Tag Archives: God

Autobiography

49 NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GOD


AS I WAS about to resume these notes today my heart recalled another story from the Fathers of the desert,

 recounted in the tales about Abba Elias as a story told by him about another great desert dweller and spiritual warrior. This latter is not named, but must have been a man of extraordinary spiritual fortitude:

 

ABBA ELIAS …said, ‘ An old man was living in a temple and the demons came to say to him, “ Leave this place which belongs to us, “ and the old man said, “ No place belongs to you. “ Then they began to scatter his palm leaves about, one by one, and the old man went on gathering them together with perseverance. A little later the devil took his hand and pulled him to the door. When the old man reached the door, he seized the lintel with the other hand crying out, “Jesus, save me. “ Immediately the devil fled away. Then the old man began to weep. Then the Lord said to him, “ Why are you weeping? “ and the old man said, “ Because the devils have dared to seize a man and treat him like this. “ The Lord said to him, “You had been careless. As soon as You turned to me again, you see I was beside you. “

I say this, because it is necessary to take great pains, and anyone who does not do so, cannot come to his God. For He Himself was crucified for our sake.’ [cq]

Towards the end of the summer, after the meeting with my spiritual father where he had confirmed the call in my heart to priesthood, I became like the old man in that story, in the sense that I weakened in my faith, gave into interior thoughts that I was coming from too sinful and faithless a past to dare consider priesthood.

Once again in my life I also seemed incapable of truly foregoing my addictions, even though my companion had astounded me by recognizing I needed to try and answer the call in my heart and agreed we would end our relationship, which, frankly, by that juncture had virtually ended anyway.

Then one day as I was leaving my office my being was suddenly filled with a deep desire to settle the issue once and for all. Mind you my thought was that it would end with my being rejected, for the rejection wounds and fears were still great within me.

Basically what I challenged the Lord was, and given the lateness of the hour that Friday evening it seemed a ‘safe’ challenge, I’d go to the diocesan offices and if they were locked that would be a sign from Him priesthood was not my vocation.

It is, of course, a serious sin to deliberately test the Lord, as Jesus Himself remonstrated satan when he was attacking Christ through temptation in the desert. [ Mt.4:7]

However the Lord in His tenderness also understands when we are struggling, such as the old man when the demons were scattering his palms.

In such an instance the Lord is compassionate and uses our weakness and uncertainty to bring us to a point where we can, if we say yes to grace, receive the clarity our hearts yearn for.

I arrived at the diocesan offices and the place appeared to be in darkness, closed for the weekend, but when I tried the door, it opened.

I stepped into the foyer and noticed a corridor, at the end of which a soft light seemed to be coming from an office.

Venturing towards it when I got to the end of the corridor I startled a young priest, seated at a desk in the office from which the light came.

He asked how I had gotten in there and I explained the door was opened, which he indicated surprised him since the office was closed. Then he asked what I wanted, beckoning me to be seated once I told him I was struggling with the idea of becoming a priest.

It turned out he was the vocations director.

I explained my situation to him, gave a detailed, though brief sketch of my life and background, told him how new I was in return to the faith and a life of chastity.

By then I was pretty tense and was sure he would explain the impossibility of my being called to the priesthood.

Instead he excused himself and phoned someone, speaking too softly for me to be sure of what I heard.

Once he had hung up the phone he told me the admissions director at the seminary would see me later that evening.

I was stunned, as much by the turn of events as the great swelling of joy which was filling my heart!

Given the distance I’d have to travel that evening, I left that office immediately.

The priest having given me directions, I started the long subway and bus trip out to the seminary.

Dusk had fallen by the time I got there and was met outside the main doors by the dean of admissions, who suggested we walk and talk.

He asked very pointed questions, having obviously been well briefed by the vocations director I’d spoken to earlier.

After about a hour, during which he pressed why I wanted to be a priest, he said it was too late in the summer to accept me for that year. However if I would move out of my living situation, get some particular courses at the university, including philosophy, he would consider me for the following year.

I thanked him and headed back to the bus station, elated.

A brother questioned Abba Poeman, ‘What ought I to do about all the turmoil’s that trouble me? ‘The old man said to him, ‘ In all our afflictions let us weep in the presence of the goodness of God, until He shows mercy to us. [cr]

 

 

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.

 

 

Saints

Words From St. Teresa

Let nothing disturb you, let nothing dismay you, all things are passing, God never changes.

 

Patience attains all that it strives for.

He who has God finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.

Accustom yourself constantly to make many acts of love for they enkindle and melt the soul.

Pain is never permanent.

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself. ~ St. Teresa of Avilia

Autobiography

23 STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE GREAT DESERT

“HOW IS THE BOOK COMING?”, was the unexpected question from my confessor yesterday after I had spoken my sins, trusting in Divine Mercy.

At that point in the Sacrament the normal expectation is some direct word of advice on avoiding sin, trusting God, not a question about one’s literary effort.

The question was actually on point.

I have spent more time of late writing

letters, articles, doing research for other books than working on this one.

 

In a word my confessor had been enlightened by the Holy Spirit to ask the central question about fidelity to the duty of the moment.

So here I am this afternoon of the great feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother, faithful to the duty of the moment, reviewing notes and beginning again!

TO HANG LOOSE, to be silent, to let God use me, to fear nothing, to love always, that is what I am in poustinia for…yet here I am writing notes for my book!

Poustinia – the desert – the hermitage – is NOT for writing books. It is for absolute stillness in being alone with the Divine Lover.

All else here is distraction, rest-less-ness, which is in direct opposition to being at rest in Him.

I think too much!

That’s how Adam lost the original experience of intimacy with God, as well as intimacy with self and other like himself, Eve.

Adam was so busy thinking about the relationship with God, rather than resting in trust of Divine Love, that he was susceptible to the diabolical suggestion God was not to be trusted.

That is, God is not a faithful lover.

Distrust the lover and you come to distrust love itself.

The point of being on the edge of the great interior desert, at the entrance of the great desert of aloneness with the Divine Lover is that I might come to trust Him, trust His Love.

We have, of course, been created by Love Himself, to be His beloved and to love one another, as He loves us, which means self-gifting to other.

From the very beginning the Triune God seeks us out on the holy ground of creation. He first speaks and awaits our response.

There are places of encounter, there is longing within us, His voice moves us and we cry out to Him.

We await Him, He awaits us, becomes more intimate to us than we are to our very selves, for in His Incarnate Being He enters all we must endure, He prays for us, sanctifies solitude for us and continuously knocks at the door of our being, begging leave to enter{Gn.2:18; 3:8-Ex.3:5-1Sm.3:10-1Kgs.20:9,12-Ps.42:2;46:11-Sg.ofSgs.2:10-Sir.35:17-Lam.3:25-Dn.10:8-Mt.4:1;14:23-Mk.1:35;6:31-Lk.9:18;22:41-Rv.3:20}.

Yes during my years with the community, as today in this poustina-desert as I pen these notes, meditate upon those passages, I had many times in solitude and did hear the knocking at the door of my being, but was too weak of faith to do other than lean against the door and yearn for the courage to open.

Yet the very gift of the time confronting — though not in a manner most would deem successfully — my inability to open did help me stay a member of The Community far longer than would have been possible without at least the struggle at the edge of the entrance to the great desert.

Those notes, re-read and typed this afternoon, suddenly revealed to my heart another type of desert – the solitude of the writer!