The Little Way and the Mercy of God

You have probably been told before that all the saints are really speaking the same Truth – that is, Jesus Christ – only in different voices. This is the beauty of the Communion of Saints! Every saint speaks only of Christ but chooses to highlight a different aspect of His Truth. For example, I would venture to say that Thérèse points to the mystery of God’s love for us and our reciprocal love for Him, which allows us to become like little children and so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

That is not to say, however, that the message of Thérèse does not "overlap" with the message of other saints. In fact, the more I read the writings of the saints, the more I wonder at how often this sort of "meeting" occurs. Recently, I was impressed deeply by the Diary of St. Faustina, particularly by how much it reminded me of Story of a Soul. Curious to see how much these two saints really echoed one another, I began re-reading Thérèse... and it seems that she was just as fascinated by the Mercy of God as Faustina. Consider the following passages side-by-side:

Faustina: "He Himself descends to me and makes me capable of communing with Him... O inexhaustible spring of Divine Mercy, pour yourself out upon us! Your goodness knows no limits. Confirm, O Lord, the power of Your mercy over the abyss of my misery..."

Thérèse: "... Jesus showered His graces so lavishly on His little flower. He, who cried out in His mortal life: 'I thank thee, Father, that thou has hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to babes,' willed to have His mercy shine out in me. Because I was little and weak He lowered Himself to me..."

Faustina: "I count on nothing in my life but only on Your infinite mercy. It is the guiding thread of my life, O Lord. My soul is filled with God's mercy."

Thérèse: "How merciful is the way God has guided me. Never has He given me the desire for anything which He has not given me, and even His bitter chalice seemed delightful to me."

Faustina: "O Jesus, my heart stops beating when I think of all You are doing for me! I am amazed at You, Lord, that You would stoop so low to my wretched soul! ... God usually chooses the weakest and simplest souls as tools for His greatest works."

Thérèse: "I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors, provided it abandoned itself with total confidence to Your Infinite Mercy."

Reading passages like these, I realized that the "Little Way" was deeper and broader than I ever imagined. It wasn't just about doing little acts of love for Jesus -- it was also about the way I viewed my own sinfulness and my trust (or lack thereof) in the Mercy of God.

Thérèse reminds us that in our spiritual growth, the emphasis must not be placed on our good deeds (nor on our sinfulness) but rather on our confidence in God's Love and Mercy. Our works are a necessary expression of our love for God, but when we fail at them, our immediate reaction must not be one of fear or discouragement but rather one of confidence, which leads us to depend on His Mercy and to simply begin again with our good resolutions.

"What a comfort it is, this way of love! You may stumble on it, you may fail to correspond with grace given, but always love knows how to make the best of everything; whatever offends our Lord is burnt up in the fire of Love, and nothing is left but a humble, absorbing peace deep down in the heart."

Think of how a small child acts when he realizes he has done some wrong -- a child who does not fear his father. At the very moment the child begins to feel guilty for what he's done, he rushes tearfully into the arms of his father to bury his face in his father's chest, confident that the only necessary thing on his part is this utter abandonment, this blind trust in his father's merciful love.

Along the same lines, when we are tempted to dwell on our faults and shortcomings, we ought to toss them immediately into the fire of Love which consumes the Heart of Our Lord.

"When we cast our faults into the devouring fire of Love with total childlike trust, how would they not be consumed, so that nothing is left of them?"

She's right, of course. The Little Way leads us to the Mercy of God, on a path of total childlike trust. Little Flower of Jesus, pray for us!

St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Proper Disposition of the Intellect

The world is full of false dichotomies, and some people might assume the Parousians played into one of them when we chose St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thérèse of Lisieux as our patron saints, the Dumb Ox being the height of Catholic intellectual life and the Little Flower being cute and small and flowery, stereotyping two doctors of the Church in ways that do no justice to their common sanctity and mental dexterity. St. Thomas Aquinas was renowned for his humility and tender devotion to our Lord. And just as St. Thomas Aquinas had a keen command of small details that led him to the universals, St. Thérèse had an alertness born of humility to see reality as it really is, drawing her to the revelation that all is grace, a revelation that contradicts the nihilism of her age and our own.

Saints are canonized in the Catholic Church according to their saintliness, and from that number a select few are chosen because of their contributions to the doctrine of the Church. Doctors help the Church come to a greater clarity on how we understand the Revelation of Christ. Pope John Paul II declared St. Thérèse a doctor recognizing her insight:

Thérèse of Lisieux did not only grasp and describe the profound truth of Love as the center and heart of the Church, but in her short life she lived it intensely. It is precisely this convergence of doctrine and concrete experience, of truth and life, of teaching and practice, which shines with particular brightness in this saint, and which makes her an attractive model especially for young people and for those who are seeking true meaning for their life. Before the emptiness of so many words, Thérèse offers another solution, the one Word of salvation which, understood and lived in silence, becomes a source of renewed life. She counters a rational culture, so often overcome by practical materialism, with the disarming simplicity of the "little way" which, by returning to the essentials, leads to the secret of all life: the divine Love that surrounds and penetrates every human venture. In a time like ours, so frequently marked by an ephemeral and hedonistic culture, this new Doctor of the Church proves to be remarkably effective in enlightening the mind and heart of those who hunger and thirst for truth and love. An eminent model and guide for Christians today.

St. Thérèse bucks the trend of reducing everything to their molecular composition and sees the love of God, his grace teeming in all human affairs, in all creation, even in the smallest acts. She was tuned into reality as it really is, and this darkness in our understanding is not overcome by faculties unfortunately sectioned off as being the whole intellect.

St. Thérèse lived in the light of truth undetectable by the proud, be they new atheists in their irrationality or ill formed apologists who reduce the mystery of transcendental truth to easily apprehended talking points void of the reality of Christ.

The Little Flower herself said, "It seems to me that humility is truth. I don't know if I'm humble, but I do know that I see the truth in all things."

St. Thérèse's willed humility opened her eyes to the grandeur of God displayed in all things. Humility is a necessary disposition to be receptive to reality as it really is, lest we get caught up in out own irrationality and have the arrogance to insist that our skewered vision of the world is accurate.

In my twenties, even with a degree of catechesis and an intellectual formation rooted in the great books, I became obsessed with the problem of evil. I would try to couch my own personal hurt in "intellectual" arguments against a Christian understanding of theodicy. In truth these "intellectual" arguments were rationalizations that did not even match up to my own experience. I moved far from agnostic doubt into nihilistic despair. Somewhere along the way, my doubts had gotten the best of me, and I had forgotten the reality of the love of God I had known both in previous times of prayer and in a world where I had witnessed love and beauty and goodness in spite of the evil I was dwelling on. After a few years of fighting with God out of my hurt, I realized my reasoning was off, and pride had driven me to cut myself off from graces that kept revealing the love of God if I only had eyes to see them, if only I had eyes like St. Thérèse.

St. Thérèse was hurt, but she did not make herself and her hurts bigger than the God who loved her. She made herself small, remained childlike, and did not lose the sense of wonder long-forgotten by so many who think they have figured the world out. This smallness enabled her to see the love woven into all truth so that she might express the truth of that love in each of her own small acts.

She said, "I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul."

And in recognizing her as a Doctor of the Church, John Paul II knew this line of thinking was not the naivete of an innocent nun, but the sacramental vision necessary to understand the world as it is, a place where the love of God is constantly being revealed. This openness to see grace in all things could only be found in someone small enough to find grace in the smallest things.

Don't know much about incorruptibles?

This Sunday, January 27, was the memorial of St. Angela Merici, who like many other saints and beati (or "blesseds"), has been declared an "incorruptible." Essentially, this means that though St. Angela died centuries ago, her body has not decayed, nor was it ever embalmed, mummified, or in any other way deliberately preserved. Naturally, the phenomenon of incorruptibility draws a great deal of skepticism from secularists, other Christian denominations, and even certain Catholics, who believe it to either be a ruse perpetuated by the Church or a merely natural phenomenon.

Interestingly, the bodies of incorrupt saints do not undergo rigor mortis; rather, they remain as flexible as if the deceased were only sleeping. Incorrupt bodies are also miraculously free from the odor of decay, and many are reported to give forth the "Odour of Sanctity," an inexplicable sweet or flowery aroma. (This phenomenon has been cited in reference to St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Rita of Cascia, and St. Pio of Pietrelcina, among others.) Sometimes, the body only remains incorrupt for an unusual amount of time (as in the case of St. Francis Xavier), and in other cases, only certain parts of the body do not decay (as in the case of St. Clare of Assisi, whose skeleton remains perfectly preserved, though her flesh turned to dust before her body was exhumed).

The Church used to cite incorruptibility as one of the two miracles required for the canonization of a saint, but this is no longer the case, since some bodies which were at first thought to be "incorruptible" turned out to have been embalmed or preserved by a natural cause, as in the case of Blessed Pope John XXIII (below). When John XXIII's body was exhumed after his beatification in 2000, it appeared to be extremely well-preserved. (I can personally attest to this; I saw his body on display at St. Peter's in 2003.) Church officials, however, have attributed his preservation not to a supernatural cause but to the lack of oxygen in his sealed coffin, so he has not been declared an incorruptible.

The body of Bl. Pope John XXIII at St. Peter's in Rome

St. Bernadette's body, on the other hand, lay in a damp grave for thirty years before it was exhumed and found to be incorrupt. Before being buried again, her body was washed and re-clothed, and this washing process is believed to have been the cause of the discoloration in her face which became apparent the second time her corpse was exhumed in 1919. For this reason, a light wax mask was made to cover her face (below) before her body was put on display to the public. Her body remains intact today, despite the fact that she died in 1879.

St. Bernadette of Lourdes at Nevers, France

Here is a list (which is by no means exhaustive) of incorruptible saints and beati with whom you may be familiar:

• St. Agatha of Sicily
• St. Angela Merici
• Bl. Anne Marie Taigi
  
• St. Bernadette of Lourdes
  
• St. Catherine Laboure' (d. 1876, pictured)
  
• St. Cecilia
  
• St. Charles Borromeo
• St. Clare of Assisi
• St. Edward the Confessor
  
• St. Ferdinand III (King of Spain)
  
• St. Francis Xavier
• St. Francis Xavier "Mother" Cabrini
  
• St. Jean Vianney
• St. John Bosco
• Bl. Margaret of Castello
  
• St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
• St. Rita of Cascia
  
• St. Teresa of Avila
  
• St. Vincent de Paul (d. 1660, pictured)

You can find additional information about incorruptibles online, but let me caution you: many of the articles are authored by anti-Catholic skeptics or by people who haven't done their homework and who confuse the names of incorrupt saints with the names of those whose relics are merely popular objects of veneration. (The Wikipedia articles on incorruptibles are prime examples of the latter mistake.)

In closing, let us remember a few important things: first, that supernatural phenomena - instances of incorruptibility, apparitions, miracles and stigmata - are meant to simply encourage and edify the faithful, not to take the place of Sacred Scripture and Tradition as the cornerstones of our faith. In other words, we must take care not to become obsessed with these phenomena. Second, we must keep in mind that none of these phenomena are considered dogma; in other words, no Catholic is obligated to believe in them. So, while some of us might be fascinated by the veneration of incorruptibles and other relics, we need to be sensitive to the fact that some of our brothers and sisters may find the practice strange or even disgusting, and they are in no way obligated to take part in it.

St. Angela Merici, pray for us. All you angels and saints of God, pray for us.

On the Feast of St. Francis de Sales

"The thoughts of those moved by natural human love are almost completely fastened on the beloved, their hearts are filled with passion for it, and their mouths full of its praises. When it is gone they express their feelings in letters, and can't pass by a tree without carving the name of their beloved in its bark. Thus too, those who love God can never stop thinking about Him, longing for Him, aspiring to Him, and speaking about Him. If they could, they would engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind."

- St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church


Today we celebrate the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. Francis was born to a noble family in France in 1567. His father was determined that he become a lawyer, so out of obedience, Francis studied law in Padua. After remaining silent for thirteen years about the discernment of his vocation, he told his parents that he wanted to become a priest. As one might expect, his father was utterly opposed to the idea at first, but eventually he gave his consent. Francis was ordained and appointed provost of the Diocese of Geneva, an area highly populated by Calvinists. Francis tried to organize a missionary expedition with the aim of bringing the Calvinists back to the Church, but was only able to recruit one volunteer: one of his cousins, and even he abandoned Francis after several years of seemingly fruitless labor.

Determined to persist in doing God's will, for years Francis continued to endure great hardships as he preached to the Calvinists - often talking to children when their parents would not listen to him - and distributed pamphlets explaining the truths of the Catholic faith. (He authored the first religious tracts!) By the time he completed his expedition, it is said he helped bring 40,000 Calvinists back to the Catholic faith.

At age thirty-five, Francis became Bishop of Geneva, and while he went about his administrative duties, offering spiritual direction remained his top priority. Consequently, he was often overworked, and his health suffered from this. Francis truly wished to, as he put it, "engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind." He drew countless people to the faith by his preaching and was known for being exceedingly patient and gentle; thus he is sometimes called the "Gentleman Saint." He is also known for helping St. Jane de Chantal found her religious order: the Sisters of the Visitation. Francis died in 1622 and was canonized only 43 years later in 1665. He was declared a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1877 by Pope Pius IX. Three religious orders have been named for St. Francis: the Salesians, founded by St. John Bosco, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, founded by Abbé Louis Brisson, and the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, founded by Fr. Peter Mermier.

St. Francis wrote Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God, as well as many tracts on Catholic apologetics and countless personal letters. The vast majority of his writings are addressed to laypeople, in hopes that they would respond to the universal call to holiness and strive to become saints.

You can download St. Francis' Introduction to the Devout Life for free at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us! We also long to see the name of Jesus engraved on every human heart.

St. Edith Stein on Women's Professions [Part 3]

In my last post on St. Edith Stein’s Essays on Woman, I wrote about her view on the natural feminine vocations of wife and mother, for which the characteristics specific to women make us particularly suited. St. Stein also wrote on other feminine vocations besides these natural ones, such as those professions to which a woman can be disposed. St. Stein begins this essay with a disclaimer of sorts, writing that, “Only subjective delusion could deny that women are capable of practicing vocations other than that of spouse and mother…One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman” (47). So, obviously St. Stein does not believe that women should not have professions; rather, she is simply explaining how our God-given feminine qualities predispose us to certain ones and that a certain spiritual attitude of service is necessary to allow a woman to perform any profession according to her feminine nature.

* An explanation may be handy before I describe these professions. It must be understood that St. Stein is really writing these essays as guides for women to live their lives according to how God created them. It is not that women are incapable of any profession, but that living according to God’s will entails submission to His will in every aspect of your life, including the domestic and professional spheres. Essentially, what everything boils down to is, “This is how we can live to fully realize the potential for which God created us.” Therefore, these views may not be easily accepted by those without a strong faith in a God who created them with specific qualities and talents for a specific purpose. *

St. Stein uses the term “feminine profession” to describe these positions that allow women to fully embrace and enact the fullness of their feminine nature. The most obvious ones are those that necessitate “sympathetic rapport” (48), which is basically working with and in the service of others. She writes that such professions include (but are not limited to) nurse, doctor, teacher, and a worker in the social services. She also writes, however, that even those professions that are generally considered “masculine” can be performed in an “authentically feminine way” (48) if they are viewed from the perspective of participating in service for humanity. In order to perform any profession according to the feminine nature, she writes that, “Basically the same spiritual attitude which the wife and mother need is needed here also, except that it is extended to a wider working circle” (48). Again, this is more a description of how a woman can perform her specific professional work with an attitude that is in keeping with her feminine nature than a precise list of “acceptable” or “unacceptable” professions for women.

Once again, St. Stein uses the Virgin Mary as a model of how feminine virtues can be developed and used well. She refers to Mary’s role at the wedding of Cana as a specific example, recounting how Mary observed what was needed and quietly found the remedy, serving others modestly and without self-glorification.

Let her be the prototype of woman in professional life,” St. Stein writes. “Wherever situated, let her always perform her work quietly and dutifully, without claiming attention and appreciation. And at the same time, she should survey the conditions with a vigilant eye. Let her be conscious of where there is a want and where help is needed, intervening and regulating as far as it is possible in her power in a discreet way. Then will she like a good spirit spread blessing everywhere. (49)

You may ask how women can find the strength, in this harried and cuh-razy world, to perform, not only their natural vocations as wife and mother, but also other professional vocations while remaining faithful and magnanimous. How can we be these superhero women? St. Stein writes that, “only by the power of grace can nature be liberated from its dross, restored to its purity, and made free to receive divine life. And this divine life itself is the inner driving power from which acts of love come forth” (55). St. Stein prescribes participation and respite in Eucharistic and liturgical relationships with God. This allows us to entrust our troubles to Him, from which is follows that, “our soul is free to participate in the divine life” (55). This participation happens by working for God and humanity in ways according to how we, male and female, were created. St. Stein writes that, “God created humanity as man and woman, and He created both according to His own image. Only the purely developed masculine and feminine nature can yield the highest attainable likeness to God. Only in this fashion can there be brought about the strongest interpenetration of all earthly and divine life” (56).

Woman's Natural Vocation [St. Edith Stein, Part 2]

St. Edith Stein’s Essays on Women offer compelling descriptions of ideal femininity and how women can best attain this in their lives. First, St. Stein describes the natural vocation of women, writing that, “Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny that woman in soul and body is formed for a particular purpose. The clear and irrevocable word of Scripture declares what daily experience teaches from the beginning of the world: woman is destined to be wife and mother” (43). St. Stein writes that this purpose is perfectly compatible with the nature of women to seek “to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole” (43). She also writes that women are suited for another role compatible with motherhood: companion. According to St. Stein, “it is her [woman’s] gift and happiness to share the life of another human being and, indeed, to take part in all things which come his way” (44). This role requires “subordination and obedience as directed by God’s work” (44).

It is difficult, in this feminism-ridden day and age, to accept that the primary role of women, for which we have been formed and according to which we have been endowed with certain and sundry capacities, is a supporting one. Most of us have been ingrained with the idea that women can and should do whatever men do, a view that effectively denies the unique qualities and gifts that make us specifically suited for specific functions—through which we are able to become what we were created to be (which, to put it mildly, is no small thing!). The secular view of freedom as the liberty to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants is a main culprit of the disparity between what women do and what women should do (this applies to men as well, of course). To be enslaved by our whims is no freedom. Contrarily, to FREELY CHOOSE to work for the good and benefit of others by living according to God’s will is the way, not only to salvation, but to the fulfillment of our purposes—our reasons for being. There is supreme dignity in the choice to excel in what we were created for.

Advent is the perfect time for women to accept, not our place, but our purpose. This implies something far beyond anything chauvinistic or misogynistic; rather, it involves embracing our ideal forms and working to realize them through our lives. Advent is a wonderful time for this because of the glorious example of obedience, support, and love that the Virgin Mary demonstrated when she FREELY CHOSE to submit to the will of God. Hers is an example of the feminine ideal for which we should all strive. It is also an example of what results from bowing to the Lord’s will, as is stated in these words from Hail Mary: “blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.” The fruit of Mary’s choice was the means for the salvation of the world! Of course, not all of our actions may result in such obvious splendor, but our participation in the Lord’s will is always glorious. May all of us, male or female, pray this Advent for the strength and will to act according to our reasons for being, so that our works may bear fruit as Mary’s did!

[In my next post, I will write about St. Stein’s views on feminine vocations other than the maternal.]

Thanksgiving: "It is right to give Him thanks and praise."

The Angelus (1857-1859), Jean-François Millet

Next week, I’ll conclude my three-part post, “God Desires Our Human Love and Its Perfection.”

On this Thanksgiving Day, I must first give thanks to God for the Parousians – for the community we have been blessed with, for our friendships, for our intellects and talents, for the gift of our education, for the intercession of our patrons, for Holy Mother Church, for our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, for all the priests who have made the Sacraments available to us, and most of all, for our salvation, for Christ's presence in the Eucharist, and for God’s grace and His good work in us that He has promised to bring to completion (Philippians 1:6).

God has blessed us abundantly, indeed. As we affirm each time we attend Mass, "it is right to give Him thanks and praise." Absolute gratitude, offered in humility, is the only appropriate response to the perfect love we see on the Cross and in the Blessed Sacrament.

I’ll leave you with these quotes about gratitude from some of our favorite saints and writers. In all humility, let us thank God with them for His many blessings.

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” – G. K. Chesterton

“In all created things discern the providence and wisdom of God, and in all things give Him thanks.” – St. Teresa of Avila

"I sing praise to You, my Lord, for all You have made, especially for Brother Sun, who brings the day and through whom You give us light." – St. Francis of Assisi (Canticle of the Sun)

“As part of the spiritual worship acceptable to God (Romans 12:1), the Gospel of Life is to be celebrated above all in daily living, which should be filled with self-giving love for others. In this way, our lives will become a genuine and responsible acceptance of the gift of life and a heartfelt song of praise and gratitude to God who has given us this gift.” – Pope John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)

“God has been wonderful to all of us. He has given us so many beautiful opportunities to put our love for God in living action. So let us show our gratitude by loving one another, as Christ loved each one of us.” – Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

“Gratitude is characteristic only of the humble. The egotistic are so impressed by their own importance that they take everything given them as if it were their due. They have no room in their hearts for recollection of the undeserved favors they received.” – Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

"O my God, let me remember with gratitude and confess to thee thy mercies toward me. Let my bones be bathed in thy love, and let them say: 'Lord, who is like unto thee?’ (Psalm 35:10). Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving (Psalm 116:16-17). And how thou didst break them I will declare, and all who worship thee shall say, when they hear these things: 'Blessed be the Lord in heaven and earth, great and wonderful is his name’ (Psalm 8:1)." – St. Augustine (Confessions)

“I give thanks to You, Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God. Not through any merit of my own, but only through the goodness of Your mercy, You have considered me – a useless servant – worthy to be nourished with the precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is ‘good,’ because is it good, if ‘bad,’ because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world, and the hope of our eternal country.” – C. S. Lewis

“For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.” – St. Paul (Hebrews 13:14-15)

God Desires Our Human Love and Its Perfection, Part Two

Last week, I looked at a couple of passages from Thomas Merton's Dialogues with Silence and began to explore the seeming paradox that God desires our imperfect human love but also desires its perfection. To recap: God desires us even in our sinfulness; as St. Paul points out, Christ died for us "while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8). He wants us to love Him humanly - to love Him however we are able, and we are only able to love Him imperfectly - so that He can show us His great mercy. God desires our human love, yet at the same time, He calls us out of our sinfulness to sainthood, to perfect holiness. We are sinful human beings, yet as Christians we are to be perfect "as our heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

Misconceptions abound among different Christian denominations about the possibility of this perfection in love and holiness, and I want to examine a few of them - but first, let's try to make more sense of this "seeming paradox" and turn to Chapter 15 of the Gospel of John.

"I am the true vine... Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:1, 4-5)

It sounds simple enough - we share in Christ's life, and consequently we bear the fruit of love, which manifests itself in holiness and good works. If we cannot humbly acknowledge that we need God's grace, if we lack the humility to see that we can do nothing without His help, we cannot bear fruit.

We glorify God by bearing the fruit of love (holiness and good works); and in a sense, when we bear fruit, we prove our discipleship. "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples" (v. 8). We cannot divorce discipleship - our identity as followers of Christ and people who belong to Him - from the necessity of living a holy life, rooted in love and good works, that "bears much fruit."

Christ goes on to tell us: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love" (v. 9-10). Christ has loved us - He has put His love into us - so that in turn He can command us to love as He loves, which He does in verse 12: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Christ commands us to love one another as He loves us, that is, to love perfectly. Of course, we know that we cannot even think of loving perfectly without God's grace, so Christ reminds us that He has first called us to love and gifted us with grace:

"You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another." (John 15:16-17)

In other words, Christ chose us first, and He gives us everything so that, in our nothingness, we can bear the fruit of perfect love and holiness and aspire to be saints. He has set before us an ideal, but not an impossible one - if He gave impossible commands, He would not be loving or just, and we know He is the perfection of both.

Next week, I'll examine two timeless heresies about the possibility of saintly perfection: one deems it impossible, even with God's grace; the other says it's naturally possible for everyone (humans can achieve it on our own). Until then, let us pray with St. Augustine:




There can be no hope for me except in Your great mercy.
Give me the grace to do as You command,
and command me to do what You will...
O Love, ever burning, never quenched!
O Charity, my God, set me on fire with Your love! ...
Give me the grace to do as You command,
and command me to do what You will.


(Confessions, Book X: xxix)

God Desires Our Human Love and Its Perfection, Part One

“In solitude I have at last discovered that You desire the love of my heart, O my God, the love of my heart as it is—the love of my human heart. I have found and have known by Your great mercy that the love of a heart that is abandoned and broken and poor is most pleasing to You and attracts the gaze of Your pity. It is Your desire and Your consolation, O my Lord, to be very close to those who love You and call upon You as their Father. You have perhaps no greater consolation—if I may so speak—than to console Your afflicted children and those who come to You poor and empty-handed, with nothing but their humanness, their limitations and their great trust in Your mercy.”

I was particularly struck by this passage as I read Dialogues with Silence, a collection of poems, prayers and sketches by Thomas Merton. As a Trappist monk, Merton spent much of his life praying and working in the deep silence of the cloister. The above passage, taken from his book Thoughts In Solitude, expresses beautifully one of the most poignant revelations Merton encountered in that silence. As Christians, we must come to terms with the truth that we love a God Who desires us as we are. God desires our love, though we love Him in the midst of our sinfulness, our broken-heartedness, our imperfections. He desires our love, though before Him we are all, as Merton puts it, “poor and empty-handed.”

I’m reminded of the first few lines of Francis Thompson’s famous poem about God’s pursuit of the human soul, “The Hound of Heaven.” God pursues us because He desires us, but we often flee from His love, as the speaker of Thompson’s poem recalls:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter...

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

It’s often tempting to flee in shame at the sound of those “strong Feet,” but God expects us to love Him out of our sinfulness. God shows us His love for us, St. Paul says, in the fact that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We must have a contrite heart, a profound awareness of our own sinfulness, in order to accept God’s forgiveness. We must love God in humility, without pretense, in order to accept the mercy He offers us from the cross. In another passage taken from Thoughts In Solitude, Merton points out that we can, in fact, only experience the “full sweetness” of God’s mercy if we love Him with an imperfect, “human” love:

“You desire the love of my heart because Your Divine Son also loves You with a human heart. He became a human being in order that my heart and His heart should love You in one love… If I therefore do not love You with a human love and with a human simplicity, and with the humility to be myself, I will never taste the full sweetness of Your Fatherly mercy, and Your Son, as far as my life goes, will have died in vain.”

Likewise, at the end of Thompson’s poem, God reminds the soul He has pursued relentlessly that His desire stems not from the soul’s own merits, but from His longing to offer Himself:

"Rise, clasp My hand, and come!

… Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest!"

God desires us, and hopes that we will love Him humanly so that He can shower His mercy on us; but because His love for us is limitless, it doesn’t stop there. God desires our human love, yes, but He also desires its perfection. This distinction is the great truth we see shine forth in the lives of the saints.

In His great mercy, God calls us to press forward in our brokenness, to take up our own cross and to learn to love more perfectly (Luke 14:27). He calls us to strive for the perfect holiness of sainthood, to be perfect as He is perfect (Matthew 5:48). We read in Chapter 5 of Lumen Gentium that “all Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love.” On our journey toward this perfection, God’s mercy is indispensable, and so we must learn to go before Him, as Merton says, “with a human love and with a human simplicity” and the humility to be ourselves – and yet we must not forget where we are headed, which is towards perfection in love.

More to come next week, and perhaps the week after…

The Wounding Beauty: An Unexpected Love

The transcendental of Truth shouldn’t be our only weapon against the “tyranny of relativism” and modern man’s rejection of God. Rejection of God is more than a rejection of Truth but also of true Goodness and Beauty. For those who shut their ears at the mere mention of truth, perhaps helping them realize the truth and goodness within beauty is a first step.

We all feel the longing for meaning. Even those who are self-proclaimed hedonists living for the pleasures of the moment give partial lip service to their idol. They’re still living for something, even if it is a perversion of a good. Maybe they will best understand true beauty when they experience it – assuming they allow their hearts to be opened when they do.

As Christians we experience the true beauty of Christ, his love and his wounds. This beauty is both true and good in its essence, which are only different aspects of the same reality. In Cardinal Ratzinger’s “The Beauty and the Truth of Christ” he presents us with the paradox of a beauty not overcome by aesthetics or grotesqueness: the beauty of eternal love made manifest in the life, suffering, and death of Jesus, our Christ.

“Implicit here is the more radical question of whether beauty is true or whether it is not ugliness that leads us to the deepest truth of reality. Whoever believes in God, in the God who manifested himself, precisely in the altered appearance of Christ crucified as love "to the end" (Jn 13,1), knows that beauty is truth and truth beauty; but in the suffering Christ he also learns that the beauty of truth also embraces offence, pain, and even the dark mystery of death, and that this can only be found in accepting suffering, not in ignoring it.”

Ratzinger draws upon two sources, Plato and Nicholas Cabasilas.

“Plato contemplates the encounter with beauty as the salutary emotional shock that makes man leave his shell and sparks his "enthusiasm" by attracting him to what is other than himself. Man, says Plato, has lost the original perfection that was conceived for him. He is now perennially searching for the healing primitive form.”

Beauty begins and continually revitalizes man’s search for the “other,” an “other” who possesses perfection. It lifts him out of himself and causes him to suffer the longing for the restoration of that which has been lost in himself. Few could look at Mother Teresa at the bedside of the dying and not be wounded by the scene’s beauty. Here is a suffering so beautiful that it will break your heart.

He then cites Cabasilas:

"When men have a longing so great that it surpasses human nature and eagerly desire and are able to accomplish things beyond human thought, it is the Bridegroom who has smitten them with this longing. It is he who has sent a ray of his beauty into their eyes. The greatness of the wound already shows the arrow which has struck home, the longing indicates who has inflicted the wound" (cf. The Life in Christ, the Second Book).

What greater beauty can be found than in He who is Beauty, God incarnate. When we become like Christ, we reflect His beauty with all the wounds and humility accompanying this beautiful Christian life. We become the saints God predestined us to be, and “nothing but saints can save our world.”

Honoring Mary, Queen of All Saints

Queen of angels, pray for us.
Queen of patriarchs, pray for us.
Queen of prophets, pray for us.
Queen of apostles, pray for us.
Queen of martyrs, pray for us.
Queen of confessors, pray for us.
Queen of virgins, pray for us.
Queen of all Saints, pray for us.

Queen conceived without Original Sin, pray for us.
Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us.
Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.
Queen of Peace, pray for us.
Queen of the Church, pray for us.

Each time I hear the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, "Queen of All Saints" seems to stand out as one of Our Lady's most beautiful titles. Each of us has, of course, different patron saints to honor on this Feast of All Saints, but we should also honor Mary, for she is our first patroness.

In The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis de Montfort writes of how we honor the Blessed Trinity when we honor Our Lady. He speaks of an “old hymn” and a “new hymn;” the old was sung by the Jews in the Old Testament to give thanks to God for creating them, for blessing them, for delivering them from bondage and giving them manna in the desert. The new, St. Louis writes, was prophesied by King David in Psalm 143:9: “I will sing a new song to You.” This hymn is the Hail Mary, or the Angelic Salutation, which Christians sing to give thanks to God for the Incarnation and for our Redemption:

“Although this new hymn is in praise of the Mother of God and is sung directly to her, nevertheless it greatly glorifies the Blessed Trinity because any homage that we pay Our Lady returns directly to God Who is the cause of all her virtues and perfections. When we honor Our Lady: God the Father is glorified because we are honoring the most perfect of His creatures; God the Son is glorified because we are praising His most pure Mother, and God the Holy Spirit is glorified because we are lost in admiration at the graces with which He has filled His spouse.”

Similarly, in True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis explains why we honor Mary as our Queen:

“Jesus, in choosing her as His inseparable associate in His life, death, glory and power in heaven and on earth, has given her by grace in His kingdom all the same rights and privileges He possesses by nature. ‘All that belongs to God by nature belongs to Mary by grace,’ say the saints, and according to them, just as Jesus and Mary have the same will and the same power, they have the same subjects…”

The Second Vatican Council writes about the Queenship of Mary in Lumen Gentium, which devotes an entire chapter to Our Lady:

“Preserved free from all guilt of original sin, the Immaculate Virgin was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory upon the completion of her earthly sojourn. She was exalted by the Lord as Queen of the Universe, in order that she might be the more thoroughly conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (cf. Rev. 19:16) and the conqueror of sin and death."

If we look to Christ as our King, then we look to Mary as our Queen, as Queen of Heaven and Queen of All Saints, for God in His love for her has given her this place of honor, and in His love for us He has given her to us as our Mother and as a most perfect example for us to follow as we strive to become saints. As Pope John Paul the Great writes in his Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, Mary was the “first disciple” of her Son, and so she is the greatest saint of all: “Mary was and is the one who is ‘blessed because she believed’; she was the first to believe.”

The image is a detail from Madonna of the Magnificat by Sandro Botticelli, an Italian Renaissance artist best known for his Birth of Venus.