Praying

The longer I write the more I realize how much writing is like prayer. Writing is something that connects me with God and allows me to hear His voice. Like prayer, writing is a habit that has to be developed over time and like prayer sometimes it doesn’t come easily. Both actions are disciplines of the spirit and both can help us to grow in holiness. Being holy means being the person God intends you to be. Writing helps me to use a gift He gave me and to use it to glorify Him. Like prayer, writing requires preparation and work. Of course we’re not all called to be writers. Some are given much greater gifts. But all Christians are called to pray. In fact I’d go so far as to say that if you don’t pray you aren’t a follower of Christ.  Prayer has to be at the center of our lives. Our faith is based on our relationship with Jesus and without prayer, we can’t know Him.

So if God made prayer so central to His plan for our salvation, why can it sometimes be so hard to pray?  After all, if He made our hearts in such a way that we yearn to know Him, you’d think prayer would come as naturally to us as breathing. Sometimes it does. Most of us are great at praying when we find ourselves in a jam. Up against the wall. At the end of our ropes. Between a rock and a hard place. Remember the old saying about there being no atheists in foxholes. When life–ours or someone we love–is on the line, we’re filled with the need to pray. Our words and pleas and promises to Him overflow and we talk with Him nonstop. That is, until the crisis passes. When the terror of the moment is over, many of us quickly revert to our non-prayerful ways. Perhaps a few of us will experience that crisis as an invitation to a continuing relationship with God. That brush with whatever terror we experienced (death, divorce, unemployment, war, homelessness, etc.) may have opened our hearts to hear Him and allowed Him to draw us close.  Most of us, however, are drawn to the Lord through the regular, everyday, even unexciting details of our daily lives. The Church, in her wisdom, has made most of our liturgical year into “ordinary” time. And while ordinary time refers to those numbered Sundays outside feast and penance, it’s a reminder to us that we can and should encounter God in the regular rhythms of our daily lives.

Consider a significant relationship in your life. Maybe it’s your spouse or a good friend or a sibling you’re especially close to. I’ll bet some of the most meaningful moments you’ve experienced with them are when you’re just enjoying an ordinary day in their presence. Deep love and intimacy are often revealed most clearly in everyday moments. Sharing a meal. Watching a sunset. Being comfortable and at ease in the silent company of a person you love and who loves you back. If that’s true in our human relationships, we can also see that in our prayer relationship with Jesus. The times we can feel most closely-engaged with Him in prayer can be in spontaneous and simple ways each day. The ordinary-ness of our daily prayers are no less valuable than those dramatic, emotionally-charges prayerful “highs” that are few and far between.

The saints tell us a lot about prayer. After all, being saints, we know that their relationship with Jesus bore great and eternal spiritual fruit. Look at St. Joseph of Cupertino. His prayer life was so extraordinary that he frequently levitated several feet off the floor during prayer. But few of us fly around the room during prayers. St. Francis of Assisi, and in our own century, St. Padre Pio both bore the stigmata or the wounds of Christ as they prayed. St. Isidore and St. Alphonse Liguori often appeared in two distant places at the same time while at prayer. But these are the exceptions.

Most saints were like most of us. Sometimes prayer came easily and made them feel close to God. But at other times prayer was a chore. Many of the saints experienced spiritual deserts where their prayer lives seemed pointless and felt as if God had left them alone. We know that St.Teresa of Calcutta struggled with this. For many years she experienced a “dark night of the soul” in her prayer life. Yet no one doubts her spiritual greatness or the fruits of her vocation. This woman knew Jesus well.

We’re each unique creations. Each one of our journeys with Christ is a unique calling. Some of us may fly in ecstasy to Him but the majority of us won’t. We’ll come to know Him in the daily routines of our ordinary lives, sometimes in joyful exuberance and sometimes in peaceful silence. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t think you’re “doing it right.”  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray. And keep at it. Go to Mass and Confession. Fast. And don’t wait to start praying. The only way to get better at it is to pray.

“I pray because I’m helpless.”   

——-C. S. Lewis

The Holy Eucharist

As a convert to Catholicism I don’t share many of the “growing up Catholic” memories of many of my friends. I wasn’t taught by nuns. I didn’t go to Catholic school. I didn’t grow up getting into trouble at Mass or choir practice. I didn’t get to wear the adorable little white dress and gloves for my first Holy Communion. I don’t miss those great old Latin hymns or women wearing chapel veils. Although I do LOVE the old Latin hymns and women wearing chapel veils. I came into the Church in 1977 at the height of guitar Masses and liturgical “experiments.”  The music and practices of “my” Catholic Church have kind of always been a hot mess. I even know all the words to “Lord of the Dance.”  Unfortunately. So when other Catholics reminisce about the “good old days” before Vatican II, I think: meh. I didn’t become Catholic because of the beautiful architecture or music or liturgy of bygone years, though I LOVE all these aspects of our worship. I became Catholic because of the Holy Eucharist. And throughout the decades of bad music, ugly vestments, school closings and scandal, the reason I remain Catholic is the Holy Eucharist.

The Church teaches us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith (Catechism, para. 1324). Jesus teaches us this same truth in the beautiful “Bread of Life” discourse in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. As our late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said: “Without the Eucharist, the Church simply does not exist.” Nothing could be truer. God gives us the most precious gift of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to nourish and sustain us on our earthly journey. The Eucharist is literally the beating heart of our Catholic faith and our loving Savior. Yet every Sunday only about 25% of Catholics attend Mass to meet Him there. And you want to know why? Because of what was found by a recent Pew Research Center poll that questioned Catholics about their faith. It revealed that almost half of American Catholics believe that the bread and wine we receive in Holy Communion is a SYMBOL of Jesus’ Body and Blood. A symbol. Granted, I don’t know if the Catholics they questioned were practicing Catholics. But honestly, I wouldn’t  be at Mass myself if I thought the Eucharist was a mere remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. There’s a famous Flannery O’Connor anecdote that beautifully sums up my thoughts and feelings. At a New York dinner party where Miss O’Connor found herself the token Catholic, she sat quietly listening to the erudite conversation of the other guests. At one point a lady turned the conversation to the Catholic faith. Among the thoughts she shared was that the Eucharist was a “pretty good” symbol. This prompted Flannery to remark at once, “We’ll, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it!”  I couldn’t agree more, Miss O’Connor.

Why would anyone want to be Catholic if not for the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist?  It would be lots easier to be Episcopalian where you could enjoy beautiful music and liturgy without the “restrictions” of Catholic teaching on contraception, an all-male celibate priesthood, same-sex marriage. and “gender fluidity.” Or how about one of those generic Christian mega-churches where the building is fitted out like an IMAX theater, the charismatic young pastor dresses like a rock star and you can enjoy a latte in your comfy theater chair while the music blasts to a hallelujah crescendo? No worries about going to confession or divorce and remarriage, just a free and easy Christian “lifestyle.”

Because of the Eucharist, the Catholic Church continues to exist in spite of every reason it shouldn’t still be around. And without the Eucharist, like Pope Benedict said, the Church would cease to be. And I’d be among the first out the door.  So it’s no wonder so many Catholics don’t attend Mass on Sundays or have left the Church altogether. They aren’t being taught the Truth of the Eucharist. If 45% of Catholics believe the Eucharist is just a symbol, they may as well sleep in on Sunday morning. I would. So no matter how you feel about your parish’s choir or vestments or pastor or youth programs or parish council, remember this: Jesus Christ waits for you at every Mass. In person. He longs to meet you intimately in Holy Communion and to share His eternal life with you. This is the greatest gift of our Catholic faith. We must hear this truth preached in our Sunday homilies and see reverence for the Blessed Sacrament shown by our priests and deacons. We need Adoration Hours in every parish and adult catechesis on this most central belief of our Church. We must be reminded that the God we worship is there on the altar before us, truly and wholly present in the Sacrament of Holy  Communion. People leave the Church when they believe the Eucharist is a “pretty good” symbol of Jesus. If they knew the Truth as Christ taught, we wouldn’t be able to build enough new churches and schools to keep up. Christ gave the keys to the Kingdom to St. Peter, our first Pope (Matthew 16:18) and that same key is in every tabernacle in every Catholic Church in the world—“Jesus, my Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

“Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him.”

—John 6:57

The Truth

There’s at least one belief that is central to all of Christianity and Judaism and that is that the God of Abraham is a truthful God. He is, in fact, Truth Himself. “The sum of Your word is truth…”(Psalm 119: 160). There is nothing in God but truth. He never lies, never “mis-speaks,” never goes back on His word. God doesn’t trick us or try to lead us astray. He simply IS, and in being Who He is, is all that is true and good and beautiful. This is one of the great assurances and consolations of our faith: our God is Truth.

We can read Holy Scripture and know that God’s revelation can be counted on, without reservation. He keeps His promises. Christians can know with certainty that our God is truth and that He has fully-revealed Himself to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And yet we see many Christians all around us who have come to believe that God lies to us all the time through His creation and through our culture. Our daily life is rife with illusion and deception—from politics to social media to the corporate world. Who can believe any photograph anymore since the invention of Photoshop? Who can believe music since the coming of AutoTune? Breast implants, facelifts, hair extensions and Botox have made the human body a canvas for plastic surgeons. What is real? What is true?

But our infatuation with being deceived goes much deeper than our skins and our voices. And the implications of our shadow dance have eternal consequences. Many Christians, even many Catholics, believe that abortion is just another medical procedure that women should be free to choose. They don’t believe in the reality of the child in their womb. The baby is a lump of cells that is part of her body and she is free to dispose of “it” like a bothersome wart. Most women suffer great guilt and regret after an abortion. Deep down, they know that abortion kills a child and yet we continue to live this lie and to support it.  

Research shows us that most Americans, including the majority of Catholics, support same-sex “marriage.” But because something is legal to do doesn’t mean that it’s in accordance with God’s law. Marriage reflects the unity of God with His bride, the Church. Just as human marriage bears the fruit of children, the marriage of the Lamb bears the fruit of eternal life. Same-sex couples (or triples, or groups, at some point) may become legally contracted together but is not marriage as revealed in Holy Scripture. To believe that it is the same is to embrace a distortion of reality.

Most recently, our culture has told us that God lies to us in our very creation. We’re asked to believe that the most basic scientific revelation of God’s will for our lives—the DNA that defines our biology—is a mistake or a trick. We can, by our own choosing, decide not to be a man or a woman, but we cannot change what we are. The truth is, we can’t change one cell of our bodies, but only the clothes we wear and the names we call ourselves. Who we are is not determined by how we look. And a baby is a baby, no matter if it’s born or unborn. Truth is truth and no amount of our own imagining or wishing can make it otherwise.  

“Truth is not determined by a majority vote.” —Pope Benedict XVI

The Right Path

I grew up in the country. My childhood home was at the dead end of a long gravel road, surrounded by pastures and woods. We wore paths into the grass walking from our house to the barns, to the pond, and to the vegetable garden. There were chores for us to do, but there was also a great freedom in those years in the country. I first lived in an urban setting when I went away to college. Even then there were acres of woods and grass on campus to explore. The difference there was all the sidewalks.

One of the first things I noticed though, was how folks would ignore the sidewalks to cut across the grass or through the woods. We took the shortest routes, the easiest walks, the paths of least resistance going from class to class, to our dorms, or to the cafeteria. All those sidewalks were largely ignored as we made our way around campus. There’s a name for these footpaths we humans like to make. They’re called “desire lines.” I love that. Architects and planners have long been aware of our tendencies to cut corners and make our own trails. In Finland, it’s common for new buildings to go without sidewalks during their first year so that they can pave the desire lines made by the public. That seems logical and economical, too. But most landscapes, like my university, bear the marks of our walking choices when we ignore the sidewalks.

I think of the paths I’ve followed in my own life. Without God, how far might I have wandered off into the wilderness? Even so, there have been times when I followed the wrong road. Sometimes my heart led me to a place I thought I desired, only to find out when I got there that it wasn’t at all what I’d imagined. Pretty pathways can lead to dark and dangerous places. I’ve lost friends to the allure of such journeys. We all have. The point about sidewalks and footpaths and desire lines is that they are all just means to an end. They are ways of getting from here to there. Some are more direct than others. Some are laid out for us by others, while some are the paths we make for ourselves, over the months and years of our lives. All have risks and rewards.  

What matters on our journey is that we don’t look down at our feet, but that we keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Some of us will be called to follow wandering footpaths and some will seek out sidewalks. I feel like there were many times that I walked in place, going nowhere. But I never went wrong when I kept my gaze on the Lord. He waited when I dawdled. He called me back when I got lost. And I was never alone, because He has given us His Church and His Sacraments to infuse us with grace and to keep us nourished for the journey. We have such a short time here and so much to see and to do. So many people to know and to love. So many summer sunsets and wintry snowstorms. Every second, every footfall is a chance to know love and to be love for others, to lend a helping hand, and to offer mercy and forgiveness. Much of the noise and confusion of the world fades to nothing when we remember Who made us, and that He made us for a purpose: love.

“One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness.” —-C.S. Lewis