STEPS IN A LADDER

by Jeannine Biron

I’ve been reflecting lately on The Little Mandate of MH. It is not so much a prayer as a blueprint on how to live the Gospel in daily life. It’s a direct way to heaven, like steps in a ladder; and it’s a haven against the evil one.

Arise, go! Sell all you possess … give it directly, personally to the poor.

Am I ready to do that? By the grace of God, I am. I have to sell everything—even my sins, which I do by going to confession—and give the graces to the poor who are around me, my brothers and sisters in the community.

Take up their cross—my cross—and follow me [Jesus]—going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with me.

I have to do this every day, take up my crosses, big and small alike, and follow Jesus. And it’s not enough for the poor to come to me. I have to go to them. What does that mean? It means I have to get out of myself, my selfishness. Forget about myself. Then I will become one with Jesus.

Little, be always little, simple, poor, childlike.

Oh Lord, I have such a hard time meditating on these words. It’s because I don’t want to face the fact that I am little. I can be someone in your sight even if I am little. If only I could believe that! I also have a tendency to become childish, not childlike. And I can be so complicated—Lord, help me to be simple!

Do the words little, simple, and childlike go together with poor? Yes! If I’m not poor, I can’t be the other three. They go hand in hand. A child is poor, dependent totally on his parents. Riches and wealth complicate life—it’s hard to be simple if you have them.

How can I do it? If I’m constantly in the presence of God, then I am like a child—little, simple, and poor.

Preach the Gospel with your life, without compromise. Listen to the Spirit—he will lead you.

Do I do this? To be honest, not all the time. To listen to the Spirit, I have to listen with my whole body and soul—feel with my hands, taste, smell, perceive, hear.

The Holy Spirit is everywhere, and can be experienced with one’s whole being. He will lead us to Jesus and the Father.

When I see the beauty of creation, the Spirit tells me of God’s love. I may taste God’s goodness—most especially, of course, in the Eucharist—but also in a meal, or when I smell a flower. And I realize I am a creation of God, and cry out, “Abba, Father!"

Do little things exceedingly well for love of me.

This simply means that I am to love profoundly in all things—until the end of my life.

Love, love, love, never counting the cost.

Does this mean, Lord, that I have to love the person whose laugh I don’t like (it gets on my nerves)? Yes! Then please, Lord, help me, for I cannot do it alone.

Go into the marketplace and stay with me. Pray … fast … pray always … fast.

In a village, the market is the center of life, the place where everything is going on, where people meet each other. So if I’m going to love others, I must go to the place where they are. There, I will find Jesus, and be able to stay with him in my brothers and sisters.

To stay there is important. “Don’t try to escape somewhere else," says the Lord. “I won’t be there."

To fast means, for me, that I should just `eat what’s on my plate’ without complaining.

Be hidden, be a light to your neighbor’s feet. Go without fears into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Lord, let me be the burning candle that carries you, the light of the world! People do not look at the candle, they just see the light in the darkness. That’s the way I should be: hidden. And Lord, give me the awesome courage to go into the depth of men’s hearts. That’s where you are!

Pray always. I will be your rest.

Shall I pray all the time, and forget about work? Or make my work a prayer? Or better still, Lord, become a prayer! Tell me, Lord. Teach me how to do this.

A final thought: To listen to the Spirit (to live any line of the Mandate) means that I must learn to be silent. I have to `stand still’ like Our Lady. And the key to doing this is to be little, poor, childlike.

Russian Reflections - Part 3

GOD SPEAKS RUSSIAN

by Fr. Michael Shields

Fr. Shields, a native of Alaska, is pastor of the small Catholic parish in Magadan, Russia, where MH has a house. In August 1998, he visited Combermere and gave a talk to the community. This is an excerpt from that talk.

 

I don’t care that Russia is disintegrating, quite frankly. I got a wonderfully wise insight from Jean Fox the other day. She said: “It’s okay. Russia will go first, then the Western world, which is already falling apart. But Russia will rise first."

I think that’s true. It gave me hope, actually. Russia will rise because of its little ones, because of the poor, because of prayer and its soul. I don’t care if it’s disintegrating because I have found treasures there that are incredibly beautiful: the cross, Our Lady (I can’t do anything without her now), and my priesthood.

Russia is still mostly a mystery to me. I’m a foreigner there and am still learning. One thing to remember, though, is that Russia is Eastern, not Western. This means that they are able to hold things together that we would think are contradictory, and make them one.

They are able, for example, to put together uselessness and insecurity with a sense of power that is incredible. They put the two together.

I think the spirituality of Russia has something to teach the world. They suffer so much, but I’ve never met a people who are more joyful on another whole level of their being. They’re able to put the two together: joy and suffering.

One Russian said to me, “Look, it’s a good day! Lights are on and we have hot water." There’s a contradiction in them, a Russian way of holding things together that the world needs to know about.

Our Lady said at Fatima that her Immaculate Heart would triumph and that somehow Russia would bring that victory forth. I think my own clarity came when Jean said to me, “Russia will disintegrate and out of that will rise an image for the rest of the world."

I don’t know how that will happen, but I know it’s happened already for me. I’m able to hold opposing things together that I wouldn’t have been able to before: my weakness, and at the same time a power in Christ I cannot describe. A power in Christ that makes me bold, but at the same time I know my absolute weakness. I think that’s a part of Russia’s gift.

People sometimes ask me how I got to Russia in the first place. There’s a bit of a story to that.

I spent a week in Russia with my Archbishop several years ago, and absolutely fell in love with its romantic side. I came back a little while later for a second week. This time it was a bit different.

It was kind of like when you come to a religious community. Jean Vanier says that when people come to work in a L’Arche house, for the first three months they are angels, then the next three months, they are devils. After that, they are human.

Anyway, my second week there, I lost the romance of it, and I hated Magadan because it’s quite an ugly city. It’s a Soviet city, and it reeks of spiritual abandonment. The spiritual loneliness one experiences in Russia is incredible. It penetrates your heart and you can be absolutely overwhelmed by it, to the point where you don’t know who you are anymore.

After that second week, I went on a 30-day retreat. I fasted and prayed during that time, and heard, “Go and pray in the camps."

I went to my bishop and said to him, “I had a great retreat. God spoke to me!"

“Really, Fr. Michael! What did he say?"

“Well, he spoke to me in Russian. …"

“No, Father Michael."

It took a year and a half of prayer and discernment with my bishop before I could get back over there. In one sense I didn’t really want to go, but it was imprinted in my heart.

I have to talk about the Gulag before I end this talk. The camps have slowly disappeared—many of the buildings were wooden and have sunk into the ground. There are some still standing; but these were uranium camps, and people can’t visit them because of the high level of radiation.

It’s hard to know what the numbers were. Nobody really seems to have a handle of how many people passed through the camps. It could be that as many as 7,000,000 people went through Magadan to the Gulag, coming across the Siberian railroad to Novosibirsk and by boat up to Magadan, which was a holding camp. They don’t know how many people died, either.

Magadan was chosen as a holding camp in 1931 because of the deep-bay port where the ice froze for only a couple of months out of the year.

Gold had been discovered in the region. It was kind of like Russia’s answer to the gold rush. Initially, criminals were used to dig up the gold; and, for the first few years, it was actually fairly humane. There was warm clothing for people, and you could get released early if you worked hard enough.

In 1937 Stalin issued a nation-wide proclamation saying that the camps were too soft. Clothing and food rations were cut in half. They became death camps at this point. Not only that, the authorities then established execution camps for those who couldn’t work.

They needed massive amounts of people, to replace the ones who were dying. The theory is that they established throughout the Soviet Union quotas of people required for the camps, and would target certain age groups.

That’s where the four women in our parish who were in the camps came from (one of them is now in heaven praying for us). They were 18 to 20 years old, and were strong. They were taken from their homes, never to return.

No one knows the numbers. Some of you may remember that, three years ago, the Orthodox bishop and priests performed a blessing of the major areas where camps were located in our area.

Since the bishop knew that my call was to pray in the camps, he invited me and two of the MH staff to accompany them. We traveled three days by bus over the Kolyma highway and blessed three of the major areas where the camps were. Miriam did a beautiful job writing about it in Restoration at the time.

We saw first-hand one of the execution camps, which was operated from the late 1930’s to the mid-1940’s. At its peak, about 10,000 people were killed there a month, then buried in mass graves.

All that’s left of it is some stone, and a few gold dredges around. The graves were discovered only because some prospectors were dredging in the valley and found all these bones. There’s nothing else there. You can’t say, “Show me the camps."

The people who died in the Gulag have no voice. The remnants of what camps are left are being destroyed, building by building.

We did find one `isolator unit’ in Magadan. These units were built in the midst of the holding camp, and used for punishment and death.

It had a water fixture in it that was always frozen, and it was totally dark. Twenty people would be put in the unit at a time, basically freezing to death, one by one. We discovered it right outside of Magadan, and celebrated Mass there.

We had a very strange experience—every time we tried to take pictures there, our cameras broke. One sister who was present had an automatic camera, which also broke. You know what it kept saying? Help! Help! Help! That’s what the camera says when it breaks down. But in this context, it was as though the souls of all the people who’d died there were crying out to us.

This is one of the most penetrating truths of my life. I cannot tell you what it did to my heart. Does this give you a sense of what we are up against?

The Father’s Plan - Part 3

THE FATHER OF FAITH

by Fr.Thomas Rowland

Last month, we saw how God the Father, in his great compassionate love for the human race, promised Adam and Eve that he would send a Messiah to establish a new relationship between God and the human race. This month, we’ll look at one of the greatest events in the fulfillment of that promise: the call of Abraham.

It is interesting to note in the New Testament that—next to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the apostles Peter and Paul—there are more references to Abraham than to any other person.

In the parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus tells of Lazarus dying, going to heaven, and being placed in the arms of Abraham. When the rich man dies and goes to eternal punishment in the fires of hell, it is Abraham—from across a great divide—who explains the facts of life to the man.

In John 8:34-59, Jesus promises freedom to those who believe in him. His listeners protest that they are sons of Abraham and have never been slaves. This leads to a long discussion in which Jesus states that Abraham rejoiced to see his day. The Jews retort that Jesus is not yet 50 years old, so how could he have seen Abraham? In answer, Jesus gives them his statement of divinity: Before Abraham came to be, I am.

In three epistles—Romans, Galatians and Hebrews—Abraham appears in a central position.

Who is this Abraham?

In Genesis 11, we are introduced to a person named Abram. His story develops in chapter 12, and continues until his death in chapter 25.

One thing to remember about Abram—whose name is later changed to Abraham—is that the One who spoke to him was a new God, as far as Abram was concerned.

We who are about to celebrate 2000 years of relationship with Christ, and thousands of years since God’s promise to Adam and Eve, can see the wonderful `track record’ of God’s faithfulness.

It is not clear whether Abram (a ninth generation descendant from Shem, the son of Noah) had this same reassurance when invited by God to leave the land of Ur and go to the land of Canaan.

The other thing to remember is that Abram was 75 years old when he obeyed God and left the land of Ur (Gen 12:4), and 100 years old when Isaac was born (Gen 21:5). When we read in the New Testament about the faith of Abraham, we need to keep these two factors in mind: his unfamiliarity with God, and his extreme age.

A number of events in the life of Abraham might be consider wrong by our moral standards. For example, he twice claimed that Sarah was his sister rather than acknowledging her as his wife. But we can’t judge him by the clear moral standards of the Ten Commandments, since these had not yet been given to God’s people.

The letter to the Hebrews seems to have been written to a group of Jewish priests who had become Christians, but were being tempted to return to Judaism. Having discussed the superiority of the high priesthood of Christ over that of the Old Testament priests, the letter goes on to discuss the need for faith and trust in God’s promises.

Faith is defined here as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1). And the first example of faith given is that of Abraham.

It would be well worth our while to read the first 20 verses of chapter 11. This explanation of Abraham’s faith should be a wonderful exhortation for all of us.

The Galatians, on the other hand, were Gentiles, not Jews. Thus, they were not ethnically sons of Abraham. But St. Paul explains to them the great importance of Abraham in their lives, and shows how they truly are sons of Abraham.

Galatians 3:25-29 reads: In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek … slave or free … male or female; all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

So this is our challenge. No matter how great the difficulty and confusion in our lives, or how great our fear about our past weaknesses, or how great our anxiety over the future, or how difficult it is to wait for God to answer our prayers, we must be like Abraham.

We must believe in God’s promises, in his faithfulness to his word. We must be filled with hope, which is the assurance that things will come out all right.

We can do this because God has promised it; and because God, our faithful, loving Father, is with us. For we hear the Lord Jesus telling us what he told his apostles: Be not afraid. I am with you always (Matt 28:10-20).

The Pope’s Corner

THE RESTORATION OF DIGNITY

by Pope John Paul II

We continue to excerpt from the 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), on the love of God the Father. This month the Pope concludes his exposition of the parable of the prodigal son, begun last month.

 

The exact picture of the prodigal son’s state of mind enables us to understand exactly what the mercy of God consists in. There is no doubt that in this simple but penetrating analogy the figure of the father reveals to us God as Father.

The conduct of the father in the parable and his whole behavior, which manifests his internal attitude, enables us to rediscover the individual threads of the Old Testament vision of mercy in a synthesis which is totally new, full of simplicity and depth.

The father of the prodigal son is faithful to his fatherhood, faithful to the love that he had always lavished on his son. This fidelity is expressed in the parable not only by his immediate readiness to welcome him home when he returns after having squandered his inheritance.

It is expressed even more fully by that joy, that merrymaking for the squanderer after his return, merrymaking which is so generous that it provokes the opposition and hatred of the elder brother, who had never gone far away from his father and had never abandoned the home.

The father’s fidelity to himself—a trait already known by the Old Testament term hesed—is at the same time expressed in a manner particularly charged with affection.

We read, in fact, that when the father saw the prodigal son returning home he had compassion, ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him (Luke 15:20).

He does this under the influence of a deep affection, and this also explains his generosity towards his son, that generosity which so angers the elder son.

Nevertheless, the causes of this emotion are to be sought at a deeper level. Notice, the father is aware that a fundamental good has been saved: the good of his son’s humanity.

Although the son has squandered the inheritance, nevertheless his humanity is saved. Indeed, it has been, in a way, found again.

The father’s words to the elder son reveal this: It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead and is alive; he was lost and is found (Luke 15:32).

In the same chapter of Luke, we read the parable of the sheep that was found, and then that of the lost coin. Each time there is an emphasis on the same joy that is present in the case of the prodigal son.

The father’s fidelity to himself is totally concentrated upon the humanity of his lost son, upon his dignity. This explains above all his joyous emotion at the moment of the son’s return home.

Going on, one can therefore say that the love for the son, which springs from the very essence of fatherhood, in a way obliges the father to be concerned about his son’s dignity. This concern is the measure of his love.

Mercy—as Christ has presented it in the parable of the prodigal son—has the interior form of the love that in the New Testament is called agape.

This love is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and restored to value. The father first and foremost expresses to the son his joy that he has been found again and returned to life.

This joy indicates a good that has remained intact: even if he is a prodigal, a son does not cease to be truly his father’s son; it also indicates a good that has been found again, which in the case of the prodigal son was his return to the truth about himself.

What took place in the relationship between the father and the son is not to be evaluated from the outside. Our prejudices about mercy are mostly the result of appraising them only from the outside. At times it happens that by following this method of evaluation we see in mercy above all a relationship of inequality between the one offering it and the one receiving it. And, in consequence, we are quick to deduce that mercy belittles the receiver, that it offends the dignity of man.

The parable of the prodigal son shows that the reality is different: the relationship of mercy is based on the common experience of that good which is man, on the common experience of the dignity that is proper to him.

This common experience makes the prodigal son begin to see himself and his actions in their full truth (this vision in truth is a genuine form of humility); on the other hand, for this very reason he becomes a particular good for his father: the father sees so clearly the good which has been achieved thanks to a mysterious radiation of truth and love, that he seems to forget all the evil which the son had committed.

The parable of the prodigal son expresses in a simple but profound way the reality of conversion. Conversion is the most concrete working of love and of the presence of mercy in the human world.

The true and proper meaning of mercy does not consist only in looking, however penetratingly and compassionately, at moral, physical or material evil: mercy is manifested in its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man.

Understood in this way, mercy constitutes the fundamental content of the messianic message of Christ and the constitutive power of his mission. His disciples and followers understood and practiced mercy in the same way.

Mercy never ceased to reveal itself, in their hearts and in their actions, as an especially creative proof of the love which does not allow itself to be conquered by evil, but overcomes evil by good (Romans 12:21).

The genuine face of mercy has to be ever revealed anew, and in spite of many prejudices, mercy seems particularly necessary for our times.

Nazareth Today

SINGING ON ALIEN SOIL

by Denis Lemieux

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion. On the poplars that grew there, we hung up our harps.

How could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil? (Psalm 136:1-2,4).

 

We do this, you know: sing the `song of the Lord on alien soil’, I mean. This is one of the things Christ changed by his passion and death.

Alien soil—who doesn’t know what it is? The hard rocky ground of sin, those loveless barren wastes we create for ourselves.

The arid wildernesses of envy and pride, the hard-baked, heavy clay earth of sloth, gluttony, and avarice, the blazing, shade-less deserts of lust and anger.

Yes, sin is the land of exile, of our alienation from God, one another and ourselves. Who has not been banished there at some point in their life? Who has not been carried off into exile, taken from the soil of God’s promised land and forced into slavery and oppression, in the domain of sin.

And who, even if restored and brought home to the land of the promise, to the kingdom of God, does not yet have corners of their heart that are still `alien soil’. The land of exile and alienation is, after all, primarily found within.

But we do sing, after all, we Christians, unlike the people of Israel being carried into exile, hanging up their harps. Songs, joy, celebration—all that was over for them.

The catastrophe of Jerusalem’s destruction, the razing of the Temple—the very presence of God in their midst—had devastated them, brought them to the absolute nadir of despair.

No, they were done with singing, for God (seemingly) was done with them. The Babylonian exile meant that God had rejected them as a people. He, the Just One, had in his justice cast them off, punishing them for their sins and infidelities. Their lot was to be Babylon: enslavement and oppression at the hands of their most hated enemy.

So, what about us? Why are we different? After all, at times (at least to me) the whole world can feel a bit like a Babylonian exile. God often seems distant, and prayer is generally dry and halting. My sins and struggles are pretty much the `same old story’, year in and year out. Not much changes, or perhaps only changes so slowly as to be imperceptible.

At times the flesh itself, with its hungers and demands, can feel like a prison. Faith can be tenuous, temptation strong, and God (curiously) silent so often in this world we find ourselves in, this strange state of exile and alienation, this alien soil of the human condition.

And yet, we sing. Christians sing, regardless of the state of our hearts and the state of the world. The Church’s song, constant and forceful, rings out in the world’s silence and gloom, in the land of exile.

We sing, for a great wonder has occurred. A terrible and awesome paradox has burst upon us in our alienation, this exile which in essence is an exile from God, from communion with our Father.

God, unimaginably, has joined us in our exile—from him! The Lord has accompanied us to Babylon. He, the deliverance and liberation of all peoples, has joined us in the slavery and bondage of sin and death.

The Immortal One embraced death with us, descended to the very depths of Hell for us, and even experienced in a way wholly mysterious to us what it is to feel rejected by the Father: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Ps 22).

Yes, God in Christ has joined us in our exile and alienation. He came onto our alien soil and claimed it as his own. The land of the oppressor, the stranger, the hated foreigner, has become for us just another part of our native land: Babylon and Egypt I will count among those who know me (Ps 86). And so, we sing.

Lent is, above all, a season in which we experience the reality of our exile and sin, when we taste again its bitterness, feel again the aridity and desolateness of it.

It is the season of the desert, when God leads us, if we allow him, to those places in our heart which are still dead, barren wastelands, where sin still has its sway in our life.

He leads us there, not to punish us, or torture us, or `lay a guilt complex on us’. No! When we are confronted with the expanses of desert in our hearts, with the broad plains of sin, of selfishness, greed, lust or rage, it is only so that we might find there that, once again, God has preceded us into the wilderness as he did with his people in Exodus.

God is there, in the most desolate and, yes, `God-forsaken’ parts of our hearts. He is there, the crucified and risen one, and the desert is no more. The wasteland is transformed, miraculously, into a garden, a lush and fragrant oasis, crowded with fruit trees and perfumed by the rarest of flowers—orchids, lilies and hyacinths. His presence makes it so.

And so we sing. For there is not a corner of our hearts, not a corner of the whole universe, where the love, mercy, and radiance of the risen, triumphant Christ has not penetrated and conquered.

Our song, the song of the whole Church united with him, rings out across the desert, across the cosmos.

It rings out across all the wastes of unbelief and scorn, over the fortresses of cynicism and despair, which wax strong both in the world and, if we are honest, in our own hearts as well.

The song of the Church in the desert of sin, the song of the believing Christian in the wilderness of this world, is our deepest and most powerful proclamation of the Gospel. It is a light in the darkness, a healing balm for wounds. It is a stone rolled away, and an emptiness filled with the light of angels. Our song is the very proof of the resurrection—the joyous song of the follower of Christ, even in the desert of our hearts, even in the land of exile and alienation and sin.

Yes, we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil, for there is no soil alien to him anymore. The world is his, and we are his, too: recreated, renewed and resurrected in him daily, called to sing a new song of praise and thanksgiving to our God.

TEARS WIPED AWAY

by Steve Héroux

A woman stumbles to the feet of Christ, throwing herself down despite the scandal about her. She clasps her hands to his feet and bathes them with tears—sobbing, speechless.

We talk about offering up our sufferings and being one with Christ amidst our agony. At times, it sounds as though our pain is otherwise worthless, as if Christ stands with his arms crossed, coldly awaiting our heroism, our valiant, conscious `written letter’ of self-offering.

When I look at Mary Magdalene’s gesture and her tears, I say to myself: There is offering! To me, this cry, this thrust of oneself towards the Beloved, this seizing of his garment, his feet—this is offering!

At times we think we have to say exactly the right things for the right reasons at the right moment to the Lord in prayer. Use the right words of offering or intercession—as though we’re supposed to tell Christ exactly what is the matter, or our prayer will not be heard or answered.

The Gospel tells us that Christ expelled seven demons from Mary Magdalene. Did she come to him, saying: “Save me Lord, for I am afflicted with the demon of this and the demon of that, and so on. Look, I have exactly seven of them listed here. I’ve had this one for so long, and this other one because of this and that. … So, now that you’ve got all the facts straight, you can heal me!"

There’s nothing wrong with having this type of knowledge of ourselves, our history and life. It can be extremely beneficial. But what my heart keeps telling me is that God hears the true cry of our being even before we can express it. A simple Lord, have mercy can cast out more demons than even Mary Magdalene was afflicted by.

She threw herself at his feet in total offering. Yet, even when we can’t bring ourselves to the feet of the Beloved, when we are incapable of any word or gesture, when pain holds us paralyzed in its grasp, our inmost hearts cry out a prayer that we ourselves don’t even hear. But God hears it.

In this, too, there is offering, and in the depth of our inmost suffering shines the tenderness of mercy! What remains of so-called religious feelings or pious emotions then? They are but vanished, scattered ashes.

All we can do is let our body collapse and tears flood our face (if tears will even flow). Yet Christ is in our midst, and the unutterable cry of our being wells up and falls onto his feet as did the kisses of Mary Magdalene. Not one tear is lost.

Still we may protest: God’s mercy is always present, but we can block it. We can consciously spill our tears on Christ’s feet, or merely on our own.

Well, suppose that my tears do fall on my own feet. Aren’t those tears caused by pain? A sinful pain quite likely, caused by selfishness, anger, rebellion. But what’s at the core of all that? Fear and confusion? We could go into the depths of the heart, but even that would only go so far.

God alone can see into the labyrinth of our hearts tangled in sin. And beneath it all, even if we should curse God, there is a cry for love, for help. Even if we deny it, this cry is a prayer to the God of love and mercy.

I believe that our tears truly fall on his feet when they mainly fall on our own. For it is when we are most sinful that we most need mercy. He came for sinners like you and me. Not for those who are well, but for the sick and needy.

God has a marvelous capacity in that he can embrace us without our even knowing it. He can embrace us even if we push him away.

Unlike us, he hears not our words, but our hearts. Not our actions, but our hearts. And not even our hearts so much as our heart of hearts. If you tell me, “Get away from me," unless I’m moved by some grace, I won’t wrap my arms around you and hold you with tenderness and compassion.

If I did approach you to embrace you, you’d struggle and push me away, for I’d be violating the boundary you established between us. And the gap between us would widen.

But God isn’t limited this way. If I say to him, “Get away from me," he’s still capable of holding me even closer to his heart without violating my heart, without imposing his overwhelming love upon my unreadiness.

It is true that we can block this flood of mercy from our hearts. But the paradox is that by doing that, we increase our suffering, and the more we suffer, the greater is God’s tenderness and mercy. How it all becomes reconciled in the end is a mystery.

Our tears can fall consciously on Christ’s feet or our own. But is that true? Do we really know whether our tears are falling on our feet or Christ’s? Or does our pain always reach the heart of God, whether we desire it or not, whether we `offer it up’ or not? Our tears, whether they fall directly on Christ’s feet or our own, really fall on his.

Mary Magdalene’s tears were tears of repentance. And, as they washed Christ’s feet, they also washed her own heart. They were the tears of a heart opened to mercy. For yes, we can block it out.

Why do we block mercy out? Why did Mary live such an immoral life before this precious encounter? Perhaps it’s because we don’t know or recognize mercy’s beauty.

When she recognized Christ, she ran to his feet. In truth, she had been longing for him, just as we are, in the depths of her heart.

What he saw in her was not her filthy life, but her great love. And what he sees in us is not a hard heart closed to mercy, but an unbearable longing, a cry beyond and beneath all other cries. When will we recognize him, when will he reveal this irresistible beauty to us? That is another mystery, and within it, we are embraced by him.

A precious ointment was poured over his feet, flowing upon his flesh as his own love and tenderness flowed on the woman’s heart. The meeting and embrace of sinner and Sinless One saturated the room with the sweetest fragrance.

Later, she stood weeping, gazing into the image of what once had been her heart: the empty tomb. The One who’d dispelled her darkness and filled her void with his life: gone!

“Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"

“They have taken my Lord away!"

“Mary."

“Rabbuni!"

“Go and tell my brothers."

 

My Dear Family

THE REVOLUTIONARY CHRIST

by Catherine Doherty

In response to the Holy Father’s request for a `renewed appreciation and more intense celebration of the sacrament of penance’ this year (Tertio Millennio Adveniente), we continue to print some of Catherine’s reflections on this subject.

 

Sin makes God sad, and his Church sad too, since we are the Church. We are the People of God, and when one of us commits a sin, we all suffer. Because of that, I think all sins are tragic.

Eastern Christians don’t worry about their sins, juridically speaking. They weep over their sins because they offend against charity, against love for God and one’s fellow men.

When I commit a sin, even if it’s alone in my apartment or hidden in the dark recesses of my soul, I sin against the whole Body of Christ. No matter how hidden my sin is, it reverberates across the world. I am so deeply united with all the rest of mankind that what I do and don’t do affects the whole world.

Say I’m a nurse and am taking care of a patient. I get a little pinprick from his splinter. It’s very small, but the next day it still hurts. If I don’t take care of it, I may develop an infection from it, which will spread, and I may die. Sin is like that pinprick. It affects the whole body, the Mystical Body of Christ.

What does it mean to examine one’s conscience? It means to recollect oneself, to collect all the fragments. We have to become still and not allow our heart or mind to buzz around like flies. In total stillness, with a firm resolve, we begin to descend into our hearts and find there that which has to be thrown out. That’s what an examination of conscience is. Most of the things that have to be thrown out will deal with selfishness.

How much do I love? How often in my life does the pronoun I disappear, replaced by the words they, we, he, or she? In this is a very simple yardstick of love.

Let’s say a thought comes into your mind: “I want to do this." If it is something God would like you to do, go ahead and do it. If not, erase it, and keep on erasing it! Eventually, the word I will disappear and someday perhaps we will kneel and kiss the feet of another. Sins against charity, sins of pride, sins of indifference to others, to our brothers and sisters—those are the sins that bite!

So many of us are like Judas, betraying Christ with a kiss, so to speak. How do you feel—how do I feel—when in some sort of a way we betray Jesus Christ? It’s a very subtle thing. I think that’s one of the grave sins.

People are worried about sex sins. Sex was created by God, but pride, arrogance, and all those kinds of things have not been created by God. Our betrayals are so subtle. I think we should examine our conscience very deeply, because this sort of thing escapes us so quickly.

We have an ability to rationalize whenever we discuss the Gospel. We water it down, find excuses for not doing what we know we should.

Our confessions can be superficial and not go deep enough. If they are, we haven’t really gone into the caverns and caves of our souls. We’ve wrapped a lot of things in cellophane and stuck them on the shelves of the caverns, when they should have been brought forth. But we let them be, and like splinters they fester in our soul. We are not in truth, and we have left integrity behind somewhere.

Christ is a revolutionary. He calls us to give the whole of ourselves. He calls us to perfection. In Russia we have no distinction between a Trappist and a father of a family, between a Trappistine and a married woman. We believe that Christ said “Be ye perfect" (Matt 5:48) to everybody. We believe that in baptism our little feet began their journey of union with God.

Let us look into our own hearts. Let us see the mess that is there. Why can’t we bring it all out? Why don’t we make a clean sweep of it? Where have our hearts wandered? To what places have they gone? How far away from God are we? Why?

You see yourself, but you never despair, because along with your sins you see the mercy of God. You look at yourself. You realize the depth and the breadth of sin. Then you look at God and say, “Lord, have mercy on me."

In the process, you forget yourself. You begin to contemplate God, and all else disappears in him.

We make believe we’re Catholics. We talk about the Scriptures, but they are just empty words unless we put them into practice. It’s useless to listen with one ear, and let it out the other ear, and do nothing about it. It will be held against you if you know the Scriptures and don’t apply them.

The Gospel is so limpidly clear. It’s addressed to ordinary people, just like you and I. Look deep down into your soul. Look into it, see what’s wrong, throw it out, and bring Christ in! There is so little time.

We are riddled with guilt. One of the things everyone is worried about is God’s justice. People shake and say, “Oh, I’m a louse, I’m a sinner." Of course you’re a sinner! But never forget you are a saved sinner.

Why does everyone go around wallowing in their past sins? We go to confession and say, “Oh, I don’t feel that I am cleansed." When you really repent, you are as clean as a little newborn baby! Why worry about what happened to us or the last mortal sin we committed? God has forgotten it, so why should we remember?

When we continue to feel guilty, there is something behind it—there is lack of trust in God. Oh yes, we know that God forgives sinners! We believe it. But do we, really? Where is our confidence, our love of God, our trust in God, our faith, and our hope? Where are they? If they were there we would not be racked with guilt.

The Russians seldom feel guilty, because, you see, they rely on the mercy of God very strongly, and they go to confession. The only time I feel guilty is the time between the committing of the sin and going to confession. But when I’m absolved I forget that I ever sinned. Why should I remember it if God doesn’t? Think about it.

Adapted from Kiss of Christ, pp. 15-18 ,available from MH Publications.

A MESSAGE OF JOY

by Alvina Voropaeva

Before Lent of 1996, Miriam Stulberg came up to me at church, holding a little red booklet, and asked: “Do you want to translate The Way of the Cross by Catherine Doherty?"

I hadn’t read it, and didn’t know if I wanted to translate it, but I agreed. The initial translating took a couple of weeks, but I spent another two months perfecting it.

During that time, I couldn’t think about anything except the Way of the Cross of Jesus. New metaphors, comparisons, and expressions came one by one. I hadn’t ever experienced such inspiration.

For the next two years, whenever I needed to print a new copy of my translation for someone, I’d reread it, and more colorful words or phrases would come to me. There’s no limit to perfection! Thank God for granting us creative abilities!

In 1997 Catherine’s meditation was published in the Siberian Catholic Messenger; later that year it was published as a separate book. As literature and as a musical composition, it was broadcast on our Magadan Christian Radio. The response was most favorable.

What is it that attracts people to Catherine’s meditation on the last steps of Jesus? How hard it is for us to remember the Passion of the Lord!

When I first did the translation of The Way of the Cross, I wanted to share it with everyone. Can you imagine? I arrived at my friend Olga’s birthday party filled with a desire to pass on my joy, and began to read Catherine’s meditation!

Olga tried to stop me because that morning, as soon as she turned on the radio, she’d heard the word `cross’ a few times on a program about Fr. Alexander Men.

She took the words as a bad sign for the coming year, so my Way of the Cross was like a confirmation of her presentiment. (Later, remembering that day, Olga said that my `cross prophecy’ had come true.)

It wasn’t easy for her to stop the fountain of my feelings at her birthday party. I insisted, “Oh, just listen to the beauty!" So she helplessly waved her hand and gave me the floor.

Her guests, most of them atheists, listened with stiff faces. My joy didn’t touch any of them; their hearts were closed to the joy of the Cross. As soon as I finished reading, they all began speaking about quite different things.

Two years passed. The Way of the Cross was published, and I came to Olga’s birthday party with the same gift, this time in a wonderfully made booklet. Taking it, she shook her head. “You’ve decided to kill me with your Way of the Cross!"

I tried to justify myself. “Look, this is a message of joy from Catherine to us. Count how many times Jesus met with joy while carrying his cross:

 

For this, he came unto earth. For this, the cross—a key that would unlock the door of heaven to his beloved—and he smiled. …

A letter written in the dust with blood that said: “Behold, I love you, soul of man. My fall will give you courage to rise from yours. I will be there to hold you up." …

He went on, hand in hand with joy, for such was his love for us… .

His eyes met with his mother’s; Mother and Son became one in love and joy …

Simon of Cyrene knew the ecstasy of understanding; of utter, complete surrender to Love Incarnate… .

The tomb became manger again, birthplace of life, when it received the Lord of Life, lifeless—dead! Its coldness became all flame and fire of joy, joy beyond desire. And Jesus slept within the cradle of its depths the sleep of one who conquered death… .

 

“Yes, dear Olga. Death is the `finger of the angel of love’, the continuation of life with Christ. It is more than happiness—it is joy! This book about death is a message of joy to us. It is Catherine’s call for each Christian to carry the cross with joy."

“Why didn’t you tell me this two years ago?" Olga exclaimed.

“I didn’t know it then," I answered. “I just experienced it emotionally. It took me two years to formulate it as a message."

We hugged and kissed; and I saw tears of gratitude in Olga’s eyes.

It was clear that Catherine’s book was the most wonderful gift she had received, because she now knew that the Way of the Cross is a great gift of the Lord, who gave himself up for the sake of our salvation.

The Way of the Cross by Catherine Doherty is available in English from Madonna House Publications.

Compassionate Love - Part 2

KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS

by Fr. Robert Sharkey

God knows it’s hard—this process of growing in compassionate love, and of having a wounded heart.

Some of us perhaps find it harder than others, although we all find it harder than we can take. It’s hard, of course, because it involves so much `breaking-open and knocking-down of barriers’—removing all the defenses we put up to protect ourselves against the real hurts of life, and allowing the whole world to come in.

It was hard for Catherine. She found it difficult throughout her life. It’s hard for all of us. They’s why we need to be wounded. We need to have our skin, this protection around ourselves, broken open. The protection around our hearts needs to be cut open, and a wound needs to be made. It is painful.

That’s why it is necessary that there be suffering in our lives: because we have to be opened up. The hurts of this life all have a purpose. We can accept them, `take’ them, only when we see them as being administered not by those around us, by people in authority over us, but by God.

This wound is inflicted by him. He uses others to make a wound in your heart, to open a place in you so that God’s mystery can enter into your mystery; so that the mystery of your brothers and sisters can enter into your mystery; so that this sharing, or communion, of mysteries—which is compassionate love—can take place. We must let this happen to us if we are going to live the Gospel. We have to allow this operation to be done on us.

In addition, it’s essential that we receive compassion ourselves. For some, it’s easier than for others. But I think that, for all of us, there’s a degree of difficulty in letting our brothers and sisters know our weaknesses, in letting ourselves be received with compassion.

I need to allow my brothers and sisters to know my weaknesses, to put up with my sins, to forgive me for my offenses against them. In other words, it is necessary to experience compassion from others; for this, too, is a way of breaking down the barrier in my heart.

This is not sentimentality, which is `feeling for the sake of feeling’. It has to be separated from that kind of emotionalism, which is just another form of self-indulgence.

If I’m going to finally be the Good Samaritan, I must first of all be the one who has fallen among robbers, and allow myself to be treated with compassion. And that’s really a wounding, an opening up!

We also need to show this same tender compassion to one other, so that people can see it. There has to be enough of it alive among us for others to see.

In MH, people certainly see our clashes, how we hurt one another and have difficulties with one another. It’s all out in the open! But they also need to see how we get over these hurts.

I remember the first time I came to Combermere, this was one of the things that struck me most. I’d lived long enough in community life to know how people smash up against each other. You can see it happening easily enough!

But here at MH, the compassion was visible too: the way God was binding everyone together, not necessarily taking the conflict away, just binding everybody up in a mystery far above the level of friction.

One of the characteristics, perhaps the most perfect expression, of this tender compassion is forgiveness. You forgive others, even when they don’t know they need forgiving, or that you’ve been forgiving them all this while. You overlook their irritating way of speaking or behaving, or their aggravating way of being indifferent to you. You forgive all this sort of behavior, over and over and over again, for a long time.

Forgiveness is perhaps the deepest expression of umilenie, of the compassionate love that we are called to live and be for one another. to be continued