Faith, Hope, and Love in a Book I'm Reading

Here is a quote from a short but deep book that I am reading, Fr. Jacques Philippe's Interior Freedom.  Check it out:

But always it is through an act of God, hidden or open, that faith, hope, and charity are possible.  The theological virtues awaken and grow in human hearts bu the work and teaching of the Holy Spirit.  That divine teaching is sometimes quite disconcerting.  Let us look at the way the Holy Spirit acts within us.

There is no way to chart all the Spirit does in any life.  We can't set rules for it or plan it.  "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes," (Jn 3:8).  Yet, certain constants can be traced.  The mysteries of the Rosary can help us see that.

The Rosary is a very beautiful prayer through which we entrust ourselves to our Lady in order to enter into communion with the events of Christ's life.  But it is also a kind of symbol of every human life.  Just as the Rosary contains joyful, sorrowful, and finally glorious mysteries, it could be said of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that there are "outpourings" that are joyful, sorrowful, and glorious.  (That is the order of their importance, but they occur in a cyclical way.)

Some outpourings of the Holy Spirit illuminate and reveal, some strip and impoverish, and some confirm and fortify.  All three kinds are necessary: the first to give birth to faith, the second to teach us hope, and the third to give us the courage to love.

The author then proceeds to use details of the life of St. Peter that are recorded in the gospels as illustrations of his interpretation.  When I read this tonight in adoration chapel, I literally jumped in my seat.  "Holy crap!" I thought.  I know, not terribly pious - my apologies. "That's my life."

There's a lot of brain food in Fr. Philippe's words.  The book is simple to read, yet thick - one doesn't rush through such things.  I hope my mind isn't doing cartwheels still when I lay me down in a little bit.

By the Mines of Moriah

We spent the day in Moriah, New York, nestled among the Adirondacks, east of the High Peaks region and near the southwestern shores of Lake Champlain.  The people there were extraordinarily friendly, and mostly seemed supportive of our candidate.  It is amazingly rural - a half hour from the nearest large road.  The people are proud of their cultural heritage here, and proud of America.  They feel that things aren't going so well, but do not believe that America is "broken."  They'd mostly like our leaders to leave things alone.

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The community was founded upon mining, but I do not know what they do now.  A lot of the people are from here, but like my own neck of the woods, the area has experienced some growth through the gradually immigration of folks from other parts of the country.

We ate a hearty Election Night Harvest Dinner in a Baptist church hall, at the invitation of the mayor and at the expense of a local well-wisher who calls himself Brett the Mountain Man.  It was a really nice evening and a nice way to finish a day of meeting local townsfolk and even more people come in from the countryside to vote in this local population center of four or five thousand people.  The mayor, who was probably five or ten years younger than my dad, and vigorous, sat next to a widower who was much older but only a bit quieter.  The widower told us how a ninety-four year old neighbor of his had had both of his legs amputated after a quadruple bypass surgery had wrecked his circulation.  "Shame and a waste," said the mayor.  "When my heart gets like that, I'd rather just say a quick rosary and then go to meet my Maker."  Why make such a big deal of trying to save an old man from living his last days?  Doctors may sometimes be more afraid of death than their patients.

We sat next to one woman who has lived her entire eighty four years here, and more than sixty of them with her husband, who died only last December 18.  I will try to remember this kind woman and her husband in my prayers that day this year.  She was visibly choked up a bit when we discussed him briefly, but she mostly expressed gratitude to God for His kindness in giving her "such a loving man for so many years."  The mayor and her elderly neighbor, the widower, listened sympathetically as she told us just a bit about him: "He never said an unkind word about anyone, never so long as I knew him, which was all my life."  She told us about a young priest that used to visit their family when she was caring for their child and babysitting her nieces and nephews.  Though her family is Methodist, she said that the priest was always very warm with them and told them he felt very welcome in their home.  "Well, he was," she said, "He was most welcome.  What a fine young man he was."  The widow, the widower, and the mayor were excited to see young people (us) caring so much about politics and about the state of the union that we would drive all the way up from Maryland.  We were encouraged by their hospitality and functioning, albeit small, community.

There weren't many young people here, in this place without few jobs, and none for folks with degrees - except for perhaps the mayor and a nurse or teacher.  Some young men drove by in pickups and waved, giving us thumbs up.  The ones who drove by in inexpensive sports cars were less visibly supportive.  I wonder if there is a correlation.  Young women mostly drove by packed in small American or Japanese imports like Kias and Hyondais.  They mostly waved or didn't seem to notice us.  The shopkeepers were immensely friendly in Moriah, where we got early morning coffee, and in Port Henry, where we got our brunch and late lunch.  Like the waiters and shopkeepers I encountered in Germany, they did not overdo it, nor did they seem interested only in making a sale.  They lacked either the sicky-sweet attentiveness or the condescending, distracted rudeness that alternatively characterize the staff at accommodations in the DC area.  Like the staff in mountainous Bavaria, these mountain folk were genuinely friendly and interested in their customers, but no more so than they would be with a stranger or loose acquaintance on the street.  The ones we met on the street though, were eager to exchange phone numbers or email addresses.  That made me think faintly of Mexico on my earlier visits, when the internet was still new there.  Brett the Mountain Man joked about his internet connection being delivered by pack mule.

I'll miss it. But maybe I'll return. I've no doubt I'd be made to feel welcome.

My Retreat

So, as I mentioned before, I went on retreat from July 24 to Aug 1. It was a really beautiful experience, and I am especially appreciative of the community that hosted me, provided me meals, and a daily spiritual director. I feel like the lines of communication between me, myself, and God are more open than they've been in a long time, and that can only be a good thing.

That said, the retreat was not easy or, in one sense, pleasant. "There's a reason," my director said on Day 5, "that they are called spiritual exercises. A retreat is not a vacation." Holy freaking cow, was he dead right on the money! I forget where I read - I think St. Anselm - that the spiritual life is much more difficult than the natural life, and mental labor more difficult than physical. As an academic, he was perhaps biased and defending his lifestyle, except for a key rationale he provides: if it were easier, wouldn't spiritual development be sought and attained more frequently than the material? Yet we see the opposite. Additionally, St. Anselm himself was accustomed from his youth to working for his father, attaining some prosperity therein, hard toil (like walking from Italy to northeastern France to get to the monastery that he eventually joined!) and physical sacrifice, so one can hardly say that he simply hadn't tried the material life. My retreat was eight days long and silent - no talking, no books (except the Good one) or newspapers, certainly no iPod (!). I went to Mass each day, and met with my spiritual director for an hour or two each day. That was very nice. Then in was back into silence. I ran about every other day, and was encouraged to eat heartily and take naps. Lots of time with me, my Bible, and God.

It got intense.

Even when I wasn't in chapel praying, prayer just kinda popped in on its own without me looking for it. Sometimes it was like wrestling with Him. A friend asked me, "Lol. Who won that wrestling match?!"
I laughed, and thought for a minute. When we wrestle with God, we always win. That's because if we win, we win; and if we cry "uncle," (or more aptly, "Father!") and submit to God's will, then we win, too. And don't think that it's blasphemous to write about beating God in a wrestling match. There's precedent: don't forget Jacob and the angel (Gen 32:24-25).

The retreat also required a lot of perseverance. It helped that I flew to Omaha and was picked up at the airport, so I couldn't really go anywhere. But at points I was crawling out of my skin to get out and get it over with. Just like in a run, one might stop to breathe, stretch, or walk, I found myself a couple of times cheating: sneaking a look at an old newspaper, or having a quite, furtive conversation with another retreatant. But basically I stuck with it. I kinda thought - don't take this as dogma - that retreats have different durations, like races. A day retreat might be like a mile run, a weekend like a 5k, a week-long retreat like a 10k, and the 30-day retreat Jesuits make might be compared to a marathon. Maybe there's something there.

So it was good. There were some things that God and I needed to hash out together, kinda like our own little Beer Summit. Only happier, and nobody had to get arrested.

Praying the Rosary

YouTube has these videos, suggested to me by a friend:

How to pray the rosary:


A rosary playlist with accompanying videos and pictures for each mystery:


God, what a wonderful, daring time it is to be Catholic! Help us to be the new life that you are infusing into your Church. Please, grant us the strength to bring the world to you. Amen.

A Thought on the Rosary

This is from my nightstand devotional text, Mary Day by Day. The entry for today reads:

Instruct me in the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your marvelous works.
- Psalm 119:27

REFLECTION: The Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the Mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of Mary. Thus, the unfathomable rices of these Mysteries are unfolded. - Pope Paul VI

PRAYER: O Mary, when I say the Rosary, I medidate on Christ's Mysteries in union with you. Help me to imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.

Encountering the Risen Christ in Prayer

Prayer is a touchy topic because it is always a personal one. As with all personal topics we expose our hearts and risk getting them mangled. The only way to avoid being personal in a discussion of prayer is to be sterile, and that is no improvement, for it certainly mangles the topic. As with the other installments of this series, I will start more objective, and work my way to the more personal.

First we have to ask what is prayer. Two definitions have been given traditionally by the Church, each given to her by one of her doctors:

St. Therese Lisieux wrote, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

A bit more precisely, St. John Damascene wrote, “Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”

Starting with these definitions, and incorporating some other saints’ experience, we can say something like, “To pray is to direct one’s heart or mind toward God.” Now, the first thing to note is that prayer is not thinking or feeling about God, but to God. Key difference. It is the difference between spending time with someone and doing a criminal background check on them. In the latter way, you get to know lots of facts, but not the person; in the first way, you get to know the person. The distinction is so important that the romance languages have two entirely different words for the different kinds of knowing.

Lest anyone think I am dismissing the importance of the catechism or the Deposit of Faith and the doctrines of the Church about God that the catechism summarizes, it is important to bear in mind St. Augustine’s paradox. We cannot get to know God without knowing about Him, and we cannot truly learn about Him without getting to know Him. So how can it happen – prayer? If we cannot pray and get to know God without knowing something of His nature, and we cannot learn more about His nature with getting to know Him, how can we get started? The answer that St. Augustine looks to is grace – the free gift of God’s life shared with us on His own initiative. God has to break the ice in this conversation, and even when it seems that we are making the first move, approaching Him, it is He working in us that has brought us to Him. The scriptures bear out this viewpoint, too: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words,” (Romans 8:26).

As we go about our life, God is constantly dropping prompts into our life to get us to spend time with Him. He is an almost insatiable lover; not like some needy “friend,” but like a parent who wants what’s best for his or her little kids. The kids think they are all grown up when they are just a few years old, but Mommy and Daddy and God know how much work we still need before we’re really there. So God is always hovering close to us, closer than we are to ourselves. He just wants us to respond, so He can give us what we need to spiritually grow big and strong. And what we need, know it or not, is Him.

Of course, society throws up all sorts of obstacles to quiet time with a lover – look how busy and noisy our lives are. And God, though very much in love with us, will not force or manipulate us into spending time with us, although He is not above letting us learn the hard way that we need Him, and starting from there. To spend time with Him, we have quietly to set ourselves aside from the hubbub of the world, enough time to calm our thoughts, and then we have to ask Him to help us lift our heart and mind toward Him. Calm, leisurely reading of the Scriptures, praying the Rosary, or meditating upon some icon are time-honored ways to still our heart and mind so that we can hear His quiet whisper. Here again the spiritual life is like running: a prayerful relationship with God is just not going to happen with less than 20 minutes or so of practice at a time and frequent, regular goes at it. Running for 10 minutes twice a month is a complete waste. So is praying, if you are looking deliberately to build a relationship with God. Sure, you can toss up a request in just a few seconds, but what would you think of someone who only spoke to you when they needed something, and the conversation consisted entirely of requests, without so much as a please, thank you, or a by-your-leave? We wouldn’t hang out with such selfish losers for very long. It’s a good thing that God is more merciful and patient than we are.

Before too long we will begin to “hear” thoughts and feelings in our prayer. It becomes VERY important to examine these inspirations, especially ones that surprise us, seem to come from outside us or beyond us, ones that point toward a change in course or strengthening a resolve. St. Paul calls this examination a “testing of spirits,” to see whether this new inspiration is likely just our empty stomachs, propaganda from our culture, or even diabolical in origin; or whether it is perhaps truly of God. This testing of spirits requires a solid moral formation, because God will never tell us to do something immoral, that is, something against His will. (Let’s leave certain stories from the Old Testament aside – they complicate things for now.) Even with solid moral formation, it is very beneficial to have a Christian more advanced than oneself to whom one can refer in times of doubt. If one’s pastor is for some reason an unlikely candidate, another priest or religious is ideal, but not strictly speaking necessary.

A word about how prayers are answered, or more to point, when prayers are answered. God does not always answer a prayer when we want. He’s in charge after all, and He calls the shots. Usually, for me, the prayer is answered well after it is prayed. For that matter, He responds to my queries for guidance, consolation, etc., sometimes quite a while (I feel) after I’ve asked. And He does so sometimes by stirring things up in the heart, sometimes but providentially arranging experiences, sometimes by making something that otherwise would have been lost in the clutter of life leap out at us, as it were, vividly, in full color, demanding a response and presenting its own solution, making the signposts of life shout aloud, you might say.
My own experience of the process of prayer, as I have described it objectively above, is what led me to the seminary.

Toward the end of my time in college, I heard about a “holy hour.” I had no clue. Turns out, it is an hour spent in prayer, preferably in chapel or some other secluded, quiet place, and preferably before the Blessed Sacrament, where we can sit face to Face with the Lord Himself… or more aptly put, heart to Heart. At first I undertook the practice so that I could feel pious. I told all my friends how holy I was, lol. Gradually, though, I came to sense that my prayer “wasn’t working.” I spoke with a priest. He told me that prayer doesn’t work. Not the answer I expected to hear from a priest, and I told him so. He clarified that prayer no more “works” than a chat with a friend “works.” It shouldn’t be something we do in order to get something, but something we do just because, well… almost just because. Ultimately, we prayer because we care about God. That basic lesson of prayer, that it is not an opportunity to manipulate God or to impress our church friends, is one that I have had to learn over and over again.

But an amazing thing happened. God broke the ice. We started to get to know each other better. Well, He always knew me, but now, I started to get to know Him, too. I was feeling new feelings and thinking new thoughts, thoughts and feelings unlike the way I had previously thought and felt. I felt like God wanted me to go to the seminary. So I did.

The funny thing happened on the way to ordination, though. I was a good student, well thought of by peers and superiors, and actively involved in, contributing to, and benefiting from the life of the seminary. I had gone from getting to Mass late because I was playing video games, to spending a couple hours daily in the chapel in meditative prayer, prayer that I felt had been fruitful. I took to it like a fish to water, which is generally considered a good sign. One day, after a few years in, the vice-rector was giving a conference. I was only half paying attention, and the other half of me was doodling or thinking about warmer weather and the beach, or something. Amid the clutter of my thoughts, I heard the vice-rector speaking distinctly for the first time in twenty minutes: “All of you men have been called by God, in various ways, to come to seminary. Many of you will be called by God in various ways to leave the seminary, without being ordained.” I was hit in the heart as with an arrow. The seminary’s vice rector is an avid hunter, and he could not have bulls-eyed that shot deeper into my consciousness if his life had depended on it.

Over the course of a year of prayer and guidance from my spiritual director, it became clearer that this course was the one to take: I must leave seminary because God Almighty, who I had thought had called me there for reasons I had thought had been obvious, was now commanding that I leave.

So in prayer, I made the most difficult decision of my life, and in prayer I was buoyed sufficiently, to carry it out with great determination. I left the seminary without a job or savings, and my sister’s guestroom/nursery to sleep in. She and her husband conceived their first child a couple weeks after I moved in, setting me on a timetable as well.

God continued, and has continued, to give me challenges practical and spiritual, moral and personal; and He has always given me the means to surmount them. When I have failed to, an honest self-examination has revealed the source of my failure: me. Each failure has been greeted by Him with renewed grace for a new go at it. Looking back in retrospect, I can start to see what He was thinking when He led me to the seminary. The healing and friendships I received from that place have already been so crucially beneficial that I do not like to image where I’d be without them. As with all of life’s stepping stones, they each lead naturally to the next. Nowadays I am starting to see, and feel, and experience, how the seminary prepared me for what has followed so far. I am starting to see God’s hand at work in the whole thing. I am getting better, in fits and spurts, slowly and with setbacks, at seeing God’s hand at work and responding proactively, rather than being and feeling bounced around like a pinball. My life is starting to have an order and a purpose like never before, even though I feel that I have less a clue where it is going than ever before. Before, I thought I knew but didn’t; now I know I don’t, and kinda do. My faithful confidence and commitment to God are slowly growing, my hope in Him and His good will for me is also slowly growing, and my dedication to serving Him and my neighbors in the details of daily life is also slowly growing. Jesus and I are getting to know each other, and almost despite myself, I find myself falling in love.

Maybe that priest was wrong after all. Maybe prayer does work.

Our Lady of the Rosary, Ever Victorious

I originally wrote this piece for print in a parish newsletter for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary two years ago. I have revised it slightly, and added a bit to the end.

After 800 years of nearly constant defense, Constantinople, the Rome of the East, fell to attacking Muslim armies. From the year of its fall, 1453, Muslim Turks poured into Europe. By 1571, not only were all the Balkans under brutal Turkish Muslim rule, but the Protestant Reformation had been racking Europe and destroying Christian unity in the West for two generations. Catholic Europe was disintegrating on the inside and being overrun from the outside. In 1571, a great Muslim fleet sailed from Lepanto, in Turkish-ruled Greece, in a bid to dominate the entire Mediterranean. If the Mediterranean fell, there would be nothing to protect Europe from another invasion from the South. Don Juan of Austria, a Spaniard by birth and a devout Catholic, commanded the only Christian fleet that stood in the way. It was considerably smaller than the Turkish fleet. The enemies of holy Christian Faith had, to all appearances, great cause to rejoice. Pope St. Pius V called on all Christians to pray the rosary and to beg Mother Mary to save the West.

On the morning of October 7, 1571, which happened to be the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, with practically every Catholic in Europe fervently praying their rosaries, the massive naval battle was joined. In an amazing upset, the Christian fleet not only won, but won in just five hours, virtually destroying the Turkish fleet. Don Juan captured over half of the Turkish ships, and his fleet suffered only a little harm. Tens of thousands of Christian galley-slaves were set free, and Europe’s southern coast was secured. Nobody doubted that Our Lady of Victory, answering the call of the rosary, had come to Christendom's defense. In honor of her devotion, the feast was renamed to be Our Lady of the Rosary.

In our times we witness not only the Christian faith dividing and even apparently dissolving. In places where crowds once packed into cathedrals, now only a few tourists wander into them. At the same time, militant Islamists are fighting the West with ferocious new vigor. Those who hate our Christian Faith again seem to have ample reason to rejoice.

But we have a cause of hope that is greater than they understand. That’s what the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is about. What Don Juan had no hope of accomplishing on his own, Our Lady brought about for him. He barely had to break a sweat! It is as if each rosary bead were a cannonball. On that October morning, hundreds of millions of cannonballs were fired from all across Europe at the enemies of Christian Faith. The rosary is a nice devotion to Mary, yes; but we must not forget that it is a weapon. There is no question of hating secularizing atheists or Islamist terrorists; we Christians are not permitted to hate, “for we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against… this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness,” (Eph 6:12). Again St. Paul writes, “We are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds,” (2 Cor 10:3-4). Spiritual warfare is fought with spiritual weapons. Among them, second only to the Holy Mass, is Our Lady’s rosary. Do you fear for your faith, or for the faith of your children and grandchildren? Then cling to your Rosary! From whatever quarters holy Christian Faith comes under attack, we only delude ourselves if we do not know who our true enemy is. And he is already beaten by Jesus Christ. The enemy of souls, however impressive his battle fleet may seem, is always and everywhere turned back at the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

On a personal note, the Rosary is a perfect prayer for the laity. For me it has been a source of great consolation, a useful help in discernment, and a nice way to while away time with our Lord and Lady, rather than waste it with headphones. It does not require difficult training or the purchase of expensive, rare, or really any books at all. The verbal prayers are simply enough for a small child and the mental meditations are profound enough for a very advanced mystic. The verbal prayers, said silently or aloud, communally or privately, serve as a platform for reflection on the life of Jesus and Mary, and that reflection serves as the medium for entering into their heart and giving them access to yours. It isn't a "technique" as if communion with God were a skill; it is simple and intimate, like we'd expect of time spent sitting on Mama Mary's lap, next to the Baby Jesus. Since it was first promoted by St. Dominic in the 12th century, its usefulness for every spiritual purpose has been endorsed by the word and example of virtually every pontiff and saint. If you don't know how to pray it, check out the website for Rosary Army.