Palm Sunday, Part 2 – Silence, Suffering, Service, with photos

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Like any good Catholic, I tend to go to the same mass. And yes- I do sit in the same place. Actually, about 6 months ago, I did change seats for practical reasons. (Helping with mass has me getting up an down a lot!) So if you are looking for me, please come to the 4pm mass on Saturday and I will be on the right hand side, first row of the second section of pews. Yes, the one who is getting up and down all the time – that’s me!

Palm Sunday mass at 4pm on Saturday was where I was at, as usual. However, Fr. Pat had asked me to take photos of the church during Lent and I have done a little of that during the 4pm mass. Given that I had the time, I thought I would return to the 11am mass on Sunday and just be there to take photos.

Today I saw Christ all over the Catholic Community of St. Edward the Confessor. It was remarkable.  Anyone who thinks that our large suburban parishes are not diverse should come by one day. Yes, we are primarily white and middle and upper middle class; it is Clifton Park. That said – we are diverse in ways I had not always given thought to. Until today, that is.

Christ was in the throngs of people that poured in for this liturgy. Christ was present in the very young and the very old, the very well dressed and proper and those who might have been less so.  Christ was present in friends that I had not seen in a long time and present in people that I had never seen before. Christ was very readily apparent in the enormous group of kids that gathered to head off to Children’s Liturgy of the Word.

Christ was present in the combined choirs whose voices rang out with such clarity and grace, filling the entire sanctuary with amazing talent, shared so freely. At one point I, can’t even remember exactly when, I could hear Mary Jo playing the piano and it went straight to my heart; so beautiful and redolent with the presence of God.

Among the most moving visions of Christ that I experienced, were the numerous people who were in wheelchairs. Some were young, some were old, some were in the middle. Some were in ordinary wheelchairs and some were in very sophisticated ones that met their unique needs. There were also many people with canes and mostly elderly people with walkers.

And Christ was very present in the number of developmentally disabled people who were present, of all ages. Our altar server, Donny, is the most reverent server that I know – he was there. And so many others, along with him. The most touching thing I saw, Christ embodied, was the young boy with Down Syndrome, leaning against his dad’s shoulder, his dad had one arm around him and had his other arm around his front. He was Christ before me, rubbing his son’s hand in soft, gentle and rhythmic motion.

What about the rest of us, the ones who looked OK? Well we too are as wounded, we wear our wounds on the inside and Christ was present and around all of us and in us today. That is always the case, today the church was like a thin place; liminal space where we encounter God.

Fr. Pat’s homily hit upon all these things as he spoke to us about silence, suffering and service; the places where we meet Jesus. We need silence in order to hear God; we suffer and we are one with Christ if we surrender and allow it. Ultimately we meet Christ and we are Christ in and through service of all sorts.

Today Christ was clearly present at our parish and I am most grateful to have been there to meet him, in all these different ways.

Finding Light – It’s Right Here

“What has been lost is the true beholding of the light from inner eyes. Grace is given to heal that inner sight, to open our eyes again to the goodness that is deep within us, for God is within us.” John Scottus Eriugena

Yesterday, I was looking at a very fine book called “The Power of Pause” by Terry Hershey, published by Loyola Press and came across that quote. It really struck me, so I put it on my Facebook page and it received no comment, not even a “like.”  (What gets attention on Facebook is a whole other story, err I mean blogpost!)

In any event, the words stayed with me today as I read from (also from Loyola Press) the Friday Wisdom Story at People For Others. It was at this blog that I first heard about The Power of Pause in the first place. Anyway, unrelated to the book, but part of the blog is this week’s wisdom story. It is about finding the treasure in what is already before us and the simple. Go ahead and read it, it is worth the short time it will take you to do so.

The ordinary is often the most remarkable thing, yet it is what we ignore in our search for the next best thing. The simple is usually the solution, but we often buy our way to it or exhaust ourselves in searching for such a thing. I say that as a copy of Real Simple sits before me. (One time my sister-in-law heard me refer to this magazine and bought me a multi-year subscription which never seems to end. *sigh* Real-Not-Simple.)

In any case, what treasures are before you on this day, revealed in the simple and the humble? What treasure is within you on this day, that are a challenge for you to find, to accept and to love?

Another thing that I think about is all the blogs that I try to check in on, along with Facebook pages. What strikes me is just how much anger and vitriol there is out there. Typically these sentiments are found on Catholic blogs where there is a never ending stream of angry, divisive and negative comments. Sometimes it is the blogger who starts it, other times the comment thread takes that direction. It does make me wonder about how we discover God in ourselves and one another as part of our faith journey.

How do you find your light? Finding my own is not so easy but I am hoping that if we can do this together, we can all shine more light on what is good. This good is all around and within us! This good is God, present and alive and waiting for us to respond. The quote at the top is a good way to help me refocus and respond to grace; may it be the same for you!

Grace – Not A "Begrudged Mop Up Exercise"

January 2010 will go down as a time in my life when writing did not come easily to me. Part of it is time – or a lack of it. Part of it is… I don’t know. I wish I could explain it; I wish I could lean into it and keep writing. Not much comes.

Today however, I read this link from the Center for Action and Contemplation, home of my favorite Franciscan, Richard Rohr, OFM. It got me thinking about a lot of things and I will make some attempt to write about them here.

Rohr starts out with this (emphasis mine):

God fills in the gaps of human deficiency by a great act of mercy and compassion, and the word for that great act for St. Paul is “Christ.”  For him Christ is the name for God’s great compassion, God’s great plan, God’s readiness to fill in the gaps of human sin, brokenness, poverty, and failure.  It is not a begrudged mop-up exercise after the fact, but as John Duns Scotus taught us Franciscans, “Christ was the very first idea in the mind of God.”  “All was created through him and for him …and he holds all things in unity and reconciles all within himself” (Colossians 1:16-17, 20).  Christ is God’s master plan and blueprint for history!  Salvation was the plan from the beginning, and not a mere response to our mistakes.

God fills in… I love this beginning because it points to a God that loves us and so generously cares for us. This is the opposite of a meaner view of God, put forth by so many and accepted by so many. In fact, accepted by people who are not even sure that God exists!

I think this also addresses a school of religious thought that puts the focus on us as humans. If we do all this heavy lifting, from prayer to whatever actions and devotions, it is as if we were cleaning up with the Cosmic Swiffer.

Make no mistake, I think that our actions matter – but not because we are changing God! No God is always changing us, when we allow such change.

Rohr continues:

So why do we make the Gospel into a cheap worthiness contest? After all, we have all fallen short of the glory (Romans 3:23, 5:12) and all are saved by mercy (Romans 11:32-36). Even Mary proclaims it of herself (four times!) in her “Magnificat” (Luke 1:47-55). Popes and priests, presidents and politicians are all saved “en Cristo” and by mercy and in our undeserved state. No exceptions.


God does not love us if we change. God loves us so that we can change. These are two very different scenarios, but most of Christian history has sadly chosen the first.

Not if we can change, but rather so we can change. This isn’t a cleanup operation, it is an invitation to become the very people that God has loved into being. This is an invitation to respond to the grace that is all around us.

How this propels me on a January morning and makes the embers of my writing fire begin to glow again.

Grace and Ego

Grace is always a humiliation for the ego. Salvation is always a defeat for the ego; because I want to feel, “I’ve done something to accomplish this, haven’t I?” That’s the only way the ego feels satisfied and competent.

At some point, we must realize that salvation is absolutely, objectively, metaphysically, universally a FREE GIFT, and all we can do is RECEIVE IT. It’s free for the taking, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being worthy of it.

We are all unworthy. If receiving the Eucharist depends on worthiness, no one would be in line, including the presiding clergy, Archbishops and Popes. Why do we waste time trying to prove that I’m better than you, I’m higher than you, I’m holier than you, I understand better than you, I’m purer than you? Don’t even go there! Just surrender to grace, which will feel like a kind of death. And it is!
-Richard Rohr, OFM

Once again, I find some inspiration from Richard Rohr.

What a thought – that we might be worthy! And that we might have something to do with that worthiness! How foolish we are – as if we could do something to earn God’s love. Not to mention that puts the focus on us and not on God.

We say it at every Eucharist… Lord, I am not worthy. It is not meant to make us feel bad. It is simply to remember that God is God and loves us all.

This does not mean that we shouldn’t try to live according to standards, of course we should. However, we should also know that God’s love as grace is what transforms us… that and our response to it.

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Christmas Day – Our Savior Is Born And Nothing Is Ever The Same

“Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace.” – John Wesley

As human beings we are so averse to a certain sort of indebtedness. Not money debt- sadly we attract that one like flies to a certain substance. The indebtedness we assiduously avoid is a less tangible one.

Have you ever received a really extraordinary gift? It was hard wasn’t it? Maybe it was a nice watch or a type of electronic device or perhaps a handbag that you longed for, but would never purchase yourself. Or maybe it was just a big, fat check in an amount you could not quite fathom.

So while you were happy to open the package, wasn’t there something that was attached to the surprise and the happiness and that something was a sort of “oh-no” sound. And the “oh-no” sound had this trailing behind it… “What do I owe?”

Or it could just be as simple as this… “I don’t deserve this.” Which can be another version of fear of owing something.

It is hard to receive anything – harder yet to receive the things that are freely and generously given. Like grace.

Money debt, for example – is a far more comfortable, owing (pardon the pun) to its structure and its impersonal nature. We do after all, live in the most transactional society. It is one big “if this, then that” sort of programming algorithm.

It is interesting that when I first wrote this about a year ago, money debt was viewed quite differently. That is one of the reasons I wanted to republish this. That kind of debt came home to roost in ways most of us could not have imagined.

I am inclined to believe that God is far more compassionate and merciful than any bank, mortgage company or other institution.

God offers us a generosity that is beyond our comprehension. Personal generosity allows for no such order it would appear, no such balance. It’s that troubling notion of receiving; there’s our problem.

Receiving has a certain reflex to it… Kind of like playing catch or Frisbee; it is in my hand, now it is in your hand, you must throw it back and so forth. Frisbee dynamics everywhere would be transformed if everyone got the Frisbee and then said thanks and walked away.

Which I am afraid, brings us back to grace. Deep sigh. Oh that pesky grace… there is no accounting for it, is there? Ever so unstructured, so imbalanced it appears and is not subject to any modulation. What a pain!

As John Wesley so wisely noted many years ago, capable people do not really have a taste for this sort of thing. It is almost unseemly in its free flow and capricious movement.

How then can we respond to a God who loves us so much, who gives to us so freely? One can see the problem that we face. So while we may profess our faith and try to live it… well maybe not so much. This is hard work, this grace and receiving business.

As if the enormity of the grace weren’t challenge enough, God ups the ante and delivers us this grace with peculiar bookends.

On one side of the equation we have the outlandish and grace filled story of a pregnant virgin teenager, her husband and the entirely unlikely appearance of the messiah as a… baby?

God as a baby? It is unthinkable in some ways! So tiny, so vulnerable, so… so needy! And yet evidence of life force like no other. And evidence of grace heaped upon grace. Imagine the clutch of His tiny hand around your finger. We all know what that feels like with a baby, imagine if the baby were Him.

As if that is not the most, excuse the entirely avoidable pun – inconceivable turn of events, let us fast forward to the other bookend.

Next stop is death on a cross. What? So if this is actually God, why is He struggling through the narrow, steep and stony paths of Jerusalem, with wood lashed to his back, wounds oozing, making his way to Golgotha?

The utter absurdity of God as criminal! It can’t be, can it? Once again, our King shows up –first as a baby and now as someone about to go down and go down hard. What kind of God is that?

The Crèche and the Cross and the tension between the two provide the container for the dynamics of our redemption. This state makes it both very easy and yet incredibly hard to work with.

Enter in grace, ever flowing grace upon grace. That is the very God that we need. The God who comes to us always in vulnerability, wanting to heal and not to punish, wanting to console, wanting to support, wanting to teach, wanting bring new life.

The God as mighty King metaphor can’t work as easily. Think of the mighty King, the supreme leader of men… Sitting upon a throne; awaiting the prostrations of his minions, with their taxes and their homage. They cower before the King.

No our God is different. Our baby God, our dying God works in a new way.

The gifts bestowed are from Him to us, are given freely and we are already saved. The instructions are fairly simple, and as a result, are very difficult to follow…

Love the Lord God. Love your neighbor. Serve others. Live in peace. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Receive what God gives and in turn, give it freely to others. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So the gifts are bountiful and the payment is… wait, can’t I just write a check? You mean I have to go out and actually live in this love? Give? Receive? Let go of power? Control? It sounds pretty risky.

And indeed it is.

Gathering from The Edge – The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today, Friday December 12, is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I have taken the following directly from the Saint of the Day page at American Catholic.

The feast in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe goes back to the sixteenth century. Chronicles of that period tell us the story.

A poor Indian named Cuauhtlatohuac was baptized and given the name Juan Diego. He was a 57-year-old widower and lived in a small village near Mexico City. On Saturday morning, December 9, 1531, he was on his way to a nearby barrio to attend Mass in honor of Our Lady.

He was walking by a hill called Tepeyac when he heard beautiful music like the warbling of birds. A radiant cloud appeared and within it a young Native American maiden dressed like an Aztec princess. The lady spoke to him in his own language and sent him to the bishop of Mexico, a Franciscan named Juan de Zumarraga. The bishop was to build a chapel in the place where the lady appeared.

Eventually the bishop told Juan Diego to have the lady give him a sign. About this same time Juan Diego’s uncle became seriously ill. This led poor Diego to try to avoid the lady. The lady found Diego, nevertheless, assured him that his uncle would recover and provided roses for Juan to carry to the bishop in his cape or tilma.

When Juan Diego opened his tilma in the bishop’s presence, the roses fell to the ground and the bishop sank to his knees. On Juan Diego’s tilma appeared an image of Mary as she had appeared at the hill of Tepeyac. It was December 12, 1531

Comment:

Mary’s appearance to Juan Diego as one of his people is a powerful reminder that Mary and the God who sent her accept all peoples. In the context of the sometimes rude and cruel treatment of the Indians by the Spaniards, the apparition was a rebuke to the Spaniards and an event of vast significance for Native Americans. While a number of them had converted before this incident, they now came in droves. According to a contemporary chronicler, nine million Indians became Catholic in a very short time. In these days when we hear so much about God’s preferential option for the poor, Our Lady of Guadalupe cries out to us that God’s love for and identification with the poor is an age-old truth that stems from the Gospel itself.

Quote:

Mary to Juan Diego: “My dearest son, I am the eternal Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, Author of Life, Creator of all and Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth…and it is my desire that a church be built here in this place for me, where, as your most merciful Mother and that of all your people, I may show my loving clemency and the compassion that I bear to the Indians, and to those who love and seek me…” (from an ancient chronicle).

This is really an extraordinary story and one of the most beautiful in our church. I have spent a lot of time reading and studying this particular apparition and I never fail to be moved by it.

To understand the power of the story, one must enter into that time. The Spaniards were in serious conquest mode and the indigenous people were really being pushed to convert to Catholicism. This was not a time to be proud of evangelizing efforts – the Spaniards thought of the natives as savages and were less than just to them most of the time.

Some, like Blessed Juan Diego were converted, or at least baptized. Many of the local people felt the pressure of being under the foot of the Spanish however and were slow to follow.

Then this happens. Our Lady of Guadalupe does not appear to the Bishop or a priest, not to the men in all their finery, with their educations and their books and words, their vestments and churches. She also does not appear to Aztecs who were of a higher class.

She chooses Juan Diego, a “nobody” in his own words, a class below the classes. A simple man, a poor man, a humble man.

That is the story – like so much of what we find in Sacred Scripture. God is forever using the outsider, the one on the edge, the one with no real place at the table. It is beautiful.

When Juan Diego tries to avoid her, our Blessed Mother finds him anyway. I love that part of the story and it brings to mind the great Annie Dillard line from The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

The Guadalupe story is so much about how beauty and grace are ever present in the sacramental invitation to embrace that is offered to us with great and loving persistence by our God. And God is calling to a certain type of person…. The ultimate outsider.

And then – only when this ultimate outsider is called – then that is when the people open their hearts and change, be transformed and move more deeply into a life of faith.

Another story that comes to mind for me here is from the Gospel of John – the Samaritan Woman at the Well. Jesus makes sense to her and to her compatriots, they are so far out that they have no place to go but in.

And those on the inside, they often remain confused and unconverted.

Like us.

It is a provocative thought for us to sit and pray with on this Advent day, isn’t it?

The Great Cloud of Questionable Witnesses

Did you hear or read Tuesday’s Gospel from Luke. This provocative Gospel and Father Butler’s ensuing homily gave plenty of food for thought and inspiration today.

Zacchaeus was not considered a model Jewish citizen. Well, maybe if you were one of his Roman overlords you thought he was good, but otherwise… not so much.

He was the number one tax collector in Jericho. If you remember, the tax collector was probably one of the most hated positions… these folks basically shook people down for money to fill the Roman coffers and generally had a little bit of coin for themselves.

I find it interesting that there is a translational nugget of delight when we look at Zacchaeus’ name – in Greek Ζακχαῖος, in Hebrew זכי, which means pure. Pure genius? Pure scammer? Pure thief? Or just pure? Not a word is wasted in Scripture, so there is something to ponder here in the use of the word pure, which may be exactly what we are meant to take from it.

Apparently, Zacchaeus was a very short man. He must have been quite the presence, short in stature but long on other things, as he not only collected taxes, but also extorted a lot of money for his own personal gain. In his book Peculiar Treasures, Frederick Buechner says this about him:

“Zacchaues stood barely five feet tall with his shoes off and was the least popular man in Jericho. He was head tax-collector for Rome in the district and had made such a killing out of it that he was the richest man in town as well as the shortest.”

Now Jesus was going to be passing through and who would not want to see Jesus? Now Zacchaeus, as Father Butler pointed out, could have easily bribed or extorted his way to a front row seat. Which he would need in all practicality as he was so short!

He chose otherwise however and pulled himself up a big tree so that he could get a good view of this man Jesus. And our Jesus, never one to follow any traditional path happens to notice Zacchaeus and says:

“Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”

How I love when we see the word “must” associated with Jesus – that clearly states the imperative. This is not some maybe-maybe not afterthought… No Jesus is clear in saying what he must do.

And as we might imagine, the crowd was not pleased. How could Jesus associate with such a… such a… such a blasted sinner? And Zacchaeus, clearly surprised by this turn of events immediately proclaims:

“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”

I love what Buechner has to say next in Peculiar Treasures:

“Zachaeus makes a good one to end with because in a way he can stand for all the rest. He’s a sawed-off little social disaster with a big bank account and a crooked job, but Jesus welcomes him aboard anyway and that is why he reminds you of all the others too.”

Don’t you love that? That Buechner refers to him as a “sawed-off little social disaster?” That is great! There is so much good stuff here in Buechner’s book, I must carry on, as it is a reminder that Zacchaeus is part of a very great cloud of questionable witnesses to which we all belong.

“There’s Aaron whooping it up with the Golden Calf the moment his brother’s back is turned, and there’s Jacob conning everybody including his own father. There’s Jael driving a tent-peg through the head of an overnight guest, and Rahab, the first of the red hot mamas. There’s Nebuchadnezzar with his taste for roasting the opposition and Paul holding the lynch mob’s coats as they go to work on Stephen. There’s Saul the paranoid, and David the stud, and those mealy-mouth friends of Job’s who would have probably succeeded in boring him to death if Yahweh hadn’t stepped in just in the nick of time. And then there are the ones who betrayed the people who loved them best such as Absalom and poor old Peter, such as Judas even.”

This is the Good News indeed. Jesus meets us where we are and where we are is usually in the middle of the great cloud of questionable witnesses. With all our weakness, our frailty, our insanity and insecurity, our humanity, our messy-can’t-get-it-togetherness and so much more and so much less… that is where Jesus finds us.

He never ever says, get yourselves together and then we can talk. No – in grace personified in the Son of God, Jesus says things like:

“Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”

to the most questionable guy in town. This is what I love – the completely antithetical and counter intuitive approach of Jesus.

Imagine if Jesus only went with the straight and narrow. No story there. He could be written off as just another opportunist. No – he reaches out to the edges, pulls people in and reveals the real story. The Kingdom is now and it is us in all of our questionable selves, waiting to be transformed.

That is something I myself will keep in mind when I want to deny someone else a place at the table. Or when I feel myself so denied.

Time to climb up that tree – you never know who you will meet if you do.

Getting Into Heaven – Kairos (καιρός) and Chronos (xρόνος) Style

(image of cross from St. John’s Bible)

I was speaking with someone on Saturday and this person had relayed, quite humbly at that, a really good thing that she had done. She was almost embarassed to mention it actually.

My response to her was that she had done such a good thing for another person and that I thought this was great. Upon hearing this, she looked down, shook her head and looked like she was about to cry and said with more than a little urgency, “I just really want to get to heaven!”

My heart felt pierced and I wanted to say to her – oh you are already there.

The Kingdom is here and now. I write those words with great confidence, but if I am honest, I also don’t have a clue of what I am speaking of. As with the great mercy and unconditional love of God, I can only hope to understand this and live accordingly.

In all of my pursuits and studies, I have continued to come up against the concept of time. As humans on this earth, God’s children on this planet, we are limited by understanding time and space in a linear way.

It seems to me however, that through prayer and study, we might begin to glimpse this relationship between time and time in a different way. The concepts of time as and kairos (καιρός)chronos (xρόνος) are not easily understood. As with many things on our faith journey, they must be first surrendered to in order to be comprehended. That is something difficult for our 21st century western minds to do. It is for mine anyway.

As I said- not that I have a real clue about how to do this myself. It is something that comes from within as intuition or maybe like a dream that I cannot quite grasp the details of… It has become embedded in my faith that there is a far more expansive way to see and understand this.

Our faith is so mysterious in a world that is based on production, productivity, process and quality improvements. Time means time – what you do with each minute counts. Do more- benefit, do less – pay the price.

So it would stand to reason that we might believe that we have to be really productive in order to “get into heaven.” As if getting into heaven were the primary goal of our Catholic Christian lives. That may sound critical, I know it does. I have thought it and lived it myself so I understand.

However, I simply can no longer accept this.

The Kingdom is here and now in the fullness of time (Father Butler speaks of this often) and it is not about storing up goods for later, but how we appropriate grace in the present moment. As Father described this during his class on John in June, think of the intersection of the Cross as the place where kairos and chronos meet. That is the moment and that moment is always now.

This negates the past in some ways and mucks up the future. Then we get stuck with having to deal with the here and now, which is where Christ is. That is also part of the sacramental nature of our faith, this present moment of Jesus Christ in acts, rituals and deeds. What could be more present moment than Eucharist?

This is frankly exhausting and demanding work, as I see it. It would be much easier and more organized if I could work on my “list” of good deeds and provide God with good metrics.

God must smile at such a thought, as would a most loving parent as they watch their beloved child struggle.

What do you think?

As If God Did Not Know – The Spiritual Gift of Mistakes

Once again, I find myself pondering the words of Richard Rohr, OFM in my prayers. The words below are from his book Things Hidden.

We have been given a God who not only allows us to make mistakes, but even uses our mistakes in our favor! That is the gospel economy of grace and is the only thing worthy of being called “good news, and a joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

If we could have come to God by obedience to laws, there would have been no need for God’s love revelation in Jesus. The techniques for order and obedience were already in place.
-Richard Rohr, OFM

We have been given a God who not only allows us to make mistakes, but even uses our mistakes in our favor! What words! It is true though and I am often astounded by this. It is true in my own life, yet I seem to forget that quite frequently.

If all we did was “follow the rules” we would not need grace or love… or Jesus. Jesus takes the laws, the rules, the more linear matters and by grace and redemption makes them dynamic.

This is not to say that rules are to be flouted. However, as humans we break them all the time. And then pretend that we have not. As we are forgiven, we must so forgive. Now there’s the hard work…

But we pretend that maybe it went unnoticed.

As if God did not know.

As if God did not still love and forgive us beyond comprehension anyway.

There is no accounting for grace, is there?

Working Out Our Salvation

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2.12)

Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny…. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in God’s creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls ‘working out our salvation,’ is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as God is revealed, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation. -Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation

Becoming who we truly are, as God crafts and fashions us, is very hard work indeed.

It is not a passive act, that much is certain. And our own thoughts, needs and ideas are often folly in the eyes of what God has in store for us.

There is no moment of life in which God does not initiate relationship with us, the invitation is persistent and pervasive…. if we but listen.

And upon listening, then we must cooperate.

Doesn’t that sound simple? Hah… anything but!

Part of the reason is that even with the best intentions and the most sincere heart,the voice of our ego often likes to parade around in our head as the voice of God.

I don’t know about you, but there are myriad reminders for me of how what I thought was the voice of God was really my own will and ego as it tried on yet another new me, like a mask at a grand ball. A glance backward at my life reveals something akin to the most opulent Venetian masquerade. Gulp.

If this writing should lead you to think that I have left all that behind, fear not… I spend as much time not cooperating with grace, frankly more than I do actually cooperating with it.

As St. Paul reminds us in the words of Philippians 2:12 as shown at the top of this post, the work of cooperation with God is done with fear and trembling. Which is not to say that we are invited to cower before a cruel capricious God, but that when moments of clarity occur, it might not feel so good and that we actually have some heavy lifting to do on top of it.

In a society that is built around the individual, achievement, comfort, convenience, reward and feeling good, the inherent contradictions become obvious.

So from time to time, when I am able to lift my head and face what is and then to respond, with humility, an open mind and heart, some small modicum of cooperation with grace takes place.

There’s the rub… God initiates, I must listen and act, listen and act. It’s hard work. Uncomfortable work. Challenging work. It is very slow work too. It can’t be checked off a list, as it is daily work. It generally involves working out God’s will by cooperating with grace by cooperating with community as well.

Dealing with myself and then other people on top of it? That does incite fear and trembling in me! Deep sigh.

That said, the invitation is constant, persistent, pervasive and filled with love.

Excuse me while I remove my mask and get back to this work. For a brief second anyway.