A young man and an old preacher

My father just handed me the following story (along with a page of silly "zen truths" jokes). The story says something important about about how to react to this life's griefs:

The young man had lost his job and didn't know which way to turn. So he went to see the old preacher.

Pacing about the preacher's study, the young man ranted about his problem. Finally he clenched his fist and shouted, "I've begged God to say something to help me. Tell me, Preacher, why doesn't God answer?"

The old preacher, who sat across the room, spoke something in reply, something so hushed it was indistinguishable. The young man stepped across the room. "What did you say?" he asked.

The preacher repeated himself, but again in a tone as soft as a whisper. So the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher's chair.

"Sorry," he said. "I still didn't hear you." With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more. "God sometimes whispers," he said, "so we will move closer to hear Him."

This time the young man heard and he understood.

We all want God's voice to thunder through the air with the answer to our problem. But God's is the still, small voice... the gentle whisper. Perhaps there's a reason.

Nothing draws human focus quite like a whisper. God's whisper means I must stop my ranting and move close to Him, until my head is bent together with His. And then, as I listen, I will find my answer. Better still, I find myself closer to God.

A Glimpse at Calvary through the Mass

How can an all-powerful, all-loving God allow innocent suffering? "Reverend Know-it-all" answers this perennial question here. His comments are worth reading in their entirety, and thinking about. They include an account of what I am sure is one of the pivotal moments of his life:

When I was much younger I had been assigned to a very poor parish. The windows were in very bad repair. Summer and winter the wind whistled through the cracks. We might just as well have held services outside.

One summer morning I was saying Mass and the fruit flies were hovering around the chalice. In my mind I said to the Lord, “I believe that this is no longer bread and wine, but has become Your body and blood, but couldn’t You convince the fruit flies of this great miracle for just a moment?”

A little long-suffering (and, I hope, affectionate) complaint from a priest to his Master, I suppose. Certainly, he was not expecting any sort of a reply. To his lasting surprise and edification, however, the young priest received an answer anyway.

Holy Innocents

"A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."
- Matthew 2:18

Alas for our nation and our world, that greater lamentation is not heard in this time when the mass murder of innocents has again become public policy. God bless and strengthen those who year in and year out attempt to awaken numbed consciences to the horror that is abortion.


Saint Joseph, guardian of the holy family, pray for them.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, in a death camp killed but not defeated, pray for them.
Blessed Margaret of Castello, in weakness perfected, pray for them.
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, comforter of the abandoned, pray for them.
Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, exemplar of maternal love, pray for them.
Saint Gerard Majella, protector of expectant mothers, pray for them.
Saint John the Baptist, herald of our Lord, pray for them.
Holy mother of God, Mary most blessed and pure, pray for them.

Awake, Sleeper

The Lord's descent into hell

What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.

‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.

‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

‘See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

‘I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.

‘The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.’

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Here are two images of the harrowing of hell from 16th century German printmaker Albrecht Dürer. In this woodcut, Adam is pictured holding the Cross as Christ pulls a soul from the abyss.

The engraving below shows Adam and Eve standing in the gateway of hell, the doors broken, with Moses behind them while our Lord frees John the Baptist. As in the other image, devils futilely threaten the rescued souls.

Learning Christ

Intending to go somewhere else, this morning, when I turned on the computer, I went straight to this bookstore's website and this prayer:

Teach me, my Lord,
to be sweet and gentle
in all the events of life -
in disappointments,
in the thoughtlessness of others,
in the insincerity of those I trusted,
in the unfaithfulness of those on whom I relied.

Let me put myself aside,
to think of the happiness of others
to hide my little pains and heartaches,
so that I may be the only one to suffer from them.

Teach me to profit by the suffering
that comes across my path.
Let me so use it that it may mellow me,
not harden nor embitter me;
that it may make me more patient,
not irritable.
That it may make me broad in my forgiveness,
not narrow, haughty and overbearing.

May no one be less good
for having come within my influence.
No one less pure, less true, less kind, less noble
for having been a fellow-traveler
in our journey toward ETERNAL LIFE.

As I go my rounds
from one distraction to another,
let me whisper from time to time,
a word of love to Thee.

May my life be lived in the supernatural,
full of power for good,
and strong in its purpose of sanctity.

The Church in Iraq

The Church suffers.

Iraqi Catholics Losing Hope, Says Priest (Zenit 3/1/07)
Pope continuing to pray for Iraq and its Church (Spero 3/26/07)
Two Nuns Murdered (CWNews 3/28/07)

Remember your brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Church in Turkey

The Patriarch and the rest of the Turkish Christians are in a very tough situation:

From popeandpatriarch.com:
...Constantinople's Greeks were spared from annihilation, but their ranks thinned out of fear and harassment in the new order. Subsequent pogroms, notably the Turkish government-sponsored 1955 pogroms, had the effect of progressively reducing the numbers of native-born Constantinopolitan Christians. Concurrent with this, the Turkish state pursued an active program of expropriation which itself abetted a vicious circle: if a church property fell into disuse, the state seized it...

From Newsweek:
Although the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople does not exercise the jurisdictional and doctrinal authority in world Orthodoxy that the papacy exercises in world Catholicism, it does enjoy a historic status as "first among equals" in Orthodoxy, plays an important role in coordinating Orthodox affairs globally and is regarded as the spiritual center of global Orthodoxy by Orthodox believers. Yet it is Turkish law, not the canons of the Orthodox Church, that determines who is eligible to be elected ecumenical patriarch, and Turkish law limits the pool of possible candidates to Turkish citizens living in Turkey. As a recent memorandum from the Ecumenical Patriarchate put it, "the result of these restrictions is that in the not so distant future the Ecumenical Patriarchate may not be able to elect a Patriarch."

From Inside the Vatican:
"Then it will be hard to find a successor for Patriarch Bartholomew, in time to come?"

"Very hard," he replies. "Because there is a law in Turkey that the head of the patriarchate must be a Turkish citizen, and there are only about 2,000 Orthodox who remain, and only a handful of men who might be qualified to be patriarch, perhaps five."

From a speech in the British House of Lords:
Once Antioch was one of the great cities of the world; the place where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. For many centuries it was the hub of an important Syrian Christian culture. Now it is simply a village in Turkey ... caught between the Turkish Army on the one hand and the Kurdish PKK on the other. They have dwindled to barely a few hundred families.

From the Syriac magazine Tebayn:
Exodus shows pictures of the village of Hassana in SE Turkey. Its last inhabitants were evicted from their native soil by the Turkish army in 1993.

St. Madeline Sophie Barat (May 25)

May 25th is the feast day of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat.

She said:

"As iron is fashioned by fire and on the anvil, so in the fire of suffering and under the weight of trials, our souls receive that form which our Lord desires them to have." (found here)

"If we love God and are faithful to Him, we shall be at peace, and this peace will endure." (found here)

"The more we have denied ourselves during the day, the nearer are we each evening to the Heart of our Lord."

"One soul saved is worth more than our lives." (found here)

"God does not ask of us the perfection of tomorrow, nor even of tonight, but only of the present moment." (found here and here)

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Poor Saint Sophie. Her spiritual descendents say God does not judge. Our Lord says He does.

Poor Saint Sophie. The vision of her spiritual descendents is "To be perceived as religious educators who" do various fine things (expressed in a vocabulary disconnected from "the Catholic tradition"). Their vision is not to do good things but to be seen as people who do good things. Perception over reality! Thin gruel for the intellectual & spiritual nourishment of their students.

Poor Saint Sophie. Her order is now the (at one time) modern sort that hides its vocations by dressing as laity.

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St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, pray for us!

My fellow buddhists & I

Oops...

You fit in with:
Buddhism

Your ideals mostly resemble those of the Buddhist faith. Spirituality is the most important thing in your life. You strive to live by all of your ideals, and live a very intellectually focused life.

0% scientific.
40% faith-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

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My buddhist friend was upset at the poor treatment she receives at work. I tried suggesting that the the suffering we endure in this world is a path to understanding. She seemed skeptical. I don't know whether it has anything to do with our conversation, but after that she borrowed some videos from her temple, and now thinks that the cruelty inflicted on her might be payback for cruelty she inflicted on others early in life. There might be something to that.

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In the hopes of being able to present the truths of Catholicism more intelligibly to my friend, I visited our local public library to see whether it has anything on Catholicism and Buddhism. It does have one book: Living Zen, Loving God, by Ruben Habito, described as a practicing Catholic. I do not think my friend is a Zen Buddhist, but maybe the book will have something useful.

At first glance, things did not look good. I opened the book at random to page 13, and read:

What we are really seeking deep in our hearts cannot be found by looking "outside".

On second glance, it is not much better. I opened to an account of the good Samaritan (page 82). After quoting Luke's gospel, the author writes:

We tend to read this passage as moral injunction: "Help your neighbor in need." While that may be one valid reading it would not do full justice to what is being presented to us here.

It begins with the question of the lawyer, "What must I do to attain eternal life?" Let us plumb the depths of our being and really hear this question. This is the very question we ourselves are asking in our hearts, although we may put it in different ways:

What is true living?
How may I live an authentic life?
How may I realize who I am, and live my
True Self each moment of my life?

"Eternal life" thus is not life after we die, the extension of some form of consciousness that will go on after our biological death, but something that is available here and now.

Thus? The author has not even mentioned life after death and thinks he has already disproven it. I wonder, not for the first time, just how Catholic liberal Catholics are. Mr. Habito may be a fine Buddhist, and does ask some worthy questions, but his answers are not those of a Catholic. Compare his first quote above with this from St. Augustine:

Our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee

God may touch our hearts, but He is not confined to our hearts, and He is immeasurably greater than our hearts. I'll start this book from the beginning, and maybe find something that can help my friend, as the two of us stumble towards our final destinations.

Wisdom

God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

- Aeschylus Agamemnon

[Probably as good an answer as I will find for my friend's question about why God allows suffering -- the same answer that Elihu gives to Job.]

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A Catholic college student posted her own thoughts on suffering recently here. I need to spend more time myself thinking about the redemptive value of suffering.

A good way to start would be by reading David Greenstock's Comfort for the Sick and Dying. I read this some years ago and remember it as a book that lived up to its name. My mother read it while she was dying and was so inspired she bought several to give to friends and family.

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I couldn't find the translation of Agamemnon from which the quote was taken, but I did find two other versions of the play online. Here is how they render the wisdom quote:

'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
Of knowledge: He hath ruled,
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain,
Descend the many memories of pain
Before the spirit's sight: through tears and dole
Comes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul-
A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,
That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!

(Translated by E. D. A. Morshead)


For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins
To virtue by the tutoring of their sins,
Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill
The sleeper’s heart, ’gainst man’s rebellious will
Jove works the wise remorse:
Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel
Our hearts with gracious force.

(Translated by John Stuart Blackie)