THE winds of change are blowing!
STILL hanging in my mind is the image of being a little drop of vapor, suspended in the Sky of God. At any moment I could fall to the ground were it not for His grace and love holding me there. It is pride and self-will which make me too “heavy” to remain in this Cloud. Likewise, it is being “like a child” that gives me the lightness of heart to float freely in God’s favor.
Let anyone who thinks he is standing upright watch out lest he fall!–1 Corinthians 10:12
Song of the Martyr
Scarred, but not broken
Weak, but not tepid
Hungry, but not famished
Zeal consumes my soul
Love devours my heart
Mercy conquers my spirit
Sword in hand
Faith in front
Eye on Christ
All for Him
Dryness
THIS dryness is not God’s rejection, but only a little test to see if you trust Him still—when you’re not perfect.
It is not the Sun which moves, but the Earth. So too, we pass through seasons when we are stripped of consolations and cast into the darkness of wintry testing. Still, the Son has not moved; His Love and Mercy burn with a consuming fire, awaiting the right moment when we are ready to enter a new springtime of spiritual growth and the summer of infused knowledge.
THE Body of Christ is like a Cloud. A “mist-ical” body of Love.
Every so often a temptation comes along, or a suffering, or some tug of the flesh. It begins to pull on us, drawing us toward earthliness. If we allow self-will to accumulate like a water droplet, eventually, the gravity of the flesh, the world, and the devil begin to pull us until at last we fall from Grace…. plummeting toward worldliness.
Repentance is when self-will evaporates, raising itself once again to the Divine Will. No matter how many times we fall, God will never stop us from returning to the Cloud of Love.
But if we resist, the free-fall will continue until at last we find ourselves broken upon the Rocks of Sorrow (mortal sin). Not even this prevents us from returning to the Cloud, with a sincere and humble heart. But how much harder it is when one finds himself mingled among the dirt, debris, and toxins of the world, having allowed the soul to run between the cracks and crevices of rebellion, with the terrible risk that one has fallen into the Sewers of Darkness.
RAPID. That’s the word which best describes what God is doing in many hearts today: rapid change.
I can’t stress enough: the treasuries of Heaven are wide open! Ask, and you will receive. If we wish to be holier, to be healed, to be transformed, we need only ask in a spirit of humility and trust, and be ready to receive.
Time is so short. Jesus is pouring out as much as He can to whomever comes with open hands and heart.
The Ending Season
A FRIEND wrote me today, saying she is experiencing an emptiness. In fact, I and many of my companions are feeling a certain stillness. She said, "It’s like the time of preparation is ending now. Do you feel it?"
The image came to me of a hurricane, and that we are now in the eye of the storm… a "pre-storm" to the coming Great Storm. In fact, I feel Divine Mercy Sunday (yesterday) was the center of the eye; that day when suddenly the skies broke open above us, and the Sun of Mercy shone down upon us in all its force. That day when we could emerge from the debris of shame and sin flying about us, and run to the Shelter of God’s Mercy and Love—if we chose to do so.
Yes, my friend, I do feel it. The winds of change are about to blow again, and the world will never be the same. But we must never forget: the Sun of Mercy will merely be hidden by dark clouds, but never extinguished.
MY FAMILY OF NINE went for a bike ride this evening. A veritable trail of bikes, training wheels, toddler seats, and child trailers.
But what was perhaps more amusing was those we passed on the sidewalks. People stopped dead in their tracks and stared at us like we were the first flock of geese returning in the Spring. Then I heard, “Look! A family!”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or weep.
Ready?
Polar ice caps
I HAVE mentioned before Romans 8, which describes nature as "groaning", awaiting the revelation of the sons and daughters of God. It’s as though nature is paralleling what is occurring in the spiritual realm.
During prayer a couple days ago, the melting of the Polar Ice Caps came to mind. Scientists are saying that the rapid meltdown will have an avalanche effect on other eco-systems. It seems to me that this is a parallel of things which are in motion and yet to come in the economic and social realm; that once they start, things will unfold rapidly.
The words of Gandolf from The Lord of The Rings come back to mind:
- "It’s the deep breath before the plunge."
In His mercy, Jesus asks, "Are you ready?"
THIS Sunday, the Feast of Divine Mercy, is a significant day of historical and cosmic proportions that I believe few in the Church realize. Pope John Paul II called the Feast of the Divine Mercy the “last hope of salvation for the world.”
He who has ears ought to hear.
(To the one who disposes himself to Confession and receiving the Eucharist that day, Jesus promises that all sin and temporal punishment will be wiped away. But I believe God will also give to the “open” soul much more.)
It Must All Come Down
LIKE a car whizzing by a highway sign, it seems the Lord has been giving me brief glances into the various structures of the world: economies, political powers, the food chain, the moral order, and elements within the Church. And the word is always the same:
"The corruption is so deep, it must all come down."
At Babylon's Feet
I FELT a strong word for the Church this morning in prayer regarding television:
Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of scorners, but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders his law day and night. (Psalm 1)
Christ’s Body-—baptized believers, bought with the price of His blood-—are wasting their spiritual lives in front of the television: following "the counsel of the wicked" through self-help shows and self-appointed gurus; lingering "in the way of sinners" on sitcoms; and sitting "in the company" of late night talk shows which mock and scorn purity and goodness, if not religion itself.
I hear Jesus shouting the words of the Apocalypse once again: "Come out of her! Come out of Babylon!" It is time for the Body of Christ to make choices. It is not enough to say I believe in Jesus… and then indulge our minds and senses like pagans in corrupted, if not anti-Gospel programming. God has so much more to give us through prayer: to the one who ponders his Word day and night.
So gird the loins of your understanding; live soberly; set all your hope on the gift to be conferred on you when Jesus Christ appears. As obedient sons and daughters, do not yield to the desires that once shaped you in your ignorance. Rather, become holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, after the likeness of the holy One who called you (1 Peter)
Lord Jesus, our affluence is making us less human, our entertainment has become a drug, a source of alienation, and our society’s incessant, tedious message is an invitation to die of selfishness. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Fourth Station of the Cross, Good Friday 2006
The Da Vinci Code… Fulfilling a Prophecy?
ON MAY 30TH, 1862, St. John Bosco had a prophetic dream that uncannily describes our times—and may very well be for our times.
… In his dream, Bosco sees a vast sea full of battle ships attacking one stately ship, which represents the Church. On the bow of this stately vessel is the Pope. He begins to lead his ship towards two pillars which have appeared on the open sea.
Little Offering of Love
GOOD FRIDAY. That day when we, the fruit of the Cross, seek to console the Consoler; to comfort the Comforter; to love the Lover.
O Beloved Jesus, all I have to offer you is the vinegar of weakness on the sponge of humility. That you would receive my efforts to console you… and my gratitude for so great a gift as your very Life.
THE word fell into my heart like the first droplet of Spring from an icicle: “There is coming a “Lord of the Flies” moment.”
If you have seen the motion picture The Lord of the Flies, then read on. If you haven’t, you will need to rent it or read the book before continuing (WARNING: the film’s language is raw, but real). I honestly believe it is a picture of what is happening in the world, and what is coming, and that Christ is bringing this picture back to memory for a reason. When I watched this movie recently, keeping in mind the “word” I seemed to hear from the Lord, it blew my mind.Continue reading
WHAT the heck.
I decided to drive our tour bus down Times Square, New York City.
It was late at night. Our faces stared upwards at block after of block of bright lights, billboards, and video screens. New Yorkers stared upwards at us: six kids, faces plastered to the windows. They were as amused as we were dazzled.
Dazzled. During Eucharistic Adoration after Mass this morning, I pondered on these brights lights which lit Broadway like daytime. And the words came to me, “It is a false light.” Indeed, behind every bulb was the promise of some “thing”: visual pleasure, money, sexual gratification, souvenirs, liquor… things. But no where did I see a promise of lasting happiness–inner peace and joy which can only come from the Light of the World.
It was all alluring… but in the same way, perhaps, that a moth is drawn to a bug zapper.
Threshold of Hope
THERE is much talk these days of darkness: "dark clouds", "dark shadows", "dark signs" etc. In the light of the Gospels, this could be seen as a cocoon, wrapping itself around humanity. But it is only for a short time…
Soon the cocoon withers… the hardened eggshell breaks, the placenta depletes. Then it comes, quickly: new life. The butterfly emerges, the chick spreads its wings, and a new child emerges from the "narrow and difficult" passage of the birth canal.
Indeed, are we not on the threshold of Hope?
The Master Painter
JESUS does not take away our crosses — He helps us to carry them.
So often in suffering, we feel God has abandoned us. This is a terrible untruth. Jesus promised to remain with us "until the end of the age."
OILS OF SUFFERING
God permits certain sufferings in our lives, with the precision and care of a painter. He allows a dash of the blues (sorrow); He mixes in a bit of red (injustice); He blends a bit of grey (lack of consolation)… and even black (misfortune).
We mistake the stroke of the coarse brush hairs for rejection, abandonment, and punishment. But God in his mysterious plan, uses the oils of suffering—introduced into the world by our sin—to create a masterpiece, if we let him.
But not all is grief and pain! God also adds to this canvas yellow (consolation), purple (peace), and green (mercy).
If Christ Himself received the relief of Simon carrying his cross, the consolation of Veronica wiping his face, the comfort of the weeping women of Jerusalem, and the presence and love of his Mother and beloved friend John, will not He, who commands us to pick up our cross and follow Him, not also permit consolations along the Way as well?
Prepare Your Heart!
WITH URGENCY I write this tonight… we must put our hearts right with God. We must look squarely at our sin, and repent of it — leave it behind, at the foot of the Cross.
CONFESSION… we must go regularly. St. Pio said every 8 days. Pope John Paul II said every week. Once a week… come to the Father, pour out your heart, and let him speak words of forgiveness and healing. Why be afraid of so great a gift?
I can hear objections. But it is more important than work. More important than kid’s soccer. More important than watching television. Our soul is more important than these things.
We must prepare our hearts to receive a great Light by ridding anything in our heart which would create a shadow.
IN REPLY to someone who wrote, doubting that God could speak through the violence of nature:
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Creation belongs to God, and as such, he has the right to assert his presence when and how he pleases. We know from the revelation of Jesus Christ, and of scripture, that God is not just loving, God IS love. Thus, he is merciful, patient, and forgiving. But he is also just, and because he is our Father, scripture teaches that he also disciplines us.
Neither does God force humanity to love him… but the wages of sin is death. In other words, humanity reaps what it sows. If we sow destruction, that’s what we reap, both naturally and spiritually. Continue reading
Visions and Dreams
Helix Nebula
THE destruction is, what one local resident described to me as of "biblical proportions". I could only agree in stunned silence after seeing the damage of Hurricane Katrina first hand.
The storm occurred seven months ago–only two weeks after our concert in Violet, 15 miles south of New Orleans. It looks like it happened last week.
AT MORNING Mass, the Lord began speaking to me about “detachment”…
Attachment to things, people, or ideas keeps us from being able to soar like an eagle with the Holy Spirit; it muddies our soul, preventing us from perfectly reflecting the Son; it fills our heart with other-ness, rather than with God.
And so the Lord wishes us to be detached from all inordinate desires, not to keep us from pleasure, but to enrole us in the joy of heaven.
I also understood more clearly how the Cross is the only Way for the Christian. There are many consolations in the beginning of the sincere Christian journey–the “honeymoon”, so to speak. But if one is to progress into the deeper life toward union with God, it requires a self-renunciation–an embrace of suffering and self-denial (we all suffer, but what a difference when we permit it to put to death self-will).
Didn’t Christ already say this?
Unless a grain of what falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.–John 12:24
Unless the Christian embraces the crosses of life, he’ll remain an infant. But if he dies to himself, he will produce much fruit. He will grow into the full stature of Christ.
FROM the first night of the St. Gabriel, LA parish mission:
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Pope John Paul II seemed to speak as the eternal optimist — the glass was always half full. Pope Benedict, at least as a Cardinal, tended to see the glass half empty. Neither of them was wrong, for both views were rooted in reality. Together, the glass is full.
JESUS continues to send me to near empty churches… but there is at least one lost sheep in attendance. This I am sure of.
Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn't leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?–Luke 15:4
AT times God seems so far away…
But He is not. Jesus promised to remain with us until the end of the age. Rather, I think there are times when He draws so near in His transfigured brightness, that one’s soul squints until it closes its eyes. Thus, we think we’re in the dark, but we are not. The soul is blinded by Love itself.
There are other times also when the sense of abandonment comes because of adverse trials. This too is a form of Christ’s love, for in permitting this particular cross, He is also preparing for us a tomb from which to rise.
And what is supposed to die? Self-will.
Wings of Charity
BUT can we really fly to heaven on just the lift of faith (see yesterday’s post)?
No, we must also have wings: charity, which is love in action. Faith and love work together, and normally one without the other leaves us earthbound, chained to the gravity of self-will.
But love is the greatest of these. Wind cannot lift a pebble from the ground, and yet, a jumbo fuselage, with wings, can soar to the heavens.
And what if my faith is weak? If love, expressed in service to one’s neighbour is strong, the Holy Spirit comes as a mighty wind, lifting us when faith cannot.
If I have faith to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.–St. Paul, 1 Cor 13
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FAITH is not believing because we have proof; faith is trusting when we’ve run out of proof. –Regina concert, March 13, 2006
Consolations, warm feelings, spiritual experiences, visions, etc. are all like fuel to get one down the runway. But that invisible thing called faith is the only force which can lift one toward heaven.
That Shining Moon
It shall be established for ever as the moon,
and as a faithful witness in heaven. (Psalm 59:57)
LAST night as I looked up at the moon, a thought burst into my mind. The heavenly bodies are analogies of another reality…
Mary is the moon which reflects the Son, Jesus. Though the Son is the source of light, Mary reflects Him back to us. And surrounding her are countless stars–Saints, illuminating history with her.
At times, Jesus seems to "disappear," beyond the horizon of our suffering. But He has not left us: at the moment He seems to vanish, Jesus is already racing toward us on a new horizon. As a sign of His presence and love, He has also left us His Mother. She does not replace the life-giving power of her Son; but like a careful mother, she lights the darkness, reminding us that He is the Light of the World… and to never doubt His mercy, even in our darkest moments.
After I received this "visual word", the following scripture raced by like a shooting star:
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.–Revelations 12:1
I JUST walked into my prayer room, and my third son Ryan, who just turned two, was standing on his tippy-toes trying to kiss the feet of a crucifix. He just turned two… So I lifted him up and held him there for the kiss. He paused, and then turned his head and kissed the wound on Christ’s side.
I began to tremble and was overwhelmed with emotion. I realized that the Holy Spirit was moving deep within my son, who cannot even form a sentence, to comfort Christ, who is looking over a fallen world about to enter its Passion.
Jesus have mercy. We love you.
The Light of the World
TWO days ago, I wrote about Noah’s rainbow—a sign of Christ, the Light of the world (see Covenant Sign.) There is a second part to it though, which came to me several years ago when I was at Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario.
This rainbow culminates and becomes a single ray of bright Light lasting 33 years, some 2000 years ago, in the person of Jesus Christ. As it passes through the Cross, the Light splits into a myriad of colors once again. But this time, the rainbow illuminates not the sky, but the hearts of humanity.
AFTER the Divine Liturgy (Ukrainian Mass) during Lent, all of us enter into the aisle beside the pew, while the priest recites a prayer: “Having suffered the passion, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy us.” Then everyone kneels and bows their face to the ground. This is sung three times–a beautiful act of humility and homage.
This morning, as the priest began to recite the prayer, I heard in my heart what I felt immediately was my guardian angel speaking: “I was there. I saw him suffer.”
I bowed my face, and wept.
Covenant Sign
GOD leaves, as a sign of his covenant with Noah, a rainbow in the sky.
But why a rainbow?
Jesus is the Light of the world. Light, when fractured, breaks into many colors. God had made a covenant with his people, but before Jesus came, the spiritual order was still fractured—broken—until Christ came and gathered all things into Himself making them "one". You could say the Cross is the prism, the locus of the Light.
When we see a rainbow, we should recognize it as a sign of Christ, the New Covenant: an arc which touches heaven, but also earth… symbolizing the twofold nature of Christ, both divine and human.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.—Ephesians, 1:8-10
FEELING the drag of my flesh after Communion, I had the image of being on the edge of a very dense and ancient forest….
Barely able to move through the dark thicket, I was entangled in branches and vines. Yet, the occasional ray of Sonlight pierced through the foliage, momentarily bathing my face in its warmth. Instantly, my soul was strengthened, and the desire for freedom was overwhelming.
How I long to reach the open plains, the rugged wild where the heart runs free and skies are limitless!
…then I heard a whisper, seemingly carried on a shaft of Light:
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."OFTEN we enter Lent with a sense of trepidation–a fear of the sacrifice of dying to self.
I suppose it is how the grain feels as it is buried beneath the furrow, or the caterpillar as it is entombed by the cocoon, or the trout as it is encased beneath the winter ice.
But how tragic if the seed were to lay on top of the furrow, only to be blown away by the wind! Or the caterpillar to refuse the cocoon and never rise with wings! Or the fish to escape icy waters and suffocate in the snow!
O Soul, embrace this Cross before you. There is Resurrection beyond the tomb!
ALL day, I sensed the Lord wooing me to prayer. But for one reason or another my regular prayer time was bumped until after midnight. “Should I pray or go to bed? …it will be an early morning.” I decided to pray.
My soul was flooded with such joy, such peace. What my heart would have missed had I given way to my pillow!
Jesus is waiting for us, yearning to fill us with indescribable love and blessings. As we carve out time for supper, we must carve out time to pray.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.–John 15:5
The First Truth
JESUS said "the truth will set you free."
The first truth which sets us free is the recognition not only of our sin, but of our helplessness. To admit one’s poverty, one’s emptiness, is to create a place in the heart which can then be filled with God’s riches and fullness.
It is actually liberating to admit one is a slave; healing to admit that one is wounded.
We must realise the necessity of accepting our weaknesses and God’s strength, and of showing them to the world. —Catherine Doherty, Staff Letter