The Dreamer

Today is the feast of one of my favorite saints, St. John Bosco. When I was growing up in Milwaukee there was a high school named "Don Bosco" and I always thought "Don" was his first name. Years later I learned that "John" or "Giovanni," as he would have been known in his native Italy, was his name and "Don" is a title that is often used for priests in Italy.

One of the amazing facts of his life is that he had supernatural dreams. Of course the Bible is filled with stories of holy people who had supernatural dreams--the prophet Daniel, Joseph the son of Jacob and St. Joseph the husband of Mary--and the prophet Joel, speaking the word of God, foretold:

"...I will pour out my spirit upon all mankind.
Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions;
Even upon the servants and the handmaids,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit" (3: 1-2).

So it should not be surprising that God would continue to speak to Spirit-filled people in their dreams.

But what I find amazing is that for St. John Bosco, this began when he was only nine years old.

Writing about this in his "Biographical Memoirs," St. John Bosco said that around 1824 when he was nine he had a dream in which a group of children were playing in a large field near his home. Some of them were cursing and he was so shocked by this that he jumped in, shouted at them to stop, and started swinging his fists. A man dressed in white with a glowing face appeared and told him to become the leader of these boys, saying, "You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows but with gentleness and kindness. So begin right now to show them that sin is ugly and virtue beautiful."

John Bosco asked how he, a mere boy and the peer of these other boys, could talk to them about religion. At that, the boys stopped cursing and fighting and gathered around the man in white who told John to ask his Mother for help. Then he saw a beautiful lady next to the man who showed him that the boys had disappeared and instead he was surrounded by different wild animals that turned into gentle sheep. John asked her to explain all this and she promised that in due time she would. At that point he woke up.

The next morning he told the dream to his family. His brothers laughed. One of them gave this interpretation: "You are going to become a shepherd and take care of goats, sheep, and livestock." Another said, "You might become the leader of a gang of robbers." His mother said, "Who knows? Maybe you will become a priest." His grandmother, whom he described as "very religious" and "illiterate," offered the last word on this dream: "You must not pay attention to dreams."

St. John wrote that he felt the same way but the dream stayed with him and years later, in 1858, when he met with Blessed Pius IX to talk about founding the Salesian congregation the pope asked him to write the dream down.

Today people often wonder about the nature and value of dreams. Most of us will probably not experience mystical dreams as St. John Bosco did, but it may be helpful for us to give them some attention.

First, dreams seem to be the way that our minds process and deal with the events of our day as they affect our emotional lives. Thus, people who are stressed out during the day will commonly have anxiety dreams. God can use such dreams to get our attention and reflecting on them can help us deal in a healthy way with the stress.

Second, it's a good idea offer our sleep to God and to pray for good dreams. We can pray as we lay in bed that the Holy Spirit will come upon us and bless our dreams so that they help us and give glory to God. As Psalm 127: 2 says: "for he gives to his beloved in sleep."

Providence

One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith and of life is Providence. Because it's a mystery, people over the centuries have debated the relationship between God's will and what happens in the world, between God's will and human freedom. Mysteries aren't problems to be solved and so we must humbly say that there are no definititive answers to the questions that arise when we consider God's Providence. In the end, though, and at every moment, we are faced with the questions: "Where is God in this?" and "What is God asking of me in this?"

I thought of this recently because of correspondance I've had with a friend named Tom who recently underwent open heart surgery. Before Christmas, as he was preparing for surgery, I wrote him the following:

"I often think of things like what you're facing as ways that God calls us to grow in particular virtues. Courage is one I see here and also surrender in trust. We always pray, in the Our Father, "Thy will be done," but we often say that out of habit and not really meaning it, not really thinking that God's way is the best way. Easy for me to say from this distance and not being in your shoes, but if all this (our lives, our faith) makes sense, then it has to be true."

I also recommended that he read about a man who tried to find God's will in something he never expected--being a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. The man was Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J., and the book he wrote about his experience was "He Leadeth Me." After Christmas and before surgery Tom wrote me the following:

"I just finished reading He Leadeth Me........I am writing to express my thanks to you for recommending it. My daughter bought it for me as a Christmas present and I read it right away. What an amazing story it is! The faith he describes in the book is beyond my ability to describe but I am sure you have read it and know what I mean, I have asked Fr Ciszek to pray for me that I have a fraction of his courage & faith and if it is God's will, healing...."

Then, after his surgery and in the midst of recovery, Tom wrote me the following:

"It has been 10 days since the open heart surgery , which is hard to believe. I have been home since Sunday convalescing....The most difficult part is the pain management, at times I feel very good and cut back on the meds ,oxycodone, each time that has been mistake.....pain management & healing go hand in hand and when the pain returns it is very challenging....the surgery & subsequent wound healing has proceeded pretty well....I get vey tired and ,as I said occasionally have some very intense pain in my upper torso....Fr Jim of all the memories I will have about this whole experience and there have been many, the book He Leadeth Me is one I will never forget.....being aware of the Providence of God and its unbending goodness is such a comforting thought that i will continue to exclaim it the rest of my life."

Here are the significant passages from Fr. Ciszek's "He Leadeth Me." Though we may never understand the ways of Providence while we're on this side of eternity, that lack of understanding doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Somehow I think it was Providence and not coincidence that Tom and I met at a retreat house in Minnesota ten years ago.

“What I have tried to show in the pages of this book is how faith has affected my life and sustained me in all I experienced. That faith is the answer to the question most often asked of me (‘How did you manage to survive?’) and I can only repeat it, simply and unashamedly. To me, that truth says that God has a special purpose, a special love, a special providence for all those he has created. God cares for each of us individually, watches over us, provides for us. The circumstances of each day of our lives, of every moment of every day, are provided for us by him. Let the theologians argue about how this is so, let the philosophers and sophisticates of this world question and doubt whether it can be so; the revealed truth we have received on God’s own word says simply that it is so. But maybe we are all just a little afraid to accept it in all its shattering simplicity, for its consequences in our lives are both terrible and wonderful.

“It means, for example, that every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may see in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding. No man’s life is insignificant in God’s sight, nor are his works insignificant—no matter what the world or his neighbors or family or friends may think of them. Yet what a terrible responsibility is here. For it means that no moment can be wasted, no opportunity missed, since each has a purpose in man’s life, each has a purpose in God’s plan.”

St. Louis Marian Conference

Last weekend I gave a retreat at White House, the Jesuit Retreat House in St. Louis. There were 77 men on the retreat, most of whom were alumni of Jesuit high schools and universities. After the retreat I moved to Bellarmine House of Studies, five houses near St. Louis University where the Jesuit scholastics live and study philosophy and theology after their novitiate. It's been a quiet and hospitable setting for me. I had all sorts of plans to visit people I know in the area but unfortunately that didn't work out.

On Wednesday I gave a talk at the local Serra Club, a group that works and prays for vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. I spoke about the spirituality of offering that the Apostleship of Prayer promotes and how this can create a vocation-friendly environment in families and parishes. Ann Moloney, mother of nine who hosts a weekly radio show for moms on the local Catholic station (Covenant Radio), invited me to do an interview with her. We talked more about the spirituality of offering and how it can help busy Moms (and all of us) in the midst of daily activities which often seem to have no importance in the bigger picture but which, when united to the perfect offering of Jesus, have eternal significance. I was also able to record a 30 second spot to promote the Hearts on Fire retreat for young adults which is coming to St. Louis Feb. 24-25. Fr. Phil Hurley and the Jesuit Mission Band just returned from the Bahamas where over 50 people participated in a Hearts on Fire Retreat. They got rave reviews in the local paper.

Today the annual St. Louis Marian conference begins and I'll be giving three talks. Tonight I'll be speaking about "Fatima: the Call to Prayer and Penance." Tomorrow afternoon it will be "Pope John Paul II's Eucharistic Amazement" and on Sunday morning I'll talk about "Living a Eucharistic Life." I'm looking forward to the interaction that invariably follows giving a talk at a conference and meeting people at the table I'll have set up.

On Sunday afternoon I'll return to Milwaukee where I hear winter has also returned.

The Sacred Heart in Joliet

I haven't been able to keep up with writing because of some extra responsibilities that came up during the holidays. I'm now in St. Louis (where the weather is sunny and 70 degrees!) giving a retreat to 77 men at the White House Jesuit Retreat House. On my way down I stopped to have lunch with a good Jesuit friend, Fr. John Belmonte, who is the superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Joliet.

The following is from a letter he wrote informing the Diocese of a special initiative for this year:

Perfect Friendship: The Diocese of Joliet Sacred Heart Project

To teach children the Catholic faith that we ourselves have received and invite them to a lifelong friendship with Jesus Christ through His Church is our privilege as Catholic school educators. This year our diocesan schools have the opportunity to participate in a project to promote devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The goal of this project is to introduce the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to our students, develop the devotional life of children and adults and create leadership opportunities for students and teachers.

The project will begin on Monday, October 17th, the Feast of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and conclude on Wednesday, February 15, the Feast of St. Claude La Colombiere, both saints of the Sacred Heart. ... Bishop Conlon will conclude the project with a Mass with students at the Cathedral in which he will consecrate the diocesan schools and our students to the Sacred Heart.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a most effective means of our students living always in the company of our Lord who they meet in the Eucharist.

Last month I met with Fr. Belmonte and two of the teachers, Kathy Scholz and Ryan Wolcott, who produced a manual for this project. Their manual, which they hope to publish someday, is filled with many good age-appropriate materials for grade school students. One of the ideas was for students to create holy cards with an image of the Sacred Heart. Scattered throughout this post are copies of some of those laminated cards.

Another part of the project was to have eighth graders teach the younger children about the Sacred Heart. The following is from a story that St. Scholastica Grade School student Sonja Kukulis wrote about that experience. It appeared in the Woodridge Triblocal news website.

The main message taught was that Jesus is "all heart," and that He loves us and wants us to love Him too. We showed the students a picture of the Sacred Heart and explained it to them. Jesus is holding His heart, which is bleeding, has thorns around it, and a cross on top. All of this symbolism reminds us that Christ was willing to suffer and die for us; it also is on fire to symbolize God's light and Christ's love for us. We asked these students questions to make sure they understood what we were teaching them, and answered their questions as well. ... Each week the middle school students write one of the twelve promises that Christ gave to St. Margaret Mary. We explain how we can follow it in our lives. Students in the lower grades write about or color pictures that explain the twelve promises. At the start of every school day, we say the prayer to the Sacred Heart together. This is a great project because it teaches us about church history and helps us to grow closer to God and stronger in faith.

I'm sure that the Diocese of Joliet is going to be richly blessed by this Sacred Heart Project. May those blessings spread far beyond and touch the hearts of all!

The Christmas Dog

While the Scriptures do not mention a dog at the first Christmas, it makes sense that there was one there. The shepherds probably had a dog or two to help them guard their sheep and the dog would have naturally followed them to Bethlehem. Yet, few Nativity scenes show a dog.

This year, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, Msgr. Robert Ritchie added a dog modeled after his own dog "Lexington." In fact, Demetz Art Studio in Ortisei, Italy, the same studio that carved the other figures in the Cathedral's Creche, created the Christmas dog as well.

One of my favorite places in the Holy Land is the church at Shepherd's Field. The paintings in the corners of the rounded ceilings show the various scenes of Luke 2: 8-20 where an angel appears to shepherds as they were tending their flocks and they go to Bethlehem to see the child about whom the angel had spoken. In each of the scenes there is a dog, barking at the angel

when it appears, racing off with the shepherds, and then adoring the Christ Child with them.

Here's a poem I ran across recently in a 1952 book edited by F. J. Sheed, The Book of the Saviour. It's by Sister Maris Stella and it's entitled "Christmas Carol for the Dog."

This is a carol for the dog
that long ago in Bethlehem
saw shepherds running towards the town
and followed them.

He trotted stiffly at their heels;
he sniffed the lambs that they were bringing;
he heard the herald angels sing,
yet did not know what they were singing.

With tail erect and tilted ears
he trotted through the stable door.
He saw the shepherds kneeling low
upon the floor.

He found St. Joseph watching by
Our Lady with her newborn Boy,
and being only dog, he wagged
his tail for joy.

There stationed by the Baby's crib
he kept good guard through the long night,
with ears thrown back and muzzle high
and both eyes bright.

When the three tall kings came at last
he barked a warning to each one,
then took his stand beside the Child,
his duty done.

Down into Egypt went the dog
when Herod slew the innocents.
He was not wise. He did not know
why, whither, nor whence,

but only, being dog, he knew
to follow where the Family led
to Egypt or to Nazareth.
And no one said

a word about the sharp-nosed dog
who stuck close to the Family then.
And yet, there must have been a dog.
This is a song for him. Amen.

Pope Benedict's Three Christmas Wishes

On December 7 Pope Benedict used a tablet computer to light the world's largest "Christmas Tree" stretching more than 2,000 feet up the slope of Mount Ingino near Gubbio, Italy. As he did so, he shared with the world his three Christmas wishes. As we approach the birthday of our Savior, let's make these three wishes our own as well.

Before lighting the tree, I would like to express three wishes. … Looking at it, our gaze is naturally drawn upwards, toward heaven, toward the world of God. My first wish, therefore, is that our gaze, that of our minds and our hearts, not rest only on the horizon of this world, on material things, but that in some way, like this tree that tends upward, it be directed toward God. God never forgets us but he also asks that we don’t forget him. The Gospel recounts that, on the holy night of Christ’s birth, a light enveloped the shepherds, announcing a great joy to them: the birth of Jesus, the one who brings us light, or better, the one who is the true light that illuminates all. …

My second wish is that this reminds us that we also need light to illumine the path of our lives and to give us hope, especially in this time in which we feel so greatly the weight of difficulties, of problems, of suffering, and a veil of darkness seems to surround us. But what light can truly illuminate our hearts and give us a firm and sure hope? It is the child whom we contemplate on holy Christmas, in a poor and simple manger, because he is the Lord who draws near to each of us and asks that we receive him anew in our lives, ask us to want him, to trust in him, to feel that he is present, that he is accompanying us, sustaining us and helping us.

But this great tree is made up of many lights. The final wish I’d like to make is that each of us carry a little bit of light into the environments in which we live: our families, our jobs, our neighborhoods, towns and cities. May each of us be a light for those who are at our sides; may we leave aside the selfishness that so often closes hearts and leads one to think only of oneself; may we pay a little greater attention to others, give them a little more love. Each small gesture of goodness is like one of the lights of this great tree: Together with the other lights it is able to illuminate the darkness of the night, even the darkest ones.

And from the Apostleship of Prayer in the United States: A Blessed and Happy Christmas to all!

More Magis Reflections

Here are the last three of the daily reflections that I wrote for the Magis Center for Catholic Spirituality.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

We are made for union with God. We are made for a spousal relationship with God. In the Song of Songs and the Prophets of the Old Testament, we find this truth in vivid terms like the following verse from Isaiah 54: 5: “For he who has become your husband is your Maker; his name is the Lord of hosts….”

This goal of human existence begins to find its realization in the Eucharist. It is there that the union between each individual and the Lord is most closely attained on this side of eternity. There the Church is formed. St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, taught about marriage by quoting from the book of Genesis: “For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Then Paul goes on to say, “This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church” (5: 31-32). Marriage is sacred because it reveals something of the intimate union that Christ has with the Church and with each of her members. It is a union that transforms. As Pope Benedict said in his final homily at World Youth Day 2005: “The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood.” The two—Christ and each one who receives him in the Eucharist—become one flesh.

This is another way of viewing the “First Principle and Foundation” in the Spiritual Exercises and it is what answers a question that arises from today’s Gospel (Luke 7: 24-30): how can it be that “the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than” John the Baptist? John, the great Forerunner and Martyr-Witness to the Messiah, did not have the privilege of the union that we have every time we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Can we ever be sufficiently grateful for this privilege?

Friday, December 16, 2011

Jesus called John the Baptist “a burning and shining lamp” (John 5:35). The Lord calls you to be like John, to be a lamp that “shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5: 16).

You are called to burn with the love of the Sacred Heart which Jesus revealed to St. Margaret Mary, saying: “My divine Heart is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you.” To be on fire with the burning love of God requires you to draw near to the Heart of Jesus. It means being a “burning” lamp that is fed by the oil of the Holy Spirit who prays with you and within you. It means especially becoming one with the Sacred Heart that is given to you in the Eucharist.

You are also called to shine. Jesus called himself “the Light of the world” (John 8:12) and as he unites himself to you he calls you to be light as well (Matthew 5: 14). The light of a “shining lamp” is very humble. You don’t light a lamp and then stare at it. A lamp is lit not to draw attention to itself but to help people find their way. So it is with you. You are to be the light of the world in order to show people the way to the final destination for which God created the human race—heaven.

According to St. Ignatius, the goal of his Spiritual Exercises, and indeed the goal of all prayer, is to help us seek and find “the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our soul” (#1). It is God’s will that you be one with him forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. Through prayer you are united one day at time with this loving will of God that fills you with warmth and light, that makes you “a burning and shining lamp” that will guide others to the Lord just as St. John the Baptist did.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

We begin today the final days of preparation for Christmas with the “O Antiphons” (found in antiphon for Mary’s Magnificat at Vespers and in the Alleluia verse at Mass). We also have the Genealogy of Jesus according the Matthew. Besides giving us the human origins of the Messiah, it reminds us of the Providence of God which, in St. Paul’s words, can “make all things work for good for those who love God” (Romans 8: 28).

The Genealogy does not paint a pretty picture. It includes a number of kings who led Israel away from God to the worship of idols. It also includes the names of four women, an unusual addition in the genealogies of the time. The childless and widowed Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute in order to have intercourse with her father-in-law Judah. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was a foreigner. And Bathesheba was the unfortunate recipient of King David’s attention, leading to his committing adultery with her and orchestrating her husband’s death.

The Genealogy or Family Tree of Jesus included sinners in need of mercy and healing. This shouldn’t be surprising since it was to save sinners that Jesus took flesh and came into the world. Or, as St. Ignatius puts it in his contemplation on the incarnation, the “Three Divine Persons look down upon the whole expanse or circuit of all the earth, filled with human beings. Since They see that all are going down to hell, They decree in Their eternity that the Second Person should become man to save the human race” (#102).

In this final of Advent, imagine the Blessed Trinity looking out over the world. Out of love for lost humanity, God sent the Son to live and die and rise for your salvation. He wants you to be filled with “an intimate knowledge” of His love so that you may “love Him more and follow Him more closely” (#105) and in this way to continue the work of salvation.