It is Midday: a poem

Amiens, France, 2013

San Diego, CA

"It is Midday"

It is midday. I see the church

open. I must enter.

Mother of Jesus Christ, I do

not come to pray.

I have nothing to ask

and nothing to offer.

I come only, Mother, to look at

you.

To look at you, to cry for joy,

to know that I am your son

and that you are there. Only

for a moment while everything 

stops. Midday!

To be yours, Mary in this

place where you are.

Saying nothing, but looking at

you and letting my heart sing

in its own language....

Because it is midday, because

we are here today, because

you are always there, simply

because you are Mary, simply

because you exist, Mother of

Jesus, be thanked.

                                  ~Jean-Pierre Prévost,

                                                                as published in Magnificat, 

                                              February 7, 2015

Cane, France, 2013

Guatemala, 2011

San Alfonso Retreat House, NJ

Rome

postcard from Chile, #2

On our first day in Chile I learned that the month of November is the month of Mary in this country full of mountains and Catholic churches, which makes a lot of sense since November is here the season transitioning from Spring to Summer--the equivalent of the month of May for us.

Everything is blooming in the capital city of Santiago!

At the church near the hotel where I've been going to daily Mass, la Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción, the statue of Mary was moved in the past couple of days. I first saw it in what must be its regular spot on the side aisle of the church:

but today the statue of Mary holding Jesus was in a prominent place of honor,  to the right of the main altar and surrounded by white lilies that filled the church with an exquisite aroma:

Isn't she beautiful? 

When our daughter Anamaría studied here, she introduced our family to Schoenstatt, a Catholic Marian movement founded 100 years ago in Germany [for more info click here] by taking us to Mass at what was then a tent (a big tent, but a tent nevertheless!) where they were planning to build a large Marian church as part of the Sanctuary.  

Today, in Anamaría's honor, and guided by dear friend Rachel Gardner who is a member of the Schoenstatt community who splits her time between Austin and here--I was able to visit and pray at their beautiful chapel. 

I feel like I'm on a retreat! Although it's a retreat full of good food and daily wine... 

"Everything about my specific reality is part of God’s divine and merciful plan to show me that he is already with me. God is the path itself. Just as something transforms a trip into a pilgrimage and a tourist into a pilgrim, the awareness that God is The Longing transforms my life-quest from mere self-knowledge into a true pilgrimage.  In the words of the German philosopher Meister Eckhart, "No man desires anything so eagerly as God desires to bring  men to the knowledge of Himself.  God is always ready, but we are very unready.  God is near us, but we are far from Him.   God is within, and we are without.  God is friendly--we are estranged,” he said. “Whoever seeks truth seeks God, whether he knows it or not."

This is what it means to have a pilgrim heart. It begins with self-knowledge. It demands a constant awareness that God is already with us. It is nourished by the sacraments and by daily prayer. It is focused on our inner journey home, to the God already living within us. It is a conscious decision to call our daily journey a pilgrimage, whether we never leave our living room or we travel physically across the ocean to a remote destination."

~from my book "The Journey: a Guide for the Modern Pilgrim" 

imagine...God looking at you and smiling!

 

happy third week of Advent!!

“But discernment only operates in an atmosphere of prior trust—only when we admit an experience and let it develop do we have the grounds for discernment. You cannot discern from a distance. You have to get involved, to take the risk; only on that basis can you assess the feedback and make the adjustment. Discernment implies relationship. 

In the third Addition, Ignatius invites us into a complex, relational reality. If God is looking at us, God is in relationship with us. As we try to understand this relationship, we can focus either on God or on ourselves. We can consider what it is like to be looked at. How am I feeling? We can also consider the God who is looking, and what that God is like. How is God feeling? As we move between these two ways of responding to Ignatius’ invitation, they begin to fuse, to enrich each other, to be woven into something intricate and beautiful. I am looking at God looking at me looking at God. When I look at the God who looks at me, it is not a matter simply of seeing the other as one object among many, but of looking, gazing, contemplating. We see each other. The look transforms—it is encounter.”

~Robert R. Marsh, 

“Looking at God looking at you: Ignatius’ Third Addition”

Although St. Ignatius wrote his Spiritual Exercises as a 30 day silent retreat for his “company” of men, both times that I have completed the Exercises, all the meditations, readings and prayers have been modified and presented as a program for lay people in the midst of everyday life.

A great example—and one that I highly recommend for people in the Oklahoma City Archdiocese, is called “Retreat in Daily Life.”

During the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius sets up several prayer opportunities to help us reflect on how loved we are, how much God loves us. 

The idea is that here’s where it all begins. It is within this Love experience, this relationship, that we are able to respond to God in complete sincerity and honesty, and it is then that we can begin to see truthfully and then, confront our sinfulness.

It is such a critical and central point of reference!  It is from, with, and in this Love that all else comes, develops, unfolds—even sorrow for our sins, which then allows us to receive God’s mercy and love.

I think Jesuit Anthony de Mello summarized it in beautiful simplicity:

 “Behold God beholding you … and smiling.”

[Source: Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, Michael G. Harter (Editor)]

Last week my amazing daughter-in-law Mary sent me this delightful video of my Twinkies, who are now 1-year-old.  At first I thought that their giggles came as a response to their big sister Elena.

But, no.  The twins were simply looking at each other—gazing at each other in complete wonder—and the response was utter delight. Joy! Manifested in their smiles and laughter.

When you watch Cecilia and Ignacio in this video, may you imagine

God looking at you… and smiling!

dying into safe hands

Perhaps no image then is as apt, as powerful, as consoling, and as accurate in terms of picturing what happens to us when we die and awake to eternal life as is the image of a mother holding and cradling her newborn child.  When we die, we die into the arms of God and surely we're received with as much love, gentleness, and tenderness as we were received in the arms of our mothers at birth. Moreover, surely we are even safer there than we were when we were born here on earth. I suspect too that more than a few of the saints will be hovering around, wanting their chance to cuddle the new baby. And so it's okay if we die before we're ready, still in need of nurturing, still needing someone to help take care of us, still needing a mother. We're in safe, nurturing, gentle hands. 

That can be deeply consoling because death renders every one of us an orphan and, daily, there are people dying young, unexpectedly, less-than-fully-ready, still in need of care themselves. All of us die, still needing a mother. But we have the assurance of our faith that we will be born into safer and more nurturing hands than our own. 

However, consoling as that may be, it doesn't take away the sting of losing a loved one to death.  Nothing takes that away because nothing is meant to. Death is meant to indelibly scar our hearts because love is meant to wound us in that way.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it: "Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love. ... It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn't fill it, but on the contrary, God keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.  ... The dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves."

~Ron Rolheiser,

"Dying into safe hands,"
Nov. 3, 2013

read entire text here