NCYC is here!

Today I am in Indianapolis along with many youth and young adults who have gathered for the National Catholic Youth Conference.  I wish  every young person could have this experience. I am grateful that parishes and youth ministers take the time to gather with their youth to experience this so that they can unpack it gradually.  There is a contagious joy in gathering with others who are excited and know how to enjoy each other and their Catholic faith.  I hope and pray that each participant receive a special blessings and bless others whom they meet.  Christ is counting on you!

MORE ON PFP

There's a lot to think about with Angela's "terrific threesome" of Prayer, Fasting, and Pilgrimage...this time I was thinking about how PERSONAL they all are:

Even imprisonment and death can't prevent the movement of the individual soul to God in prayer. In fasting, I deny food to this body I live in (can you think of anything more personal than food that actually becomes you?) I remember Sister Cheryl Clemons telling us that in Angela's day, all some women had real control over in their lives was what they ate. And as for pilgrimage--well, you certainly can't hire somebody else to take a pilgrimage for you. You have to do the walking and put up with the blisters and mosquitos and hard beds yourself--otherwise it is not a pilgrimage!

All three must be experienced at a deeply personal level, which was where Angela was in her relationship with God--and where her daughters and sons aspire to be!

For all the blessings known and unknown, we give thanks...

This time of year our thoughts turn to blessings.  There is an old prayer I recall, "For all the blessings, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, we give thee thanks." 

Every day I am showered with blessings, some I recognize, others remain hidden or unspoken. Some blessings I hold on to forever and some I just forget, nevertheless,I am very blessed.  When someone asks me "How are you?"  I need to say,  I AM BLESSED!

It really is the unforgotten blessings and the more than half-forgotten ones that I do well to look back, savor and remember.  They are part of my life experience and they have created  a sacred journey.  Take time to recall how you are blessed and know that we are united in gratitude today!

Frederick Buechner says, " Life itself can be thought of as an alphabet by which God graciously makes known God's  presence, purpose and power among us.  Like the Hebrew alphabet has no vowels, and in that sense the words are always veiled, subtle, cryptic so that it is lef to us to delve their meaning, to fill in the vowels, for ourselves by means of all the faith and imagination we can muster."

I think this is a good analogy.  God speaks to us in such a way, not because God chooses to be obscure but because the meaning of an incarnate word is the meaning it has for the one it is spoken to, the meaning that becomes clear and effective in our lives only when we discover it for ourselves.

It seems it takes hard word to hear the incarnate word, but the discovery of God's voice, presence and and power is worth every ounce of energy and time!

When God speaks it is usually into our personal lives.  Someone we love is diagnosed with cancer. Some unforeseen act of kindness touches the heart.  An act of insensitivity makes the blood run cold.  We fail a friend, or a friend fails us, and we are appalled at the capacity we have for estranging the very people in our lives we need the most.  Or maybe nothing extraordinary happens--just one day following another.  We sleep, we dream, we wake, we work. We remember and we forget.  God is there, speaking to us.

To attempt to express in even the most insightful and theologically sophisticated terms the meaning of what God speaks throught the events of our lives is as precarious as to try to express the meaning of the sound of snow falling, or leaves changing colors or the spectacle of the setting sun. But I choose to believe that God speaks nonetheless, and the reason that God's words are impossible to capture in human language is they are ultimately always incarnate words.  They are words fleshed out in the everydayness no less than in the crises of our lived experience. 

Listen to your life, all moments are key moments.

I am discovering that if you really keep your eyes open and your ears open, if you really pay attention to life, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I am living, you will be opened up onto extraordinary vistas.

Eating supper with a friend, a supper prepared by their own hands.  Trying to accomplish a simple day's task.  Hearing the rain patter against the window.  Watching the maple leaves fall.  Comforting one who is burying her mother at age 92.  Driving a good friend for radiation treatment.  Enjoying a serious conversation about the future of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph.  There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize or not to recognize God's presence.  If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything, it would be something like this.  LISTEN TO YOUR LIFE.  See if for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness, touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis ALL MOMENTS ARE KEY MOMENTS, and all life is precious, all life is gift.

ANGELA'S TOOLCHEST

I recently attended an Ursuline gathering at which the speaker spoke of three of St. Angela Merici's primary spiritual "tools:" prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. I was intrigued with the idea that those three tools actually represent three means of connection--connection to my own true self, to God, and to others.

• Fasting gets the soul and body in conversation with one another, connecting me to my true self, and helps me see the divine in myself.



• Praying puts ME in my place, and in direct contact with God.



• Pilgrimage takes me out of myself, takes me out of my comfort zone, to a place where the Other is at home, and helps me see the divine in others.

Now, I am not one to seek suffering, but meditating on these spiritual tools, I see where they could work for me...perhaps I can use the discipline of Weight Watchers for a holy purpose!