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Chill Factor

8/28/2014

Saving insight into the on-going battle between the warm and cold blooded Catholics!

As some of you know I am inordinately colder than most people and so I have a terrible time with A/C in the summer and with lower temperatures indoors in the winter. Particularly difficult is that in a seminary were many priests concelebrate and the daily Mass combined with liturgy of the hours is a good 1 ½ hours, with the many layers of vestments of the priests they keep it about 65 degrees whereas I like it about 75 degrees.

I finally figured out that it is better for me to bring shawls, scarfs and soon hats to Mass and leave them on the rack rather than my beloved priests suffocating! Duh! I was reminded concerning this matter of an old joke where the kid asks his mother why it is said “many are cold but few are frozen” a mishearing of “many are called but few are chosen.”

Giving a talk in Staten Island, NYC I was driven from Connecticut by a wonderful apostolic revert, Mark Matuza. He spouted such wonderful one liners during the 3 hour drive that I begged him to send some to me to convey to you, dear blog readers:

"I was made out of love, by love, for the purpose of love"

"God does not give gifts with gift receipts.”

"I used to say life is the opportunity to do God’s will, now I say life is the opportunity to become Gods will"

"God has purged my pallet, there are but few taste buds left"

"I am obliged by love to love"

"All saints are sinners , but all sinners are not saints"

"The leaves that fall to the ground become the mulch that gives strength to the roots".

Many of you have read about my daughter Carla who is fighting T-cell lymphoma. Between times, she makes large wall hanging size rosaries from old beads, necklaces, etc. she finds in thrift shops. Her intention is to give these to the local Catholic Church where the priest has agreed to bless them and distribute them for free to the needy as he sees fit. Money is tight so if you happen to have any old beads, necklaces, old broken rosaries etc. that you’d like to donate, you can send them to:

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Widows of Jacoba

8/21/2014

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Bl. Jacopa de' Settesoli

Families of Jacopa is a new Franciscan community, mostly for widows, but also for any older single women in Steubenville, Ohio. Google it for more information. I gave a retreat to widows and others discerning becoming members of this group last week.
You can read about them at
http://familiajacopa.wordpress.com/

At the end of the sessions I had the women do an affirmation exercise I have used many times in the past in classes and at retreats and workshops. We go around the circle and everyone has to say one affirming thing about the physical aspects of each of the others such as Marilyn, I like the jaunty way you walk, or Joan, I like your deep rich voice. It is really a loving thing to do. I realized afterwards that affirmation is an opposite to envy. Many women envy other women for different aspects of how they look, but when we affirm another woman that is a healing of envy.

What do you think? If someone dies who has confessed all venial and mortal sins will he or she go right to heaven? I was pondering this question and it seemed to me the answer was “no” and for this reason. If you are still overly-attached to anyone or any thing you wouldn’t be happy in heaven, because you would still be longing for what you are attached to on earth. Therefore, your purgatory would be a severing of that over-attachment, perhaps through such a strong experience of God’s love and what you loved more on earth would be encircled, as it were, in God instead of clutched onto instead of God.

Carla, my daughter was reading this article on what not to say to cancer patients. This was her post in response:

My advice in situ is simple to say and extraordinarily difficult to do: realize the extent to which the cancer patient’s experiences are directly touching your own and, depending on closeness or distance, may even be changing you. Focus on what you are feeling and doing and use it as a springboard toward understanding yourself. Talk THIS over with your pet cancer patient and now we are both in the land of the true, the painful, the glorious, and most precisely, the unknown. Short of climbing into the cancer patient’s body, it’s the closest you can get to real sharing.

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Surrender

8/14/2014

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Advice from a priest I think many readers of this blog could transform into relevance for your own needs:

Surrender the daughters into His heart. More surrender. Anxiety and irritation and anger always come from something not surrendered. See where you am not docile to God’s permissive will now or in the future. (My thought was that I can’t surrender unless God alone is really enough for me.)
Do the Ignatius of Loyola Examen of Conscience each evening. (I googled this and see how good it is.)

1. Become aware of God’s presence. Look back on the events of the day in the company of the Holy Spirit. The day may seem confusing to you—a blur, a jumble, a muddle. Ask God to bring clarity and understanding.

2. Review the day with gratitude. Gratitude is the foundation of our relationship with God. Walk through your day in the presence of God and note its joys and delights. Focus on the day’s gifts. Look at the work you did, the people you interacted with. What did you receive from these people? What did you give them? Pay attention to small things—the food you ate, the sights you saw, and other seemingly small pleasures. God is in the details.

3. Pay attention to your emotions. One of St. Ignatius’s great insights was that we detect the presence of the Spirit of God in the movements of our emotions. Reflect on the feelings you experienced during the day. Boredom? Elation? Resentment? Compassion? Anger? Confidence? What is God saying through these feelings?

God will most likely show you some ways that you fell short. Make note of these sins and faults. But look deeply for other implications. Does a feeling of frustration perhaps mean that God wants you consider a new direction in some area of your work? Are you concerned about a friend? Perhaps you should reach out to her in some way.

4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you to something during the day that God thinks is particularly important. It may involve a feeling—positive or negative. It may be a significant encounter with another person or a vivid moment of pleasure or peace. Or it may be something that seems rather insignificant. Look at it. Pray about it. Allow the prayer to arise spontaneously from your heart—whether intercession, praise, repentance, or gratitude.

5. Look toward tomorrow. Ask God to give you light for tomorrow’s challenges. Pay attention to the feelings that surface as you survey what’s coming up. Are you doubtful? Cheerful? Apprehensive? Full of delighted anticipation? Allow these feelings to turn into prayer. Seek God’s guidance. Ask him for help and understanding. Pray for hope.

St. Ignatius encouraged people to talk to Jesus like a friend. End the Daily Examen with a conversation with Jesus. Ask forgiveness for your sins. Ask for his protection and help. Ask for his wisdom about the questions you have and the problems you face. Do all this in the spirit of gratitude. Your life is a gift, and it is adorned with gifts from God. End the Daily Examen with the Our Father.

Friendship is a grace - it is only because some of my friends are mad geniuses that they can like me!

Prayer of my daughter Carla suffering with lymphoma:

May the Lord have mercy on me, a lowly sinner of no account. May Mary accompany me, though my knees are hobbled and heart is troubled. May the spirit inhabit my soul and grant me the fire of truth. Lord God, steer this small boat safely; Christ Jesus: let me be not alone.

Notes for a book called “The Pessimists Guide to Travel”?

Joys of travel – you leave the demons who are trying to operate in one place to meet the fresh ones at the next place.

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Rereading, rethinking, repraying

8/4/2014

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I have been rereading Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov with many thoughts! It is the most amazing mixture of a thriller plot with the deepest spiritual perceptions. I consider it the greatest novel ever written and I teach it sometimes and also reread it every 10 years or so. This time I am struck with how way back then in the 1880’s skepticism was so rife in the culture that religious people were terrified of what would happen to the younger generation. Whereas Dostoevsky, a devout Orthodox Christian was sure that the faith of the Russia peasants would triumph over these nihilistic tendencies, in fact it was the atheists who triumphed for the next century.

If you have never read this novel, you might google and find the chapter of the life and thoughts of Fr. Zossima, the saintly elder, just to immerse yourself in that sisters Eastern Church's spirituality at its most glowing.

http://www.classicreader.com/book/276/39/

On another topic, I so often see people like myself with genuine desires for holiness but certain flaws, habits, etc. that seem to conflict with those wishes for holiness. Reading in tandem with Brothers Karamazov a book of letters Dostoevsky wrote to his publishers and family this is so evident in him! He was addicted to gambling not for a short time but for many decades. I read that a Catholic priest delivered him from this finally after he had totally bankrupted his wife and children to the point of destitution.

Praying about this to Jesus, I seemed to get this partial explanation. As hard as it would be for me to overcome work-aholism, or talking too much, so it is for others for whom, for example, unnecessary possessions give them a sense of security and a compensation sometimes for feelings of failure about other aspects of their lives. This and this went very wrong, but at least I have this – this being “my work,” “my money,” “my big, beautiful house.” I don’t interpret this to mean that we should all be literal Franciscans having absolutely nothing but a patched up robe. It is the tendency to let whatever the exaggerated habit is stand in the way of Christian love as in “I don’t have time for you because I have this artificial deadline and prefer my work to listening to your woes,” or “I could never live with just what I need because then I would seem and be poor.”

The answer, Jesus always seems to give me is that if I were more plunged into His love for me in deep prayer I wouldn’t need to talk so much as a way of getting constant affirmation through smiles at my “wit”, etc. etc. Clothed by Jesus’ love would others need so many stored clothes?

Do extroverts always seem more superficial than introverts? I notice if a new person comes to teach or study at the seminary who is inward and rather silent I always imagine that he or she is deep. Especially deeper than super-extrovert me! But religious psychologists claim that Jesus was totally balanced on these polarities we like to label others and ourselves with. So, if introverts challenge me to be more silent, probably I challenge others to be more open and expressive.

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Chill Factor

Widows of Jacoba

Surrender

Rereading, rethinking, repraying

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