Making Peace with the Dragon of My Youth

When I was in fifth or sixth grade I had my first encounter with a boy my age who would end up dominating about three or four years of my childhood. He was someone who terrified me and knew it, and during those three or four years my life was one of constant anxiety and fear, to say nothing of the shame that I felt at running away like a coward every time he came near me. That experience has left an indelible mark on me, and greatly influenced my mindset and the choices I made throughout my adolescence and young adulthood. It has been one of the many memories that has surfaced rather explosively during this desert year, and again I turn to poetry for healing.

Making Peace With The Dragon Of My Youth

You were only a boy, and so was I.
But I feared you like a man, and you
terrorized me like one. You were
shorter than me, and far more
round, and a judgment of appearances
would consider this relationship
of fright to be quite inverted.
But you had the meanness
of a giant, and every turn of my youth
was darkened by the cowering
of your doomed anticipation.
You were my oppressor in the daytime,
my demon in the night, the nightmare
from which I could never wake.
Once my mother tried to slay
you, the dragon of my dreams,
but in the waking world
that only made your power grow.
Even God seemed content to let
the devil win.

Alas one day I drew my
sword, and though I lost
more blood than you, the
dragon of your terror lay slain
in our mingled pool
of scarlet rage.

If I only knew then what I
do now, maybe things would have
been different. You were raised
in pain, abandoned -
rejected and deprived
of love. Your brown and
yellow teeth were more a poverty
of neglect than of cash. It was
yourself that you hated, not me,
and now I wish I had loved
instead of feared you. Maybe we
could have been friends.

It has now been many years
since fear of you possessed
my heart. Forever more
may love of you possess
my prayers. And may God grant
that I die before you, so that
when your final day arrives, it
will be my embrace that
finally reveals to your heart
that you too are loved.

Fr. Frank Pavone on the Question of Church and State vis-a-vis a Right to Life

With national elections just a few days away, it is with great honor and indeed urgency that I present a post that Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life was kind enough to write for the blog here. I asked him if he would be willing to address the question that we in the pro-life movement often receive, that our defense of the unborn is an imposition of religious belief in a society which values the separation of Church and State. Many thanks to Fr. Frank for his tireless work. Following is the response he composed to my question:

As we approach our national elections, the question of the separation of Church and State always arises. In particular, we who urge the election of pro-life candidates need to answer the charge that we are trying to impose our beliefs on others.

I have had this discussion directly with abortionists. When I speak with them, a very predictable pattern arises. I talk to them about science, and they talk to me about faith.

The pattern begins when I ask the question, "Does an abortion destroy a human life?" The answer I hear is, "I don't know when the child receives a soul." In one breath, the topic of discussion was an observable procedure from the perspective of verifiable science. In the next breath, the topic was spiritual and invisible: when do children receive souls?

Many who favor the availability of legal abortion argue that since we have religious freedom in this country, people should be allowed to believe what they want about when the soul begins to exist. It would be wrong to impose by law one particular religious or theological position on this matter.

Correct. And the pro-life movement does not seek to require any religious belief by law. People have the right to profess, believe, and practice their own freely chosen set of religious and moral beliefs.

But while we are free to believe whatever we want, there are limits to how far we can go in acting on those beliefs.

In our society, a person is entitled to believe that stealing your car is OK, but he is not permitted to carry out that belief by actually stealing your car. A person, furthermore, is entitled to believe that you do not have a soul, but is not permitted to carry out that belief by killing you. Your life is still protected by the law, despite another's beliefs.

The United States Supreme Court and lower courts have made this distinction in various religious freedom cases. Courts in Alabama and Tennessee, for example, ruled that Churches that had ceremonies in which poisonous snakes were handled could no longer do so, because despite the freedom of belief, the fact was that those snakes endangered the lives and health of the believers. (1) Note that the handling of the snakes in these cases was an integral part of the faith and worship of those religious bodies. The US Supreme Court, furthermore, wrote as follows in Reynolds vs. US, 98 U.S.145 (1878): "Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship. Would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not prevent a sacrifice?"

We often hear about the value of a "pluralistic society." There is, in fact, a lot of legitimate pluralism, in the cultural, religious, ethnic, political, and other kinds of differences among people. Life would be quite boring if we were all the same. Yet a "pluralistic society" is, at the same time, a (that is, one) society, and to remain one society, something has to hold it together. There need to be some norms that everyone adheres to; and that's what makes "a society" different from a jungle. One such norm is that everyone's life has to be protected. We should defend legitimate pluralism. We should also recognize that to invoke pluralism and religious liberty to destroy another's life is an intolerable abuse. Abortion is not simply a matter ofbeliefs, but of bloodshed; not simply viewpoints, but victims.

The law's criterion for who receives protection should be the verifiable evidence of science, rather that the subjective criterion of religious belief. There is such a thing as religious truth. But whether a baby lives or dies should not depend on whether or not everyone in society has acknowledged that truth. Human life needs protectionnow. Freedom of belief should never be confused with freedom to destroy others.

And that distinction needs to come with us into the voting booth.

Notes

(1) See Harden v. State, 216 S.W.2d 708 (Tenn 1948), State ex rel Swann v. Pack, 527 S.W.2d 99 (Tenn 1975) and Hill v. State, 88 So.2d 880 (Ala 1956).

A Letter to a Friend Who Mourns

If I could I would tear my heart
asunder and hide you inside,
covering all your pain
with the beats of my
compassion - I would suffer
all for you. If I could
take your mourning as
my own and return to you
the joy that once was yours -
no tears would be too many.
But I know that mourn you must,
for without the night's anticipation
we would never know the beauty
of the dawn.

Yet do not believe that your
sorrow is your own,
for your friendship invites
me deep inside your sacred
wound, and in that
place of darkness I will
be blind with you until
your hell exists no more.
Do not ever think that
mourn you must alone,
for the love that binds
my soul to yours has
been secured with a single
thread of eternity. So cry,
my friend, or rage, or
simply let yourself be still.
Only know that wheresoever
mourning takes you, by
your side always you will
find me, my heart an open
basin ready to catch your tears.

Flames of Blue-Gold Rage

One of the things I struggle with in regards to this blog is how much of myself to reveal. Over time I have come to view this blog as having two purposes, interrelated. One is it is a means of ministering to myself. I write because for me writing is healing. In the process, I see this blog as a ministry to others, others who long to love God, others who desire to experience healing in their relationships with God, with others, and indeed with themselves. I have no special training or education that qualifies me for such ministry, other than the experience of pain and failure and brokenness, and more importantly, the powerful experience of healing that comes from the true Doctor of my Soul, Jesus Christ.

As some of my writing shows, I indeed see my relationship with Christ as a love affair. It requires a certain imagination for me to do so, in order for this very heterosexual male to understand myself to be the Bride, and my Lover as the eternal Bridegroom, who draws me into Himself and transforms me as the two become one flesh. I cannot help but see the Eucharist in this way, for I take His Body into me, He the Lover, I the Beloved, and in that union we are consummated, and I become submissive to Him, which only makes sense in light of His perfect love for me.

I seem to have digressed from my greater point. What I was beginning to get at is that I struggle with how much of myself I should reveal. Another way of saying this is how willing am I to let myself be vulnerable on a forum like this where mostly everything is anonymous, or at least potentially so, and where I have no way of knowing what happens to my words once they are "out there"? To that end, it seems to me that the only way this blog can truly be a ministry is if I let you walk with me on this journey of healing and of transformation. I need to be willing to let you, my reader, enter into those dark places of my soul that for so long I hid from myself.

Now that I have been, so to speak, cast into the desert that we religious call "novitiate," and through the grace and mercy of God I have engaged this desert prayerfully and in some degree of silence, the light of truth has thrown open these shadow places in my soul so that I can no longer run from them, and those pains and those sins and those imperfections from which I would rather pretend do not exist thrust themselves into my heart and force me to deal with them.

Actually, that image does not quite work. Rather, the loving God Who is this very Light only illuminates and brings into the vision of my heart those pains and sins that He knows I am ready to have healed, and for which He is prepared to give me the strength to endure this painful cautery.

For my part, I believe the reason why so much of this blog in recent weeks has consisted of poetry is because poetry, regardless of the quality of what I write, has been for me the creative means of dealing with the spiritual tumult that is this novitiate. Also, I think poetry serves as a better window into this experience than prose, and so often it is a better vehicle with which to allow you, my reader, to journey with me.

There is a common mistake regarding the spiritual life, this unfortunate modern notion of being "saved," as if salvation were an entirely personal event that takes place in a single moment in one's life. Lost in this poor theology is the understanding that our lives here on this earth are indeed a journey, and it is a journey of sanctification. We are being made holy, we are being made whole, and that is never an experience of an instant but something that requires continual cooperation with grace over the course of our lives. We progress in holiness, and indeed we regress, too.

In fact, this is why the Catholic notion of purgatory is so logical, and so merciful. Despite all the fanciful descriptions of purgatory over the centuries, it's important to remember that none of those descriptions - not Dante's, not anyone's - comprise Catholic doctrine. Put simply, the Catholic teaching of sanctification, and purgatory's relationship to the same, is simply this: when we are baptized, we are put into a new relationship with God, as His beloved adopted children and as members of His Body, the Church, which avails to us the grace necessary to grow in holiness and to grow towards our final perfection. However, in this life we still continue to sin and thus this growth in holiness, this process of sanctification, is ever dynamic, a journey of frequent progress and regress. Most of us when we die will not have attained to perfect sanctity, perfect holiness, and there will still be some sanctification left to do in us. Purgatory simply is that mysterious manner whereby after death, for those who die justified but not completely sanctified, our sanctification is completed, and when it is complete, our souls are then brought to heaven as we joyfully await the resurrection of the body.

For me, it has always been very natural to grasp this idea of sanctification as a process because of my ever back and forth relationship with holiness. This has been ever more easy this year, and in many ways this year is a purgatory on earth, only in the sense that I am offering on the altar of my heart all those pains, wounds, sins, imperfections, that continue to afflict me, and where they are consumed in the fire of God's love. I am here in an intensified period of being made whole.

However, and this is so important to remember, this is a slow process, and the biggest mistake that I could make is to put down my guard and think that the old faults are now gone and thus no longer require my vigilant attention. For me, of the many, many battles I have fought in my life, one of the worst and most vicious has been my battle with anger. My battle with anger has been the fuel behind a great many other of my demons - it has been the fuel of my alcoholism and my drug abuse, for one; it has been the fuel for various painful episodes with depression that I endured in my life, which, as I mentioned recently, at one point finally led me to the decision of suicide; it has been the fuel behind my many strained and broken relationships that as a result have had to endure painful healing.

I have come a long, long way in my battle with anger, but it is still one of those demons who attacks me from time to time, and its ugly head reared again recently. The circumstances of this event are unimportant, other than it was an occasion where someone hurt me, and my immediate response was anger. However, and this is entirely the grace of God at work in my life, of which I will never be capable of offering sufficient thanks, while the anger was allowed some moment of free reign over my soul, eventually forgiveness took over, and healing was made possible, for myself personally and for the relationship with the one who hurt me. The following poem then is meant to provide some insight into that experience (and please be aware that there is hyperbole at work in this!):

I've got firegold fury ablaze
in my heart, annihilating
all the tinders of charity that
once dared manifest.
I just want to burn you
with my pain. But that's
all wrong - I can't burn
you at all, because you
are not a you to me
anymore, but simply both the
cause and destination
of my wrath's righteous
consumption. My eyes
will devour you.

Who will survive when
this boiling cauldron
of acid is spilled?
How hideously disfigured
is an angry soul!

Of neither audacity nor
ignorance of my potential do you
suffer dearth, and so
with your metallic causticity
you continue to poke the
glowing embers of my
insatiable wrath, inching
me closer to irreversible
provocation.

Yet somehow somewhere
in the bottomless pit of this
Gehenna of my soul
amidst all the burning
refuse of my rage, a tiny
voice of the lone survivor
of that new indestructible
me cries out,
quiet but strong:

"Mercy!"

Was it a command
or a plea?

Then from the honey-sweet
cloud of moment's recollection
bursts forth a downpour
of grace, those heavenly
rains which alone could
quench my indefatigable
fury.

So now here quivering I stand
with a heart soaked in sorrow,
a flood of forgiveness flowing
forth from my eyes, eyes
from which I now see you
not just as a you,
but as my brother,
my friend. These hands that
once plotted the destruction of
your face now dare not
release you from
mercy's embrace. Even
blue-gold rage can
be transfigured into the
white heat of love.
Only a divine fire could
be fueled by rain.

And mercy endures forever.

Winds of Passion

For fourteen nymphs did Aeolus
release those storm winds of passion
from that cavernous hell
that is my soul.
Here comes Zephyr with scorching
zeal, splashing sweet nectar upon my heart
with such force that would fill even Cupid
with envy.
Then comes that icy wind of judgment
called Boreas, freezing the
blood of charity flowing
through my veins. Not to be
outdone in ferocity,
from the south blows angry Auster,
casting a thick, deep fog that
blinds the captain of my ship of reason.
Loathe to miss a party, alas arrives
Eurus in all the glittering majesty
of greed's vapid promise.

Each proud wind vying for
supremacy, conjuring within
such a Junian squall, as the
birds of appetite do somersaults
in the sky like gulls caught in
a tornado. Joining the fury of
these winds are new waves of
indignation, drowning the captain
who thought any ship he sailed would
never succumb to such a storm.

Such is my fate when I rely
on my own efforts, covered as I am
by an aura of death.

Yet if for fourteen nymphs did
Aeolus turn whore,
for but a single cry for mercy
does Neptune strike with his thrice-holy
scepter, rebuking these winds
and stilling those waves, and
casting me back to the dry sands of
the desert.

At least the storm was exciting.

Must Read Blog

My friends, it is with great pleasure that I present a new addition to the Catholic blogosphere. The blogger is a young woman with the imagination of a poet, the soul of a philosopher, the keenest of intellects, and whose many pearls of virtue are bound together by a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ and fidelity to His Church. Now that I have thoroughly embarrassed her (by telling the truth), I present to you, without further ado:

Catherine Lucia: The Forgotten Astonishment of Being Alive

An Explanation of Some Poetic Images

It has been brought to my attention that without explanation, some of my poetry could be misconstrued or misunderstood. By that I mean, my mother read this poem, Death Anticipating Love, and sent me an e-mail telling me she's worried about me. That, of course, is what mothers are paid to do :) But with that in mind, I thought I would attempt to explain the imagery used in that poem so that maybe it can better speak to people the way writing it spoke to me. I will also venture to explain the (supposed) internal logic of the syllabic structure and rhyme scheme.

In a very broad sense, the poem is about letting the old man die and be reborn in Christ, which itself is never, it seems to me, a painless experience, especially not in someone like me who has fed that old me and strengthened him in his vice for so long. This poem is written at a stage in my life when I am finally beginning to embrace that necessary spiritual death, the death of the old spirit.

There are seven basic images used in the poem: wound, heart, battle, rest, death, breath, and Christ. So the poem begins:

Fresh wounds cover ancient scars.

The fresh wounds are two-fold: the wounds that I continue to inflict on my soul through sin, and the wounds that are opened in the heart through love of Christ. Both of these wounds inflict the heart at this stage of my life, and they open over the old scars of the older wounds of my sin, wounds that have yet to heal, because I have not let them be given to Christ.

Because both of these types of wounds continue to afflict me, the wounds of my sins and the wounds of love (which are, in fact, healing wounds which allow the poisonous old blood to drain), the next line says:

Comingled are blood of my devotion
and my betrayal.

The two types of blood, then, are those which flow from the two types of wounds. This is possible since in the soul there are really two hearts, not one: the stony heart of sin, and the heart of flesh that fills us with the love of God, as we read in Ezekiel: and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ez 36:26, RSV). From the former, stony heart flows the blood of betrayal, and from the latter, fleshy heart flows the blood of devotion. It is the blood of betrayal because it only still flows because of turning my back on God's grace and continuing to sin; it is blood of devotion because despite how imperfectly I do so, I do indeed love God and long to love Him perfectly.

The next image is that of battle, which relates to the scars I bear. The line is:

Reject the notion
that battle survival makes a warrior.

The meaning of this is that there are some who might see such battle scars in a soul and think to themselves, "This soul has been through war and look where he is now, look how he's survived. He's quite a warrior." That would be sadly very untrue. It is true that I've been in many battles, but I have not fought them like a warrior, rather like a coward. A warrior is one who is brave, courageous, who recognizes his fears and faces them. A warrior is a person of virtue. I, on the other hand, am one who cowered in the sights of my fears, who attempted to flee the battle field, who ran scared, and the wounds with which I was inflicted and which left such scars are not the scars of valient fighting, but rather of being pierced with arrows even as I fled. So these scars do indeed indicate battle, but those battles were not engaged by a warrior but rather by a coward.

The next two lines relate to the image of breath. Specifically, they are supposed to represent the short breath of a person dying, for finally, since I ran from battle, in His mercy God led me to the desert and is allowing me to die here. So the lines are:

My breath is short and
shallow, lungs like sand.

The old man is still fighting, and tries to breathe, but that breath is leaving me as the desert sands fill my lungs.

Before I go on, this would be a good time to speak about the syllabic structure. For each of the images, not only is there a particular rhyme scheme, which I'll explain at the end, but they each have their own structure of syllables. So the opening line deals with the image of wound, and contains seven syllables, because those wounds relate to my relationship with Christ. The second two verses are the image of heart, and so they are, loosely, in iambic pentameter, ten syllables with a rhythm with which I tried to reflect the beating of the heart. The third line relates to battle and was also in ten syllables, because the battle itself reflects my struggle with temptation and sin, and the ten syllables points to the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, which I thought was a nice image for that struggle. The next two lines relate to the image of breath, specifically the short, choppy breath of a person who is dying. So they each have only five syllables, and the language was meant to be choppy like the breath.

If you've ever witnessed a person dying, often after each short inhale and exhale there is a long pause, and an anxious anticipation of whether or not the next breath will come at all. One cannot always tell if the person has died or not. So after the two verses relating to breath, the next verse relates to that rest in between breaths, so it is longer, and has twelve syllables, both to express the length of the wait, and also that this death being anticipated ultimately will lead to life built on the foundation of the Apostles, the life in Christ in the Church. So the line is:

Awaiting death is such cruel anticipation.

It is cruel anticipation because of the pain that one must endure in this dying, and also because of the anxiety not knowing if this death will happen at all. This anxiety comes from my having begun this path before, thinking I am dying in Christ so as to rise in Him, only to find myself turning from the path again. In this life the new man and the old man will always engage in constant struggle, and the new man will not fully emerge victorious until this earthly life completes and he is raised on the last day. And so always as the old man breathes those short breaths, the rest in between is a cruel anticipation.

The next two lines refer to the soul having died and subsequently being resuscitated, with the short breaths resuming as the struggle for the new man to emerge plays out. So again these verses go back to the five syllable structure. The verses are:

My heart pressed by hand,
breath comes back again.

The hand is the hand of Christ, which resucitates my heart, though I still don't know if it's the old heart or the new. Again there is a long pause after breath, and so the next line has again twelve syllables, where I write:

Your revival deprives me of life's privation.

Since death is indeed a privation of life, and because I still do not know if this life now is of the old heart and the old breath, or the new heart and the breath of Christ, I simply recognize that my breathing means that I am not yet deprived of life, though I still know not which life I am living.

The next line returns to the image of heart, and so again returns to a loose iambic pentameter. The next two lines after that return to the image of wound, thus returning to the seven syllable structure:

So before its final beating motion,
take this mangled, wounded heart,
You my final wound impart.

The last line then is my beseeching of Christ to impart His wound of love directly on my heart so that I may be sure that this old heart dies, knowing that if it is by Christ that I die it is in Christ I will rise, and the new man can live in freedom. This wound then takes the form of His golden arrow of love. So the image of the golden arrow refers to battle again, except now it will be Christ entering the battle and fighting for me. Thus it returns to the ten syllable structure of the previous battle verse. It is followed by a direct plea to Christ not to turn away from me. The, albeit vague, Christ image falls in a seven syllable line, representing the perfection of Christ. Those two lines then are:

Assail me with the golden arrows of your
love, and lo, shun not my life

The next two lines then refer to the creation of that new heart, and since now this heart beats as the heart of Christ, it is again a seven syllable line. The next line refers to the death that will allow this new creation to happen. In this case, it refers to my death (the death of the old spirit), but also the death of Christ which makes it possible. The death of Christ is the reference of "love's oblation," since it was Christ's sacrifice of love which makes my spiritual renewal possible. So those lines are:

but as love's new creation
let me die, love's oblation.

The next line is again a reference to battle, but here the imagery changes slightly, in that it refers to my fighting against the renewal that Christ is working in me. So the shield that I cast aside is the shield of my own self-will, my own ego. The second line of this battle image is the image of me dying on that battle field, seeking the courage to die well. So the lines are:

Alas, battered shield in my hand no more,
lying here I pray give me courage for

Since now the image is of my spirit dying, I return again to the image of breath, in another five syllable verse to reflect that shortness of breath:

dying breath's demand.

The next line then reflects that Christ has granted my wish and has indeed assailed me with that golden arrow of love, which has penetrated the depths of my heart. Again, a seven syllable line, reflecting the woundedness by Christ:

Arrow's piercing ever far,

And the final verse speaks of battle again, this time suggesting that since the battle is now being fought by Christ, and not by me, the victory is secure:

death by love in this battle now secure.

Now a few words about the rhyme scheme. While it doesn't work out perfectly, each of the images pertains to a particular scheme. So the image of wound, as in the first line, has its own rhyme, which in this first verse is "scars." And so all the wound image lines in some way will, loosely, rhyme with that. Actually, to make this easier I'm going to here repost the entire poem but with line numbers:

1 Fresh wounds cover ancient scars.
2 Comingled are blood of my devotion
3 and my betrayal. Reject the notion
4 that battle survival makes a warrior.
5 My breath is short and
6 shallow, lungs like sand.
7 Awaiting death is such cruel anticipation.
8 My heart pressed by hand,
9 breath comes back again.
10 Your revival deprives me of life's privation.
11 So before its final beating motion,
12 take this mangled, wounded heart,
13 You my final wound impart.
14 Assail me with the golden arrows of your
15 love, and lo, shun not my life
16 but as love's new creation
17 let me die, love's oblation.
18 Alas, battered shield in my hand no more,
19 lying here I pray give me courage for
20 dying breath's demand.
21 Arrow's piercing ever far,
22 death by love in this battle now secure.

So lines 1, 12, 13 and 21 are all wound images, and thus all share their own rhyme scheme. Next is the heart image, in lines 2, 3, 11, and, albeit loosely, 16, and so they all share the same rhyme scheme. Next is the image of battle, and this rhyme scheme didn't always work out perfectly, but it relates to lines lines 4, 14, 18, 19, and 22, and so they all share the same rhyme scheme.

In the images of rest and of death, since the two are so closely related, I used the same rhyme scheme for both. It was unintentional that it was similar to the rhyme scheme for heart, but actually I thought that was kind of a neat, unplanned coincidence. So the rest and battle lines sharing the same rhyme scheme are lines 7, 10, and 17. The breathing image was used in lines 5, 6, 8, 9 and 20, and they all have the same rhyme scheme. Finally, there was the image of Christ, and since it was only a single line it had no rhyme scheme, per se. However, since the new heart that I seek is indeed the heart of Christ, the middle of the Christ verse contained a rhyme with the end of the heart verses. So "lo, shun" in line 15 is designed to rhyme with the aforementioned heart rhyme scheme.

So that's the explanation. Obviously it's my first attempt at getting created with this sort of thing, so it didn't turn out so great. And mom, I'm glad you care enough to worry about me, unnecessary as it is :)

Missing Grandmom

Today would be my Grandmom's 86th birthday. It is also four months ago today that she died. She has been on my mind so much during this novitiate, and while I continue to pray for the repose of her soul, in reality I feel quite strongly the presence of her prayers from heaven. I miss her so much. Maybe it's exacerbated by the fact that I'm so separated from my family right now, and that's only intensifying my missing my Grandmom, but it's been hitting me really hard these past few days and weeks.

I had a really powerful experience a few weeks ago involving her. Every morning I go over to the church early so that I can be alone with God in silence, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I spend some time just sitting in silence, and then eventually I begin to pray the Rosary. The Rosary always makes me think of Grandmom, anyway, because she herself was so deeply devoted to the Blessed Virgin and to her Rosary. It was a Saturday, so I was praying the Joyful Mysteries, which is all my Grandmom ever prayed. I wasn't directly thinking of her, but she was certainly in the back of my mind somewhere.

As it got closer to 7:30, when we pray Lauds with the parish community, the couple that sits behind me every day, Audrey and Jack, took their seats. My eyes were closed, but I knew it was them, just by routine. Suddenly, though, I became at first intensely aware that Audrey was sitting down, and then suddenly a smell came to me, and it was the scent of my Grandmom. I just became absolutely overwhelmed with the sense of Grandmom's presence with me at that very moment, it was almost as if I could feel her hand on my shoulder. While praying the Rosary and feeling my Grandmom's presence, smelling her smell, I just began to quietly cry. It was so beautiful.

After Lauds I turned to Audrey and told her to make sure after Mass I tell her a story. So after Mass we met in the narthex of the church and I told her about it, and how it was all triggered by her (meaning Audrey). What was weird was that standing close to Audrey at that time, telling her the story, I became aware that she doesn't smell anything like my Grandmom. Something just triggered that memory, and I really believe that Grandmom was with me at that time, comforting me and praying the Rosary with me.

I'm quite certain, actually, that that is it. She just wanted to pray the Rosary with me. One memory that has remained etched in my mind from her final few years was one time when she was in the hospital. After her stroke one of her biggest spiritual battles came from the fact that she could no longer pray the Rosary. Her mind just couldn't do it. This frightened and upset her. So this time when she was in the hospital, and by now the dementia was really beginning to set in, she was getting really fussy and upset. So I asked her if she wanted to pray the Rosary with me. She said she couldn't remember how. So I said I would pray for her, and she said she would like that. So I knelt down beside her bed, made the sign of the cross over her, held her hand, and prayed the Joyful Mysteries, just as she used to do. She suddenly, for a while, at least, was overcome with peace, and her eyes filled up with tears. After we finished she just said thank you, and I kissed her on her forehead, stroked her hair, and told her that I loved her.

I would have the opportunity to pray the Rosary with her several more times during her final days, but by then she was in a coma and couldn't respond. I'll always cherish those moments I had to pray with her.

For the past week or so I became aware of two things: one, that her birthday was coming up, and two, that I could not find the prayer card from her funeral. So for a week I have been scouring my room looking for this card. One day I pulled everything out from my drawers. Another day I took all the books off my shelves, looking through their pages to see if I had used it as a bookmark. Another day I emptied out my closet. Another day I took the books of my shelves again. Nowhere could I find it. Even St. Anthony seemed to be letting me down (though sometimes he's just a little slow. I can't blame him, he's really overworked! Seriously, God needs to give him an assistant or something!). Today I woke up and as I was praying Lauds I remembered that it was the 24th, which meant it was her birthday. I began to kind of freak out that I couldn't find her prayer card, and for the third time went through all my books. Then suddenly it dawned on me: I had put a copy of the Philokalia back in the library. Maybe I left it in there?

So immediately I ran downstairs to the library, found the Philokalia, frantically flipped through the pages until there it was, there she was, the beautiful picture of Madonna and child looking at me. I turned it over immediately just so I could read her name, and again I began to cry. At that very moment a friar who was visiting, whom I have known for five years and who always seems to be the word of comfort I need at the time I need it, walked in, and somehow read every sentiment of my soul and gave me words of comfort that maybe he will never know how badly they were needed, or how deeply they pressed to the very core of my heart. For that, I am confident that once again Grandmom's prayers and presence were not-so-subtly at work.

Grandmom, I miss you, and I love you so much. Please keep praying for us, and especially for Grandpop. He still falls more in love with you every day.

Here is the picture on the cover of her prayer card. It has become, perhaps for sentimental reasons, my favorite picture of Madonna and Child:

Death Anticipating Love

I'm trying to do some experimenting with my poetry, working with different rhyme schemes and syllabic arrangements and such. This is my first attempt, so the result is not very good, but I suppose it's a beginning:

Fresh wounds cover ancient scars.
Comingled are blood of my devotion
and my betrayal. Reject the notion
that battle survival makes a warrior.
My breath is short and
shallow, lungs like sand.
Awaiting death is such cruel anticipation.
My heart pressed by hand,
breath comes back again.
Your revival deprives me of life's privation.
So before its final beating motion,
take this mangled, wounded heart,
You my final wound impart.
Assail me with the golden arrows of your
love, and lo, shun not my life
but as love's new creation
let me die, love's oblation.
Alas, battered shield in my hand no more,
lying here I pray give me courage for
dying breath's demand.
Arrow's piercing ever far,
death by love in this battle now secure.

The Better Part

If the sound of beauty had a form,
it would be the echo of my name,
billowing softly
from the velvet lips of my Beloved,
departing never from the
chorus of eternity.
If ecstasy prayed an icon,
it would be your word
piercing deep
into my heart, sending
sweetest reverberations of
pain to every extremity
of my soul, arresting
my body as my spirit swims
in a pool of glory.
O transcendence!
Let me be your bride forever,
for my Lover's bed is indeed
the better part.

The Artist

It's true, before I killed him on the tree,
Jesus nearly died of sorrow. That's love.
Who else but God could be capable of
such sacrifice for an ingrate like me?

To die of sorrow is the only true
way to live. So far, though, it's not for me.
I'd rather swim in pleasure. Luxury
is far more appealing than loving you.

What yet remains mysterious, if I
truly claim to have it all figured out,
is why at night do I still cry? No doubt
I've pleasure enough. So then, by and by,

what could be missing? I fill this empty
hole, yet my filling creates greater void.
Happiness is absent, though I've enjoyed
all the grand splendor of this artistry.

The sadness of the luxuries I've bought
is the sadness of the artist never sought.

Heart's Desire

Make my heart like molten love, overflowed
like dripping wax from Your eternal flame.
Ignite my wick with the fire of Your name,
a burning light for the dark and lonely road.

Make my heart a frolicking autumn breeze,
tousling falling leaves of many hues,
season's delight for lovers to amuse,
breathing life and hope through newly barren trees.

Make my heart a gentle rain, glistening
fragrant beds as from heaven's joyful tears,
where sacramental morning bloom appears,
divine new life in love thus christening.

Make my heart like the joyous angel's song
beginning every seraphic psalter,
and when my heart is broken on Your altar
unite me with the One for Whom I long.

Whatever with this heart You wish to do,
I but ask, make my heart in love with You.

Reflections on the Habit

It has been just over a month now since we received the habits, and I'd like to reflect a bit on what the habit means to me, and my understanding of the importance of the habit for religious in our Church and in our world.

First, though, a very brief explanation of the Augustinian habit. It consists of three pieces, each representing one of the vows that we as religious take. There is a tunic, representing the vow of poverty; a cincture, representing the vow of chastity; and a capuche, which represents the vow of obedience. For our novices, the tunic and capuche are white, with the black cincture. While the white is not proscribed for our professed friars, ordinarily they will where the black habit. In this picture post you can see both the black and the white habit.

One of the many things I adore about our Catholic faith is the way in which we view the world through a sacramental lens. By that I mean that not only with the seven Sacraments, but in everything we see a sacramental sign of God's presence, an outward sign or symbol that points to a deeper mystery of God's loving presence in our world. For me, the habit is just one of these very powerful sacramental symbols in our world, in which the exterior symbol points to that radical consecration of vowed religious, vows which are directed towards the eschatological promise of Christ's return and our glorification in the resurrection of the body.

In this world in which we live, despair of God's presence and of the hope offered by Christ so often prevails over our hearts. We are often restless and lost, our vision obscured to the path always in front of us that leads us to true rest and true peace, the path of Christ. The religious habit, then, serves as just one, though a very powerful one, sacramental sign pointing us to that path, directing our minds and hearts to the Christ who loves us, and reminding us that it is indeed possible for sinners like us, like me, to somehow be transformed in grace and radically respond to the love that God offers to us every moment of our lives. These symbols, as with all sacramentals and Sacraments, help to nourish the faith that by grace is offered to each of us, and they help stir our hearts to greater love and trust in God. So I believe it is important for vowed religious to wear the habit, and to accept with gravity the responsibility that this symbol places on us to be men and women of deep prayer and fiery love, zealously and radically committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because I am aware that I so often fail in my walk with Christ, and my life of faith has been marked far more by sin and ingratitude than anything good, I have also come to recognize that in all things prayer is necessary in order for me to receive the heavenly rains of God's grace, so that the garden of my soul might bring forth the abundant fruit of virtue. To that end, I have composed the following prayer which I recite each morning as I put on the habit:

While donning the tunic:

My Jesus, I ask you please to bless this tunic, and me wearing it. May I ever be filled with a true and complete poverty, desiring nothing in this world, only You, desiring nothing in heaven or on earth but You alone. In this poverty enable me to trust entirely in Your Providence, and keep me ever mindful of the truly poor in this world.

While donning the cincture:

My Jesus, I ask you please to bless this cincture, and me wearing it. May I ever live with clean hands and a pure heart in perfect chastity in order that my heart may belong to You alone. Draw me, O Lord, into that perfect union with Your Most Sacred Heart, the union of lover and Beloved, and liberate me to love the person in front of me and all persons with all of my being, and with Your perfect love.

While donning the capuche:

My Jesus, I ask You please to bless this capuche, and me wearing it. May I, like You, ever be obedient to the will of the Father, and may I surrender my will entirely to my superiors and to the Rule of Saint Augustine. In this obedience teach me true and deep humility, that with the heart of a little child I may enter into Your Kingdom. Amen.

The Nativity

Hopefully this is a bit more uplifting than my most recent poetry post. This is a poem I wrote recently about the nativity. I was hoping to capture something especially of the struggle that Joseph must have endured, and Mary's compassion in knowing how hard it would be for him:

Gray-white clouds multiplying
over leafless knobs devoid of light
Darkness now tho it is not night
Silence is a way of dying

Barren fields which once were rife
with grain that golden fields adorn,
sustaining a people now forlorn,
seeking any vestige of life.

Overhead a blackbird soars
casting her gaze to no avail,
driven by birdling's hungry wail
she flaps her wings beyond the door

of a crowded barn in a crowded town
desperately seeking a bit of grain
unless by hunger her child slain.
Entering she hears not a sound

except faint beauty of softest humming,
a young girl to the babe on her breast,
his eyes closed in angelic rest.
Silence is a way of loving.

Mother and babe adorned in humility
as ox and ass look on in wonder.
Beneath the perilous crash of thunder
babe asleep in such tranquility.

Seeking shelter from the rain
a shepherd child stumbles through
the door, sees the lady dressed in blue
and the babe in manger lain.

With dove-like eyes the boy draws nigh,
thoughtlessly slips his hand in hers,
his child's heart overcome with wonders
at the babe who is the Lord on High.

A quiet tear rolls down his face
as she wraps a blanket round him warm.
No more peril from the storm.
Silence here has found its place.

Minutes or hours he does not know
he sits in loving adoration
beside the King of all Creation
Who chose to take a form so low.

Then from the storm there came a man
whom the lady meets with kindly eyes,
knowing what struggle in his heart lies.
Letting go of child's hand

she gently kisses man's wet brow
then rests her head upon his chest
and in that moment his heart does rest.
With all the courage his virtue allows

he wraps his arms so tight around her,
yet in his eyes still such confusion.
He will not let this doubt's intrusion
reproach his love for infant's mother.

Hoping not to be a bother
the shepherd child inquires the man,
and with confidence greater than
expected he replies, "I am his father."

All fear now from his heart sent
he approaches the lowly trough
where her child - his son now -
sleeps so peaceful, so content.

Man and boy speak in voices low,
the elder tells him of the tale,
in his heart no more travail
thus from his eyes clean tears do flow.

The blackbird too is lost in awe,
yet suddenly feels her heart aching,
recalls her child whom time forsaking,
mother speaks a gentle, "Caw."

The lady moved with quiet compassion,
love the language all creatures speak,
a sack of grain in blackbird's beak,
a mother knows a mother's passion.

A bow of gratitude inexpressible,
the blackbird flies with urgent haste,
yet in her heart now peace is placed
beholding that babe, God ineffable.

Alas returns to her child lying,
birdling feeds on blessèd grain,
mother and child relieved of pain.
Silence fills the void of crying.

Discourse on a Bench by a Fountain

I sat on that bench
listening to the story of my
cares, spoken in a language
I've only begun to learn.
If only life provided a lexicon of emotion.
"Do you speak English?"
I ask of my soul. Her
indecipherable collection of
sounds seems a sure enough
answer. No. So instead we
communicate here on
this bench with polite silence
and gestures. I feign
understanding, just like
I did at the dry cleaners
when the Asian woman,
Chinese, I think, told me
a story about her family
that I think maybe was
sad, though her puzzled
look at my expressions
of sympathy makes me
not so sure. It is that
same look my soul gives
me now, when I responded
to her story, "I'd be angry,
too." I think we need
a translator

Faithless

With vagabond anger, determined I seek
my Lover, to Whom a word must I speak.
Hidden that Lover of mine is,
perhaps hidden to remain,
but my self-reflecting wrath,
the foundation of all loathing,
will not be denied,
and so to the furnace of my Lover's
all-consuming fire I lead
the wicked wick of my soul,
seeking only to be devoured
in Lover's flame,
whether in anger or mercy I care not,
either way just let me feel the pain.
Alas unto Lover's Chamber I arrive,
the silent heat of silent gaze
in a flash burns all the kindling
of wrath's anticipation,
my trembling betraying the sorrow
I long so much to hide.
And with bravado shaken I dare to speak
a word to Word, demanding only this:
"How long, oh Virgin Lover
of my harlot heart,
how long dare You endure the indignity
of my infidelity? When at last
will You free me from Your grip,
that I may freely plunge into the
pit of my own destruction?
Will You not speak?" I demand,
as my Lover penetrates me with
silence.
"Your silence is not an answer!"
I seethe,
though finally my heart breaking,
my whole body shaking with the
violence of held-back tears.
At last the meekness of my Lover's
gentle wisdom batters through the dam,
and the bitter river of my compunction
is sweetened by the tree of love.
Then He cradles my face in His blood-stained hands,
pressing me against His heart so pierced,
now Word and silence unite and speak:
"My dear, do you really believe that
your sins are more powerful than
My love?
I will love you till you let me,
and then I will love you still."


If only heart might trust what
mind cannot hope to fathom.

Le petit moyen de St. Thérèse

Hier soir j'ai fini lisant L'histoire d'une Âme (en anglais). Telle qu'une belle âme! Lisant l'histoire de sa vie étais pour moi difficile dans la mesure où-t-il réfléchissait dans mon âme et s'illuminait mes très grandes fautes et mes imperfections. Mais, à la même fois, il me remplissait avec l'espérance car en Thérèse, j'ai un exemple profond de la grâce de Dieu, laquelle qui est disponible également pour moi, et qui peut me transformer dans l'amour.

Son petit moyen pour moi mettra à l'épreuve, une épreuve si grande que sans la connaissance de la grâce de Dieu je m'écroulerais à la pensée d'en essayant. Il y a beaucoup des épreuves dans ce moyen, mais peut-être le plus difficile pour moi se trouve où elle écrit de la nécessité de chercher la personne qui je trouve la plus désagréable, laquelle avec qui j'ai la plus difficulté en aimant - et à cause de ça, cette personne peut-être est souvent isolée - et passer le temps avec cette personne, montrant-elle une grande amour, apprenant vraiment aimer cette personne.

Il me faut apprendre que le chemin de l'amour – la parfaite amour de Christ! - ne se trouve pas en aimant les personnes qui sont agréable à moi – qui ne peut pas aimé telles personnes? Non, le chemin de perfection est le chemin de la croix, où j'étreins la souffrance comme une amante. Pour moi, les croix que je dois étreindre sont objectivement très insignifiante, mais à cause de ma faiblesse, subjectivement elles sont énormes. Mais, et ça c'est la beauté de Dieu, même quand les croix sont subjectivement énormes, la promesse de Christ est toujours vraie, et ces croix, bien que si grandes, sont aussi assez légères. C'est le paradoxe de la grâce!

Sonnets of Hope and Sorrow

I think one of the great mysteries of the cross is that it reveals to us the manner in which sorrow is redeemed in beauty and transfigured into joy. Following are two poems written from a place in my heart where Christ is beginning to teach me this mystery. I have not given either a title yet, so for now they will simply be I and II:

I

No more care for pleasure's soothing alloy
Yesterday's comforts no more tantalize
I will serve You now with bedewèd eyes
Only through suffering will I find joy

Yet mind and heart in me are not as one
The will deeply rejects what truth discerns
Is it peace or comfort that my heart yearns?
From what my mind does know my heart does run

The path is narrow but my ego wide
Along the road of peace I will not walk
At a path blocked by cross my heart does balk
I must increase, Lord, and cast You aside

Be it so, then, and misery my lot
Can such forlorn fate be my heart's desire?
The comforting sickness of pleasure's mire?
No, Lord, Your path of pain reject I not

I will trust in Your transfiguration
Sorrow radiates joy's illumination

II

As crimson sorrow falls and covers earth
And golden tears betray season's dying
Where whooshing wind reveals life's deep sighing
I look for signs that death can lead to birth

A stroll beneath a rain-soaked canopy
The grave weight of death bending soaking boughs
My eyes now rain as much as heart allows
Creation and Creator's colloquy

Overhead the geese chart their southern course
Last vestiges of life this land do flee
As barren as my heart will this place be
Dare I discover hope in death's remorse?

Through slate firmament pierces single ray
A moment's basking warms my long-chilled heart
Death and life no longer perceived apart
Between two dark nights always present day

While death abides in winter's coming while
Still life anticipates God's springtime smile