To tattoo or not... I feel incomplete....

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Dear reader, perhaps you or someone you know feels incomplete.

This is an important discovery, because it is our human condition since the "fall" of the first human beings - whoever they were and however many they were - from the intimate friendship and communion with their and our Creator. Incomplete is what we actually are now without the moment by moment intimate communion with the Holy Spirit and, in this divine person, with the Father and the Son, who is also the human Jesus. This realization has been verified countless times by all the saints.

To tattoo or not to tattoo

Of course, a human person is free to have a tattoo burned into their flesh, but it will add nothing to who they are. In fact, the recent suicide of "Zombie Boy" I think is a sad illustration of this truth that tattoos don't help a person become more complete or more fully who they are. This is so true that to all appearances he could no longer live with himself as tattooed and apparently felt lost without the ability to get back to who he used to be before the tattoos.

All about appearances

How a person appears shows at first glance through what others see and hear, but mostly it radiates from within, from who you really are, and the countless ways in which you give expression to who you are in yourself and who you choose to be for others. All these things evoke in others thoughts and feelings, one way or another, but other people are responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, words and behavior just as we are responsible for our own thoughts and feelings, words and actions, and attitudes and behavior.

Discovering and "navigating" the "deep currents" within us

Who you really are is not only all that is within you, all the thoughts, feelings, images and imagination, memories, desires, hopes and fears, and soul / spirit interior movements which are the deep currents within us.... Who you really are is much more....

Have you noticed the deep currents that sometimes rise closer to the surface as a hunger, or a thirst, or an aching need within you? These were built into us by our Creator.... They are a little bit like the "instincts" that guide the Canada geese and all the other amazing migratory birds to fly to their proper destinations, but in us, they orient us to face the beauty and wonder of our Creator and to listen - to hear and give attention to - the whispering of the Holy Spirit deep within. In a sense, just as birds migrate back to the place of their birth, we human beings are drawn back to the "place" of our creation, which is not our mother's womb but the divine being which is our Creator.

Who and what is God, really?

We know from the Jewish Scriptures and from Jesus and all that He said and did that God is a divine being. We don't really know or understand what that really means, but we have to try to talk about it, to understand, because we are fascinated by God. We are told that we are created "in the image and likeness of God"; so by looking at others and looking within ourselves we can see something of what God is like, but not everything. I am a single being that is human and I am a single person, but God is a single being that is divine and not a single person but three persons; so God is - we could say - a community of persons but one being.

In 1996 I was for 6 weeks in Rome for the "Stage de Rome" with 11 other priests. One day we met an Orthodox woman professor who gave us a lecture about the differences between our "western" way of understanding everything and the Orthodox way. Regarding what it means to be human - in the West we understand a human being to be a living organism composed of body, mind, heart / psyche, and soul / spirit. The Orthodox take a broader view and understand that in order to be fully human we need to welcome the divine presence of God who is spirit within us and also cooperate with our Creator's plan for our full development towards complete abundance of life.

The Holy Spirit... the One whom native people call "Manitou" or "Great Spirit"

In other words, a human being is indeed a living organism composed of body, mind, heart / psyche, and soul / spirit, but is not yet complete without the indwelling presence of God. It is the Holy Spirit who "fills" us with the divine life-giving presence, vitality, and love of the Father and the Son, Jesus. That means then that a human being is a living organism composed of body, mind, heart / psyche, soul / spirit, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

All the saints came to understand through experience that in order to be more complete and to feel more complete we need to avoid anything that might be "repugnant" to this divine being from whom we come and to whom we are returning, and also to try to do all we can that would be pleasing to "them" - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Saint Paul wrote and taught that what this means is that God loves to dwell within us to fill us with all the vitality, love, peace, and joy that we can contain. The only thing God will not do is to participate in anything we do that is not true, not good, not beautiful, or not self-sacrificial or self-giving love / communion.

Ever our Divine companion but never our accomplice in wrong

A simple way I understand this would be to say that when I choose to do something wrong, I cannot force God be stay with me and be my "accomplice". As I move in the direction of doing something wrong or that will not give life or love to anyone, it's as if God "steps outside of me" and patiently waits, is sad for me, and then says "Okay, are you done now, can I come back to be with you again? Can we go home now and be together again?"

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus - the Jesuits - lived in the 16th century and is considered to be one of the "reformers" of the Church in answer to the Protestant Reformation. More importantly, he is acknowledged to be the greatest teacher in human history about the "interior life" within us human beings.

Discerning our interior "movements"

He taught and wrote something called the "Rules for the Discernment of Spirits" which helps us to understand what is really going on inside of us all the time, all the apparently confusing "currents" in our interior thoughts, feelings, and dispositions.

In the first two rules out of 14, he teaches basically that when we are about to do something good, true, beautiful, and loving, the Spirit of God encourages and consoles us - which makes us feel good - but the "enemy of humanity" introduces into us contrary feelings and thoughts to obstruct our good intention. On the other hand, when we consider doing something that is not good, not true, not beautiful, and not loving, the enemy of humanity congratulates us, cheers us on, tantalizes us with anticipation of pleasures and rewards, and ultimately to push us off the cliff into self-destruction. Meanwhile, the Spirit of God is the One who tries to hinder and obstruct us, to delay or divert us from actually doing anything that might be self-destructive or harmful to others.

When I consider all the people in my life, and especially those whom I love and are closest to me, I may not agree with all they say or do, but if anything, because of the love with which God loves me, my love for them will only grow with time. I believe it is the same with our parents, siblings, and children, despite at times distressing appearances to the contrary. Our faults often obstruct the light within us from shining out....

Now, dear reader, if you will permit, I will digress.... This is just an overflow from much that I carry in my heart about many things....

Why God and his Church get a "bad rep"

Our faults often obstruct the light within us from shining out.... That is why we Christians, being so imperfect and sinful, give such a "bad reputation" to God and to his Church.... Everyone who is disgusted with such things as sexual abuse by clergy are correct to feel repugnance. It is shocking because they are given trust for their public service, but it is also shocking when parents or other relatives abuse children and youth in their family, and for this reason it is almost impossible to talk about it and the victims are often not believed when they try to complain.

Disgust at the abuse of innocent children and youth by distorted adults

I myself am disgusted by the terrible things done by adults - and most especially by clergy - to children and youth. I feel the pain and have great sympathy for all those who have in any way been abused. The vast majority of sexual and psychological abuse apparently happens within families. When abusers are people who are supposed to be trusted with the care of others, it is even more terrible. Still, it is a sad mistake to treat with equal contempt the 99 others who are pure and devoted because of the 1 twisted and depraved one, just as it would be a sad mistake for a victim to decide never to marry or have a family because of what happened to them.

What is God doing about it?

God is constantly at work invisibly deep within each human being, but is also visibly at work through the life-giving instruments that are all the good human beings who exercise right authority in the forms of justice, health, social services, and loving care. Our Creator pours into human beings all good gifts as the Source form whom all our being and life flows. We are indeed the eyes and ears, the mind and heart, the mouth, feet, and hands of God in this world as we carry out all those good actions and works of mercy that God would want to do in person.

Just as parents rightly take pleasure in allowing their children to try to do things, to make mistakes, and in this way to learn to do things and become competent and graceful in living a good life and caring for others and the world around them; so too God takes pleasure in us developing our life and caring for others and the world around us, acting as agents of truth, goodness, beauty, and love / communion in life.

The big picture - the full extent of God's love means mercy

God our Creator is always at work to give life and healing, especially to those most in need of his tender care. Of course, God takes pleasure as we have just seen in enhancing our own efforts to care for others in need. God is counting on all of us to notice the suffering of victims of abuse and to come to their aid as quickly and as effectively as possible. Victims of abuse need and deserve immediate attention and care; while the abusers need and deserve immediate attention and to be brought to justice. Only by being brought to justice can abusers possibly begin to realize the harm that they have done. Only once they admit the wrong they have done can abusers begin to experience reform and restoration.

As unbelievable and perhaps repugnant as it seems, while He is tenderly caring for all who are victims of abuse and all others of his children who suffer in any way; God even wants to forgive, repair, restore, and heal the abuser. Why? Because in most - if not in all - instances, the abuser was himself or herself abused and was damaged. The likeness of humanity was distorted in them when they became a victim, and they in effect became the harm that was done to them.... God sees the big picture and wants to restore everyone to the fullness of life He has always wanted to give to each and every human being. This means that when a human being is abused, the abuser and the victim are in effect mirror images of the same evil and harm, and God wants to restore them both in a perfect symmetry of healing grace and restoration.

When humans forgive, it is a divine act which sets free

It appears as though the only effective way to freedom and fullness of life for someone who has been abused is to forgive and let it go, not to forget because we cannot forget, but to forgive and let the abuser go. This is not humanly possible, which is why we need that life-giving presence of the living God within us to assure us that we are loved and lovable. God forgives us our faults, and once we finally accept to be loved by God, while also admitting to ourselves our faults and confessing to God our sins; then his perfect forgiveness and love makes us capable of choosing to love others with the same forgiveness and mercy. When we human beings truly forgive another, we are performing what is essentially a divine act.

Why do we need to confess our faults, our sins?

Why do we need to confess our sins to God? Logically, it is because God is our origin and destiny... our life is moment by moment being "poured" into us with every breath and heartbeat by the living God / Creator, who loves us with such a perfect love and respect that it is only right that we make good use of the gift we receive and love God back by loving not only our Creator but also everyone and everything else with the same love with which He loves us.

When we don't admit to ourselves our faults, we are only fooling ourselves and from that point on enclose ourselves within an illusion, and we continue to live our life as a fiction rather than as reality in the real world. When we don't confess our faults and sins to God our Creator, it is an offense against such a great Giver of the gift of who we are and all that we are.

The act of forgiveness can also be a mirror image but of good

Not only does God deserve our confession, but He wants to take the opportunity of our offense to love us even more by restoring our innocence and ability to love perfectly by granting us complete forgiveness and mercy. It is only right and good then that we extend his forgiveness and mercy to those who have offended us.... Once we let our offenders go, we are set free ourselves simultaneously.... In genuine forgiveness and mercy, both the offender and the offended are set free. The offender who is now forgiven remains free to welcome and accept this gift or to persist on his evil and self-destructive path. No one can be forced to accept forgiveness. As it can only be freely given; so too forgiveness can only be freely accepted. When forgiveness is accepted, even the offender is set free.

This means that when a human being truly and genuinely forgives another for their offense, and the offender freely accepts to be forgiven, in that moment the offender and the offended are in effect mirror images of the truth, goodness, beauty, and love / communion that is brought into existence in the act of forgiveness and mercy.

Peace to you, dear reader, to you and your family and all those you love or who count on you in any way.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Where Love Is, God Is. On the 1st World Day of the Poor a poor man became a blessing to all who met him in the church.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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A World Day of the Poor Story – The Joy of Encounters Given and Blessed by God

It happened at the Late Sunday Mass on the first World Day of the Poor, November 19th, 2017. Two weeks later, a Deacon wrote this note which in turn received the reply which follows from the Priest.

Note from the Deacon:

Reverend Father,

 

Two Sundays ago a crippled man entered after the last chance Mass had begun. He attracted my attention because of his demeanour. 

He stood throughout most of the Mass. During the reception of Holy Communion I do not think he received. When I returned to my place he stood a little ways off from me. However, now he was in front of my line of sight and was facing toward me. 

At the end of Mass, he stood with one hand on the horn of the bench where I was kneeling down following your blessing. I stood as usual as you processed to the confessional. I greeted you with my usual salutation, Praise be to God. 

You passed this man as you briefly spoke with someone you appeared to know. The crippled man continued standing there awkwardly, and I resolved to bless him seven times (within my heart). Upon opening my eyes, I reached out and touched him with one finger on the hand, which continued resting on the horn of the bench in front of the kneeler. 

I looked into his countenance and slowly he raised his head and faced toward me. Then, I held my gaze with his for what seemed like a very long time. I felt it was a great blessing for me. 

I do not remember getting up and passing by him to bow before the Lord before taking my leave of the Church. However, on the return trip home I remained in a state of sustained joy. Several days later, it was brought to my attention that Sunday was the First World Day of the Poor. 

An afterthought was that this man did not seek or gesture for money or help. He was just there. And it never entered my mind to offer him money. It was simply an encounter in the Lord's temple. A profound one at that. 

Do you remember seeing the man I have described? Has he ever presented himself before (I do not recall ever seeing him there)? 

Response from the Priest:

Reverend Deacon,

I believe that was the same night when after hearing confessions I went to chat with a few people who had waited for me. The poor man asked where he might use a phone to call for a cab. I brought him over to folks waiting for me because I just knew they would be willing to give him a lift, since they were going in his direction. 

While we were talking about it a young woman came up and, having overheard, said that she was going very near to where he lived and would be delighted to give him a lift.

So that is how it ended. Divine Providence arranged for that poor man to be a blessing to many. 

Pope Francis calls us by his words of encouragement and example to allow the Holy Spirit to open us up to such gratuitous encounters with Divine Mercy and Love, especially in those people we would not normally notice or from whom we would not normally expect much good. 

That poor man manifested his great joy at being noticed, welcomed, valued, and helped. In turn, his gratitude became yet another blessing on all who witnessed these enconters. Where love is, God is.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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We should not stay away from our assembly as is the custom of some, but encourage one another

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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That verse from the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter ten verse 25, applies more and more often to us in our own day and, probably, to Christians in every generation. Due to our human condition after the "original sin" or "trouble at the origins of humanity", our natural inclination is no longer to worship God and offer Him thanks and praise, but rather to "go it alone" or "do our own thing" or just simply dispense ourselves from being dependent on anyone else, not even God.

Those who know me remember that I've never been one to "push religion" with anyone. I don't want to change in this outlook but to continue respecting another's own freedom and responsibility to engage in their own life journey and their own personal faith relationship with God and to travel on the road of life with other fellow Christians within the Church Jesus founded and died that we might all have life together in Him....

What often keeps me awake late at night and so is prompting me to write this love note is simply the kind of thing that comes up in conversation and then presses on my mind and in my heart.... It might be prompted when others share with me their experience of Sunday worship or simply their inclination no longer to go or not go so often. They may have had their own experience of participating - for a number of years - and how at times our Sunday worship can be an occasion of pain because of others....

One may say something that gives an impression of perhaps not joining in so often anymore in the Sunday worship.... I remember from what place in me friendly, fraternal words come... that place deep within me where pain and exhilaration meet... from the history of my life, of our lives, in all of those moments of human experience when life seems to be overwhelming... and if it weren't for God's love for me and personal experiences of that love, especially in the regular rhythm of Sunday worship, and also of Penance and Reconciliation, I know that I just wouldn't have made it this far in my life...

It would literally tear my heart out for me to hear or discover than anyone of my family or friends, or other Catholics or Christians, would suffer through life's many challenges and difficulties and feel isolated, or alone, or overwhelmed by it all and not taste the goodness of the Lord, especially when we allow Him to surround us with others just like us, fallible and imperfect and equally in need of God's love and mercy and understanding and consolation and wisdom and strength and peace.... I've been witness to far too many lives of those who, young and old, deprived themselves of frequenting the Lord in his Sunday Assembly and became so isolated and caught, strangled in the narrowness of their own troubled thoughts and agonizing heart, that their poor life didn't go so well, or even tragically.... Please don't let it happen to any of you....

The Father... and Jesus... and the Holy Spirit are EVERYWHERE and ALWAYS present... and we weak human beings, being in large part social, stand forever in need of being touched by the Lord in the midst of his great Sunday Assemblies.... When we stay away too long, ever so slowly the boundaries of our own thoughts and movements of our heart can shrink and we can find ourselves caught in an interior landscape that has become too narrow, tight, restricting, and even suffocating... and life can become unbearable... I know, I remember, from my own personal experience in adolescence, and then later again in my youth, and then yet again in my young adulthood... and at times even now through the many seasons of life....

Why did I forget to invite the Lord in when He knocked at the door of my heart? Why do I ever forget? I don't know... yes, I do... it's our human condition... but I remember with gratitude that He sent and still sends someone to remind me to listen for Jesus' gentle knock at the door of my heart and encouraged me to open up to Him without fear... and yet again, after having forgotten several times, I got to experience anew why we call Jesus our Savior... because I needed Him to shine his divine light into my confused mind... and inflame my smoldering heart with the burning fire of his divine love... and heal my wounded and damaged sense of my failing or impoverished life by the kind and merciful look of his eyes when I found myself seeking his forgiveness or just pouring out my troubles through one of the priests He went to a lot of trouble to send my way.... 

I know that I am more of a sinner than all of you, and you probably remain close to the Holy Trinity in the course of your daily life and continue to experience the conviction that God loves you and cares for you, but if you find yourself having neglected to accept Jesus' invitations to worship Him and his / our Father and the Holy Spirit in his Sunday Assembly, if you won't go back for your own sake, perhaps you might be willing to do it for me... and for Jesus Himself... just because He would like you to go because of what it is that He wants to do for you that He can only do for you when you are there among the others like us, to worship God and thank Him, regardless of how beautiful or how painful the music may be or the preaching may be....

There are some inner turmoils for which we can find no solutions because only God can give them, and He can only activate them within us through the instruments He has chosen and prepared for us.... I know, being a priest myself but at the same time a poor sinful human being like you, how much trouble Jesus has gone to over the years to make of me the instrument that I am or can be when I am attentive to Him.... It is out of love for you and me that Jesus gives us the priests we have, and their imperfection is simply an echo of our own human imperfection and a reminder that it is God alone who is perfect and who is qualified and empowered to bring about in us the impossible beautiful things we long for....

I have also learned from my own experience as well as that of so many other lives that we cannot expect fairly from God a "command performance", that He do for us, for me, exactly what I want and precisely when I want it.... Much of what I need from God and what He wants to give can only come gradually, a little at a time, through regular organically developing installments, one Sunday at a time, which is why He gave the third commandment, to "keep holy the Lord's day"... not only with Sunday Worship but also with praying and playing together as a family and taking time to rest....

May you all taste deeply and regularly of the "goodness" of the Lord....

Please don't take any of this as "preaching" because it isn't that at all... but only the pangs of my love for each of you and for all of you together as the beautiful family that you are, and my friends....

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Living and praying as Jesus did

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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LET'S DISCUSS LIVING CONTEMPLATIVELY AS JESUS DID - FOR TO THIS HE CALLS US

Jesus lived a contemplative life, that is, He always remained aware of his heavenly Father and in union of mind and heart and soul with Him. As our Lord, Jesus offers us the same way of living, in the Holy Spirit. In order to live in a contemplative way all the time during our very active lives, it is helpful to pray regularly in a contemplative way. God uses the moments of our daily prayer in order to bring about the same order in our way of being aware of ourselves, of Him, and of life and of living our life, our will, our awareness of God and of everything, including our way of living our thoughts, feelings, body awareness and sensations, and of course our will.

For centuries many among faithful Roman Catholic Christians found they could follow the Lord's guidance by contemplating with Mary the Mysteries of the Rosary - for the most part Gospel moments, events, experiences, or encounters of Jesus - allowing one to experience and enter into the reality and presence of God in the here and now by pondering Jesus Son of God in the Gospels. As one ponders these Mysteries of the Rosary, the murmuring of the associated prayers these are spaced with silent pondering on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the mysteries allows one to keep personal thoughts and feelings gently in the background while continuing in the foreground to focus on the Presence of God.

All the while one allows the body to breathe quietly, to relax, and rest in the Lord. Praying regularly - such as twice a day - like this allows our body, mind, heart, and spirit or soul to acquire the same dispositions more and more consistently all day long and in time even into the night during our sleep without the daytime wakefulness and awareness. The process of giving all our attention to the Lord involves a form of suffering and surrender, which for any believer is a precious form of adoration.

During prayer as during all our waking moments our mind with its imagination and other rational faculties is continuously boiling with thoughts, some organized and coherent and others helter-skelter or chaotic, which can become quite stressful and tiring. As if that were not enough, our psyche also includes our heart with all its emotions below the surface which become feelings as we are aware of them, and these too are continuously rising up without our will necessarily, and when these become more intense or chaotic or unruly or troubling, then between the mind and the heart life can become almost unbearable.

So, in order for the Lord to teach us how to live as He did on Earth all our waking moments and in time even during our sleep, our "training ground or time" is when we meditate. Whether we meditate during the Holy Rosary or during what is called silent meditation, we are able to follow simple instructions such as those above and other variations on this theme, to retain our attention from the boiling thoughts and feelings and gently offer our attention to the Lord, to Him as personally present to us.

While pondering the Mysteries of the Rosary we focus while alternating back and forth now on the mystery and then on the words of the prayers, not straining the brain or heart at all, but gently yet firmly focusing our inner lens on the real presence of God at this very moment, and the next moment, and the next, in a flowing stream of attention and adoration with some discrete currents of suffering or enduring this process and of surrendering ourselves to the Lord in this flowing.

While praying in silent meditation, one focuses the attention on the Lord present to us at all times, and one focuses by sitting upright and still, being aware of the body and one's breathing but not thinking about them nor brooding over any feelings or thoughts that may arise, and murmuring the Name of the Lord, as in "Jesus Christ", or the Russian Pilgrim's phrase "Jesus Christ Son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner", or Dom John Main OSB's phrase from the end of the Book of Revelation "Maranatha", or some other such holy phrase. The body awareness and stillness, the calm breathing with the Name or word associating with the breath, and the act of surrender and trust involved are also an act of adoration which allow the Christian to focus all attention on the Holy Trinity in the Person of Jesus in a personal and living, loving connection.

Obviously, doing this, continuing to make the gentle effort to give all our attention to the Lord Jesus present with and in the Holy Trinity is something we cannot accomplish by our own efforts alone. Because it is God's will, the Holy Spirit inspires, motivates, strengthen, leads, and guides us in our efforts and allows us to slowly become like Jesus and remain ever aware and mindful of the Father's love. God is ever present now in the Person of Jesus and is ever actually touching us and sustaining us in life from within while we in a true way "touch" Jesus with our focusing attention, however it may waver and seem chaotic or troubled.

Our poor efforts though carried by the grace of the Holy Spirit may seem to us to be sporadic, chaotic, focused then dispersed, succeeded by efforts to focus again, then distracted and so on... but we don't worry about the quality of our efforts, because this too would be giving our attention to thoughts and feelings, whereas we want to give ALL of our attention to Jesus and his love, not to our own self in all its poverty and self obsession....

So, as we go along and thoughts and feelings seize our attention, we simply acknowledge what's happening as it happens, seeing our thoughts and feelings for what they are without judgement, accepting what we're thinking and feeling at the moment. We neither approve nor disapprove of our thoughts and feelings but merely acknowledge them as real, as ours, and as present in us at this moment. Then in the very act of accepting thoughts and feelings as ours and simply allowing them to be as they are, we refuse to brood over them or to react to them or to give them any more attention in any way. Instead, we take our inner awareness and capacity to focus our attention and offer it all to the Lord and try to remain focused on Him. This is what makes such silent meditation an act of worship and adoration, giving God the first place.

As we do, we allow Jesus to exercise his lordship in our life and to work on the thoughts and feelings bouncing around inside us. While we try to remain focused on Jesus, those thoughts and feelings may clamor for our attention and we simply suffer them to be there but consign them to the background. We accept to endure them increasingly from a distance as we refuse them any more attention after having briefly noticed and accepted them as ours and let them be as they are without any fuss. It is while we engage in this process of suffering and surrender and remain focused on the Lord that He can deal with our thoughts and feelings and bring order, peace, and healing to us moment by moment. This entire process is a very personal and intimate form of adoration which is very pleasing to the Lord and surrenders to Him all lordship and indeed our very self.

It is very important to understand that there is infinite value through the work of the Holy Spirit in our accepting to suffer all this unwanted activity and inner turmoil . In this suffering the Holy Spirit gives us intimate communion with Jesus in his saving Passion. In our ongoing act of will - acting as gently with ourselves as we can - to surrender our will and attention to the Lord Jesus and in Him to the Holy Trinity, what is happening is that we are surrendering our will to the Father's will as Jesus did Himself.

SUFFERING our condition and offering it together with our ongoing SURRENDER of will with Jesus to the Father in the Holy Spirit, this is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, to carry our cross, though the cross takes many forms in the course of our life of faith and hope in the love of God. It is in the course of our suffering and surrender in the Holy Spirit that the same Spirit of God can deal with our thoughts and feelings and slowly put his order, justice, and healing into them, give us rest in Jesus and strengthen our bonds of unity with the whole Body of Christ in the peace of the Holy Spirit and the love of the Father.

We can remain interiorly focused on the Lord Jesus by letting our body keep us aware of the present here and now (sitting still and quiet and being conscious of our joined hands and our breath for example) and repeating a prayer or holy phrase such as indicated above: "O my Jesus I trust in You!" or "God please help me." or "Jesus Christ Son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner." Perhaps the most powerful word is simply repeating the Name of Jesus as in "Jesus Christ"... sounding or "hearing" inside us on our out breath "Jesus" and then on our in breath "Christ".

This particular form of silent meditation is taught by Fr. Franz Jalics in his book "Contemplative Retreat" which is available at the Ignatian Center in Montreal or online at a reasonable price. His instructions are quite practical spread out over 10 days for those taking a closed retreat and over 20 weeks for those taking a retreat in the course of daily life, or simply as a reading companion for those taking it slowly by themselves. In all three of these ways of learning and practicing this way, it is good for one to meet regularly with a priest to discuss how it's going and obtain clarity with any difficulties or confusion.

In time dear friend in the Lord Jesus, as you try this and find that contemplating this way is helpful and you'd like to learn more about how to do this, you could obtain the book describing this way of being and of living our faith to connect with God. As I just described it was written to allow people to enter into a practical learning process either during a full time 10 day retreat, or on a retreat in daily life which extends a few hours a week over 20 weeks, or simply as a book to read slowly and to try to practice on your own time and according to your own rhythm.

In attempting any of these three methods, it is good to seek accompaniment and direction from a competent and well formed guide, prayer companion, or spiritual director. Such a helper must be committed to recognizing and acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is the only true Director of Souls, and that their role is only to help the one seeking guidance to be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit orienting them from within. Regularly Christians as well as all people of good will need help to distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit from other voices that would mislead us away from God.

There is the voice of the ways of the world which is under the power of the "prince of this world, the devil". We are also misled by the inclinations of our flesh obsessed as it is with its own will, its own ways, and its own satisfactions. Finally, there is the tempter, Lucifer or Satan and his host of rebellious angels turned into demons, who would try to lead us astray and away from Jesus who alone is the way, the truth, and the life.

Peace and all blessings from God to you as you journey in faith and try to follow Jesus in living a contemplative life in both prayer and action.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Is truth opposed to compassion?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” This statement has been used in varying forms for a century or so and has become a modern idiom. We can imagine the Scribes and Pharisees employing it to criticize Jesus for showing compassion to people who had a reputation as public sinners. The tension between standing for the truth and treating with compassion and understanding those in the wrong is not a new one.

There is no doubt that we human beings need to know, respect, and be guided by the truth as it is to be found throughout creation – truth about the way things are designed by the Creator – and the truth about ourselves as creatures among others who enjoy the distinction of being endowed with intellect, conscience, a capacity for compassion, and free will. It is only logical that we live in harmony with all truth, but the human condition shows plainly that from the beginning humanity wandered away from the truth as well as from God in an attempt to take to oneself the highest authority and the prerogative of absolute or final judgement and decision making.

The dilemma and struggle of human beings is that we seek to be self-sufficient when in fact we are contingent beings, dependent on a higher power that coincides with both our origin and our destiny. The consequences of alienating ourselves from the truth is nothing less than devastating. Much if not almost all human suffering is the direct or indirect result of living in defiance of the truth and of the nature of things, as well as of our own nature. Despite our pitiable condition, there is something in us that recoils at the thought of admitting that we fall short of the idealized image we have of ourselves, which is simply an expression of our desires for higher meaning and purpose for our lives.

And so it happens that there develops a disconnect between our life as it truly is – which is generally visible to others if not to ourselves – and our life as we want it to be. We can congratulate ourselves on having attained certain measures of order, discipline, health, success, and any other quality while at the same time denigrating those who manifest lesser measures of those same qualities. We can judge others and attribute to them motives and dispositions that would make them blameworthy and fit for punishment or deserving of the host of unhappy circumstances that may be theirs.

The alternative to such attitudes and treatment of others is to consider instead not so much the other’s circumstances, faults, failures, or sin, as rather their value as a person, their dignity in God’s eyes, and their potential for excellence and perfection. This is the approach Jesus of Nazareth took towards all others from the poorest to the richest, from those in authority to those of no status or consequence, and He formed his disciples to treat everyone equally, in the same way, in accord with instructions given by God in the Old Testament to Moses to judge without partiality of any kind.

It is true that in his teaching, Jesus was firmly in harmony with his Jewish Tradition and with the Jewish Scriptures. In fact, his enemies could never fault Him and when they wanted to put Him to death they needed to produce false witnesses to mount a fictitious and malicious case against Him. 

 It is also true that Jesus seemed to put aside concern for debating the truth when He was faced with a sinner, public or private. With real people before Him, Jesus shifted his focus away from defense of the Law to the value of the person and treated them in a way coherent with their dignity in God’s eyes. Jesus respected each person's responsibility to direct their own life and to allow God to form their conscience, and He evidently respected the time frame that is unique to each person.

He did not belabor the person’s faults even when these were blatantly apparent, but rather took into consideration the humiliation the person may have already suffered. He gave people the benefit of the doubt that they hoped to stop sinning and reform themselves and did not make any demands of them, nor do we have much evidence that Jesus followed sinners up to assure that they were holding up their end of the bargain after having been forgiven, with perhaps the exception of the man He healed whom He met again in the Temple and whom He warned not to sin again lest something worse befall him. So Jesus took seriously public declarations and teaching about the truth, but then He manifested God’s own respect for human freedom and patience with our behavior.

There are two primacies at work here: the primacy of the truth and the primacy of the freedom of conscience and free will. Truth and free will are not in opposition, nor do they trump each other in any way. Conscience and will are on a journey to enter into perfect coherence with truth, and that is the work of a lifetime. Human beings do not have the absolute power of divine will to once and for all make themselves perfect by a sheer act of will.

Instead, we must carry the cross of our weakened will and disturbed conscience, and come to grips with the reality that God clearly intends to allow our suffering and sin to drive us back into his loving arms. Divine Mercy is the only lasting solution to our agony.That God forgives does not give us license to do anything without regard for value or consequences, for that would be folly, and it would be self destructive and offensive to God, and therefore injurious to our relationship with our Creator. Each person must accept to carry their own cross, their own burden of responsibility for the freedom and dignity bestowed upon them by God, and no one can or should meddle with that freedom and responsibility.

The one major exception to this is the case of public wrong or scandal or of the abuse or harm of others, especially minors, the handicapped, or other persons in conditions of vulnerability. We as a whole community are responsible, and those in authority all the more responsible, to intervene in cases of sin where one is injuring others, scandalizing the innocent, or abusing those unable to come to their own defense. 

A quick stop must be immediately put to violence and abuse of any kind that exploits the vulnerable and innocent among us, especially children and those in a position to expect respect from those having authority over them at their service. Relations involving fiduciary trust, such as the trust given to clergy, medical professionals, teachers, coaches, parents, and others who because of their role must acknowledge that those putting trust in them are put in a vulnerable stance by virtue of that trust, that fiduciary trust, the trust of one accepting to serve another.

At all times, like Jesus, we have responsibility to care for others, to do our part in upholding the truth, accept to journey with one another, to give and to receive formation and mentoring, and to do it all with an attitude of charity and compassion, which, as the Apostles taught, truly considers others to be better than oneself. I am the sinner that I know the best; so it stands to reason that I am the worst sinner that I know. As for other sinners, I don’t really know what is inside them and what manner of struggles or efforts are theirs; so only God is competent to judge.

For this reason no one is entitled to “jump on another” on the basis of observable behavior, with the exception of cases of abuse or exploitation of vulnerable persons as mentioned above. For all other cases not involving the obligation of public intervention for the protection of the vulnerable, Jesus gave us a protocol in Matthew 18:15-20 for fraternal correction. 

 

We are to speak to the other privately first so that we can try to reach some understanding in complete mutual respect. If the person refuses to listen, we can return with a few witnesses and try again to reach some understanding about the apparent fault. If they still refuse to listen, then we can approach them with and through the community leadership, and try again to achieve reconciliation for the good of all. If the parties still refuses to listen, Jesus says, we are to treat them as Gentiles or tax collectors. This doesn’t mean to treat them like dirt, but rather, to treat them like potential seekers that are temporarily lost.

The Jewish Temple had a Court of the Gentiles so that Gentile seekers could come in and chat with devout Jews and find their way to God. This is why Jesus cleansed the Temple, to restore the Court of the Gentiles to its original purpose in God’s plan. Tax collectors too were simply lost children of Israel, as shown by Jesus’ treatment of Zacchaeus when this man gave a little sign of interest in Jesus.

Pope Francis calls us to adopt and practice the same attitudes as Jesus and consider strangers and sinners simply as children of God who are temporarily lost, who are potential seekers of God. This is why he constantly calls us to go to the “peripheries” of life, where such people live, and make ourselves a neighbor to them and open ourselves to friendship with them. In telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the question Jesus put to the lawyer who was trying to entrap Him was, “Which of these men made himself a neighbor to the man beaten by thieves?”

When our interlocutors agree that our discussion is a debate about the truth, then we can give ourselves wholeheartedly to vigorous debate and highlight all that we can muster from creation to the Sacred Scriptures to persuade those who in our view may be in ignorance of certain elements of the truth. 

However, when the people we meet or are chatting with have no intention or desire of debating the truth but are merely struggling with the truth in the circumstances of their life, they are not at that point in need of debate or eloquent defenses of the truth, but like the people Jesus met, they are in need of someone willing to make himself or herself a good neighbor, a friend, someone who can put aside obsession with ideal truths and activate human compassion for the truth embedded in a suffering fellow human being.

People all have an innate capacity to discern the light shining from the Holy Trinity, and a willingness to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When the troubles of life and the confusion caused by sin, suffering, and human frailty impede a person’s progress in seeking God, the Holy Trinity are counting on our compassion to touch people in pain and trouble.

Our willingness to accept them as they are and to love them as they are – as God constantly does for us – is the instrumentation that God needs to continue doing his work in souls. The Holy Trinity are constantly at work, 24 / 7, and we are merely workers of the last hour. When we touch other people’s lives, we are merely arriving at the last moment after God has already been working in their lives for years, decades….

For this reason in approaching others we need to tread lightly, with great humility and consideration, and the faith that holds and respects that the primary work in other souls is being done by God. If God has needed forty years to bring a certain truth to my attention, who am I to attempt to shove such a truth down another person’s throat NOW, just because I decide they should adhere to it now?

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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