Thoughts on Vincent van Gogh

 

A Prayer

Dear Lord,  Today I thought of the words of Vincent van Gogh: “It is true there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea.” You are the sea. Although I experience many ups and downs in my emotions and often feel great shifts and changes in my inner life, you remain the same. Your sameness is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover. Out of your love I came to life, by your love I am sustained, and to your love I am always called back. There are days of sadness and days of joy; there are feelings of guilt and feelings of gratitude; there are moments of failure and moments of success; but all of them are embraced by your unwavering love. . . . O Lord, sea of love and goodness, let me not fear too much the storms and winds of my daily life, and let me know there is ebb and flow but the sea remains the sea. Amen. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on writing

 

Writing Reveals What is Alive in Us

Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: “I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.” Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to “give away” on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on King Louis IX of France

On August 25th, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Louis IX of France. My appreciation of this feast has grown in the recent past because it unites two cities significant in my life.  King Louis IX, patron of St. Louis – patron of the city where I was born and currently live – is also the patron of New Orleans, where I served in a Jesuit parish and high school from 2012 through 2019.

St. Louis and New Orleans share many things.  Both were French foundations and both historically have been regarded as “very Catholic.”  Each city in the 19th century grew significantly because of Irish, German and Italian immigrants. Of course, the cities also share a river.  And, believe or not, the cities also share Mardi Gras. (St. Louis claims to have the largest Mardi Gras celebration outside of Louisiana, although that “fact” from the St. Louis Office of Tourism doesn’t particularly impress the good folks in New Orleans where Mardi Gras parades and galas go on for weeks and weeks!)

Sadly, not everything about our city’s history or current reality leaves us proud.  In both cities, murder rates are high and at times each can feel “lawless.” Both cities struggle with contemporary realities of social and economic division.  That is not new to us.  In fact, it is so “common” that in the face of it we can fall victim to either complacency or discouragement.  Neither is a reaction worthy of our Christian vocation.

St. Louis was born over 800 years ago; clearly, his times are not our own.  Had history not left us an accurate record of his reign, we might be tempted to regard his story as religious fiction.  But we know, as a fact, that he was a king who put God first, who prayed daily, who often personally waited table for his poor guests, and who waged war only to build peace.  While some folks today using contemporary standards will find reason to disparage St. Louis because he led a Crusade, he was committed to acting justly.  In his humility, he knew he did not know all the answers, but he was not satisfied to do nothing.

Perhaps in St. Louis we have a worthy patron to guide our continuing efforts to create

societies which reflect more fully God’s desires for his people.  Seeking his intercession, let us do our own part by prayer and action to assure that we have civic leaders whose decisions reflect a true commitment to peace, to justice, to the common good, and to a respect for all human life.



Fr. Frank Reale SJ

Thoughts on solitude

 

We Pray in the Context of Grace

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone. Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces that assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God. And then we can look back with a smile and realize that we aren’t even angry or greedy anymore. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on gifts

 

Our Gifts Are Not The Same As Our Talents

More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trust, and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer to each other.  Somehow I have known this for a long time, especially through my personal experience of the enormous healing power of these gifts. But since my coming to live in a community with mentally handicapped people, I have rediscovered this simple truth. Few, if any, of those people have talents they can boast of. Few are able to make contributions to our society that allow them to earn money, compete on the open market, or win awards. But how splendid are their gifts! Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on pilgrimage

 One of the gifts of the Second Vatican Council was recapturing the ancient image of Christians as being a people on pilgrimage. We are God’s pilgrim people, on the move. But, where are we going? Christians have always understood the goal of that journey to be, as the Baltimore Catechism taught when I was a kid, being happy with God forever. And we expressed that rather abstract idea in one significant word, HEAVEN. 

Not surprisingly, Christians have always wanted to understand better what heavenly existence was going to be like. Doing so, we have relied on images, some drawn from Jesus’ own words – like the suggestion heaven will be like a great banquet – while other popular images for heaven are more loosely connected with the Bible, images of harp-playing angels on clouds, and of St. Peter at a desk, checking people in at pearly gates. 

We do believe that heaven will be an experience of perfect happiness because it will be an uncompromised and total experience of being loved by God for all eternity. And from our own lives we know that there is no experience which gives such happiness as knowing, deeply and irrevocably, that we are loved.

And that brings us to Mary… and to the Feast of the Assumption which we mark each year on August 15^th. The theological truth we celebrate is that after her earthly life, Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, into God’s loving presence. But what is really important about this feast is that Mary’s destiny is meant to be our own. We are never to forget that we are meant to have a goal, a destiny which lies beyond this earthy life and which will be shaped by how we choose to respond in the particular circumstances of our own lives to what we know to be God’s desires for us and for our world. And if we take Mary as our model, we know that we must lead our lives, yes, with humility before the will of God, but also with great strength and conviction, the strength and conviction of a Mary who, while never totally understanding God’s use of her, chose nonetheless to live and act in trust, truly believing that the Lord would do great things for her. 

Let’s not deceive ourselves. There was not much, if anything really “glorious” about Mary’s earthly life, which had its share of confusion and hardship. But the reward for those who are pilgrims on a journey to God, doing our very best to live consistently with God’s desires is glorious indeed. May we someday, with Mary, enjoy heaven together.

Fr. Frank Reale SJ

Thoughts on the Assumption of Mary

Today we celebrate the Assumption of Mary, the fact that Mary, the Mother of God, was assumed into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.

 

While there is no explicitly stated reference in Scripture to the Blessed Mother’s Assumption into Heaven, it was dogmatically defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950 in his encyclical, Munificentissimus Deus. 

 

In a homily for the Assumption, Pope St. John Paul II said, “Taken up into Heaven, Mary shows us the way to God, the way to Heaven, the way to life. She shows it to her children baptized in Christ and to all people of good will. She opens this way especially to the little ones and to the poor, those who are dear to divine mercy. The Queen of the world reveals to individuals and to nations the power of the love of God. ...”

 

Please read our special page dedicated to the Solemnity of the Assumption. We answer questions such as:

• What happened in the Assumption of Mary?
• What does the Assumption of Mary teach us?
• Did the Virgin Mary die?
• How is the Feast of the Assumption celebrated?

On the page, we also offer a free eBook, The Pondering Heart of Mary, which displays beautiful images and insightful quotes to guide you on your path to holiness.

 

We hope this eBook and this page will inspire you to imitate Our Blessed Mother’s humility, obedience, and piety.

 

May God bless you on this special day!

 

In Christ,

Your EWTN Family

  

 

 

Thoughts on compassion

 

Nothing Human is Alien

Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty that the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends’ eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate man nothing human is alien; no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the Eucharist

 

John 6:24–35

Friends, today’s Gospel comes from the bread of life discourse: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” What God has wanted from the beginning is to sit down with his creatures in a fellowship banquet, sharing life and laughter, giving and receiving and giving back again. This is the loop of grace that I’ve often spoken of. The more we receive the divine life, the more we should give it away and thereby get more of it. Throughout the Old Testament, we find images of the holy banquet. On God’s holy mountain, Isaiah says, there will be good meats and pure, choice wines. And throughout his ministry, Jesus hosts meals to which all are invited. God wants to share his life with us. This comes to full expression in the Eucharist, when Jesus identifies himself so radically with the bread and the wine that they change into his Body and Blood, and then he invites all of us around this table to feast and share life, to give and receive and give again. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Saint Ignatius

To understand St. Ignatius, it’s helpful to begin with his core attitude, his way of looking at the world, his “spirituality.” Fortunately, since he wrote so much about this, we don’t have to work hard to know it.  Looking around the world, Ignatius perceived the footprints and handprints of God everywhere.  To his eyes the world was one big sign of God’s love, a huge love letter to humankind.  First there is creation in all its glory – yes, trees and seasons, but even more so humanity in its own splendor.  More personally, Ignatius looked at his life and was deeply thankful that God had given him so many gifts and talents, and so many loved ones.  All of these he accepted as signs of God’s glorious creative love.

 

But for Ignatius God is not only the giver of earthly life, God is also the giver of eternal life: redemption.  As splendid as this world is, relationships and personal gifts are nothing compared to the eternal gifts that God has already crafted for us.  Despite the fact that we are owed nothing, despite the fact that we could never merit all that has been given, God gives them to us anyway…  just because he loves us.

 

But there’s more: Ignatius saw God not only as the source of all that is – both earthly and eternal – but he experienced God as the constant sustainer of life. He imagined God as a happy, attentive, faithful laborer, who never calls in sick, who never takes a break, but who toils night and day, day and night, so that we and the world can flourish. It is God who sustains every living thing, and in the case of human beings, not only physically or biologically, but also spiritually.  At every moment of our lives, from conception to death, God is hard at work filling us with his light and love and urging us to grow in wisdom, in holiness, and in love… All of this, so that one day we will be ready to receive the eternal gifts that await us.

 

In short, Ignatius knew that he and his life were gift – pure gift.  For this reason he cultivated in his heart a constant attitude of thanksgiving.  He was a deeply grateful man.  As he wrote in the Spiritual Exercises: we gaze upon the generosity of God and one question should arise in our hearts:  What ought I do to in order to say thank you to God?  The response, of course, is to love back, to love God with a love that is itself marked with profound and eager generosity.

 

Wanting deeply to please God, Ignatius strove to make his entire life a huge thank-you back to God. He did so by becoming a freer, more loving person, not fixated on his own perspective and desires, but sincerely committed to what he perceived to be God’s desires and hopes for humankind. Pleasing God by living according to God’s plans is what motivated Ignatius.  And this is what allowed him to accept so many unexpected, and probably also undesired, twists and turns in his life.  

 

Today, Ignatius invites us to join him in being generous lovers of the One who first loves us.

 

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on August

 How do you feel about August?  I feel like August does not get any respect.  It is in the middle of summer and in many places in the US, it is very hot and humid.  Perhaps you have heard the term, the Dog Days of Summer?  I believe they are referring to August.  Besides the heat, there are no national holidays in August, so no days off work without taking a personal day or using some vacation days.  Another thing that seems to give August a bad name is that August is the month when kids go back to school, so children and even parents dislike August for that reason as well.  Yes, August is very underrated and disliked by many.  So what are some good things about August?  Well, it's still summer time.  I don't know about you, but as I get older, I like summer way better than fall or winter.  You can wear shorts, t-shirts, flip flops or no shoes at all.  If you get hot, you can sit in the shade with a cool drink or go inside for some air conditioning.  Even pets prefer summer over winter.  I take my dog on walks that are twice as long in the summer versus the winter.  Yes, August gets overlooked, but when you think about it, it's not as bad as you think!

Scott W