Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

Well, I have been really busy lately...  3 weeks ago we went on a family vacation out to Washington State - spending time at both Mt. Rainier and Olympic National Parks (both incredibly beautiful and spanning everything from alpine mountains, snow covered peaks, rain forests, the ocean, tons of waterfalls, and so much more) and enjoying a lot of great hiking, eating, kayaking, relaxing, reading, and hanging-out.  It was an absolute blast, and we all had a spectacular time spending time with each other.  Then this last week, after being home for a day, I went over to Brute for the week for something called Brute Days, during which almost 40 young guys (!) from 7th grade and up, came and listened to talks, prayed in common, played sports, and chatted with us seminarians (of which I was happy to be one).  It was not only a great time, and reminded me of similar camps that I greatly enjoyed from years past, it also was an incredible spiritual experience for me personally.  I got to return to praying the divine office in common (something I found I missed from the last month of doing it on my own), and spend an hour in adoration each day (also something I missed), and on top of that all the talks we got were absolutely phenomenal (on the virtues especially important to the priest: charity, humility, simplicity, obedience, and chastity, as well as how the Eucharist is fundamental to, the foundation of, and the font from which all those virtues flow), as were the small-group conversations we had with the guys afterwards (so many great ideas on how to make those virtues concrete in our lives)!  It was wonderful!

This post, though, because typing something about all of that would take me a tremendous amount of time that I don't have (you know, packing for Rome, heading down to Alabama to visit my sister, and a few other little things are keeping me busy), will be about just one of those talks/virtues: simplicity.  

I guess I'll just start with the obvious.  Simplicity is the diocesan "version" of the first of the first of the evangelical virtues (poverty, chastity, obedience).  Basically, since diocesan priests can't take a vow of poverty - because they often don't live in community, and so, need to own things in order to do their "job" - they instead are expected to live a life of simplicity.  What does that mean? - The exact same thing it means for all the other virtues: putting Christ absolutely first.  If you think about it, all the virtues boil down to this incredibly simple task.  CCC 1803: "A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God."  Simplicity and poverty, then, is directed specifically at the area of material, earthly, temporal stuff.  The reality is that we are surrounded, distracted, even bombarded, by things every day.  Stuff, gadgets, entertainment, possessions, fun, relaxation, adventures, whatever - most of the time these things aren't inherently bad/sinful, often times they can be good: when God created the material world, "He saw it was good" - but, these things can turn us away from God if we inordinately desire them, if we place them above God in our lives.  Simplicity is desiring everything as it truly is, God as the greatest good, and everything else as lesser-goods that can lead us to God, or give glory to God.  Like the other virtues, this is the basic orientation of oneself towards the good (which is God); it's "pointing" ourselves towards God above all else and habitually, constantly, continuously choosing to direct our hearts toward God, and not all those things that distract us from Him.

Now, simplicity, in real life, involves giving things up.  Again, it's not like everything around us is bad, quite the contrary, but all-too-often, because of the world (we live in a society that puts pleasure above everything), the flesh (we are weak - fancy term: concupiscence), and the devil (who wants to turn us away from God) we find ourselves overly attached to physical stuff, temporal pleasures, and worldly possessions.  Basically, we put these things above God in the ordering of our lives.  Nicer cars, bigger TVs, newer phones, fancier clothing, expensive vacations - these aren't necessarily bad things - but all-too-often we choose these things ahead of God.  We skip giving money to charity in order to buy that newer car, or we watch that TV instead of saying a daily rosary, or we spend time playing Angry Birds instead of talking with God or neighbor.  Examples abound, basically, our task, our challenge, is to order those things correctly.  To give our first-fruits to God - and then enjoy them ourselves, to force ourselves to spend that extra time in prayer - instead of on Facebook, to get rid of the clutter, and distractions, and attractions that lead us away from God - and choose Him.

It's incredibly hard!  I struggle with all these same things - which is probably why this talk, and this virtue, really resonated with me - but the fact is that if we put anything in front of God in our choices, decisions, actions, and lives in general, we aren't becoming virtuous, we won't learn to love God, and we can't become saints.  Christ promised us eternal happiness, but only if we pick up our cross now, tackle those things that keep us from following Him, and get to work accepting God into our hearts and lives.  It's pretty basic: if our lives are focused on something other than God, then we can't truly receive Christ into our hearts, where He wants to take up His dwelling and fill us with His love, joy, peace, and everything else good.  We just celebrated Corpus Christi - praising and thanking Christ for the gift of Himself that He gives us at every Mass - but, guess what, if we are attached to tons of other passing, unnecessary, and otherwise, non-eternal, things, then our hearts aren't fully ready to receive Him.  I'm not saying we are automatically in mortal sin or something, that requires a much more decisive turning away from God (grave matter, full knowledge, full consent - just to be precise), but until we are striving to clear everything away between us and God, there will be a disconnection - on our end - between us and Him. All the virtues involve the cross because all involve us trusting God more than ourselves, opening our hearts to Him, and not something else.  Simplicity, as well as poverty, is a habitual choice on our part to clear away the things that contaminate, or maybe just fill, our heart and soul, and make way for Christ to fill us with His own love and His own life.

Alright, time to get practical.  One of the other seminarians that was helping out with the retreat, and who I was very glad to be teamed up with (we were both leaders of group 1 - the crusaders), always reiterated to the guys that if they couldn't come up with some practical way to work on these virtues, daily, then most likely they wouldn't make much progress.  Face it, it's hard to habitually do anything, much less something that requires us to put our own (misguided) desires behind us, and instead choose Christ; something that requires us to give up worldly things, hoping for the heavenly things to come.  It's hard to have that insight from faith that allows us to give up momentary pleasures for the sake of eternal ones!  If we don't find a way to work on it every single day, then we aren't going to grow in virtue (remember: it's a habit).  So, how to work on simplicity:  First, pray.  Prayer is opening oneself up to God, and that is exactly what all the virtues require, including simplicity.  Turning ourselves towards God is only possible with His grace, and that grace only can come to the soul open to receiving it!  Furthermore, specifically in the area of simplicity, make it a practice to pray about purchases before you make them - trust me, it's harder to buy that electronic gadget (usually what I am interested in) if you pray about it and really discern whether it will lead you closer to God (of course, if it will, by all means, buy it - if you can afford it).  Second, examine your conscience.  I don't know about you, but I usually neglect this area of life when examining my conscience.  Yeah, I was angry, or I didn't pray, or I over-ate, but I rarely consider the times where I indulged too much in temporal things.  I rarely ask where did I get upset because I didn't get as nice of ___ as I wanted?  Or, when did I spend too much time on the computer?  Or, how did I put something before God today?  It's a big topic, and a tough one, but give it a go!  Third, give something up.  I've already covered prayer, and the second weapon in our spiritual arsenal, fasting can also be an aid to virtue - temperance probably more than simplicity - but the final thing: almsgiving, is directly aimed at increasing simplicity and a poverty of spirit (making room for Christ).  When we give something away - money, clothes, unnecessary belongings, whatever - we detach ourselves from it, and great blessings will certainly follow (an immediate one being a greater pleasure in the smaller - and more important - things, as well as a more intense love for Christ and awareness to His presence and will).  Not only will we be making more room for Christ in our lives, but we will also be uniting ourselves with His cross (in a tiny, little way), and showing love of our neighbor at the same time (which, Christ tells us, is love for Him) - you absolutely can't beat it!  So, choose some little way that you will increase your prayer life - seriously, say an extra Hail Mary every day, it doesn't have to be big, just not sporadic - redouble your diligence in examining your conscience - again, don't overdo it, just figure out where you are failing and resolve to do better tomorrow - and finally, figure out something to give away, or go without - again, not big, but do it every week, or month, or something! 

To conclude!  Christ promises us that "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven".  I can't think of a better goal than that: perfect happiness with God forever!  The difficulty, of course, is allowing God to make us poor in spirit.  He so wants to fill us with Himself - just look at the price He paid to enter our world!  But, He will only give us what we want! 

I've been recently graced with the instigation (that talk and retreat) and opportunity to really focus down on this particular virtue.  Going off to Rome means I have to carefully choose what I am taking with me, and that means simplifying my life, and getting rid (or at least leaving behind) a lot of stuff that has previously filled and constrained my heart.  Christ - I know - is directly challenging me to (literally) leave behind "houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms" for Him (Matthew 19:29) so that He can give me "many times as much, and [eventually] eternal life".   (Oh, also, my computer power-cord broke, which is one of the reasons I haven't blogged much, but it is also a chance to work on simplicity - thanks Lord!)

The virtue of simplicity - poverty in spirit - is a difficult and underestimated one, especially in our day and age which constantly emphasizes that wealth, prestige, and pleasure are the ultimate good (notice how that brings in the virtues of humility and temperance along with simplicity).  Our task - as much as the term is overused - is to live counter-culturally.  At Christ's time it was counter-cultural to follow Him, and it still is.  Christ doesn't move - He's always awaiting us at the foot of the cross - but our world is always trying to find away to the joy and love of Christ without approaching the cross.  Guess what, it isn't possible.  Thankfully, Christ gives us all the graces we need in order to brave that cross, to shed those things that pull us away from Him, to ignore, and stand up to, the world that wants us to try and find our own joy, our own love.  Christ, as for all the virtues, is the model of simplicity, our task is to emulate Him, to constantly work to accept His grace (especially from Holy Communion), and to turn our lives ever more fully over to Him.  The message isn't going to change, but will we?

As promised, here's the second half of my experience as subdeacon, and how it forced me to do some serious discernment and deepening of my relationship with God.

On Holy Saturday morning, myself and my brother headed over to St. Rose to practice for the Easter Vigil that we would both be assisting at that evening (him as MC, myself as subdeacon).  I won't go into the whole practice, because that would be really repetitive once I explained the liturgy itself, but it was a moment of resignation to God's Will.  Now that I had been subdeacon once, at the Good Friday liturgy the day

I practiced chanting a bit that afternoon, trying to smooth out the transitions between words and make sure I knew the starting note, cadence, emphasis, and other important details.  It took several run-through's before I got through the entire thing without mis-pronouncing, or mis-singing something, but by that evening I was feeling reasonably confident that I wouldn't completely mess them up.  I spent plenty of time hanging out with my cousins - playing outside, chatting, struggling through some Mario Kart - and we had several delicious meals (thanks mom!), and around 9:30 PM we all headed over for the vigil Mass.

What struck me was that the whole experience wasn't nearly as daunting and overwhelming as I thought it would be.  For Good Friday I thought that being subdeacon would be incredibly difficult, and it wasn't easy by any means, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  On Holy Saturday, again, I thought that things would be impossible - complex, tricky, important, uncomfortable - and, again, it wasn't easy, I certainly had to throw myself out there, learn to do new things, push myself out of my comfort zone, but it wasn't really all that bad.  I didn't quite enjoy myself, but I started to see the positives and not the negatives, how the experience was leading me to grow, to giving myself more to others, to abandon myself a bit more to God.  Certainly God's grace was working!  

The ceremony began with the blessing of the Paschal candle and the Exultet, during which my only task was to hold the crucifix - a simple task, but one that became taxing on the arms after 20 minutes or so.  I was already vested in tunicle, amice, and alb - which was a bit less unpleasant than on Good Friday, but still felt weird - and what kept going through my head was the fact that I would soon have to chant one of the four lessons (going through salvation history).  As it always seems to happen, time kept going forward, and eventually the Exultet finished, I set the cross down, and the readings started.  I had a few more minutes before mine (while the first two were chanted), but then had to step up to the ambo, take a deep breath, and start chanting.  I was nervous, and sweating, and afraid, but the first word came out pretty well and then everything just flowed smoothly until the end (like a minute later).  Following that - summarizing a lot - I eventually got the cross again, we had the blessing of the baptismal water, the renewal of baptismal promises, the second half of the litanies, and then Easter Mass!  Unfortunately, most of the Mass I was concerned with what I had to do next, so I wasn't paying too much attention, but it was a beautiful, exciting, joyous ceremony.  Simplifying things greatly, I basically followed the deacon's cues on where to stand/move and the only exceptional things that I did were to chant the epistle (thankfully it was short, I started on a note that I could hold throughout, and I held the melody throughout - success again!  Thank you God!) and hold the paten during the canon and consecration (another somewhat awkward moment, but one that brought me closer to Christ as I knelt there and adored my risen savior in the Eucharist).  The rest of Mass spun along as usual - I didn't invalidate anything, or light anything on fire, or otherwise make too many mistakes - and then the triumphant closing hymn began and we processed out.  

Looking back, I have just begun to see the positives of the whole experience.  Of course, as I think I've been emphasizing (probably too much), being subdeacon was hard.  Not so much in the sense that what I did was difficult, even the chanting wasn't terribly scary, but I just didn't feel ready to step into that role, to put on the amice, and tunicle, and beretta.  I think I was scared of the reminder that the whole experience evoked in me of what I was in seminary for - to become a priest - and that ordination is a (God-willing) fast-approaching reality.  Ordination, now 4 years out (if everything goes as usual) is something that I don't think about too much - it's scary, it's putting myself totally in God's service, it's a commitment to live like Christ, which is audacious, incredible, beautiful, and terrifying - but being subdeacon reminded me of that eventual goal.  It put me in a position much closer to the priest than ever before; I had a part in the liturgy unlike "just" serving or reading.  However, by offering up the whole ordeal/experience to Christ, I was able to bring myself a bit closer to Him, to more deeply love Him at least a little bit (especially because it was during the triduum).  I guess I see the whole experience as a sort of Good Friday or Holy Saturday.  Obviously, it was nothing like the suffering and death of Our Lord, but it did involve a bit of suffering and dying to self, something that always seems necessary for holiness.  But something that I have come to realize is that in being subdeacon - certainly it was hard, it was death to self - but it was also Easter, it was also a moment that God filled with grace.  The Paschal mystery is all about how God bring good out of evil - specifically the greatest good of salvation out of the worst evil, the death of Jesus.  Through the smidgen of suffering and fear that I endured in being subdeacon, He brought me closer to Himself.  God made me realize that being a priest entails precisely this kind of laying down of my life for God and for all of His children.  You know what, seminary is a lot of fun, even during finals week (right now) there's a camaraderie and excitement to being with all the other guys and knocking out finals together.  Seminary is about turning yourself over to Christ, but it doesn't hurt all that much usually.  Being subdeacon wasn't much fun, I really, really, didn't want to do it.  Yet, in doing it, I was brought closer to Christ than in doing the hard things (that are fun) in seminary.  Those moments allowed me to realize things that I hadn't thought about during many hours in prayer, the hardest of finals, or my favorite passages of Scripture.

Yeah, so in conclusion I guess I learned to trust more in God.  Not only that He would get me through doing hard and fearful things, but that He is capable of bringing great good out of things that I can't find good in, or I find very difficult.  Reliance on God - it's easy to think about and hard to live out, but such is the goal of sanctity.  Jesus I trust in You!

The family (including myself) is currently en-rout to Yosemite National Park.  We left Saint Louis early this morning, and have completed our first leg of the flight, landing in Dallas.  I was praying morning prayer during the flight, and I thought that one of the intercessions was particularly applicable.

"Open our eyes and the eyes of our brothers - to see your wonders this day."

The good, the true, and the beautiful - called the transcendentals - are things that all humans desire, but so often we look for them outside of God.  Here's the deal; ultimate good, absolute truth, and infinite beauty, are found in God.  However, when we find things that are good, when we advance in knowledge towards truth, when we see something beautiful - we can use these moments to bring ourselves closer to the true source of those things - God.  Obviously, there is a lot more to this topic, but our flight is boarding in half an hour and I gotta get my stuff packed up...  Just remember that goodness, truth, and beauty, wherever they are found, can always be applied towards our growth and relationship with God.  At the very least they can be moments where we thank God.  I'm sure that this phrase will be very applicable throughout this entire vacation - it will be awesome!

Happy Memorial Day everybody!  To all veterans and current serving armed forces: thank you so much!