Reflections on the Cross

THE STATIONS

I have never been one attracted to the Stations of the Cross. I vaguely remember as a child doing the stations for catechism class but as an adult the practice as I saw was not appealing. In a previous post I wrote of trying something new so I attended the Stations of the Cross. It was a solemn ceremony, but I came out empty. Consequently I decided not to attend the rest of the Stations given on Friday. You see I did not really understand the meditative reality and power of the stations.

JESUS IS THE CROSS

Yesterday at the celebration of the Lord's Passion, as I was approaching the cross I was suddenly enlightened. This happens to me every so often being consumed with worldly concerns that fog my spiritual journey. The cross that was used for adoration was smooth due to the sanding and rendering of piece of wood. It glistened in the light of the church from the coat of varnish that had been applied to it. Jesus was not on the cross, he was the cross!

The cross arms I began to see were his arms embracing me the sinner as I approached him. It was as if he was truly embracing me. That thought stayed with me through the whole Mass and into this morning during my prayer and meditation time. I was then prompted to read the Via Crucis.

BACK TO THE STATIONS

Each ensuing meditation on the fourteen stations began to make sense. Yes the gifts and virtues area became real for me.  The second station meditation had a particularly moving line, "For no one achieves a happy life without taking up the cross and following Jesus."

I began to meditate on the what this means. How many times to I try to avoid suffering of some kind, imploring Jesus to take away physical pain, or fractured relationships?  It seems daily. The prayer for the station end with the words, "embrace my share of Christ's sufferings with a tranquil spirit." That to me was key. Stop fighting the will of God. Embrace suffering and stop the complaining.

I proceeded reading the rest of the meditations and prayers of the stations. I guess you can say I received to a limited extent the gift of understanding outlined in the second station, Jesus Takes Up His Cross. With this in mind I know have a new-found appreciation of the Stations and their meditative qualities.

SCOREBOARD UPDATE

My Lent has not been ideal as I just seemed to run out of the desire to keep true to praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Fasting on Fridays worked until last week while out of town on at a conference I completely forgot about not eating meat as I was consumed by the content and intellectual conversations. However, as I know the spiritual journey is not perfect as exemplified by the Way of the Cross, there will be falls, but in the end the abundance of mercy provided to us by God allows me to rise up and continue.

May you all be blessed this weekend. Happy Easter!

Getting My Fill

RETREAT

During this Lenten season I participate in an online retreat from Jesuit Ministries in the United Kingdom. Each online session is around 17-18 minutes long and is based on a specific theme. The overarching theme of this years retreat is Into the Wilderness.  This week's theme is A Place of Nurturing and as usual with the session I was challenged, in this case to look at my complaining.

WHAT ME, A COMPLAINER?

The Scripture passage focused on Exodus 16:1-4, 13-15 of which the Israelites are complaining to Moses about wandering in the desert and not having food. The underlying question was God providing for them and is God providing for me even when I complain. The answer is yes and yes.

Being a political person at heart I always have complaints. Ditto for being a sports fan with officials being my favorite targets. Work, yes I have complaints. Why do we always have to wait for the end of year for a raise, why doesn't anyone at the top listen to our needs. As a Southern California resident I complain about erratic driving and the never ending traffic. It really hit me that I am a complainer as the facilitator talked about the passage when the Israelites complained and manna rained down on them. This was after they had complained about pretty much everything.  And yes I am in the same boat walking in my own spiritual desert. Where is the oasis? Where is the promised land? Why do I need to suffer?

OVERFLOWING GRACE                                

Then the tables were turned. The session facilitator talked about how the Israelites did not even know what to do with the manna.  I figured this meant sometimes we don't even know when we have our fill when it is right in front of us. I am blessed so many times during the day and yet I am so blind. The question for the listener was did you have your fill today? My answer is yes. I have been blessed with the food that I grow in my garden with plentiful greens and broccoli. Daily I gather what I need for salads. My wife had just prepared an awesome corned beef meal being it St. Patrick's Day. I was baking a loaf of bread. I have more than my fill. I have a safe place to live and a decent job. I have family and friends.
God is good. I repeat God is good. This is for me as I soon forget and  will probably level a judgement on someone or something in the next hour.

COMPLAIN TO GOD AND THEN WHAT?

Finally the listener is told to complain to God. What would you like to take to God. For me it is chronic pain. I don't do well with it and as I have been in physical therapy for six plus months and keep having setbacks I took this opportunity. After all those were the instructions. Prayer is a two way street. I was told to listen for God's response. It was uncomfortably quiet. What do I have with my health is that I have made significant recovery following major surgery and that is a blessing. I am able to exercise though not at the pace I would like to. But that is how it is. Acceptance is the answer. I am given what I need. I have heard of the Acceptance prayer commonly that is used in recovery circles. For me the prayer applies as well.  It is as follows:

“…And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. (Alcoholics Anonymous Pg 449)

I recently read Tony Agnesi's blog entry entitled "Be the One" which focused on the being the one who is not complaining or spreading the latest dirt about others. This was another reminder of one of my Lenten challenges of not judging others.  My complaining was front and center. But through God's infinite grace these things are revealed to me so that I can make the necessary change as I walk in the desert of life.

GRACE

I am also reminded of the Matt Maher song Your Grace is Enough.  God has been faithful no matter what I think. Moreover as the retreat facilitator said we have our fill for just this day and that is all we need. Today's reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel reminds us that we will rise from the grave and then again in the Gospel of John we see Lazarus arise from the dead. Perhaps we are guided to do the same during Lenten. Rise up from weight of our sins, embrace God's grace and live anew.

Your Grace is Enough

Great is your faithfulness oh God of Jacob
You wrestle with the sinner's wrestless heart
You lead us by still waters into mercy
When nothing can keep us apart

So remember your people
Remember your children
Remember your promise, oh God

For Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough for me

Great is your love and justice God of Jacob
You use the weak to lead the strong
You lead us in the song of heaven's victory
And all your people sing along

So remember your people
Remember your children
Remember your promise, oh God

For Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough

For Your grace is enough
Yeah Your grace is enough
Yeah Your…

Matt Maher 2003

Halftime Report - Lenten Scoreboard

THE REPORT

Lenten sports fan's this report if for you. Close in-depth interviews with the players, assessments of the game and maybe for you statistics hounds some numbers. Yes the game is Lent and you are the player. But first let's hear from Chris who is struggling this Lent.

"So I see that you are struggling in this game what seems to be the problem?"

"Well, my game plan was to give up snacking between meals on Fridays, refrain from judging those I dislike and anyone else that I may encounter including drivers on my daily commute, pray the Divine Chaplet every night and just be a better person more dedicated to Christ."

"The first quarter was an immediate struggle I see."

"Yes, it was. I caved the first Friday as I am weak in the secondary. It was just after dinner and I had been doing well all day when an I was looking for a hole and I found it. Wham there it was or I should say there I was reaching for snacks. Yes, I thought about my intentions, but being a sinner it was easy to justify that reach and soom I was eating. But, did I feel guilty about it. "

"Any adjustments then?"

"Well, my coach God has all the strategy. It just seems that I lack the willpower to ask him during these temptations."

What about judging? It seems that you are faced with that opponent all throughout the game.

"Oh yeah. That one I find myself just about ready to give in and there is this little voice that says, "Do you really have to say anything?" Sometimes it works especially at work, but other times I like to get on my high horse and let it fly. You see I  like to make people believe that I am better than others."

"And the commute? We see there were some slips."

"I guess I can make the excuse that I drive on Southern California freeways so I am entitled to an occasional outburst, but this is a real test. The enemy is everywhere."

"We see that you have had some victories in this area as you actually prayed for the drivers who almost hit you or cut you off. That is after you unleashed some words that we cannot repeat here. But here we see that headset was working so there was good communication."

"Lets go to the second quarter. It seems that you started well with the nightly Divine Chaplet, but tapered off. What seemed to be the problem?

" I was tired after a long work week and really did not have it in me to take the shot. But at least I have 70 percent accuracy."

"We see that you did make an adjustment by attending the Stations of the Cross. How did that go?"

"Making adjustments mid-game is not easy. It was a different strategy. You see I had remembered a Catholic talk show host talking about not getting down when things don't seem to work and do something different, so I decided to try the Stations.  I even met and talked to a friend who I had not seen in months."

"So they we have it the Lenten halftime report. Tune in a couple of weeks for the post game show as we break down the strategy, the stats, and interview the key players."

I Thirst

TRAINING

As a person who has competed in athletic events as a youth and into adulthood I have experienced thirst, but fortunately never to the point of total dehydration. I have trained for high school sports in a time where water breaks were few and far between. Likewise as an endurance cyclist I have expended by water intake on long rides and began to feel the effects an energy drop off. However, none of these incidents compare for my spiritual thirst.

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

My story is like some who were raised in the Church but who fell away even though I attended Mass weekly. I became spiritually dehydrated. I was looking for a quick fix and complained much like the people who grumbled against Moses. I wanted things my way and was not willing to take direction or listen to the calling of God.  My heart was hardened much like the words from the psalmist in Psalm 95. My thirst was not quenched from attending Mass and as a matter of fact I became more alienated from teachings which I thought antiquated. Again I was much like the woman at the well who had circulated through a number of husbands as my sins piled up.

No drink could satiate my thirst. Nothing was good enough or tasty enough. There was no spiritual Gatorade. And I did not care that Jesus knew my sins. That well which I now see as Mass did not fill me up. I would go to the well drink and head out into the desert of life and become dehydrated as my spiritual being was empty. Somehow I managed to carry on.

THIRST QUENCHER

A funny thing how God works through his infinite mercy. After many years of visiting the well and some life changing events the well (Mass) became palatable. There was a sincere thirst and those bottles of Gatorade, Powerade, and the like were discarded for they were only temporary fixes. Paul states in his letter to the Romans "that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (ROM 5:2) Could this be what was happening? Did God love me so much that through the Holy Spirit I had been given the ultimate thirst quencher.

In his homily our associate pastor talked of thirsting for the Mass. The Mass is where one's thirst becomes quenched for it is in this union with others that we are brought together in worship. It is where one truly desires to take communion, to become the body of Christ. For me it is no longer an obligation which tainted the reason for attending, it is a desire, a thirst to want more. I still thirst, but this is a good thing. As for  the Gatorade slogan "For that deep down body thirst" there is no other quencher but God.