Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

So this morning I got up around 6 (which seems to be the schedule that I am settling on for my time here in Assisi) and after a quick shower headed down the hill (5 minute walk) to San Stephano, a tiny little chapel where we have been having Mass as a group (in English) for the past week and a half.  Fr. Kevin, a priest who happens to be studying Italian with us, is kind enough to make the walk in from where he is staying outside Assisi a couple hours earlier each day to offer Mass for us.  Well, this morning, I read the readings before Mass and was kind of wondering how (or if) he would pull together St. Ignatius of Loyola - the founder of the Jesuits - with Jeremaiah - who speaks on God as a potter, forming us like clay - and Jesus - who tells us today in St. Matthew's Gospel that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net full of fish, both good and bad. 

Thankfully, Father is a wonderful homilist - not long winded, but adept at pulling many seemingly disconnected things together and keeping it interesting at the same time.  Well, I wasn't dissapointed.  He began by speaking on the painting by Rafael of the Gospel passage, of this catch of fish at the end of the world, of all the nations being drawn to Christ.  This painting, as it turns out was comissioned by Leo X, who, through his extensive patronage of the arts back in the 1500s, bankrupted the Church to such an extent that they were hardpressed to find candles for his funeral Mass!  Moving into the first reading, Father reminded us that we must completely abondon ourselves to GOD's will, not our own.  Like St. Ignatius, we must convert, we must open ourselves to God's plan, a decision that takes things out of our hands and puts them into Christ's.  Obvious right?  Well, this means living like St. Ignatius - falling in love with Christ in the midst of his pain, deciding to turn his life completely around, not trying to plan his own vocation but instead letting God take command and just going where God took him (first to the Holy Land, then Paris, then Rome).  We must, as it says in the Gospel, let God "haul us ashore, put what is good in buckets, and throw away what is bad" [Paraphrasing Matthew 13].  God must do the molding, not ourselves!  As the life of St. Ignatius shows us, God uses mysterius means to bring us to Himself - for Ignatius, it was a cannonball that ended his promising career in the military and landed him in a hospital where he could only read about the lives  of Christ and the saints.

We must ask ourselves what clues (or maybe less subtle reminders) that God has put in our lives every day of the places where we are failing to open ourselves to Him, where we aren't committing ourselves to His plan and are instead trying to follow our own.  Pope Leo 10th was following his own plan when he bankrupted the church - did we end up with some great art? - certainly, but was that God's plan? - probably not (though, of course, God brings good out of it).  I am reading "Intoduction to the Devout Life" by St. Francis De Sales, and, as it often seems to happen, what I was reading today seemed to mesh really well with everything that was happening this morning.  He is speaking on devotion, how it is the perfection of love in our hearts (surely God's will for all of us) and he noted that those who lack devotion - those of the world - do "not see the interior and cordial devotion which renders all these actions [fasting, prayer, patience, generosity, stifliing the passions, and all the other virtues] agreeable, seet and easy."

Basically, Our Lord wants to mold us like Himself, He wants to recreate us in His own image, and the only way that can happen is if we are totally open to His will, totally available to His work, totally willing to submit ourselves to whatever He has planned for us.  All the saints are great examples of people learning this abandonment.  I am reading "To Whom Shall We Go?" by Cardinal Dolan on St. Peter and I am in the chapter about Jesus' threefold request of Peter whether he loves Him.  Our Lord asks us the same thing today (and every day): "do you love me more than these?" - more than worldy pleasures, more than friends and family, more than your own will for yourself?  It's a hard task to say "yes Lord, You know that I love You."  It's hard in our culture to not deny Christ in some way each day!  BUT, the saints offer us great examples of what great things happen when we follow Christ.  They show us that it is a sweeter, more wonderful, more peaceful, and more joyful life when we abandon ourselves to Christ's will (He knows better than us what will make us happy).  Let us strive then this day to see God's will in everything that happens, and better try to discern what He wants us to do - of course, based around opening ourselves to His love.

With that, off to 6 hours of Italian studies - I guess I need to figure out where that fits into God's plan for me!  Sorry for the complete dearth of posts lately, I've been busy!  (I'll work on it though!)  Everything was awesome in Rome, everything has been more peaceful, but has entailed more work here in Assisi, and in pretty much everything I've found myself growing closer to Our Lord, especially through His saints, and all the other guys in my class, who are a fantastic group of guys!  Bon Giorno!

Alright, so I'm trying to get back into the whole blogging about my day thing (if that makes sense) so here I am in St. Louis, it's closing in on midnight, and I'm pecking away at this Bluetooth keyboard (connected to a cheap tablet that is the stand-in for my computer for the next few weeks) and I decided to write up a quick (yeah right) blog post!

So, today began - after a long day yesterday of stressing out about what I needed to pack/bring in my suitcase with me - with 8 AM Mass at St. Francis.  It was great to begin the day with Holy Mass - we've been going to noon Mass at St. Rose on most days - it just made sure my heart was in the right place when the day began.  Following Mass, we went over to Underbrinks (a local bakery) to pick up some breakfast, but ended up at Daylight Donuts because Underbrinks was closed for the week.  After some tasty donuts, I was back in packing mode and started shoving the last bit of stuff in my suitcase and trying (with little success) to fit all the notebooks and other remaining stuff in my backpack (I was trying really hard to keep everything in just those two bags).  As it turned out, I got most everything squeezed in there, but my one large suitcase was over the 50lb weight limit - it was pretty densely packed, what can I say - so I spent another half hour or something carefully taking things out (I was legitimately counting ounces as things came out) and got my bag down to 49lbs.  We'll see what the baggage people say tomorrow, but I think I'll barely fit under the limit.

For lunch the entire family went over to the Veteran's Home and had lunch with a previous pastor of ours (from several years back).  It was good to see him again, and good to see that he was doing pretty well (though he does seem to be going downhill a bit).  Dad had made a delicious lunch with leftover burgers and bacon (along with other stuff, but I'm currently focusing on eating as much American food as I can, so that is what jumped out), which undoubtabely made the event that much more awesome.

Anyway, we then quickly ran home, I grabbed a few things that I had remembered that I had forgotten (if that makes any sense) and we hit the road to St. Louis.  It was a moment of both excitement and trepidation and - you know - a bit of emotion as I walked out of the house that I had grown up in, and always fondly returned to, knowing that I wouldn't be back for a couple of years. I'll miss it - it's home...  On the road I typed addresses and phone numbers into my new tablet (so I can keep in touch with people back home) and after a couple of hours of that excitement we arrived at my grandparent's house in the St. Peters area.  We chatted for just a bit and then drove down into down-town St. Louis to the Cathedral.

Because my flight leaves so early tomorrow (I have to be at the airport at 7 AM), we were going to go to the Saturday Evening Mass of anticipation (to be precise!), and I hadn't been to the St. Louis Cathedral in a while and so that's where we went.  Well, what can I say, it is breathtaking.  I've been to Rome a few years back for just a week or two and I think that this cathedral is preparing me well for my return there.  Just a huge, stunning, ornate, heavenly, beautiful place of worship - you can't help but feel the presence of God!  Oh, and the homily (given by a transitional deacon - I assume for the Archdiocese of St. Louis) was also excellent. 

He was talking about the parable of the seed that falls on different kinds of soil and originally he mentioned that he was planning on preaching about evangelization - how we must be sowers of God's seed.  But then he said that he had read the catechism section about this scripture passage and found that his focus should rather be on us, individually, who must make the choice to convert (turn back) to God, to truly listen to what Christ is calling US to, and to ask him - humbly - for the grace necessary to overcome our weaknesses and failings to follow that plan.  Gosh, it's such a simple, foundational, message, but I need to be reminded of it so often.  Following Christ isn't just reading about Him, His church, or His teaching (that's part of it), and it isn't just intellectually knowing that we should rely on Him and abandon ourselves to Him.  It also, very importantly, is about dropping on our knees and begging Him to show us the way, to strengthen our wills, to soften the ground of our hearts so His word, and love, and grace can fill us and lead us.  Sometimes I think that I consider this too simple, but that humble, simple, complete reliance on God is what the spiritual journey is all about.  We are called to do little things with great love (words of Mother Theresa), not great things with whatever love we can come up with ourselves.  Great love, divine love, only comes from Christ.  The words, the seed, the vocation, the faith, only comes from Him!  I did try to track down the exact quote he pulled from the catechism, but I was unfortunately unable to dig it out (limited resources here...)  Basically, it was a magnificent reminder - to me at least - that I really need to just throw myself down in front of Our Lord and give Him everything, no offering up this day, or this sacrifice, or this cross, or weakness, or whatever - actually telling Him to take me completely - all my talents, all my disordered attachments, all my failings, all my fears, all my weaknesses, all my abilities - and use me for His will.  Humility is realizing our ranking in comparison to God - yeah, nilch - and then realizing that He has entrusted us, has planned for us, some path that will bring us to perfect happiness with Him, and further realizing that we can't even accept/strive after this gift without His help (we're that weak and broken and attached to sin).  But God is love, He gives Himself to us every day in the Holy Eucharist, and every other Sacrament, and so many other moments of grace, and we just need to remember to beg Him to soften our hard hearts, to help us to open ourselves to Him.  It's hard, but even that is the wrong way to think about it because on our own it's impossible.

Alright, so I could go on, but I won't.  The homily was excellent - that was only part of it, the few minutes we explored the basilica after Mass was incredible - so many awesome mosaics, and the dinner we had afterwards was about as American as they come - golden corral!  It was a great day, now it's way past the time I should have gone to bed, and with no means of getting the pictures from my camera to my tablet, I guess for now this post will have to be a boring wall-of-text.

Night folks!  God bless!  Say a quick prayer for me tomorrow as I say good-by to my family and board a plane for Rome!  Man, I can't wait!  God is great! 

1. Reading the passage slowly, really thinking about each word and phrase, and letting it kind of settle into you.
2. Meditating on what you have read, allowing Christ to speak to you through what was said, and letting the message move from your mind to your heart, putting yourself in the scene.
3. Contemplating what God is telling you, where in your life is the message in this passage applying, what does it mean for you?
4. Praying about the passage, for guidance, in thanksgiving, asking for the grace and strength to change your life.

The three times I have done it have all been really efficacious, not only bringing me to a better understanding of the Scriptures, but also bringing me to a realization of things that I need to work on.  For whatever reason, it always seems to come around when I am really busy, but it's always been worth it.  Now, I could go into how fruitful and beautiful and difficult doing Lectio has been, but I won't.  Instead, I just want to share with you the prayer that I wrote down during the 10 minutes of Oratio on Thursday (something that is a bit more personal than my usual post, I suppose).  Again, our passage was from John 4:7-15 - The Woman at the Well  (this prayer will make a lot more sense if you read the Scripture passage first).

Dear Jesus, Thank You for so generously offering to give me Your living water.  I am sorry that all too often I am like Your disciples, wandering off into the village, looking for something to fill my hunger, when I know that I can only truly be filled by You.  Like the Samaritan woman, I am scared to give You my jar - my life.  I want to keep filling it from the same old well that I keep coming.  I am scared of You being in control of my life, of You seeing the water that I keep filling myself with.  Yet, despite my ignorance and stubbornness, You remain there, now giving me the opportunity to ask to be filled with Your living water, still loving me despite me being a Samaritan, a sinner.  You shouldn't be talking to me, much less offering me anything, yet You love me immensely - more than anybody else - and remain there despite my infidelity and emptiness.  Still though, I often remain stubborn - like the woman - I still don't want to hand over my pitiful jug, and worse, I doubt You, I wonder if You can give me this living water.  The well is deep, my life is complicated, how could You possibly fill it.  But then, like the woman, I realize that you are greater than my ancestors, friends, family, hobbies, desires, and failures.  You can give water that truly fills and truly cleanses.  And there You remain, despite my hesitation, now upping the ante once again, saying that You are willing to give me this water so that I will never thirst again.  I will never, You say, have to come back to these old wells - these old desires that keep me away from you.  Lord, I beg you, give me this water, fill me with Yourself, increase my faith, enliven my hope, en-kindle my love.  Finally, Lord, if it be Your Will, let that pot of mine become a spring, let it not only carry me to eternal life with You, but also well up for others.  Allow me, Your unworthy servant, to bring Your living water to them as well.  Lord, I love You, I entrust myself to You.  Amen.

It is a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the "dark night").  But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics. [Page 4.  Quoting from Novo Millennio Ineunte 32]

Take heart, and set out confidently and piously in the paths of reason.  There is nothing so abstruse of difficult that it cannot become completely clear and straightforward with God's help. - (Page 10, Book 1, Paragraph 6, On Free Choice of the Will)

Example #2 - Augustine's life.  Augustine, if you don't already know, was quite the character (in the bad sense) when growing up.  The son of an (originally) pagan father and a Christian mother, adolescence hit him like a ton of bricks.  He went out with the wrong crowd, did lots of bad things, became a heretic, and on and on...  Thankfully, his mother, Monica (who's feast day is today), continued praying for her son's conversion, and thankfully, if my recollection of the Confessions, is accurate, Augustine continued to constantly search(with varying success) for truth.  These two factors (both, I think, coming from God's grace) meant his eventual (re)conversation to Christianity.  Of course, his impact on the Church has been immense, though, due to limits on time, I can't really go into any details, but I think his life story is a wonderful example of how much of an effect God can have on our life.