How much religion costs (Flannery O'Connor)

  I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe.  I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened.  A faith that just accepts is a child’s faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.  

  What people don’t realize is how much religion costs.  They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe.  If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this:  keep an open mind.  Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God. 

--Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being:  Letters of Flannery O’Connor

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The Problem of Pain (C.S. Lewis)

  The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in.  The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world:  but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast.  We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.  It is not hard to see why.  The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose any obstacles to our return to God:  a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency.  Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

-- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 18, 2015: Can you drink the cup that I drink?

  Can you drink the cup that I drink?  

  Can we enter into the depth of Christ's suffering?  

  We are constantly reminded that Jesus suffered and died for us on the cross.  The prophet Isaiah predicted as much when, in the fourth Suffering Servant oracle, he indicates that the Servant will suffer, carrying the sins of humanity quite simply because it is the will of God that he do so:  The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity... Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many.  We know that the Servant's suffering will end -- he shall see light in fullness of days -- but first, he will suffer.

  Jesus Christ offers himself entirely for us; he is the ultimate scapegoat, the high priest who has been tested in every way, according to the Letter to the Hebrews.  Born a man in order to share in our humanity, he took humanity to the cross because it was God's will.  So, when, in Mark's Gospel, James and John ask, Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left, they truly have no idea what such a gift might entail.  They do not want to envision the coming suffering of Jesus; they just want to cut straight to the chase, and be with him in heaven.  And they certainly don't want to participate in that suffering!  But to drink the cup with Jesus is to be baptized into his death:  Jesus challenges them to a dose of the reality of salvation at work in their lives.  For the love of humanity, we, like Jesus, can suffer precisely because Christ has done so and continues to do so.  The love that Jesus offered on the cross is just as profound and complete now as it was over two thousand years ago, and it is that love that is a model we are called to follow.  For the Lord can deliver us from death, as Psalm 33 states, and the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him.  We are called to be in awe of the sacrifice of Christ, in awe of the love he embodies, in awe of the mercy he represents.  And we, too, are called to drink the cup, to embrace suffering and sacrifice, to love as Jesus loved, to suffer as he suffered.

Are you ready to enter into the depth of Jesus' love today?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

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Sisters in Mill Valley!

     Next time you see these smiling faces at Mass, do say hello to Sr. Teresa Benedicta, Sr. Rose, Sr. Maria Frassati, and Sr. Mariana (shown above in that order), who are teaching this year at Marin Catholic and are all of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. (Their subjects run the gamut:  theology, English, science and math!)

To learn more about their order, click here.

When I love my God (St. Augustine)

  But when I love you, what do I love?  It is not physical beauty or temporal glory or the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, or the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, or the gentle odor of flowers and ointments and perfumes, or manna or honey, or limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God.  Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God -- a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of my innerness, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part.  That is what I love when I love my God.   --St. Augustine, Confessions, X, vi.

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The union to which love aspires (St. Francis de Sales)

How can we best be attentive to God?  
(Bet you didn't know 17th-century saints knew about multi-tasking!)  

  In proportion to the number of operations to which the soul applies herself (whether of the same or of a different kind) she does them less perfectly and vigorously: because being finite, her active virtue is also finite, so that furnishing her activity to diverse operations it is necessary that each one of them have less thereof. Thus a man attentive to several things is less attentive to each of them: we cannot quietly consider a person's features with our sight, and at the same time give an exact hearing to the harmony of a grand piece of music, nor at the same instant be attentive to figure and to colour: if we are talking earnestly, we cannot attend to anything else.   (St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, chapter entitled, That the union to which love aspires is spiritual.)  

Perhaps a little individualized attention to God is in order? 

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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 11, 2015: That we might gain wisdom of heart...

   That we might gain wisdom of heart…  

   Is your way of life conducive to relationship with God?   

 The man who kneels before Jesus in Mark's Gospel doesn't seem to be sure.  He has observed all the commandments Jesus puts before him from his youth, but when Jesus challenges him to sell what he has and give to the poor, the man goes away sad, downcast, not sure he can meet the challenge Jesus has placed before him.  Although the man believes there is something he can do to effect salvation, to earn eternal life, in actuality the man has to allow salvation to be effected in him, opening himself to God, to the love of God, by dealing with his personal obstacles and barriers.  It is that love that will bring all good things, and difficulties, too -- but for God, all things are possible.  It is an open heart, first and foremost, that helps us to live a life conducive to relationship with God.

 The Book of Wisdom offers additional advice on the path we should be trying to follow toward right relationship with God.  I prayed, and prudence was given me:  prayer is our first access to God; it is the path to prudence, which helps us to discern, to make sound choices.  For nothing is as precious as the gift of wisdom, but here again, wisdom is an ongoing choice, not a static state of being.  Give us wisdom of heart, the psalmist prays in Psalm 90, a quality that will engender kindness, joy, and gladness.  It is again a request for the ability to discern, to see as God sees, to choose as God would have us choose.  Would that we could see God as clearly as God sees us:  No creature is concealed from him, the Letter to the Hebrews states, and God's Word can penetrate our soul and spirit, our heart and thoughts, our very joints and marrow. 

 What do we see, what can we discern, when we examine our life in depth, as God is able to do?  And how much is God a part of that life?  We are challenged to live a life conducive to relationship, with God and with other.  Do the choices we make support that path?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

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