The Resurrection: Fridays in Eastertide

So during this eight-days-in-one that we call the Easter octave, we've been reflecting about what the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, means.  We've looked at what the Apostles meant, and that the Church still means the same thing today.  We've looked at how the Resurrection manifests Jesus as Lord and God, with power over life and death - and how he plans to share his kingdom with us by giving us a new way of life.  We've looked at how that new way of life can begin now, and how it will lead us to an eternity of joy.

So what is the proper response of a Christian?  Let's look at Psalm 116, my favorite, for some suggestions.

I love the LORD, because he has heard
         my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
         therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
          the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
          I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
          "O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!"
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
          our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
          when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
          for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
          my eyes from tears,
          my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the LORD
          in the land of the living.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
          "I am greatly afflicted";
I said in my consternation,
          "Men are all a vain hope."
What shall I render to the LORD
          for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
          and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
          is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am thy servant;
          I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
         Thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
          and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people,
          in the courts of the house of the LORD,
          in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

The Psalmist is deeply grateful to the LORD for having saved him from the "snares of death," the "pangs of Sheol," and from anguish and distress.  When he was tearfully stumbling, consternated by the abandonment of human consolations, God "dealt bountifully" with him.  The Psalmist, as he often does, prefigures Christ with his prayers.  The Holy Spirit invites us to make the prayer our own, to pray like Jesus, and so the prayer is an invitation to the imitation of Christ.  Jesus was raised up from "the snares of death" by God.  What was Jesus' response to being raised from the dead?

He offered the Eucharist (Lk  24:30), a word that means "thanksgiving" in Greek, a ceremony that He made a sacrifice of His flesh and blood (1 Cor 11:23-5; Mt 26:26-8) by His sacrifice on the cross, a sacrifice that draws us into communion with Him, and thence to God, and thence to all the others in communion with God for an eternity of Joy (Jn 6:48-57).  The Eucharist is literally our participation in Jesus' sacrifice of thanksgiving.  It is how we thank God for what He has done for us.  Moreover, it is how God does for us what He has done for Jesus.

(hat tip to Veritas Vos Liberat)

"Whoa... wait a minute," you might be thinking.  "The Eucharist is how God saves me," you start, and then continue, "and it is how I thank God for saving me?"  Yup.  "But, I don't get it.  What does that mean?  What do I have to do?"  Nothing.  Just accept it gratefully.  Make it our weekly (daily?) act of thanksgiving to God, and we will have received what He would give us.  He doesn't want our actions - whatever you and or I can do, He can do better anyway.  He doesn't want our charity.  He doesn't want our money.  He doesn't want our apologetics or evangelization or even our prayers.  Doesn't need 'em.

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1

He just wants us.

The rest will follow.  So simple.  Die to yourself by going to confession.  A real deathblow happens there - the ego is given a tough kidney shot, at the very least.  Then go to Mass.  Pray silently along with the priest.  Enter into the prayers.  Enter into Christ.  Receive Him with an open heart to whatever He wants.  Give thanks and praise.  And then "do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5).

Friday is the day on which Catholics generally (at least in former times, though we are still asked to) give up meat, in honor of the day on which our Lord gave up His own flesh.  May I humbly suggest that, at least during the fifty days of Eastertide, we take up the sacrifice of thanksgiving by going to Mass an extra time, perhaps on Fridays, to sing the praises of God?

What Happened Yesterday Going to Mass

Yesterday, I got a minor reminder of something of what Deacon Dave preached about, and posted yesterday at this blog.

I drove to St. XYZ parish for its 12:10 p.m. Mass.  It was convenient to where I was working yesterday.  I got there, and a note on the door politely stated that the 7:00 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. Masses of the day would not be said.  I presume it was because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  It is a federal holiday and so federal workers, who populate my area plentifully, as well as students and teachers, had the day off.  "Priests apparently, too," I remarked to myself as I went into the church to pray for a bit, since I was there anyway.  There were twenty or thirty people inside, apparently also unforewarned about the cancellation - and apparently workers on their lunch break, as usual.  I became irritated.  Irritation turned to anger, resentment.  I tried hard to pray.  The best I could muster was to growl at God about workshy bureaucrats and priests.  None of this reflects well on me, I am afraid.

But then a moment of grace intervened.  I didn't detect it at first.  It simply arose as a quiet thought, "Well, I might have gotten my butt out of bed for the early Mass at my own parish, or even the morning Mass, and still been to work on time - or close enough to it."  Since I was there anyway, I tried to remember the words to a prayer of spiritual communion.  I couldn't, so instead I just prayed, "Jesus, just yesterday you came to me in love.  Please extend into today the union you gave me yesterday.  Help me to love like you.  I want to trust that whatever happens, it is your will.  Help me to trust you.  Amen."  As I walked outside after praying a couple decades of the rosary, another thought came to me.  "The priest might actually be very industrious.  I don't know.  He might very well need today off from his usual duties."  The sun was warm on my face during our little Spring Break in January.  I was grateful for having slept well on my soft bed in my warm house the night before, and for having a bit of work for the time being.  Resentment and anger faded away.

Taking responsibility for one's own actions, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and gratitude are good people-person skills.  They are also good attitudes.  They are also something of the natural virtue upon which supernatural sanctity is built.

I went back to the office where I was working and was able to make a valuable contribution to the firm.  That's something to take a bit of pride in, something to sleep well on.  I joined my dad and his wife for dinner and we had a pleasant time.  My evening tutoring session went well.  The day has ended nicely.  The bitter poison of anger, that might have slowly and imperceptibly tainted the rest of my day, was drawn out by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by a determination to pray, which was given to me by an action of grace, to which I opened myself by deciding to make use of the sacraments if I could, which was given to me by an action of grace...

So yesterday I saw the co-mingling of grace and my own efforts - and saw a bit of water turned into wine.  Let's look for little reminders of grace, and in our actions, try to be for other people little reminders of grace.

Stones Crying Out

One of my favorite lines from the Scriptures is found in the Gospel of St. Luke, who recounts an interaction between Jesus and some Pharisees. Jesus processes into Jerusalem fresh from raising Lazarus (Jn 11), both followed and preceded by thousands of excited admirers (Jn 12:17; Mk 11:9), who are cheering "Hosanna," which means something like "God save..." or "Long live...", as in, "Long live the King!" The word hosanna is actually related to the proper name Yeshua, Jesus' name in his mother tongue. Trust me on this one. Now, as people are cheering, "God save the one who comes in the Name of the Lord," a reference to the messiah, the pharisees become perturbed (Mt 21:15; Jn 12:19). The Pharisees ask Jesus to tell the crowds to stop calling him King (Lk 19:39).

Here's what Jesus says to answer them:  I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out, (Lk 19:40).  That's it.  That's one of my favorite lines.  Think about it - even the paving stones under their feet are yearn, bursting forth with the news that God has come to his people, that God has returned to holy Jerusalem, that God is going to reclaim his holy people.  Even the stones!

This idea doesn't originate with Jesus though, except inasmuch as he is God and everything originates with him.  Read the first few verses of Psalm 19:

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;

Yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
    In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and like a strong man runs its course with joy... (Ps 19:1-5).

Jean Corbon, who is said to have shadow-written the fourth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which deals with prayer, wrote a book called The Wellspring of Worship.  I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand what is the heart of liturgy.  By "liturgy" I am not indicating any migration to an Eastern Rite.  Still less am I getting hippified and refusing to use the word "Mass," which is the correct English-language word designation for what we Catholics are required to attend on Sundays and other obligatory holy days.  Liturgy is a broader term whose translation is often botched as "work of the people."  The Greek term, and its Latin loan word, both meant "public work," which is different.  Works of the people include things like potluck dinners, spontaneous singalongs, and quilting bees.  There are obviously people in the Church who want the Holy Sacrifice to fall into this category and so continue to promote this incorrect translation.  A "public work" is different.  In ancient Greece or Rome, liturgia would have described such things as arenas like the Colosseum, a new sewer system, or a nice fountain.  Modern things like the Washington Monument, Fed-Ex Field, or your local public school serve as modern equivalents.  Then as now, the state built such things, and so did very wealthy, private benefactors.  They were gifts to the people, and very often built by the people, and in those senses were "public works"; but they most certainly were not the brainstorms of people on the street, or for that matter, people in the pew.  So it is with the Mass.  The Mass is a gift to the people and not from the people.  It originates in Jesus Christ's sacrifice of the cross because we need it, and not because he needs it.  And the Mass is one instance of liturgy.

The Church has been entrusted with at least six other liturgies: one for each sacrament.  The different liturgical churches within the Catholic Church each have their own liturgy, their own way of carrying out the seven sacraments.  Liturgy is a sort of scripted, cyclical ritual given by God in order to orient us toward God.  It is liturgy in this sense that Corbon examines in his book.  I will attempt to summarize his central thesis in a single sentence: God has created all of creation to share in his joyous, loving glory, which pulsates throughout creation, drawing all creation back toward God; and God has designed creation specifically to bring as many people as possible back to himself.  He might say that all creation is a sort of living, breathing, God-worshiping organism.  we humans enter into the reorientation of self toward God that is worship by entering into the liturgy that is the universe, particularly the sacramental life of the Church, which Jesus has instituted for that purpose. (OK, I cheated by using a semicolon. It's a big book, with lots of points to make...)

I wish I could paraphrase Corbon better, but I haven't got my copy of his book handy.  I gave it away in a moment of blind affection.  Ah, well.  It's on my Amazon wishlist.  Lol.  I mention all of this now because I came across the YouTube video below on the Anchoress's blog.  If what I wrote above seems kind of abstract, watch the six minute beauty below.  Heck, even if you got what I wrote above, which given my penchant for Ryanese strikes me as a bit unlikely, watch the video.





Do you see what I mean now? EVERYTHING: my car wreck a week or so ago that taught me a little obedience to the divine will, the snow that swamped DC this past weekend and made us rest and stay at home, baptisms and transubstantiations, animals in the zoo, sunny days on mountaintop meadows, all of it... it was all created by God because he loves us and wants to teach us to love Him in return. As we learn to enter into it, to discern his will, act charitably and as good stewards, respond with gratitude, we do in fact draw closer to him. Everything is meant to build this reality into us, and especially the sacraments are meant to do so in a way that nothing else can. Jesus, the Gracious God Made Flesh, became flesh precisely so that grace can operate in fleshly things. He would not have heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, separated forever. In his nativity, God becomes a native of planet earth so that we can become strangers and exiles here, with a new citizenship in heaven.

It's just amazing what he did that day two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. Creation is still reeling with the ripples of God diving into his own creation, to change us from the inside, to teach us to praise his Father in every circumstance.

Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD.  Hosanna!

My Gaudete

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, named on the Church calendar, as many Sundays are, for the first word of either the Epistle or the Gospel of the day, according to the lectionary before the liturgical reform. I believe that most of these readings now make up the Sunday readings for year A of the lectionary cycle. The epistle reading for today (Phil 4:4-7) begins, "Rejoice in the Lord always." The command form used in Latin to mean "rejoice" is gaudete. Hence, Gaudete Sunday. It is upon this Sunday of Advent that a little of the gloomy blue
is drained from the priest's vestments, leaving them rose in color ("It's not pink!" they're often heard to say).

And it was upon this Sunday, at about 2 p.m. I found myself unexpectedly standing in the rain along 16th St. NW, a heavily trafficked corridor, next to the-wreck-that-had-been-my-car-only-minutes-before. It was cold, and I was dressed nicely for a community service activity to which I had been running late, at which I would now be unable to attend, waiting for a tow truck and a ride from my roommate. It was only seconds after the car accident that my brain whirred, "I don't have full-time work. I don't have much savings left. My car is totaled. How can this be? Why me?" When I saw that the other driver was uninjured (as was I) but that her car had only some scratches and cracks in the bumper, my sense of the world's mocking unfairness only increased. But now, fifteen or twenty minutes after the accident, as the rain drizzled on my forehead, I realized, "This has all happened for a reason." In that moment of a grace, I felt a thorn or splinter remove from my heart, and the self-pity evaporated. The self-pity and the fear were alleviated. One moment they were there, and at the next they were not. Instead, a confidence of the all-encompassing providence of God's will began to penetrate into my heart.

Then a confirmation came to me from God. Actually, she drove up. She was an Ethiopian woman, and she rolled down her window and said me, "Are you alright?" When I nodded, she burst into a smile that chased away the clouds in my heart and made me smile as she cried, "Praise Jesus! I am so glad that you are well! See, it is a miracle, and for some purpose. Do you have anyone coming?" I told her my roommate was coming. She smiled and said, "It is for something. Do not forget that Jesus still has you!" And she drove off.

If I did not get the message, another Ethiopian woman drove up. I'm not kidding here. The odds seem slim, but it makes me wonder if the services of an Ethiopian church were letting out. She rolled down her window and told me that she liked my bumper stickers. Ending abortion is a passion of hers, she said, and that I should not worry about distractions and turmoil the devil will send to me. "You are well and God will bless you. Trust Him! Do you need to use my cell phone?" I thanked her and declined the favor, telling her that my roommate was on the way and so was a tow truck. She smiled and wished me well.  I noted that her car as well as the first Ethiopian lady's both had dents in them from collisions.  They had experienced my little trauma, and quite probably far worse.  But how they smiled!

After the tow truck took brought my car back to my home, and my roommate brought me back in his car, he and I went to Mass together. The priest punctuated a theme that my roommate and I had been discussing just a day or two earlier. Christian Joy is not a giddy thing, or a naive thing. It is not an emotion any more than love, he said, but it is an anchoring virtue, a continual knowledge or memory of the presence of God in our lives and in the events of our lives. Joy makes the deaths of loved ones tolerable, and weddings not merely happy, but hopeful and passionate. It makes births beautiful and injuries feel passing. Joy maintains an equilibrium, and without negating anything, accentuates the good in how we perceive everything. It does not dispel the troubles around us, but keeps them from penetrating too deeply into us. It keeps God in the back of our mind and disposes us to respond to Him in the events of our lives, rather than to our own emotional responses. We Christians make a grave mistake if we confuse joy with an emotion. If we think we are sinning by being sad, somehow disobeying the command to rejoice; or that we are "in grace" or consolation when things are pleasant, then we shall never see the face of God because we will have already forsworn the Cross without even noticing. Because joy is a knowledge and a decision, it is also a virtue, one that we can pray for and practice.  Joy is a virtue obviously connected to the virtues of faith and hope.

So though I felt sad at my loss, and still feel a bit of trepidation at the possible outcomes of my situation, my heart keeps gravitating, almost on its own, but really under the impulse of grace and the discipline of training, toward gratitude and trust. I am grateful that I have family and friends who care about me, limbs that are healthy and strong, a mind that is sharp, and possibilities unfolding before me, albeit slowly and in their own time. I am grateful that nobody was injured, rather than upset that my car will probably be totaled for a pittance. I am grateful for the gift of faith to see God's love even in darkness and in rain. I am grateful not to feel overwhelmed, but supported and protected.  And I have not given up waiting to see how Jesus is acting in my life.  I hope that you, dear reader, have not either.

This Gaudete Sunday, some key lessons were driven home to me, if you'll forgive the pun. Some other food for thought has been churning around in my head. I also have reason to believe from past experience that this day will turn out to have been a significant and good one when I reflect back upon it.

It's Not Too Late to be Thankful

Thanks, Luce!

Happy Thanksgiving

Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

-Fr. Henri Nouwen

Let's try to make a point today, at least, of sharing some of that which we have so freely been given by our Creator.

A good spiritual exercise at the end of the day is to list off at least five things for which we are particularly grateful on that day.  In the morning, read the list from the previous night.  On both occasions, at morning at night, conclude the writing and the reading of your list of gratitude by making a short Act of Gratitude.  The Grace After Meals seems appropriate enough:

We give Thee thanks, Almighty God, for these and all Thy benefits which we have received from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To Our Nation's Servicemen and -Women

Dear Sir or Madam:

I have never served our country under arms.  I have never endured the rigors of basic training or the deprivation of the campaign.  I have never been away to a foreign for many months or years.  I have never been shot at or shelled.  I have never been put on alert, standby, or shipped away from my family.  I have never been maimed.  I have never been killed, or seen my best friend killed.

You have done all these things for the rest of us, so that we might enjoy a land of peace, where people are ruled by laws, rather than by tyrants, so that we may build a culture of civility and opportunity.  Because of your heroic conduct and generous hearts filled with a willingness to sacrifice, we have a country that is the envy of the world, and in a good way.  Foreign nations might detest our nation for any number of reasons, but not for the conduct of our soldiers abroad, which, with very few exceptions, has been exemplary and a source of national pride.  When the odd bad seed has caused problems, the rest of you have nobly stepped up your own service to stand in the breach and to restore our national honor.

I read an account of a Muslim woman in the Middle East who converted to become a Christian at great personal risk.  She was inspired by you, good soldiers, because of your conduct: after a battle, you care even for the enemy wounded, and treat the bodies of their fallen with respect and dignity.  You do not seek to heap catastrophe upon the enemy, but use your prowess in battle to minimize the number who must perish.  You do not demand sacrifice of others, but sacrifice yourself, very much as our Lord willed to do.  You give chocolate bars to children, and play sports even with the sons of your fallen enemies.

You are inspirations and role models to us all.

May God bless you and keep America from ever ceasing to be grateful for you.  For what it is worth, you have my thanks.

Yours Gratefully,
Ryan Haber
Kensington, Maryland

Unexpected Gifts

This morning my roommate/marathon-partner, Tom, who is a pilot, took me up on a Cesna for breakfast in York, PA. He's building his flight time and takes these trips regularly. It was a very, very fun time.

After returning home, I drove to visit a friend and his wife for lunch and to help him to prepare to give a lecture at a conference in Peru, speaking Spanish. He doesn't really speak Spanish, but working from his own text translated by the conference organizers, I believe he'll do just fine. It was cool to be able to help him prepare because among the attendees will be a large number of devout families, priests, and a few bishops and cardinals.

When I returned home from lunch and helping my friend prepare for his lecture, I saw an Amazon box sitting on the front step. "Ooooh! Amazon," I thought. I love Amazon deliveries. Even though I am the principal recipient of them at our house, and even though I myself place the orders, deliveries always make me feel special - and I know I am not alone in this, people. But then I grew glum, thinking, "I didn't order anything from Amazon. Shoot, it must be for one of my roommates." I turned it over and read the label, and whaddya know, it was for me, and the return address was that of a friend from my parish. I was too surprised to register. Opening the box, I saw it was a book, Commentary on New Testament Use of the Old Testament. This particular book has been atop my Amazon wishlist since it came out in 2007 and will be a terribly useful reference for biblical scholars for years to come. And this friend bought it for me spontaneously, just because, because he is a kind and generous man - manifested in my mind numerous times long before this, especially with his commitment to the youth of our parish.

I love debts of gratitude. Debts of gratitude are different from debts of account because they are not calculated in dollars and cents and they are not paid back. Rather, they are paid forward, to borrow a nice phrase. They might even be paid forward to the person to whom we feel grateful. But they aren't paid as a matter of obligation, but as a matter of love. A gift freely given inspires in a healthy recipient a free response, in some direction. The repayment or the forward-payment of debts of gratitude is not intended to clear the debt, but to perpetuate it and deepen it, to draw more people into it. There is no tit-for-tat, but rather a response of grace for grace, free gift for free gift, and neither size nor shape are measured against each other. Instead, heart meets heart. Before long, a number of people feel a great desire to give not only their things, but really parts of themselves, as it were, to their neighbors and friends. Instead of lending and repaying money, we invest ourselves and are blessed by others. Gratitude inspires a sort of calculation that is exactly the opposite of either capitalism or socialism. Gratitude builds an economy of love.

There is nothing like gratitude to build those two beautiful forms of charity: piety and friendship. It is really important to do kind and generous things for others. If done selflessly, such deeds are magnanimous and share in the most magnanimous charity ever, that of our Lord for us. It is also really important to let others do kind and generous things for us when they are so moved. The graceful reception of such kindness not only humbles our pride, but may build up the giver's sense of sharing in divine grace, which can only lead to more grace. When we refuse gifts, while there is sometimes a genuine and legitimate desire to avoid unnecessary entanglements, there is also often a refusal to be humbled. What a sad condition!

Lol, all this is to say thanks to those men who blessed me today. I'll put personal notes in the mail. Except to you, Tom. I live with you. That would be dumb. How 'bout I buy you a milkshake after our next run?

Mmm, mmm, good.

Ok, so I'll be the first to admit that it is a small thing. Very small. But I made myself an omelet this morning for brunch after Mass, and man, was it good. It was stuffed with onions sauteed with garlic in butter, as well as a sampling of fresh red onion bits, some excellent Peruvian olives, and Swiss cheese. The egg shell was thin and even, with some fresh black pepper worked into it. I ate the omelet with some hot wild berry tea, heavily sweetened. I sat by the window, and the sun is just getting strong enough again that through the glass it warmed my skin. In the background a particular string quartet by Mozart played on my stereo, and the third movement, a mournful (but not overwrought) adagio, washed around my mind. I alternated between the tea, the omelet, my Hebrew homework (which is getting to be enjoyable), feeling the sunshine, and listening to the strings. My heart was at rest in the hours following my communion at the morning's Mass.

It was a little bit of what the Israelites would call hashamayim. Heaven.

Anyone else had little foretastes of heaven lately? Feel free to share. We need to think about heaven more.

Last Post on the Marine Corps Marathon

OK, folks, so my (unofficial) stats and photos are out. Click the pic at right to see the photo album sent to me by the marathon photographers. Remember that my chip didn't work, so it is a good thing that I kept my own split times. Using those, I was able to figure out where I finished (by fitting my finishing place between the ones immediately faster and slower than mine).

I finished:
585 / 1672 men aged 30-34 yrs old (50.9 percentile)
3562 / 11,129 men
4707 / 18,281 finishers

Some splits:
3 mi = 0:27:52.11
6 mi = 0:53:12.41 (25:20.30 from 3 mi mark)
8 mi = 1:10:10. (at this point my ave. was 8:30 min/mi, my training pace)
13 mi = 1:43:49. (1/2 way mark, pace is still 8:30 min/mi)

My pace slowed between mi 18 and 20 to about 10 min/mi, then to almost 11 min/mi at one point. At about mile 22, as the course crossed back into Virginia, I began to recover, and the last two miles of the race my average pace was 9:20 min/mi.

26.2 mi = 4:05:20 (9:21.8 min/mi)

I received a letter from the Vocations Office of the Archdiocese of Washington DC today, thanking me for the contributions donated on my behalf, which topped over $1200. The director of vocations pointed out that it was a high number, and that the money will be used for things like emergency funeral travel and other exigencies.

More recently, one of my roommates has decided to run a marathon in the spring. I think I've nearly convinced Tom, my roommate/running partner to run one, too. I'm looking for one in May, maybe, to apply some of the lessons I learned, gain some experience, and get ready for my next Marine Corps Marathon.

Thanks again, all, for your prayers, encouragement, and support.

How It All Went

Ok, so today I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, my first marathon and my longest run ever, by 6.2 miles (about 10K).

First, I want to thank all my supporters. A lot of people donated money to the Archdiocese on my behalf, prayed for me, bought me shoes and nutrition supplies, cheered me on, encouraged me, and prayed for me. A number of you have called to check in on me and have emailed me your best wishes. Without that support, I would have bailed out about two months ago.Y'all are the best. I want you to know that when the howitzer (no starter's pistol for the Marines!) was fired to start the race, I offered the entire run to our Eternal Father for your benefit, asking him to bless you all for how much you've blessed me. I believe it is exactly the sort of sacrifice that our Heavenly Father loves to accept and to multiply.

Second, the race went well. I did not run the times I had targetted, but am very happy with having finished, and well especially in the last 3-4 miles, and having come very close to my desired time. The first few miles were hard because the course was so congested. Miles 18-22 were especially hard - I don't think I hit the wall (I think I did that once) as much as just became fatigued, very fatigued in the legs. There were water and carbohydrate-gel stands every two miles or so - a real godsend. At mile 22, as fatigue was hitting its worst, another young man whose name turned out to be Dave called to me while I had stopped to stretch, "Hey, c'mon, you can do it! Let's run together." So we did run together, each encouraging the other for the last four miles. The race ends on a fairly steep hill, going up an exit ramp off of I-66 or some such road (maybe VA-110). I slowed to a trudge, and then began to walk, just 150 yards from the finish! A hand gently lay on my back and pushed, and I knew it was Dave, and we ran in to the end together. Talk about a grace! It's a metaphor for life in Christ - we can try it alone, but it's so much better to go at it with others. Dave just came into Mother Church's fold at the Easter Vigil this past spring; and this coming spring will marry his fiancee. During our four miles together, we prayed a few Hail Marys and encouraged other runners who were struggling. Please take a moment to pray for their marriage to be blessed with fruitfulness and joy.

I saw some cool quotes, and even moving anecdotes, written on the back of peoples shirts. One said, "Pain is just weakness leaving the body." I like that. As a Christian striving with St. Paul to be a coworker with Christ in the labor of redeeming the world, I thought of my own little rejoinder.

Pain is the sound of the world being redeemed.

At the finish line, a Marine greets each finisher and puts a medal around his or her neck, and offers congratulations. People bring the finishers fruit and vegetables, sports bars, and lots of liquids. The Marines think of everything, and handled everything with gracious hospitality and efficient thoroughness. They have my complete confidence in every matter from now on. People were crying; I cried too - the pain is pretty real, but the joy, the sense of accomplishment, the camaraderie of the runners, the enthusiasm of the tens of thousands of spectators who formed a veritable gauntlet of cheers for about 80% of the course - it's all so much realer than any pain. I type that, 11 hours after having finished, as I ice my weary joints and down tylenol like jelly beans. Another shirt said, "Pain is for now; glory is forever." I really like that one.

One big lesson I learned: don't eat lots of jelly beans, no matter whether they are advertised as "Energy Beans," at mile 18 of a marathon. Trust me.

After the race, I called my roommate, Ben, who had my bag and phone, and he came to meet me. My friend Tamara called my cell phone before he got to me, and he told her where I was. I expected him, and am so grateful; I got her to boot, an unexpected surprise, for which I am also grateful. They stood with me in line for an hour while I waited for a massage (yes, the Marines think of everything) and then, while I was getting massaged, went to a sub shop and got me the best tasting sub I have ever eaten.

Bad news is that bad spelling and a data entry glitch seem to have prevented my times from being recorded by the official electronic device. Sorry to y'all who logged in to track me. Happily, I recorded my own darn splits, and will put them up in a few days when I've had a chance to figure them out for sure and format them properly, and when the photos from the race come out.


For now, a few stats are in order, from the time I crossed the starting line, about 3 minutes after the howitzer blasted:

1st 5k = 27:52.11
2nd 5k = 25:20.3
1st 10k = 53:12.41

last 10k = 63:52.38

total (42k / 26.2 mi) = 4:05:20.--
average pace = 9:21 min/mi

Thank you, all of you. Now, my icing is done and I'm ready for some zzz's. I've got school in the morning, and the Tylenol-PMs are starting to kick in. Good night. And, did I mention, thank you?

20 Miles of Miscellany

Ok, so when you run 20 miles, as I just (finally) did, a LOT of things go through your mind. Something I noticed was that as the run progressed and the hours (not that many of them) ticked off, my thoughts got more and more disconnected from each other. They felt more profound, but that feeling hardly guarantees their depth, now does it? So here are a few random thoughts from my little three-hour tour around Bethesda, Kensington, and Rockville. Well, to be honest, some came from the cooling-down and runner's-high period that followed.

Grace is like grass. It is a coincidence that they sound so similar in our language, but the analogy is apt. Running on concrete wears on you, especially your joints. A lot of that wear and tear alleviates immediately, and I mean within just a couple paces, of switching onto grass when it becomes available. Life is like that. It can really wear on you. And modern life is rapidly becoming a hard, concrete paradise like the ones so many of us suburbanites and urbanites live in. Grass softens things, makes them gentle, and lovely. So does grace. It makes life doable, even desirable.

My roommate and I started the run even though it was cool, raining, and promising to get worse - colder and rainier. My reasoning was that the Marine Corps Marathon will be run rain or shine, and I didn't want to bail then, so except in case of genuine physical danger, I shouldn't bail now. Tom isn't running the MC Marathon, so I am not sure what his thinking was. Maybe he did it for the sake of camaraderie. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe a bit of both. I used to be more of a wimp, but feel like less of one after the run. In point of fact, it didn't get colder and rainier. The rain let up and the temperature stabilized at about 60*, perfect for a run. That's how life is. If you can stick through the hard points, exercising prudence and relying on Providence, it pretty much always gets better eventually. At least it has for me.

As I finished the third of four loops, each beginning and ending at my home and measuring five miles, I called into the house, "Hey, Ben, would you do me a huge favor and run to the 7-11 and grab some ice. I'm out it looks like." God bless him, he did. Tom cooked dinner for the two of us and left it in the fridge for me when he went to his (overnight) work shift. My ma has done similar things for me on these runs. All these people have been praying for me, encouraging me, supporting what I am trying to do. It's mind-boggling. During my run I reflected on that a great deal, and prayed for the grace to get better and better at being a loving son, brother, roommate, friend, coworker, classmate... for the grace to make some kind of return on the grace given me. My heart swelled while I ran, and it wasn't just a cardiovascular thing. It is no coincidence at all that the word for grace in almost all the Romance languages is closely related to the word for "thanks." Usually, "thanks" is "grace" in the plural form. "Gracias por la gracia," you might say in Spanish. Thank you God, for the grace.

My second niece, to be born in a few weeks, is named Elizabeth Grace. No joke. I know, it's very thematic, so I offered part of the run for her, too.

In a few moments I am going to eat the dinner my roommate made me, and make myself a milkshake. You wouldn't believe how many miles you can get out of fantasizing about a milkshake. Grace, like the dinner, has to be not only freely given, but also freely received, whatever John Calvin might have said. Otherwise, it's not grace, but some sort of spiritual assault. God never forces the free will He gave us. Holy Mary, full of grace, was free to say, "No," to God, which is why her lifelong, grace-filled yes was so important, so revolutionary, so beautiful.

St. Joan of Arc was the illiterate medieval French peasant who, inspired by the Holy Spirit and numerous saints, took up the banner of the Dauphin and with it and his whimpering armies drove from France their English overlords. She was captured by her enemies and tried for a witch, or a heretic maybe. I can't remember, but it was clearly a show-trial to make Stalin blush, because the Brits were just bitter to be beat by a woman. She was asked by her show-judges whether she was in a state of grace, the state in which the soul is permeated and shot through by the life of God himself, and in moral and spiritual union with Him. It's a trick question though, because you can never know for sure that you haven't offended and parted ways with God, only that you have done so. That's a bit complicated and another story. For now, suffice it to say that the young woman of 19 or 20 years, being glared at and stared down by the hooligan bishops and barons of Burgundy and Britain, calmly walked out of their trap as effortlessly as Jesus Himself evaded the sneakiness of the Pharisees, and with a similar answer. She simply said, "I cannot say, but I pray God that if I am, He keep me there, and if I am not, that He bring me there swiftly." (The paraphrasing is mine. Bear in mind I just ran 20 miles.) The bishops were befuddled. But they burned her anyway.

We can never be sure, but if we have a good reason to doubt that we are in grace, we should hurry to confession, quickly. Go, get back with God. If you haven't been in a while, you've got good reason.

I didn't nearly get hit by a car this time, in fact, most of the cars were unusually (to my mind) careful to let us have the right of way crossing streets. Unusual for the DC area. Grace in action?

A few centuries after St. Joan of Arc, another young Frenchwoman, whose feast is celebrated today, Therese Martin, A.K.A. Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux, A.K.A. the Little Flower, wrote a great deal about grace. She is a canonized saint, and one of just 33 doctors of the Church, saints whose lives, thought, and writings have most profoundly affected the rest of us in the Church. She, without so much as a high school diploma and deceased at twenty four, is in the ranks of Augustine and Aquinas. It wasn't because she was a cutie, either. She was sharp. As she suffered in her death throes, succumbing to tuberculosis, she made a very profound comment. "I do not know how our Lord experienced the Beatific Vision [heaven] even while dying on the cross in such agony, only I know it because I myself am experiencing something of the same," she said. Her last words, buoyed up in agony by a joy and love deeper than anything human, and entirely outside herself, she coughed and gasped, "My God, how I love you," and breathed her last. As an interesting oddity, St. Therese wrote, directed, and starred in two plays about the life and death of St. Joan of Arc.

A couple weeks ago, my 8-month pregnant sister fell in the grocery store. While her baby cried for her, "Mommy, mommy!" and she struggled to get up, people came by, glancing down at her in pain and obviously in some distress, and kept walking. Ten, she counted. Ten people did as much. Flannery O'Connor, one of my favorite authors and essayists, wrote in an essay on Southern literature that grace is perhaps best defined by describing its absence.

U2, my favorite rock band of all time, has a whole song named Grace. Several of the members are Christians, and have suffered, and know what they are talking about. Google the lyrics.

To follow Jesus Christ is, as He said, to pick up our cross each day and to follow Him. Rather than to run from it, the Christian life requires that we do our best to take suffering by the horns. Grace, His Life - even to the point of His Flesh and Blood - shared with us, is what makes that possible. And it also provides a measure of joy, like today's huge rainbow, the cool night air along the concrete of Rockville Pike, a warm cooked meal.

Thank you God, Mama Mary, Mom, Megan, Claire, Tom, Ben, saints and angels in heaven who guard over me, and all the rest of you who fill my life with pleasant blessings. Thanks to all who have supported my effort to support our good archbishop and the Church's efforts to give us even more good priests.

Hmm... wait a minute, didn't I say something about a milkshake a while ago?

You Are What You Eat

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

I didn't get a chance to post this past Sunday, but cannot pass up the opportunity presented by the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

In a recent post I commented about how God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in His intense love for us desires not only that we should dwell with Him in heaven, but that He should dwell us, here and now, to make our journey to Him not only possible, but sweet.

It is the Eucharist, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the God-man, that makes this possible. The Eucharist is the center and fruit of the liturgy by the same name. The name originally means "Beautiful Thanksgiving," and that is what the Eucharist is. It is Christ in His people thanking His Father. It is the re-presentation of the self-sacrifice and triumphant victory of our great Savior. It is the great act of praise and thanksgiving, of self-sacrifice and humility, that strengthens our union with Him, begun in baptism and perfected in heaven. There is too much to say to say it all, so let me just say one or two things.

The Eucharist is the perfection of every form of love. Receiving it prayerfully, we experience our Blessed Lord's tender affection for us. It manifests his brotherly camaraderie with us, His desire to march alongside us as we go into spiritual battle here on earth. It manifests the jealous, exclusive desire of a husband for his bride, His desire not just to be with or next to, but even to be inside of His bride, you and I, the Church. Ultimately, it manifests our Lord's desire to lay down His life and give Himself to his bride. So storge (affective love), philia (brotherly love), eros (marital love), and agape (charitable love) are all manifest in the Eucharist. Because in the Eucharist it is Christ loving us with His perfect, divine power to love, the Eucharist is the highest act of love that a human being can receive in this lifetime.

The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Son of God, but the Son never acts alone. Whenever the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit acts, all three act together. So it is not just the Son that gives Himself to us, but the entire Deity gives himself to us in this humble act of sacrificial love. The entire Trinity thus makes His dwelling in us. From within us, God works to draw us into Himself. The grace of God not only calls us from without, but impells us from within. Our godly actions arise, then, from God Himself who dwells within, once we have welcomed Him to our home.

St. Paul says that now we see dimly as in a mirror (1 Cor 13:12). The Second Vatican Council teaches that Jesus Christ, by revealing the fullest extent of the Father's love for us, reveals us fully to ourselves (Gaudium et Spes, #22). When we face the Eucharist in adoration and worship, though we cannot clearly see Jesus with our senses, He nonetheless shows us a reflection of ourself. As I face the Eucharist the questions arise in my heart, together with the answers, gently, as a lover whispers: "Am I humble like Him? No. Am I gentle like Him? No. Am I chaste like Him? No. Am I generous like Him? No. Where do I need to grow? Who have I failed to love today? How can I love better?" He does not accuse, but only points out. As the answers present themselves, I am not discouraged and tempted to abandon our Lord, but am encouraged to pursue Him the more fervently. That is how I know it is He who speaks. So my heart gravitates toward Him, and He reveals Himself more and more fully as He reveals me to myself, gently, steadily, lovingly.

It is baptism that incorporates us into Christ, that adds us to His body. But the connection is so tentative because the effects of sin in our life are so powerful. The Eucharist is the chief means that Jesus has given us to strengthen us in our union with Him. That is why we call the act of receiving the Eucharist "Holy Communion." Because our souls are not mere spirits, but embodied spirits, part of a spirit-and-body combo, as it were, God works for us in like manner. Our spiritual sustenance comes to us by material elements. So the Body of Jesus works in us, is absorbed by us, and gradually turns us into itself. The Body of Christ is strengthened as each of its members and parts becomes more Christlike. We are what we eat, and we, the People of God, are the Body of Christ because we eat Christ's Body. In this way, He makes us more like Himself, draws us closer into His loving embrace, and as we are transformed and drawn in, we witness to others, who will follow us as night follows day.

The Eucharist itself is worthy of worship because it is Jesus Christ, no more, no less, no other. Nothing is missing that is essential either to His humanity or to His divinity. It is not merely a gathering of the people, though we do gather for it. It is not merely an act of thanksgiving, though we do thank Him. It is not merely a model of self-sacrifice, although it does teach us to give of ourselves. The Eucharist is Jesus Christ Himself, who personifies in His flesh the act of thanksgiving and self-sacrifice, which is the highest form of praise. As He teaches us to praise God and to give of ourselves, He draws us to Himself and thence to His Father and ours.

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself," John 12:32. Let us then lift up Jesus Christ, bodily present with us as the Sacrament of the Altar, the Sacrament of Love, the Sacrament of Unity, that all men be drawn to Him.

O Sacrament most holy,

O Sacrament divine,

All praise and all thanksgiving

Be every moment Thine.

The End of the Week

Is anyone else grateful that it is Friday?

Daily Dose of the Mystery

I normally attend the 6:30 a.m. daily Mass at St. Martin of Tours, my home parish. If I oversleep that Mass by accident, I can always attend the 8 a.m. daily Mass at Mother Seton parish, around the corner from where I work. Today I slipped out of my office for a few minutes to attend that one because an early conference call precluded going to St. Martin. Of course, if I lived closer to Mother Seton, its 6:30 a.m. daily Mass would work too. In addition to passing St. Martin on the way to work, I pass St. Rose of Lima parish. Its 8:45 a.m. Mass is a bit later than I prefer, because I like to be out of the office by 4:30 or 5 p.m. at the latest.

Going to St. Martin has the added advantage that the priests there hear confessions after almost every weekday Mass. Only when funerals cut the schedule too close are confessions omitted. At Mother Seton confessions are heard not only at the customary Saturday afternoon times, but also Wednesday evenings. That can be handy if I am leaving work late, or after dinner, and I have a need or desire to go.

What's my point with all this babble about scheduling? Well, it's just that I am very grateful. I know in many places it is much harder to get to daily Mass, and even scheduling confession can be prohibitively difficult. I am very grateful to God and to the priests at St. Martin of Tours and Mother Seton parishes, and the other parishes in the area. These things, these sacraments, are absolutely indispensible for the steady progress in natural and supernatural virtues that is supposed to mark the Christian life. Our priests sit long hours in the box, awake earlier than otherwise necessary, and hop in the car at all hours of the night to make sure that their faithful have access to the sacraments. Their labor of love is a tremendous service to us all.

Please God, let us not forget to thank our priests for their work when they finish absolving us, when they communicate us, when they visit us. Reverend fathers, may God bless you for it.

An Attitude of Gratitude

The readings for today, the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2 Kings 5:14-17; Ps 98; 2 Tim 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19), seem very clearly to focus on the virtue of gratitude. Naaman the Syrian was so moved by the healing worked for him by the prophet Elisha, that he refused to worship any but Elisha's, the LORD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. St. Paul urges St. Timothy and St. Timothy's flock to remember what the Lord Jesus has worked for them, and so to refuse to deny Him in any way. In the Gospel narrative, the Lord Jesus heals ten lepers in Samaria, and one of them returns alone to thank and worship Him.

The thoughtless ingratitude of the nine lepers might be a sign to us. How many times to we receive free gifts from God without remembering or thinking to spend even a moment thanking Him? To say that we overlook only nine out of ten blessings is probably a generous understandment for most of us. At Mass, Fr. Clarke preached that we need to develop an attitude of gratitude. How might we do this? While we cannot make ourselves feel a certain way, a feeling isn't a virtue and it's not what chiefly concerns God. A virtue is a habit of good action; the virtue of gratitude is a habit of giving thanks. A sure way to practice and grow in this virtue is to plot out different points in our day at which we will give thanks to God for His blessings upon us. Before and after meals are opportune, easily remembered, and traditional times for such moments of prayer. Before we go to bed, after examining our conscience and making an act of contrition, we might review our day, scanning it for blessings, and then make an act of gratitude. When returning home or finishing a journey we might give thanks for the roof over our head or the safe travel.

Gratitude, Fr. Clarke said, is the gentle, pleasant, enjoyable way to grow in humility. It reminds us that we are small and dependent on a great and loving Father. It softens our heart and opens it wider, making room for the Lord to enter more fully.

Ps 24 - A Psalm of David.

The earth is the LORD's and the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein;

for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully.

He will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of his salvation.

Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty,the LORD, mighty in battle!

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!