The Heart’s Longing

The older I become, the more time I spend thinking of my past. I guess middle age has that effect on some of us. My grandparents did it and my parents did it and now it’s my turn. I can be driving down the highway reviewing my plans for the day when a song comes on the radio and instantly, I’m seventeen again without a care in the world. Or I smell a distinctive aftershave and I’m immediately a little girl, sitting in my daddy’s lap as he works on the newspaper crossword puzzle. Memories. The veil that separates today from all those yesterdays seems to be getting thinner and thinner. I think a lot about my childhood home. I hear the cows mooing in the backyard pasture. I taste a salted tomato, still warm from the sun. I see my mom cooking our supper or my brother tossing his football.

These kinds of memories are often called “nostalgia.” This is a Greek word that means “longing for home.” That rings true for me, as I was blessed to come from a loving home. Maybe for others, that nostalgia may be for whatever time or place in their lives that represents a safe and accepting place to them. Memories like this are often most aching when we experience the death of someone we love. Standing at my mother’s graveside, the past, the present and the future are all together in that one spot. I remember her from the past. I miss her now. And I anticipate seeing her again in heaven. I am nostalgic for that moment. God has designed us to have that homesickness for heaven because that’s why we were created. I suppose I’m thinking of heaven more these days because as I age, more and more of my family and friends have already made the journey. Sorting through my mother’s things after she died, I came across her address book. Most of the names in it were crossed out. As we lose the ones we’ve loved in this life, our eyes and our hearts turn ever more often to those distant hills that shelter our forever home.

I think the saints are consumed with that yearning for heaven. Their lives are extraordinarily fixed on the eternal presence of the Lord. Like St. Paul, they feel that powerful pull to the home they’ve never seen. He wrote about the Jewish saints like Sarah and Abraham and Noah saying, “…they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one”(Hebrews 11:16). But so many of us have an impoverished idea of the reality of paradise. Who among us longs for an eternity of playing harps on fluffy clouds? Surely the earliest Christians did not die as martyrs for this boring reward. No, we can see what they imagined heaven to be from the paintings they left for us on the walls of the catacombs. Their heaven was a beautiful garden, filled with children and animals playing together, with parties and banquets and feasting and singing. It was a real, living Garden of Eden. Heaven was their home and they were willing to lay down their lives to go there. In St. John’s Revelation, we can see what the Lord showed to His beloved disciple. “I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, ‘Come! Gather for the great banquet of God’ “(Rev. 19:17). It’s a party alright. One filled beyond our knowing with an over-abundance of joy and love: with our Lord. We’ll be with our loved ones and with new friends, with the angels and the choirs. And there’ll be surprises, because our God is a god of surprises, after all. We’ll be free of sin, which is everything that has limited us on earth. As Dr. Peter Kreeft has said, “Jesus is our best indicator of Heaven.” What a wonderful place to live! No wonder we long for it so deeply. He is our beginning and our end, our Alpha and our Omega. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”(Colossians 1:17). That includes you and me. As we journey through Lent this year, let’s focus less on giving something up and more on loving and serving Jesus and the people in our lives. Let’s keep our hearts moving to our heavenly home, with joy and gratitude.

“Oh my delight, Lord of all created things and my God! How long must I wait to see You?”

—St. Teresa of Avila

Growing in Prayer

There are few things I need more than I need silence.  I think it’s because I’m not good at being quiet on the inside if there’s activity and noise going on around me.  Without that interior silence, my prayer life suffers.  When I was younger, I’d notice how hard it was to pray at times, but I didn’t really connect my struggles with a lack of silence.  When you’re young you tend to push through things, or at least I did.  My favorite problem-solving technique was full-speed ahead until I moved past obstacles by brute force.  As I grew in age and maturity, I realized this probably wasn’t always the best method to employ.  Especially in matters of faith, it helps to slow down, to listen, and to invite reflection.

But finding silence and time is a difficult thing to do.  Sometimes I’d feel like I was chasing a dry leaf across the grass as it’s blown and tumbled by the wind, always just out of my grasping hands.  Grasping.  And that’s what it feels like, trying to grab some time and some quiet as it tumbles away from me.  But silence is like happiness: the harder you run after it, the more it slips away from you.  You have to make a home for silence.  Only when you stop trying to grasp a few minutes of peace and quiet and instead actively create it in you day, will you find it.

My prayer life was transformed when I began to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.  This is the ancient prayer of the Church which marks the hours of each day.  Mainly consisting of Psalms, hymns, Scripture, and other holy writings, the Hours (along with the Mass) compose the public prayer of the Church.  Priests and deacons pray the LOTH as part of their vocation, but lay people are also encouraged to incorporate it into their daily prayers, too.

I pray them because it helps me to sanctify my time to the Lord.  I’m not going to say that I always pray each one of the seven groups of prayers through the day and night.  I don’t.  But I try to.  It teaches me to humbly put myself in adoration of God.  The LOTH connects me to the rest of the Church as we all pray the same words, around the world.  It’s been described as “the voice of the Bride to the Bridegroom” and I think that’s both an accurate and a beautiful description.  It helps me to pray at a deeper level than I’d pray “on my own.”  Sometimes my spontaneous prayers focus too much on my feelings and while feelings are important, they don’t define my relationship with God.  I pray with my intellect and my will, as well—praying when I don’t feel like it, when I can’t find the words to pray, and when I don’t think I need to pray at all.  These prayers draw me out of myself and into a place where I can forget my own words and begin to hear the voice of God.  Praying the Psalms does this especially well for me.

Jesus would have prayed the Psalms several times a day, as a Jew.  The earliest Christians, many of whom were converts from Judaism, would have also followed this practice.  So the LOTH help me follow this ancient practice of “praying without ceasing”( I Thessalonians 5:16).  When I pray the Hours, I feel a strong connection to the disciples and to Jesus Himself.  In my mouth are the same words He used when talking with the Father.  I’m reminded that my prayer life isn’t all about me, after all.  I need that reminder.

Praying the Liturgy of the Hours guarantees that I’ll include times of silence and reflection in my day.  Rather than just hoping I’ll squeeze in a few moments of prayer in the morning and at bedtime, the Hours carve out little invitations throughout the day and night.  I use an app on my mobile phone which means I won’t forget and all the readings for each day are conveniently gathered in one place for me.  I need the discipline that the Hours give me in deepening and increasing my prayer life.  I need to step off the hamster wheel a few times each day and silently pray and listen.  If this sounds like you, take a moment and explore the Liturgy of the Hours.  These are prayed by believers from many Christian traditions and may be just what you need to grow in your spiritual life.

“Our greatest need is to be silent before this great God…” St. John of the Cross

The Celibate Priesthood

We live in a sexualized culture. This is hardly news to anyone with a television, a DVD player, or access to the internet. Images of sexuality, in all its’ forms and expressions, are constantly before us. And yet, as Christians, we are called to lead lives of chastity. Single people are commanded to remain celibate. Married couples express chastity as the total committment to their spouse, in body, mind, and spirit. A sacramental marriage encompasses sexuality in all the fullness and self-giving of a shared love which is open to the gift of new life.

 Living a chaste life in our modern world is a strong expression of our faith in Christ. In the Roman Catholic Church, men who are called to the priesthood promise to remain unmarried and to live, as all single persons should, a life of celibacy. This is not a doctrine or dogma of our faith, but has been a traditional practice since the early Middle Ages. There are exceptions to this tradition, including the many Catholic priests outside the Latin Rite who are married men.

 Jesus Christ never married. Among His Apostles, He called both single and married men to serve Him and found His Church. Jesus tells us that some men renounce marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God. “Whoever can accept this ought to accept it” (Matthew 19:11-12). Christ saw the celibate life as a special and privileged calling, one for which not all men are suited, but one that gives glory to His Kingdom. St. Paul certainly supports the celibate life as a calling from God when he writes his first letter to the church at Corinth. Some early Church Fathers wrote in support of a celibate priesthood, including St. Cyril, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine.

A priest gives himself completely in service of the people of God. Pastors serve as “Father” to their flocks, shepherding and guiding them throughout all of life’s joys and sorrows. The priest is the representative of Christ. In this respect, a priest understands his identity by following the example of Jesus, who lived His life in perfect chastity and obedience. The priesthood is a holy calling, something set apart from the rest of the world. Just as Christ gave His life for His Bride, the Church, so too does every priest offer up his own life for the good of Christ’s people.

 Most Catholics do marry, and all Catholics venerate marriage as a Holy Sacrament, an action of God’s grace in our souls. It is precisely the holiness of marriage that makes celibacy so precious, for only what is good and holy in itself can be given up for God as a sacrifice. In a poor comparison, just as fasting presupposes the goodness of food, celibacy presupposes the goodness of marriage.

 “The priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ; the spouse of the Church” (Pope John Paul II). His celibacy is a radical act of love freely given, in total committment to the Saviour of the world. His life, like that of Christ, goes against the culture of the day. Our priests are examples to us of a life poured out in service. Over the centuries, these men have brought billions of people to Jesus Christ. Through their service, they established the largest charitable organization on the face of the earth: The Catholic Church. They compiled the books of the Bible. Priests established the world’s first legal system in the Code of Canon Law, which is still in use today. We owe the college and university system of education to the work of faithful priests. The world’s first hospitals and medical centers were founded by priests and brothers of the Catholic Church. Priests work as missionaries in every country on the planet and thousands of them have been martyred for their faith. From the lions of the Roman Coliseum, to the despots of communist China, and in every war-torn area around the world, these faithful priests continue today to fearlessly lose their lives in sacrifice for Him. And they baptize our babies, hear our confessions, bury our loved ones and bring us Christ Himself at every Mass every day around the world. The history of the Catholic Church has, in large part, been the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the lives of His priests and the flocks they serve. As Catholics, we celebrate the dedicated men who answer God’s call to His priesthood and who offer everything they have to His glory.

“Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church’s minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart, celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God.” –Paragrah 1579, The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Joy

At the end of the day, we should ask ourselves, “How did I draw others to Christ this day?” We can have all kinds of good intentions, but we know where good intentions can often lead. Folks don’t know our intentions, they only know our words and our actions. So maybe the question should be,”What did I say and do today to draw others to Christ?”

Well, if you walked around with your head down staring at your phone, chances are you didn’t do a whole lot of leading by example. How many opportunities to help, to show kindness, to be merciful, or to offer hope do we lose because we’re so involved in responding to those little glowing screens in our hands? I do this way too often, especially as a way of “killing time” while I’m waiting in a line, waiting in a doctor’s office, or even as a way of not engaging with the people around me. I’m being self-centered and proud—-hardly an example of a joyful disciple of Christ.

In order to reveal our Savior to another person, we have to be open to engage with them. This seems incredibly obvious, but so many times we don’t do it. Look people in the eyes. The cashier at the supermarket. The bank teller. Your spouse. Your child. Listen to them. Don’t just mentally prepare what you plan to say in response once they’re stopped talking. Really listen to their words and the meaning behind them. You may hear something you weren’t expecting. Ask questions. Be patient. Don’t feel that you have to make small talk to fill in any silences. Sometimes silence is very important. Connecting with another person in that way can be the first step in sharing the love of Jesus.

Joy. That’s right, joy. If there’s one thing that should distinguish a Christian from an unbeliever, it’s that we live our lives with joy. Everyone can be happy in the good times, but I’m talking about being joyful even in the worst of times. Joy comes from the gift of faith and the Holy Spirit. Joy is the deep and abiding assurance of the love of Jesus Christ. I love the story of St. Lawrence as an example of Christian joy. He was a deacon in 3rd century Rome, during some of the worst times of Christian persecution. He distributed alms to the poor, which won him the anger of the Empire. As punishment, he was strapped to a grate over a raging fire. After he had been burned alive for a time, he told his torturers, “You can turn me over now—I think I’m done on that side!” Now that’s joy—an enduring happiness which grows in relationship with Jesus.  

If you faithfully engage with the people your meet every day and you listen to them and reflect back the joy of Christ, you can be assured that your life will bear the light of Christ to others. You don’t have to be a professional preacher or write inspirational books or teach Sunday School. Just be who God made you to be and live each day in the hope of the Cross. God will set people in your path that are hungry to have what you have to know the One Who gave it to you.

“Joy is a net of love by which we catch souls.”

—-St. Teresa of Calcutta