In the Cool of the Evening

(c) Review & Harold Publishing
"Adam is at the center of the picture now, and everything is described as being there for him and the woman: the garden, the rivers, and the animals."
from Time to Be Astonished (Sunday School Net)

This is My Body:A Call to Eucharistic Revival (Bishop Robert Barron)

(Adam and Eve) are to care for creation and, if I can put it this way, they are to be the spokespersons for it, appreciating its order with their illuminated minds and giving expression to its beauty with their well-trained tongues. . . Human beings were intended to be the means by which the whole earth would give praise to God, returning in love what God has given in love, uniting all things in a great act of worship.  

This is why . . . Adam is represented in . . . rabbinic interpretation as a priest, the one who effects union between God and creation. As he walks with Yahweh in easy friendship in the cool of the evening, Adam is humanity--and by extension, the whole of the cosmos--as it is meant to be, caught up in a loop of grace, creaturely love answering divine love.

from page 4 

      

 

Animated

 "The most basic petition, when animated with even the first hint of faith in Christ crucified, lifts even the most impossible situations into the warmth and light of God Himself."

"Christian Prayer and Fire from Above"

Fire from Above: Christian Contemplation and Mystical Wisdom

Dr. Anthony L. Lilles, PhD

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, 1586 (engraving)
Agostino Carracci (courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art) 

Last Friday night was a 1st Friday, so I decided to go to confession in downtown Baltimore. The priest seemed like an Old World Polish cleric, and he gave me a longer than usual penance: 3 decades of the Rosary focusing on 3 Joyful Mysteries (the Nativity, the Presentation, and Finding the Child Jesus in the Temple). I was only able to pray one decade that night in the church, but was confident I could finish the penance before Sunday Mass.

Before even 24 hours from receiving absolution, I fell into the same habitual, mortal sin that led me to confess my sins in the first place. I still had two decades left of my penance. In the context of 15 years of trying to defeat this sin, it certainly feels like I'm in a "most impossible situation."  

Remember when our songs were just like prayers?

Like gospel hymns that you called in the air.

Come down, come down, sweet reverence,

Unto my simple house and ring,

And ring.

Ring like silver, ring like gold,

Ring like clear day wedding bells.

Now I've been crazy, couldn't you tell?

I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell . . .

Ring like crazy, ring like hell;

Turn me back into that wild-haired gale.

Ring like silver, ring like gold,

Turn these diamonds straight back into coal,

Turn these diamonds straight back into coal,

Turn these diamonds straight back. 

In a Distant Country

From The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen; "Deaf to the Voice of Love" (Chapter 2: The Younger Son Leaves):

But there are many other voices, voices that are loud, full of promises and very seductive. These voices say, "Go out and prove that you are worth something." Soon after Jesus had heard the voice calling him the Beloved, he was led to the desert to hear those other voices. They told him to prove he was worth love in being successful, popular, and powerful. Those same voices are not unfamiliar to me. They are always there and, always, they reach into those inner places where I question my own goodness and doubt my self-worth. They suggest that I am not going to be loved without my having earned it through determined efforts and hard work. They want me to prove to myself and others that I am worth being loved, and they keep pushing me to do everything possible to gain acceptance. They deny loudly that love is a totally free gift. I leave home every time I lose faith in the voice that calls me the Beloved and follow the voices that offer a great variety of ways to win the love I so much desire. (p. 40)

Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern
Rembrandt (c. 1635)

 

 

What Plato Did Not See

The School of Athens
Raphael

From "Homestretch" in The Story of St. Monica and Her Son Augustine:

That a great pagan philosopher should present the theory of the Word seemed to confirm the doctrine of the Word in the teaching of the Catholic Church. In short, he was reading Plato, but he could not help doing so in the light of his childhood faith, the faith of his mother and of the great Bishop Ambrose.

However, it was soon apparent to him that Plato, for all his genius, had not reached the heights of St. John. It was impossible to find anywhere in Plato the magnificent thought that become the faith of Christians: "the Word become flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). Plato had known nothing of the great themes of the Gospel: the fall of man through sin, God's mercy, the Incarnation of the Word, the redemptive death of Christ on the cross. Evidently, Augustine did not at first understand these things, but he has said that he kept hearing a voice crying out to him:

"Courage! I am the food of the strong. And you will eat me. But it is not I who shall be changed into you, for you shall be changed into me!" (Confessions, Book Seven, X). 

-Leon Cristiani

"Jesus Christ, Bread of Life

Mane nobiscum

-Taize

 

The Future Trap

Newburgh Pointe, The Last Twilight of 2021

From The Screwtape Letters, Chapter XV:

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things: to eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment--and of it only--humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing a  present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal and the Present. . . It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. . . Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

. . . To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too--just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the Future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it.

We do!

. . . (We) want a man hag-ridden by the Future--haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth--ready to break the Enemy's commands in the Present if by doing so we make he think he can attain the one or avert the other . . .    

-C. S. Lewis 

St. Joe's Consecration Day 43: Preparing Your Heart and Mind

 We recognized our attachments to broken ways of understanding love. At the root of sin is doubt in the goodness of God's plan for our lives, and we need teachers who show us the way.

We enter into union with Jesus in Baptism and through Him adoption by the Father. Because we enter through our humanity, we therefore also become an adopted child of Joseph and Mary.  This process of transformation or healing conversion helps us leave behind our doubt and our attachment to our limited understanding of what is truly good for us. 

In this new identity in Jesus, we have Joseph as a father and Mary as a mother.  Mary nurtures us in her motherhood and Joseph leads and protects us in his fatherhood. This is our one and true identity. 

Then one should receive Communion in this state of grace, and receive Jesus in his body, blood, soul, and divinity with spirit and mind reflecting on how Joseph received Jesus in that moment in his appearance in our world at the Nativity. From this moment forward, you will be led by St. Joseph in a new way. Entrust yourself to him. Place yourself in his presence often and ask him to take care of you--whatever your needs are--as a child would ask of a father. 

From Consecration to St. Joseph (pp. 163 - 165)

Bottaro and Settle

"Joseph and Jesus"
by Kathy Lawrence

What do you hope for as a fruit of this consecration?

• Growth in purity of heart and humility and all the other virtues that Saint Joseph so perfectly modeled in his everyday family life. 
• Strengthening and sanctification of all my Christian friendships. 

What intention do you have to place trustingly in the hands of your father, Saint Joseph? 

The healing conversion of my family.  

St. Joe's Consecration Day 42 - Holy Family as Model of the Church

 We hold up the Holy Family not as icons of awe alone, but as models to live our lives by. Not only do they exemplify the life of perfection that we're all called to live, but they also facilitate it, opening up the channels of grace through the Incarnation and Resurrection that make it possible to join to their blessed happiness. 

"The bond of charity was the core of the Holy Family's life, first in the poverty of Bethlehem, then in their exile in Egypt, and later in the house of Nazareth." (Redemptoris Custos).  

The path Jesus opened up for us to go to Divine Union is the path through normal, everyday, human life: 

"Salvation is realized in actions which are an everyday part of family life. . . 

What is crucially important here is the sanctification of daily life, a sanctification that each person must acquire according to his or her own state and one which can be promoted according to a model accessible to all people: St. Joseph is the model of those humble one whom Christianity raises up to great destinies . . . He is proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things--it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues. But they need to be true and authentic."

 -St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos

It takes a deeper authenticity to accept the true path to holiness. It is not one of great and lofty and widely visible things. The Holy Family exemplifies for us a life of poverty, simplicity, and complete anonymity. This is almost too much to bear. It was too much for the religious leaders--and many of the religious faithful--of Jesus' time to bear. 

We must travail the arduous path of dying to self, letting go of our attachments to our false idols of superficial holiness that only end up serving our own pride. 

We must be willing to do the difficult work of growing in charity in "everyday family life." It's easy to feed the poor at a soup kitchen. It's much more difficult to feed your spouse and children with words of kindness instead of impatience. 

From Consecration to St. Joseph (pp. 158 - 160)

Bottaro and Settle

Pope Francis inside the Sanctuary of the Holy House
CNS Photo; Vatican Media

Can I accept what the Holy Family models for me?

Yes.

What deeper areas of growth am I really in need of?

I need the security in my identity as beloved son of The Father to freely ask for and receive help from other people. I need to accept that I am loved by God and by the Holy Family. That my worth is not tied to any external measures of performance or success.