Good day, my beloved reader.
I hope that’s what you’re ready to do today: read. Enjoy.
First, the title of this post is an homage to one of my favorite Disney songs. (Here's the other one, if you're so interested, especially Mumford's cover of it.)
I love staying up late. Hate getting up early. I can remember a time in my life when I was
in grade school, I’d wake up at 6 or 630 every morning, catapult myself out of
bed into my school uniform then gallivant around the house skipping and
twirling like something out of the curtain scene in Enchanted.
Or not.
But that’s how I remember it. I remember being a morning person as a
kid. I couldn’t sleep in past 730 on the
weekends. I was up! Running!
Doing Things! Adventures! My brother, on the other hand, was not a
morning person (which was proven time and time again when he’d respond with a
badger-like snarl whenever I pounced on his bead to wake him up in the
mornings. Hey, it worked well in the
movies, why not my house?).
Anyways. That
vanished as soon as high school hit. I’d
stay up until 2am or later and then sleep until noon (on the weekends. During the week, I had first period at
730am). I became nocturnal. Seriously, I was into vampire culture before
that trite, psychobabbling authoress made them popular all over again. That’s when I feel in love with sleep. There’s really nothing better than sleeping
until your body decides you’ve had enough.
I love waking up naturally instead of being interrupted by the shrill
beep of an alarm clock, or, in my most current situation, a 6’10” Irishman screaming punk rock from my phone.
Nothin like the wail of bagpipes to shock you from REM. It’s unfortunate, though. I can safely say that all of my really good
days were those that did not begin with an annoying alarm assault on my
auditory system.
Don’t you just love complacency? I do.
Well, I don’t. Actually, I can’t
stand it. But when I’m tired, emotional,
afraid, or anything else, there’s this huge temptation to just lie back down
and do nothing: no challenges, no battles, no temptations. If I ignore it, it will just go away, right?
HAH!
A lie straight from the bowels of Hell if there ever was
one. How do I know this? My prayer life has been kicking my spiritual
ass out of the bed of complacency for the last month or so. It’s really coming to a head right now.
I know tons of prayer methods. Most of the time I pray because I’m a
selfish, ungrateful wretch and I want my own way. Sound familiar? Good.
Keep reading. I’ve prayed
rosaries, Divine Mercy Chaplets, St. Michael Chaplets, Lectio Divina, novenas,
memoraraes, Divine Office et cetera ad nauseum, either out of obedience or
selfish agenda.
And what happens when I do that?!
NOTHING.
I seek no personal relationship via these methods. (And, by the way (the truth and the light),
I’m not harping on these methods. They
are beautiful and can be very effective.
I’m just speaking from my own personal experience here, so put down your
torch and pitchforks.) When I pray this
way, I’m either just doing what I’m told or acting like a persistent brat. I think that if I pray hard
enough this way, God will finally give me what I want. Sound familiar? Good.
Keep reading.
I gotta tell you, looking back at the past 10 years of a
failed prayer life is a pretty discouraging and daunting thing. I don’t like failure. Who does?
Well, maybe this guy, but even he doesn’t like to lose
personally. It’s a pride thing.
I’m not saying that I know whether or not my prayers
“worked.” Only God knows that. But, if an increased desire to pray (id est,
be with the LORD) is a measure of the efficacy of my prayer life, I’d say that
I failed miserably.
Well, then. This past
month and a half has been one of the most difficult in my life. I’ve been under some serious spiritual attack
from the evil one. And, guess why? God made it crystal that I wasn’t praying
enough (or at all, really). Where did he
make this evident?
(Seriously, if you follow this blog, and you haven’t made one yet, you
need to get off your ass and go. DO IT
NOW.)
I went at the end of September, right around my boy’s feast day, so I was already jacked about that. The ways in which the Almighty condescended
to speak to his broken little vessel?
First: the first reading at Sunday Mass and Father’s homilies.
Second: readings during divine office
Finally: formation.
We always do some type of intellectual formation on CYE (besides the
other three (spiritual, human, and apostolic), duh), and this time it took the
form of reading Time for God by Jacques Philippe, watching the first
episode of The New Evangelization Series, and listening to Fr. Barron give a
talk to his brother priests about the New Evangelization.
A commingling of all of these ways really amounted to a
healthy dose of what I like to call 2x4mation.
It clocked me upside the head reallllll good. I went to Confession, and my penance was to
finish reading Time for God. I
love that. If you haven’t read it, I
highly suggest it, especially if you are struggling with prayer. Hey, people in Sarah M’s “prayer class,” she
told me you guys follow this on occasion.
THIS WOULD BE A GREAT BOOK for class discussion. Just sayin.
Philippe just has this gentle but challenging style that
forces you to approach things in a different way. His writing, at least what I’ve read, is transformative. I find myself going back
to his writing again and again. I’ve
only read Searching for and Maintaining Peace and Time for God,
but I’ve heard nothing but good things about his other works. Some notable excerpts from Time for God:
“Mental prayer is not a kind of Christian yoga” (9). This hooked me immediately. Heh.
“The life of prayer is not the result of a technique, but a
gift we receive” (9). Hah. I was such a grumpy cat when I first started
reading this. All I could think of was
Luke Spehar saying “everything is gift.
Everything is gift.” Heh.
“If the life of prayer is not a technique to be mastered but
a grace to be receieved, a gift from God, then talk about prayer should not
focus on describing methods or giving instructions, but on explaining the
necessary conditions for receiving the gift” (13). This really struck me and made me realize not
only how much I’d been failing at prayer, but the depth of my failure; my heart
wasn’t in the right place.
“Someone who sets out on a life of prayer should aim in the
first place at fidelity. What matters is not whether our mental prayer
is beautiful, or whether it works, or whether it is enriched by deep thoughts
and feelings, but whether it is persevering and faithful. Our first concern, if I may put it that way,
should be faithfulness in praying, not the quality of our prayer. The
quality will come from fidelity.
Time spent faithfully every day in mental prayer that is poor, arid,
distracted, and relatively short is worth more, and will be infinitely more
fruitful for our progress, than long, ardent spells of mental prayer from time
to time, when circumstances make it easy.
After that first decision to take the prayer life seriously, the first
battle we must fight is the battle to be faithful to our times of mental
prayer, come what may, according to a definite plan we have established. It is not an easy battle. Knowing how much is at stake, the devil wants
at all costs to keep us from being faithful to mental prayer. He knows that a person who is faithful to
mental prayer has escaped from him, or at least is sure of escaping in the
end. He therefore does everything he can
to prevent us from being faithful. […]
What is important here is that mental prayer that is of poor quality but
regular and faithful, is worth more than prayer that is sublime but only now
and then. It is faithfulness alone that
enables the life of prayer to bear wonderful fruit” (16-17). (emphasis
mine.)
“First, souls are very different. There are more differences between people’s
souls than between people’s faces. Each
person’s relationship with God is unique, and therefore each person’s prayer is
unique. No one can map out a path or
method that applies to everyone, because that would mean disregarding people’s
freedom and the diversity of their spiritual journeys. It is up to each believer to discover, in
response to the Spirit’s movement and in the freedom of the Spirit, the path
along which God wishes to lead him or her” (44).
“Lord, I am nothing but a block of wood: set fire to
it!” (52). A quote from St. Francis de Sales. I LOVE THIS.
“Mental prayer that every day consists of only one thought,
untiringly revisited- to stir up my heart to give itself wholly to our Lord and
ceaselessly strengthen my resolution to serve him and surrender myself to his
power- then my prayer will have been less grand, but far better” (56).
“When we don’t know how to pray, the simplest thing to do is
recollect ourselves, keep silence, and enter into our own heart, go down into
ourselves and, by faith, rejoin the presence of Jesus who dwells within us, and
stay peacefully with him. Don’t leave
him alone, keep him company. Someone who
perseveres in doing this will soon discover the reality of what Eastern
Christians call the “place of the heart”- the “inner cell,” as St. Catherine of
Siena called it. This is the center of
our being, where God has taken up his abode and we can always be with him”
(64).
“Anyone who does not have a spousal relationship with God in
prayer will never perceive the deepest truth of the Church’s identity. For the Church is the Spouse of Christ” (80).
“Five minutes are not enough for God. Five minutes are what we give someone when we
want to get rid of him or her. A quarter
of an hour is the absolute minimum, and anyone who is able should not hesitate
to spend an hour on prayer, or even more, every day. Sometimes, though, one must be careful not to
be overly ambitious in deciding how much time to devote to prayer. There is a risk of taking on more than one
could handle and end up discouraged. A
relatively short time (20 or 30 minutes), spent faithfully on mental prayer
every day, is better than two hours now and then” (83-84).
KAPOW. So many good
things. I love it. He also brought in a ton of quotes from my
girl, Little flower, and tons of other Carmelites that I love. I think the thing that stuck out the most to
me was:
“Time spent faithfully every day in mental prayer that is
poor, arid, distracted, and relatively short is worth more, and will be
infinitely more fruitful for our progress, than long, ardent spells of mental
prayer from time to time, when circumstances make it easy” (17).
I spoke to Sr. Margaret about my lack of desire to
pray. She knows how much I love Truth
and love to read. She suggested I do
what the MCs do: Lectio, Imitation of Christ, and spiritual reading.
Well, guess what?
BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE.
I take the Gospel reading for the day and mull over it for about
10 minutes. Then I pick up The Imitation of Christ where I left
off, at which point I’ve been seeing themes emerge daily. Then, spiritual reading until I lose track of
the time. I started with Time for God,
and now I’m on Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina. I underline things in Imitation and Divine Mercy,
and the Lord speaks. It ranges from a
raging “FOR NARNIA! AND FORASLAAAAANNNNN!” to a tearful, whispered, “For Frodo,” if you catch my drift.
It’s beautiful. Now,
I’m not attempting to be formulaic here and completely contradict what Philippe
has written, but I’m just sharing what works for me. It might work for you, it might not. Who knows?
Anyways, the difference now is that I’m no longer begging
like a petulant child (which also has its merits, I suppose). I’m receiving gift upon gift like a 9 year
old who sees NKOTB arriving at her house to perform for her birthday.
It’s no longer about demanding what I want, but seeking
intimacy with Truth Himself, whom I adore so ardently. Don’t get me wrong; requests, petitions,
rosaries, novenas, etc etc etc are all very good, but, for me, they can be
disappointing and hurtful when I don’t get my way or what I want (which has to
do with my disposition and approach to prayer, not God’s generosity or the
actual form of prayer itself).
This way, I am just able to be with the Lover of my soul, and He is able to be with His
Beloved.
Gorgeous.
Captivating. Fulfilling. I mean, think of it this way: for those of
you out there who are married or will be married some day, what would happen to
your relationship if you only spoke to your spouse for one hour every week, and,
in addition to that, the only other time you talked to them was to make selfish
demands?
Yeah. That’s what
I’ve been doing to Jesus. I’m an
idiot. But, He loves me still. Praise God.
Now. Let’s bring it
back full circle here (So much for summing up.
Heh). One of the first fruits of
this kind of prayer was my post, 82.
Ready for more?
For the last few days, the Gospel readings (Luke 12:35-48)
have been about readiness. Stay awake,
et cetera. That’s where I started today.
During lectio yesterday and today, the following phrases
jumped out at me:
“Be dressed ready for service”
“immediately”
“He comes in second or third watch of the night”
“be ready”
“you do not expect him”
Let’s go! Let’s get
moving! Be ready. He’s on His way! This made me think of a sign that I saw once
in a parish office that read: “Jesus is coming, look busy.”
Seriously, Clark?
Seriously. In a parish
office. Business is not analogous to
readiness is not analogous to holiness.
This kind of snarky statement makes the assumptive leap that Christ has
absolutely no idea what you are doing, and that you can pull a fast one on Him.
Stuff and nonsense, as Marilla Cuthbert would say.
Why do we reduce the Almighty to some sort of Santa Claus
figure (and I’m talking about the fabricated jolly fat man of the United
States, not St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra), whose only endeavor is to
relentlessly make a checklist of all of our goodness and naughtiness and make
sure one outweighs the other, thus perpetuating a devastating cycle of
conditional love?! What the frick!? Anyways.
What if Jesus comes and YOU ARE BUSY!?
Will you even notice Him? Will
you serve Him? Will you take delight in
Him? Or will you be too busy trying to
be busy so you can attempt to impress Him with vainglory?! GAH!
This brings us to my next point, the three verses that stood
out to me. Glared unflinchingly at me
from the page in their entirety:
“The master of that servant will come on a day when he does
not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will
cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what
his master wants will be beaten with many
blows. But the one who does not know and does things
deserving punishment will be beaten with
few blows. From everyone who has
been given
much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much
more will be asked.” (Emphasis
mine).
This is what’s gonna happen if we’re not doing the absolute
bare minimum. WE WILL BE CUT UP INTO
PIECES. Holy crap. I mean, I don’t think literally (how the heck
should I know?!), but Christ will tear us to shreds as he demands that we give
an account of ourselves. Are you ready
to do that? That’s something that we
need to be ready to do, and we can prepare for it better by doing what the master wants us to do. We’ve been entrusted with a sacred Mission,
and we need to be serious about it, not snarky and superficially busy. We need to hunker down and freaking get to
work being holy. And one of the first
ways to doing that is by praying. By
yourself. In silence. In your own way. I mean, Jesus did it! He often went off by Himself. Do it!
Next dose of 2x4mation came from The Imitation of Christ:
From Book 3: Interior
Conversation, Chapter 5: On the Wonderful Effect of the Love of God
“5. Love is ever
watchful; it rests, but does not sleep; though weary, it is not tired. Although it sees reasons to fear, it is not
dismayed; but like a spark of fire, it blazes upward to God by the fervor of
its love. Those who love thus cry out to
God: You, Lord God, are my whole love and all my desire. You are all mine and I am all Yours.”
“8. Those who are not
always ready to suffer and to stand disposed to the will of their Beloved are
not worthy to be called lovers; for lovers must gladly embrace all hardship and
bitter things for their Beloved.”
From: Book 3: Interior Conversation, Chapter 5: On the Proof
of a True Lover
“1. Valliant lovers
of God stand firm in time of temptation and pay no attention to the deceitful
suggestions of their enemy, the devil.”
“4. You know that our
old enemy, the devil, uses every means he can to keep you from your good works
and your prayer life: from the worship you owe to Me, and from a firm resolve
to advance in virtue. This fiend will
suggest many idle and evil thoughts to draw you away from prayer and good
works. Turn his malice against him,
saying, Be gone, Satan, Jesus Christ is my defender, and you shall be put to
flight in utter confusion.”
“5. Fight on like a
good soldier; and if sometimes through weakness you fall, get up again with
greater strength than before, trusting in My abundant grace.”
See the themes emerging here? What do you think they are? I’m getting readiness, obedience,
perseverance, judgment, fidelity, and true love. Just wait, just wait. It gets better.
On to Divine Mercy in
My Soul, Notebook 1:
342 “Suffering is the
greatest treasure on earth; it purifies the soul. In suffering, we learn who our true friend
is.”
343 “True love is
measured by the thermometer of suffering.”
The thermometer of suffering? Say that to yourself a few more times. Thermometer of suffering.
MIND BLOWN.
There’s this old song by The Offspring. In it, Bryan Keith (Dexter) Holland sings the
line, “The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care.” I used to like this kind of music when I was
a snot-nosed punk in late high school and early college (and I listen to it now
and again when I feel nostalgic), but this particular line always resonated
with me. The rest of the song is trite
rubbish describing a broken sexual relationship (big surprise there!), but in
this line we find the kernel of Truth.
Hah. I bet that guy never thought
his lyrics would be compared to the words of a Polish nun.
What does your thermometer of suffering look like? Now, I’m not glorifying suffering here. Not saying that it’s good that people die, or
get sick, or kick puppies, not at all.
I’m saying that it’s what we do
with that suffering that counts, just like anything else, doubt, fear,
irritation, temptation, etc etc. Do we
sit and wallow in it, turn it in on ourselves, turn it into anger? Or do we turn to the Cross and embrace
it? I know I suck at this as much as the
next person. But there it is.
Christ didn’t say “take a long, hard look at your Cross and
then decide if you want to follow me.”
NO.
He said, “Pick up your Cross and follow me.”
I was talking with Sr. Angela at Fr. Carr’s Place 2 B the
other day about suffering. You see,
Sister is from Ghana, and it’s just so refreshing to be around her. I love Ghanaian culture (well, what I know of
it from these sisters), it’s so blunt and honest. Blunt, honest, and poor. There is a desperate clinging to Christ in
their culture because most of the Ghanaian people have nothing, much like I saw
in Nicaragua. Anyways. Sister looked at
me and said, “Jenny, Americans don’t like to suffer.” I said, “You’re right, sister. We hate it.”
I mean, it’s true! We left
England because of religious persecution (or whatever), and here we are, facing
it today in our own country. (That’s for
another time.) She went on to say that
not only to Americans hate suffering, they see no value in it.
There is immense value in suffering. The most precious value is that we are united
to Christ’s suffering on the Cross.
However, this culture is so self-obsessed that it can’t see past the end
of its proverbial nose.
Bahahah!
I’m straying from the point.
Did I have a point? Yes. Praying.
Efficacy of prayer life. So. Themes have emerged here: readiness,
obedience, perseverance, judgment, fidelity, true love, and suffering.
Am I ready? If Jesus
Christ Himself walked into the room right now, would I be ready? I sincerely hope so. How can I be ready? By receiving the sacraments, answering the
great commission by leading others to Him, seeking an intimate relationship
with him in prayer, seeking truth in spiritual reading, by being obedient to
the Holy Spirit and His commandments.
Am I obedient?
Yes. This needs work. I am stubborn and prideful. I suck at life and make mistakes. I want my own way ALL THE TIME. I am selfish.
But He gets through. I am
obedient in the big matters. The small
matters and interior dispositions could certainly use help. I need humility.
Do I persevere?
Hahahahahahahaha. Yes. Mostly in a selfish way, though.
Am I ready for judgment?
I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for it, but I can prepare the best way
I know how: Confession.
Am I faithful to the Lord? This too, needs work. What other forces in my life are getting
between me and Christ? What is the White
Witch between me and Aslan? What is
that block of ice? I need to name them
and refocus on the Lord. This, too,
begins with discipline in prayer life.
Do I truly love the Lord with all my mind, body, soul, and
heart? No. I suck at it.
But I try. It’s very difficult
because of the track record. But, during
those difficulties, I cling the hardest.
Even if I don’t love, I cling.
Am I willing to suffer for the sake of Christ? Do I unite my suffering with His? Heck yes I do. This lesson has been the longest time coming
for me. I’ve finally been able to turn
it around from “Why is this happening to me?” or “What did I do to deserve
this?” to “What does God want me to
learn from this.” When I kneel in front
of the tabernacle and look up at a huge crucifix, I’m able to name my
Cross(es). It’s usually at that point
when I decide to carry it or not.
SUFFERING SUCKS. But Christ did
it best, and I need to follow.
The thermometer of suffering. MIND BLOWN.
So, what’s your prayer life like? Are you seeking intimacy with God, or are you
just asking for things from Santa Claus?
Be sober and vigilant, your opponent the devil is prowling
around like a lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith. 1 Peter 5:8
To conclude (I need to re-read this until it really sinks
in):
True love is measured by the thermometer of suffering. Jesus, I thank You for the little daily
crosses, for opposition to my endeavors, for the hardships of communal life,
for the misinterpretations of my intentions, for humiliations at the hands of
others, for the harsh way in which we are treated, for false suspicions, for
poor health and loss of strength, for self-denial, for dying to myself, for
lack of recognition in everything, for the upsetting of all my plans.
Thank you, Jesus for interior sufferings, for dryness of
spirit, for terrors, fears and incertitudes, for the darkness and the deep
interior night, for temptations and various ordeals, for torments too difficult
to describe, especially for those which no one will understand, for the hour of
death with its fierce struggle and all its bitterness.
I thank You, Jesus, You who first drank the cup of
bitterness before You gave it to me, in a much milder form. I put my lips to this cup of Your holy
will. Let all be done according to Your
good pleasure; let that which Your wisdom ordained before the ages be done to
me. I want to drink the cup to its last
drop, and not seek to know the reason why.
In bitterness is my joy, in hopelessness is my trust. In You, O Lord, all is good, all is a gift of
your paternal Heart. I do not prefer
consolations over bitterness or bitterness over consolations, but thank You, O Jesus,
for everything! It is my delight to fix
my gaze upon You, O incomprehensible God!
My spirit abides in these mysterious dwelling places, and there I am at
home. I know very well the dwelling
place of my Spouse. I feel there is not
a single drop of blood in me that does not burn with love for You.
O Uncreated Beauty, whoever comes to know You once cannot
love anything else. I can feel the
bottomless abyss of my soul, and nothing will fill it but God himself. I feel that I am drowned in Him like a single
grain of sand in a bottomless ocean.
-St. Faustina Kowalska
No comments:
Post a Comment