St. Joe's Consecration Day 3 - Desire for the Infinite

 

"If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. 

-C. S. Lewis

Mere Christianity

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. 

C. S. Lewis

The Weight of Glory

The Death of St. Joseph
Miguel Cabrera

(Jesus) died for us that we may be restored to a life we don't even clearly realize we lost. 

We may get a sense every once in a while of the infinite chasm of desire that exists within us. It is too terrifying to dwell in for very long, but we are certainly familiar with the lack of having enough. We seek our satisfaction in human love or things of this world, but feel like we are falling short all too often. We then blame ourselves or our loved ones for this emptiness . . .

. . . for now consider this: Jesus saw in his parents as he grew up the greatest human love possible between a husband and a wife, wrapped into the life of celibacy at the same time. The celibate marital love of Mary and Joseph formed Jesus to understand how our insatiable thirst could be directed beyond this world.

From Consecration to Jesus through Saint Joseph:

An Integrated Look at the Holy Family

(p. 18)

Bottaro and Settle

What joys has God blessed you with in your life?

• Faithful, self-sacrificing parents
• 2 siblings and 39 cousins, especially the ones I've grown close to
• Academic success and professional achievements
• Warm, enriching friendships 
• A good salary; having a fancy car when I first moved to DC
• Consolations in prayer and in appreciating others strengths and love

Did they leave you satisfied? If so, for how long?

All the joys that have to do with my relationships do bring longer periods of satisfaction, much longer and more significant than, say, my salary or what car I drive. But even then, I know the ebbs and flows of friendship. I see the ways that other people are lacking or unable to satisfy my deeper need for love, attention, concern, wisdom. 

Each positive encounter with the people God has blessed me with I'm able to enjoy in the moment. But I often feel a sadness with the "goodbyes" that leave me acutely aware of the impermanence of human bonds in this world. 

What finite things of this world tempt you to find fulfillment in them?

• Wealth; comfort; indulging in the finer things (eg, good food)
• Status; power and influence in my job or the groups I belong to
• The esteem and love of other people
• Romantic relationships

How far are you willing to go to imagine the joy you are actually created for?

As far as prayer will take me. There is no end to the joy and peace that God has in store. My mind cannot conceive all the good things God has in store. 

Forever young, 

I wanna be forever young.
Do you really want to live 

Forever, forever, and ever?
Forever young (young)

I wanna be

     (Aye, may the best of your todays)

Forever young

      (Be the worst of your tomorrows)

Do you really want to live forever

Forever

St. Joe's Consecration 2 - The Role of Joseph and Mary in our Lives

 Luke 12:6-7

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value . . . 

The Holy Family Shows Us How to Create a Healthy Home 
-Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik

There are hundreds of ways that parents can provide imperfect love. Whenever a parent puts his or her own feelings and needs before the child's, a lesson of imperfect love is being taught. When a parent selfishly neglects a child's needs for nurturance, imperfect love is taught. When a parent selfishly neglects a child's needs for autonomy, imperfect love is also taught. There are too many ways to list that parents love imperfectly, but we've all received it in some form and measure. We all love imperfectly, but this has the most influence on children who are made to learn what love is from their parents.

From Consecration to Jesus through Saint Joseph:

An Integrated Look at the Holy Family

(p. 14)

Bottaro and Settle

What are the areas of miseducation you may have received from your childhood?

That love has to be earned. That love can be taken away without warning in confusing and unresolved ways. When my parents left me in India to get settled in America, I received a wound that increased my sensitivity to all forms of abandonment and rejection. There was a chip on my shoulder. From that point on, I thought I had to be perfect, especially in school, to be worthy of my parents' love. I carried with me an irrational fear that I could be abandoned at any moment for no discernable reason.

My identity, my drive, what major I chose in college, the fact that I went to medical school -- these all flowed from a misguided desire to please my parents. To this day, I have a hard time dealing with conflict or handling criticism in mature, self-secure ways. Perceived sleights linger. Any disagreements or misunderstandings can stay lodged in my heart. I become uncharitable and unloving as a result. Or ask (often silently or indirectly) for "proof" of other people's love and concern for me.

How might your parents' marriage have missed the mark of perfection in teaching you what love looks like?

There are times I remember my dad being insensitive to my mom's emotional needs, to the point of ridiculing her. I loved my mom so much because she was more tender with me and taught me how to pray. It hurt me to see her hurt. Though they were both dutiful with nightly family prayer, church functions, retreats, and other public displays of religiosity, I don't remember witnessing how God's love guided and upheld their marriage.

Even as my parents didn't express love for me with affection and affirmation, neither did my parents express affection or affirmation with each other. They laughed a lot together, spoke to us children in one, unified voice, and sacrificed much for each other. But there was something about their love that seemed almost held back or kept in check. It didn't seem generous or graceful or passionate.

How might your relationship with your mom and with your dad missed the mark?

I did not see clearly how to love others in self-secure way with generosity, affection and gratitude. Rather, I connected to love with co-dependency. Their love lacked trust in my autonomy or respect and delight in my unique gifts, my joyful sometimes whimsical nature, my openness to new experience and spontanaeity. I connected love with control and fear, guilt and and shame, unworthiness and dishonesty.

My dad did not know how to invite me into mature manhood. My weaknesses were pointed out, but my strengths, talents, and resilience were usually unacknowledged. I did not believe that my dad believed in me. He tended to talk down to me, dismiss me ideas, or put me down.

My mom had a hard time accepting my emotions. I often felt that my feelings were invalid and should be repressed or hidden. She did not know how to celebrate joyful moments, sometimes undercutting things I was proud of or excited for. She had a hard time holding me through painful situations without immediately offering off-the-mark direction or solutions.

Often, their stress and anxiety came out with impatience and sarcasm directed at me.

What specific mom-wounds and dad-wounds do you need healed?

• Abandonment
• Rejection
• Repression of emotions
• Criticism and redicule
• Anger, resentment, fear of conflict
• Passive aggression, lies, manipulation

St. Joe's Consecration 1 - Identity as a Child of the Father

Psalm 130 

With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption

I trust in the Lord;

My soul trusts in His Word.

More than the watchmen wait for the morning--

More than the watchmen wait for the morning,

I wait for You.

What is it, then, for our hearts to rest in God? All human discontent can be summed up as not being in union with God. Therefore, union with God should be the only principal goal we pursue. This is a process. We don't get there all at once: the journey to union with God is the story of our own human development. 

We enter fully into God through the door of the humanity of Christ. We can't hope to develop our humanity in some way different from the way Christ developed His humanity--by means of a human mother and father through a poor and humble life in Nazareth. 

From Consecration to Jesus through Saint Joseph:

An Integrated Look at the Holy Family

(pp. 11-12)

Bottaro and Settle

Holy Family (by Vivian Imbruglia)

Who Do I Really See Myself As?

As a weak, often underachieving and disappointing person. Sometimes I believe that I am unworthy of love. I falsely and subconsciously believe that I must prove enough about my value to other people in order to "earn" their love, acceptance, and appreciation. Maybe that comes out in the clothes I wear or the fancy car I had bought when I first moved to DC. Maybe that comes out in my need to appear funny or smart or deep. At work, it explains my nervousness when giving certain presentations. With romantic relationships, in particular, I often beat myself up and am needy and insecure. 

(Imagine living as the child of rich king or a celebrity with endless resources)

Who is my actual father?

God the Creator of the Universe. The one who runs after me in His goodness and mercy. 

What kind of disposition should I walk around with?

Like I am cared for, protected, and provided for. That I have a mission and purpose that's much bigger than I can imagine. That God hopes that I live this mission every day. More than that, that He has given me so many gifts, protected me from so many consequences from my seen, that He gives me daily consolations and joys. He has given me such a big heart that cares and feels for other people and finds peace in His loving presence. 

How does this compare with the disposition I typically carry myself with?

It's almost the polar opposite. There's so much trust and peace and steadiness in the second disposition. Fewer ups and downs. More openness to see other people as they really are and offer my own gifts to them freely. 

How is my day-to-day emotional life?

It used to fluctuate quite a bit from day to day. I used to struggle to string together two steady and happy days in a row. I'd often feel depressed or anxious. Since completing a Marian consecration, I've experienced less emotional fluctuation. Even so, I still often battled resentments. That last piece, especially resentment about my parents, friends, and women, God has been purging from me more recently after I started an Exodus 90 men's group, prayed more consistently, and committed more concretely to freedom from sin, seeking help where it has been available to me. 

SJC - If You Want Divine Union, Be All In and Travel Light

Galatians 5:1

It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and refuse to submit again to the yoke of slavery.  

Let Go
Louise Gubb (Getty Images)

"For it comes to the same thing whether a bird be held by a slender cord or by a stout one; since, even if it be slender, the bird will be well held as though it were stout, for so long as it breaks it not and flies not away. It is true that the slender one is easier to break; still, easy though it be, the bird will not fly away if it be not broken. And thus the soul that has attachment to anything, however much virtue it possess, will not attain to the liberty of divine union. 

-St. John of the Cross

Ascent XI.4

So it is with us.  If there is the slightest hesitancy, the slightest lack of commitment, the slightest imperfection, we will not enter fully into divine union in this life.

Most people will not obtain the perfection of divine union until after death and after the purifying fires of Purgatory.  In the end, they will be saints in Heaven. But why choose to wait until death to be purified in Purgatory when you can obtain the infinite blessings of God’s inner life while still walking this earth?  Why wait? Why hesitate? Why not make the perfection of divine union the one and only goal in life?

You may say, “Well, perfection is one of my goals, but I have other goals also.”  The problem with that answer is that God will not share you with other goals when it comes to the perfection of divine union.  If you want to live perfectly united to God, then God can be your only goal.  But don’t be confused by that statement.  By choosing God and God alone, you are also choosing His perfect will.  This means that when you are perfectly immersed in His will and living it as your will, you will find that the joys, satisfactions, fulfillments, relationships, acts of love, beauty, etc. that God wills for you are infinitely greater than any goals for your life that you could come up with on your own . . . 

from My Catholic Life

The Mystical Journey to Divine Union

"Decide Today"

Excuse me,

Too busy

Writing your tragedy?

These mishaps 

You bubble wrap

When you have no idea . . .

(How things could be)

. . . So let go,

Give in.

It's so amazing, yeah.

There's beauty in the breakdown. 

Adapted from "Let Go"

by Frou Frou

Luke 9:3

"Take nothing for the journey . . . and let no one take a second tunic."

When Jesus tells his disciples to travel lightly, something like this is going on . . . I had to let go of the baggage of my self-preoccupation. As bearers of the Gospel into the world, what do we need to give up for that message to be powerful and persuasive? 

It may be the security of our creature comforts. 

It may be the fear of depending on others. 

It m ay be our own ideas of success.

God will give us what we need.

Fr. Dennis Galagher

"Traveling Lightly"

Living Faith: Daily Catholic Devotions (July - September 2021) 

 

 

 

 

 

St. John of the Cross - Preparing for a Spiritual Marriage

Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings,

Who publishes peace, 

Who brings good tidings of good, 

Who publishes salvation, 

Who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

(c) Pixaby
A Triumphant Dream - On Mountain's Edge

We who are Christian have discovered the cure for this present life of misery. What remains for us then is to embrace Jesus, the only cure, with diligence and zeal. Being with Him requires ongoing and deepening conversion. And what is our great hope at the end of this journey? Divine Union.

Divine Union = Transforming Union or

                       = A "spiritual marriage" (as St. John called it)

From My Catholic Life

"Introduction - Preparation for the Journey"

The Mystical Journey to Divine Union: Spiritual Wisdom from St. John of the Cross

Set a fire,

Down in my soul,

That I can't contain,

That I can't control . . .

(There is no place that I'd rather be.

There is no place that I'd rather be,

Than here in Your love,

Here in Your love."

 

John of the Cross - A 6-Fold Journey into Divine Union

Philippians 2:5-8

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.  

 

Christ on the Cross (Rembrandt, oil on canvas. 1631)

1. (Initial Conversion) - St. John presumed that a Christian has already entered this stage

• Turns away from a life of sin
• Embraces Baptism and its effects
• Begins to walk with God

2. Active Night of the Senses

• Intentional letting go of all worldly attachments to sin
• Refocused desire: all within my passions and appetites are turned to God and His holy will

3. Passive Night of the Senses

• Special grace from God that completes the purge of senses from Step 2 ("purgative contemplation")
• No longer finding earthly joy and satisfaction in the things of this world
• Painful, but the pain helps to focus on God
• Awareness of the spiritual form of the Seven Capital Sins
• Serving God because of love alone, not because it "feels good"

4. Active Night of the Spirit

• Proficient in the spiritual life: a) stability, b) contemplative prayer, c) zeal for God
• Growth in virtue and holiness, while sensing God wants more
• Allows God to infuse the pure gifts of the 3 Theological Virtues: a) faith, b) hope, and c) love
• Letting go: 
• a) My previous ideas of God, 
• b) My own preferences for my future
• c) Selfish convictions about God's will
• My intellect has faith in a more general and obscure way
• Waiting upon the moment-by-moment gentle guidance of God

5. Passive Night of the Spirit

• By God's action, my soul enters a "spiritual cocoon" where my intellect, memory, and will are completely transformed
• Deep spiritual "piercings" of love
• My soul is left humbled, impoverished, and empty of all things
• My soul is hidden from enemies: the world, the devil, and the flesh. Unhindered. Free.
• Spiritual strength and fortitude. Cling to God with unshakeable fervor
• Hidden and secret depth of love and strength

6. Divine Union

• Earthly perfection 
• Every desire and appetite for sin is vanquished
• Every desire for things of this world have been removed
• Intellect, memory, and will are directed to God in a pure and infused way
• Delights in all things as God delights in them
• Gratitude floods my soul and virtue is alive and manifest
• My soul and God are one, awaiting the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven

From My Catholic Life

"Introduction - Outline of St. John's Teachings"

The Mystical Journey to Divine Union: Spiritual Wisdom from St. John of the Cross

St. John of the Cross - The Seeds of His Spiritual Wisdom

Psalm 28:2,7

Blessed be the Lord, for He has heard my prayer.

Hear the sound of my pleading

When I cry to you,

Lifting my hands 

Toward Your most holy sanctuary.

Blessed be the Lord, for He has heard my prayer.

The Lord is my strength

And my shield.

In Him my heart trusts, 

And I find help;

Then my heart exults,

And with my song,

I give Him thanks.

Blessed be the Lord, for He has heard my prayer.

Sacred Pit (Dungeon) - Gallicantu St. Peter's Church (Jerusalem)
(c) Wikicommons 2008

However, it was during this time of abuse that some of the greatest spiritual treasures to fill our Church were born. Father John, in the darkness of this prison, composed numerous poems, including The Dark Night of the Soul and portions of The Spiritual Canticle.  God did not allow this abuse to go fruitless.  Father John grew deep in the spiritual life and entered into interior freedom through his prayer and surrender to God.

-My Catholic Life

"Introduction - Biographical Information"

The Mystical Journey to Divine Union: Spiritual Wisdom from St. John of the Cross

"Surrounded" (Fight My Battles)

Michael W. Smith