The story goes that St. Francis of Assisi had an encounter with Jesus. Francis was at this old, broken church called San Damiano. There was this crucifix there and Francis looked into the eyes of Jesus on the cross. Francis heard Jesus tell him, "Rebuild my Church, which, as you can see, is in ruins." Francis got straight to work. He started to rebuild the church of San Damiano, brick by brick. It turns out, though, that God wasn't talking about the little church building of San Damiano. God was talking about the Church; the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. You see, at the time of St. Francis (the start of the twelfth century), the Church faced heresy, corruption, and worldliness. St. Francis, founder of the Franciscans, dedicated his life to rebuilding the Church through radical Gospel living--poverty, simplicity, communion, and intimacy with Christ. Franciscans, to this very day, follow St. Francis' example, for our Church still faces the same or similar problems. For example, the sexual abuse scandal as one and a decrease in priests and religious vocations as another. Now, I tell this story because it makes me think of an encounter that I had with Jesus. I personally heard (not a booming voice from the sky, but a movement in my heart), Jesus ask me to marry Him. The most obvious way for me to marry Jesus looked like becoming a nun, so that's what I pursued by entering a convent. Yet, I found out when I was with the Poor Clares (who are actually the second order of St. Francis), I was not called to be a cloistered nun. Now, several years later, as a college student, I look to God and wonder what happened to his "proposal"; His offer to marry Him. I found though, that God was not asking me to just become a nun. He was asking me to marry Him. And if I was to marry Him, the Head of the Church, then I was to marry every part of Him--his whole Body, the Church. It's not just about "me and Jesus." It's about "God and us!" It's about "Our Father." Our Family! Today is Trinity Sunday. We get to see what a true marriage covenant is. One in which the Father sends his only Son into the world to save His Beloved Bride and Body, the Church. With Love Who we call the Holy Spirit. So, when Jesus asked me for marriage, I was marrying into a whole family! Father, Son, Spirit, and the entire Church! Now, could I still become a consecrated? Yup. But my underlying vocation is love. And I want to encourage all men and women as you discern your "place" in the world, to take a step back and look at God's call for you. Be not discouraged when a religious order or seminary turns you down. Fear not if sickness comes. Have faith in God, even when a relationship breaks. For you belong to the Trinitarian Family. Do not forget your heavenly Father. Do not forget your beloved Jesus. Do not forget the movement of the Holy Spirit. Do not forget your underlying vocation. Do not forget God's love and your love, the Church. Do not forget that God--the Trinity--is a family; one that you are called to be a part of.
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As of late, I keep running into something called "redemptive suffering." First, my spiritual director mentioned it to me. Then, I read about it in the Unleash the Gospel magazine. Then, I heard someone at my summer evangelization internship with the archdiocese mention it. And then, Al Kresta mentioned it on the radio in regards to Our Lady of Fatima and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
After hearing the term "redemptive suffering," so many times, I finally concluded that God was telling me something. When it comes to my array of mental illnesses--my collection of anxieties and seasons of depression--I tend to "fight or flight," as they so say. When I "fight," I do everything in my power to kick my OCD in the face and trample all of my anxieties. I can fight my depression so hard, with the mindset that if I fight hard enough, the depression will be defeated and no longer cause me sadness or pain. Other times, I "flight." I run away from my anxiety and depression. I don't acknowledge that I have it. I pretend to myself and others that my suffering doesn't even exist. What if I stopped fighting? What if I stopped flying away? What if I just forfeit? That is, surrendered to the suffering? What if I accepted that, "Yeah, I'm suffering. Yeah, it hurts. But I don't suffer for myself. I suffer for another"? Apparently, Pope Saint John Paul II was really good at redemptive suffering--suffering with a purpose--for another and with God. Our Lady of Fatima also exhorted us to pray and do penance and suffer for the sake of saving souls from hell and bringing all souls to heaven. I was writing to one of the Poor Clare nuns from the convent that I was at. We were discussing the suffering that comes from mental illness. She said that illness always reminds her that she can't do life without God. I also went out on the streets of Detroit for a "Backpacking Mission," for my internship. One religious brother was encouraging the homeless we encountered to suffer for the Lord and to live out their lives--as hard as they are--for God's sake. That really struck me. Shouldn't I, who has a home, suffer for the Lord and live out my life for His sake? Redemptive suffering sounds like a contradiction. After all, "redemption," is good and healing, while "suffering," is painful and hard. Yet, during this season of Easter, when we come face to face with the risen Jesus, our Redeemer, we see the wounds in his hands and feet. We remember that our redemption comes from the cross. Jesus didn't run from the cross. He did not fight against the cross. He forfeited Himself to the Father's will, accepting all suffering for the redemption of the world. In more therapeutic terms, modern psychology has found that mindfulness is particularly useful for the mentally ill. It helps those with depression and anxiety by not trying to change the nasty way they feel, or control the crazy thoughts that they have, but accept them as they are. In doing so, the pain decreases. For example, think of traffic! I can get angry and frustrated and restless when I am in traffic with no way out. Yet, if I just breathe and accept that traffic is a part of my day and accept it as unenjoyable, my "traffic suffering" becomes manageable. Yet, we can take mindfulness a whole step further! We can go through nasty traffic for the sake of another person! Not just our own need to get to or from work! What if we forfeit to the suffering traffic brings, so that it becomes a means of our redemption and the redemption of the world? I encourage you to think of another person when you are suffering; someone you know, or someone you have never met. Even write (but probably not send), letters to this person to tell him/her your pain and suffering, but also tell him/her that you are suffering for his/her sake. If I live my anxiety and depression for the sake of another person, my pain drifts from "suffering" to "redemptive suffering." It isn't a matter of conquering my pain or escaping pain. It is forfeiting to it. And look at what happens when we "forfeit" like Jesus. Jesus takes fire and makes Himself burn with love. He takes thorns and makes it His crown. He takes the cross and makes it His shining glory. He takes His pierced side and makes blood and water gush forth from it as "a fount of mercy." "O blood and water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in you." ~ Divine Mercy Prayer from the diary of St. Faustina 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. 13 CE 15th Year of Our Lord District of Galilee, Palestine I gulp the cool water from the stone jug in a rush. I overslept. I let out a breath as I pull the mouth of the stone vessel away from my face and hand it to my wife. Leah takes it from me with one hand as the other rests on her round belly. Her inner tunic drapes loosely over her bulging stomach. Her cheeks are rosy as they especially have been since the start of her pregnancy. Her long brown hair falls down her back, too early in the morning for her to don her veil. “The peaches are ripe, Daniel.” Leah smiles beneath her round eyes. Moving across the inner room, lit by a lone clay oil lamp, she glances over her shoulder. The light gently touches the stone walls of my home; stones I quarried myself to build upon the bedrock of the steep hill. My firstborn son, Daniel, sleeps soundly in the corner. My son is named after me, as I was named after my father, like the fearless Daniel, whom even lions could not overtake. My son is only a couple years old, and now, Leah is pregnant with our second child. My gut rolls at the thought. Another mouth I must somehow afford to feed. Our goat squeals and rustles in the stable in the back cave of the house. It knocks its head against the pen wall—a sound I have become accustomed to. I tie my undyed head-covering tightly around my forehead, letting the long end fall down the back of my neck. Now supporting her back with one hand, Leah plops the stone jug on the compacted floor by the wash bin, across from our sleeping son. She swiftly takes a camel skin, freshly filled with water that should last me this whole day of work, as well as my satchel, packed with my midday meal—probably bread, raisins, and goat’s cheese, as usual. My fingers curve around the sling of my work bag, heavy with metal and wooden instruments as Leah walks back to me, her agility still not weakening after these many months with child. My lip twitches as she offers me my food and drink, which I carelessly throw into my work bag. “Do not crush your meal, again.” She winces as I sling the strap over my shoulder. I feel the hard, sharp tools press against the soft goods. “Or spill your water. It leaked last time.” “I will be home late this evening,” I tell her stiffly. I do not mean to be cold toward her, but my burdens are too great. Leah frowns, her face ever child-like as if she were pouting. I wonder if she suspects something with my late nights. But then, a change takes over her expression. As if a token was just presented to her, she looks up at me earnestly, her energy ringing in her youthful voice. “Do you know why I love peaches?” I know why. But I cannot bring myself to say it. I cannot think of such things right now! “We had peaches on our wedding day," she says. “We were also sweating like dogs beneath our headdresses and tunics,” I say, forcing a smile. I attempted to make it a light-hearted comment, but it came out as more of a complaint. Indeed, it has been three years now since I married her during this hot season. The past two years, I bought her a peach at this time. This year, though, I will not be able to afford it. “I do not remember the sweat, Daniel,” Leah says, her chin dipping into her neck. She gently touches my cheek, covered by my black beard. Six days a week, that beard glistens with sweat and grime. On the seventh, the holiest day, it glistens with anointing oil. “I remember the sweetness…” Leah muses softly. “Of the peaches,” I finish for her. Three rumbles of laughter shoot from her mouth. They always come in “threes.” “Yes, of the peaches and nothing else!” She pats a kiss on my cheek in parting. Under different circumstances, maybe I would fall to my knees in a dramatic gesture of love the way I had on our wedding night and I would sing to her the Song of Songs, telling her that her eyes are doves and her lips are like a scarlet thread. Maybe I would delay my day’s work and I would tease her for the way her earlobes stick to her neck, as she so hates. But I cannot afford to do so. I cannot afford anything. Therefore, I depart for the day in good time, despite my late arousal from the night’s sleep. I walk out of the courtyard of my home, which is the roof of my cousin’s home beneath me. The houses we build in Cana have to be built on top of each other with such a steeply slanted landscape. I hurry down the series of stairs, thin at length. The sky is just lightening with its early morning blue, brightest where the sun will rise in the east. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I regrettably meet my cousin Ezra as he walks out of the door of his own home. “Shalom, Daniel,” Ezra loudly exclaims, slapping me on the back. “Shalom,” I say in reply, shoulders arching. Ezra’s son joins his father at the doorway, eagerly awaiting the day’s adventure of building a great city. “You look like a tired mess. Were you out carousing all night?” Ezra inspects me, one eyebrow raised quizzically. One side of his lip lifts slightly beneath his thick mustache. “You know I do not carouse, cousin. I have been hard at work.” Ezra truly is the pest out of all of my brethren. Needing to get away from him already, I take an opposite turn around the house, into a narrow alleyway. “We all have been hard at work,” I hear Ezra call after me. Ignoring him, I choose to stand against the cool wall of his house, waiting. A salamander slides across the wall of the adjacent house in front of me, belonging to Bartholomew, the leather-worker. After deciding I have waited alone long enough, I emerge from the alleyway, toward the Glassmaker’s, Tanner’s, and Potter’s shops, stationed slightly downhill at the edge of the village to keep the fumes and smells away. I hurry down the steep hill, not bothering to take the donkey path that snakes up the hill for easy travel. Instead, I bound downward, through the purple thistles. I curse as I feel the rough scratch of thorns on my skin. Ignoring it, I follow the other half-a-dozen builders at the bottom of the hill, traveling south for their hour’s walk to Sepphoris. As I catch up to them, I walk at least ten paces behind the rest of the men and their sons. “Daniel! What are you lagging behind for?” Ezra looks over his shoulder, not slowing down as he moves across the yellow grassy field. “I am not lagging. I am…praying,” I say. It is a lie. The sun peaks out from the eastern hills, my eyes leaping away from its brightness. “Then ask Adonai to be merciful! I say today will be the hottest day of the year!” Ezra throws a lazy hand in the air and continues his conversation with the other men. I usually walk with them when traveling to work, but I fear what may come from conversing with them. The tax collector will be coming any day now and their kind are not known for their mercy. It would appear in the eyes of any Jewish man that I am well off and can pay my taxes, even if the collectors are cheating scum. I have a consistent job with a consistent day’s wages. I make the same as my fellow builders, as we are skilled carpenters and masons. I make one dinar a day. Sometimes more, depending on how wealthy the owner of the building is. I also make locks and windowpanes and plows for the other inhabitants of Cana. Those are enough funds for my wife, son, and I to eat, keep up the chicken, and the goat. It is enough to give the tax collector over half of my wages. Most of it then goes to Caesar. Some of it goes to Herod—the man who has issued the rebuilding of the city of Sepphoris, making it the capital of his region of Galilee. But even with this, I should have enough to buy my pregnant wife one ripe peach in honor of our marriage. Dread, guilt, and panic plop into the bottom of my stomach like cow dung. Leah’s sister will be coming to live with us in a month to help birth the second child. I will have to feed her as well! My thoughts run to what I must do after work. My only option is the one I have been doing every night for weeks. Go to the inn and make an income off of a game of dice. If I am lucky. Following my neighbors, I walk across the landscape, wheat fields on my left and stone terraces and olive groves on the right. I can hear the clatter of horses’ hooves on the road in the distance and the chatter of travelers. Swatting away a couple flies, I feel the temperature rising already, dry, but dense. Soon, we meet the Roman road, covered with travelers, caravans, and tradesmen. As I step on the gray stone pavement, a Roman soldier on his pure white horse gallops past me, his bright red cape bloating behind him. Craftsman and merchants are ahead of and behind me, leading their animals that are pulling carts piled with their products to sell in the market of the big city. A couple wealthy foreigners make their way on the crooked backs of camels, clothed in purple garments and silk turbans. There it is, every man’s destination: Sepphoris. Years ago, when I was just a boy, the city was burned to bits by a Galilean revolt. Then, the extravagant Herod Antipas chose Sepphoris as his diamond to show off to the nations, issuing every carpenter, mason, and builder from the surrounding villages to come and build it up until it is a polished ornament. Complete with a ridiculously large amphitheater and a network of waterworks, it reeks of pagan Romans and Greeks, and that is even with a mostly Jewish population! At least a dozen years into the project, I have worked on it since my father first taught me the trade, but the city is still not complete to Herod’s liking. My father passed away shortly after my marriage to Leah, but I have kept up the trade with Ezra and my other relatives. My mother has been dead since I was a child. I hardly remember her. I have lost sight of Ezra and my neighbors in the growing stream of people, but I will meet up with them soon enough at the worksite. As I get closer to the city, I see people moving in and out of the tan walls. Men are already on the top stories of rich mansions, finishing the pink tiled roofs for Greek merchants, government officials, and tax collectors. The pointed tip of one temple is visible from here, but I do not care to know which pagan idol it is for. We devout Jews refuse to build homes for the gods of Greeks and Romans. But, if they pay us to build the homes of men, we will accept for monetary reasons. I do not go inside the walls of the city, but am just on the outskirts, working on building a series of humble but qualified homes for a Greek landlord. There are at least three dozen builders, gathered on the quarried worksite. Rocks and gravel mound on the ground. A few finished limestone houses, fully plastered, give promise to the ones that are just being carved out of bedrock, or simply have the cornerstones in place in preparation for mounting the walls. “Behold! Daniel has found us worthy of his presence!” Ezra says loudly to a cluster of other builders between the foundations of two homes. The men look at me with sly smiles and raised brows. I look away from them, trying not to be intimidated by their stares. Puffing up my chest, I remind myself that I am a man. I have been one for seven years. I began reading the Torah at five. Every law passed down from Moses and the tradition of our elders was drilled into my brain by the time I was ten. At twelve, I read the writings of the prophets aloud in the synagogue, at last, a true man. The little teenager that I was, strove to be a man, strong as an ox and fierce as a desert storm. It was my aspiration to follow ritual purification to the last drop of water and follow the commandments of Adonai with zeal. I looked forward to the day that I would take a wife, beautiful as a daughter of a king, and she would bear me a son. I would teach my son the trade; how to cut wood and stone precisely to build a sturdy habitation. I would have more sons and maybe a couple of daughters. I would please Adonai by pleasing all the men of Cana, earning their respect, admiration, and praise. Naturally, good wealth would come with that. Perhaps not the wealth of Solomon, or even Job when Adonai gave him a fortune, but the comfortable wealth of a successful carpenter, who would be a beloved man in the eyes of his villagers. I am a man. My hands are rough from years of hard labor, be it drilling, chiseling, nailing, hauling, or lifting. My shoulders are broad, and my arms are robust. My large feet, constricted in my leather sandals, hold the weight of all the burdens and loads that Adonai has yoked to me. “What did Adonai say to you as you prayed, Daniel?” Ezra asks, his arms crossed over his chest in amusement. I swat away a fly. There is more than one pest for me to deal with. “That wine is arrogant, strong drink is riotous and none who are intoxicated by them are wise,” I say, satisfied with my use of the classic proverb. Everyone knows Ezra was the first man passed out from drink when we feasted for the holy day of Purim this spring. Ezra scowls, his large mustache covering his full upper lip. “O young man, in your youth.” He clucks his tongue as if disregarding an annoying child. “We are raising the walls of five homes today,” the landlord interrupts us in Greek. I only use the Greek language when speaking with gentiles. Sauntering over the rocks as if it were a silk carpet, the landlord holds his hands behind his back. The workers gather together and quiet themselves. “I want these homes built and sold in the next month.” The landlord turns to the head architect. “Divide these men accordingly.” Beginning immediately, the architect scans the lot of us and begins pointing random men to different tasks. “You will be hauling stones. I need you three based at the pully,” the Jewish architect speaks to us in our native tongue of Aramaic. “I am basing you for framing the doors and windows. Have these ones help you move the ashlared blocks. Take a couple mules with you. And you, make sure the windows do not exceed half a cubit in length. And you,” the architect says, looking at me pointedly. “Get started on mixing the mortar.” That pile of dung in my stomach only expands. I glance at my right at the pit we men carved last week for creating mortar. It is one of the most mundane, simple, back-breaking tasks there is! A stupid child could mix mortar, but the landlord does not seem to care for my intelligence. With the landlord’s eyes upon me, I waste no time grabbing a thick wooden stick, with a sort of paddle at the end of it and begin the grueling task of mixing the immense quantity of soil and chalk together. With the mortar, we will fill in the cracks between the stones of the walls we build. Perspiration settles over my skin and I adjust my headwrap so that it fully covers the back of my neck from the sun. Ripping my worn leather sandals from my feet, I cast them aside and hop right into the soil of the pit, large enough to be a full mikveh, a pool specifically for ritual purification. My toes twiddle, thankful for the cool feel of dirt beneath my feet. My calloused hands firmly hold the stick and I begin pounding it into the dry substance, coaxing the chalk on the edges to mix with the soil. A couple of men are ordered to pour in more water to make it a greater mud-like consistency. “You! Help him mix the mortar. Hurry up, now,” I hear the architect say from a distance. I blow out a breath, trying to expel the heavy stench of chalk, charcoal, plaster, paint, and tar from my nose. It is a smell I am used to wherever I build, but on days as hot as this one, it makes me want to vomit. I do not bother to look over my shoulder at who has been assigned to work with me. I build with hundreds of workers, only knowing a few by name. I notice the figure of the smaller man jump into the pit beside me. “Shalom,” the small man’s voice wishes me peace. It is a youthful voice, perhaps of a lad. I look up. A youth indeed. Several years younger than myself. A teenager who has not yet reached his full strength. “Shalom,” I say in return, pushing my stick into the substance. This is too grueling of work to chatter. More men come to dump large barrels of water into the mixture. It rises up to my calves, cool and refreshing. I continue plodding the dry granules with the water. “What is your name?” The teenager asks and then huffs as he starts plowing his stick into the substance. I throw him a perturbed glance. “Daniel.” “Daniel,” the boy repeats. “Daniel, son of…?” “Daniel.” “Ah,” the boy says. “Daniel, son of Daniel. Where are you from?” I truly have no desire to utter one word to anyone all day. “Cana.” “Daniel, son of Daniel of Cana. I hear Cana is on a fierce hill? Does that keep the mosquitoes away?” “So they say.” I shrug. Why is this little boy conversing with me? “Do you like your village?” “There is no shade.” I focus on the blackened mortar below me. “Adonai is your keeper, Daniel. Adonai is your shade.” “So the psalmist says,” I grunt, my voice strained by my work. I think of the inn that is a short walk inside the city. What could I make with the dinar I earn today? I could make at least twice the amount. “You do not think so?” The teenager questions. “I never said that.” “What do you think?” “You ask a lot of questions for a boy,” I say, hoping he takes it as an insult. When I was fifteen, I would give a young calf to be called a man. I still would. “You speak very little for a man.” “Who are you?” I turn to the boy in a jerked motion to get a good look at him. His skin shines with sweat, reflecting the harsh sun like metal. His brown hair, which is in terrible curly disarray shows hints of auburn in the light. He is knee deep into the mixture, his tunic wet with dirt water and his tan arms and face are splattered with the muddy substance. A soiled, thin kerchief hangs around his neck. His brows are fully rounded, making him appear very alert, but not scared or anxious—just attentive. His eyes are a heated swirl of cinnamon, almond, and burning wood. Hints of a beard spot his chin. He smiles at me, setting me on edge. It is far too big of a smile. “Why are you smiling?” I poke my stick again and again into the mixture as I watch him. Likewise, he pokes his stick repeatedly but keeps his eyes on mine. “What is there not to smile about?” “You are mixing dirt for gentiles.” “I do not mix dirt for gentiles, Daniel. I mix dirt for Adonai.” My face contorts at his oddity. No boy speaks like this! “Who are you?” “I am Jesus of Nazareth.” “Nazareth!” I let out a cruel chortle. If any village was considered less than Cana, it would certainly be that little farming place, overshadowed by Sepphoris, its great Herodian neighbor. Once again, I look down at my work, thankful the mixture is becoming a consistent wet slop. I push through the mortar to focus on combining the dry chalk at the edges of the pit. “Daniel.” I look up, thinking I heard my name. I see the teenager looking at me. Did he say my name? I turn my gaze from him and carry on. “Daniel.” “Here I am…” I drawl in irritation, eyeing the strange lad. “Daniel.” “Speak your mind, Jesus of Nazareth! I am listening.” I look again at his eyes, colored like roasting embers, as they heavily concentrate on me. A part of me wishes to scold the boy but for some reason that only Adonai knows, I do not. “Tell me about your day, Daniel.” A frustrated, “ha,” emerges from me as I wipe my brow with the back of my arm, knowing I have just smeared mortar on my face. “I will tell you, young Jesus of Nazareth. I woke early but not early enough. Usually, I get up before the cocks first crow, but I lingered in bed. Finally, my wife woke me. I hurried to wash my face, don my clothes, collect my tools, and get my meal from my wife. Now, I am mixing mortar on perhaps the hottest day of the year with a peculiar boy from Nazareth.” “And what will you do after the day’s work?” His voice is neither quick nor urgent. It is fully calm but certainly curious. “I…” Why does he care? “I…” I think to formulate a lie, but I am fearful the boy will know. “I will go into the city. To the inn by the theater.” Workers come to add straw to the mortar, which will decrease the risk of cracking when it dries. I hurry to push the straw into the mixture. Glancing up quickly, I see Jesus still looking at me, clearly waiting for me to continue. “And I…I will take my daily dinar and…I will make two dinars.” He keeps looking at me, even as he mixes the mortar with the strength of a stone olive press. “I…eh…I will cast lots.” My legs press against the thick slop. “The inn is a good place to increase my earnings.” Why does he still stare at me? “I uh…” What am I to tell this boy? He has no right to know my personal business. What I do with my day is mine to know and mine alone. And Adonai. “I lost most of my wages this past month,” I say it aloud, surprising myself. My face turns terribly red and it is not because of the sun. “But I swear to Adonai,” I jump to explain. “I was multiplying it! If luck comes again, I will make up for it before the tax collector arrives at the end of the week! I did not always gamble. I never had in my life. But this year, with our young son…I wanted some more time out of the house because…well, married life was fun for our nuptial week, but I am the man of a household now and she is with child again and I am completely dependent upon myself and no other. A year ago, I went down to the inn, deciding to reward myself with some fine wine and I was cajoled into one game. One little game! I was successful and one led to another and another. I bought Leah earrings with it! And I got myself a new cloak. I told her I found extra work in Sepphoris, and that is why I came home late every night with surplus goods. My cousin, Ezra, might suspect my actions or think they are graver than they really are—I am not sure! Now, Leah’s time is in only a couple months. I have gambled away every shekel I own—every dinar! What I make today is all I have and I will multiply it tonight. You are a devote servant of Adonai, boy? Pray to him that he shows me favor. I have committed no folly. I am no sinner. I follow all of the commandments. I cheat no one. I play fairly and justly and with good intention—to provide for myself and my wife and our children. Did not the sailors cast lots to ask Adonai if Jonah was the cause of the storm? Tonight! Tonight, Adonai may show me favor once again. I promise to fast vigorously for the Day of Atonement at the start of the new year. I will then offer three doves in the Temple for the Feast of Dedication. And, I will contribute four dinars to the Temple treasury! Adonai must only bless me tonight, you see?” I can hear my breath winding wildly and I realize I have stopped working the mortar and Jesus has as well. He looks at me with the same calm expression. Did I just recount a year’s worth of burdens to this teenage boy? I take a deep breath, but my throat feels clogged as if the mortar is stuck in it. “Daniel,” Jesus says to me, gently. What oddity! What boy speaks in such a manner? What little boy looks at another man as if he were the father and the man was his infant son? If I were in a more stable state of emotion, I would care what the other workers would think of this! What the landowners would say if they found us relaxing. “What do you want Adonai to do for you?” Jesus slowly presses against the mixture of filth, moving toward me, and resumes stirring. “I…I told you…” I shove my stick into the mortar, my toes curling over the grime. Men begin taking buckets full of it to raise the walls. “I want…money for my pregnant wife and child. For myself. For my taxes that are due for the devil’s kindred!” “Daniel, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Jesus asks. He then adds thoughtfully, “I came upon a wild peach tree this week.” My body jerks at the word, “peach.” The manly part of me thinks this boy must be some pathetic harpist, grazing among the lilies of the field. The boy in me wants to tremble at the thought of ripe peaches, for I have failed to provide my wife with one peach. “It was hidden behind a hill near my village,” Jesus explains, his shoulders lifting slightly as he stirs. He moves out of the way for a worker to lower a bucket into the pit and collect the mortar. “No man was caring for the tree. It had the choicest of fruits, ripe, clothed like soft fabrics, and the colors of sunset. Surely Solomon had never tasted a finer peach. The tree did not toil nor spin. It did nothing by itself, yet Adonai, the Creator clothed it and nurtured it. Are you not more precious than a peach, Daniel, to the Creator? If Adonai provides for the wild fruits, will he not provide for the fruit of his hand—the man he made in his own image?” It takes all of my willpower to continue working as the boy speaks. A cartful of soil is piled into the pit to make more mortar. “Why do you search for riches on your own account in useless gambling and play? Why do you put your faith in dice? Do you believe in dice to provide for you and your family?” I shake my head. “I do not…dice no…” “Be not afraid. Put your faith in Adonai. Do not put it in casting lots or the things that the world can buy.” “Dice are as useless as stone idols!” I exclaim. “I know that! But I am a married man with a family to care for!” “Daniel. Daniel,” Jesus says slowly, stirring now as if the mortar were a stew. “Daniel! Daniel,” I cry, stabbing my stick into the mortar. “A man whom lions bow to! I am no man!” Jesus’ rounded eyebrows raise. “Did Daniel tame the lions?” My brows knit together. “No. Adonai tamed the lions for his faithful servant.” Jesus tilts his head to the side, hardly blinking, despite the chalky dust around us. Adonai tamed the lions for his faithful servant. “What do you propose I do, Jesus of Nazareth?” “Work well today,” he says with a mixture of thoughtfulness and confidence. “Work for Adonai.” Jesus smiles as he pushes the substance around. “When you have finished, go home to your wife. Pray.” He lifts a blackened finger to the heavens. “Put your faith in Adonai to provide for your family. Wake up the next day for Adonai. Work hard again. Pray and give thanks. Do not gamble away your earnings. When the time for taxes arrives, give what is due to Caesar to Caesar. Give what is due to Adonai to Adonai.” A line of assembly forms to haul the mortar to the walls and settle it between the stones. I am issued by the architect to begin building, my whole body dripping with the elements of the earth. The Nazarene and I are separated. My hands tingle as I work. Perhaps it is from the forceful mixing motion I have been doing all morning, or perhaps it is because of my mind settling the words Jesus spoke. Sweat falls down my whole body but it may as well be the flow of droplets from a waterfall. The heat is like a series of bodies pressing in on me, but it may as well be a sea breeze. The man in my mind is searching for ways to provide for myself. The boy in my mind is searching for Adonai to provide for myself. For the rest of the day, I observe Jesus as he works. We do not cross paths, but I see him working on the other houses, plopping giant stones on the foundations. I observe him speak to those he works beside. Then, I see him work quietly and with great concentration. He is indeed the strangest man I have ever encountered. When late afternoon arrives, my muscles are heavy with the satisfaction of a day’s worth of good work. I pull the headwrap from my head, enjoying the feel of air between my strands of hair and my neck. “Daniel.” I turn immediately, recognizing the voice. “Where are you going?” Jesus asks, scratching his dirt-covered arm. “Home,” I tell him. “Why are you smiling?” Jesus fiddles with the satchel slung over his shoulder. I cover my mouth with my hand, not realizing that I was. I lift my shoulders in a slight shrug, my smile broadening. “What is there not to smile about?” Jesus clasps his hand good-naturedly on the back of my linen tunic, returning the smile in full. “Perhaps I will see you tomorrow at work?” I say, curious about this young man. Who is his father? Who are his brethren? Who is his teacher? “My father and brethren work in Sepphoris nearly every day. Surely, we will see each other again.” Jesus shakes his unruly hair with his hand. “Perhaps one day, you, Leah, and your child can visit us in Nazareth.” Jesus looks up at the walls we raised today and then back at me. “My mother likes visitors. She bakes as if for a wedding banquet.” I incline my head, unsure of how to respond to the friendly offer. “Are you coming back with us today, Daniel?” Ezra calls, one hand on the shoulder of his son. My eyes jump to that cousin of mine. “I am,” I respond curtly. Taking one last look at Jesus, I turn north to take the road back to Cana. “And Daniel?” “Huh?” I look back at Jesus, who has one hand in his sack-cloth satchel. “Take this home for your wife.” Jesus pulls out a rounded yellow-orange fruit. He stretches it toward me. Slowly, I take it from him. My hands brush against its fuzzed surface. A ripe peach. In 2019, I began my Junior year, Spring Semester of college at Central Michigan University. Due to the handicap that my OCD and clinical depression bring, it became unreasonable for me to attend classes. The therapy and medication I were receiving was not enough to keep me stable. So, in February, I dropped my classes and received a doctor authorized full-refund. Then, my depression led to my admittance to a hospital close to home so I could receive sufficient medical attention. I am doing miraculously better and I want to share my hope and improvement with you. For the most intimate act of love in which our Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep, is the cross. This Lent, we remember that Catholics cling to the cross. In the cross we have salvation. In the cross we have resurrection and life. Those who sow in tears will sing when they reap (Psalm 126:5). Perhaps the illness explains why I have not blogged in the past couple of months. Also, I was embarrassed that "From Convent to College," should now be "From College to Clinic." But, I plan on returning to college this summer, God willing, so I think the title still stands true! This Lent, I've been in the hospital in the psych unit for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Major Depressive Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder. My first draft of this post was written in the hospital just so I am being totally real with you all. I pray that there is something in my witness that instills the Holy Spirit to work in your life. Please pray for me! I am praying for you. I hope to post more frequently again--at least once a month. Greetings from Indianapolis, Indiana! I am reporting to you at a national Catholic young adult conference called SEEK. This conference is put on by FOCUS--the Fellowship of Catholic University Students.
I am one of over 17,000 (mostly) young people gathered here to praise God, learn about Him and His Church, encounter Jesus, grow in fellowship with other young people, and to discover my personal God-given purpose and identity in life. Why is this conference worthy of an episode of Unexpected Church Members? It isn't the conference. It's the people attending. Now, the common perception is that the young people in our modern world are... You fill in the blank. Young people are____________________________. Here is what I personally gathered as the most common perceptions: Modern young people are lazy. Modern young people are self-absorbed. Modern young people are materialistic. Modern young people are faithless. Granted, there is surely a reason for filling in lazy, self-absorbed, materialistic, and faithless in the blank. Such descriptions have to come from somewhere, be it the reflection of television, social media, the news, celebrities, decreased or minimal church attendance, or decreased or minimal church participation and activity. With our viewpoint of young people being those negative blank, blank, and blank, we have a shadowed view of the world because we are focusing on the sins young people commit. One speaker at SEEK, Mallory Smyth, explained on Friday that our level of joy connects with how we view the world. For example, if I view the world through my own eyes--say, what I see in the mirror in my bathroom--my joy can be crushed because I have a bad hair day. Yet, if I look away from that mirror and look at what St. Clare of Assisi calls the "mirror of eternity," my joy is not relative to my looks or my success, or the approval of others. Instead, it is a constant joy as the mirror of eternity reveals what one of the songs played at SEEK described, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). This is the eternal Jesus Who is Truth! In truth, it is without a doubt that I, as a young woman, am of the image and likeness of God. Through Baptism, I have become an adopted daughter of the Eternal Father. I am the Beloved of Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High. I am rushed with love by Love Itself. The truth is also that I fail. I act lazy. I have attitudes and actions of self-absorption. I choose materialism. And I admit, I tend to live faithlessly. I just mentioned two parts of Truth. The truth that I am a daughter of the Eternal Father and also the truth that I fail. The first is a state of identity and being. The second is my own sinful actions. I am not laziness itself--that is not my identity! My identity is not sin and evil and bad choices. My identity is that rushing of love by Love Itself! My identity is goodness because God is good and saw that I was good. To make up for all of those bad choices and sin, Jesus Christ redeems me. Every young person is good; made in the good image of God. So, we young people are an interesting lot. We act lazy because we seek rest. We act self-absorbed because we seek absorption in the One Who made us like Himself. We live materialistically because we seek satisfaction. The last one is a bit different. We live faithlessly because we are not seeking. If we do not seek God, we live without faith. And here is the blessed hope in which I write today in Indianapolis. At SEEK 2019, we young people are seeking God. We seek rest, absorption in Him, satisfaction, and we know we can only find that in Him. We young people are seekers and as the faithful know, when we seek, we find (Jeremiah 29:13; Matthew 7:7). Let us break that mirror image that reflects mere shadows; that image that shows sin as our conqueror and identity. "Place your mind before the mirror of eternity" (St. Clare of Assisi). That eternal mirror reveals passionate youth who desire to be saints, who need your intercession and example to act heroic and selfless, who are willing missionaries because they have experienced Eternal Love and are ready to share Him, and who are active seekers who find Jesus Christ in their lives each and every day. Pray for us unexpected Church members. Hey all! Peace in Christ to you! My prayers are with you during this October month of the Holy Rosary. Also, it's Respect Life Month and last week was national OCD Awareness Week. So much goodness! And this Sunday is World Mission Sunday! So much to look forward to as well. World Youth Day is just around the corner, January 2019, in Panama! My dear, dear friends, I just got out of Confession, so that might be why I'm on a writing high and you'll be getting lots of exclamation points. During Confession, the priest was telling me about the World Mission Rosary. It was started by the famously awesome Archbishop Fulton Sheen. For each decade of the rosary, there is a different color, each representing a different region of the world. Check it out! What I'm getting at here are our unexpected church members. This is a wide subject, but this episode is for our friends all around the whole wide world. See, I can get so stuck in my own world of Jacqueline; my own family and circle of friends; my parish up at school; my parish at home; the Central Michigan University community; my city of Bloomfield Hills. Lately, God has been shooting fireworks to get my attention. Really cool, startling bright fireworks. It's as if, I originally saw fireworks in the color orange. Orange and nothing else--that's how fireworks used to be--the color of fire. But technology has advanced, creating all sorts of colors of fireworks with different effects. Think of the sparkly ones, the crackle ones, the multi-colored ones, and the weird circle ones, and the swimming fish fireworks (not sure if all of those descriptions make sense...4th of July opinions...). My point is that orange is a great looking firework and all, it's bright and beautiful, but God is showing me so many more colors in different languages, cultures, and races. During my internship this summer with the Archdiocese of Detroit, I got to work a couple of events with our Hispanic Ministry and Evangelization teams. Guys, it was so cool, humbling, and eye-opening to be the only person in a room who didn't speak Spanish! What a gift--an uncomfortable gift--but a gift nonetheless. I mean, if you want to see advanced fireworks, you gotta get out of your own store-bought fireworks in your backyard. You gotta go out into the dark, cold, crowded, buggy, and sometimes rainy night to see the fireworks. Seeing other cultures, hearing different languages, and feeling like you look like the odd-one-out is like going out into the cold night air--it's a bit shocking and chilling. And it's out of your backyard (at least for me in the suburbs. I know some people see professional fireworks from their lake-view backyards). But what a display!!! Ok, I'm so excited. Check this link out. This website contains pictures from the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel. Countries from all around the world have donated paintings, statues, and mosaics depicting Mary, the Mother of God, to this Basilica. So when you visit the Basilica, you get to see images of Mary from Indonesia, to Canada, to Hungary! Each image is a depiction of Mary but from a different angle and different perspective. God is not flat! Just as the earth He created is not flat! He is beyond three dimensional! So, I'm celebrating and enjoying the members of the Church from all over. And think! I live in Detroit! I can pull into the Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Church and then Most Holy Redeemer in Mexicantown, and then St. Moses the Black Parish all in one day! What is God asking me to do with this colorful insight? Well, I'm going to share some inspirations and ideas:
Other members of our Church may have ways, methods, practices, and styles that are foreign to me, but they are not foreign to God. Here is to the unfamiliar! Here is to our precious Body of Christ! Hey, there! Originally, I was planning on a fun welcome back to school post, but just as there is a time for dancing, there is also a time for mourning (Ecclesiastes 3:4). What has horrified many people with the recent exploitation of abuse by members of the Catholic Church is the secrecy, cover-up, and silence of the Church over such terrible crimes. So as not to imitate this on my blog, I will not ignore, keep secret, cover-up, or be silent about the atrocious sins of our people. I must acknowledge it. See, I am honestly scared. Here I am, shouting from the rooftops that I love the Catholic Church when all around me, things are blowing up about crime, scandal, and sin within the Catholic Church. What will people think of me for loving the Church with this scandal? I look to our beloved Jesus and say, "Ah! Help! What is this? What do I think? What do I do?" I'm just going to give you my perspective. I have no authority and I can't label it as the truth. Authority and truth belong to God, as Jesus Christ the Son of God is Truth. This is simply the perspective of a young Catholic college student who loves the Body of Christ, the Church, but is hurting. I assume you know about self-harm. It is inflicting harm upon oneself and can come in the form of cutting, skin-picking, and scratching to name a few. I have been guilty of self-harm. During some of my depressive/obsessive/whatever-you-want-to-call-it episodes, I would hurt my body. I won't give details because I believe giving too many details can give other people who are hurting ideas and ruminations about what they could do. My body belongs to Christ. So, I hurt my body. I hurt Christ's body. Christ, in His love, offers me redemption and forgiveness when I repent in faith during the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Since I have repented of my sins of self-harm, resolved to not commit self-harm again, and have trusted in the mercy of God, Christ has purified me so that I, whose sins were like scarlet, are now as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). Praised be to God. That is what the whole Bible teaches from the Old Testament to the New Testament: we sinful people who are unfaithful to God, are constantly loved and forgiven by God and despite our weakness, sin, and failure, are made like God! It's pretty incredible. In truth, it is a romance story. Haha, I love romance! Read the book of Hosea. It is about a prophet named Hosea who is told by God to marry a prostitute named Gomer. Gomer is unfaithful to Hosea, but each moment of unfaithfulness is followed by mercy and love from Hosea. Though Gomer constantly turns away from Hosea, Hosea does not turn away from Gomer. God wants Hosea to do such an incredible act to show the people of Israel a reflection of His love for Israel. Though Israel turns from Him, the Lord lovs Israel. Despite unfaithfulness, God is merciful and loving. In my own body and in my own life, I am Gomer. I am unfaithful to God but He is merciful and loving to me. So that is my body. I'm going to shift gears and talk about THE Body. The Body of Christ. The Church. I am a little part of the huge Body of Christ, made up of the faithful on earth, the faithful in purgatory, and the saints in Heaven. Since I am a member of the Body, let's figuratively think that I am a sliver of the rib (haha, get it? I'm a part of the rib. I'm a woman. Eve came from the rib of Adam! Funny? It made me smile...) So, my role is to be a sliver of the rib. Yours might be the knee-cap, a skin particle, a fingernail, a part of the esophagus, a part of the ankle bone, an arm muscle--I know there are scientific terms for this but you know that is not my strong suit! You get the point, we all make one Body. Christ is the Head of the Body, thank God. I say it again. Christ is the Head of the Body. Thank God. No priest, no pope, no sister, no layperson is the Head of the Body. It is Jesus Who wears the dazzling crown on His Head, King of Heaven and earth, and of all. Now, I just find it absolutely baffling that this King of the Universe, chooses US as His Body. He could have simply remained the Word. The Word is God. The Word Who was not created, but always was with God and was God (John 1:1). But the Word became flesh. And dwelt among us (John 1:14). Jesus, people! Jesus is God made flesh. Jesus is God taking on a body. And what does Jesus do when He takes on a body? He lays every particle of it down for us. He lays down His life for the unfaithful "Gomer" or "Israel." We kill His Body. But God, being God, the Resurrection and the Life Itself, rises from death. Not only this, He lays His Body down so physically and tangibly that He continuously offers us the Eucharist, His very Self so that we may be His Body! We become what we eat. If one part of the Body hurts, the whole Body hurts (1 Corinthians 12:26). With another rise of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, our Church leaders have hurt our Body. They have inflicted horrific self-harm. Not just some little scratches. They have abused Our Body. Let's use this imagery: Say these accused priests are parts of the right hand of the Body. The hands have cut and scraped and torn and beat and whatever other verbs you wish to add, to the left arm of the Body. That left arm is on fire and screaming with pain. Even worse, imagine if the right hand is abusing the left arm and the left hand is doing nothing to prevent it! The left hand allows the right hand to abuse. Our whole Body, the Body of Christ is hurting because of what that right hand has done. We hurt even more because of what the left hand has done. We are crying and complaining and screaming in pain and confusion. For how can the Body hurt its own Body? The same way I willingly and knowingly have harmed my own body. What is the Head doing, we ask? If no priest or bishop is head of the Church, what is Christ doing? Christ, the Head is looking at the injured arm, examining the wounds. The Head is smelling the blood and sweat. The Head is hearing the moans of His members. The Head is speaking. Do you hear Him? Telling the members of His Body to act; to dress and cleanse the wounds of the left arm; that, and to STOP that right hand from inflicting harm to its own Body! But there is more! What about the Heart of the Body? Guys, call this weird, but I think it is awesome! I think this Body is so wonderful, so heavenly, so precious, and so powerful that the Body of Christ has TWO hearts! The first heart is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The second is the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which imitates the Sacred Heart. What is pumping from these two giant hearts of love? Blood! The Precious Blood of Jesus. Yes, it sounds gruesome, but so was hanging Jesus on the cross, me inflicting harm on myself, priests committing abuse, and leaders covering-up abuse. So beneath each member of the Body is Precious Blood pumping, and the two Hearts are keeping our Body functioning and loving, even if members of the Body are inflicting self-harm. It is because of our free-will that Christ allows His Body to cause harm. It is because of His omnipotence and everlasting Love that He allows us to be a part of Him and His LOVE! Sharing this is painful but necessary: Our Heavenly Father is perfect. If we are to be a part of Him, we also must be perfect (Matthew 5:48). Well, guess what? I've tried and I can't be perfect. But one day I will be. And it won't be of any effort of my own. The only thing I will have to do with it is saying, "yes" to God. God is the One Who makes us perfect. If I say "yes" to Him, then He makes me new, He makes me a part of Him, and He makes me like His beautiful Self. If I say "no" to Him, I am saying "no" to being made perfect. Each member of the Body of Christ is either choosing perfection or choosing imperfection. If we choose perfection, our sins are forgiven and our greatest weaknesses will be glorified. If we choose imperfection, our part of the Body will be cut off. We will no longer be the Body, but we will be a dead member. For the Body is pure, perfect, humble, loving, true and good! ...Here I am, back for my Junior year at Central Michigan University. I'm just a little part of the Body of Christ. I plan on saying "yes" to my beloved Head, Christ, for the rest of my life. I am only a little sliver of the rib, though, so I'm quite a weakling and can't do much and regrettably will choose to harm the Body with some sort of sin again. But the Precious Blood of Jesus washes over me so that I may be forgiven and redeemed. The Head speaks Wisdom to me and gives me His Flesh so that I may become more like Him. Other members of the Body are really weak too. For some, those weaknesses will be made great strengths through our powerful Blood of Christ. For others, those weaknesses will be made even weaker through our not-powerful selves. I love the Body of Christ, the Church! I love the weak members and the strong members! As St. Paul says, when one member of the body is weak, the rest must help out and be strong (1 Corinthians 12)! Or in other words, when one messes up and sins, we must strive for virtue and love! Impurity is a weakness. Christ Jesus, my Head, make me a pure, spotless bride before You as You are the pure, spotless Lamb. I resolve to be pure! Make Gomer; make Israel; make the Church Your pure Bride. Dishonesty is a weakness. Christ Jesus, my Heart, make me vulnerable, open, honest, and true as You epitomize vulnerable honesty upon the Cross. I resolve to be honest! Make Gomer; make Israel; make the Church Your honest Body. Abuse is a weakness. Immaculate Mary, my Heart, pray that I will be nurturing, caring, and loving as you, Mother of God, stand by your Son's side during His weakest and greatest moment. I resolve to be nurturing! Pray that like Gomer; like Israel; we will indeed be Mother Church. Hatred is a weakness. Christ Jesus, my Precious Blood, make me loving, merciful, and forgiving as You are to the point of death. I resolve to be loving! Make Gomer; make Israel; make the Church one flesh with You Who Are Perfection. Welcome to the newly released series: Unexpected Church Members! We will premier the season with: "The Intercessors!" Intercessors are unexpected, often unknown, and underappreciated members of the Holy Church. They are the ones who pray on behalf of others. Sherry Weddell, the founder of Called and Gifted, explains that intercessors are Christians who are in the front lines. These are the ones in the middle of all of the action (Weddell, Sherry Anne. The Called & Gifted Workshop, Understand Your Gifts; Discover Your Call. Catherine of Siena Institute, Audio CD). Some variations of intercessors include cloistered religious, Eucharistic adorers, Marian devotees, parish prayer teams, parents, priests, and Holy Mass participants. Cloistered religious are probably the most obvious example of intercessors as prayer is their central mission. They can be religious men or women--monks or nuns. Cool thing: St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Francis Xavier are the patron saints of missionaries. Now, St. Francis Xavier was a classic missionary, who went to Japan and did all sorts of dangerous stuff to proclaim the word of God. Makes sense that he is the patron of missionaries. Yet, St. Therese is the co-patron. St. Therese was a cloistered nun. She never left her convent. But she was interceding. So, missionaries and street evangelists and people who are visibly proclaiming the word of God are powered by the prayer of others. My personal opinion is that St. Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity could not have and cannot accomplish anything if it were not for their sisters, the cloistered nuns. As another example, let's look at the Poor Clares (big surprise with that choice...but I can't help it, I know them well!). Poor Clares are cloistered nuns who separate themselves from the world, by dwelling in an enclosed monastery (which is the very House of God), and, living in a spirit of humility, self-denial, and poverty, offer themselves as channels for God to work His mercy and wonders. St. Clare, the founder of the Poor Clare nuns, loved the Eucharist. In other words, she loved the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in the humble form of bread and wine. Now, St. Clare was with her fellow nuns in their convent, likely praying, as that is what they do best. Well, an army of Saracen soldiers were coming upon St. Clare's town in Assisi, Italy. They were invading and would destroy them all, including the nuns. What did St. Clare do? She looked at the Eucharistic Jesus and said something like, "Lord Jesus! Are You going to let Your handmaids be delivered into the hand of our enemies? Won't You protect us?" You usually hear Jesus speak back to you in a deep voice when you ask Him questions, right? Haha! Well, Jesus said to her, "I will always protect you." And guess what? The Saracens fled from the city in fear! Just think of it! A whole powerful army would have been needed to fight the Saracens and protect the city. Yet, one prayer to the Eucharist (St. Clare's intercession), and they were gone. Powerful, powerful stuff, the Lord God is made of. Remember that we ourselves can fight and train and fight and fight with our own efforts, but prayer is handing the efforts over to God, and He does anything but disappoint. Check out the St. Clare story! That brings us to our Eucharistic adorers. In the churches around the world, there is Exposition of the Holy Eucharist, and in some specific churches, there is Perpetual Adoration! Perpetual Adoration means that Jesus is in the church 24/7, exposing His Precious Body to us. With such a gift, we cannot just let Jesus stand on the altar and have nobody in the church with Him adoring Him. So, there are volunteers who each come for a different hour every week to pray before the Lord. Imagine you are in first century Palestine and you want to go see Jesus for yourself and ask Him face to face to help you and all of these other people. Eucharistic adorers do the same thing today. They go to Jesus and talk to Him face to face. Obviously, He doesn't look like Jesus, but blessed are those who believe even though they do not see Him (John 20:29). Those who have a devotion to Mary tend to be really powerful intercessors as Mary is the Queen of Intercessors. She knows how to go to Jesus at a wedding and tell Him that there is no more wine. Then she tells us to do whatever Jesus tells us, steps back and watches her Son turn water into wine. At the Wedding at Cana, in John's Gospel, Mary is interceding on behalf of the bridegroom, bride, and the family of Cana to give the wedding guests the expected hospitality of wine. So rosary pray-ers, those who are consecrated to Mary, Saturday devotees, and so forth, are imitators of Mary, praying for the world as she is constantly praying for the world. Parents are often intercessors for their children just as Mary intercedes for her children. Another cool saint story for you is about St. Monica and her son, St. Augustine of Hippo. Now, Augustine was a boy and then a man who you would never expect would have "saint" in front of his name. He was rowdy and got into all sorts of nasty stuff, totally rejecting God. St. Monica was on her knees. She was on her knees interceding for Augustine for forty years! At last, after forty years, St. Augustine converted to Christianity, became a Doctor of the Church, a world famous theologian and philosopher, and one of the Early Church Fathers! Without intercessor, St. Monica, there would not have been a St. Augustine. When someone gives you a surprise act of kindness that blows you away, it is very likely that an intercessor's prayers are behind that kind person. When you have this weird illness or ache in your side, or mental exhaustion, and you find rest/relief/help/medical care, an intercessor or army of intercessors is likely behind it. Say you just got a raise at your job. Grandma was sick but is feeling good again. Intercessors are likely behind it. There are often intercessory prayer groups supporting the well-being of a parish or prayer sessions particularly for healing or for vocations to the priestly and religious life. These intercessors are incredible and their faith and trust in God are what I aim for. A personal story of mine is that I've suffered from mental illness. My depression, anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder were really, really bad. I was despairing and I was trapped. I knew I could not get out of the chains that I was in. There came a point when I was so weak, that I did not even whisper a prayer, but inwardly my heart lurched toward God, my Savior--it was an inward hope that He would provide, as I could not provide for myself. He sure did provide. I seriously could name about twenty people off the top of my head who were praying for me. I had tons and tons of cloistered nuns praying for me, and family and friends were praying for me and would tell me they were praying for me constantly. Even Pope Francis was praying for me (he never told me this specifically, you know, but Papa prays for all of his children). I know there are people in the world who were praying that I will never even know until I get to heaven. Guys, I am doing amazing and my life just gets better and better. And I still get people telling me they pray for me every day! Thank you, intercessors! You are unknown, unexpected and hidden. But you are in the front lines, and God is changing the world through you. Now, wait just a minute before you leave this episode of Unexpected Church Members. I can't let you go too quickly, because, you, my dear friend, is called to be an intercessor. See, Mass is not just about fulfilling an obligation to God. It's not just about you getting something out of it. No, it is the highlight of intercessory prayer. This is why priests are special intercessors! When priests pray Holy Mass, they are offering themselves and you to the Lord in prayer. Every saint and angel is praying for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. And every participant (you!) is praying for the whole People of God. We cry together in one voice, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Hosts! Heaven and Earth is filled with Your Glory! Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!" Really lit stuff. And there is even a special place designated in the Mass specifically for intercession. Right between the Creed, when we professor our total faith, and the offering of the gifts, when we give our whole selves to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar (JESUS). This concludes our episode. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. I'd suggest some intercessory prayer to help out with that big mission. I have to admit, my first draft of this post included some beating around the bush. I feel like I'm in Harry Potter world in which we all fear "He Who Must Not Be Named." We may not even acknowledge that he exists. Who? You know who. Voldemort. No. No. I'm kidding. It's not Voldemort for us. Let's try it again. That "evil one" we avoid mentioning. The "dark side" that we often forget or believe does not exist. Satan. Duh duh duh! I said his name! Think of Satan with this Harry Potter/Voldemort analogy (please forgive me devout Harry Potter book lovers, it has been a while since I read the series. And please forgive me, those who do not know Harry Potter world). Voldemort starts off as "He Who Must Not Be Named" or "You Know Who." He is a sort of "deadish" figure in the first book. He is very abstract, so much that he doesn't even have his own body. As the seven books unfold, Harry learns more and more about Voldemort. He learns other names for him such as "Tom Riddle." He learns that Voldemort is divided into many forms known as horcruxes. Eventually, He Who Must Not Be Named is referred to as Voldemort. And eventually, for Harry, Voldemort isn't even Voldemort. He is just Tom. He isn't some all-powerful evil force that is unstoppable. He is just little Tom Riddle. I'm going to switch things drastically now to real stuff--not imaginary stuff that holds realistic themes. Jesus! Think about it: God in the Old Testament comes to Moses as the burning bush. When Moses asks God what His Name is, God says, "I AM WHO I AM" (Ex 3:14). It is the Divine Name YHWH that the Israelites do not even utter, it is so sacred. God seems kind of abstract to me with just reading Genesis or Exodus. I'm no bible scholar, but when I add in the prophetic books, and the wisdom literature, and the historical accounts, and I start learning all sorts of names for God, from the common "Lord God," to "my King and my God" (Psalm 5:2) "the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah 41:16), and "Almighty Lord" (2 Maccabees 3:30), I more fully know His identity. And by the New Testament, we have the big, obvious, Holy Name. Jesus. The one whom Isaiah calls, "Wonder Counselor" (9:6) and "Immanuel" (7:14). Jesus, Who repeatably says, "I Am..." (insert your preference of he, way, truth, life, good shepherd, gate, light, vine, resurrection, bread of life). We start learning all sorts of names and attributes for God from Him being called Our Father, to the Holy Spirit, Who accompanies us when Jesus ascends to His Father. The Names for God are never-ending. We have the one "Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 8:6) in Paul's letters and by Revelation...boy, Revelation...we have the typical Old Testament "Lord our God the Almighty," but we now have Him Who is called the "Lamb" (19:7) and "The Word of God" (19:13). One more, then I promise I'm done: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 21:6). The Bible is such a beautiful book! From Genesis to Revelation, we come to know God through Jesus Christ, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We come to know His identity! Identity, yes, that was the point of this blog post. When we identify something or someone and call it/he/her for what it is, we become free. Satan is no longer some mythical creature or some omnipresent force we can't escape, but he is a real powerless little fallen angel. God is not some foreign Being up in the sky but is Flesh and Blood, Spirit and Life. I'm going to give you a personal example in which identification has helped me become free. It is very common for me as it is common for most people, to have lots of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and experiences. I go through my day, and all sorts of things happen around me and within my brain. To put it bluntly, on some days, I walk into church to visit Jesus, and thoughts come to my mind such as, "You are worthless. I don't want you here. Get out of my sight." Initially, such thoughts are absolutely terrifying! Jesus doesn't want me to visit Him? I am such a bad sinner that He doesn't want me to come near Him? I start feeling really down and depressed and conflicted. Obviously, I should not be here if God doesn't want me here and I am not good enough to stand in His presence. Yep, the thoughts are atrocious until, praised be to God, I identify them. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The lie of worthlessness. The spirit of condemnation. I identify that my OCD is having a tantrum over imperfection, that I am being told by Satan a common lie that I am worthless, and that "jesus" aka Satan is saying I'm going to hell. Here's another example: I may be really mean and nasty to a person and I'm not quite sure why. I may be annoyed and irritable when around him/her and feel like I can't control it until I recognize that I have an attitude of judgment hanging around me. Condemnation and human judgment is not of God. God is salvation. Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it (John 3:17). It is wrong for me to judge. I must call it for what it is--not of God, sin, and temptation from He Who Must Not Be Named--I mean Satan! Identification doesn't just help us become free from sin, temptation, and illness, it gives us grace, faith, hope, and love. For example, I may be driving in the car. I identify that I am hungry and tired, causing me to feel irritable and angry. Then, I come upon a beloved Michigan turn-around, which usually takes forever to get through (and by forever, I mean five minutes). But this one time that I'm driving, I don't even have to wait. The coast is clear. I turn onto the road and I'm home five minutes earlier. I identify that God just gave me a gift. And when given a gift, I am designed to identify it and praise and thank the giver for it. Anyway, I've identified that I'm hungry and tired, as is common for us humans, but that God has placed events, experiences, and encounters around me to be loved by Him and for me to love Him. So, I am learning to identify stuff. To pull out the weed by its roots and not just the tip of the plant that is obvious to see (that is very true for my garden job as well). Sometimes, I need to identify that I hold a resentment in my heart and need to forgive a minor or major thing someone did to me (or I need to forgive myself for my minor or major imperfections). When someone does an act of service for me, I need to identify it, appreciate it, and show them my gratitude (or maybe I need to acknowledge that yes, I am a good person and I do make good choices). This identification is a part of what's known as discernment of spirits or even examination of consciousness. It is paying attention to what is of God, what is of us, and what is of Satan. If you are interested in learning more, here are some book suggestions: Unbound: A Practical Guide to Deliverance by Neal Lozano
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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
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