Resurrecting Chicago

by Freecliparts

On this 250^th anniversary of our Independence, we Catholics ought to bring to mind a prayer composed for George Washington’s inauguration by the first American archbishop, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, Maryland.

I’ve rearranged a few paragraphs from this extended prayer with the hope that it will serve as an intercession where we can find solace as we Americans face the very deep divisions burdening our right to seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.in this third century of our nation’s existence:

Photo by LAWJR

“(O Lord), let the light of your divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty

We pray O God of might, wisdom and justice, through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with your Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the president of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality.

. We recommend likewise, to your unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of your most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Amen

Monica Volpin (photo credit)

From Augustine to Gregory of Nyssa and Phillip, the apostle, and all the seekers in between, it seems that everyone wants to see God.    Phillip turns to the Lord and asks Jesus what you and I might ask; “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”  (John 14:8, RSV). We are yearning for something, someone who is more than  ourselves. And as St. Augustine concludes, “Our hearts are restless until they rest with thee.” (The Confessions)

St. Gregory, whose brother St. Basil is more well-known, says that the search for the face of God is like a man who has struggled up a mountain, gets to the top and in the clarity of the moment realizes that he has made it. At the peak he is giddy with the accomplishment and dizzy in the thin air.  So he stands there light-headed from looking  up and then down to the valley from which s/he has come.

The seeker who has wrested with ego and withstood the attacks of the evil one,  carries the cross in Jesus’ name,  but has s/he reached he pinnacle of purity of heart?. Does s/he “see” God?

Each human heart is a towering mountain. It’s foothills are tangled with the brush of mixed motives and the shattered remnants of good deeds. Our searching hearts are stymied by the clouds of life and we drop our hands in sadness that we can’t know Him as we desire. Yet, we will not keep seeking Him.

“Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). Who is pure enough to see God?  Nevertheless, Jesus tells you that you and I will see God and experience blessedness.  Blessedness is the quest of every human heart. We want it and crave it as we search the foothills and valleys of our  our lives and struggle up, always up the mountain.

St.  Gregory says that in scripture “seeing” God means having Him. Somehow we possess Him like the climber who attains her/his goal but stands there unable to deal with the dizzying sublimity of what s/he sees.

Still, you and I, in prayer search the skies and the depths but, we can’t see Him. Augustine finally says we should look inside where again we stand on the mountain top aching for the sight of Him. That aching, that yearning means that we are not far from the kingdom of God.

(Gerd Altmann photo)

The Donald is ignorant of diplomacy and couldn’t care less about cultural and historical influences.  He only knows money.  He only knows deal: “I’ll take that, if you give me that.” He revels in being perceived as a genius negotiator. Reminds me of the time someone was quoted as saying while attempting to broker a deal; “All I want is your half.”

His deals are only about money. To twist the truth to get what you want is part of negotiations for the deal.  He is obtuse and unaware of culture and patriotic history.  Over the centuries, the Ukraine, for example,  has struggled to gain back its land, language and culture from Russian imperialism.  Each time it does, Russian dominance crushes it again.  Putin is only the latest Russian aggressor. Culture and national language, art, music are not values to Trump. That’s why he does not care much whether Russia or the Ukraine wins the present war.

Trump  wouldn’t know Ukrainian from Mandarin. He can’t imagine that another’s culture and language have value. Land, however, is another matter. Land is negotiable as an asset. It’s just dirt you can build something on. Family farms, village territories mean nothing to him. Europeans from the east and west think of their countries with love, a thing Trump can’t understand. He simply believes that America is the first and best country in the world and no country’s values will ever mean anything to him.  Canada, Mexico, Spain –to mention a few– are countries that he believes America doesn’t need anything from so why should we honor them? We’ve got more money.

He is a celebrity, a flim-flam artist, a P.T. Barnum with a mop on his head. He is really good at selling himself.  He is a political rock-star with only one love: he himself with a fist full of dollars. 

The bible has its own riches. It has a lot to say about money and deception. The evil one is a deceiver and a liar.  He’ll tell you that the only way to promote yourself or to be anything is this world is to accumulate money.  “Greed is good,” as a movie once told me. In the sermon on the mount, however,  Jesus tells us all, rich and poor alike that we must not let greed be our master. 

St. Paul concludes that it’s not money itself, but the love of money that we must avoid. “The  love of money is the root of all evil” (I Timothy 6:10).  And, as the poet says, Oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.”  (From “When I was One and Twenty,” A.E. Housman)

Eagle rising above it all. (photo credit: Rise-a-mui)

I saw a bald eagle down at the Illinois River this morning.  It was soaring on wind currents like a huge, dark kite against the hazy blue sky. This regal bird was gliding elegantly, without effort, over the river when it suddenly dove and then swooped up in a kind of salute over the river with white tail feathers lit up by the sun.   What a graceful performance!

Grace is as difficult to define as love.  But, like love, I’ll know grace when I see it.

In my college days,  I attended a concert by Artur Rubinstein. He was alone on the stage playing his Steinway. His hands danced across the keys and produced wonderful sounds that fell on my ears like gentle rain on a dry field. I soaked it up.

At the end of the announced program, Rubinstein turned from the piano bench, looked out at us and softly asked what we would like to hear.   He heard a shout out for “Moonlight Sonata.” In peaceful silence he began to play Beethoven’s score.  I actually felt like I was at Rubenstein’s shoulder watching and listening to him play.  I heard that great pianist make that wonderful sonata live again. It was a moment of grace that I will never forget.

Graceful Fingers. (photo credit: Decrand)

Some people walk with grace in their life’s journey. Their body seems to glide as they ease their steps along their path. Sometimes, even the more awkward of us can do something gracefully. You do something that’s done with class, integrity, proportion. Your graceful moment touches the rest of us with beauty.  Think of a young man holding his newborn daughter, cradling her with love. It’s a graceful moment. 

Remember when we were children and we were taught about grace?   The Catholic Church taught  us (and still teaches) that there are several kinds of grace.  We all need the first one: “sanctifying grace,” the love of God dwelling  richly in our hearts. It makes you holy, even sacred. At the moment of your Baptism you are sanctified because God’s presence becomes alive within you. You are supremely graced.

Another kind of grace is “actual grace:” the blessings that waft down on us each day, like the blessing that helps you when you pray silently an “I-need-help” prayer and you get that help. Actual grace is sometimes called “helping grace.”

Did you ever have someone tell you that your presence made them feel blessed? I hope so. I think that grace is all around us, like sunshine breaking through the clouds. We just have to be aware and recognize it when it comes. This kind of grace helps us get on with life. But, there are also moments when God touches your heart and stops you. He grabs you by the shoulder and turns you to look at something awesome, He asks you to listen carefully to something amazing.  And, as you look or listen, a silent “wow” graces your day. 

(Illustration by FiKretK) Our culture’s song of of greed.  

This morning I  decided to go McDonalds for the first time in probably two years. I was looking for a bacon-egg-and cheese  biscuit breakfast.  The ordering lane was open. Good! No line! I pulled in.

The brightly lit menu displayed  tasty, mouth-watering options like egg muffins with bacon or sausage, even pancake selections. But, wait! There were no prices next to any of the offerings. Got to be there somewhere. How much do I have to shell out for my biscuit breakfast?  Is it cheaper to order a meal or should I order my biscuit and drink separately?

I looked again.  The menu displayed different breakfast options but no prices.   Vast areas of the menu-board showed empty space where prices used to be listed. That way you don’t get to make a choice based on cost,.

I immediately smelled corporate bad breath. What a ploy! The customer will not be given any indication of price.  Whatever they want, they’ll have to pay for it and price should not enter into the decision.

A voiced popped out of the speaker asking me what I wanted. I ordered a breakfast biscuit and a drink.  Nearly eight dollars. And the breakfast sandwich was no longer topped with a pad of butter. I gulped down the dry biscuit with instant scrambled egg, sub-American cheese and a pasty breakfast sausage and a Coke….yes, a Coke.  But what I couldn’t swallow was the corporate greed that came with my breakfast.

I like vows. I made perpetual vows in the Church when I was twenty-two. From this moment on, I vow that I will not enter another McDonald’s again. I’ll make my own breakfast at home.

Is there no end to McDonald’s corporate greed and the culture of Mammon it represents? Withholding info which a customer needs to make a decision is a form of deception devised by the corporate men and women who eat their breakfasts in Hilton Hotel dining rooms.

I’m just as offended by Mickey D’s gambit as I was when ten years ago I was trying to order a drink at a nice restaurant but when I asked the waiter where the prices were he said, “Oh, we don’t list those.” I did not order a drink.

If you are reading this and thought that it was going to be a nice post on prayer or Holy Communion. I’m sorry, it’s not.  I dislike being deceived.

Deception looks the same anywhere. In corporations like McDonald’s  the tactics involve hiding or masking the truth and let customers believe what they want to as long as the corporation makes money. The principle they use is: “Greed is good!”  My Faith says the opposite.  I remember what Jesus said in Luke 12:15: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all forms of greed.” And, St. Paul who knew something of the human heart reminded Timothy (and us) that “The love of money is the root of all evil.” (I Timothy 6:10)

I have a can of Pillsbury biscuits and some eggs, a pound of bacon and cheese slices in the fridge. Next time, I’ll make my own bacon-egg-and cheese biscuit, a spitting image of McDonald’s product and avoid spending,,. eh ,,.how much?

It’s a squirrelly morning. I know what it’s thinking.

The creation story plays out each morning as I sit on my porch, listening and watching.

“And God said: Let there be light! And there was light.”

At dawn, in my neighborhood, birds wake-up chirping and singing while they search out something to eat from the bounty of God’s good earth. Do they have to be so frisky so early in the morning? I’m shuffling and foggy this morning as I grab the container of seed and open my porch door.

I’m fairly certain that the birds flitting around my deck think that I am God. Who else would feed them personally each morning?

I’m listening to cardinals fluting their melodies sharply and loudly; the house sparrows scrambling around in their own language of cheeps and twitters; plus, whistles and melodious racket from the throats of a dozen other species and soft, harp-like melodies  of  a house wren plus the annoying twangs of red-winged blackbirds. I hear the whoosh of wings, again and again this morning.

I watch as the Mourning Dove arrives with a descending melodious gargle. It stays on my porch and somehow with that long slender beak consumes the bird seed I put out on the flat railing of my deck. 

Then there’s my opening battle with the squirrels. The pair across the street live in a huge oak tree and have two little ones scurrying around with them.  Two adults make a home in the Japanese Maple in my front yard. This morning those two are scavenging crumbs from a discarded McDonald’s wrapper.

Those across the street are digging up last years acorns and squirreling around  the garbage cans which dot our street each Tuesday morning. Their life is foraging and keeping watch over their little ones. Both families also climb up to my deck and chow down the seeds that I’ve put out for the sparrows.

This is the creation story which renews itself each day. God did not wind up the clock of the universe and just put it in motion and then leave.  He is here awakening these living things with a deep down freshness that AI will never understand. Even the leaves of the bushes across the street look ready to take part in this new morning.  The light reveals their shades of green as they flutter with each soft breeze.

Each living thing is a universe of purpose and activity. Each sparrow, each cardinal, each squirrel is a new creation, every day.  And, you and I are privileged to be witnesses of the creation of God’s new day.

Don’t worry! Be happy! – A monk’s secret prayer Life.

Being aware of the presence of God throughout the entire day is the secret of living fully the Christian life. And the key to that life is listening (watching, too). 

If you get a chance, read Brother Lawrence’s “The Practice of the Presence of God.” Direct. Powerful. Beautiful. Brother Lawrence was always happy because he experienced God within him. To Brother Lawrence somberness was the enemy of true prayer. If you know that the Lord is with you, you live joyfully –no matter what!

You and I know that there is no photograph of Jesus. None of the authors of the New Testament describe him.  How do you grasp in a single image the fluidity of a person’s face, the gait, the gestures that ID someone? You can’t do it, so the evangelists did not try.

Even during Jesus’ lifetime, he left no physical impression.  Jesus could walk right by someone who should have known him from hearing him preach but few got close enough to recognize Him. The two discouraged disciples walking back to their own town seven miles from Jerusalem on Easter Sunday did not recognize him when as a stranger he joined their conversation about the suffering Messiah betrayed and crucified who was supposed to be the one who would redeem Israel (Luke),

I think that they did not recognize him because they didn’t expect him. We walk away from the grave of a loved one and the thought doesn’t enter our mind that we’d ever see that person again. The two disciples knew Jesus was dead and with Him died the hopes of the disciples.

If we Christians would just watch for Him and listen for him and if we stayed aware of his Resurrection, we could be more aware of his presence. One way is to be attentive to the needs of the poor. “As long as you did it for he least of my brethren you did it to me” (Mt 25:3-46). Our Faith teaches us to recognize Jesus in the poor.

Another gospel teaching urges us to simply stop and listen for Him at any time during the day. Jesus promised that he would be with us all days until the end of Time (Mt 29:20).

Don’t we believe Him? Don’t we expect Him?

J

The Teton Mountains seen from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. . (photo by author)

A year after I was ordained, I found myself driving to Grand Teton National Park just South of Yellowstone to spend time doing research at the New York Zoological Society’s summer station at the University of Wyoming in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Don’t be impressed. I wasn’t doing doctoral work,  I simply needed to do a research project in animal behavior to complete my master’s degree in Biology.

“What?  But, you’re a priest! Why would you be studying wildlife in Wyoming?”

Among our ministries, we Resurrectionists run schools and colleges. Like Jesuits and Franciscans ,    my congregation is an “active community.” Along with religious and catechetical subjects, we also teach secular subjects like Latin and Greek, History and Biology. We believe all truth, all knowledge leads to the wonder of God.

You, also, need to know that I am a flat-lander, Chicago born.  Although I’d spent summers in the Ozark mountains, they are really just hills as in “Them thar hills!” I had never seen a real mountain.

I was going to pass the summer in the Rocky Mountains studying several species of birds which live in a valley surrounded by mountains. The summers are short up there so I needed to arrive before the start of Spring.

It was early May and a frigid night when I arrived at the research station on a on a rainy dark night with the temperature dropping. Snow was predicted. It was pitch dark when I arrived except for my car lights and the flashlight which helped me get around.

When I pulled up to the camp, I saw an envelope taped to the gate. It contained a note telling me where my cabin was and a key that opened the gate and the door to my cabin. The flashlight lit my way until I found cabin sixteen.

I’d driven nearly ten hours that day through storms in Colorado and Wyoming. I was beat. There must have been  mountains but I couldn’t see them.  It was overcast and rainy all day. I got into my sleeping bag and settled in for the night, totally unaware of my surroundings. And, I was alone.

I awoke the next morning to bright light shining through my cabin window. I could see that it had snowed maybe 6 or 8 inches. I dressed and opened a can of coke. I put on my shoes and prepared to check out where I was. I opened the door and the sight took my breath away. There, glistening and gigantic were the Teton Mountains covered in fresh snow.  The unexpected scene awed me in its silent immensity. Beauty and wonder filled my soul.

I’ve prayed the opening line of Psalm 121 for most of my life: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains from whence comes my help.” But that morning those words poured out of my heart.

Bishop Barron says that the quickest way to insight into God is the way of beauty. In beauty and wonder  we can discover the existence of God. We also begin to grasp how wonderful he must be.

I’m sure you have experienced wonder, even awe at an unexpected moment in your life.  Maybe like me you saw a mountain, or a flower blooming, or met someone who completely captivated you. You were stunned by beauty. Your being opened in wonder. It was an amazing kind of grace that suddenly and unsuspectedly fell on you, as it did on me that May morning when I saw mountains for the first time.

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It’s the Sunday morning after Jesus was hung on the cross and died. There had been no time to prepare the body for proper burial so He was kept in a secure tomb until after the Sabbath. The Sabbath rest was strictly observed – no work. And, so, Jesus’s body was placed in a temporary crypt belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.

Mary Magdalen arrived at the tomb early Sunday morning, planning to prepare the body for permanent burial. She sees the stone that had sealed the tomb rolled back and thinks that the body had been moved or worse, stolen. She hurries back to tell the apostles. Peter and John run to the sepulcher and find the tomb, empty. They are stunned.  There is no body and the burial wrappings are neatly folded on a ledge. They return to tell the other disciples this startling news.

The disciples listen and are in great confusion, sad and angry that someone did this. It’s a desecration. Meanwhile Mary Magdalen starts to hurry back to the burial site and on the way she encounters Jesus. Then she returns to the place where the disciples were hiding with further news: “I have seen the Lord!”

Some of the disciples began to remember what Jesus had told them on the night of the Last Supper:
“Set your troubled hearts at rest. Trust God. Trust also in me. I am going to leave you but I go to prepare a place for you that where I am you also will be.” None of them understood what he was saying then, but now it’s as if they can hear his words echoing from the rocky walls of the sepulcher: “Trust Me.”

Those words are meant for us, too. “Trust me!” Trust Him to guide you when you need that the most. When bad things happen an when you are afraid and when your hope is crumbling. When your soul is cold and empty. When you look inside your heart and listen and find only stillness.  Then remember His words: “Trust Me.”

And, wait for the “third day.”

The Seven Stars of the Big Dipper. (Wikipedia,)

When I was about fifteen years old, I was on a long night-time car ride from Chicago to the Northern Wisconsin town of Eau Claire.  There was very little traffic at that time of night. My uncle was driving  and other than our headlight beams, it was pitch dark and after  a couple of hours our conversation drifted to silence.

Soon I was slouched up front dozing. It had been a long day. After a while, I  opened my eyes and there it was. I didn’t have to move my head. Looking through the windshield, I saw a grouping of stars that I’d heard about  but never seen.  When I saw the formation, I knew immediately what it was: “The Big Dipper!”

I grew up in Chicago where even on clear nights, just a few stars were visible. The ambient light of the big city washes out the clarity of the night sky. Now, unmistakably hung there in the Wisconsin sky was a wonder, a surprise design left for me to discover.

I didn’t impose it. The Big Dipper spread out before me like a gift or grace from God.  It was just a wonder there for me to to recognize.  Sure, I know the Creator did not manage the arrangement of these particular stars so that I could discern a water scoop. “The Big Dipper” is one name for a pattern we think we see in the night sky. Other cultures, the Greeks, for example, call it “The Seven Oxen.”

Ever since that night the magnificence of the stars stays with me. It was years later in the Missouri Ozarks that I lay down in an open field on a clear night and saw the Milky Way for the first time, the myriad of stars sprinkled from one end of the sky to the other. Wonder and surprise flooded my heart, again. And, I wondered how people could say that there is no God.