Blessed Sacrament. January 31 , 2013

Praying before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. His Presence is one that draws us into divine Love. In this moment of contemplative prayers, Jesus speaks to the human heart, a voice that "lures us into the desert." We stand before Jesus "naked" in our brokenness and sinfulness and in this desert he gazes at us and into the center of our beings. Like the father in the parable, he wraps us with the arms of grace dissolving all that separates us from his love.

When taking a walk to St. Peter's piazza , I take the short cut through a parking garage and underground. Through this long "tube" one can't help but encounter all the "least ones" of the kingdom...the poor. They know that at the end of the tube stand the massive columns forming the architectural masterpiece of the colonnade that circle the square. One almost feels them embracing all of humanity.

The poor are the "blessed sacrament " ...the very Presence of Jesus. And they embrace us with their cries and pleas Yes, they repel us and lure us at the same time
They prick the conscious which wounds our heart, opening them to see ones self in these rejected ones. A glance of love can change the hardest of hearts.

In this beautiful Eternal City stands the mother of all churches, a mother that wants to nourish humanity with God's Presence and Love. This wonderful church beckons us to become just a bit more uncomfortable in our privileged worlds. The purpose of a beautiful church is to make us more Christlike. And in gazing at Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament give God the permission to wound our hearts so that may "see"with His eyes.

The church teaches that Jesus in the Eucharist is "food for the journey (camino)." We feed on Christ's Body so that we will do what the colonnade and basilica do: we open wide our arms to embrace the least ones and in this embrace , we , too, become a least one. Buen camino. Padre

Ruth. January 28, 2013

I received the email which informed us of Ruth's passing from this world into the Kingdom. I read the news just after I arrived in Rome from Chicago. My very first venture this morning was to St. Peter's in memory of Ruth. Upon entering the basilica , to my right , is the famous statue of Michelangelo's , the Pieta, depicting a grieving Mary holding the lifeless body of her Son.
I couldn't help but think of Fred who, like Mary , is so grieving the loss of his beloved.
This journey of life is a beautiful one but one that not only embraces life, but must let go of life. The grieving is what truly binds us all for in the grieving is a vulnerability we share. Every one of us must let go of precious loved ones to be left with emptiness....an emptiness that can only be filled with Love.

As Mary held the body of Jesus she instinctively knew that something more was to come..,that death was not the final answer. She was the gathering force that united the apostles as they waited for thd outpouring of the Holy Spirit. With Fred and all those grieving, we wait for that sd Spirit to pull us out of grief and into expectant waiting. We wait, holding their lifeless bodies...handing them over to theOne who ROSE from the dead... Out of Mary's arms and into transformation.

We pray for those grieving like Fred. Our grief and theirs unite as we wait to be welcomed through the gateway of death by by all those who have made this ultimate camino or journey. One more will be there to welcome us, give as a bag of food. And a smile. Her name is Ruth.
Buen camino. Padre

Airport. January 26, 2013

I love the airport. Here I sit with over four hours until my flight leaves for Madrid and then Rome. I love snow and the winter....and I love airports. Here I sit with two very heavy suitcases and a Starbucks in hand watching....observing.
Perhaps it is all the energy ; maybe it is the huge diversity of humanity passing by. Right next to me are sitting people from Japan, India and America. Everyone is going somewhere....

As we are waiting to leave, thousands are arriving from countless destinations, perhaps to come home; maybe a visit; or maybe a business meeting awaits. Comings and goings. Arrivals and departures. Life.

Human beings are always arriving, entering the circle of life. Their lives are just beginning, with countless destinations waiting to unfold. But others are leaving this great circle to complete the greatest of life's journey. Our beloved Ruth is on this threshold to a transformed life where she will watch over the love of her life, Fred, and will continue to be a spark of love at our food distribution.

The sadness and grief is what ultimately units us and binds us together. As the reading from Hebrews at today 's mass says, he poured out his Blood, his very life, so that he could prepare the way for each one of us. We enter heaven, the kingdom, only because Christ had made it possible through his pouring out of his life. Heaven had been opened for ALL people through the greatest sacrifice of all. This is the sacrifice that is made present at every mass celebrated. Every Eucharist is an experience of the moment of Calvary? Of passion, sacrifice , and resurrection. And Christ had given us HIS very Body and Blood for the journey. For the many departures and arrivals....
The sadness in letting go of the people we love, like Ruth, is met with the joy that we will see our loved one again when our moment comes to depart this world. Joy kisses sadness, and life is reborn. Buen camino. Padre

Blanket of Snow. January 25, 2013

We finally did it! We received one full inch of snow, something that hasn't happened all winter. Being one who loves winter, I saw the falling snow and couldn't help but smile. It created a fluffy white blanket that covered the land. This blanket had a way of being a grand equalizer. Outside of the size of buildings, you can't really tell one neighborhood from the next; the rich from the poor.

James Joyce evoked the image of the falling snow at the end of his story, "The Dead," to remind us that the snow falls on all: "It had begun to snow...the snow general all over Ireland...It was falling on every part of the dark central plain; on the treeless hills... further westward softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves...it was falling , too, upon every churchyard on the hill...it lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones...the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end, upon the living and the dead."

These beautiful and poetic words written by an author whose writings freed him to see and experience the God beyond the constraints of culture, custom and even religion. The snow blankets ALL creating a beautiful unity where there is neither "gentile or Jew , slave or free, male or female. " Standing outside I can become a part of this blanket uniting me within every human being and together with all of creation.

On this feast of the Conversion of St. Paul we tap into the same Spirit that blinded Paul only to have his eyes opened wider than ever, "seeing" the plan if God uniting all people of all times in the Person of Christ. This is a gentle "blanket" of Grace that immerses us into the Kingdom so that we unite with each other,,,seeing the Christ in every human being. We create a "blanket " of human love and solidarity.
No wonder why I love snow so much. Buen camino. Padre

The Healing Baths of Lourdes. January 16, 2013

The morning stared out cold, bleak and pouring rain. Rain has been a constant these nearly three days in the village of Bernadette. I went to Confession to a marvelous priest from South Africa, a man who exuded joy and compassion. My experience with him led me to the baths, which I have heard and read so much about.

People from every country come to these waters searching for healing; aren't we all? The entire area is built to make any with a physical disability comfortable and able to attend all services and processions. Talk about inclusivity. But these cold, wet days of January bring few pilgrims. No processions and no lines if waiting people. In a vast courtyard that can hold ten thousand people, I stood with at most six people.

The baths are right next to the famous grotto in which Bernadette experienced 28 apparitions. There are two section: one for the women and one for the men. Since I was practically the only one wanting to enter the baths, I felt intensely vulnerable and alone. I was asked to strip down to my boxers in a changing room , enter an area divided by a curtain where 5 men awaited me. One kind man discreetly held a towel that he stretched out from hand to hand and asked me to take off the underwear. All of the 5heads were turned away giving me privacy and dignity.
He wrapped to towel around my naked body and made sure that I was covered. In this room is a large sunken in rectangular bath filled to the brim with freezing waters from the river. Two of the men help me down one of the steps into the cold water and they pray. I walk down a second step and they pray. Then I sort of plunged which they didn't want me to do. They slowly lowered me down so that I basically knelt down,the waters coming to the middle of my chest. One of the men pouts water over my head and gives me water from a pitcher and asks me to drink the water as he pours it into my cupped hands. We pray to Mary. And they lead me out.

You simply put your clothes back on your very wet and cold body. When they learned I was a priest they asked for a blessing. The five men come from different parts of the world to give a certain amount of time to volunteering in the baths. One young man from Italy was giving one entire year in thanksgiving to God. Remarkable.

I felt called to entire these baths remembering dozens and dozens of names that surfaced lady night as I prayed. Names from st Teresa, and every other parish ; names from family and friends; anonymous people who need some form of healing. The experience was much like the one I had after the camino went I went down into the waters of the Atlantic. Baptism. Death and new life. The pascal rhythm of our lives.

But Lourdes was different for me. Becoming naked after all the surgeries I had and just being self conscious made the experience very difficult but ultimately freeing.
Naked we come into this world and naked we must leave it. We all stand naked in spirit before the God who is absolute and unconditional Love. We need not hide. In today's gospel the evil spirits couldn't bear with the authority of the presence and voice of Jesus. They needed to hide... to go away.
We don't have to hide our vulnerability; we can TRUST in The Lord to embrace is and care for us. The waters of the Atlantic, the waters of Lourdes , the waters that fall from the earth in rain and snow that soak the earth returning a yield of harvest.

The greatest harvest is humanity, with Mary being the one whose witness and love have allowed her to experience the fullness of the Resurrection of her Son. My experience at Lourdes has been a deeply healing one. This is a special place that speaks of God's Presence and I can online imagine what it is like on a typical summer day to see tens of thousands of people suffering from any number of physical or psychological illnesses searching for healing.

It is perhaps easy to dismiss the part of the experience that includes the apparitions. I believe something happened here to a young woman who was obscure and had a difficult time in her studies. In her innocence and childlike faith, she confounded the religious leaders, the theologians, the doctors. No one could prevent God from acting within this humble, unlikely soul. Her experience is like a parable: the Klingon of heaven is like a seemingly ignorant young girl who turns the world of the learned and clever upside down. God's ways are not ours. Buen camino.

The Story of a Soul. January 14, 2013

This is the title of st Therese's autobiography, a book I highly recommend. As I mentioned previously, her story is not the sweet and sentimental one we have been fed for so many years. She struggled like us all. In the end she trusted in the midst of living in a dark desert of the Spirit. She trusted that God loved her and was present to her even though she had no felt experience of his presence.
It's that old "leap of faith" we keep hearing about, which is another way of saying that we have to trust in God 's live and care even when our senses tell us nothing is there.

Sometimes, oftentimes , happiness is so fleeting and superficial. But JOY...is deep ANC beyond the illusion of feeling and the uncertainty of emotion. It is intuition, a guy level experience that all is well of will be well. Joy is a gift of the Spirit, a Grace that penetrates into the heart of out souls.

We ALL have a story of the soul...our souls...waiting to be told. Write...journal...reflect.,,pray...seek a spiritual director...,the story of your soul needs to find expression in some fashion, most likely just for you. Knowing God's hidden Presence in your life and the ways that he has woven your life together with moments of grace is a Treasure beyond cost. This knowledge of the ways of God in your life is the very foundation of joy

I write this in the early morning hours just after arriving in Lourdes. Bernadette, herself, was posed by our Blessed Mother that she could not promise her happiness in this world but certainly in the next. We are made for joy, our destiny is to forever livd in joy. But this life is just the prologue, giving us a hint if what is to come in the main act of life which is the life waiting for us all when we pass through the gateway of death. In this time of the prologue, we journey and slowly "camino" our way through the uncertainties and sufferings that this pilgrim life brings out way. But we are not to be pilgrims forever but are destined to be permanent dwellers in the kingdom where the road we travel is called Joy. Buen camino. Padre