Exhaling

Light is light. And we all appreciate true light.

Darkness is dark. And most of us do not prefer the dark, but at least we know that it is dark and that light will eliminate the darkness.

But grey.

Grey or gray is a color between white and black. It is a color seen commonly in nature and fashion. In pigment, or subtractive color (CMYK), it is created by adding black. In light, or additive color (RGB), it is created by adding equal amounts of R, G, and B, with R,G,B greater than 0% and less than 100% (greater than 0 and less than 255, in the 8-bit notation commonly used in computing). Depending on the color temperature of the light (measured in kelvins of a black body radiator), the human eye can interpret the same object as either grey or some other color, with colder light adding a yellow-orange hue and warmer light adding a blue hue. (Wikipedia)

Grey is neither light nor dark. Grey is disconcerting for me. Grey is numbing.

Pre-dawn is grey. Fog is grey.

Right now, my mind is grey

So I’m praying for light.

“Nor do you know your dwelling

for dark is your retreat;

and who would guess that

darkness

could hold the Paraclete?”

      ~Jessica Powers

In these days between Ascension and Pentecost, we gather near Mary like the Apostles, and find comfort in her presence when Christ seems absent.

We ask her to pray with us for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon each of us. Surely, the Spirit will respond generously to her intercession!

We ask her to teach us how to allow the Spirit to pray within us, to teach us how to calmly bring every power of our souls under the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s light and love, so that our own prayer may be a proper offering before the Throne of Love and Mercy.

Let us wait with Mary, so that our waiting will not be vacant.

If we know that the sacrifice of the Mass is the same as the sacrifice of Calvary, how can we forget Mary? She remains united to that sacrifice, united to Christ as He offers Himself on the altar; she still wills this sacrifice, as Christ does; her own immlation was an integral part of the sacrifice of the Cross, and it must remain so, as He remains her Son.

As we pray at Mass in her presence, every prayer can become clearer and more focused. Seeing God through her pure eyes, I confess my sinfulness and ask for mercy in the Confiteor. With the Mother who composed the Magnificat, I too glorify God with all my being in the Gloria. With the first follower of the Word, I listen to the Word with new attentiveness. With she who was proclaimed blessed for having believed, I declare my faith in the Creed.

At the Offertory, I ask her to offer me to the Father along with her Son - like the presentation of the Child in the Temple, the Offertory is the presentation (by the Mother)of the future Victim, and we are all brothers and sisters, and part of that Sacrifice. I want to be, like Mary, a drop of water “lost” in the wine that will be transubstantiated into His Blood; His Blood shed for all, just as our lives should be poured out for others.

At the Consecration, Body and Blood mysteriously separated, I remain with Mary at the foot of the Cross, as she offers her Son, and herself in union with Him. I am there with John and Mary Magdalen (purity and reparation, both fueled by love), and Jesus offers Himself to the Father, joining all of us to that offering. There is only ONE Sacrifice. We are all there, united to Him, offered through Him, with Him, in Him.

I cannot imagine a Communion without Mary, as I have been asking her to “replace my poor and sinful heart” with her “holy and immaculate Heart, that I may worthily receive and serve” her Son for as long as I can remember. It seems that she accompanies me to the altar, reminding me that “the Bridegroom has come; let us go to welcome Him,” guides me as I receive Him and am received by Him, and remains near me as I pray.

And as we are dismissed to bring Christ to others, I walk with Mary who was the first to do precisely that, from the first moment of His conception; she was always “Christ-bearer,” who brought His light to others, never keeping it for herself.

The grace of transformation may occasionally beckon us to walk unfamiliar paths in the world, but more often it leads us right back to where we were, only new. Like Scrooge, who begins and ends his story right in the countinghouse with Bob Cratchit. Nothing has changed, and everything has changed. It’s Your way in the world – hidden, yet obvious to those with eyes to see, renewing all things from the inside out.

We deal with ordinary things in extraordinary ways, the mundane things never becoming boring because each moment brings the greatest adventure to us anew – the opportunity to penetrate the veil of the commonplace and find another way to love for Your sake. And each choice to love is a point of intersection of the timeless with time, where that impossible union – the mystery of the Incarnation – takes place in our lives, step by step, choice by choice.

All the countless details of the day, the trifling activities that take up our time and energy, if we but do them as we should, not withholding ourselves, can please You. These things are the small part we play in striving to reach You and bring You to others.

We can only love “in minute particulars,” as William Blake said, and this is true regarding our love for You as well as our neighbor. Love is in the details, not in the throbs of largesse that achieve nothing unless they drive us to attend more generously to those particulars, those mundane particulars in which You are so well hidden.

This is where faith brings us, isn’t it? What faith does it take, after all, to recognize You transfigured before us in the profound and mysterious? These events are obvious, and we are not instantly transformed by them (Peter was still Peter, impulsive to build booths, on Tabor). On the other hand, what faith it takes to recognize You hidden in the subtle urgencies of the day! The child awake at 2 am, the unfinished laundry, the meal to be prepared, the rambunctious children, the impatient spouse, the throbbing head, the paper scraps and crumbs that make up the day. These do not readily reveal Your “I AM,” but they do reveal Your will, which is enough. And our consistent embrace of Your will DOES transform us.

Yes, this takes great faith, to see Your omnipotent will in the most ordinary things. And how much more does it take to see Your goodness and mercy in the frustrations and disappointments and confusions we face, particularly when these come in response to our efforts to love and serve You. You draw us to You through our weakness and failures. And while it is natural to feel discouraged at what we are, You give us the grace to rise above that and become what You created us to be. Even more, every natural impulse we have, in spite of the fact that it is natural, must be thrown off to make way for every raw truth. Every natural impulse we have can become an idol for us if we are not willing to thrust it aside and make room for the impulses of grace. If we cling to what is merely natural in us, under the pretext that it is only natural, it can become an obstacle to Your work in us.

And if we are desirous of avoiding the superficial view, trying to chop away the encrustations of devotion and language that obscure what You ARE and what we are in You, then we must be just as eager to be freed of our own impulses and ideas, whether of nature or environment or circumstance, if they obscure those realities….

Father, transform us all in Christ, so that His cross is our guide, and His Spirit informs our every action. May we have no impulse of our own, but let us be moved by the impulses of grace, so that our living and breathing may glorify You. Let us comprehend at last what it means to have died to sin and to live for You. Give us the grace to embrace the life of radiance Christ won for us by His death, resurrection, and ascension, to live the life of joy and peace promised to those who love Him.

What is wrong with a society in which its teens choose to look like starved sewer rats? It has lost its vision.

In a civilization in which we can control every facet of our lives, demand to be treated like Louis XIV, and explain everything scientifically or think we will be able to soon, we do not need God. When we do not worship God (“everybody’s worshipping something”), we worship ourselves and our stuff. And the fruit of self-worship is self-loathing. We cannot be fulfilled within ourselves, so we begin to destroy ourselves. And we become skeptical of everything beautiful, good, and true, which eventually leads to despair.

In contrast, Mary teaches us the correct attitude toward God, toward others, and toward society. First, as we pointed out in discussing the Annunciation, she shows us that we should have complete faith and trust in the Father who loves us personally. God is real, God is present, God is loving. God loves us each personally. She was able to say YES though she could not see the details of the future. But she trusted that God would take care of all the details perfectly. 

Then, she went “in haste” to help Elizabeth. There was no sitting around glorying in her own little moment (“little”?!). The Mother of God does not see that she should now have any special consideration or that others should be helping her, though she might. Instead, she goes “in haste” to serve (charity is always in a hurry, not a fluster). When she arrives and the reality of what God has done in her is confirmed by Elizabeth’s greeting, Mary acknowledges what God has done for her and then immediately returns all the glory to Him. She teaches us to take Christ to the streets in concrete acts of charity, animated by the love of Christ within us, and to give all glory to Him (“Non nisi, Domine…”). 

Finally, Mary was living in politically and religiously controversial times (much like our own in many ways). How did she respond to the issues of the day? Well, she did not become an activist (though she was raising the most revolutionary individual in the history of humanity), did not fight fire with fire, did not join the resistance, as they say. She didn’t dress up like a jester, break into the Roman barracks and spray paint peace messages on their spears. She simply did what was before her, and prayed, moving hearts one at a time in the direction of peace. 

Don’t get me wrong here: there is a time and a place for resistance and we absolutely – ABSOLUTELY – have an obligation to defend the truth. We must use the means available to us (and this varies for each individual) to protect the powerless, using the strength of our bodies to help those who are weak, the powers of our minds to advance all good, whatever material power or authority we have to defend the truth, the powers of our hearts to bring hope to the suffering and sorrowful. We absolutely must speak out (and sometimes act) against injustice and evil at every level. In our time, this especially means that we must make our voices heard (through writing, newspaper, speaking, protesting, silent witness, whatever) and make the truth known about abortion, war, euthanasia, poverty, economic injustice and more. We must. We MUST. With whatever voice God has given us, we must. 

The lesson we learn from Mary is that prayer is more powerful than action, though both are necessary; it’s just that we can’t get so caught up in our action that we forget that it would be powerless without prayer. Action must be preceded by prayer, accompanied by prayer, followed up with prayer. It must spring from prayer, remain enshrouded in prayer, and we must pray for the souls we are trying to move long after our activity has come to rest. 

So against the skepticism, despair, and egoism of the day, we look to Mary to learn the way of faith, hope, self-giving, humility, and confident trust in the love of God. In this is our peace, and peace can only come from within.

To be fully alive, we must have a “setting.”  We do not exist as personalities in our bodies alone; our personality is expressed and fulfilled through its extensions: creative work, relationships, home, family, traditions, culture. Our “stuff” is part of our self-expression.

But “stuff” can enslave. The things that compose our setting can become (deliberately or unconsciously) an encircling wall rather than an enlargement of personality. This is why the Church (wise with the Wisdom of the Spirit) upholds the right to property while preaching the virtue and value of poverty of spirit.

We are to be detached from things, though things are necessary. This detachment means not clinging to the good things God gives us to use as well as not running from the bad things that come our way. The goal is true poverty of spirit, not because “stuff” is bad but because true freedom is only to be had by those who are poor in spirit.

The poverty of the Holy Family is their complete independence from all that the world considers valuable and important. They had nothing. What little they were given, they accepted with gratitude. When they were asked to surrender it, they did so willingly and joyously. I think of the immediate flight into Egypt at the prompting of an angel. They were ready to let go of everything, even a sense of place, a sense of belonging, and flee to a foreign (and pagan) land, without questions, in the middle of the night. True poverty of spirit.

Most of us are not called to give everything away and live on charity – we are all spiritual mendicants, not actual ones! But it isn’t the occasional dramatic renunciations God looks for, but daily attention to His will in little things. If we are detached from things, detached even from our own ideas about how things will go, we can let go without despair or resentment, accepting all as the will of God.

We can maintain this detachment by remembering to be grateful each day for all that we have, accepting what is not good out of love and obedience. Then we begin to see things in His light, to discern His will in all things.

Every evening, we should thank Him for the gift of our life, for every gift of nature and grace, every situation and circumstance in our lives, every person He has placed in our lives. And then we should surrender all back to Him.

Blessed are they who are poor in spirit; theirs is the Kingdom of God.