 by Sr. Catherine Marie Michael, O.P. Her eyes sparkled with joy. I caught a glimpse of something clutched in her hands, and I was curious to see it up close. The simple fish drawn by my daughter with sensitivity and care, had caught my eye with their bold colors and flowing lines in contrast with delicately rendered, melting cubes of ice. I recognized the scene from our trip to the fish market, in Japan, where the day’s catch is displayed like prizes pulled from the depths of the ocean, by those who ventured out into the bursting, raucous waves. We had watched a fisherman that day, carefully preparing to slice a large tuna and showing respect for such an abundant gift. These moments of unexpected beauty in a fish market inspired my daughter’s own expression of beauty. She found childhood joy, appreciating her ability to be expressive through line and color, and in what she had observed and received in wonder. Experiencing the wonder of beauty leads to a search for many more instances of beauty in our lives. When our lives lack beauty, they seem devoid of life’s luster and wonder. Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote about his days in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he starved and marched to work each day, struggling to survive, but found renewed wonder in the gift of the sunsets and the beauty and love of his wife. He was made shockingly aware of what life is like without beauty. Such austere, tragic circumstances, where the story repels and tells of degradation, pain, and violence, might appear to inevitably engulf humanity in the darkness of inconsolable despair, unless there is a glimmer of light. Pope Paul VI wrote “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair.” It would seem to follow from his train of thought, that beauty offers or reveals hope. There is a fragile yet bold beauty in the first crocuses of spring that poke through the last remnants of snow. There is a gentle beauty in the light which touches the figures within Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, in which the Christ child, the Incarnate Word, is bringing light into the darkness. If beauty is linked to hope, then Christ Jesus upon the Cross is beautiful, for out of love, He lived for us and gave his life for us, that we might follow him and have the hope of eternal life (CCC 519). Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “…true beauty…as a glimmer of the Spirit of God, will transfigure matter, opening the human soul to the sense of the eternal.” The glimmer of true beauty in this life is the Holy Spirit at work, igniting hope within our hearts. On a pilgrimage of faith, we can continue to seek beauty and hope, like the Magi under the guidance of the star…” (St. John Paul II, CT 60). Jesus Christ guides us by revealing that, “…the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Trusting in the truth of God’s goodness and love to heal through Christ, our brokenness, and save us from being dominated by slavery to sin, sets us free to hope for abundance of life when we remain in him (John 10:10). Humbly receiving Christ’s mercy and trusting Him with our lives, rather than turning away in pride, lets Him turn our stony hearts into natural ones (Ezekiel 26:36). Although a pilgrimage of faith is not easy, Jesus assures us that He will remain with us (Matt 28:20). He says of those who would follow him, “let him deny himself and take up his cross…. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 16:24-26). To follow and to be like Christ then requires one to no longer live for self, but to live for Him and for others out of love (John 15:12-13). Jesus gave his life for us out of love, but his Paschal mystery is a unique event in time, that is not fleeting, but transcends time offering us his continued presence and the hope of our salvation (CCC 1085). He destroyed death, bringing hope to those who remain connected to him as the branches to the Vine. The Church’s liturgy and Eucharistic celebration is an invitation to remain in communion with Christ and participate in his mystical Body. Christ, who is present as Head of the Body, offers his divine prayer to the Father that we may be nourished through his body and blood, and sanctified through him. It is an invitation to attain the hope of God’s ongoing work of salvation. In Living Liturgy, Sophia Cavaletti asserts that the liturgy is a memorial that makes the event of Christ’s Paschal mystery present in our lives, not merely a remembering of an event stuck in the past. She poignantly writes, “In the celebration, these events become actual. The memorial, therefore, shows itself to be free from the restrictions of time and space. In the liturgical celebration, the human person lives that freedom” (Cavaletti, Part One, p. 13). We are then able to enter into Christ’s mysteries, which Blessed Columba Marmion asserts, are our mysteries, “because the Eternal Father saw us with His Son in each of the mysteries lived by Christ…(Christ in His Mysteries, p. 14).” Thus, God’s vision is vast and unrestricted by time, unlike our own, and the grace merited by Jesus Christ touches and is able to transform the lives of everyone who believes, follows, and depends upon him. In Liturgy and the Law of the Incarnation, Cyprian Vagaggini, OSB, writes that the sacraments are “channels of grace” because the “incarnation is prolonged” in them. He adds that in the Eucharist in particular, “…the divine descends into the human, into the sensible itself, in order to elevate man” (p.303). He says further, that those who believe are in “personal contact” with the Paschal mystery and that we are obligated to include ourselves in this “ever permanent historical event, and thus [are able] to conquer space and time” (p. 304). Through his prolonged incarnation, Christ remains present to actively shepherd each person away from emptiness, and towards the destiny of eternal life (CT 5, CT 9, GD 102, RM 22, Wisdom 1:13-15, Eph 3:8-10). Dwelling within the temple of our souls, his Spirit wills to fashion each person with divine holiness. When my brother was unconscious and close to death in the hospital, the nurse pointed out that he was wearing a green scapular, and I recognized it as the one our mom gave to him. Seeing it prompted me to try to stay up all night praying the rosary. Any love and strength that I brought to him in his final moments did not originate in me, but came from a timely, renewed trust and reliance on Christ. I must have dozed off, then was awakened at dawn when I heard noises as if in the house where we grew up. Managing to open my eyes, I saw a vision of Mary, smiling tenderly at me with pure compassion and true beauty. Although unexpected, it seemed very natural, a vision that I cannot deny and which gives me hope for my brother. I continue to pray for him, so that he may say, as St. Paul says, “O death, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy sting?” (1Cor: 55-57). Beauty received is a gift and glimpse of the eternal, created by a loving God who offers each person further hope of the fullness of abundant life in him. Through Christ’s Paschal mystery, which is made present to us in the liturgy, we may offer our own lives in communion with God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who humbled himself for our sake in order to grant those who follow him, the hope of the Resurrection, so that we may partake in God’s divine and eternal life. We are called to grow in holiness as people of hope, nourished by the Eucharist, who humbly depend on Christ’s presence dwelling within us, to beautify and beatify each other’s lives. It is Christ that you seek when you search for the source of all hope, and in Him there is great joy and the wonder of true, divine, and vast beauty.
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 by Brother Pio Benedict In daily life we have many ups and downs, worries and concerns, strifes and jubilations. When we hit our lows, we tend to turn more to the comfort of our religious beliefs and traditions, praying and seeking solace in our faith; the key word here being faith. Faith is knowing that our prayers will be answered but also realizing that a non-answer to our prayers could also be the answer since God knows best what we need and require. When we pray, we are speaking to our Lord and we must do so sincerely and deliberately, with all our heart and soul. We must realize and trust that He will answer these prayers and grant us what we need even though this could differ from what we believe we need. In the crises that I have experienced in life, I have prayed fervently and intently for help and assistance for my issues and problems, never giving up and never losing faith. Miracles came, some obvious and deliberate and others later, in a way that I would understand that my prayers were actually answered but not necessarily in the way I thought I needed. The key is to have faith, deep faith that God has heard us and will come to our aid. Never doubt this fact. The doubt means our faith is not strong. Be aware of your state of faith. Ask God's help in growing your faith. My faith cannot be shattered; I know I will be heard. Doubt never enters my mind. Our heavenly Father hears and loves His children and in His ultimate wisdom, He always grants what we need, but again, in His own way which is sometimes different from what we think we need.  Our Fragments of Faith series explores how we can find the Lord in popular culture and the things around us. THE STAND By Stephen King By: Bro. Pio Benedict The Stand is an epic novel written by the master of horror, Stephen King. It contains over 1000 pages, pages that weave a story that comparatively takes us from the Bible’s book of “Exodus” through “Revelations.” It is a story of an apocalyptic event: the escape of a deadly virus from a government installation that infects the world and virtually wipes out the human population. But in this story, Mother Abigail, a 108-year-old crippled black woman, has visions from God that she is to lead the remaining population to Boulder, Colorado, to start anew. God sends this revelation to several groups of the remaining population who travel to Mother Abigail. But the devil exists in the form of Randall Flagg, who gathers others as followers and forms a community in no other place but sin city, Las Vegas. The story emphasizes the free will of man and the choices they make, a choice of good versus evil. Mother Abigail leads her group, guided by God, to Boulder, all suffering with struggles and tribulations, while the devil, in the form of Flagg, takes his people to Vegas where they enjoy the conveniences of their old lives. The novel deals with the battle for souls and the temptations heaped on humankind by the devil himself. The story ends in an epic battle of good versus evil, with the hand of God using creations of mankind to seal the outcome. (You must read the book). Many of his books seem written for the Halloween season. While King’s horror-fiction-fantasy genre scares some people, and others criticize him as a hack, critic Douglas Cowan notes, “…many of King’s readers seek their escape in his sinister story worlds precisely because of the plain, unremarkable, yet profoundly disturbing ‘us’ he presents. Reflected there in his dark mirror, we see shades of ourselves” (NYU Press, c.f. America’s Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King).  by Sr. Caterina de Siena
I have read the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, several times and I frankly have to admit that I just didn’t “get her”. I kept thinking to myself, “What made her such a great saint?” because I simply didn’t see it in her writings. I was reading about her insights into spiritual childhood from the perspective of an “old soul.” As a child, I was always the responsible one, the mature one, so Therese’s spiritual vantage point of being a “child” completely eluded me. It was through the eyes of my two year old grandson that I gained new vision into Therese’s spiritual childhood . He has taught me so many beautiful lessons about being “child-like”. We were playing in the park one day and after running, climbing slides and swinging, we ended our playtime with a peaceful walk through the park. There is nothing like that little hand that reaches up to grasp yours as we walked together! We spotted a buck in the woods and followed closely behind. Where the buck went; we went. At one point my “little man” stopped dead in his tracks; lifted his arms to the sky and said to me, “Picky up.” Of course, I did as commanded because I love snuggling with him and peering into that beautiful face. It makes it easier to plant several kisses on his precious cheeks and to see his smile up close. We finally headed for home after the buck tired of us following him. As I was driving home that night, it came to me. I finally get St. Therese!! It was through my grandson that I gleaned precious insights into spiritual childhood that St. Therese was trying to teach me. One, as my little man got too tired to continue, he stopped and asked to be picked up. A child knows their limits and God wants me to know my limits, too. When I simply cannot go on due to fatigue or trying to handle things on my own, God is ready, willing and able to “carry me” – I simply have to ask. Next, my little man knew that by asking, I would meet his need. God knows our needs and when asked, He delights in His children as they call upon Him. Finally, my grandson wanted to see things from my up high perspective, not from the ground level where he dwells. St. Therese mentions that while looking upon the Cross, Jesus brings her up to his eye level as though she rode an elevator. What a blessing it is to see things from God’s perspective and not the limited view that we have of things. God’s perspective always makes things clearer for us to see as if through a pristinely clean glass window. Now, I can joyfully exclaim that I “get” St. Therese and her spiritual childhood and why she was made a doctor of the Church! Therese was the master of spiritual childhood and invites all of us to learn from her. Spiritual childhood is all about total reliance upon God to meet our needs which are granted from the perspective of the One who loves us more than we will ever know. I am grateful to St. Therese and my little man who taught me the profound truths of spiritual childhood and the art of me asking God to “picky up.”  By Sr. Caterina de Siena I recently read a beautiful reflection that I think is apropos as we prepare to celebrate Advent. I wish I could recall the name of the author to whom proper credit is due. Here is my recollection of the reflection (and a few embellishments of my own) and I hope it blesses you as much as it does me. Imagine Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary are searching for a place to spend the night as Mary nears the delivery of her child. A secluded cave is found as a temporary resting place for the Holy Family. It is dark and occupied by animals preparing to rest for the night. Imagine St. Joseph lighting a lamp to dispel the darkness and cleaning the cave where animals were currently living – not a clean space in the least. He finds the animals’ feeding trough and refreshes it with hay that is lying about. Joseph tries to bring order out of the chaos and the cramping of humans and animals dwelling together in the cave. It will have to do as there are no other choices. The closeness of the occupants gives some warmth to the air. Mary delivers her male child and she tenderly swaddles and places him in the manger prepared so lovingly by Joseph. The parents are in awe of the child and all settle in for the night as they are exhausted from their journey. Humans and animals alike worship this new born King – the Incarnation of God who became man.[1] As we prepare for Advent, take time to imagine that your heart is the cave. Ask good St. Joseph to enter in and shed the light of Christ into any darkened corners of your heart. Grant him permission to “muck the stall” of your heart as you prepare to receive Jesus. He will arrange your heart by clearing the cobwebs; removing any chaos and distractions; and discarding the old straw of sin and replacing it with the sweet smelling hay of virtue. Ask him to fill your heart with awe and love for Jesus and remove any chaos so that peace may dwell therein. Now, turn to Our Lady and invite her to gently place her son, Jesus, into your heart. She covers your heart with her mantle of purity and devotion and leads you to contemplate this Divine presence within. She and St. Joseph join you in adoring the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity who gently rests in your heart. I enter into this meditation prior to receiving Holy Communion and every communion is now a “little Christmas” where I can celebrate and welcome the Incarnation of Christ in my heart. May St. Joseph and Our Lady help to prepare your heart this Advent, and every day, to receive the Light of the World – the Incarnate Son of God. [1]--God who became man in the Incarnation |
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