The image that has drawn me in my ministry is Touching the Sunrise. I believe each person, no matter where they are and what they have lived, is a temple of the Trinity and can, indeed, taste the presence of God within. You can find resources for healing and prayer and follow me at touchingthesunrise.com.
The disciple is no greater than the Master. Jesus our Divine Savior gave his life for us, up to the last drop of his blood, to make us children of God, children of the same merciful Father. With the awareness that we are all sisters and brothers, let’s ask him every day to breathe his divine life into each one of us, so that in the different situations of our lives we can continue to look for our brothers and sisters in need, and give our lives for them until the end.
These past two weeks I have spent from 3 to 5 hours most evenings or early mornings sitting beside a dear sister-friend who was making her last great ascent. That final walk. The ultimate journey. The loving return.
Each breath of hers was precious and on that last night before she died God helped me to realize that in the end, really, that is all we have…our breath…our current breath. We are not promised our next breath. We already have kissed the last breath goodbye. We cannot cling to it, as we cannot hold onto the past.
And even that breath is a gift. A gift of total gratuitously glorious love from a divine Lover who is supporting us in his arms even as we breath.
On that last ascent, it will not matter what we have created or achieved or known or acquired. The fact that I have written a book, or started a company, or sold an astounding number of widgets, or even loved will not be mine as a monument to me..
I will have only this breath that is a gift to me right now at this moment.
Here we are in our second pandemic Lent. Maybe we feel that we have been in Lent all through these twelve virus-riddled months. Maybe we’re dreading a season of greater penance when we’re longing to get loose from restrictions as they are somewhat lifted. Maybe we’re just numb and Lent isn’t registering at all. We’re just too tired to face it. Or perhaps the familiar rituals and practices of Lent offer comfort when we are so in need of something or Someone who understands and can do something. about what’s happening to us.
It doesn’t matter where you are. Come to Lent as you are, in whatever state you find yourself in.
This morning I prayed with the narrative of Jesus healing the leper found in the Gospel of Mark. In Leviticus 13 we find the regulation for those who have leprosy:
“The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”
Dropping down into my own heart, I found that there are many reasons why I, though I am not a leper, can cry out “Unclean!” before God. So many ways that I have not been all that I could have been, not given, or perhaps given what wasn’t needed and held back on what I wanted to keep. There is a blessed peace and a grace to acknowledge peacefully our “uncleanness” before our Maker.
St Francis de Sales encourages us to make our repentance moderate and peaceable, not anxious. He encourages us to learn to tolerate ourselves and others, to practice gentleness toward ourselves as well as others. To reprove ourselves without anger, bitterness, or impatience. Holding my own brokenness, gently calling sacred the past that more and more becomes apparent to me to be a place calling out for healing and new birth, I called out in a confident whisper to Jesus, “Unclean!”
I stood beside the leper in Mark’s Gospel who dared to approach Jesus and tell him confidently: “If you will, you can cure me!” Lepers by regulation, as we saw above, were to remain outside the camp so as not to infect others. This leper, however, risked everything by approaching Jesus who no doubt was surrounded by a crowd of people. In the two lines of the Gospel story it seems like it was an ordinary run-of-the-mill request. Leper shows up and makes his request. To his request, Jesus responds, “I do will it, be cured.” End of story. Can you imagine, though, the drama as people realized a leper was standing “inside the community space” right next to them. The leper was a threat to their health and survival. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper. Jesus didn’t run. He didn’t tell him to leave because he was a danger to him. He didn’t even call attention to how he was breaking the regulations. Instead he heard only the request. He saw only the leper’s heart. He was moved only by his most compassionate love that brought him to earth to save and heal a wounded race.
Holding my own brokenness, gently calling sacred the past that more and more becomes apparent as a place calling out for healing and new birth, I called out in a confident whisper to Jesus, “Unclean!”
Though I called out “Unclean!” and though I felt more sharply the uncleanness within, I stood with braveness beside the leper immortalized by the Gospel writer. “If you will, you can cure me! You can make me clean!” I felt his hand upon my head and let it rest upon me. “Be clean,” Jesus said with a firm yet quiet command. “Be clean!” It reverberated through the caverns of need and hope within me. Sometimes when we think of prayer, of Jesus, we forget that he interacts with us as we are in our humanness, our human need for human touch, our human need to know everything will be all right, our human need for someone to come and rescue us when we are overwhelmed or powerless in the face of something bigger than us. “Be clean!” Jesus’ outstretched hand steadying, strengthening, calming.
Many moments of taking in Jesus’ strengthening touch…. Heart opening to Heart, receiving the slow and subtle seeping of grace into the desert now turning into an oasis. “Clean!”
I am clean. Clean. Clean. Clean.
The experience of Jesus’ willingness to cleanse, to extend his hand in blessing and healing, means different things to each one of us. What has been the most powerful experience you have had with someone in your life who has been there to physically steady you with his or her hand, to bless or heal you? When have you experienced surprise and astounding wonder at what was done for you or given to you?
For me, the words uttered by Jesus and his strong yet gentle gesture are spousal words, the gesture of the Lover in the Song of Songs offering his hand to the beloved that they might be one. The Lover says in the Song of Songs 1:15:
Look at you, my dearest darling, you are so lovely! You are beauty itself to me. Your passionate eyes are like gentle doves.
The King of kings and Lord of lords who makes clean even takes the leper’s place–while the leper had had to remain outside the camp because of his disease, after curing the man from leprosy “it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly, and he remained outside in deserted places.” Lent is about touching intimately and profoundly the reality that we have been made clean at Jesus’ own expense, at the cost of his life. He died that we might live.
Lent is about touching intimately and profoundly the reality that we have been made clean at Jesus’ own expense, at the cost of his life. He died that we might live.
The only response, so beautiful and yet so painfully common, is gratitude. The inner treasure of gratitude can be overlooked because saying “Thank you” is a reflex action for anyone with a good upbringing. Gratefulness’ inner sanctuary is not like the astonishment on winning the lottery. It is the created one whose hand is held by her Maker, to whom she bows to the dust in awe that she would be noticed by so great a King, desired, and crowned his Bride, invited to sit beside him. Psalm 45 expresses it this way:
Now listen, daughter, pay attention, and forget about your past. Put behind you every attachment to the familiar, even those who once were close to you! For your royal Bridegroom is ravished by your beautiful brightness. Bow in reverence before him, for he is your Lord!
The offering of royalty, from which arises the incredibly humble awareness of unworthiness in the sudden realization and joy that it doesn’t matter any more. You have been made clean!
May you come to Jesus this Lent like a trusting child in this way for it is to those who trust in him that the Father has planned to extend his kingdom (Matthew 11):
“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.” Amen.
This week is National Marriage Week. The storms of the pandemic have stretched and frayed—and sometimes weakened—relationships between husbands and wives. The storms of having to work from home, homeschool children, and even just be together in new ways have overwhelmed the tiny boats of already fragile marriages and families tossed about in today’s society.
This morning in prayer, I imagined myself sitting at a table made by St Joseph in the tiny home of the Holy Family. I shared with Mary and Joseph what was capsizing my little boat, and soaked in the compassion of the three most beautiful people who ever lived. I imagined St. Joseph putting his hands on my shoulders, sharing his strength and stability that came from witnessing how the providence of Abba saved them, even as they found no room in Bethlehem for the Savior to be born, or as they had to flee from Herod for their lives. I felt Mary at my side, who as Mother par excellence knew the broken heart of one who could not save her child from humiliation and death, receiving him into her arms and sorrowing heart, and worshipping him as the King as he rose and ascended into heaven. I let Jesus comfort me as a child would. How delicate his kindness as he confirmed that life is indeed hard and sometimes filled with tears!
As I directed my vision and imagination to the images of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, as I chose with St. Joseph to hold onto Limitless Love’s providential care for me, as I opened my heart in prayer instead of complaint, I felt my little boat was tied to the pier of the Kingdom of Love. I knew that even though the boat will still rock and be tossed about on the storms of life, it will remain safely tied to the Heart of Love by my desire to be of the Kingdom, and the King’s holding me safe in his arms.
Friends, I invite you to fill your imaginations and hearts with images of the Holy Family strengthening you with their wisdom, experience, and witness. Feel Mary reaching out to you to dry your tears, St. Joseph bracing you against the troubles of life, and Jesus holding your gaze with his eyes that say, “I have you. I won’t let you go. Hold on to me. Hold on to me.”
There is a line that frequently appears on social media when people post about their need and struggle. “You’ve got this!” people comment somewhat reassuringly. Instead, I invite you to remember that, even when your boat rocks in the storm (which it will), God has this. God has you. Hold on to him. Hear him whisper, “I have you. I won’t let you go. Hold on to me. Hold on to me.”
For many years I was surprised by how many people came into our book centers and asked for the Chaplet to Our Lady of Sorrows. I personally never had a strong devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows. I always thought I’d rather focus on the joys of Mary than on her sorrows! But as time went on, I too began to find comfort in the Sorrows of Mary.
Even as I type those words, however, it feels like an oxymoron: how can there be a feeling of comfort in sorrow? The answer is simple: because the sorrow is shared. It’s not that there’s a comfort because of the sorrow, but rather that through her own sorrows, our Blessed Mother is with me in my sorrows.
When I reflect on the sorrows of Mary I feel a deep connection to her as Our Lady of Sorrows, realizing that through the sorrows she carried in her life, she understands the sorrows we face today.
The sorrows in my life look very different from those of our Blessed Mother. I think for example of my parents’ divorce, or the loss of a friend to cancer. These sorrows affect me deeply and I think: these things should not have happened. That’s where part of my sorrow comes from. Ideally, my friend wouldn’t have died from cancer in his twenties. Ideally, my parents would not have gotten divorced. In a perfect world, these things wouldn’t have happened. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any sorrow. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and through the great sorrows that pierced Mary’s heart, she is able to be with us in our own suffering as a mother who deeply understands whatever we’re going through.
We’ll reach the place of no sorrow when we get to heaven, but until then, we are here to live both the joyful and the sorrowful moments of our lives, just as Mary did. And uniting ourselves to her in our joys and sorrows can give great comfort to us—the comfort that only a mother can give.
United in the sorrowful and immaculate heart of our Mother,
Today is the 25th anniversary of the day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life, instituted in 1997 by Pope Saint John Paul II. The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a beautiful day to celebrate the gift of consecrated life in the Church. In the liturgy for the Feast of the Presentation, candles are blessed symbolizing Christ who is the light of the world, and those who have consecrated their lives to God are called to reflect the light of Christ to the world. (The observance of World Day of Consecrated Life in the US has been transferred to the following Sunday.)
One of the key figures who appears in the Gospel today is Simeon. Of all the people in the Temple that day when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus there to present him to the Lord, only Simeon and Anna recognized the baby as the longed-for Messiah. Luke states three times that Simeon was a man immersed in the power of the Holy Spirit. “The Holy Spirit was upon him,” he knew that he wouldn’t see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord “because it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.” And finally, that day, “he came in the Spirit to the temple.”
Simeon lived under the guidance and impulse of the Spirit so he could see things that others could not. He could see and proclaim what God was doing. He could see how grace was at work. “My eyes have seen your salvation,” he cried out. Can you imagine the joy of this old man that the mystery he had waited for decades to touch was now held in his arms.
Last year, on this day, Pope Francis reflected upon Simeon’s words at a Mass celebrated for religious. I want to use them as the basis for my thoughts here with you. In the dark and chaotic situation in our world today, all of us need to be able to see salvation, to see in our life God’s faithful gift, to witness God’s love at work in the world.
My eyes have seen your salvation! God’s gift even in moments of darkness and powerlessness. It is the tempter that tries to keep us focused on what hasn’t been, what we’ve lost, what we’ve been unjustly deprived of.
My eyes have seen your salvation! God’s gift in fragility and weakness. It is the tempter who hides the light and whispers to us: “You are no good. God can’t love you. Look at how little you love God. What have you done for him?”
Pope Francis described what happens to us, “We no longer see the Lord in everything, but only the dynamics of the world, and our hearts grow numb. Then we become creatures of habit, pragmatic, while inside us sadness and distrust grow, that turn into resignation.”
To see correctly, to see in truth, we need to be like Simeon, we need to be able to perceive God’s grace for us. We need to see salvation, to look at what God is doing.
Instead of focusing on thoughts and feelings about what is happening in our lives and within our hearts, thoughts and feelings that disorient us, Simeon shows us how to be led by the Spirit, inspired by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit. It takes a lot of courage to turn our eyes away from ourselves, to turn our attention away from the tempter and to lift them instead to the Lord. It takes courage to believe that God is at work even when everything we see around us seems to be falling apart.
On this Feast of the Presentation, even if you can’t get to the Church for Mass, light a candle, be warmed by the flame, be filled with the light that burns bravely in the darkness and braves event the wind…. May this candle remind you to see the Lord, the Light of the World, in everything. May it remind you that your life is happiest when it revolves around God’s grace. Courageously hold up the candle to a window, in front of the newspaper or your Twitter account or Facebook page and proclaim, “My eyes have seen, O Lord, your salvation!”
Photo credit: Arent de Gelder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Touching the Sunrise 