Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

I have a summarized recap at the end, if this wall-of-text is too much for your little bit of free time (or limited attention span)...  :-D

Last week, on Tuesday, most of the guys at Brute (including myself), went over the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Sunman, IN, to attend the funeral for a younger brother of one of the guys who had tragically died a few days before.  We had received word about a week before, right after the senior tribute night, and had all gone up to the chapel and prayed a divine mercy chaplet for the young man who had passed away, as well as for Joe and his family.  The funeral - like that somber night - was also a powerful moment, showing the fraternity and concern present among all of us at Brute.  It was the middle of finals week but just about every guy figured out a way to reschedule his finals for that day and cut time out of studying or sleeping in order to ride the hour and a half to be present for the funeral. 

But, that is not what this post will be about (though it could be).  What I want to talk about is what Fr. Shaun Widdington spoke on in his homily.  The Gospel was about the death of Lazarus and how Jesus waited 3 days before coming to Bethany and raising Lazarus from the dead.  Father spoke on how often-times in the midst of loss, or pain, or suffering (of all kinds, but especially the poignant suffering that accompanies the death of someone we love) we feel like Jesus isn't there, or we don't understand why such-and-such a loss has befallen us, or we think that there is no purpose for this suffering.  As Father explained it, often-times in this life we find ourselves on Holy Saturday.  We often live through excruciatingly painful moments, our own Good Friday's, but we are unable to find hope, or purpose, or God, in that moment.  And then Father said something profound (for me), he said that Jesus Christ is our hope, in His resurrection we find the promise of our own resurrection, in his coming back to life we find God's promise to those who love Him of eternal life.  This wasn't profound because I didn't know it, rather, it deeply impacted me because it reminded me that our hope must be in God, in eternity.  Often I want to figure out how suffering in this life can be transformed, and thus eliminated, and surely that is a possibility - the cross is our standard of victory precisely because through the cross Jesus conquered sin and death and ransomed us so that we can become sons/daughters of God - but sometimes suffering doesn't seem to have a point, oftentimes we can't see how God can bring good out of suffering.  Father, in his homily, reminded me that as humans we often can't find the good in a particular event - we can't see how the untimely, unexpected death of a young man can possibly fit into God's plan or how He could possibly bring good out of it.  Our sight is limited, even when we look at the cross and see how God brought good out of it, we glance back at our own lives and still feel lost, forgotten, even abandoned.  Father reminded me (and I needed that reminder) that our hope must - in the end - rest in heaven.  Sometimes we will never understand why some suffering, or some difficulty, or some loss has happened to us, at least not until heaven.

Why is this?  Why do we sometimes find ourselves in the darkness of suffering and can't feel the light of Christ?  Well, this morning in the office of readings I was confronted with precisely that question.  The first psalm (Psalm 44) talks of trusting in God:

But then in the second psalm the psalmist finds himself lost, seemingly abandoned by God:

And in the 3rd psalm his confusion grows worse because he have been faithful, he hasn't forgotten God, yet he feels crushed beneath the oppression, suffering, and death experienced in this world:

Sometimes we feel the same way.  Life is going along smoothly, our relationship with God is alive and well, we are progressing in virtue, filled with His joy, and then something terrible, painful, or difficult happens and we feel like we've lost contact with God, we can no longer see His plan in the midst of the suffering that has afflicted us, or worse, we feel abandoned or forgotten by God.  

As I was reading these psalms, my mind went back to the homily that Father gave at the funeral, and how he ended with the difficult truth that true happiness is only found in the next life.  Sometimes we can't understand suffering.  Sometimes things do look hopeless, but Christ calls us to continue hoping in Him.  Sometimes we are stuck on Holy Saturday for a long time, sometimes the tomb looks sealed, and no matter what we do we just can't figure out where God's plan is at.  This is the problem of evil, the question that we have of how God - if He is good - can allow bad things to happen to us.  We can philosophically say that evil exists because of free will - we bring it upon ourselves.  We can theologically say that God loves us so much that He was willing to give us free will - knowing that we would sin, bringing that suffering upon ourselves - and suffer and die to bring us back to Himself.  We can spiritually say that suffering comes from our lack of love of God - of choosing something else over Him, which will never fill the need we have for God, and thus, we experience pain.  But sometimes those explanations don't seem to cut it.  Sometimes we can't figure out why a certain loss - maybe the death of a loved one, or an illness, or a spiritual emptiness - has befallen us and we certainly can't see how God can bring good out of it.  

In this difficulty the answer is again found in Christ's resurrection.  In this time after Easter, when we get to constantly celebrate the awesomeness of the resurrection, we are called to remember the entire paschal mystery, Christ's passion, death, and resurrection.  They all go together, and they all point us towards our hope that is in eternal life with Him.  We aren't promised earthly happiness, actually we are asked to pick up our cross, but - if we are faithful - we are promised eternal happiness in heaven.  The wonderful truth of Christianity is that we are made for a happiness which only is found beyond this world.  As Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they rest in God; no earthly pleasures, or stuff, or peace, will ever be enough for us.  Even if we could avoid earthly suffering (which we can't), we are made for something more, we are made in the image and likeness of God and He offers us eternal bliss with Him, not anywhere else.   But this promise of future happiness is precisely something in the future, and the road there may be twisted and rocky.  Sometimes following Christ seems easy, fun, and exciting,but sometimes it is not - the road is often narrow.  

In all of this it seems difficult to remain positive, but we must always remember that our hope is in God, not ourselves.  If we rely on ourselves to figure out why some suffering has struck us, at some point we won't be able to figure it out and then we are left in despair.  But this despair is exactly what happens when we lose hope in Christ.  Hoping in Him, in his promise of eternal life and eternal happiness, requires us to not rely only on ourselves and to trust in God.  God promises us an eternal, complete, beyond-this-world happiness, and that requires that we trust in God, who is beyond this world.  You can't have it both ways; you can't have eternal happiness in a temporal world; you can't accept the gift of Heaven if you think you can create it for yourself on earth.  Earthly suffering can be transformed when we view it with the eyes of faith, but it also can be accepted - even when we don't see how it can be transformed - through that same faith which shows us the beautiful promise of heaven.  

Look at Mary.  She is a humble, beautiful, and holy young lady, and then an angel appears to her and asks her to become the mother of God.  She doesn't understand, yet she accepts (trusting in God, not herself).  And despite this intense trust that she shows to God - beyond anything any of us have ever done - she experiences a life that is chock full of terrible sufferings.  She is told that sword will pierce her heart, she has to flee into Egypt to escape Herod, she loses her Son in the temple, she watchers her Son get beaten, condemned to die, carrying the cross, and then crucified, she is at the foot of the cross, watching the life drain from her divine Son, and then He dies.  Her grief is impossible to contemplate, her pain, difficult to think about.  Of course, her life wasn't all pain and suffering - surely there were moments of peace, love, happiness, fun, etc. - but what I realized was that Mary, the holiest human ever (besides Jesus), wasn't exempt from the sufferings that afflict us all, if anything, she experienced more of them.  What gives?  That doesn't make sense to us.  

But if we look at the entire picture, including eternity, we suddenly find hope, and joy, and happiness again.  Despite all that pain, what is Mary given? - the queen-ship of heaven and the most perfect joy - having both body and soul - in paradise forever!  For a long time I didn't really know why the last two glorious mysteries of the rosary - the assumption and coronation of Mary - were there.  Yeah, they were teachings of the church, but they didn't seem to fit into the scope of the other mysteries, which are all about Jesus' redemption of mankind.  But now I have realized that it is in the light of the assumption and coronation that we realize the scope and grandeur of heaven that is bought for us through Christ's incarnation, passion, and resurrection.  Mary, as always, brings us closer to Christ!  In her, we see - in its entirety - Christ's promise of eternal life.  We are called to the same trust and faith in God - even in the midst of intense sufferings - that Mary had.  We are promised the same intense joy - if we remain faithful - that Mary has.  

Now, looking back through this post, there is some sense that this is a bit of a downer.  There is something very enticing about the Gospel of prosperity that claims that Jesus came so that we might have earthly wealth and happiness.  But if we really think about it, salvation must be so much more than that.  If salvation was all about bringing us earthly joy then it isn't very valuable - we can try to get earthly joy on our own, without God becoming man.  No, salvation involves saving us from sin, and death, and hatred - not from earthly troubles.  Salvation is a promise of perfect happiness, not the imperfect kind that we try to find on earth.  Now, this isn't to say that suffering and pain are good things; certainly they aren't; they came with the fall.  But, the paschal mystery invites us to lift our gaze, to have hope in the eternal life prepared for us, to see that the "life in abundance" promised us by Christ is so much more than earthly abundance.

Alright, time for a recap and conclusion:  Sometimes we find ourselves on our own Holy Saturday.  We experience loss, pain, hatred, doubt, or death and we don't know why.  Of course, we can always offer it up, and try to grow to love God more though it, but sometimes even that doesn't make it any easier to bear.  Sometimes we feel empty, abandoned, forgotten by God - we feel despair - and we don't know what to do.  But in those moments, above all, we must remain steadfast in our hope of eternal life.  Sometimes we will experience earthly suffering, and often those struggles won't go away; we can't see how God could transform them into something good.  In those moments, we must lift our eyes to the promise of life to come, to the eternal happiness that awaits us if we keep the faith.  Yes, struggles will beset us - and sometimes they don't go away (at least, for a long time), but through it all we must struggle to be like Mary, trusting through everything, knowing that God promises those who love Him bliss in heaven, not on earth.  

Now, all that said, don't think I'm experiencing some terrible crisis or anguish or something - I am doing just great at the moment (having fun with the family, planning for vacation, getting stuff ready for the NAC, etc.), but over the last week or so I have continuously been struck with ideas regarding the fact that our hope must be in heaven, not in ourselves, or on earth.  But, God gives us this hope in an incredible way.   As the prayer for the end of the Office of Readings for today says: 

Our hope, then, isn't even as far removed as Heaven.  Jesus gives us His divine hope, and love, and joy in giving us Himself in the Blessed Sacrament.  This is the promise of eternal life, and the gift of that divine life into our souls, and that which gives us strength for the journey...  Yeah, the Eucharist is everything, because it is Jesus Himself.  Struggling? - spend an hour gazing at our Lord in the Eucharist.  Empty? - receive the fount of all grace in Holy Communion.  Hurting? - accept the token of Jesus' immense love for you in His Body and Blood.  Happy? - thank the Lord of joy for that gift.  Does the Eucharist take away suffering? - nope, but it gives us the strength to carry our crosses, the joy of intimate union with Christ, and the hope of eternal life with Him forever.  

And that's all for now!  Thanks for reading!

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!