Called and Chosen

The readings at Mass today (15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B) are about vocation. In the first reading (Amos 7: 12-15) we hear about the call of a prophet who never planned on being one. In the Gospel (Mark 6: 7-13) we see how Jesus "summoned" the apostles and sent them out on a mission trip to confront evil and sickness head-on.  But I want to focus on the second reading from the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians.

It says that God chose us.  We are called to be children of God, followers of Jesus, members of the Body of Christ.  Or, as Paul puts it, "to be holy and without blemish."  We are made for union with God, to be holy as God is holy.  To be children of God and part of the Body of Christ means to be holy.

When did God call you?  When did God choose you?  Paul's answer may be surprising.  He writes that God chose us "before the foundation of the world."  In other words, before this world was created, God had you in mind. Shortly after his election as pope, Benedict XVI told the cardinals that "each of us is the result of a thought of God." And since those thoughts are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Why?  Why did God choose to create you and call you?  Pope St. John Paul II said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was, never will, and isn't another "you" among the billions of human beings.  You give God a joy and pleasure that no other human being can.

You were chosen to be holy, like God. For that to happen a transformation is required.  This is where another word that Paul uses comes into play: "In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ."  Through baptism we became adopted children of God. However, when we say that we're speaking of something deeper than human adoption.  Human adoption is beautiful.  Parents give a child their name and their love, food and shelter and education. But parents cannot give an adopted child their own genetic makeup, their blood.  With God it's different. An interior transformation takes place. Through baptism a real change occurs.  God gives us grace to transform us into true children of God.  This is our deepest identity.   A person at baptism is flooded with sanctifying grace and is "holy and without blemish."

Now we are called to live out of our deepest identity: to be and to act what we truly are--children of God, joined to Christ, members of his Body.

All Christians have this most basic vocation and it is within this context that other calls are heard, other vocations arise.

Today is the wedding anniversary of a very special couple. They had nine children, four of whom died early. Four of the surviving children became Discalced Carmelite Sisters and one became a Visitation Sister.  The cause for the beatification of the latter, Leonie, has just been opened.  Of the four other daughters, one has been canonized--St. Therese of Lisieux. And the parents, who celebrate their anniversary today in heaven--Louis and Zelie Martin--will soon become the first married couple in the history of the Church to be canonized together.

You can find out more about this beautiful family at the following websites:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway
Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the Parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux
Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux

Apostle of Prayer Canonized

Blessed Luigi Guanella is being canonized in Rome today. When he was a seminarian he enrolled in the Apostleship of Prayer which he saw as the perfect way to live out his devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Mass readings for today, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, are perfect for this great event. In the Gospel (Matthew 22: 34-40), Jesus gives the Great Commandment: "You shall love the Lord, your God, will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus tells us to love as God has loved us--completely. God has not only given us everything--our life and health, our talents and gifts--he has also given us his very self in giving us his Son Jesus who shared our life with its joys and sorrows. Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, offering everything for our salvation. This offering becomes present in every celebration of Mass where Jesus gives us everything of himself--his body and blood, soul and divinity, and his heart. Knowing this, our response is to love as God has loved us--totally, loving with our heart, soul, and mind, with our entire self.

Loving God so totally means that we will love what God loves. And what God loves is humanity, all his children, our brothers and sisters. Having received the heart of Jesus in Holy Communion, our hearts are moved as the heart of Jesus was moved when he saw those in need.

Matthew's Gospel speaks of the heart of Jesus being moved several times:

Matthew 9: 36 "At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd."

Matthew 14: 14 "When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick."

Matthew 15: 32 "Jesus summoned his disciples and said, 'My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.'"

As the heart of Jesus was moved with pity for the crowds of people--poor, hungry, abandoned, troubled, disabled--so was the heart of Fr. Luigi Guanella. That makes sense. Totally in love with God, he shared God's love for those who were most abandoned by their families and society. The Daughters of St. Mary of Providence and the Servants of Charity now carry on Fr. Guanella's work.

Congratulations to them on the occasion of their founder's canonization! The Apostleship of Prayer shares the joy that one of its own has attained this glory. The recognition of Fr. Luigi's holiness and his powerful intercession inspires us to follow his example.

For more about St. Luigi Guanella, see this earlier post.

The Fire of God

In today's Gospel (Luke 12: 49-53) Jesus, the Prince of Peace, says he has come not to bring peace but division. How are we to understand this paradox? In light of what Jesus said right before this: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!"

When God appeared to Moses (Exodus 3: 1-10) it was as fire, in the form of a bush that was on fire but not consumed. Yet, the fire of God does consume. According to Hebrews 12: 29, "our God is a consuming fire." What does God consume? Sin. All that is not worthy of him. All that is not holy. The fire of God is a consuming and purifying fire. We see this as well in 1 Corinthians 3: 10-17. Paul declares that we must build our lives on the one foundation--Jesus Christ. But the "stuff" of our lives, the materials with which we make our lives, have different qualities. Some of what we make of our lives is lasting and some of it is not worthy of God. At the end of our lives the fire of God's love will reveal what we've made of our lives and will purify them. As Paul puts it: "It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each one's work. ... But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire."

This is the fire Jesus came to cast on the earth--the fire of God's love. It is a fiery love that, in the words of Peter Kreeft, philosophy professor and popular author, "forgives sinners and destroys sins." For this reason, it is a love that divides, separating sinners from their sins and those who cling to their sins from those who seek to rid themselves of sin and seek God's mercy.

Ultimately, this fire is the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Rest in Peace, Fr. Redemptus

Today I concelebrated the funeral Mass of Father Redemptus of the Cross, of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Friars. He died on November 13, just shy of his 93rd birthday, and today his body was laid to rest on the grounds of Holy Hill, the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians.

I last saw Father Redemptus on Friday evening, November 5 when I celebrated the opening Mass for the monthly All Night Vigil of Reparation and Prayer. Father Redemptus was one of the founders of this vigil which has been going on in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for 45 years. This coming Friday and Saturday will be the 543rd vigil since its beginning and it will be held at St. Florian's, the Carmelite parish in West Milwaukee where Father Redemptus served for 27 years.

As the Clerical Moderator of the All Night Vigil, Father Redemptus was the spiritual heart of a little community of the faithful that has formed. Whenever I celebrated Mass or spoke at one of the vigils, I made a point of seeing Father Redemptus. I always felt that in the presence of this gentle and affirming priest I was in the presence of holiness. His smile and words radiated the joy and love of the Good Shepherd. Father Redemptus was there at every vigil, celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation with the many people who lined up to confess their sins and receive absolution from this man of God. Then he would concelebrate Mass, in recent times from a wheelchair and earlier this month, hooked up to oxygen.

The funeral was a fitting tribute to God's grace and the wonders it can do in the lives of all who surrender completely to it. Father Jude Peters, the Prior of the Carmelite community, spoke before the final commendation and he ended with these words: "And now it begins." What begins? The new life of Father Redemptus, for on the back cover of the funeral program, next to a drawing that St. John of the Cross sketched of Jesus looking down from the cross, were words of St. Therese: "I am not dying; I am entering into Life!" But I think something else is beginning as well. I can't help thinking that Father Redemptus, connected to us in an even deeper way now that he has passed from this life, will begin interceding for all those who were so dear to him in this life. He had always interceded for them, but now, having entered into eternal life, he can intercede for them in more powerful ways. Good-bye Father Redemptus. Thank you for being so supportive of me and the Apostleship of Prayer. I look forward, with the help of God's grace and your own intercession, to seeing you again.

Offering up Golf

I am back from my brief golf vacation having played five times in six days. It mercifully rained one day so I could rest those muscles that don't get used for golf on a regular basis. Perhaps the title of this entry makes you think that I was in the rough a lot or had a lot of bad shots. After all, don't we normally think of offering up bad things? Truth be told, I did have plenty of bad shots and lost balls to offer up, but all in all I didn't play that poorly and there were enough really good shots to keep me coming back. There were also a lot of "joys"--also part of the traditional Morning Offering prayer--that I offered up.

Fr. John Patrick Donnelly, S.J., an avid golfer and professor at Marquette University, wrote an article in 1992 entitled "Golf as a Spiritual Exercise." In it he writes about finding God in the beauty of creation, in the game itself, and in his friends.

I thought of that article and a particular spiritual lesson that I took away from my recent rounds of golf. It has to do with staying in focus, living in the present, and taking one moment at a time. So often my mind starts racing off to the future or dwelling on the past. In golf I'll start thinking, after one bad shot or hole, how bad my score is going to be at the end of the round. Or after the bad shot I'll dwell on it and let it take my mind off the next shot. Or if I'm playing well I'll start thinking about how if I just keep it up I'll be able to break 90 for 18 holes or 40 for 9. Then I lose my focus and generally miss an easy putt because I get what are called the "yips." I lose my focus and put too much pressure on making that one putt in order to keep my good round going.

It's best when I hit one shot at a time and play it as though it were my only shot that day. It's best if I don't know how I'm scoring so I don't get distracted thinking about how well I might do, or how poorly I am doing and how I might not even break 100. It's best when I keep my focus on hitting that one shot as best as I can. One shot at a time. One moment at a time. Live in the present.

That's the lesson that I've known but need to have reinforced from time to time. That's the lesson I take away from my annual Fourth of July golf vacation with Jesuit friends from the East coast. And I'm reminded of something that Bishop Nguyen Van Thuan wrote in his little book "Five Loaves and Two Fish." He wrote it after South Vietnam fell to the communists and he was arrested. Wondering about how he was going to be able to serve his people now that he was under arrest, and what possible purpose his life could have now that he would not be able to exercise his ministry, he wrote:

"I will seize the occasions that every day presents to fulfill ordinary actions in an extraordinary way. Jesus, I will not wait. I will live the present moment, filling it to the brim with love. A straight line is made of millions of tiny points united to each other. My life too is made of millions of seconds and minutes united to each other. I will perfectly arrange every single point and the line will be straight. I will live perfectly every minute and my life will be holy. Like you, Jesus, who always did what was pleasing to your Father."

Bishop Thuan spent the next thirteen years in prison, a number of them in solitary confinement. After his release he went to Rome, was made a cardinal, and became head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. He died of cancer in 2002 and the cause for his beatification was opened in 2007.

Holiness can be found anywhere, in prison or on a golf course. It all comes down to living each moment well and making of it an offering to God.

John the Baptist

Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist. Once a month I am the spiritual director for the call-in spiritual direction show called "The Inner Life" on Relevant Radio. I began yesterday's show by talking about St. John the Baptist and what he has to teach us.

1. Humility. As the crowds came to John in the desert and wondered whether he might be the much-anticipated messiah, he could have claimed that title and had a great popular following. But he didn't. Committed to the truth, he pointed to the real messiah, his cousin Jesus. Humility means that we are honest with ourselves (and others) and that means recognizing that we are creatures in need of God. The world does not revolve around us. Or, as the common expression goes: "It's not about you!" The best definition of humility that I've heard is this: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." In other words, humility does not mean putting ourselves down or beating ourselves us. When we do this we are still the center of our attention. True humility is taking the focus off ourselves and putting it on God and neighbor. That's exactly what Jesus said the greatest commandment was: loving God and neighbor. Humility is the foundation of the other virtues. Without humility, other virtues--patience, chastity, temperance, faith, hope, and even love--can become sources of the pride that precedes the fall.

2. Dying to self. John the Baptist shows us that the way to humility and holiness is to die to self. This means dying to our self-centeredness. It means drawing attention not to ourselves but to Christ. It means making an offering of ourselves to God for His service and glory. This is the meaning of John the Baptist's famous phrase which would be a good Scripture quote to memorize and keep in mind throughout the day: "He must increase; I must decrease" (John 3: 30).

3. Being the voice of the Word. When asked who he was, John replied, quoting Isaiah: "I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of the Lord" (John 1: 23). We are called to be People of the Word, people who pray with the Scriptures so that the Word of God becomes part of us. Then, as we go about our daily lives, we will give voice to that Word. That doesn't mean quoting Scripture passages at people as much as living the Word and expressing it through our words and the deeds which speak louder than words. It means giving flesh to Gospel values and witnessing to those values in the way we live.

4. Witnessing to the truth. John witnessed to the truth. He witnessed to Jesus who called Himself "the way and the truth and the life" (John 14: 6). He also witnessed to the truth of the moral order, confronting King Herod who was living in sin. This led to the ultimate witness of his martyrdom where he showed that moral principles are greater than physical life. We can paraphrase Jesus here: What does it profit a person to gain a few more years of earthly life and in the process lose his or her integrity, conscience, and soul? For most of us, witnessing to the truth won't lead to death but rather rejection or hurtful words. People will get angry at us or make fun of us and we will have an opportunity to die to human praise and our own vanity, our need to be accepted and liked. In that way, we will decrease but Jesus will increase.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us that we too may be courageous voices for Jesus in the world today!

St. Therese

Today is a feast day for the Apostleship of Prayer. We are celebrating one of our two patron saints, St. Therese, who enrolled in the Apostleship of Prayer on October 15, 1885 when she was twelve years old. St. Therese is often called "The Little Flower," a self-description that comes from her autobiography. Here's how she tells the story of her father's response when she shared with him her desire to become a Carmelite Sister:

"Going up to a low wall, he pointed to some little white flowers, like lilies in miniature, and plucking one of them, he gave it to me, explaining the care with which God brought it into being and preserved it to that very day. While I listened I believed I was hearing my own story, so great was the resemblance between what Jesus had done for the little flower and little Therese."

The theme of "little flowers" shows up later in her description of how she made offerings of the moments of her day, especially the pains and sacrifices:

"Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. ... O my Jesus! I love You! I love the Church, my Mother! I recall that "the smallest act of PURE LOVE is of more value to her than all other works together" (St. John of the Cross's "Spiritual Canticle").

This was the secret of St. Therese, the key to her holiness. She lived out her commitment to the primary duty of members of the Apostleship of Prayer--to pray the Daily Offering one day at a time. She prayed it and then, with God's grace, lived it. Truly she's an example for all Apostles of Prayer and for all Christians.

The Long Haul

The men eat in silence. They are on retreat and having, in some cases, made an annual retreat for over 60 years, they know the routine. Retreat is a time to listen to God who comes so often, as He did to Elijah (see 1 Kings 19), in “a tiny whispering sound.” He speaks in the silence of our hearts so it’s important to keep quiet.

I’m in the middle of an eight day retreat for the elder Jesuits of the St. Camillus Jesuit Community in Wauwatosa, WI. Someone back in the office asked: Are they any different after all those years of retreats? Is their holiness more tangible?

I’m sure they are different and that they are growing in holiness, but that may not be visible. I see their holiness in terms of perseverance over long years of ups and downs and struggles. Are the struggles over? Not necessarily. For some the struggles they experienced from youth remain. For others there are new struggles, especially letting go of the active work which gave such meaning to their lives, and surrendering health and vitality. In these struggles to surrender there are new opportunities to grow in holiness.

But if the struggles haven’t changed over the years, isn’t that a sign that one isn’t growing? Not necessarily. Holiness isn’t a feeling, nor does it mean total peace with no struggles, no temptations.

Blessed Mother Teresa is a good example of this. For decades she experienced darkness in her spiritual life and the absence of God. She showed us that holiness, like love, isn’t a feeling. Holiness doesn’t mean that you feel close to God. It can mean, as it did in her case, just the opposite. It's easy to love God and neighbor when you’re full of consolation and peace; it's another thing altogether to love God and neighbor when you’re "white-knuckling it." That minute of "pure" love without feelings is worth more in God's eyes than hours of prayer in the midst of consolation. I suspect holiness has more to do with action than interior feelings. And it may not be very apparent to others.

Our good friend St. Therese, who joined the Apostleship of Prayer when she was twelve years old—her Sisters in community wondered what they would say about her in the obituary that would be sent around to other Carmelite convents after her death because there was nothing that was remarkable about her and so little that was visible.

Last summer a Dominican Sister told me a story about an elderly Sister in her community. Every day as she went into chapel to pray with the other Sisters she would first go up to the statue of St. Therese in the chapel where it appeared that she was scolding her. The Sister telling me the story said she and another Sister went closer to eavesdrop. Here’s what they heard the elderly Sister say: "You! You wouldn'thave been so sweet and gentle if you had lived to be 92!”

I think a lot of holiness is simple perseverance, holding steady amidst the ups and downs and struggles of life, holding fast to the faith over the long haul.