Jesus wept.

My English advisor and professor asked us once what the most powerful passage in the Gospel is.  I racked my brain wondering if it was a trick question--wouldn't it be different for everyone, depending on each person's perspective?  But she told us, "Jesus wept."  Two simple words, a noun and a verb, three syllables, and they express the depth of the mystery.

Jesus, the Word of God incarnate in the flesh, became man.  Fully human, and also fully divine.  I know that I tend to take on the attitude that because Jesus is also God, He had a somewhat easy pass through life.  Sure, the Passion of His death and resurrection was pretty brutal, but again, He's God.  He can do anything!  And He has a superhuman strength with which to do it--right?  Wrong.  He has the same strength and emotions as the rest of us.

When His friend died, and even when He knew that in a few moments He would raise his friend from the dead for the greater glory of God, He wept.

The mystery of the Incarnation is expressed in these two words.  That God Himself suffered loss, experienced the pain of losing a loved one and, even with great faith that all was for God's glory, He wept.

We watch the news and weep and know that God weeps with us.  But we can trust that He receives those children in His merciful love with open arms, just as He embraces the world from the cross.

Eat the Mystery

When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose.  When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna.  For forty long years, God's people daily eat manna--a substance whose name literally means "What is it?"  Hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling.  They fill on that which has no meaning.  More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don't comprehend.  They find soul-filling in the inexplicable.

 They eat the mystery.   ~One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

We are wandering like the Israelites in the desert of faith on our journey to the Promised Land.  We have the choice to continue following the path of love to Truth, to continue participating in the Mass and eating the mystery that is the Eucharist, and letting that be enough for now.

I know that for those of us who have recently graduated from college in this economy, mystery is often the only answer we know.  It can be frustrating while we strive to figure out where to go, what to do next--unless we embrace the mystery that is this life, eat this mystery, and savor it.  Savor the bitterness that comes with the sugar and spice, because it is all part of the gift.

Thankfully

A dare to live fully right where you are.  I took that dare in the form of One Thousand Gifts, a book by Ann Voskamp.  As I read through the book, I was in awe--it was exactly the kind of book that I would want to write.  The rich, poetic style of her writing speaks the longings in my heart and gives a name to that 'thing' I've been grasping at--gratitude.

She takes a challenge to write down one thousand things she's thankful for, and the result is this book.  It is not a list of her gifts, but her spiritual journey laid out in raw honesty as she discovers the beauty in the ordinary (which is what I aim to do with this blog) and never pretends that it's easy.

Last week I kept reflecting on a certain section of the book as I ate too much food and thought about how the Amish believe that every day is a day of thanksgiving.  We even sing that every year at Thanksgiving Eve mass, "Every day is a day of thanksgiving," but I struggle to live it.  Most of the time I act like a spoiled brat and complain about everything, but I aspire.  I guess I have this idea that if I remind myself enough, and if I can share these aspirations with even one other person who might read this blog, eventually, I will be able to live fully in true thanksgiving.  Until then, I am going to reread this book, and share a bit of it for you here.

Ann refers to Luke 17: 15-19 when Jesus heals the ten lepers, and only one returns to thank him.  Jesus says, "Your faith has made you whole."  But wait, hasn't Jesus already healed them?  Yes, physically.  But only the grateful man was saved wholly, because he returned to God in thanksgiving.

"We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks.
. . .Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.  Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.
. . .At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours..." 

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:54)
We must receive the Eucharist every day, but not just by going through the motions of daily mass.  Yes, we should absolutely receive the actual Eucharist at mass as often as possible, but we must also receive the Eucharist, the grace of salvation, with open hearts all day every day.  True worship is living the mass in our daily lives, receiving all that comes to us and giving it back to God, and in turn, giving it back to others--communion.

"All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no. . .Because I wasn't taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him.  I sit still, blinded.  This is why I sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed.
     Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live--this is the only way from empty to full.
     I have just one word.  A word to seize and haul up out of a terminal nightmare, a word for fearless dying, for saved, fully healed living, a word that works the miracle that heals the soul and raises the very dead to life. . .Eucharisteo."

 Still what sticks out most, "Christ breaks His heart to heal ours."  That's selfless love.  I aspire.

Made With Love

The coffee grinder at work sprays coffee grounds all over the place like it's its job.  It's not.  Its job is actually to grind the coffee and shoot it straight down into the proper awaiting receptacle.  But for some reason the static or the pressure or something causes the black grounds to spray all over the front of the machine, the counter, the ice machine, the floor, my hands--they get everywhere, all over everything.

It's a little annoying, but only because it happens consistently throughout the day in the middle of everything else, even as I vainly attempt to sweep up the grounds with the paintbrush we keep handy, customers holler behind me that they'd like a grande latte nonfat no foam and I smile and nod and drop the brush and move to the espresso grinder and portion out more coffee grounds, then wipe away the extras.

Coffee grounds are everywhere.  They cling to my glasses, stick to my hands, get under my fingernails.  It seems like no matter how hard I try to clean them up, they keep coming back.  Like no matter how hard I try to be positive, to better myself, to be holy, I keep complaining, making excuses, and putting myself first.  The mess I've made just seems to get messier.  Even as I begin to teeter on the brink of despair, however, someone offers me love and encouragement to keep the faith.

So the other day I was brushing away coffee grounds while people and their chatter buzzed around me.  I sighed and prayed, "Dear Lord, this is for you."  And suddenly, it wasn't coffee grounds--it was the blood of Jesus.  I was at the foot of the cross with Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene.  The blood was the result of my sins, but it was poured out freely, given up for me.  I was the soldier who pierced the side of Christ, baptized in the blood and water that poured out--mercy.

Those grounds, in that moment, were God's will for me.  They weren't my will, but when I accepted them as God's and offered them to Him, I saw that they were my small, seemingly insignificant way of participating in the redemptive suffering of Christ.  What I do isn't much, but to offer my work with love, to serve drinks with the desire to quench the thirst of Christ, to smile at the cranky and keep my snarky comments to myself, to not give in to the frustration that surrounds me--this is true freedom.

Mother Teresa said, "To work without love is slavery."  We are all called to true freedom.  It doesn't come by our efforts, but by a movement of our will, an alignment of our hearts with God's sprinkled with His Mercy and Grace.

As Mumford & Sons sings, "There is a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart to see the beauty of love as it was made to be.  Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free.  Be more like the man you were made to be."  When we allow this love, this mercy and grace, to embrace us and fill us, we will become who God created us to be.

*          *          *

I also have been reading the Catechism everyday for the Year of Faith, and this passage from today was too relevant.  God knows what's up when we don't have a clue.  God has control when we have none.  He is Good, and He makes all things Good and all things new--we must believe and trust in that.

272     Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." It is in Christ's Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe".

273     Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God's almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ's power. The Virgin Mary is the supreme model of this faith, for she believed that "nothing will be impossible with God", and was able to magnify the Lord: "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name."

Better Than Hibernation

It's the time of year when I just want to hibernate.  Getting out of my warm cozy bed and taking on a cold, dark day is a daunting task.  In fact, it's the last thing I want to do when I wake up for work at five in the morning--but it's the first thing I have to do.

As I mumble "Lord, I give this day to You.  Give me the strength to get through it," and hobble out of bed, I act against my will, and that act gives me strength for the rest of the day.

I drive down the highway under the satin black sky with my car still half-covered in frost and Mumford & Sons singing "Babel" to me and all seems right with the world.  It's cold and dark and uncomfortable, but it's my gift to God.

The days that begin in early mornings are not a breeze, nor are they very pleasant, but for some reason, they are my favorite.  Maybe it's because that first act against my will helps me to offer the rest up to God, so that I automatically offer up all the unpleasant, frustrating things that happen during the day with trust that it's part of God's plan of grace.

Doing this doesn't mean life is all sunshine and roses, and it doesn't really even make it easier.  It just makes it worth it.

because I want to write

in order to write:

You have to be emotionally, spiritually, and physically fit; have to order your whole life around your writing schedule; have to develop the emotional hide of a rhinoceros to not simply die, as one dies under a stoning, beneath the endless barrage of insult, humiliation, rejection, disappointment, failure.  And at the same time the only reason you do it at all, or can do it, or want to do it, is because of this incredibly tender heart, this heart you're a little ashamed of, that makes you different enough in the first place that writing is your only refuge, your only means of enduring the world.

                                          ~Heather King, Redeemed

AMDG

My brother shared this video with me, so I'm sharing it here, because I haven't been able to form any coherent sentences for this blog in awhile, and after listening to this, I realized what I've been lacking.

All glory to God.