Corpus Christi

Every Monday night during jail ministry we have a Mass, or do a liturgical service, based on the previous day's (Sunday's) readings. Yesterday was the feast of Corpus Christi, which is of course all about the very real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 

I don't know what it is about Mondays this summer, but if there is a torrential downpour to  be had, it happens Monday night. Tonight was no different - the little Accuweather app on my phone popped up with a tornado warning (pshaw) as I left work and while it stopped for the drive to the detention center, we sat in the multi-purpose room with the winds and rain howling around the building again. Rain is always nice, though, especially during summer, and especially when you are in a place so clinically, purposefully cold. It reminds you of what's outside - the fact that there is an outside.

There was just three of us tonight: two volunteers and one inmate. He is our regular, and we always marvel at the way these discussions help us all gain a deeper understanding of scripture. We covered a lot of ground, and I shared my own feelings on how the Eucharist is not the "easy" part of being, or becoming, Catholic. Some of the first Apostles left Jesus when he began speaking about his body and and blood because it is such a radical idea. For me, it has been much easier to think "God is love" and leave it at that, rather than get into really examining the sacrifice and the reality found in the Host. If that is how you come to the Church, that is fine, but eventually you must see Jesus there in the Communion. I say "must," because otherwise you are cheating yourself - you get this pinch of reality, when there is so much there that God is offering you.

A few weeks ago I did adoration, really and truly, for the first time. I have had other, brief experiences which were parts of some greater activity, so I don't feel they count. It was one of the nights when we arrived at the jail to learn programs were canceled for lock down, and it was of course another rainy Monday, with the rain water gushing in the streets. Cajethan had the brilliant idea to spend that hour, instead of just turning around and going home, to visit the Eucharist for perpetual adoration at St. Agnes. I was secretly thrilled at his suggestion because it had been on my heart for some time. I relished the opportunity to just sit with Christ - not even have to pray the Rosary or anything else, not attempt a grand and deep meditation practice, not read some holy person's words - just be. Look to the monstrance, feel peace and just be. 

And that's exactly what happened. There in that little chapel, with the floods soaking the earth outside, the devoted beside me adoring in their own ways - I looked at Jesus inside the monstrance and let go. How and why does that happen? Why does it work? Is it the beauty of the monstrance and the altar? The prayers of the faithful suffused into the very air of the room? Is it because there is no wrong way to adore? Of course there are appropriate and inappropriate ways, but sitting vs. kneeling vs. praying vs. reading - Jesus is just happy you're there with Him. I think that must be it. And if you are open to it and faithful, you feel it.

What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics. This is why we kneel before the pew; this is why a church without the Sacrament on Good Friday feels so horribly empty. Jesus gave us the gift of himself on the cross long ago, yet he also gave us the gift us his person in the Eucharist to be seen and met every day. If it seems too good to be true, just sit with Him for a while.  Ask to understand, and allow his Presence to enter your heart. What you feel may be impossible to explain to any other person, and that's fine. After all, that speaks to the very nature of our personal relationship with God. He is waiting for you, and He already knows you.

One Year

Today is the one year anniversary of my Confirmation into the Catholic Church. Hallelujah!

I began a long and winding post about how and why I received the Sacrament, but realized, while my story is unique to me in its details, it is not unique to me in its universality. I simply struggled with the same heartbreak and emptiness that we all have. I truly believe that - we are all made with this inner compass which seeks unceasingly for the divine. How we orient that compass as we seek - toward drugs and alcohol, by seeking attention, staying in bad relationships (there's an endless number of ways, really) - is what differs from person to person and, ultimately, determines your level of happiness. You will always seek, but you will never be happy anywhere but in the light of God. That's it.

What surprised me the most was not just how badly I wanted to draw closer to God, but how compliant I was. It was as if I was getting little promptings saying, "Ok, do this - attend this church. Now do this: go to RCIA. And now this..." and I did it. I did willingly, gladly, because all of who I thought I was, was nothing. It did not exist. The real me, whoever that was, was not in my relationship that I had ended, it was not in the person I had loved, it was not in the future I had imagined for myself, or all the millions of little heartbreaks and disappointments I had gathered up around myself. All of that had vanished. The little cocoon of unreality I have been living in was stripped away and I had what felt like nothing left. I was positively limping along, and ran blindly to the church like a child crying to its mother.

So I went to Mass, and I went to RCIA, willingly, obediently, hungrily. It's almost silly to me now - how obvious this all is. When we stop fighting God's will is when everything falls into place. But, you must learn that lesson before you can live it.

I began to see small chinks of light breaking through the blackness as I opened myself up to God. Perhaps then I realized, really, that this was the process of falling in love - truly falling in love - with the thing that was in front of me all along. How unexpected! The Church of my family, the Church I grew up in and turned my back on, just out of ignorance, had all the answers I could have ever needed. The Church that had answers to questions I hadn't even thought of. I began to understand Catholic teaching holistically - from the perspective that God wants us all to be our real, true selves the way He made us, and that this is the same thing as "holiness." To be close to God is to love oneself. That just being is enough because God created us. That we are here to get ourselves and others to Heaven, and that this is an absolute blessing. That God knows us better than we or any other person every will, and that He so greatly desires our happiness. And all of these things, all of them taken together, beat so loudly and wonderfully in my heart because I was just beginning to understand what was truly real.

If you'd like the whole story, I will gladly give it to you. I do not think you need it, though. What you need to know is that opening oneself to God is the easiest thing, the hardest thing, the best thing. I am the same person I was a year ago - but I am so much better, because I am so much more myself. I thank God for giving me a chance to look at my life and to slowly and lovingly draw me out of myself. Matthew Kelly always talks about our mission to become "the best versions of ourselves." That is what being Catholic means; that is holiness, that is sainthood and nirvana.

The God who created Jupiter and the oceans also created you. And you are the most important part of all His creation. Who are you? What is beating in your heart and calling you?  

St. John the Evangelist

Below is adapted from the allocutio I will give tonight on St. John the Evangelist. The reading comes from Ch. 24, The Patrons of the Legion, in Legio Mariae. (The allocutio is the talk given on a portion of the handbook during the weekly Legion of Mary meeting, either by the spiritual director or the president.)

St. John the Evangelist:

·         The disciple whom Jesus loved

·         First, was a model of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

·         Then became the model of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

·         “Pure as an angel”

·         Through St. John, Mary’s motherhood over all men was revealed and explained

·         He was Mary’s priest

I like the idea of “friend saints,” those we befriend and pray to in an effort to emulate their traits or life, and who can help us get closer to the Divine. St. John the Evangelist must be a particularly good friend saint, especially for Legionaries, given his relationship with Mary. Here, Frank Duff describes him in a child-like and tender way, with references to his attributes as a son, angel-like, close to Jesus and his Mother.

He has several titles: St. John the Theologian, St. John the Beloved, St. John the Divine, St. John the Evangelist. His particular trait seems to have always been to remain close to Christ throughout his life – present at the marriage at Cana, present at Gethsemane, present at the crucifixion, and the first of the apostles to reach the tomb at the resurrection.

St. John can inspire in us the same steadfast love for our Lord and his Mother that he showed in his own life. That seems to be the overwhelming mark of his life – not just as someone who wrote a Gospel, but someone who lived in a way symbolic of the life we can all choose, choosing to live your life in a close and personal relationship with Jesus.

Can you imagine what it feels like to be known as Jesus’s beloved? "(Insert your name) the Beloved." And yet, we are all beloved in Jesus’s eyes.  We must never forget this. Perhaps St. John already knew this, and his gift was not just seeking, but accepting Jesus’s love in his life. Would you find it difficult to be called Jesus’s Beloved? Would you feel worthy?

We are all called to be saints. We miss the mark, of course, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t, or can’t, try. St. John shows us that the first step to sainthood is finding Jesus, following Him, staying close, and loving Him with all our hearts. What wonderful things would be in store for us if we truly lived that way! How our worries and despair would fall away in the knowledge that we are Jesus’s beloved, that He is God, and that it is enough. The simplicity of this statement is remarkable, yet John understood it profoundly, and he lived it.

St. John is a friend of the Legion. He is a reminder that we are all called to stay close to Jesus and Mary and that to live this way, one must simply make the choice to do so.