the living expression of God's kindness... and that picture I promised

“If we see someone who needs help, do we stop? There is so much suffering and poverty, and a great need for good Samaritans.”

~Pope Francis on Twitter, December 9

"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting."

~Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

photo via http://blog.texasnuns.com/ 

We drove up early to Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Hillsboro, only to find out that the Sunday morning Mass had been canceled. Instead, we met a wonderful woman who opened up the church so that we could go in and say a prayer.

When she realized that there was now a small crowd of us in the pews praying, our Good Samaritan walked up to the altar and offered to read out loud the Sunday readings.

Sitting in this small crowd of strangers in a cold, dark church—with only the votive candles by the image of Our Lady of Mercy and the red sanctuary light, we were touched and fed by the Word of God reflectively proclaimed by our sister in faith. 

Her act of generosity and kindness was one of the most profound homilies I’ve heard proclaimed!

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And as promised, here's that picture of my First Communion, from my all-girls school Colegio de la Inmaculada... I told you that we looked like little nuns!

Colegio de la Inmaculada, 1968

Saintliness

80,000 pilgrims filled St. Peter's Square on

October 21, 2012, for the canonizations

Seven new saints this week. How wonderful is that! 

I have always loved the stories of the saints. As a young child, it is no wonder that I especially loved reading about the ones that messed up in their lives—yet still came to have lives holy enough to be declared official saints.

A few years ago in her wonderful blog, Creo en Dios!, my friend and spiritual director Susan Stabile quoted author Ron Rolheiser and his unusual definition of saintliness:

 “Gratitude is the ultimate virtue—even more so than love. What makes someone a saint is gratefulness. Because love is only real when it’s fueled by gratitude. If it’s fueled by resentment or duty, its’ going to cause resentment or be manipulative. If someone asks, ‘Who’s the most saintly person you know?’ I would say the most grateful person. Gratitude becomes the fuel for everything. It’s not just coincidental that the word eucharist means ‘gratitude’.”

I know—and understand this to be true–with my head, and I do believe it with my whole heart. But there are days when my body hurts, and it feels so draining that my mind can’t think straight. Gratitude feels very distant.

And it’s not that I don’t WANT to be grateful. But all my energy becomes focused on ascertaining how to feel better, how to control the pain. It’s all I think about. It consumes me. I can’t even begin to tell you how else I am feeling—or if there is anything else that I feel.

It is days like this when I find great comfort in the story of the Greek woman, the Syrophoenician, who heard about Jesus and simply “came and fell at his feet” [Mark 7:25].

When I don’t know what I feel. When I can’t think what words to pray. All I really need to do is fall at Jesus’ feet, as I am, and beg him with my presence. This is more than enough prayer.

Thy will be done

I've been in Milwaukee all week helping out my daughter-in-law Mary, who is pregnant with twins and on bed rest in order to keep her from going into early labor. My main task here, however,  is to play with my amazing almost two-year-old Elena, who keeps me laughing all day long!

I'm exhausted, but so grateful to be able to share this time with this beautiful holy family. What a grace to be able to be here!

Holy Family statue on Notre Dame campus

Something I read today:

"Thy will be done," in its full extent, must be the guideline for the Christian life. It must regulate the day from morning to evening, the course of the year and the entire life. Only then will it be the sole concern of the Christian. All other concerns the Lord takes over. This one alone, however, remains ours as long as we live... And sooner or later, we begin to realize this. In the childhood of the spiritual life, when we have just begun to allow ourselves to be directed by God, then we feel his guiding hand quite firmly and surely. But it doesn't always stay that way. Whoever belongs to Christ, must go the whole way with him. He must mature to adulthood: he must one day or other walk the way of the cross to Gethsemane and Golgotha."

                                   ~Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein [Link to my biography of Edith Stein]

Wall of private chapel at Marianists mother house in Rome

touch

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphaltha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).” [Mark 7:33]

There are many stories of healing and cures in the Gospels. My pastor likes to remind us to pay attention to the details of a story because it will help us to better understand Jesus. As I read this passage from the Gospel of Mark, I am profoundly struck by the way Jesus physically touched the deaf man with the speech impediment. Since St. Mark doesn’t tell us the deaf man’s name, I’m going to call him David.

We’ve all heard the importance of touch, how babies who are given food but not touch or affection will literally fade and die, and how hospitals use therapy dogs to heighten the healing of patients, especially those with long-term conditions. 

When recovering from surgery I was perplexed by how much I craved physical touch—and how physically distant people became. It felt like a direct correlation—the more I desired the gentle touch of another human being, the more that well-meaning person would step back and say, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jesus knew how much David craved this physical contact. He took him aside, away from the crowd, to give him his full attention. I can imagine Jesus holding his hand, looking into David’s eyes with compassion and love. I picture him giving David a reassuring hug to communicate his intent, and waiting until David nodded his consent. Jesus didn’t need to touch David to cure his deafness or his speech impediment, but he did! He put his fingers into David’s ears. He spit. He touched David’s tongue. He went out of his way to touch him, and by doing so, he nursed David’s emotional and spiritual needs as well. David was cured of all his physical impediments, but above all, David was touched by Love.

Let me be your healing hands today, Lord, in how I touch and reach out to others. 

To everything, there is a season

My time with Elena in Milwaukee is coming to an end. I’m headed home Monday evening, but not before going in the afternoon with Elena’s mama to an ultrasound where we will see Elena’s “babies” –her brother and sister, due next month.

[Mary October 2, 2012]

That means that next time I come visit this holy family, I will have THREE grandchildren here! The mere thought of it blows my mind, and fills me with such gratitude. I simply can’t say enough how much I enjoy and delight in watching my son Christopher and his wife Mary as parents. They amaze me, constantly.

[Autumn in Milwaukee]

As only God’s planning would have it, it’s been a beautiful week in Milwaukee—with trees dressed in full “bloom” with Autumn colors.

Much like the trees and colder temperatures, our family, too, is shifting seasons—changing and blooming as our adult children establish their own homes and become parents.

[Christopher & Elena]

[Elena Clare, playing in the leaves]

"Let the children come to me;

do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to

such as these.

Amen, I say to you,

whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child

will not enter it."

Then he embraced them and blessed them,

placing his hands on them.” [Mk 10:14-16]

Doing what is do-able

Every morning when I first wake up, there is a moment, an instant, really, when life is completely still, calm, peaceful. I don’t yet remember yesterday’s worries or today’s plans—but more importantly, I haven’t yet felt and evaluated the day, its work—or how my body feels. It only lasts a milli-second, a nano-second, a breath or two—but I turn to that moment often in prayer as a helpful reminder.

That moment of peace reminds me of what it feels like to bring no baggage with me into the day. No anticipating the work. No plans to rearrange.  No anxiety over how hard it will be, or how or what I will need to do to take care of it. No expectation and no regret. No super Girl Scout “be prepared” attitude. I just stand expectant, open to that moment and only to that moment.

This is what I hear Jesus saying to the Twelve when he directed them to “take nothing for the journey.” 

When you live with a chronic condition, especially one that involves pain, it is too easy to live as if I already know how terrible life is going to be. Like a gypsy reading the future, I look at the palm of my hand or the cards on the table and find strange comfort in anticipating the pain, preparing for the problems, holding the fear at bay with an attitude of readiness. This also provides me an illusion of control!

But Jesus urges me to let go and take none of that with me. He invites me to just walk into my day and into my life counting solely on the power of the authority of He who is my Lord.  I don’t even need to know how or if I’ll be able to do it well tomorrow. I only have to choose today to take nothing in my journey, and to trust Him with every detail of my life.  

No, it is not easy. But it is do-able.

Choose today, only today

There really are angels

¡feliz #24 cumpleaños Michelle Josefa!

Born 24 years ago today, we named Michelle after St. Michael, whose feast she shares. Not coincidentally, Michelle has always been close to angels, especially her patron St. Michael. As a preschooler, she assured  me that she could see his big wing covering her like a blanket as she slept.

When I once asked how she found the courage to defend a classmate in grade school, she smiled a toothless grin. “That’s easy, I just asked St. Michael to help me.” In high school she asked her guardian angel more than once to talk to her friend’s guardian angel to help them resolve misunderstandings.

And, obviously, it was St. Michael’s protection that I sought as Michelle and her siblings learned to drive!

I remember being surprised to find out that there are at least 17 New Testament references to angels, most of whom appeared to someone at a critical moment. But I also believe that God’s guardians are always with me, reminding me that I’m not alone.

In her poem, “Angels,” Polish poet and writer Anna Kamieńska seems to share this same conviction:

There are angels there really are angels

they catch every sound idea with the fishing-rod of intelligence

and from pails full of truth pour a bit for good luck

they bake cake poach fish in white wine

they like good jokes

the whites of their eyes shine with laughter 

and we don’t know whether in a moon-bound vehicle

one won’t on the sly squeeze into a space suit

Their calves are too strong as in Flemish paintings

they are corporeal like pale oxen at the stream

but a fiercely kind force is in them

a friendly breeze billows their robes

They sit quietly in a waiting room at the dentist

in an empty chair and are the last to enter

A long silence trails behind them

that’s how you can recognize there are angels

You can read here the entire poem, "Angels," and others in Kamieńska's collection, ASTONISHMENTS [pages 14-15] (Paraclete Press).

All that I cannot see

I’m a night owl. So it’s no surprise that I love stargazing. On a dark night, even from my urban backyard, I’m awed by the constellations above me—and my imagination becomes fascinated by all that is there that I cannot see. 

The other day at daily Mass, I heard St. Paul warning the Corinthians to refrain from making judgments on one another, for when “the Lord comes…He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness.” He will make known “the motives of our hearts.”

Yet even as I heard the words, I was distracted by the woman sitting across from me, making noises and whispering words. I was annoyed. I mean, doesn't she know how to behave at church? The Mass went on, but my distraction grew. It wasn't until we lined up for communion and I glanced at her once again that I noticed her wet face, a single tear on her cheek, and the way her head was completely bowed in reverence.

More often than I care to admit, I judge someone based on the few stars that are visible to my simple-minded eyes. I not only dismiss a person based on how they’re dressed, what they drive, or by their accent—I harden my heart with a snap judgment on their life. 

sun over No. Padre Island

"He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness.”