Thoughts on caring

 

Life is a Gift to be Shared

What then is care? The word care finds its origin in the word kara, which means “to lament, to mourn, to participate in suffering, to share in pain.” To care is to cry out with those who are ill, confused, lonely, isolated, and forgotten, and to recognize their pains in our own heart. To care is to enter into the world of those who are only touched by hostile hands, to listen attentively to those whose words are only heard by greedy ears, and to speak gently with those who are used to harsh orders and impatient requests. To care is to be present to those who suffer and to stay present even when nothing can be done to change their situation. To care is to be compassionate and so to form a community of people honestly facing the painful reality of our finite existence. To care is the most human gesture, in which the courageous confession of our common brokenness does not lead to paralysis but to community. When the humble confession of our basic human brokenness forms the ground from which all skillful healing comes forth, then cure can be welcomed not as a property to be claimed, but as a gift to be shared in gratitude. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on friends

 

The Friend Who Cares

When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on Corpus Christi

 June 19^th / Corpus Christi // June 24^th / Sacred Heart



This Sunday the Church celebrates the Feast of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), and on the 24^th the Church will celebrate the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Heart-language is powerful language.  Simple phrases convey and capture meaning beyond verbal expression: a contrite heart, brave-hearted, with a heavy heart, heart- to-heart, a stony heart, a broken heart, cold-hearted, a divided heart, light-hearted, with one heart and mind, wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, hard-hearted, a passionate heart.

I don’t know why I came at a young age to be fascinated by the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It probably has something to do with my high school days at St. Louis U. High, where the engaging – and somewhat bloody – Sacred Heart image was ubiquitous.  Over the years, that familiar image, that devotion, has seeped more deeply into my own heart, shaping my devotional life and spirituality.

It is not easy to precisely capture what the Sacred Heart image conveys.  It does so “silently,” without words, not unlike the method through which my parents conveyed to their children their convictions about right and wrong, their experience of God, and their Catholic vision of life.  But it does communicate.  In the presence of the Sacred Heart, we know that we have a God who understands, who feels, who forgives, who speaks the words that we deeply long to hear, who loves with that kind of love that is all-encompassing and still relentlessly personal and unconditional.

It is that Jesus, that God, that I often address in prayer, assessing the quality of my own heart, and recognizing how “mixed” it can be, and yet wanting to offer it to a God who, I continue to trust, will know exactly how to respond.  Perhaps we can all beg for ourselves those same graces. 

-Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on solitude

 

We Love Because We Have Been Loved First

Solitude is the ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other. It is a fallacy to think we grow closer to each other only when we talk, play, or work together. Much growth certainly occurs in such human interactions, but these interactions derive their fruit from solitude, because in solitude, our intimacy with each other is deepened. In solitude we discover each other in a way that physical presence makes difficult if not impossible. In solitude we know a bond with each other that does not depend on words, gestures, or actions, a bond much deeper than our own efforts can create. . . . In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united. Whenever we enter into solitude, we witness to a love that transcends our interpersonal communications and proclaims that we love each other because we have been loved first (1 John 4:19). Solitude keeps us in touch with the sustaining love from which we draw strength. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the Holy Trinity

  Holy Trinity



For many folks, including myself, the mystery of the Trinity can seem to be an abstract concept, and a confusing one at that. We do know that early Church councils took hundreds of years to put into words the reality of God as revealed by Jesus and as “captured” by the Scripture writers. These councils gave us acceptable language which we can trust as faithfully expressing basic facts: there is one God, one God only, and the very nature of this one God is dynamic love. They remind us that “for any lover there must be a beloved, and love shared abounds in creative power.” Love gives love (Father to Son), shares love (Son and Father) and becomes a fountain of love and life (Holy Spirit).

I do not think we have to understand how God is one and three, or how Jesus is both human and divine, in order to appreciate teachings about the Trinity. Rather, they represent a human effort to bear witness to the truth of God as believers have experienced him. They ask a simple question: Who is the God we have come to know? And they answer: A God of love, a Son who dwelled among us and who gave his life for us, and a God who remains in our midst as an ongoing Spirit.

The definitive statement of God’s love for us is found in Jesus. It is in him who shared our human nature and who walked among us that we have come to know with certainty that God’s response to our troubled lives and our troubled world is saving love. Perhaps we might thank God for those in our lives who convey God’s love through their own love for us, a love which like God’s is protective, generous, forgiving, and challenging. 

-Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on Pentecost

 

Breathing with God

The gift of the Holy Spirit—whom Jesus called the “promise of the Father”—was given to the apostles at Pentecost. And in the miraculous events that accompanied the sending of the Holy Spirit, it became quite clear that the saving action of God would compellingly move forward. Those present in the Upper Room were recreated according to the order of grace to share the life of God, who is love. They were able to, as it were, “breathe with God.” This love poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit is no mere human sentiment but the indwelling presence of the divine. It courses through them as gently and imperceptibly as the air they breathe. The Holy Spirit is the unseen power that fuels the ministry and activity of the apostles and gives them the courage to speak in Jesus’ name.

— from the book Inspired: The Powerful Presence of the Holy Spirit
by Fr. Gary Caster

Thoughts on celebration

 

A Current of Joy

Celebration is not just a way to make people feel good for a while; it is the way in which faith in the God of life is lived out, through both laughter and tears. Thus celebration goes beyond ritual, custom, and tradition. It is the unceasing affirmation that underneath all the ups and downs of life there flows a solid current of joy. The handicapped men and women of L’Arche are becoming my teachers in the most important course of all: living in the house of God. Their joy leads me beyond the fearful place of all death and opens my eyes to the ecstatic potential of all life. Joy offers the solid ground from which new life can always burst. Joy can be caught neither in one feeling or emotion nor in one ritual or custom but is always more than we expect, always surprising, and, therefore, always a sign that we are in the presence of the Lord of life. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on joy

 

Joy

Joy is essential to the spiritual life. Whatever we may think of or say about God, when we are not joyful, our thoughts and words cannot bear fruit. Jesus reveals to us God’s love so that his joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away. Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us. . . . Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Henri Nouwen