Bilocation Would be Nice Perhaps you have heard of the miraculous stories in which God gives a saint the grace to bilocate. Most famously, St. Padre Pio would be present in two different places at the exact same time. As a young Catholic, I joke with my friends that bilocation is one of the coolest gifts God gives to a saint. Bilocation is one of those gifts like visions, the stigmata, or levitation, that seem reserved for the holiest of the holy people. It wouldn’t just be nice for my own sake, though! Think of all the people I could help if I could be in more than one place at once! I tend to look at God and ask why there are so many problems in the world. How am I personally supposed to choose between helping starving children, sex victims, and the homeless? What of assisting and loving the mentally ill, ending abortion, and promoting the sanctity of marriage? What of educating youth and evangelizing? I wish I could do it all, but realistically, it is just not possible. Maybe I can do one or two things and pray that as I work on one problem, someone else will work on the other. Besides, we are the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). Made up of many parts, we each play a specific role (1 Cor 12:12). Maybe I just need to accept that I can’t be in more than one place at once. Or, I can ask God for the gift of bilocation. How to Spiritually Bilocate There is another tool that changes the world besides fundraising, mission trips, service projects, advocacy, promotion, protest, voting, donating, negotiating, and working. The other tool is prayer. If we believe that God is all-present and all-powerful, that the Church is universal, and that we are indeed a part of Christ’s Body, then we can bilocate. That is, we can be in two places at once. Not in the physical, dramatic way we see in Ignatius Press saint movies. Instead, God grants us access to all of heaven and earth. At Holy Mass, we join with all the faithful throughout the whole world and the kingdom of heaven. All of the faithful are with us and we are with them, united by the Holy Eucharist. If we are indeed sent forth at the end of Holy Mass to “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” then we must continue our mission of universal prayer. For example, we can give up a sweet for a child suffering from the war in Yemen. In our bedrooms, we can pray a psalm to comfort victims of human trafficking. In the car, we can sing loving songs to orphaned and neglected children, forgotten elderly, the lonely, and the sick throughout the world. We can give up our bed for the night and offer it for someone who has none. In private, we can speak tender words of forgiveness and mercy to terrorists or unlikeable political leaders. In essence, we don’t need to leave our inner rooms. In fact, Jesus encourages us not to even leave our inner rooms (Matthew 6:6)! We can travel the whole world with the eyes of faith. Prayer is a form of spiritual bilocation. Try it. You don’t have to be Padre Pio to be called to do this saintly practice.
2 Comments
Chris Beltowski
4/8/2019 03:46:36 am
Good to have your posts back; keep up the great work!
Reply
Jacqueline
4/8/2019 10:08:33 am
And thank you for reading!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorJacqueline St. Clare: I spent six months in a cloistered convent, and now I'm a college student! Archives
April 2021
SpiritualityVocationMental ILlnessSeasonalADVENT LENT
Unexpected Church MembersAll words that are underlined can be found on the "Glossary" page
|