All posts by Arthur Joseph

Autobiography

46 FRAGMENTS GATHERED FROM WORKING


 

THE TELEVISION news this day has several stories involving workers: a coal miners’ strike in one country;

 after an earthquake men buried alive in a gold mine in another; thousands laid off by a multi-national so the company can cut costs and increase the dividends to stock-holders; and yet another series of tales from the former USSR of workers, teachers, doctors, and so forth, not having been paid in months.

 

Stories too: of human beings hiding in the containers on great ships, for weeks at a time, seeking to make their way into the country, in hopes of a better life.

Elsewhere, to punish and control the neighbouring nation, one country periodically closes its border so those workers who daily cross over to earn bread are kept from work, their families without bread.

How many hours have I spent in the confessional listening to the exhausted, frustrated, men and women, who feel so powerless before the corporate giants, or even just in face of the foreman, or others with power over their daily bread.

During the almost two years I worked for that company which supplied contract workers, I would work from the highest towers in the financial district to inside a print-plant six stories below ground.

I would work in stocks and bonds, accounting, as a person asking questions for a polling company, bureaucrat for an engineering firm, a folder and binder in a print shop — added to my experiences over the years as a social worker, postman, lumberjack, tailor, working in a laundry, free-lance writing, dj, some months as a mechanic, time as a farmer, even time doing stoop labour of seasonal workers around the world — each work experience a gathered fragment of insight and understanding into what it means for men and women to be workers.

My heart believes part of the greatness of Pope John Paul II as shepherd is he too has the heart, hands, bent back, of a worker.

Only a priest who has known hard labour could have written this:

( In Memory of a Fellow Worker )

He wasn’t alone. His muscles grew into the flesh of the crowd,

energy their pulse, as long as they held a hammer,

as long as his feet felt the ground.

And a stone smashed his temple

and cut through his heart’s chamber.

They took his body, and walked a silent line.

Toil still lingered about him, a sense of wrong.

They wore grey blouses, boots ankle-deep in mud.

In this they showed the end.

How violently his time halted: the pointers on the low-voltage

Dials jerked, then dropped to zero again.

White stone now within him, eating into his being,

taking over enough of him to turn him into stone.

Who will lift up that stone, unfurl his thoughts again

under the cracked temples? So plaster cracks on the wall.

They laid him down, his back on a sheet of gravel.

His wife came, worn out with worry; his son returned from school.

Should his anger now flow into the anger of others?

It was maturing in him through its own truth and love.

Should he be used by those who come after,

deprived of substance, unique and deeply his own?

The stones on the move again: a wagon bruising the flowers.

Again the electric current cuts deep into walls.

But the man has taken with him the world’s inner structure,

where the greater anger, the higher explosion of love. [cn]

 

Yes, I watch the television news from time to time, especially watching for stories of workers from across the world.

Jesus, God-Incarnate, spent most of His time on this earth as a worker.

Priests MUST have a special love and passion for, a particularly acute attentiveness and willingness to serve, those who work.

MONEY!

I recall one lunch hour going to the trading floor, that place of shouting, gesticulating, ulcer spawning, greed slacking-enhancing ante-chamber to the actual power over peoples — multi-national corporations.

The place where you could become wealthy beyond one’s ability to consume — or even quickly loose more money in an instant, more than the average human being can even conceive of.

Money!

This was a place – or rather this had become our culture — of greed and death where you can no longer assume a job for your entire working life — where human beings are declared as redundant faster than a technology becomes outmoded — stocks having replaced sweat as a the measure of a man.

Money!

No longer actually coins or paper or even a plastic card — rather increasingly a series of data on some electronic network — gone the clink of coin dropped into a man’s calloused palm at day’s end, gone the pay packet handed a woman as the store closes of a Friday evening — indeed gone the worker’s weekend — the believer’s day of rest — for money demands we never slow down, never stop, twisting in our constant search for more, even as the world turns, as if the earth were turning about looking itself for a place to rest.

I watched the relentless rush from right to left — globally from east to west — of the endless ‘ ticker-tape’ electronic spew of data — symbols and numbers assuring those on the winning end, discouraging those who’d misjudged — of fortune to be made, fortune now lost.

Not a single human face upon the ‘ big board ‘, not a single thought that this frenzy of buying and selling affected the dignity of real human beings at the end of the day as they were ‘ downsized ‘ while the cost of bread rose, interest on their mortgage rose, the corner store closed because the big box store a few blocks over now controlled things.

Money, money, money.

For thirty pieces of it you can buy and sell the Innocent One.

I returned to my office after that lunch time visit to the trading floor, returned to my work transferring billions in stocks and bonds from one buyer to another, one seller to another, and watched one town rejoice while another sank deeper into emptiness.

Something stirred in my heart that end of day as I was putting things away at my desk.

My heart saw the disposable worker, the frenetic trader, the corporate captain, the holder of stocks as not unlike myself — each of us wondering who and why, from whence to where, and fearing the answer as much as the question.

I understand now what my heart was seeing, and feeling, as a fragment of love –but I quickly dismissed it.

The Holy Spirit would have to prod deeper before I would look into the light, listen to what He was speaking to my heart.

But it was another fragment and they were — no doubt by Our Blessed Mother — being gathered into the basket of my heart.

Money, to the degree that I was making it in those days, became a problem for me for a time.

It became something of a burden, especially as I blithely walked past the seemingly constantly growing number of homeless and panhandlers.

Initially I was determined to cling to my new found money, after all I needed things, didn’t I. Besides if I gave to one person, what about the next. And the next.

Then Lent came and my heart was moved from incipient greed to a renewed awareness of charity.

I began to understand that what I was experiencing as a burden – money – was in fact a treasure and that for virtually the first time in my life I was in a position to be truly generous.

I began to make sure I always had some coins in my pocket. True, I could not give to everyone but once every day I could give to someone.

Another fragment!

For several months then my life became a rather comfortable, if somewhat insular, existence.

I had my daily job routine; stressful though it was which often included attending Mass in the worker’s chapel. There were the evenings with my companion, weekends with friends in the various bars, theatres, money with which to indulge my passion for books, the time, the security of a comfortable home in which to read.

Money for fine dining, art galleries, time to write poetry, essays, to travel in comfort whenever I went to visit my spiritual father.

There was a dichotomy however which could not long be ignored between the orthodox true teachings being placed in my heart by my spiritual father and the advice being given me by priests I consulted in the city whenever I would approach the sacrament of confession and confess sins such as greed or my disordered relationship.

The city priests assured me that if I was, as they said ‘basically’, monogamous, there was nothing wrong with the way I was living.

In the depths of my heart I knew they were not speaking truth, just as surely as I knew my spiritual father was speaking truth.

Of course I was placing myself in the heart of the dichotomy because as much as part of me desired to live in truth the rest of me clung to my fears and addictions.

Thus in the midst of a seemingly benign routine of life I was increasingly stressed.

One day I doubled over at my desk in excruciating pain and found myself rushed to the nearest emergency ward.

Once the doctors found out where I worked they spoke to me as if I were just another over-stressed achiever.

They loaded me up on some strong antacids, having determined it was stressed induced stomach trouble, and sent me home.

My stress induced trouble had nothing to do with the job I was doing.

It had everything to do with the work I was not doing.

If a man is entangled in the things of this world, caught by their many shackles, and seduced by the evil passions, it is very hard for him to recognize that there is another invisible struggle and another inner warfare. – -St. Makarios of Egypt.

Within a few weeks I was going through a bottle of the antacid medicine every day.

Summer arrived and with it the extreme heat and humidity which annually takes such a toll on my being.

My conditioned worsened and I began to miss work.

Food, which always had been a last resort source of comfort, became intolerable as it seemed to fuel the acidic burning in my stomach.

I returned to the doctors and more tests were ordered.

Nothing definitive was found.

Looking back on it, given my lifelong acute anxiety attacks, I am surprised none of the doctors recommended a tranquillizer.

Here is another fragment though, for at that stage of my life had I calmed down through drugs I most likely would not have looked into my own heart.

Filled with the physical pain, struggling with increasing anxiety, feeling like my idyllic situation was beginning to unravel, I decided on a spur of the moment to go and visit my spiritual father.

Not having checked ahead of time to be sure he was there I was very disappointed when I arrived at The Community to be told he was away and would not return for a few weeks.

Crestfallen I headed towards the shrine of Our Blessed Mother.

As I was walking towards the shrine one of the hermit-priests was coming towards me, noticed my sadness and asked what was wrong.

I told him my woes and he invited me to open my heart more and to walk with him to his hermitage.

I did.

Once in his hermitage he said he would pray for me and blessed me with a relic of a true healing saint.

I call upon You, my God, my mercy, who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot You. I call You into my soul, which You prepare to accept You by the longing that You breathe into it. Do not desert me now when I call upon You, for before I called upon You, You went ahead and helped me, and repeatedly You urged me on by many different words, so that from afar I could hear You, and be converted, and call upon You as You called to me. [co]

 

Autobiography

45 WALKING BESIDE MYSELF AGAIN


THE SADNESS of the rich young man from the Gospel was mine.

 

It is not specified, rather presumed by most Gospel commentators, that the rich young man’s possessions where exclusively material.

I like him was hobbled in my hunger to know and be with Christ by my many possessions, though mine were less material yet no less a bondage: neurosis, bitter-roots, inner-vows, addictions, fear, self-will, and heaviest of all possessions to drag around from place to place, my egotistical-narcissistic-self.

Jesus, being as He is Divine Mercy, Divine Tenderness Incarnate, never leaves us without hope.

While the Holy Gospel does not so indicate, my heart has always believed that at some point in the future — perhaps after receiving Baptism and the Holy Spirit in the days following the Death and Resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost — the sheer loneliness of having so many possessions, of being possessed by so many, humbled that young man enough for him to indeed sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, through a life of service to the poor.

Not in the Gospel per se, just a notion in my heart.

What IS in the Gospel is the story of a conversion from a no to the Father to a yes. [Mt. 20:28ff]

Jesus is always revealing to us how mercy is greater than hardness of heart.

So once again in my life, a new decade, a new city, new circumstances.

The apartment my companion was living in was in the worst part of town and filled with cockroaches and other vermin.

My friend had experienced a difficult time in his early months in this city finding work and had only recently begun to establish himself.

There was an urgent priority on my getting a steady job so we could get out of that dump and into something cleaner, safer, better to be sure.

That first day I slept a fair bit, finally ignoring the roaches scurrying across the counter tops and even over the blanket I slept under.

When I needed a smoke I’d lean out the bathroom window, over the alleyway, this not smoking in the place, being one of the conditions of my being taken back.

The next day I went walking about the city, traveling the subway system, getting off at various stops at random, emerging into the cold January air to see a different part of this huge city of finance, movie, television, literature, art, and extreme poverty, prejudice — a city which saw itself as the center not merely of the country but frequently of the universe.

A city also seen, if not across the country certainly in the mind of the local clergy and powerful laity, as the dominate, Roman Catholic, diocese in the country.

Unfortunately, as I would learn in my seminary days, this meant more error flowed from the local institutions into the wider Church across the country than obedient humility would have allowed.

I did, however, find this great city exhilarating and felt I would do well there.

A few blocks from the apartment was a parish run by the Jesuits and there, I quickly found out, the duality of lifestyle and unabashed modernist Catholicism were readily accepted, indeed advocated.

Yes, it seemed, things would work out here.

But this was the early eighties and while they would end as the decade of greed, that greed had a tremendous price for those used to working in a smokestack economy.

Within a few weeks my money had run out and I was still without work.

This caused increased friction between my companion and I until finally he simply stated either work, welfare or out.

One of the Gospel events which is applicable to a great variety of circumstances, sacramental, inner-healing, life-event, care of necessary material goods etc. is the event where Christ multiplied the loaves and fish, as found in St. John chapter six, verses one to thirteen.

The key phrase I wish to reflect upon here, in light of subsequent events from my early days in the new city, is ‘gather the fragments’. [Jn 6. 1-13, cf. V.12]

I was at prayer in the parish church one afternoon, before the Blessed Sacrament, in desperate agony over the tension between me and my companion, the financial stress, need for a job, inner healing, indeed the whole gambit of my real poverty, admission of which as true confession open to conversion, was still hobbled by the weight of my many possessions.

What my heart became aware of, astounded by actually, was a deep sense that within the very chaos of my life at that moment the Holy Spirit was at work, a work of purification and preparation — preparation for exactly what I was not given to understand at that juncture.

My heart was made aware of the Gospel referred to above and that henceforth all my poverty and work experiences were to be a gathering of fragments.

Today, as a priest who serves the poor, working people, the sick, lonely, rejected — as all priests are called to — I can rejoice that nothing of those fragments has been lost, for I am able to serve with a degree of understanding heart that comes from shared experience.

The next day I had the strength to go to the welfare office and apply for welfare.

Many comedy routines, films, tv episodes, make fun of what happens to people in a welfare office.

There is too the common mythology of people on welfare being basically pariahs who, in a sense, steal the money generated by the average, decent, hardworking citizen.

My heart believes the real evil here is that over the centuries, certainly since the advent of raw capitalism with its boom and bust cycles, Christianity itself has handed over to the state more and more of the corporal works of mercy.

It is a type of crisis of faith wherein we trust the state to provide more than we trust God.

As always it is the poor who bear the burden of our lack of faith.

The end result too, in that paradox since Vatican II of those who previously had truly cared for the poor, living poorly themselves, under the oft repeated false doctrine of the so-called ‘spirit of Vatican II’, orphanages, schools, hospitals, and so forth, have been closed because there are no consecrated religious to staff them…while so-called spirituality centers to assuage the angst of the middle-class proliferate…and convents, monasteries, seminaries, parishes, continue to be closed.

The state cannot, indeed will not, under any circumstances, treat the poor in light of their God-given dignity as persons.

To be poor, to apply for welfare, is to pay a tremendous price of loss of one’s dignity as a human person.

A dignity not easily retrieved.

So it was for myself as I was shuffled from wicket to wicket, berated for being a healthy man without work, challenged as to the veracity of my statements, advised I could go to a soup kitchen if I was hungry since no social worker would come by to verify my situation until the following week.

Imagine my amazement when the worker did eventually come by and deemed I was living high on the hog in that dump and was about to deny my application when she opened the oven door on the stove and a whole herd of roaches scampered out.

I got welfare then.

We used my welfare check to pay the rent, while my companion put his rent money aside as down payment on a better place.

Since smoking costs, obviously not just cash, we started jogging to help me overcome the withdrawal and to ease my general anxiety attacks.

The physical aspect of the relationship was minor.

Mostly I went out from time to time for anonymous encounters and when they did occur I had that interior split, the experience of walking beside myself — it was as if I were a mere observer and also as if I were trying to draw back deep inside myself so that the real me were not involved.

Afterwards I would take long hot showers as if the scalding water could cleanse me interiorly, or sear together the split.

By spring we’d found a better place to live and I began again the hunt for a job.

My best friend from many years had long been living in that city and had a place beside ours. Both buildings had been fine houses in the previous century and were recently done over into yuppie-style apartments. The whole neighbourhood reeked of youth, money, pleasure. It was very eighties.

Each time I’d pass a church, where Jesus lives in the Blessed Sacrament, I’d want to go in, make a sincere confession.

I rarely did until I found myself working near a worker’s chapel and there always confessing immediately I had sinned alone or with another.

Thus another type of gathering fragments would occur.

After sixty job interviews, broken in my ego, the tension increasing, the inner warfare with myself extensive, a type of rage towards the deafness of God taking hold, I was on the verge of a breakdown.

I was visiting my friend next door, sitting on his living room floor, sipping coffee, when suddenly I began to tremble, to shudder, to sob and out of my mouth rushed all the rage, frustration, doubt, confusion — a type of emotional vomiting.

Trying to comfort me he suggested I apply for a job at the hotel he worked at as night clerk where many of the tv and movie stars stayed. He stressed the money and the perks of going out with the sex-crazed entertainment types, adding that it was surely the stress of trying to lead a non-hedonistic life that was tearing me apart and that once I got money and pleasure unlimited I’d feel better about myself and life in general.

At first it was as if he was speaking to me from such a great distance away I could barely understand what he was saying. Then his words began to register. My heart understood I was drowning in a lifestyle I had not truly renounced. The sheer weight of my possessions was pulling me beneath the waves and surely I was about to drown.

I knew in that instant that if I did not try and pray all would indeed, I would indeed, be lost.

That was all Christ needed.

That minuscule crack in the wall of resistance to Him became the fissure through which He would begin entry as surely as if I had truly the courage to open wide the door of my being to Him.

I left my friend’s place and immediately walked the twenty blocks to the church in the city dedicated to Our Blessed Mother of Perpetual Help.

There I went in and my prayer was simply to weep.

The very next day I was hired by a company who supplied temporary staff to major corporations and was contracted at very good pay to work in a brokerage house in the financial heart of the country.

Money, the false security of money, does strange things.

I did return to the sacraments, especially on Sunday. Then, once I found the worker’s chapel near my office, I began to attend daily Mass, often also going to confession.

But I was lulled into a compromise.

Namely, I very, very rarely was unchaste, didn’t drink, or smoke, did go to Mass, but I did not move out from the relationship and I did not pursue true inner healing or even yet pose the central question: what is the Father’s will for me.

I had allowed a crack to open within me and Christ had indeed gained, as it were a foothold but I had not opened wide, as yet, my being to Him.

I guess it was a type of standoff.

He wanted me to move closer to Him so He could accomplish more healing within me.

I wanted Him to accomplish more healing in me so I would move closer to Him.

 

Letters

THE FATHER’S LOVE LETTER

 

 

My Child,

You may not know me,
but I know everything about you.
Psalm 139:1

 

 

I know when you sit down and when you rise up.
Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways.
Psalm 139:3

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
Matthew 10:29-31

For you were made in my image.
Genesis 1:27 

In me you live and move and have your being.
Acts 17:28

For you are my offspring.
Acts 17:28

I knew you even before you were conceived.
Jeremiah 1:4-5

I chose you when I planned creation.
Ephesians 1:11-12

You were not a mistake,
for all your days are written in my book.
Psalm 139:15-16

I determined the exact time of your birth
and where you would live.
Acts 17:26

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:14

I knit you together in your mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13

And brought you forth on the day you were born.
Psalm 71:6

I have been misrepresented
by those who don’t know me.
John 8:41-44

I am not distant and angry,
but am the complete expression of love.
1 John 4:16

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you.
1 John 3:1 

Simply because you are my child
and I am your Father.
1 John 3:1

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could.
Matthew 7:11

For I am the perfect father.
Matthew 5:48

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand.
James 1:17

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs.
Matthew 6:31-33

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Because I love you with an everlasting love.
Jeremiah 31:3 

My thoughts toward you are countless
as the sand on the seashore.
Psalms 139:17-18

And I rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

I will never stop doing good to you.
Jeremiah 32:40

For you are my treasured possession.
Exodus 19:5

I desire to establish you
with all my heart and all my soul.
Jeremiah 32:41

And I want to show you great and marvelous things.
Jeremiah 33:3

If you seek me with all your heart,
you will find me.
Deuteronomy 4:29

Delight in me and I will give you
the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4 

For it is I who gave you those desires.
Philippians 2:13

I am able to do more for you
than you could possibly imagine.
Ephesians 3:20

For I am your greatest encourager.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I am also the Father who comforts you
in all your troubles.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

When you are brokenhearted,
I am close to you.
Psalm 34:18

As a shepherd carries a lamb,
I have carried you close to my heart.
Isaiah 40:11

One day I will wipe away
every tear from your eyes.
Revelation 21:3-4

And I’ll take away all the pain
you have suffered on this earth.
Revelation 21:3-4

I am your Father, and I love you
even as I love my son, Jesus.
John 17:23

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed.
John 17:26

He is the exact representation of my being.
Hebrews 1:3

He came to demonstrate that I am for you,
not against you.
Romans 8:31

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 

His death was the ultimate expression
of my love for you.
1 John 4:10

I gave up everything I loved
that I might gain your love.
Romans 8:31-32

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus,
you receive me.
1 John 2:23

And nothing will ever separate you
from my love again.
Romans 8:38-39

Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party
heaven has ever seen.
Luke 15:7

I have always been Father,
and will always be Father.
Ephesians 3:14-15

My question is…
Will you be my child?
John 1:12-13

I am waiting for you.
Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Father,
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Book Reviews

Inflamed by Love

 

I remember, in the mid-sixties, when she first arrived in Combermere, having served the poor in both the inner city and overseas.

 

There was a radiance about her which, in near forty years of friendship we shared on earth, and now seven years of her heavenly intercession, seemed to grow stronger.

It is of Jean Fox [1931-2204] of whom I speak.

Successor to Catherine Doherty the Foundress of Madonna House, she was personally formed by Catherine.

In December 1985, just after Catherine’s funeral Jean came to me, knowing she was to be the first Director General of Women, and asked me to pray over her that she might share Catherine’s charism.

Jean was to be re-elected time and again, serving as Director General until her own death at the beginning of Holy Week in 2004.

Over those  years she gave many talks, wrote many letters and some of her writings have been gathered into a wonderful book: INFLAMED BY LOVE meditations for spiritual pilgrims.

One sample of her words: “All of us must go through the agony in the garden and walk the Via Dolorosa to be glorified through God’s mercy. There is no other way. Let’s walk hand in hand into that glory quickly, for the salvation of souls.”

Her book is available at: http://www.madonnahouse.org/publications/fox/ibl.htm

 

Autobiography

44 DISEASE IN THE DARK IGNORANCE


IN THE FIRST encyclical of his pontificate, Redemptor Hominis, Pope John Paul II gives us a definitive teaching on the reality of the human person.

 

It is a bold, concise, clear, Gospel and Sacred Tradition rooted, teaching on Christian anthropology, the meaning and purpose of human life , the great sacred mystery, reality of God become man, the Incarnation.

Pope John Paul teaches:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This…is why Christ the Redeemer ‘ fully reveals man to himself’…this is the human dimension of the mystery of Redemption……The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly…..must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into Him with all his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process take places within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‘gained so great a Redeemer’, and if God ‘gave His only Son’ in order than man ‘should not perish but have eternal life.’[ci]

Now that is what, though of course I could not have articulated it at the time, my being was yearning to discover and participate in during the period in my basement cave as an urban desert dweller.

The problem was that rather than enter into the mystery of placing my face to the ground and being humble before the Incarnate One with my weaknesses and sins, in a word being still, I approached the whole matter by and large as an intellectual exercise.

My being was hungering for an authentic experience of love, and of self.

My thinking, my attempts to rationally come to grips with my life to date, bereft of the essential simplicity, childlikeness of heart, required for true inner healing, came almost, though by His mercy not totally, to naught, as I took, as it were, a turn not of responsive docility to the prompting and illumination of the Holy Spirit, but into the disease of introspection.

 

I WAS essentially, (and only saved from total disaster since my spiritual father was always there, by letter, phone, visits in person, doing his best to break through my very sophisticated intellectual, ego defences), in this desert experience by my own ‘flight’ determinism.

Thus my uniformed, unformed, immature, fearful state of being, even endowed as I was with a ferocious autonomous will, could not long sustain the struggle.

The wise monk, a true modern desert dweller, indeed a true latter day father of the desert, Matthew the Poor, articulates it best:

Because of this hidden deceit and the fraudulent methods the devil uses, all who do not cleave to the Name of Christ and the Holy Spirit — that is, the Spirit of truth, knowledge, understanding and divine guidance — easily fall prey to the devil’s wiles and do his works quite unaware. Instead of rightly perceiving the works of the evil one, they see them simply as the way of the world or the prevailing custom or the natural product of human nature or perhaps the result of sickness, chance, unintentional error, or rash speech or action. These are the threads the devil cleverly weaves together till they invisibly encircle the mind, gradually and fiendishly shutting out the light that brings discernment between truth and falsehood. Then they close in upon the conscience, stifling it till it slowly and almost imperceptibly loses its sensitivity to truth. Finally these perceptions penetrate so deeply that they enslave not only the mind, but even the body itself, and in the end the law of sin occupies a person’s very being and controls mind, tongue, conscience, body and behaviour. [cj]

In the latter part of the seventh decade of the twentieth century the impact of materialist-hedonism, rejection of faith, in particular among Roman Catholics the development of a rejection of the sacraments, in particular confession and belief in the Real Presence, and the general spiritual exhaustion and malaise in society, was expressing itself in a desperate attempt to find meaning in the existence of self, in life in general.

Several well-known trends began to dominate the popular culture, and as well to penetrate, in various degrees, the centers of higher learning, including seminaries.

On the popular front, given the high cost of therapy with trained professionals, a whole plethora of self-help books became best-sellers, as did the expansion of so called ‘ eastern ‘ techniques. Some of the latter were rooted in actual ancient forms of religious belief and practice, such as Buddhism.

Among disenchanted Christians, including Catholics, looking for emotional solace, that feel-good aspect of life which so obsessed the decade, various forms of evangelical groups, some equating faith with material success — God as the ultimate middle-class capitalist — others became personality cults — began to pervade the air-waves.

The self-help books, and latterly in the eighties their attendant get-rich-quick offspring, will prove themselves to have been a mixed benefit — helpful to some, terribly destructive to others.

I found myself caught up in the general atmosphere of introspection, which is destructive to the baptized person — for the Holy Spirit, while He does invite us to a truly, contrite, examination of conscience, which includes a truthful awareness and assessment of one’s ‘consciousness’, nonetheless does not aid and abet introspection as a turning in upon the self.

The Holy Spirit invites us on a journey inward to encounter with Christ.

Again the ultimate point of the journey being our transfiguration by the Holy Spirit to where, in truth, we not only exult, but in reality live the sacred mystery: I LIVE NO LONGER, CHRIST LIVES IN ME.

The disease of introspection has many levels, some more lethal than others…. It is amazing how perfectly and methodically some persons can go about destroying every experience of life (i.e. the power to be), even every thought experience, through turning an introspective, analytical mind to bear on it….. a vicious and continuous mental obsession… an exercise in..continually looking inward to find some sort of a personal truth or reality… …inner dialogue..full of an irrational sophistry that [can] only tear concepts apart, but [can]never put the fragments back together in any kind of satisfying whole…..floundering in serious mental and spiritual darkness…filled with fear when he first sought help through prayer. [ck]

Of course at the time I was unaware that was happening within me, and my spiritual father, prudently, did not pressure me in anyway. He continued to work with me through the healing of memories and a constant encouragement that I strive to grow in trust of, and docility to, the Holy Spirit.

The turmoil of introspection, and the evil one’s use of that to sow confusion and a type of spiritual exhaustion, itself the step-child of emotional exhaustion, eventually led to an acting out of my old addiction and I began to lead, once again, a type of double life — struggling very hard to lead a chaste life of prayer in my basement-desert-cave, the introspective-performance oriented struggle — and straying, though only occasionally, into the fringes of the sub-culture which I was trying to leave behind. The result being I sometimes surrendered to the disordered addiction to hedonism, thus causing even greater inner turmoil, deeper introspection leading to a more determined ‘performance’ of my self-assumed ‘desert’ vocation.

I was, then, less and less Christ-centered, more and more egocentric within the false self.

To fail to be centered is to ‘walk alongside ourselves,’ a stance whereby we live out of an activism separated from being and therefore from meaning. A person split in this way can never live in the present moment. He can only live for a future that never quite arrives, one that he is perhaps feverishly trying to control in order to avoid the pain of his past. [cl]

This expressed itself within me through a growing conviction, aided and abetted by the growing trend in some circles within the Church, advocating the notion that it was indeed possible to lead an active homosexual life and be a true Christian.

This extended so far as to seeing the lifestyle as itself a vocation and I bought the ideas wholesale.

This in turn led to a determination to be re-united with my companion and thus the inner turmoil increased exponentially as the introspective turmoil fed the new notion of embracing the duality — so contradictory as to make me shudder interiorly today that I could have ever believed it to be true — of a Christ-centered existence while giving myself over to mortal sin.

The only way out of the disease of introspection is to place love in right order, namely God first, my brother and sister next, myself last.

For this to happen, of course, we must know true love.

This demands surrender, a childlike surrender and trust to the reality that love is God loving us first. Through the reception and acceptance of His love then we are able to love.

I was, as so long practiced in my life, substituting, frankly misunderstanding,  gratification for love— taking superficial emotional consolation from someone for the reality of love.

Only when I would finally recognize not only my need for professional therapy to deal with neurotic damage, a true inner healing through real faith and sacramental living, would I begin to experience, taste, accept, the gift of the Father’s love, and only then would I begin to emerge from the quagmire of the disease of introspection, the bondage of performance, the dark ignorance of autonomous self-will.

I called my companion who, with some conditions such as I find a job, agreed to take me back.

A friend said he would drive me and my few belongings to yet another new city in my life.

Christmas came and went and instead of going to Midnight Mass I went out with a priest friend, who was struggling between the option of leaving the priesthood and going overseas as a missionary.

He arrived late Christmas eve begging me to go and have a few beers, shot some pool, chat.

By the end of the night he was more settled and had made his choice.

He chose Christ and the missions. [Mk.10:21, 22]

I had chosen flight from trusting in Christ alone.

 

 

Autobiography

43 AN ATTEMPT TO TRUST HIM


 

TODAY THE CHURCH CELEBRATES the Baptism of Our Lord, in the Jordan through the intermediary of St. John the Baptist.

This is called in the East, more specifically, what both East and West celebrates, THEOPHANY: the revelation of God as Holy Trinity.

 

God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit!

…the God of life and love, a Person in relationship with another Person, the Son, and yet another Person, the Holy Spirit. The Baptism of Christ was a blessed occasion for God to manifest Himself as He really is in the inner sphere of His life. He is a one and unique Essence, a one and unique Substance, a one and unique God in three divine Persons.

…Theophany tells of the mystery of God as He is in His inner sphere of life, a Transcendent Trinity…..

The feast of Theophany therefore, celebrates the greatest of all the mysteries of our Christian religion, the mystery of our God, the God of infinite life and love, the one and unique God in three divine Persons.

…it is the feast of the revelation of the Trinity of God Father-Son-Spirit, the feast of the re-creation of the world, and of the divinization of our humanity……..in one word Feast of Light….the Lord came to be the Light of the world and He is the One ‘who enlightens and illumines every human being who is born in this world’… [Jn.1:9]. He is the Light of the whole creation because He is Image and Revealer of the Father and Sender of the Holy Spirit.

……Holy Trinity is the basic truth of our Christian religion.

….our hearts…….enter into the feast…

….we see with our eyes and hear with our ears the ineffable reality of God. While our Lord and God Jesus Christ is in the river Jordan we hear a voice from heaven saying ‘ You are My Son….’ It is, therefore, a Father talking and Christ is the Son. Moreover, we see a dove which is the Holy Spirit alighting on the head of Christ. God is, therefore, one and unique God in three divine Persons, Father-Son-Spirit. In the celebration of Theophany, the revelation of God-Trinity, we are taken up beyond the historical dimensions of a mere event of baptism and transported into the heights of mystical communion with the Triune God. [cl]

That is exactly what my entire being was hungering for, to enter into the Light!: when I decided to inculcate my romantic notion of being a desert dweller in the basement cave.

The fundamental error, I was albeit rather naively making, is that we CANNOT, per se, step into the Light.

The Light Himself must enter us[Rv.3:20].

What we can do, by grace, what we must do, by grace, is authentically open wide the doors of our being as response to His offer of Himself, our Light, then He shall enter and make it so that we are thus in the Light, in Him.

LOOKING BACK along the corridors of my memory to that first night, and the subsequent few months I lived in the cave-apartment, I now understand what happened that night, and why what my heart sought ,I was nonetheless unable to receive in its fullness.

Yet God being all-loving and all-tender as He is, nothing is impossible to Him, and time, as all things, is no impediment to His love.

In retrospect, then, actual conversion, and deepening of the call to change of heart, did occur.

While in the immediate it may not have been apparent to me, over the following years that initial hunger to be severed, by grace, from my addictions, wounds, sins, would come to pass.

He is all merciful and, indeed, where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more![Rm.5:20]

Sitting there, so suddenly experiencing a crushing aloneness, I busied myself with lighting a vigil light to dispel the increasing darkness of the falling night; took a piece of paper and wrote out a rule of life and schedule for my days, setting out times for prayer, cleaning, Mass, spiritual reading, listening to people who might come to chat — everything that my romantic notion of an urban cave-dweller’s life should entail.

Naturally enough the central question: what IS the will of the Father for me, time to be still and listen to HIM — was not even posed.

Satisfied I had things in order, more precisely self-assured I had things under control; I blew out the vigil light, since I only had a few and little cash to buy more with, and went to bed.

As I lay there on the small bed, under my single blanket, in the deep dark, a chasm, an immense black-hole of emptiness, opened up within me.

An ocean of grief seemed to be cascade into my being.

I was stunned.

I was terrified.

I sobbed.

Tearless!

But I did not pray, did not cry out to God!

My autonomous will, my survival skills, my ego, reacted.

A motor kicked in at that juncture.

A loud, clacking, invading motor and my panic increased, subsiding only slightly when my brain figured out it was the old refrigerator.

The motor ran, ran, ran and I tensed the more as that loud sound seemed to permeate the entire little apartment, seeping through my skin and bones into my inner being.

I found sleep impossible, flaying about on the bed, filled with self-pity, emptiness, loneliness, and a reluctance to pray, as if that would be tantamount to admitting this whole adventure was a terrible error of my own wounded ego.

The thought came to unplug the fridge. A thought which came only after more than a hour of the senseless struggle.

My hesitation was a combination of ego refusing to admit my terror and the realization that my entire food supply was in the refrigerator and could spoil.

Finally a modicum of common sense and a half muttered prayer for mercy overcame all other considerations and I unplugged the fridge.

The sudden ensuing silence took some time to adjust to.

Dark, airless, empty, sad, space seemed limitless as I lay down again, asking only that God protect me in my fear and let me sleep.

I awoke the next day having slept for over twelve hours.

It was almost noon and I was sure that the food would have spoiled, the frozen stuff melted.

I opened the refrigerator and was amazed, humbled actually at my lack of faith, to find everything, even the milk, as cold as if that machine had run all night.

I plugged it back in and the racket of the motor was actually consoling this time.

There was, as I cleaned up and began the day, a deep sense in my heart that no matter what, Our Lady was watching over me.

I ate a little lunch of cheese and bread, spent some time in prayer and reading, then late in the afternoon headed off to the parish church for Holy Mass, feeling secure in myself that this move, this attempt at desert life in the heart of the city was, indeed, God’s will for me.

A rationalization to be sure, but one, in mysterious ways, in His Fatherly tenderness, He frequently blessed throughout the following months.

Over time the parish priest began to send the poor, the troubled, to visit me.

One example of Divine Tenderness is that no matter how little food I had, if the hungry came for a meal, there was always enough food.

A routine developed then which lasted until the last few weeks I was there: fasting, prayer, writing, going to Mass, helping the poor and lonely, and, which truly is the central grace and importance of those months, ever increased contact with my spiritual father.

He began teaching me about the healing of memories and how healing was occurring through the process of allowing those memories, and some significant dream experiences, to be touched by Christ.

It was the beginning of the healing and true conversion process which — though had I suspected this at the time it would have discouraged me, now it is one of the joys of my life — continues to this day and must continue until my death, for it is the process of transfiguration, sobornost with the Blessed Trinity — the lessening of I and the increase of Christ.

For a time, then, all was well.

What happened to precipitate this desert-urban-cave-dwelling to an end was my transferring a significant portion of the energies used for my addictions into the disease of introspection.

 

 

Letters

A RESPONSE TO VATICAN GUIDELINES

VATICAN GUIDELINES

Yesterday the Vatican issued a statement of guidelines for dealing with cases of abuse against minors.

 

It is a terrible fact that in the past real victims of abuse where mostly ignored, priests moved around.

It is a horrific fact that this added to the immense pain of victims and perpetuated abuse.

It is a stark reality that the damage done will likely never be healed, or at least not for generations.

Now in these days there are mechanisms in place which, if we be truthful, while they may reduce such crime, will not eliminate it completely.

To think otherwise is naive; to claim otherwise is a lie.

What can be stated truthfully is that now, at least, victims are listened to, their accusations investigated, justice and due compensation of all forms is rendered to them.

This is a good.

What is not so good is that those with power in the Church from the Pope down to the local Bishop have swung the pendulum so far to the opposite side from failing victims to an obsession with tossing priests under the bus.

Since 1066, at least in most English speaking countries, there has been a constant struggle for justice, for civil rights, for due process.

What is happening within the Church, well not within the Mystical Body of Christ to be sure, but certainly within the Vatican is the persistent erosion of any adherence to fundamental human rights, to due process.

Rather than cases being dealt with by the normal tribunal process, it is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which handles all cases where there is an accusation of the crime and sin of abuse by a priest, religious or any lay person over whom the ‘church’ can exercise power.

A few points: 1] there is no appeal of a decision by the Roman Pontiff; 2] the appeal ‘judges’ in the CDF are the very same persons who hand down the initial judgement [unlike in most legal systems where appeal is made to a higher court composed of different judges]; 3] the CDF has its equivalent of a prosecutor but no one to defend priests; 4] cases are handled in written form – it is as if an American charged with a crime in Buffalo had his case handled by a court in Paris, in abstentia; 5] finally while bishops can draw whatever funds they want from the diocesan treasury to mount a case against a priest, canon lawyers in Rome charge thousands of dollars to defend a priest, a fee beyond the meagre resources of most priests.

While I will not deal with the Vatican Guidelines in total, there are few points I will raise which should give every priest, indeed anyone who believes in the rule of law, in unbiased justice, indeed in the Gospel of compassion, reconciliation, conversion, serious pause.

[The direct quotes are in capitals and the full document is available online.]

IF THE ACCUSATION IS CONSIDERED CREDIBLE……

Nowhere are there clarifications of what the terms are for an accusation to be considered credible.

This is a serious flaw and throws the doors wide open to immense damage being done to priests because it is an invitation to anyone to accuse and for any bishop to toss the case to Rome, even when church law does not compel him to do so.

Further down there is the assertion that: THE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION, AS WELL AS THE ENTIRE PROCESS, OUGHT TO BE CARRIED OUT WITH DUE RESPECT FOR THE PRIVACY OF THE PERSONS INVOLVED AND DUE ATTENTION TO THEIR REPUTATIONS.

Whom are they kidding?

With the modern media in a feeding frenzy against the church and priests as it is, with various social media spreading unfiltered and unverified information willy-nilly, with various well-funded and very hostile groups on the watch for any whisper of an accusation and bishops who publicly pull priests from their parishes the above assertion is not only untenable but is cruel.

Further it states: THE PRUDENCE OF THE BISHOP WILL DETERMINE WHAT INFORMATION WILL BE COMMUNICATED TO THE ACCUSED IN THE COURSE OF THE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION.

Since bishops tend also to be the primary prosecutor and judge we have truly now entered the realm of Star Chamber machinations.

Early on in the document the assertion is made that: THE ACCUSED CLERIC IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL THE CONTRARY IS PROVEN.

It does seem those with power in the Vatican have their heads in the sand when it comes to conviction by media, by being pulled from the parish.

Finally the last quote I will reference is this: THE BISHOP HAS THE DUTY TO TREAT ALL HIS PRIESTS AS FATHER AND BROTHER.

Really: priests are summarily removed from their parishes, in the main not given an alternate place to live, frequently have their salaries and benefits cut, rarely can afford defense attorneys or canonical advocates, bishops tend NOT to visit priests in prison, bishops tend even when the accusation is false to abandon priests, tossing them onto the public welfare rolls rather than care for them, indeed the church has to date done absolutely nothing for accused priests.

The Vatican cannot chastise governments or politicians who fail to ensure respect for human rights and due process when it continues down this dark and dangerous road, eroding more and more due process for priests.

You do not ensure the safety of a single child by holus-bolus tossing accused priests under the bus, dumping them onto secular welfare rolls, in essence hiding them under the radar.

You do not ensure your credibility in the face of victims of abuse when you dismiss priests from the clerical state and effectively lose any control over them.

You do not witness to the wider world the critical dignity of the human person, the foundational importance of natural law, due process, human rights when you turn the CDF into a Star Chamber.

In such a climate you do ensure that truly twisted and evil priests, not yet found out, will become more adept at hiding their crimes and disorder and you further ensure that all accused priests, in particular the falsely accused, will be prone to depression, loss of faith, suicide.

In the face of all this my prayer is very simple: Grant O Jesus to Your Church and those with power in Her the grace of compassion and courage, compassion for victims and sinners, courage to spare no expense in caring for victims, courage to ensure transparent due process for the accused and grant O Jesus most critical of all an end to all priestly crime and sin and our complete sanctification.

Madonna House

Fr. McNulty

I am more and more aware that at some level, the mystery of Faith remains ever-wrapped-up in everyday life and I’m finding it more joyful each year to unwrap it and recognize it there. ~ Fr. Pat McNulty, Priest of Madonna House.

Saints

St. Alphonsus

He…that leaves off prayer will leave off loving Jesus Christ. Prayer is the blessed furnace in which the fire of holy love is enkindled and kept alive. ~ St. Alphonsus de Ligouri

Servants of God

From Catherine Doherty

Through her liturgy, the Church points to the fact that the Cross and the empty Tomb are inseparable.

 In this way, she teaches us all about hope. She says, in effect, that when things seem all wrong, practically hopeless, that this is the time when hope should be its strongest. ~ Catherine Doherty