 By Sr. Mary Magdalene
While in COVID-19 quarantine, my husband and I watched the movie A Hidden Life. If you are not familiar, it is based on the true story of an Austrian farmer and devout Catholic man who was conscripted to serve in the Nazi military but refused to take the required oath to the Fuhrer. He seeks the advice of Church leaders and other faithful, begs his wife’s understanding, and endures both the buffets of his community and torture by the Nazis for doing so. In one particular scene, a faithful friend, pondering the Nazi influence in Austria, asks him, “Is this the death of the Light?” Though I typically have a terrible memory for the particulars of movies, this line struck me to the point that I chose to take a pen to tablet and write it down. How many times, I wonder, in the midst of suffering or isolation, might we flounder in the darkness and wonder if the Light remains? While great theologians have attempted to answer this question of suffering, the irony of Our Lord’s cross (and our own) remains a great mystery for many of us. How is it that this instrument of torture became the enduring symbol of our salvation? And how is it possible that our own crosses, the real burdens, fears, and obstacles of our lives, can be a source of grace and growth in holiness? The short answer is that without uniting our own sufferings to the Lord’s, we fall short of making any real sense out of their power in our lives. While wrestling with this question of “the Light,” I ran head-long into a quote by the French poet and dramatist Paul Claudel. Claudel, himself a devout Roman Catholic said, “Jesus did not come to explain away suffering, or to remove it. He came to fill it with His Presence.” And so these two lines collide in my mind. The first, a question, “Is this the death of the Light?” and the second, a statement of hope, “[Jesus] came to fill [suffering] with His Presence.” Self-imposed as it sometimes may be, I think of suffering as a form of darkness in my life. But this quote by Claudel seems to indicate that Jesus, the true Light, comes to fill that suffering [darkness] with the light of His Presence! In the very dailiness of our experience, perhaps especially in times personally or communally challenging, the Lord wants to bring a comforting light. The fact that our present public health crisis, and the subsequent removal of the faithful from the Sacraments, happened to fall during our Lenten journey is not lost on me. It feels much like our own kind of 40 days in the desert, tested and tried, searching and seeking for its meaning in our own lives and in our world. Some may be able to say that they have readily found this to be a time of renewal or closeness to God and have an increasing awareness of their hunger for the Sacraments. I have not. I have, in fact, found myself distracted by both the necessities and the diversions, sensing little detectable closeness in my own 40-day trudging. Though not a crisis in faith, I have pondered the task of how to struggle well. That is, how to grapple with my present experience in such a way that it offers Light even when my own eyes may seem dimmed. So, what of the reality that many of us are having difficulty feeling the presence of God - this desolation of heart, mind, and sense? Many saints over the centuries could speak to this struggle in very particular and intimate ways. One of our contemporary saints, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, is perhaps the most well-known to us. Mother Teresa, we glean from her writings, suffered for years with an apparent darkness and struggled to feel the Lord’s presence in her life. She remained faithful - trusting, pining, thirsting for God’s consolation, sure of His Creator-omnipotence, His omnipresence, despite His apparent absence to her human senses. Our own Dominican tertiary, Saint Catherine of Siena, also experienced periods of desolation, often feeling totally abandoned by God. It was at these times that she moved outside of her solitude and poured herself out among the people: the poor, the sick, and the destitute. In her Dialogue (a series of conversations between God and a soul), Catherine tells of the withdrawal of consolation by God Himself for the benefit of an imperfect soul. She seems to indicate that many of us may find ourselves loving God imperfectly. That is, loving Him selfishly and for reasons related to what God can do for them or how He can make them feel (for consolations, for instance). This, rather than loving God for God’s own sake, does the soul little good in the overall journey toward the great perfection of love of God and love of neighbor. Will that loss of consolation, itself a sensing of the goodness of God, cause the imperfect or selfish soul to quickly lose ardor for God and neighbor? In Catherine’s words: “[grow] weak by degrees”? Again, in her Dialogue, the Lord tells Catherine: … I withdraw from their minds My consolation and allow them to fall into battles and perplexities. This I do so that, coming to perfect self-knowledge, they may know that of themselves they are nothing and have no grace, and accordingly in time of battle fly to Me, as their Benefactor, seeking Me alone, with true humility, for which purpose I treat them thus, withdrawing from them consolation indeed, but not grace. As I re-read the words taken down by St. Catherine, I can appreciate “the soul’s” need to grow in humility, to know and understand its right relationship with God, its smallness; to recognize that all good that comes to the soul is initiated by God, even the very consolation for which it hungers. And though it is stripped of consolation, it is never abandoned by grace. I recently listened to a recorded retreat done by a Dominican friar in which he contrasted the difference between physical or bodily maturing and spiritual maturing. He noted that when an infant is born it is totally and completely dependent on his mother to attend to all his bodily and emotional needs, but as the infant grows and matures he steps out into a bit more independence. He learns to dress and feed himself. As he grows more, he matures enough to separate himself a bit from his parents and live independent of them, creating his own new space and experience. Spiritual maturity, on the other hand, does not yield more and more independence of the child from the parent (creator Father) but rather a growing need and dependence - not a separation, but a growing intimate closeness. And [Jesus] said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3 NIV). The Lord allows the struggle to learn and know our small-ness, but does not leave or abandon us to our own strength. Grace is still at work, even when our sense of spiritual consolation, the warmth of the Light that we so desire, seems overcast. The Light reveals the pitfalls, obstacles, chains and wounds - and for a time, our eyes get fixed on that which is illuminated and fail to see the Light, Himself. But soon, when the heart comes to know well those chains and wounds, and the soul in humility embraces its smallness and utter dependence, it turns its eyes to the Light itself and becomes filled. Though our eyes may become dim as we find our minds and hearts frenetic with both the noise and the silence of our days, the Light remains. Grace remains. The Light, which is Christ Himself, fills our suffering with His Presence. He calls us to become as little children, to know humility and our utter dependence on God’s goodness. In this way, He can enter into our suffering, binding it to His own; the Light remains, and its warmth can once again be detected.
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by Sr. Faustina  Today, in preparation for writing this article, I prayed to open St. Faustina's Diary to something in which I could easily find meaning and I landed at [699], which seems appropriate since tomorrow is the Feast of Divine Mercy, which Jesus introduces to her here. Quoting Isaiah 1:18, He says no soul should fear to draw near to him, that even as its sins be as scarlet, His mercy is so great that any soul who is obedient and contrite will find "mercy throughout eternity" and shall "obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment." On one occasion, I heard these words: My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My Mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy. [699] In the same section of her Diary, St. Faustina, who was sick for most of her life in the convent, talks to the reader about her struggles with pain and suffering, her fear to suffer, but complete trust in Christ and desire to unite herself to him in her sufferings. Her pain is so great in [696] that she is unable to pray beyond uniting herself to the will of God, yet she says later, "Quickly, however, my trust in the infinite mercy of God was awakened in all its force, and everything else had to give way before it, like a shadow retreating before the sun's rays" [697]. In her discipline of spiritual life and complete trust in Christ, she was able to see providence in her pain. God, Who is all good and all merciful, would not allow her to suffer to no purpose, and therefore, her pain must be seen as an opportunity. Why are these passages about pain and the revelation of the Feast of Divine Mercy next to each other in her journals (in this case from the year 1936, when she first becomes seriously ill)? I wonder if perhaps St. Faustina first had to begin the hardest part of her spiritual journey before being prepared to hear about the Feast of Divine Mercy, or perhaps, the reader needs to be reminded of pain unto death before coming to the Feast, with its promise of special mercy and forgiveness for those to visit Confession and receive Holy Communion on that day. Probably nothing motivates us more to examination of and contrition for our sins than the expectation of our own death, as for most, nothing but fear of death in mortal sin is more frightening than confronting and, critically, confessing the things we know we've done wrong. Dante, in Inferno, says that "death is hardly worse" (Canto 1: 7) than the fear he experiences in the "wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild" (5) of Hell as he begins his long examination of the sin he has found himself lost in. "I do not know, I cannot rightly say / how I first came to here - so full of sleep, that moment, abandoning the true way on" (11-12). The Feast of Divine Mercy is a special invitation to examine our sins in contrition and bring them before the Lord, Who promises to "pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My Mercy." In our fear, we can trust in Jesus and be assured of His mercy and love for us. In Dives in Misericordia, St. Pope John Paul II says, "Mercy...has the interior form of the love that in the New Testament is called agape. This love is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and 'restored to value.'" God, in his mercy and love for us, will not humiliate us as we confess our sins, but rather raise us up with His forgiveness and restore our dignity, our humanity. However, as we are reminded when contemplating Is. 1:18, which also appears in Jesus's request for the Feast of Divine Mercy, we should not be half-hearted in our contrition. Wash yourselves clean! Mercy is given in love, but we must also cease to do evil and willingly obey the word of the Lord. St. Faustina herself touches this as she observes a bit after the revelation of the Feast of her meditation practice, "The topic of my particular examen is my union with the Merciful Christ. This practice gives me unusual strength; my heart is always united with the One it desires, and its actions are regulated by mercy, which flows from love" [703]. The soul's greatest desire is to be united to God and this striving to be united to God will naturally help us also unite our actions to His will.
by Sr. Caterina de Siena I have been doing a bible study during Lent by Dr. Edward Sri entitled, No Greater Love (Ascension Press). This amazing study focuses on the Passion of Our Lord and each session is filled with beautiful reflections and insights into what Jesus was experiencing during his last week on earth. The final lesson is on the Last Seven Words of Christ as he hung on the Cross. Dr. Sri makes a wonderful suggestion that I want to share with you. He says, “Think of these seven last words…as personal words spoken to you. Before Jesus died, he was thinking of you and what you would be going through this year, this month, this day. He wants to give you a certain message to encourage you, comfort you or challenge you.” Below are the verses from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) which contain the Last Seven Words of Christ. Prayerfully reflect on each one and envision Jesus before you as He hangs on the Cross. Which one of these statements does He speak to you and why? What is your reaction? Are you comforted, challenged, or convicted by what Jesus is saying to you? Continue to ponder and pray over these seven statements that Jesus utters during His last moments of life. Last Seven Words of Christ
Image courtesy of Crossroads Initiative https://www.google.com/search?q=last+seven+words+of+christ&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS720US720&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj44fvPl8HhAhUpVt8KHUESD9MQ_AUIESgE&biw=1904&bih=916#imgrc=KYY4skh20vaKtM:  Composed by: Sr. Mary Magdalene
this post was originally published in March of 2017. It is re-posted here to be read in light of our present circumstance. God Bless and keep you! “Where Is Your God Now?” Where is your God now? When you are in trouble: Where is your God now? Look upon the rubble! Are You not the Messiah? Save Yourself and us! Where is your God now? Where is your God now? Why does He let you suffer? Where is your God now? The vultures come to hover. I heard you call him “Father,” Does He still call you “Son”? Where is your God now? While working on a performance of The Passion of Our Lord for my parish community, I once wrote a short song for the unrepentant thief to sing from his cross alongside Jesus. As I prayed and played with it, the words for “Where Is Your God Now” began to take shape. The good/repentant thief already was singing a great song by the band Third Day, simply called “Thief.” (If you’ve never heard it, I encourage you to take a listen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPqCPMyypI ). What started as a kind of logistical need for a song quickly became a prayer and an opportunity for meditation. Picture, if you will, the scene in John’s Gospel in which the Evangelist describes the Crucifixion of Our Lord. So they took Jesus, and carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle (John 19: 17,18). John doesn’t speak to us about anything the two others may have said as they hung from their own crosses. We hear about them, however, in Mark’s Gospel account. Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him (Mk 15:32). And it is in Luke’s narrative that we hear from the two thieves themselves. Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Lk 23:39-42). It is in this conversation, that I would ask us to linger for a while. First, let’s make note of what may be obvious. Luke, though he is recognized as one of the four Gospel writers and Evangelists, probably never met Jesus in the flesh. He is not listed as one of “the 12” apostles who traveled with the Lord and heard His words and witnessed His miracles directly. It is thought that Luke was likely a close travelling companion of the apostle Paul (also not one of “the 12”). So, it can be easily surmised that Luke did not directly hear the conversation between the two thieves of which he writes. This fact, however, does not detract from what he may be trying to convey to us in our own time and place. I think it likely that we can embrace the reality that there is a little bit of “thief” in all of us. Perhaps not by the conventional definition, but certainly in what these two others represent and demonstrate to us. In the repentant thief we can, perhaps, more willingly see ourselves. We recognize that we sin, we stumble. Perhaps like Peter we can even recognize that we deny. In our own examination of conscience, with a hope in God’s Mercy, we can echo the words of this condemned man and ask, “Remember me Lord, when you come into your Kingdom.” But I think Luke may be asking us if we might see ourselves in the unrepentant thief as well. Let’s take a look at his words once again:“Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.”Are there times when we lack faith, even question the existence of God? Or at least question His status as benevolent and all-merciful? We’ve heard the argument, perhaps even from friends or family: if God is real, how is it that the world is full of suffering? Why would a good “Father” allow his Son to suffer in that way? What about me!? In fact, I think perhaps that’s the biggest difference between the “other” on Jesus’ right and the “other” on Jesus’ left. One recognizes his weakness, woundedness, and sinfulness, and yet he chooses to hope in Mercy. The other, by contrast, continues to push off blame onto other people, even onto the Lord! If he is not saved, it is because Jesus is not really the Messiah. He has yet to admit his culpability and is still demanding things of others. This requires no faith at all. “But I have faith,” we protest. “I’m much more like the good thief.” In what situations might we resemble the unrepentant one? If we pray hard for a loved one to recover from a serious illness or injury and they die, do we wonder if we didn’t pray hard enough? Did they die because of our lack of faith or failure in prayer? God’s Mercy doesn’t work like that. His Mercy is never withheld from us. Perhaps it doesn’t look like what we expected or had wished for, but it is still an abundantly loving mercy. Our own suffering calls out a greater faith in us. Lord, when you enter your Kingdom, please remember me. When things have gone poorly or with difficult obstacles I’ve often heard (or perhaps even said!) “the evil one is really on the attack.” To be sure, I do believe that Satan takes full advantage of our weaknesses. Indeed, many saints suffered greatly from his torments. Christ, himself, was tested and tempted during His 40 days in the desert. That having been said, I think it prudent that we check our own responsibility when something goes poorly. Am I making myself more vulnerable because I’m distracted, careless, self-absorbed or overtired? Am I forcing the fulfillment of my own wants and desires instead of graciously accepting the gifts that God gives me? Am I assigning blame to others (other people, Satan, the Lord) instead of accepting my own part in a failure or unexpected outcome? The reality of the human experience is that there will be times when we fall into the pit from which we see our circumstances and our sufferings merely as things that are happening to us. The risk in this, I believe, is that we see this cross as a Cross of Despair, rather than a Cross of Hope. When we are willing to see ourselves more clearly through the merciful eyes of the Savior, when we accept our mistakes and shortcomings with what the psalmist calls a contrite and humble heart, we can more readily recognize Christ the Lord, in whom our hope lies. Jesus’ cross is a Cross of Hope. The struggle is real. St. Augustine describes it in beautiful and poetic agony: When at last I cling to you with my whole being there will be no more anguish or labor for me, and my life will be alive indeed, because filled with you. But now it is very different. Anyone whom you fill you also uplift, but I am not full of you, and so I am a burden to myself. Joys over which I ought to weep do battle with sorrows that should be matters for joy, and I do not know which will be victorious. But I also see griefs that are evil at war in me with joys that are good, and I do not know which will win the day. This is agony, Lord, have pity on me! It is agony! See, I do not hide my wounds; you are the physician and I am sick; you are merciful, I in need of mercy. In adverse circumstances, I long for prosperity, and in times of prosperity I dread adversity. On your exceedingly great mercy rests all my hope…… - St. Augustine  Composed by: Sr. Mary Magdalene
This post was originally posted in Feb 2016. It is re-posted here to be read in the light of our present experience. I just finished reading a recent post in the Dominican student brothers’ online publication known as Dominicana. The February 25, 2016 edition supplied a link to the latest installment of Reflections on Ethics, Faith & Health Care, a weekly series from Dominican Friars Health Care Ministry of New York. I come from a healthcare background so I found myself naturally drawn to the series. This week’s post was entitled, “The Consoling Love of Christ: A Reflection on John 11: 1-44.” In it the author, Fr. Jonah Pollock, O.P., uses the well-known Scripture passage on the death of Lazarus and the grief of his sisters to explore 3 ways in which Jesus approaches the human person as consoler and healer. If you’ll indulge me, I found it to be very well done and worth sharing. First, a refresher on the story. Jesus, we are told in Scripture, received word that his good friend Lazarus was ill and dying. Rather than rushing immediately to his side, Jesus “delayed 2 days” before returning. When he arrived, Martha came to meet him and exclaimed, “had you been here, Lord, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you” (John 11:21-22). Lazarus had already been in the tomb about 4 days. A short time later, their sister Mary comes to the Lord. She falls at his feet and sobs, saying “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The familiar story culminates with Jesus going to the tomb and calling Lazarus back to life. Fr. Pollock then went on to look at Jesus’ three main encounters within the story and how the Lord’s compassion and consolation are manifest in each. The first is with Martha. When she approaches Jesus, she is both grieving and perhaps even a little bit frustrated with the Lord’s delay in coming. Jesus responds by telling her that Lazarus will rise, and reminding her that Jesus, himself, is the resurrection and the life. He asks her, “Do you believe this?” and gives her an opportunity for her own profession of faith, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” It is significant to note that he asks her this even before he raises Lazarus from the dead. Fr. Pollock notes that Jesus is asking Martha to “trust Him”. The Lord asks the same of us. To trust that He is “the resurrection and the life” and that “all who believe will have eternal life” The next encounter, of course, is with Mary. Mary, we are told, “fell at his feet….weeping." And Jesus’ response was silence. He saw her tears and was “disturbed……and (He) wept." Over many years in healthcare, I have found myself referring to this passage frequently. When I’ve had friends or patients who are grieving the loss of a loved one and “apologizing” for crying, I have often referred to this line in Scripture, “And Jesus wept.” Jesus wept even though he knew exactly what would come next! Knowing, as he did, that he would soon be calling Lazarus from the grave, why did he weep? Fr. Pollock reminds us that Jesus is “fully human." He wept because he loved his friend Lazarus. He wept because Mary was weeping and he understood her suffering. He shared in her sorrow and he shares in our sorrows, as well. And now for the third encounter. It may have seemed that Jesus was unconcerned with Lazarus’ illness. He did, after all, delay his return to Bethany. But perhaps there is something more than this. When Jesus first hears of Lazarus’ illness, and before he begins the journey to return to his friend’s side, Jesus tells his disciples “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” But our loved ones’ lives do end in death, we might bemoan. In fact, even Lazarus, once brought back from death, will live out his natural life and die once again! It seems there was a greater purpose in the experience for Lazarus and his sisters. It was “for the glory of God” and it is said that “many came to believe in Him” as the result. I’d like to tell you about a visit I just shared with an older friend who is in the hospital, on the psychiatric unit. She shared with me that she was finding herself in a dark period. She said that she could only manage to “pray words and did not feel God.” I found myself applying Fr. Pollock’s “consolations” to my friend’s experience. As I told her about Lazarus and his illness bringing about “the glory of God," she told me how many of the other patients she’s in contact with have shared some of their stories with her and appreciated her ability to listen and respond with compassion. “You’re being the face of Christ," I told her, “even in your pain." As her tears began to flow, we spoke of that short but powerful verse in Scripture, “And Jesus wept." She was comforted in the knowledge that the Lord knows her sorrows and sits in the midst of them with her. And Martha? Even in those moments when we cannot sense God’s intimate presence, when he seems to delay in coming, He asks us to trust. Trust that there is something on the other side of this present darkness. And this “something” is His wonderful light. Perhaps these are “consolations” worth pondering during our Lenten journey. This voluntarily accepted desert time we choose in the hope of drawing closer to our Lord. Trust that the Lord is both the culmination of the journey and the companion along its way. Allow this man of sorrows to sit with you in the midst of your tears and you, in turn, be willing to sit with another. Recognize that now “we see dimly, as if through a veil” and we may not recognize the ultimate good that might come from our present experiences. This, too, is a consolation. It is the consolation of being allowed to (in some small way) participate in bringing about the glory of God. Image: Duccio, The Raising of Lazarus |
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