Tragedy - updated

"I always thought you had a tragic life." - Fran

My cousins were very close to her family, and I always felt like an outsider. Oh, I was close with my cousins, but I wanted to be close to the people they were close to, too. Seems that she knew all about me, though. At the cemetery, waiting for my aunt's funeral procession to arrive, was the first chance I'd ever had to talk with her much, or any member of her family. I was glad for the opportunity to finally have a bit of connection with these ones who were so dear to my aunt and cousins. But she knew I was Shirley's son, knew about when and how my dad had died, about his alcoholism, and did not seem surprised when I mentioned that he wasn't my biodad. 

And she's right, I did have, in multiple ways, a tragic childhood. It didn't seem that way to me at the time, especially, except maybe for when my dad died. That's how childhood is: whatever you experience is what you think of as normal. In retrospect, mine definitely wasn't, and I'm glad to know that now and to have dealt with it. I'm a better person for it. 

Funny thing is, Fran doesn't know nearly the worst of it.

Great thing is, God has already made something far better than tragedy out of it, and there's an eternity more to come.

The Derelict

Not starting this one with a quotation, but it's still inspired by Death on a Friday Afternoon, by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

I haven't been reading or reflecting as much on this book of late while I participated in the Holy Father's requested Annunciation novena for the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For me, this was a matter of obedient availability, of subjecting my agenda to what it seemed God was asking of me. I would far prefer to reflect on this inspiring book, yet I have found this rosary each morning to still be a blessed time in God's presence. It has given me the opportunity, too, to pray for my dear Aunt Helen, for whose funeral we will be departing tomorrow, along other prayer intentions. 

Now I return to this book in the fourth chapter, on the word "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." I am torn between this verb and "abandoned," which is used in some translations of this psalm. Fr. Neuhaus presents the image of Jesus as a derelict, which on its face can seem offensive. This is God Incarnate we're describing here, my Savior. How dare you refer to Him using the same term we'd apply to an addicted bum in an alleyway!

And that is the point. Jesus gave us multiple instances of exactly why we need to embrace this concept rather than reject it outright, and they are all about God's love for every one of us rather than an insult to the Son of God. 

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, I'm sure the former disdained the latter (oops: five minute thought break while my cat climbs into my arms for a snuggle. Now, where was I? Oh yes:) in very similar thoughts to those we have in mind as we think of dirty, urine-smelling, disgusting bums on the street. Perhaps we think the only thing offensive about Lazarus is that he was very poor, but I imagine the rich man found him abhorrent. Yet God saw them both very differently, perhaps even than Lazarus himself did. And likewise, outside of God's merciful grace, we are all as abhorrent as the most despicable human being we can imagine. When we have recognized this about ourselves and truly received the grace God desires for us, we become less judgmental of those whose struggles in this world are different from our own.

"For as often as you did it to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me." Thus Jesus says in the parable of the sheep and the goats. Who do we think "the least" is, anyway? Do we somehow think it's only the "circumstantially deserving least"? Yet so we often behave. 

We often convince ourselves that we somehow deserve God's love because of the wonderful people we are, not realizing that it is God's love that makes us wonderful people rather than our own innate worthiness. 

What derelict am I called to embrace today?

More of the crucial glory

 "'In the Cross of Christ I Glory,' declared  the nineteenth century hymn writer John Browning. It seems a strange, even bizarre, glory. "We have beheld his glory," St. John wrote, meaning that he was there, with Mary, beholding the final and perfect sacrifice. In the churches of Asia Minor that were founded by John, Easter was celebrated not on Sunday, as with other churches, but on 14 Nisan, the anniversary of Christ's death. This was his 'hour' of glory. The resurrection ratified and reinforced what was already displayed on the cross. When John, therefore, places Mary at the cross, he is placing her at the very center of salvation. She was there with him, beholding a glory different from, even the opposite of, everything ordinarily meant by glory. It was God's glory, which is love." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

For me and for Fr. Neuhaus, this passage is a continuation of the one I began to reflect on the other day and subjugated the the Holy Father's prayer agenda. This thought process reinforces my prior thoughts about what Jesus himself meant whenever he referred to being glorified, and how we ourselves tend to view pain as something to avoid rather than embrace as an act of love when God reveals it as his plan for our lives. (I'm sure I have shared some related ideas about how husbands are called to love their wives, too.)

I love how Fr. Neuhaus has tied Jesus's sacrifice for us to the fullest possible expression of God's love. Maybe more than anything else, this is why it is so important to spend time reflecting on Good Friday. We prefer to rejoice in the resurrection, and perhaps we should. But the victory that the resurrection expresses was won on Calvary. How apt that St. John insisted on celebrating Easter on the anniversary of that date.

I will, however, make this objection to Fr. Neuhaus's thoughts: it wasn't John who placed Mary at the cross. It was Mary's devoted love for her son that caused her to be there, in the grace bestowed on her that led to her initial and ongoing fiat. 

We never know where our fiat, our availability, will take us, either, but it will be glorious, and perhaps strangely so.

The glory of the cross

 "Exploration into God is exploration into darkness, into the heart of darkness. Yes, to be sure, God is light. He is the light by which all light is light. In the words of the psalm, "In your light we see light." Yet great mystics of the Christian tradition speak of the darkness in which the light is known, a darkness inextricably connected to the cross. At the heart of darkness, the light of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory . . . . The cross is not the eclipse of that glory but its shining forth, its epiphany." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

Hard to believe I started this post five days ago, immediately after finishing my last one. I've read more since then, just haven't blogged more. 

My agenda this morning would be to finish this post right now, and move on to the dream that I had about the importance of subjugating our agendas to God's will so we can receive the gifts he greatly desires for us. Instead I am going to come back to these thoughts later, and this morning join in a global novena for peace. I think I'm going to find that the two things are related.

A different type of flower

 "Availability is letting God have his way, even when it leads us to the cross. For those who are available, life is at God's disposal, kept in readiness for what he may be up to." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

I've included the first part of this quotation in a post before, but again, I have a different perspective in mind now than what I did before. 

I'm amazed at how much of our lives, of our availability, we waste by having our eyes fixed on our own goals, our own agenda, our own ideas about life. We are, each one of us, called to serve God where we are, in the current circumstances of our lives. Yet we spend so much energy on trying to work toward the goals and dreams we have for our lives.

Not that I'm discarding the value of goals and dreams. Without them, we can let inertia keep us stuck where we are. But sometimes we focus on our plans, our ideas, and our vision, even when we don't have any way to bring those to fruition. We let what we want in life drive our attention and actions--or our frustrated inactivity--to the point that we miss the wonderful chances to serve God and the people he loves where we are right now. 

But when we make ourselves available to God now, we often find that he has something in mind for us that is far different from our dreams and desires. There's an old country song about overlooking an orchid while searching for a rose, and our lives can become like that. There is incredible wonder that God wants to work through us, and he just wants us to be available so he can pour out his blessings in and through our lives. Instead, we keep beating our heads against a closed door rather than finding the one that God is holding open for us.

Laying down our lives

 "Today's sexual politics and disputes over gender are, at least in this connection, but another variation on a longstanding aversion to the way of discipleship. Let it be said that men have far more to answer for than women, for they have been more in charge of deriving alternatives to the way of the cross. But let us be completely candid: to say that Mary's way is not our way is to say that Christ's way is not our way." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

First, I love the subtle way that Fr. Neuhaus has linked the way of discipleship to the way of the cross. There is no embracing discipleship without embracing the cross and all it implies for us. Laying down our lives, in one way or another, is not an optional thing that only some are called to do. I have written at length and on multiple occasions previously about one context in which husbands, including me, have often failed to answer this call. We have made women fight for their autonomy by not being willing to treat them how God has treated us all in this regard. Sometimes we all overreach what our freedom means for us, imposing restrictions or consequences on others in the process. 

So while some are called to the ultimate sacrifice of our lives for the sake of the kingdom, more of us, I think, are called to embrace our calling to support our loved ones who are called in different ways than we are. Sometimes this can pierce our hearts, and feel like its own death. 

Taking part

"'Woman, what have you to do with me. My hour has not yet come.' He has now no other life than what he calls "my hour," referring to his appointed mission. There is no way to be part, to have part, except to take part in his "hour." There is no independent connection with Jesus, no connection apart from that mission, not even the connection of a mother with her son." Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

"Unless I wash you, you have no place in me." Jesus conveys the same message to St. Peter the night before he dies for us. "As I have done for you, so you must also do." Our serving Jesus in others is how we take part in this mission, this hour. Such service can feel like laying down our lives sometimes, even when it is for people we love deeply. Sometimes mostly for them, and this is when we know the depth of our love. When we connect this service to Jesus' mission, to our mission as his body on earth, we find ourselves living out our part in him, and drawing nearer to him than we have ever known.

We should know better

 "'For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.' The entire discussion of judgment and grace in the Letter to the Romans is to drive home how total is our dependence on God's grace in Christ. If we draw a distinction between ourselves and others--even if the distinction is that we do and they do not trust God's grace in Christ--we diminish the radicality of our dependence on grace. We are saying that, at least with respect to our faith, we are different from them, we are somehow not under the same judgment." Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

For starters: the passage that this quotation starts with is Rom 11:32, and its context is St. Paul emphasizing that both Jews and Gentiles are under judgment. But the mercy of God in reconciling us to himself in Christ Jesus is for all. 

But the point of this has been nagging at me for a really long time now, as I watch my fellow believers cast judgment. Why, when God has bestowed on us such an incredible gift of grace, do we insist on futile efforts to justify ourselves in comparison with our brothers and sisters? We are instead to be vessels of grace for them, not on our own terms but by meeting others where they are and sharing the love of God with all. 

Holy Hunger

"For paradise we long. For perfection we were made. We don't know what it would look or feel like, but we must settle for nothing less. This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives; it drives our ambition." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon

Much to my surprise, I keep being led to reflect on passages in this book that I've never written about before. Not exclusively, but still. 

For most sins, it's easy to see something good that has been corrupted. They tend to represent some basic human need that has become a disproportionate priority. Each of the seven deadly sins has a corresponding virtue identified as its cure or counterpart. Those virtues are not the need grown out of control, but the approach to bringing balance back into our lives. While Fr. Neuhaus isn't specifically calling out sin here, what he's expressing is the longing that can lead to several of the deadly sins, including greed, gluttony, envy, and lust. And he seems to be saying to be careful not to throw the baby out with the disgusting bath water. 

"The hunger is for nothing less than paradise, nothing less than perfect communion with the Absolute--with the Good, the True, the Beautiful--communion with the perfectly One in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together at last and forever. We must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled." - ibid.

Don't let the longing grow out of proportion into sin, but neither squelch it out. I've skipped the part about how our friendships and loves are unsatisfactory, less than whole efforts to fulfill this longing, because to me it's more important to remember how they give us the greatest satisfaction when we receive them in the context of the greater longing for the Perfect. Each time we allow God's love to form a relationship in our lives we must avoid the temptation to grasp it and twist it into something that meets only our needs and desires. When we do, we find that those become part of how God works in and through us to create a fellowship that is the smallest insight into the perfect one we will finally enter into one day. Sometimes we are privileged to work on the twisted parts of those relationships and let God make them more conducive to his plan for our eternal lives.

When I come back to read these words, I want to remember that they were written in a time of great turmoil, as Russia has invaded the Ukraine. Even Putin's desire to recreate (his flawed recollections of) Soviet glory has roots in something not entirely evil. Our battle is still spiritual, as is our enemy. (That doesn't at all mean that we should let him have his way.) Even though I am now too old to be required to fast on this Ash Wednesday, I have entered into prayer and fasting anyway, and am offering the hunger in my belly as a further prayer for the protection of the people of Ukraine and an unlikely change of heart for those who have undertaken this invasion.