wife: “you know you’ve found the One when you can be yourself around her.” That is absolutely true with the Lord. We don’t come to him because we are good or perfect, but because we aren’t. And He permits us to sit at his feet and simply worship him, speak to him, and yes, listen to him. This listening is an acquired act in the spiritual life, where we learn to be more fully devoted disciples of the Lord Christ, and it can be perfected in the act of Eucharistic Adoration.

Since we are now in the season of Lent, perhaps it’s a good opportunity to focus on one of those three pillars, prayer, with a weekly Holy Hour.

I noticed one day when I was at the chapel that there were a few slots that were not filled, one being Tuesdays from 11pm to midnight. This too was a gift and opportunity from the Lord to “stay awake with him for an hour” as it says in scripture in a more regular, committed way that made me accountable. It has been incredibly fruitful, since these hours there is no one else there most of the time, and I get a “one on one” hour with the Lord. These late night slots can also be sometimes hard to fill, but for me as a busy husband and father it’s perfect because literally nothing else is scheduled during this time. I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity. You are very fortunate as parishioners to have this gift—it’s a safe area, spacious, climate controlled, and locked entrance with key pad. When we think of our brothers and sisters in the faith in Africa, the Middle East, and China who don’t have such freedoms and luxuries, but who are on fire with zeal and dying as martyrs, we should be inspired to take advantage of what we have been afforded here to become more like them in fervor.

Consider paying the Lord a visit and just sitting at his feet, once a week to start, giving him the gift of your time—one of your most precious resources, I imagine. I promise you, you will rewarded one hundred fold in exchange for this investment of time. Where else can you get a hundred fold return in this market?

Jesus never has too many Adorers to keep him company. In fact, it’s often the opposite. You have a great gift here right under your nose here at IHM, a pearl of great price, in Eucharistic Adoration. I hope you will consider paying the Lord a visit. He is waiting for you there.

I Will Celebrate Before The LORD

 One of the great privileges of having a late night slot as an Adorer of the Blessed Sacrament is the possibility for unbridled intimacy. Once a week, from 11pm to midnight, I am alone with the Lord exposed under the guise of bread; there are typically no other visitors to the chapel during this hour.

Even so, my Adoration hour is typically how I would be in the presence of other people. Sometimes I read from Scripture, pray the rosary, or simply kneel or sit in silent meditation with the Lord, speaking from my heart. 

But this past week, on the heels of a retreat my wife and I attended earlier that day, I felt lead to take advantage of that alone time by verbalizing my (extemporaneous) prayer, praise, and supplication. That is, praying and speaking not just from the heart, but with my lips verbally.

It's a little strange, honestly. But divine intimacy in this manner--being unabashedly intimate with the Lord, like a child without social awareness, like the blind man calling out to the Son of David or the woman with the flow of blood who had the chutzpah to boldly reach out and touch the Lord of Lord's garment--is really a conduit of grace. I found it was like a bleed valve for a water heater or something, releasing that pent up spiritual pressure of always having to be so 'well-behaved' and composed in the company of others. 

I do love the passage in 2 Samuel in which David dances half-naked before the Lord in the Ark, and how his love for Yahweh Saboath overflows in unbridled praise and passion. Here is the verse, which I will break up and add commentary as it relates to this idea of "shameful dancing": 

David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. He and all his men went to Baalah[a] in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets,[d] harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.

Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.

This is interesting. I have not read commentaries on this, and so don't have the context, but the idea that poor Uzzah was struck dead simply for tying to keep the Ark from falling seems harsh, doesn't it! It is sobering, but not out of line with the power of Yahweh, which should fill all men with awesome fear and trembling. 

The fact, too, that David becomes angry with the Lord on account of His wrath is interesting as well. David, the lover of the Lord, felt comfortable enough having these emotions directed to Him. And yet, as seen in the next passage, David also has that sober and appropriate fear of what the Lord is capable of, his great power and might. He decides to 'park' the ark in the house of this Gittite (maybe as a kind of test, to see the outcome of such a decision?), and Obed-Edom and his household is blessed. So David decides to bring the ark to the his city.

David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.

Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

David's dancing "with all his might" would be a sight to behold. In the presence of God, one who sincerely loves him can struggle to restrain that love. We see this in the saints (St. Philip Neri's near-exploding heart, and St Teresa of Avila's ecstasies come to mind). And yet, as we see in the next verse, the daughter of Saul is disgusted by his unrestraint. 

As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.

They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

When Michal approaches David, pay attention to his response. He maintains that he is God's chosen; his confidence in God extends to his rightful vocation. His love for God compels him to celebrate. Not only that, but he promises to stoop even lower in unabashed expression of unrestrained worship to praise the Lord God almighty--his humiliation in his own eyes will be his elevation to those who view him. Amazing! This undignified king is so honest, so enraptures with the Lord of Hosts, that he strips and dances without a thought of his reputation or 'right conduct'

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

Finally, we see the virility of David, and the frigid barrenness of Michal, reflected in verse 23 in their physical outcomes. 

And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. 

I think unchecked emotionalism when it is manufactured (as can sometimes happen in "praise and worship" congregations) should give us pause. But so should a stodgy formalism that despises those who abandon their masks and costumes in favor of intimacy with the Lord. The Lord honors those who fear him, but also to those who love Him He will not abandon. David was not wrong to dance before the Lord. He enjoyed that privileged place by his calling as King to do so. 

We also have that ability to be honest, humiliated, and forthright before the Lord of Hosts when we close the door and are alone with Him in prayer. We may not dance half-naked before the Lord in the Tabernacle--but if there were no one around to see at midnight on a weeknight, would it be so bad if we did so?

Useless

"There are many souls who close their ears against Him because they prefer to speak and hurry through vocal prayers as if a task had been set them to say a certain amount everyday. Do not imitate them. You are doing more by occasionally repeating a single petition of the Our Father than by repeating the whole of it many times in a hurry and not thinking [or willing] what you are saying." --St. Teresa of Avila

The contemplative life has always been attractive, yet intimating for me. I am not a Type-A Martha by nature, always needing to "do." And yet, in the past I had always found myself unable to sustain periods of solitude for more than a few days to a week. I do not feel like I am a "spiritual" person, nor do I fit in with people who are preoccupied with interior castles and locutions and this and that spiritual thing. And yet, when all is said and done, the spiritual life is all that really matters. 

 So, I'm in this kind of limbo--I'm a beginner in the interior life, but having the desire and will to grow in it for the soul purpose of growing closer in relationship to Christ. Lately, I have been doing that alone with regular visits to the Lord. I signed up for an 11pm slot to be an Adorer at our local chapel as well, so that I would be more systematic and accountable in my prayer life. 

I also joined an contemplative apostolate, which I was really on the fence about. If it weren't for the nudging of a woman who had been praying for me, apparently, I probably wouldn't have considered it. After all, I've been pulling back from my own men's group in favor of more time alone, and in more focused and intentional prayer. I feel like there is this gentle pull to go "into the deep" in order to grow in intimacy with God.

Since I run in largely traditionalist circles, there is this tendency to "check the boxes"--the vocal prayers in the Missal, the Office, the rosaries, etc. The objective litmus's of a robust prayer life that you can point to and ennumerate. 

But for anyone who has been in love, you know that the "doing" is merely a secondary byproduct of the "being." When you are in love, you could be walking along the beach or reading together or watching your beloved clip their fingernails and it would all be Heaven. Because the physical "doing" is merely a receptacle for the ethereal "being." In other words, it doesn't matter what you do--your time together is a "waste" by objective standards. And yet nothing could be more desirable or important to the lover.

For me, this is why the act of adoration fits well in my spiritual life. It's largely "useless" time spent, "wasted time," time where you are not "doing" anything. But the absence of activity, of distraction, of achieving or checking things off or mastering or completing...all this is really, well, the point. 

Everyone knows the story of the farmer St. John Vianney encountered who replied, when asked what he did in the church looking at the tabernacle, "I look at Him, and He looks at me." Could anything be more true, more to the point, and more essential? Love is not complicated. But the heart of love is not in the window dressing, the wrapping paper...it is in the gift of itself--that is, the gift itself. 

But adoration, through the eyes of the world, really is both an act of faith and an exercise in absurdity. A friend recently mentioned when he was in campus ministry at a Jesuit institution that even some of the priests scoffed at the "cracker worship" taking place. Sometimes I wonder myself, were the Lord in the monstrance replaced with an unconsecrated host, how it would change my prayer. If I couldn't tell the difference, what does that say about my prayer life, or even what we are willing to worship? It's a strange thought. You wonder how Isaac could have mistaken Jacob for Esau, or how Jacob could have mistaken Leah for Rachel? Does the power of our prayer in Adoration depend on our belief in True Presence, or the presence of the True Presence? It's something to ponder.

I have also been more intentional about "clearing out" a lot of activity that keeps me from spending this useless time in adoration; just as we have been trying to clear our physical house of "stuff" to make more "empty space" (a kind of minimalism-lite). There is value in the "white space" as any musician knows--the space between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves. 

Largely, though, the time spent in this kind of "useless prayer" in which I produce nothing, say nothing, sometimes even feel nothing is, I think, well spent. I hope to grow in my spiritual life, but not for its own sake, but only that I can draw closer to the Lord who remains hidden, small, and silent. I don't have that engineer type brain that needs to constantly be optimizing or quantifying. Sometimes it's enough to just be, and love, and accept love and confess love.

The Evening Word

 Sometimes when visiting the Lord in the chapel in Adoration, I split my time in contemplation/adoration and reading/meditating on the Word of God in scripture. I figure if the Lord is there before me, and I in His presence, he speaks in both silence and through the inspiration of the Spirit through the Word. 

Both St. Francis and the Little Flower were known from time to time to pray before opening the scripture at random for the Lord to speak. It's a practice I have taken up as well. I figure there is nothing in Scripture that is not true, not wasted, or not inspired--it is all good. And also that when we put our trust in God, He can speak to us as He sees fit in that moment if we defer our judgement to His will in that moment. 

So, this evening during a Holy Hour when I was in the chapel alone, I prayed and openened the Scriptures to the Book of Micah. And I read it, and the Lord spoke. Maybe you will find some wisdom and solace in the scripture as well, or maybe it was just meant for me in that moment. Regardless, scripture is never wasted. Take from it what you will, and have a great evening.

We Are All A Mess

 ...some of us are just better at masking it than others.

I was texting with a buddy tonight and he asked how I was. I responded that I am in a good place, but given that I am 60% pessimist / 40% realist, I figure it's just a matter of time before the other shoe drops and everything goes to pot. Let's hope not, but you never know. 

There have been times when I've been totally dependent on God and others to get me through just living day to day. It's at these times when you appreciate the Simons that are drawn out of the crowd to help you carry your cross, that you have someone else to ease your burden, if nothing else by just being there with you in the suffering. 

And there are other times, like now. where I feel like I'm on stable ground and can pay forward some of that mercy that was shown to me. 

It's a hard balance to strike at this stage in life to prevent being leveraged too severely with sports, activities, social events, work, and everything else. There is no shortage of "stuff" to keep us busy and our calendars covered with dots. The Devil loves idle hands, it is true. But to the degree we find ourselves so busy--sometimes by circumstance and sometimes by our own hand--that we don't have the bandwidth to absorb unplanned things that come up, enjoy time to take a walk or play, listen to a friend, or simply be unproductive, then maybe it's worth taking a look at what we can cull to make some space for life unscripted. 

We all have our preferred way of communicating with the Lord. Some guys I know feel they need their missal, the Office, and formal prayers to do that. Others prefer the rosary, novenas, and devotionals. These are all laudable practices, as long as it is what the Lord is asking of us and we are giving Him. 

But sometimes, we find ourselves a complete mess, and compensating for the chaos and lack of control in our lives by holding ever more tightly to 'adult' prayer that is respectable and well-presented. When what we really need to do is let ourselves be a mess, collapsing in the lap of the Lord.

My preferred place to do this above all the rest is at Adoration. Don't let the lack of line and form fool you--it's not easy to just 'be' for an hour with nothing to 'do.' It's not always easy to give up our well-guarded time. And believe it or not, it's not always easy to let yourself be loved as you are.

My dad will occasionally walk from his house at lunch time and sit on the bench outside my office. He'll text me to sit with him. I oblige him, but I'm always checking my watch or trying to think of things to talk about, when really, he's just content to be with me for as long as I will give him. "Easy for him, he's retired. He's got all the time in the world," I think to myself. But that's not it. When I think of all the time I piddle away on the things that don't love me back, and how little I give to the ones (and the One) who do nothing but love me, it's something that doesn't make sense in the Divine Economy. God doesn't ask for much. Just our whole heart, mind, strength, and soul. lol

I know quite a few people going through some very hard things right now. They find themselves a mess. One friend after Mass just burst into spontaneous tears from how hard life was for her at that moment. Others carry the burden more internally.

But what does our Lord long to communicate to us? "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:25-30) 

I find the spiritual hot springs to find that rest is Adoration. It is in this space where we can stop pretending for a time; where we can lay down our egos and our defenses, and just. be. loved. I don't know if trads have a harder time with this than others, since it's kind of "squishy," but no matter. It is the Lord truly present--body, blood, soul, divinity--what can be more 'trad' than that? 

He is on the altar before us, in the humble form of bread. Were He not, it would be like staring at a solar eclipse with the naked eye. Have you ever noticed that as He sits on the altar before us, there is no room on the altar for us to offer our burnt offerings, our oblations, our sacrifices? Not here, because as David recognized,

"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

 My sacrifice, O God, is[a] a broken spirit;

    a broken and contrite heart

    you, God, will not despise." 

(Ps 51:16-17)

Many of us are carrying around broken hearts, keeping it to (and for) ourselves. But the Lord wants it. And I find the place best to drop it beating and bruised before him is at the foot of that altar in Adoration. 

Here's the thing, though...it takes a little time for the engine to warm up. An hour is best, and I find that the first forty minutes of settling gives way to fruit that bears heavily in the remaining twenty minutes, when things have thawed and softened enough to hear Him speak, in the recesses of the heart. Some days you feel like you have to chain yourself to the pew, the chair, to keep from "doing something," anything, to distract you from...well, yourself. 

The Devil is well aware of this. He will convince you you have better things to do, more productive things not "wasted" in this way. That you should get up and leave because, "you know....things gotta get done. We can't sit around all day." It takes discipline and fortitude to just be, without an agenda, without a mask, sitting with your mess of a self, before the God of the Universe. 

This is what He wants. This is where He has made Himself available to you. And so in those moments, when you find yourself in the dimly lit chapel at 2am, or early in the morning, or after work, just say quietly, "this is where I'm to be. This is where He wants me for the next 60 minutes." If all you have is 30 minutes, give 30. If all you have is 15, give 15. But shoot for an hour. Highway miles are good for an engine. 

We think others have it all together. They don't. Everyone is carrying something they'd be better off laying down. But they don't always know how. Adoration teaches you how--without words, without instructions, to lay your burden down. It's a true grace to not have to pretend, to be offered rest and respite from everything we think is so important. We tend to forget from time to time, and slip back into our old ways. But the more we can set aside time to let ourselves be loved in this way, learn to let ourselves be loved, and trust that it's ok we don't have it all together, the more fertile ground our Lord will have to plant in. 

One hour in adoration. No agenda, no words, no self-judgment or condemnation. Just giving God the gift of time, and a broken mess of a heart. Give it a try. I guarantee we're all a mess. But before the Lord, there's no need to hide it.

Lest You Die

 As I mentioned in previous posts, I've been spending some good time in Adoration recently. Nothing is more strange to modern sensibilities than laying prostrate before the appearance of a wafer, in silence, accomplishing nothing. A "waste of time," as they say.

We can only worship the Living God in this way because His face stays hidden from us.  “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Ex 33:20). Could you imagine if our electrical systems didn't have circuit breakers? We overload a fuse and it burns the the house to the ground, or experience instant cardiac arrest with live wires. Instead, in such an event, a circuit on the breaker box trips and breaks the circuit so that doesn't happen. 

God also withholds the horror of Hell to keep our hair from turning white. I imagine that were we to see it fully, we would be so gripped by fear that we would be unable to love. I don't know. For St. Lucia, her vision only lasted for a moment, "thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear."

Were we to see God's glory in it's entirety, I would suspect we would be leveled by the greatness of the divide between our own sinfulness and God's goodness so much that it would take our breath away.  "If you kept an account of sin, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared" (Ps 130:3). And yet, what we worship, we have the supreme privilege of taking into our very being in Communion. It's a wonder our vessels don't burst from the inside out. A testament to our imperfect faith and tepid hearts.

God comes to us in the guise of bread and wine so He doesn't paralyze us, constantly tripping the circuits of our finite minds, and allows us to live our lives capable of loving Him apart from fear. "I no longer fear God, but I love Him. For perfect love casts out fear,” as the great hermit St. Anthony wrote. 

We will die, make no mistake, and then "we will see God face to face." But until then we see through a lens darkly (1 Cor 13:12). 

Consummation

 It has always amazed me how sometimes the most miraculous things in life can be the most commonplace. Women have been giving birth and having babies since the beginning of time; there's literally nothing more commonplace. And yet every time I think about all the things that have to come together for a baby to be born into the world, and all the things that can go wrong, I tremble and sigh with awe. God is truly the sovereign Lord of the universe. 

What leads to babies being born? Well, ideally, marriage is the ball that gets things rolling first. Again, I kind of marvel when meditating on the mystery of the wedding feast at Cana (yes, I do pray the Luminous Mysteries) that God Himself in the person of Jesus not only stooped down to become one of us in the incarnation, but actually cares about our lives so much he would accept an invitation to a communal wedding celebration as a guest.

Of course, as most Catholics with even a rudimentary understanding of Jewish custom and tradition know, weddings were not a three hour affair at the local country club and then you go home. They were week-long affairs; at Cana, the celebration was replete with 120-180 gallons of wine in large stone vessels to keep everyone supplied and jovial. This is a overwhelmingly human affair, Jesus the God who became man enters into that affair to be with us. 

Think of how modern men and women plagirize what is meant to be reserved and holy today: we meet, find a few things in common, hook up, and work backwards essentially. We move in together--there is no communal sanctioning or celebration in such an event, just a pragmatic, sloppy slide into cobbling a tenuous life together. We may or may not get married eventually, but even if we did there is nothing 'virgin' about that first night together as husband and wife, nothing mystical--just another day of carnal exchange which now happens to be bound by a legal contract. 

In many ways, this sloppy slide plays out in the ekklesia in the careless, common shuffle for Communion, and our profane attitude reflected in it. We wear common clothes, and do not prepare our bodies and our hearts for what we are about to receive. "They have put no difference between the holy and profane" (Ez 22:26). If we the church are the bride, and Christ the Bridegroom, each encounter in receiving Communion is a sacred consummation. He gives us his flesh which we take into ourselves. Just as in an earthly marriage and what is requires, this marriage between Christ and his people (the church) is not a valid marriage unless it is consummated. "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you" (Jn 6:53).  

This spiritual consummation is not a one-and-done encounter, but weekly, sometimes daily. Just as the sexual act between spouses gives rise to life within us (cf Jn 6:53) and deepens the love between spouses, so too does frequent reception of the Eucharist leads to spiritual life and a deeper love between man and Christ. Just as in our counterfeit offerings of our bodies to another to whom we are not betrothed we profane the temple of the Holy Spirit, so to do we profane and "eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves" when we enter into this consummation unworthily. 

The bridal chamber where the consummation takes place (chuppah) is the place of intense and ecstatic intimacy (knowing) between bridegroom and bride. On this climactic night, the Bridegroom is escorted by the "sons of the bride chamber" (Greek--huioi tou nymphonos)--that is, his closest confidants (the apostles, and those who stand in succession to them)--to the chuppah. And it is we, his bride, who are called into the chamber to experience this consummation, in which He gives us His flesh to partake in.

There is a reason Yahweh speaks of Israel as his bride to whom He has married (Jer 3:14). There is a reason the Song of Songs paints such a sensual, fleshly portrait of intimacy with the Lover. There is a reason St. Paul speaks of the relationship between Christ and His Church as that of the love and submission between husband and wife (Ephesians 5). 

Marriage is more than a contract, more than an agreement which can be broken. It's validity, it's lifeblood, the ratifying of the contract depends upon consummation--a fusion of flesh, and this is the nature of Eucharistic communion. In it we partake in the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. It is not for everyone, because it is not profane or common, but exclusive to those disposed towards its worthy reception. In it we become one bread, one body, one spirit. One cannot get any closer to the presence of the Lord than during this moment when we become One Flesh with the Bridegroom Himself. It is a moment of profound privilege and intimacy reserved for those who are called to His chamber. We do not "think and speculate" in this moment about the Lord. We TASTE AND SEE the goodness of the Lord (Ps 34:8).

Satan has his work cut out for him in the perversion and debasement of the sexual act during his reign here on earth. But he does it, why? Because in deforming the meaning and act of sex as properly understood, he can obscure our understanding of true spiritual consummation--what it means to eat the flesh of the Son of Man! If we don't understand what sex is and what it is for, our telos is reduced to a temporal, sterile, material act of self-fulfillment rather than an eternal, fruitful, profoundly spiritual act of self-abandonment. And if we don't know what committed, chaste, fruitful, selfless sexual intimacy is, is it any wonder we have adopted such a casual, profane, and presumptuous posture in the Communion line?

Just as I find it a marvel that the most profound miracles in this world--like the birth of a baby or the love between a man and a woman--are so common to human experience, so to that the Son of God enters into our existence so sensuously in Holy Communion, that we are commanded to feed (literally, gnaw in Greek: trogo, τρώγω) on Him to generate new life in our spirit. Almost profane verbiage, yes? An intimacy that was once otherwise unthinkable and unattainable has become the most profound miracle this side of Heaven. For the man who knows he is not called to fast while the Bridegroom is with him, who experiences this consummation in Holy Communion, the seemingly revolting and profane has become holy. 

The Mammon of Iniquity

It's strange the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us through Scripture in its timelessness. When I posted yesterday about the Siege of Jerusalem, I had no idea it was actually the Jewish day of mourning and fasting (Tisha B'Av) which believe it or not, marks the destruction of the Temple. For Jews, it is considered "the saddest day of the year." There was a feeling of solidarity there, I think, between traditional Catholics that I hadn't even realized when writing it. I was only made aware of the significance by a friend after she read it.

 While everyone was talking about the Novus Ordo readings for this Sunday (which were especially timely and somewhat uncanny in their exactitude), it was actually the Gospel during the TLM this morning that caught my eye. 

Again, I had meant to write about this very passage from Luke 16:1-9 the day before as it seemed apt to the current situation that I had been mulling over, and then there it was being proclaimed at Mass. For those who missed it:

 

"And he said also to his disciples: There was a certain rich man who had a steward: and the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said to him: How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship: for now thou canst be steward no longer. And the steward said within himself: What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I am not able; to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that when I shall be removed from the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. Therefore calling together every one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord?

But he said: An hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he said to another: And how much dost thou owe? Who said: An hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill, and write eighty. And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings."

I don't know why I was thinking about this passage this week prior to hearing it. Biblical exegesis is not my thing, and it can be a confusing one to expound on, so I'm not going to do it justice. It may very well be a teaching on usury, but what struck me was this: "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." Another passage from Scripture came to mind yesterday from Matthew in parallel with Luke's Gospel: "Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves." (Mt 10:16). 

We could learn something from this. When it come to our enemies, we pray for those who persecute us--yet they are still our enemies. And what do you want to do with your enemies? Beat them at their own game, as St. Paul writes, “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head" (Rom 12:20).

A few thoughts:

As we navigate the coming days and years, we truly do have to adopt the adage to be wise as serpents and simple as doves. You have to be smart, and keep your lower faculties (emotionalism) in check. It's okay to mourn, be upset, angry, etc. But this is not the level at which wars are won. It takes prudence to keep them in check, so that you can advance with a clear mind and unfettered from poor decision making. As Fr. Z wrote the other day, "Don't do anything stupid."

Second, as our Lord says, "your righteousness must surpass those of the Pharisees" (Mt 5:20). Your cheerful fasting and prayer, living the virtues in charity, and not giving the enemy ammunition will serve as an indictment against them. They may rage internally in response, but you also need to learn how to take a beating, and take it with fortitude. Don't be a complainer, avoid being too self-focused, and play the long-game. 

Thirdly, do you not believe that God is in control of everything? That anything proceeds from His hand by chance? Get yourself in proper spiritual perspective. All things proceedeth from the hand of God. Nothing happens apart from His will. Do you trust God? Get your eyes off the ground, and do not lose your focus. Peter sank walking on the sea when he took his eyes for one moment off Christ. Let that serve as a good reminder. Keep your focus. Put your blinders on if needed to stave off the ancillary distractions. First things first. 

I went to adoration a little before midnight last night and was reading the scriptures and happened upon the wisdom of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) which again spoke to me (Chapter 2):

"Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. [2] Humble thy heart, and endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds. [3] Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end. [4] Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience. [5] For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.

[6] Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein. [7] Ye that fear the Lord, wait for his mercy: and go not aside from him, lest ye fall. [8] Ye that fear the Lord, believe him: and your reward shall not be made void. [9] Ye that fear the Lord, hope in him: and mercy shall come to you for your delight. [10] Ye that fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts shall be enlightened.

[11] My children behold the generations of men: and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded. [12] For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? or who hath called upon him, and he despised him? [13] For God is compassionate and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation: and he is a protector to all that seek him in truth. [14] Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two ways. [15] Woe to them that are fainthearted, who believe not God: and therefore they shall not be protected by him.

[16] Woe to them that have lost patience, and that have forsaken the right ways, and have gone aside into crooked ways. [17] And what will they do, when the Lord shall begin to examine? [18] They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his word: and they that love him, will keep his way. [19] They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him: and they that love him, shall be filled with his law. [20] They that fear the Lord, will prepare their hearts, and in his sight will sanctify their souls.

[21] They that fear the Lord, keep his Commandments, and will have patience even until his visitation, [22] Saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. [23] For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him." 

Does this speak to you as well? If you're like me, it should. We are in many ways currently in the "furnace of humiliation." We cannot afford to be fainthearted, as those who believe not God (v 15). We cannot lose patience, and go aside into crooked ways (v. 16). If you love Him, you shall be filled with His law. Prepare your hearts (v 20). Do penance (v. 22). What can the hands of men strip from the hands of God, from which all things come? Not a sparrow falls without Him knowing it. 

Be smart. Don't let your lower faculties (emotions) rule you. Learn from the children of the world; be innocent as doves and wise as serpents. Make friends with the mammon of iniquity. Let your righteousness exceed those of the Pharisees. In the end, you will heap coals on the heads of your enemies. 

The Blessed Sacrament Does Not Incur Neutrality

 

While traveling this week we were fortunate to be able to attend a Latin Solemn High Mass in Massachusetts for the observed external solemnity of Corpus Christi. One of the ushers asked if I would help carry the canopy over the Blessed Sacrament for the procession around the block. 

As we made our down the street, my kids noticed that some people in cars made the sign of the cross, while one man openly cursed. Some just walked on by.

The degree to which one reacts to the presence of the Lord in the flesh under guise of bread may say something about our spiritual state. For those who hold reverence, as is written in holy scripture, "Towards the pious, thou showest thyself pious" (2 Sam 22:26). And to the blasphemers, whose demons are riled up by the Most High God made manifest, they cry out between the lines of their curses, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you here to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!" (Mk 1:24).

And then there are the ones who shrug their shoulders, who stand unmoved. These are actually worse than the agitated blasphemers, who KNOW that He is God...there is hope there, that like St. Paul knocked from his horse their rapid fervor against holy things might be flipped on its head and they may become great apostles. But the shoulder-shruggers, the lukewarm "he vomits from his mouth" (Rev 3:16). They may not be "great" sinners, but their apathy is repugnant to the one who sacrificed his only Son to shed his blood for them.

The Catholic Church makes bold claims--that this wafer is truly the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord made present in human time and space. To be carried around into fallen humanity by fallen men; to be consumed ungrateful men; to be stomped into the carpet by careless men. 

If you've ever prayed or protested outside an abortion mill, you know that those who foam most at the mouth, who yell and get in your face, are the most wounded by their own sin, because their guilt is reflected back to them and they can't stand it. Like the cross, it is a reminder that there are still holy things in this world, which have now become repugnant and offensive, and so must be erased. 

But the Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament will be "be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time." And so their rage is futile. Should they wish to be saved, all they must do is fall to their knees and adore the object of their scorn. But these are not the ones I worry about--it is the man who holds no response, no feeling of piety, but simply shrugs his shoulders and walks on by. Perhaps even a spark of curiosity will be enough for him to turn to the things beyond this world at some point in his life, question, explore, seek out, and find. But to the extent he persists in his lukewarm apathy towards the greatest gift to humanity ever given--the body and blood of Christ--this is the extent to which he will vomited forth at the final judgment, and burn with regret.

All I Hear Is Silence

I came to Adoration a little late this evening. Whether it's a beige carpeted Novus Ordo parish or an opulent historical church, my posture is always the same--dropping to both knees, bowing my head to the ground, and coming before the Lord of Lords as a beggar before his King. For I know my transgressions and my sin, as David wrote, is ever before me.

I have had moments in my life where the Holy Spirit has cut through me like an electric knife, and what the Lord was asking me in that moment was clear as the sky. I know better than to hesitate or delay, and grace has always followed those little acts of obedience to make the way possible. 

Other times, and more often now, it is the silence of the Lord that meets me. This is not Endo's Silence--the non-response of the Almighty in the face of seeming futility and the absurdity of faith in suffering that precipitates a crisis of faith and meaning. Nor is it a silent balm that heals wounds when words cannot do pain justice. 

It is not the thundering silence of the saints, who like Elijah hear the Lord in the quiet whisper. It is likewise not the uncomfortable silence of simply an absence of noise, wondering if there is anyone on the other end of the receiver or if one is simply talking to one's self in one-way conversation.

True, communicative silence is a rarity. Think about the places you can go to achieve it. Podcasters retreat to the sealed capsule of their car to escape the chaos of their homes. You can get silence in the middle of the night as you lie in bed staring at the ceiling when everyone is asleep. But other than that, we are followed by noise like a lapdog. 

When we come before the Lord in Adoration, the silence before--and from--the throne is a respite from the savagery of the outside world. Not all of us have inner-silence, which must be cultivated and procured over time, the thing of contemplatives. 

When the beloved disciple reclined and laid his head in the bosom of our Lord, his posture was as intimate as one could get. And this is often the inner-posture I adopt in adoration--not physically, but in my spirit. When I come before Him, my defenses drop, for I know He sees me as I really am. I have nothing to bring, nothing to show for myself, nothing to brag about. All I have is brokenness and failure. This is the intimacy of a King to His servant; we are not slaves or indentured servants, but friends. 

But our words fail. Nor does He waste words on us, lest we die. His silence in the Host, where deep calls to deep, is not maddening, not futile, not absurd except on the surface. His silence is a gift, for nowhere in the savagery of the outside world can we enter into not Emptiness of the Void, but fullness of life. It does not arm us with pep-talks, but disarms us of the illusions we have about ourselves and our abilities. 

It has been a long time since I have 'heard' the Lord speak to my spirit in definitive ways in which I respond, "Yes! This is what I must do, the answer to the unasked question!" Where I have asked, "What should I do, Lord?" and He tells me. 

No. Instead, silence is all I hear. I have no clarity, no monk-like inner-peace, but like standing on the shore before an ocean of such magnitude and mass, all I experience is my own nothingness and smallness. In the crashing of wave after wave, waiting for a response, all I hear is silence. Not enough to question "why am I here? Why do I drop to my knees before this bread?" but in faith I continue to come to Him as if He could answer me and maybe one day, will. 

I continue to come prostrate before the throne, not even sure what to say or ask, but just to offer myself as a sometimes-barely breathing oblation of sacrifice which I have to trust is pleasing to Him. If He wants my heart, I will give it to Him. But not all of it, for I am not perfect, not made in perfection, but piece by piece, trading parts of myself for these portions of silence in return. 

Perhaps I should rage more often. But I have not been subject to real tragedy--not had my children ripped from the land of the living or been subjected to financial or existential ruin or had my back against a wall. Perhaps I should make more demands: "Why won't you speak!?" Perhaps it's a sign of my own luke-warmness and lack of trust, that I do not put Him to the test, as the Lord says, "Test me in this" (Mal 3:10), not having put anything of substance on the line. Perhaps I am too comfortable. The silence feels neutral--not healing, not consoling, not disheartening. Just like--putting the time in, waiting, for when something--anything--will come to pass. 

At ten til midnight as i type, the house is quiet. I am surrounded by my sleeping family. But the silence of the Lord when I am before Him is different. I know He is there, sitting in His monstrance, judging the nations and waiting to take all men to Himself. As St. John Vianney asked an old farmer what he did before the Lord in the tabernacle, maybe all I can say is to echo his words: "Nothing. I look at him, and he looks at me."

 

In Desperate Need Of A Friend

Each morning my wife and I have been praying and reading Carmelite meditations on the interior life. Since the Feast of Corpus Christi, the meditations have been focused on the Real Presence and the Eucharist miracle.

It was on Monday early this week that I realized the little chapel near us--a historic mission church, the oldest in our state--had Perpetual Adoration on Mondays. We had just gotten home from the beach that day, where we were blessed with the opportunity to have a similar kind of "mission Mass" at the home of a couple downstate in the country on Sunday not unlike this first mission near our house that was started at a family's home in the 18th century. A priest came to offer Mass and a handful of faithful families attended. It was good to be around our people, and we had a potluck afterwards as the kids ran around teasing the sheep in the adjacent field. The weekend prior I was in St. Louis and got to attend High Mass three days in a row for First Friday, First Saturday, and Trinity Sunday at the magnificent St. Francis de Sale Oratory. I felt spoiled almost, this being the first time since the pandemic I had been able to freely attend Mass. Whether we are in a magnificent cathedral or worshiping with other families on a sheep farm, Jesus is truly present in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

But it had been months since I was able to go to Adoration, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Would the chapel be overflowing with people who had so desperately missed being near our Lord and able to gaze on His Face that there would be no available pews? Would parking be an issue? Surely the months of being separated from Him physically would have created in people a hunger for spiritual bread with the need to be sated.

I should have laughed at my idealism. When I arrived at the small chapel, it was completely empty save for one woman in a pew. I entered through the back, and dropped to both knees at the sight of the Lord in the monstrance on the altar. I took a seat in a pew where I would spend the next hour.

Adoration is my favorite type of prayer, because I am not scripted by nature. To be able to be myself, with all my sighing and gesticulations and to be able to collapse and be myself before the Lord of Hosts is a great source of comfort. When I lived in Philly and would visit the Lord in Adoration in my poverty of spirit, I would lie on the pew, though completely undignified, since I would spend sometimes the better half of a day there. I was once taken for a vagrant. "I look at him, He looks at me," as St. John Vianney recalled a peasant telling him. This is the essence of Eucharistic Adoration, distilled.

When the only other person present left after about twenty minutes and I was now alone in the church, I moved to the Prie Dieu near the altar, a few feet from the Lord, to get closer to him. I couldn't believe the privilege--a private audience with the King of Kings, undisturbed before His Majesty, with no one around or waiting even to take my place.

And then I became sad thinking of the Lord left alone were I not there.

For more than three months, we have hardly had access to the sacraments apart from a few exceptions. Where are all the people? After the French Revolution had gutted the life of faith in France in the 18th and 19th century, the Cure d'Ars upon arriving in his new assignment found the little church "cold and empty as the hearts of the worshipers." Has the pandemic made our hearts cold? Fearful? Has Satan sifted us even now? Even after taking for granted what we have had for so long within our means, there was no line to get in the church, no overflow or standing-room-only. I was alone in a church with the Lord in his poverty.

As a newly assigned parish priest, St. Manuel González García dreamed of how welcoming and communal the experience of being a pastor on his first assignment would be, “of having a Church full of souls eager to listen to his sermons, of people fervently praying the Rosary with him each day, and of organizing a beautiful procession in the streets. He pictured crowds hastening to Sunday Mass.”

The reality when he arrived, was a Church poorly attended, where only those getting married or baptizing their children came, and a population that was not a community, but a cluster of human beings who worked side by side, and never invested in the Church or each other. The building itself was dirty, almost abandoned, and the altar cloths torn and burnt. The neglect included the tabernacle covered in dust and cobwebs. He considered begging for a different assignment, fleeing. He wondered how he could fulfil a mission, any mission in such a place, but kneeling before the tabernacle, pondering how impossible the task before him, he felt someone looking at him “in desperate need of a friend.”

He writes,

"The Evangelists are the ones who taught me the word “abandonment.” I decided to use this word, not to speak of the hatred, envy, or persecution of the enemies of Jesus, but rather in reference to the disloyalty, coldness, ingratitude, inconstancy, insensitivity, indelicacy, and cowardice that Jesus experiences from his friends. This leaving him at the moment when they should all have been with him, this failure to assist him with their presence and their unconditional loyalty when he needed it most is what the Evangelists call abandonment and flight. “And they all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50). 

There are two ways in which the tabernacle is abandoned. One, exterior: the habitual and voluntary absence of Catholics who know Jesus but do not visit him. I am not speaking of unbelievers, or of the irreligious, or of uncatechized Catholics, from whom Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will feel persecuted, hated, slandered, or unrecognized, rather than abandoned. I am speaking of Catholics who believe and know that Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man is really present and alive in the Blessed Sacrament. But they do not receive him in Holy Communion, nor visit him, nor have a friendly relationship with him—even though they live close to a Church, and otherwise have time and energy for recreational activities. 

The second way is by interior abandonment. It is to go to him but not to really be with him. It is to receive him with the body, but not with the heart. It is to go to him saying words, bowing our heads, kneeling down, but not performing these acts of piety with our hearts. It is when we do not meditate on what we are receiving. It is when we do not prepare ourselves to receive him with a clean heart and with great spiritual hunger. It is when we do not taste and give thanks for the Food we have received. It is when we do not talk to or listen to the Guest who is visiting us. It is when we are not open to receive and keep the graces he brings us, the warnings he gives us, the example he teaches us, the desires he reveals to us, the love he shares with us. How many times will the Master have to repeat to some communicants and visitors to the Blessed Sacrament: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mt 15:8). 

Jesus, alone, abandoned in the hearts of his friends! Jesus visits souls and lives in the “homes” of his friends (through Holy Communion) without being understood or listened to or assisted or asked his opinion or even taken into account! This interior abandonment is repeated in alarmingly great proportions."

The empty church, the foot of the cross at his death, the garden in which he sweat drops of blood--these are the places his friends go to meet him. The masses jeer before his trial and drop branches of palms upon his entry into Jerusalem and are nowhere to be found in his hour of need. And yet for these masses He came too, longing to gather them under his wings..."and you were not willing" (Mt 23:37).

Will the many be saved? How few the saved. How empty the churches when men's heart grow cold in those last days. It is these moments when I am alone with the Lord offering this small gift of an hour when I cannot hide anything, that I recognize my own poverty. I have nothing to bring, nothing to give, but a contrite heart and a broken spirit.

We must console the heart of Jesus. Our audience before the Lord is an unspeakable privilege, one that we even now can do at all hours and days. If we cannot, we can make a tabernacle for him in our hearts upon receiving Holy Communion--room at the inn for him to dwell in our impoverishment. We can come to him, see him, whenever we want. And yet we don't. We find something of more importance. But "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it" (Lk 17:22). Go while you can, to sit at his feet, to learn his commands, to listen in the privileged silence of empty churches and neglected tabernacles. Console him while he is still able to be found.

Bread Alone

I have been fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays since the scandals broke. We know we are dealing with demons in the Church, and that in scripture sometimes prayer needs to be accompanied by fasting, as the Lord says, "this kind can only be driven out except by prayer and fasting" (Mk 9:29) And so it is good for discipline but also necessary for reparation.

By God's grace, though, I don't notice the hunger as much as I may have fixated on it in the past. Something is happening, there is something in the air, and all around me people are rising up to what God is calling them to, even as many fall away and no longer follow, or remain tepid and static.

I get very sad sometimes. We stopped by a carnival type festival the other day in our town. There were rides and things for the kids, food vendors, people selling things. Normally it would just be a nice afternoon, but I was in a somber kind of mood and don't generally like crowds to begin with, so I was put off a little. As my wife mentioned one time when we were at the kitchen table one night talking about the end of days, "it's like everyone is walking around, like that show "The Walking Dead." You try to explain, you try to say 'wake up!' but they won't be roused from the immediacy of the here-and-now. There is nothing wrong with enjoying things like food and entertainment. But at Mass this morning in the epistle, the words of the Apostle took root, and it made sense:

"I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away." (1 Cor 7:25-31)

In Adoration the other day, I had a strong experience of wanting nothing but the Lord, like air, like I would suffocate without him even for a second. I knelt on the floor and closed my eyes and for a while was just taken over by my helplessness, my need for Him, to cleave to Him during these times. Later, it came to me as I was in bed the scripture in John 4. Jesus has met a Samaritan woman at the well, asks her for a drink, and when she scoffs that he has nothing to draw the water, he replies:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:13-14)

She wants that water. She does not want to thirst again.

Not long after this episode, his disciples find him and urge him to eat something. But he replies,

“I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (Jn 4:32) 

So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them,

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." (Jn 4:32-34)

In fasting, we are training our bodies, as Paul says, "I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1 Cor 9:26-27) It's not that food is not important, but when bread is all we live for, we are blinded to life behind the curtain, the spiritual reality of life beyond the world. Fasting brings us in line with that reality. Dostoyevsky knew the power of bread, but more so the power of Christ to give meaning beyond bread:

“Christ knew that by bread alone you cannot reanimate man. If there were no spiritual life, no ideal of Beauty, man would pine away, die, go mad, kill himself or give himself to pagan fantasies. And as Christ, the ideal of Beauty in Himself and his Word, he decided it was better to implant the ideal of Beauty in the soul. If it exists in the soul, each would be the brother of everyone else and then, of course, working for each other, all would also be rich. Whereas if you give them bread, they might become enemies to each other out of boredom.”

I do not want to live for bread alone. I do not want to thirst again. The good news is in being baptized in Christ and into his death, we are brought into his life, since "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Mt 4:4) The Eucharistic bread, His true blood, sustain us, just as the waters of baptism wash us clean and dispose us to receive them and subsist on them.

St Catherine of Siena lived on the Eucharist alone for the last few years of her life. St Catherine of Genoa lived through the fasting times of Lent and Advent on only the Eucharist. St Joseph Cupertino lived for 5 years without food apart from the Eucharist. Blessed Alexandrina da Costa spent 13 years without food or drink but for the Eucharist.

This is truly miraculous of course, but we should not be surprised, those who are in Christ and see with eyes of faith, that life is more than bread! When we skip a meal we would think our lives would end from the way we act. But we are not trained, we are carnal, and so we suffer by way of softness. But the coming days will be days of hunger, both materially and spiritually, and we would do well to prepare, to train our bodies as Paul exhorts, but also to rely on the One who sustains us: God alone.

I still get sad when I am in crowds sometimes. I don't mean to be a curmudgeon when it comes to fun distractions. I feel very alone, but take comfort in Christ and that he often got away from crowds to be alone; that he enjoyed a wedding feast, ate and drank with his friends, but also spent 40 days of fasting as well to be undergo testing in preparation for what He was being called to. That he extols the virtue of going into your room and closing the door to be alone in intimacy with the Father. That he would rise early and go to a lonely place to pray. And it reminds me again that there is more to life than bread, than bread alone.

On Secret Faults

In Adoration yesterday I had a vision--nothing dramatic, but it did seem as if it came from the Lord.

I saw a man sitting on a couch, kind of a heavyset man. He had folds in his clothes, and folds in his skin, and these folds held things from his life. The couch he was sitting on, too, had crevices and places where the remote had fallen, or crumbs had collected, or coins had been lost. Like Joseph interpreting the dream of Pharaoh about the seven healthy cows and seven plump ears of grain and the seven gaunt cows and the seven blighted ears of grain in Genesis 41, I felt that the Lord was making the meaning of this vision plain.

The Greek aphorism "Know Thyself" is a spiritually fallacious one for the Christian, for a man will never arrive at the bottom of his own heart in his lifetime, and it is "the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man" (Mt 15:18). We consider ourselves better than we are. But who can see his own eye but in a mirror? It is the work of grace that reveals our faults to us. "Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults." (Ps 19:12)

Though it is an effort and a work to acquire self-knowledge of our own accord, it is limited. David in the comfort of his springtime, when he should have been at war, falls into sin with Bathsheba. It is Nathan who is sent to him by the Lord to rebuke him when he could not see. The words of the prophet to David, "You are the man!" are not meant to build up but to break down. He was the man who stole the sheep, who put the innocent to death, and who hid the whole ordeal. This was not an occasion for high-fiving, but castigation for the benefit of saving his soul. "Health of body and mind is a great blessing," writes Blessed John Henry Newman, "if we can bear it; but unless chastened by watchings and fastings, it will commonly seduce a man into the notion that he is much better than he really is."

Or think of Saul, who was a 99%er in obedience in his charge to completely destroy the Amalekites, and whom the Lord sent Samuel to to call him out for it with those iconic words, "what then is this bleating of sheep in my ears?" (1 Sam 15:14). Saul was under the presumption that he had fulfilled the commandment of the Lord with regards to the spoils of war. But he deceived himself and brought offense to the house of Israel. Samuel calls him out, the bleating of the sheep the audio indictment of his disobedience.

Do we watch and fast, and ask in humility for our faults to be revealed to us? Are we comfortable in our springtime in rooftop leisure, when we should be at war? Do we have a Nathan in our lives, a spiritual guide or companion who is sent by God to set us straight? We should recognize that we are never free in this life of temptation, never safe from a fall. Again the words of Blessed Newman:

"The warning to be deduced from it is this:—Never to think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those which we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins."

There is never a reason to avoid Confession. God's mercy extends to all who humble themselves, and confessing regularly, even (and especially) for venial sins on our conscience, disposes us to the grace of greater self-awareness. The farther we walk on the road, the closer we get to the Savior, the more unworthy we recognize ourselves to be.

When we meet wise and seasoned people on the road, the Nathans and the Samuels, who can see things we can't and in charity point them out to us for the benefit of saving us from perdition, we should thank God for them. For our secret faults will be our downfall if they remain unconfessed, trapped in the folds of our skin and our clothes; for we will have the appearance of being clean and put together before others, but when we get up from our leisure to stand before the Lord, we will see just how slovenly and covered in crumbs the unaware man is.