A Journey Of Discovery

I remember a conversation that I had with one of my biological sisters.

The conversation took place in 2006 on a little side porch where we were attending a family function.

I told her that Shirli and I were on a journey – that the years I had spent studying monastic spirituality, becoming an Oblate at Saint Bernard Abbey, and our investigations into Catholic Christianity had led us to enrolling in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at the Catholic Church in town. I do not know if she was flabbergasted or not. If she was, she hid it well. Her response was simply, “Journey is a good thing.”

Christianity is every bit a journey.

It is not a static point of arrival but, rather, an ongoing adventure that is bi-directional.

One direction leads toward our eternal destination. The other direction leads us back to the very roots of Christianity and the centuries of foundational revelation in Israel that preceded the establishment of the Church by Christ and his chosen Apostles. It takes both directions. Learning and illumination will always be an integral aspect of the Christian journey.[1]

Church history, in this bi-directional regard, becomes in important element in understanding the Christian faith.

Saint Benedict understood the importance of past examples and suggests studying them as a means to personal improvement along the pathway of the Christian journey of faith.

“The reason we have written this rule is that, by observing it in monasteries, we can show that we have some degree of virtue and the beginnings of monastic life. But for anyone hastening on to the perfection of monastic life, there are the teachings of the holy Fathers, the observance of which will lead him to the very heights of perfection. What page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments is not the truest of guides for human life? What book of the holy catholic Fathers does not resoundingly summon us along the true way to reach the Creator? Then, besides the Conferences of the Fathers, their Institutes and their Lives, there is also the rule of our holy Father Basil.”[2]

It would be easy to dismiss what Benedict is saying with a simple protest of “But I am not a monk living in a monastery.”

The truth of the matter is that the monk, living in a monastery, is representative of every Christian individual. Only the surrounding environment of his enclosure is different. Within the enclosure of the monastery he wrestles with himself in something of a pressure cooker environment. What Benedict recommends to the monk in the monastery, he also recommends to every Christian – hastening on to Christian perfection.

We easily have the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments at our disposal.

Reading the Church Fathers, before the age of the internet, meant either spending a lot of money on the volumes or having access to a theological library. Those days have changed now that Google is just a keystroke away. Do not expect the Fathers to be light reading. They are not. They are extremely challenging and not written with our fast-food drive-thru mindsets in mind.

The Rule of Saint Benedict is based largely on the Rule of Saint Basil. It is, in fact, a simplified succinct version of it.

I remember looking for Basil’s rule when I first started yielding myself to the tutelage of Benedict. A simple pdf copy of it in English that I could download was not to be found. A recent renewed search met with the same results.

Shirli and I watched a very interesting documentary last night – The Island of Monks – something that she found on Amazon Prime. It is quite the story about a Cistercian monastery in the Netherlands. Subtitles are required unless you speak Dutch. After watching the documentary, Shirli did some Googling and found their website that contains a monastic library. Basil’s rule, though not in a downloadable pdf, is part of the library. Their website also hosts a translator program. This historical document, something on Benedict’s recommended reading list, is there and can be accessed at the following link. Once there select kloosterbibliotheek at the top of the page.

http://kloosterbibliotheek.nl 

Here, on this last day of 2018, I cannot help but to think about something that Pope Francis wrote.

“The believer is essentially one who remembers.”[3]

The Christian journey, not just the one that I am on as an individual but, rather, the collective entirety of it, has both a beginning and a culmination. The journey that I am on makes much more sense now that I have so much more to remember where the collective history is concerned.

Stay on the journey.

Remember.

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[1] 2 Timothy 2:15

[2] RB 73:1-5

[3] Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, II:13, p. 14 © 2013 Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Thinking Back And Looking Ahead

We are now only a few mere hours away.

It baffles us how fast the past year has flown by. 

More than that, it baffles us how fast all our calendar years have flown by. Time truly marches on and waits for no one.

Time is something that Shirli and I are learning to take much more personally now that we have less of it. We may have more of it available to us on a daily basis now that we are retired. Longevity, where time is concerned, is another matter altogether.

I find it interesting, these days, how things I have not thought of in decades somehow make their way out of the recesses of my memory department.

The evangelism class was required as part of the ministerial program at the Bible College where I received my ministerial education and pastoral training back in the late seventies and early eighties.

I honestly did not enjoy the evangelism class.

There was something about it that did not ring quite true to me. It seemed too artificial, surgical, and mechanical – follow this program for evangelism with guaranteed results in winning souls. It was, nonetheless, a required course and, as a requirement, I participated. Perhaps, though, not in the spirit of willing obedience. The program involved going out into neighborhoods cold canvasing, knocking doors, and using a specific booklet to “share” the Gospel with anyone who would listen.

A lot of doors were slammed in our faces. A lot of profanities were spoken before doors were slammed in our faces. I remember an occasion when one of the student ministers knocked on the entirely wrong door. The biker-type that answered the door delivered a closed fist blow before spouting profanities and slamming the door in his face. It took several days for the swelling to go down and a few weeks for all the signs of the shiner to finally fade and disappear.

It is funny how something that happened forty years ago emerges as a memory this morning. 

A lot has happened, a lot has changed, in these forty years. One of the most significant happenings and changes over these forty years regards our conversion to Catholic Christianity in 2007 – twenty-eight years after the beforementioned young ministerial student wore the shiner.

This memory reminds me of something that is attributed to Saint Francis sometime around the dawning of the 13^th Century. “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” I remind myself that the simple truth contained in those words attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi is that actions will always speak louder than words. I remind myself that what others see in me will always predicate what they hear from me.

Here, only hours away from hanging the 2019 calendar on the wall, I find myself doing some self-examination. I find myself thinking back over the past year (and years) and looking ahead to the New Year with its twelve blank pages of days waiting to be filled by the actions that I perform. I remind myself that these actions will not go unnoticed. They will not go unnoticed here on earth by those I am personally in contact with. They will not go unnoticed by the Saints in heaven. And they will certainly not go unnoticed by God to whom I must one day give account.

In closing out 2018, and welcoming 2019, I want to say thank you to those that visit Oblate Reflections and read these personal reflections. It is certainly encouraging that others invest their interest and time in reading them.

It is my heart’s desire that, in offering these reflections on a public platform, that others, especially other Oblates of Saint Benedict, may be encouraged, edified, and challenged. It is also my heart’s desire that others, others that are unfamiliar with the Benedictine expression of monastic spirituality in these modern times, will discover an interest in the value of monastic spirituality for these terribly difficult times in which we live.

“So that in all things God may be glorified.”[1]

Pax

Your brother,

David

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[1] Rule of Saint Benedict 57:9 (1 Peter 4:11)

On The Feast Of The Holy Innocents

That was a terribly sad time in the lives of a lot of people.

The most significant event of all time had happened. We know the event as Emmanuel – God with us. 

Christ had been born. God had come down from heaven in the form of his only begotten son. Incarnate. Born of the Virgin Mary. To ever after be known as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

The personal history of King Herod is an interesting one to read. The idea of a King being born in Israel who would rise up to usurp his position of authority was more than he could accept.

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wisemen, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had learned from the wisemen.”[1]

Herod did not know that the wisemen had been warned in a dream not to return to him to report on the location of the one that he considered a personal threat. He also did not know that Joseph, too, had experienced an angelic visitation where he was told to flee to Egypt with Jesus and Mary where they were to remain until they were told to return to Jerusalem.[2]

The image of parents weeping and wailing as Herod’s soldiers snatched their babies and toddlers from them provokes feelings of both sadness and anger.

Both of these emotions are justifiable. What happened was horrific.

The sadness and anger evoked by the story are not, however, the complete picture.

I have to remember that Christ was not an afterthought in the mind of God. He knew beforehand, before he spoke creation into existence, before he created the couple in the Garden, that sin would corrupt their hearts and that their corruption would be passed on to their offspring throughout every generation. God had a plan for the salvation of humankind even before Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation that corrupted their created beings.

God told the tempter in the Garden, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”[3]

God began, in these few words, to unveil his foreordained plan for the salvation of humankind. Though the tempter would indeed bring pain and suffering to the Offspring of the one that would be known as the New Eve (Mary), the Offspring of the New Eve would be completely victorious in crushing the tempter and all his evil plans to corrupt, degrade, and destroy the created children of God.

I have to remind myself that suffering for the sake of Christ is a very real part of God’s greater plan of salvation for humankind. I also have to remind myself that the reason the tempter has not already been consigned to the final judgment against him – the reason he is still tempting and deluding – is that, without his diabolical work in the world, we would have no temptations or evil actions to prove ourselves against.[4]

Suffering for Christ is not a popular topic in this modern age where the pop-Christian airwaves are filled with prosperity and other teachings. Modern ears would rather hear that God wants to make them rich rather than hearing that suffering for the sake of Christ is a normal element of what it means to be Christian.

I cannot help but to think of the Holy Innocents who died in Jerusalem because of the ill-will of Herod. They did absolutely nothing to deserve death as infants and toddlers. Yet they suffered and died.

Christ suffered and died a brutal death before being resurrected on the third day.

I cannot help but to think of all the Holy Martyrs, Saints, and saints over the ages. Men, women, youth, and children that suffered and died for one simple reason – they loved Christ and were hated by those filled with ill-will. Beginning with the very earliest ones, and continuing into this modern age, Christians have suffered some terrible sufferings.

I cannot help but to think about what Saint Paul wrote while he awaited his own trial and death for the Gospel. “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”[5]

Am I to believe that the sufferings and death of the Lamb of God, and all the sufferings and deaths of the lambs of God throughout the ages, are meant to make me a millionaire? I hardly think so.

I have to remember, too, that we are still completing the picture that portrays the salvation of humankind through Christ. This portrait will not be complete – come what may - until that day when the trumpet sounds, Christ appears again, and all of us are caught up together to meet Christ in the air.[6]

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[1] Matthew 2:16

[2] Matthew 2:12-15

[3] Genesis 3:18

[4] Ephesians 6:12

[5] Colossians 1:24

[6] 1 Corinthians 15:52

Calculating Human Value

Human emotions are moved by grandiose and spectacular things and events. 

So much so that our sense of self-worth, our self-esteem, discovers itself being ruled by the grandiose and spectacular elements that surround us. 

The human tendency, then, begins to estimate the human esteem of others according to what they have or do not have. This same calculator, in the realm of human tendency, is used to estimate our own human esteem by either valuing or devaluing ourselves.

There is nothing remotely holy or accurate in the estimations rendered by this human-esteem calculator. Its estimates will always be inaccurate and inordinate. Yet, this is the calculator used by most people in measuring others and themselves. As long as this calculator is employed, its inaccuracies and inordinacies will always generate inconsistencies, injustices, inequalities, and inhumanities that do harm to others and to ourselves in one way or another.

“Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from the cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.[1]

While the Apostle may appear to be taking things to the extreme, he is honestly addressing the very root of our human predicament – a root that easily and often grows into conditions that create emotional, physical, and spiritual hardships for ourselves, for the world, and, sadly, divisions within Christ’s body where unity, born of a fervent love for God and one another, is intended to be the earmarking characteristic that sets the people of God apart from the people of the world.

In this body there are no caste or social grading systems that serve to elevate and degrade others.

I have often thought about the little Bible church out in the country where I was reared as a child. 

As children we were taught Jesus Loves the Little Children and sang it often. I was hardly out of diapers when I learned it. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Our little choir of children resembled fresh baked slices of white bread cut from a larger loaf of white bread. Six decades have passed since this early childhood memory of learning this child’s song of human unity. In the six decades that have passed, the social complexion of that church, though it has grown significantly in numbers, has not changed. It is just a larger loaf of white bread.

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.

It is like the precious oil on the head,

running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron,

running down over the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon,

which falls on the mountains of Zion.

For there the LORD ordained his blessing,

life forevermore.[2]

A lot has changed in the fifteen hundred years since Saint Benedict compiled a rule for those that desired to sit under his tutelage. One thing has not changed though. Human nature has not changed.

Those that sought God under the direction of Benedict were no different in their human nature than we are today in the 21^st Century. All of our advancements in science and technology have had no effect where improving the human willingness toward pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth – The Seven Capital Sins – is concerned. They have, if anything, and along with the relaxed social norms of this age, exacerbated the problem.

It is in this world of easy conveniences and constant encouragement to estimate as the world estimates that I live my life.

It is in this world, where I am surrounded by and constantly encountering lives centered in and consumed by the ravages of The Seven Capital Sins and the myriad of little foxes that run with them, that I endeavor to live out the life-principles taught by Christ, his Apostles and their disciples, and in the little school known as the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Saint Benedict both challenges and encourages me when he says,

“Just as there is a wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life. This, then, is the good zeal which monks must foster with fervent love: They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other (Romans 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers; to God, loving fear; to their abbot, unfeigned and humble love. Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.”[3]

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[1] James 4:1-2

[2] Psalm 133

[3] RB Chapter 72

One Word

It all comes down to one word.

One simple word.

One difficult word.

One beautiful word.

The word is a stumbling block,

a crisis,

a collision,

a comfort.

Jesus?

Everything about his life speaks to this one word.

Mary?

Everything about her life speaks to this one word.

The Apostles?

Everything about their lives speaks to this one word.

Those early disciples?

Everything about their lives speaks to this one word.

The exemplary Saints?

Everything about their lives speaks to this one word.

This word?

Surrender.

I surrender.

Again.

Safe Refuge

The world that we live in is a rough place.

The world has always been a rough place. It will always be a rough place.

We should never delude ourselves by thinking the world will embrace the light of Christ that shines through us. That the world, and vast numbers of people of the world, will ever be anti-Christ is plainly evident in the teachings of Scripture. We are called to live in this world but to be separate from this world.[1]

We see the Light of the world. We yield ourselves to the Light of the world. The Light of the world fills us and shines through us. Others see the Light in us. Some will find the Light desirable. Others will reject the Light. My responsibility is to shine. How others respond to the shining is their will to perform.

I find it easy to accept the reality that the world will always live in opposition to Christ. I also have to accept the reality that not all who profess to be Christian live in a way that honestly reflects the Gospel life-ideals that demolish the relational problems created by self and selfishness. Where the world is concerned, and where others that make some type of profession of faith in Christ are concerned, all I can possibly do is live in the Light of Christ that I know.

Monastery enclosures are wonderful places.

Inside, interiorly, there is a holy structure, a rule, that governs daily life and supports the ongoing development of the interior life of those that willingly enter in. The very physical structure of a monastery, unlike a prison that is built to keep criminals locked away from society, is constructed to keep the world locked outside the gate.

I think, and this is just some reflective thinking on my part, that had I been reared in the Catholic faith as a child, had I been introduced to the possibility of monastic life at an early age, that I would have been strongly inclined toward a monastic profession and life in a habit. I do not find it coincidental that life as an Oblate coincided with my conversion to the Catholic faith as a Protestant adult.

Our natural conception, birth, and childhood formation belong to a dimension that none of us have any control over. Our spiritual conception, birth, and subsequent spiritual formation (especially as adults) reside in a dimension where we have the definite ability to add our yea or nay to the process that heals, renews, and remakes us into images that gradually and more positively reflect and model the image of Christ.

Christians need safe relational community.

Professed religious are intimately involved in relationships within the safe refuge of the monastic community where they pray, worship, eat, work, and grow in grace together under the careful example and guidance of an Abbot.

Here, in the tough world outside the monastic enclosure where we are constantly assaulted in our encounters with the world and, sadly, by the abrasive actions of misinformed or mal-informed professors of the Christian faith, Oblates, and all Christians for that matter, need safe refuge within a relational community (Church) that supports and fosters intimate personal relationships and deep spiritual formation.

We need safe refuge where we can share and participate in what is intended to be the normal communion of Christian community. The Apostle Paul spoke to this when he wrote,

Complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vain glory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.[2]

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[1] John 17:14-24

[2] Philippians 2:2-4, 14-16

Commonality

Commonality is one of the things that distinctly set those early ones apart from both the Roman and Jewish communities that surrounded them.

It is easy to think of these early ones as primitive, that their way of living the ideals of Christianity was only in the developmental stage.

The simple truth of the matter is that those early ones were fully alive, fully present, and fully in love with Christ and one another. 

Those early ones were submersed in the words of Christ and the instructions of the Apostles. They modeled the words of Christ who said, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”[1]

Commonality was one of the characteristics of this great love in the lives of the early ones. Pentecost – the outpouring of the Holy Spirit - was a real life changer for them. They were spiritually energized to live the truth.

“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”[2]

The Church, even under the heavy hand and hard sole of oppression and dire persecution, multiplied and grew astoundingly.

Christ’s commandment to love, and the example of the early ones in personal response to Christ’s commandment, present a significant challenge in our modern times where it is so easy to pick and choose what we want to accept and to rationalize away everything else that challenges us beyond the planted hedges and erected walls of our personal comfort zones.

It is easy to argue that the supreme example of the early ones was necessary for the “times” in which they lived; that such personal devotion and surrender was required in order to get the infant Church going and established in light of the hard scrutiny of both the Romans and the Jews. It is much more convenient to lay claim to an easier salvation that retains, supports, and promotes my own “rights” to the exercise of personal ownership and other personal freedoms.

Yet, nothing that I can argue or do erases or negates the commandment of Christ and the example of the early ones in the infant Church.

This example has survived the centuries of time since the words of Christ and the acts of the early believers were written and preserved. What was to become known as the Three Evangelical Councils (poverty, chastity, and obedience) have, ever since, characterized and given dimension to the lives of men and women professing Christian monastic vows and clothing themselves in monastic habits. Monasteries flourished around the world for centuries. Mother houses regularly dispatched groups of faithful monastics to found new monasteries that would soon be filled.

Benedictine Vows (and Oblate Promises) center around obedience, stability, and conversion of life. Poverty and chastity are not specifically included but are definitely implied and accepted as an integral part of Benedictine monastic spirituality.

It is easy to dismiss these vows, promises, and councils and consider them something applicable only to monastic communities. They are more than something applicable to monastic orders and societies of priests. The principles contained in them apply to every follower of Christ. Our own catechism points out that “Christ proposes the evangelical councils, in their great variety, to every disciple.”[3]

Times have indeed changed.

Where once the seats in monastic choirs were filled, now many seats are empty. Few are entering into professions to fill the seats now left vacant by brothers and sisters that have either lived and died in their professions or recanted and left their professions.

Has God ceased to call men and women to the commonality of monastic professions?

Has he ceased to call believers to a life of commonality within the Church?

Or, has the modern Church become so infatuated with the things and noise of the world that its sense of spiritual  hearing has been dulled?

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[1] John 13:34-35

[2] Acts 2:43-47

[3] CCC, p. 215, III - 915

All Of It Or Only Pieces

I can say that I do. 

But really, honestly, do I?

The question involves a lot of deep introspection and soul searching.

I have been doing a lot of this lately – this business of honest reflection and self-examination. Advent, this Little Lent, has something to do with it. Little Lent does play a timely and important role in the process. I am thankful for this Liturgical Season. My own personal process, however, involves more than the reality of the Liturgical Season that we are in.

More than something that has to do with the Liturgical Season is the reality that I am solidly in the season of life known as the Autumn Years. I am physically winding down. There is no denying it. The date of my birth betrays any act of denial on my part. The physical wear and tear that I am beginning to feel betrays any attempt of denial on my part.

I do not begrudge the physical effects. They are, if anything, a catalyst that I accept as something of an invitatory leading me into the unfolding of my personal yet unfinished life-liturgy. In what remains of this life, of this yet unfinished life-liturgy with its indeterminable number of days and years, I cannot help but to hear the words do only that which is most important.

I am reminded of an occasion when the Pharisees approached Jesus. 

One of them asked a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”[1]

I am compelled to ask myself, “Do I honestly love God with all my heart, soul, and mind?”

I remind myself that, before I can begin to love God with such fervent devotion, I must first desire to love him with so. I must go beyond conditionally acknowledging God when it is convenient or comfortable for me.

Loving God with fervent devotion has unavoidable social effects that set us apart. Our fervent devotion sets us apart from the world outside the Church and cuts across the grain of its way of life. It also has a way of setting us apart within our modern Church world where genuine spiritual renewal and revival are so desperately needed. A life that is characterized by such a fervent love for God attracts some onlookers while it drives other onlookers away.

I am compelled to ask myself, “Do I honestly love my neighbor as myself?”

I remind myself that it is easy to love those that are lovable. It is easy to love those that return love for love given. A lot of “neighbors” present themselves as hard to love though. Their chosen lifestyles have them trapped within cages of their own making where they live as modern demoniacs and lepers. It is so easy to ignore them and dismiss them as “unclean” and unworthy of approach. I remind myself that for these too - the hard to love - Christ was born, suffered, and died.

I have to be honest.

I cannot say that I love God with all of my heart, soul, and mind – a fervent quality of love that makes it possible to see and love others as Christ sees and loves them; this fervent quality of love that instills a willingness that far exceeds any sense of rigid obligation.

Though I am being perfected in love and loving God more, there are still pockets and cavities yet to be yielded. There are still some stones in my life-soil that need pulverizing. Yet, in this confession, I can say that I desire to love God with all of my heart, soul, and mind. I can say that I recognize my own need to love God more fervently. Only in satisfying this need can I possibly grasp the great depths and dimensions of God’s love for me.

To listen with the ear of the heart opens us to hear the voice of God calling to us.

In hearing the voice of God, we may not necessarily like what we hear. Yet, in hearing him, in yielding to him with fervent love and devotion, he leads us through the unfolding of his will in our life-liturgies – an unfolding that necessarily involves wholehearted love and devotion.

Let us get up then, at long last, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep (Romans 13:11). Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts (Psalm 95:8).[2]

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[1] Matthew 22:36-40

[2] RB Prologue 8-10

Transforming Peace

A new day is breaking. A new week has begun.

Life is much simpler now – enhanced by the simple surroundings of this cozy little hermitage-like cabin in the woods that has become our full-time retirement retreat. We no longer live in dread of Monday.

Achieving this simplicity was not easy. 

It took a lot of determination. It took a lot of letting go. It took a lot of ignoring the voices and opinions of well-intentioned others that were not able to wrap their minds around the ideals that we considered most important in our lives.

It is difficult to describe the peacefulness that this much simpler life has brought to our lives. 

Here, in the serenity and solitude of our little cabin in the woods, we have much more control over the things that daily interrupt and run interference. We are no longer bombarded by the time restraints and demands that characterized our lives before this monumental move. We have learned to relax.

We, in a sense, now own the time that we have.

We arise in peacefulness. We retire to rest in peacefulness. There is ample time, between rising and retiring, for the things that we consider most important in our lives.

I am reminded of the Proverb, “Better a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.”[1]

Strife is most often thought of as interpersonal relational conflict. It is that. It is more than that though. Little thought is given to the dimensions of strife generated in our lives by our adherence to and pursuit of the standards of living prescribed by ideals of success which insist that more is better and bigger is best. How much of our genuine selves, how much of our ability to give of ourselves in genuinely charitable relationships, is compromised by striving after the world’s standards of success?

I remind myself of how easy it is to succumb to the world’s standards when we are so carefully cautioned against it.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world – the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches – comes not from the Father but from the world.”[2]

How much conflict, how much strife, how much human grief is eliminated from our lives when we embrace the truth and simplicity contained in abandoning the world’s standards and pursuing Christ in the simplicity of the Gospel and in the instructions of those he appointed to shepherd his fledgling Church? The answer is simple – great amounts of it.

Advent is an invitation for all the world to consider and accept God’s gift of Salvation through Christ. Advent is also an invitation for all believers to experience afresh this gift of love in our lives – to begin afresh with deeper and more fervent love for Christ where we joyfully “Sing to the Lord a new song.”[3]

I remind myself that there is peace to be discovered – peace to be had. It is a peace in our lives that radiates out into the world around us. It is a transforming peace that goes with us, even into the Baca - into dry and barren places – where it waters and nourishes our souls.

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O LORD of hosts!

My soul longs, indeed it faints

For the courts of the LORD;

My heart and my flesh sing for joy

To the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,

And the swallow a nest for herself,

Where she may lay her young,

At your altars, O LORD of hosts,

My King and my God.

Happy are those who live in your house,

Ever singing your praise,

Happy are those whose strength is in you,

In whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the valley of Baca

They make it a place of springs;

They early rain also covers it with pools.

The go from strength to strength;

The God of gods will be seen in Zion.[4]

Whatever you are going through in your own valley of Baca, it is our prayer that the peace of God strengthens and sustains you.

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[1] Proverbs 17:1

[2] 1 John 15-16

[3] Psalm 96:1

[4] Psalm 84:1-5

Our Personal Christmas Miracle

We lived with it for a lot of years – decades of years.

It was something that we both experienced, individually in our own individual ways, and together collectively as husband and wife.

A deep depression would seize us.

There was no avoiding it. There were no work-arounds for it. The only thing that we could do was live with it until it ran its seasonal course and lifted. The depression would set in days before Thanksgiving and lift after Christmas.

It was a hard season every year. We knew it was coming and accepted it as a normal part of life. We always did the best we could to muddle our way through the holiday season and somehow managed to maintain a few degrees of holiday decorum for the sake of status quo.

Holiday depression is real.

This holiday season, for many, is not a season of joy. Some are affected by it more seriously than others. Some are able to hunker down, lick their wounds, and muddle their way through. Some sedate their way through. Some despair to the degree that they see suicide as the only remedy for their despair. Those unaffected by holiday depression really have no clue what it is like to experience it.

Something has happened to us this year.

We were not consciously seeking it and did not notice it when it happened. Here we are this deep into the holiday season and neither of us are suffering the debilitating effects of the holiday depression that we have lived with for all these years. We only realized it a few days ago and consider it a miracle of healing in our lives.

I am reminded of the occasion when Jesus cleansed the ten lepers.[1] Their cleansing (healing) was not on the spot and instantaneous. Christ told them to “Go show yourselves to the priests.” The lepers departed and “as they went they were cleansed.”

Somewhere, somehow, some "as we went" healing grace has been dispensed into our lives and for this we say Deo Gratias – Thanks be to God.

In saying our Deo Gratias for this miracle in our lives, we also pray for people everywhere suffering from the effects of holiday depression. We want to encourage you. We want you to know that you are not alone in your suffering. Others are suffering with you. Others understand your suffering. Christ understands your suffering. Our Blessed Mother understands your suffering.

There is hope - though in hope we may have to persevere through suffering.

Gracious Mary, Mother of our Redeemer, said yes to the will of God and received Christ into her womb.

We too, when we respond affirmatively to the will of God, receive Christ into the womb of our being and begin our life of faith. Our life of faith is every bit a journey where we often fail and fall but are constantly striving to rise again.

Gracious Mother of our Redeemer, forever abiding

Heavens gateway, and star of ocean

O succour the people,

Who, through falling, strive to rise again.

Thou Maiden who barest thy holy Creator,

To the wonder of all nature;

Ever Virgin, after, as before thou receivedst that Ave from the mouth of Gabriel;

Have compassion on us sinners.[2]

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[1] Luke 17:11-19

[2] Alma Redemptoris, Composed by Herman Contractus (Herman the Cripple), 1013 - 1054