Emptiness

Emptiness is not nothing.

Emptiness is a void, the fullness of loss. We know this to be true when we experience any loss, the greater the loss, the deeper the absence.

Emptiness is not a quantity but a quality. Emptiness is more like the impact of volume, that is, the "weight of" something missing not the "accumulation of" something lost. Emptiness is something more than we can handle because that some thing/one lost became part of us and now we are lacking.

This is why darkness is often associated with emptiness. The lack of light in space leaves a void of what we perceive as nothing but that darkness is truly the void of light, and we experience something real in the absence of light, we experience darkness as empty space, a void of lacking that what is necessary for living.

Christ calls us to be children of the light because we are to be filled with the Spirit of God. We belong to God the Father. Just as the Son and the Father are one, we too are to be one in the Son through the Spirit.

There is no emptiness in God, no void, for God is Light, God is Love. And in Him who is All in all, we shall never be empty.

This Cup of Pain

Until recently,  I never truly understood the heart-wrenching scene at the Garden of Gathesemane. And perhaps I still don't, yet I believe I do understand a bit more because of recent events.

Jesus enters the garden with three prominent disciples of his, Peter, James, and John. Jesus goes off to be in prayer and we learn from the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the following:

Then [Jesus] said to [Peter, James, and John], “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me.” He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:38-39).

Jesus pleads three times for the Father to let this cup pass if it be His will. Yet the Father permits this Cup of Pain to remain. While in the garden, Jesus experienced such pain that tears of blood ran down His face. He then endured the greatest pains of human existence: the pain of the Cross: betrayal, rejection, humiliation, torture, and finally execution. 

Bizarre yet brilliant how God's plan unfolds in the Passion of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Father permits pain to remain, even for His beloved Son, so that we may understand the depths of His sacrificial and redemptive love for us. God suffers like we suffer, separated from Himself just as we are separated from Him. Only because God is Trinity can this be possible. Only through God witnessing to us the reality of the worse pain, separation from Him, can we acknowledge the source of all pain.

Pain is never the root cause but always a symptom--an outward sign of something within. Scripture teaches us that the root cause of pain is sin, and its ultimate root cause is evil. Just as God permits pain, He permits sin and evil, not because He desires evil upon us, but because He desires us to turn away from sin and return back to Him. So the pain we experience in this earthly life reminds us that there is something wrong with us: We are not with God as He created us to be. We do not love as we ought. God created us for Love and the path to return to Love is that Way of the Cross, which always includes this Cup of Pain. We must acknowledge this Cup of Pain, accept it so as to accept the reality that we are not fully with God.

The Church teaches that there is such a thing called material evil (CCC 309-311). The existence of material evil explains the mortality of our bodies and by extension our physical, emotional, and mental brokenness. Sadly we continue to deny the fragility of our existence. Modern science profits on the continuous denial of our fragility, brokenness, and mortality. In doing so, we now seek to self-identify as anything but mortal, fragile, or broken. 

We seek not redemption but renewal. We seek this modernist, renewed identity that continues to seek not the Will of the Father but our own will. And this is contrary to who we are.

We are not made for ourselves, but for God. We are in a "state of journeying" (CCC 310). God permits the Cup of Pain to remain until we are fully with God in eternity. 

Be a Servant, Else Be Damned

God has always been clear on what this life is for and how to live it. You are to be the servant He calls you to be, else be damned to an everlasting life without Him.

If you find these words too harsh, then your heart is hardened to authentic love and you are deaf to His Word. Our modern-day, self-identify, twisted form of love is not true love. Authentic love is what each of us so desperately needs and wants because . . . God, who is Love, created each of us out of love and for love, in His image and likeness. This is ever clear in His Word.

Jesus tells us to love one another as He loves us. The Church teaches us that to love is to will the good of the other. So how does true love translate in today's terms? It doesn't. And that's our biggest problem. 

Unless we align our understanding of love to God's definition, we shall be damned to an eternal life without love, without God. The more we turn inward, the more we demand to define love according to our ways. Thus the further we distance ourselves from God, from love, the closer we find ourselves to eternal damnation.

Today, Original Sin is playing out masterfully, just as the Evil One has orchestrated, and too many in society play along. There is nothing beautiful about self-defined ideology. The vileness of self-identity is at the heart of today's major crisis. It masks itself as self-love, but under that mask is emptiness. Returning to Love, Divine Love, is what we need to resolve every crisis. Authentic love is the Light of Love, the eternal grace of Love Himself. God's love is our redemption. Since we are created in His image and likeness, then we need no mask. We need only to recognize ourselves as God sees us, to love as He loves us.

Love is serving God first and foremost. We are to be His servants at all times, seeking always His will. In seeking, we shall find because God is ever-present, always waiting, with arms wide opened, ready to embrace us. If we abide in Him, we live in Love. If we turn away from Him, we reject Love. So be His servant, else be damned.

Growing Taller in Spiritual Gravity

The song "Feel It All" by Chance Pena was unlikely written about his relationship with God, however, it was written about mine. The key lyrical line is "You're my ceiling and I've grown too tall." So what am I feeling? All of what?

I am feeling all the weight of Goodness. This is for me what spiritual gravity is--the weight of goodness that allows me to stand tall, yet is often unbearable because I cannot stand alone. This is the ceiling for which God calls me to constantly seek. A ceiling that calls me to grow ever taller, always taller. The taller I grow the more I feel all the weight of God's Goodness. His goodness is too much for me. Not because I am unworthy, the exact opposite. God knows I am worthy. I believe that I am worthy because He walks with me, never leaving my side, always holding me up. His Goodness is my cross to bear.

At first thought, I told myself how could this even be? This makes no sense. What a paradox. The spiritual gravity of Goodness is what allows me to stand yet as the gravity increases, I experience a weight too unbearable to stand on my own. This is why grace is required.

Imagine trying to stand on a planet with ten times the gravity of Earth? No one could stand without some kind of assistance such as a technological modification. Well, if I am to bear this weight of spiritual gravity that comes with Heaven, then I must feel it all, all the Goodness of God, and bear the weight of that Cross.

This is my vocation, as what many friends have called me, "the perfect husband." This is the unique name for me of "feeling it all." This is that weight of this expectation, my spiritual gravity, my cross of Goodness that God has given me to carry. The Beauty of this Goodness is that as husband I require my wife. By definition I must have a companion, I require a partner (again), but not just anyone. My unique vocation is a lifelong partnership with another of the other sex who is my complement. This is God's plan for marriage, the reality of the sacramental nature of marital unity, and His plan for my vocation, again.

I have my own cross as well as her cross, and the cross of our family together. The weight of spiritual gravity has quadrupled, and yet I continue to stand taller, taller for her child, taller for her, taller for myself, and taller for God.

Everyday, every hour, every minute, and every moment I feel it all, all of the gravity, and I continue to grow taller thanks be to God.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Evidence of Our Fallen Nature

Psychologists call it "negative bias." That is, we tend to focus on the negatives in life or our attention finds easiest to dwell on the negative. This is clear evidence to me that we have a fallen nature in need of redemption. We know we need the good but we tend to focus on the negative. And many of us take a lifetime working on doing good and avoiding evil. Life is indeed difficult. 

Saint Paul writes to the Christian community in Rome about our fallen nature and negative bias like this:

"The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if [I] do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand" (Romans 7:18-21).

This whole negative bias becomes even more evident when experiencing the death of a loved one. Grief nevers ends because the love of the one lost is never gone. Love remains because authentic love is eternal.

[Let us pause here with an interlude to illustrate the point. ]

How blind am I, O Lord!

Narrow is my vision

For your power is beyond

Even my imagination. 

Arrogance and ignorance are my strengths

When I consider your ways, O Lord.

Pain takes over, and

Grace must overcome.

In grief, I proclaimed

You caused her death

When I cried, "How could you let this happen! Why Lord? O why?

As if Your plan for her and I

Could be thwarted by Death!

Death has no victory over You.

But it had conquered me in that moment, not her.

Your power moves beyond Death

As my power was consumed in Death.

The plan for her and I is always Yours, even beyond Death.

Your plan for her and I never ceased to be

Yet blinded by Death even before she left me

To be eternally Yours.

Continue to work in me, O Lord

Beyond this Death!

Let your plan for her and I remain in me as I remain in You.

Let your plan move beyond Death into another her for me.

Let me remain in You as I was in her and shall be for another her.

Together then we remain in one another beyond Death and into Eternal Life.

[Now we return to our reflection on grief and our fallen nature.]

In our earthly, fallen existence, love manifests in grief because the doing good (focusing on the positive and good memories) is not readily at hand. Memories of what is lost and thoughts of what can never be are the negative biases we easily hold onto. And that to me is evidence of our fallen nature.

Yet as Saint Paul and countless other saints remind us: God is good. Redemption is at hand. Grace is abundant. And Victory over Death is Christ's and for those who follow Him.

Grief is not evil, nor a sinful act. Grief however is a sign of our fallen nature AND a sign of redemption if we place our grief with Christ's grief. Yes, Jesus grieved not because He is fallen but because He loved. Christ shows us the way through grief and out of negative bias; out of sin and death and into grace and eternal life. Just as Jesus was baptized though without sin, Jesus too grieved though without a fallen nature. He is the Way of Redemption. 

Christ shows us how grief can be sacramental, a sign of redemption. If we place our sufferings with those of Christ's, then our tears are joined with His. United with Christ, our cleansing tears become sacramental, a loving sign of redeeming grace. Our tears of a grace-filled grief heal our fallen nature according to the Law of Love. In that darkness of death, we are transformed by the Light of Life. Grief may remain in the shadows, but love eternal bonds us to hope everlasting. 

This is why Catholics pray for the faithful departed. We pray to remain with those departed yet destined for Heaven. We pray as part of the Communion of Saints here on Earth and with those in Heaven. We believe grief united with grace brings hope of redemption and eventually eternal life with God and the saints.

Life after Death

In the Wrath of Kahn, perhaps the greatest Star Trek film of the franchise, James T. Kirk (now Admiral Kirk) enters the new Enterprise for the first time. Kirk is greeted by Captain Spock and responds with a notable quip, "Yes, we've been through death and life together." This reference to the movie's opening scene of the Kobyashi Maru test has been for me a kergymatic inspiration of recent.

Is this not the primary kergyma of the Gospel? That each of us has in one way or another been through death and life together, in Christ.

Is this not our shared reality? We all have been thru life and death together, even a child knows this from the feelings of loss and abandonment. Such for a child is an experience of death. And the loving embrace or uplifting smile of a caregiver is an experience of life, even if just an instance or glimmer.

We need to acknowledge more often that our shared experiences of the Gospel is that "we have been through death and life together." For in Christ we have access to the New Eden. In Christ, we experience a rebirth from death, a true Genesis experience, not made of human innovation but made of divine salvation. Christ saves us from death, that is, He gifts us the freedom to live eternally. And here on Earth, we are graced with a taste or glimpse of that abundant life.

Going much deeper into my personal experience, I experienced the death of my first wife after 25 years together. Yet by God's grace, I was able to experience again the joy of life with my wife and her adopted son. Overwhelmed by God's love for me, I am experiencing the abundance of joy in a new way that I could never have imaged.

Life after death is a strange experience when you remain living in our fallen yet redeemed corporeal reality. I am alive after experiencing the death of my spouse. The death of a spouse is the closest one can experience his or her own death, if you believe and have lived a marriage in which the two become one, as I have.

I am no longer who I was, yet that part of me who does remain has been forever formed by who I was because of having been her husband. I became the man I am today because of her being in my life. Because she and I became one flesh. She more than any other person beside myself made me the man I am today. Furthermore, I am still influenced by her because I know she still lives, not just in the memories of those who knew her and loved her. She remains in my life because she is with God, and God is with me, and I in them. We are in communion.

So life after death is possible because of God and His grace that dwells within us and among us, bringing us together from death to life.

Womb of the Spirit

A reflection upon John 3:1-15

Just as a child of flesh enters into this world through the womb of Woman, so too a child of spirit enters into the Church through the womb of the Spirit. 

The child of flesh and the child of spirit is the one same child of God, a person of body and soul, birthed and baptized. This is why every baptismal font must remind us of the womb of Woman AND the womb of the Spirit. For life in the spirit begins through being born through the womb of the Spirit just as life in the flesh begins through being born through the womb of Woman. 

The Spirit is the spirit of Life and Mary, woman of Woman, is the Mother of the Church. For Mary in her perfect faith said yes to God's plan of Salvation. Like no other person and according to divine providence, Mary was born of flesh and born of spirit from her beginning. Thus we believe in her immaculate conception because she from conception is full of grace. Mary truly is the New Eve, the Woman of Creation, who brought forth the Son of God into this world for the Salvation of all, just as the Church is called forth to do. 

The Church looks to Mary, Mother of the Church, on how to bring forth new life in the Spirit, but not because of human efforts. The Church can bring forth life in the Spirit only because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which makes us, the Church, the Temple of God. To see the actions of the Church as anything but of feminine origin denies her life-giving mission. The Church is Mother because she is that vessel through whom all who are just of flesh are born again in the Spirit. This is why the Church recognizes a person as a child of God only after baptism. For Christ himself said that only those born of both water and Spirit may enter the kingdom of God (see John 3:5).

The Son of Man is the One who gives us the Way for every child of God to be fully human, that is full of grace. Mary was simply the first fully human according to God's plan, the New Eve.

Though the Son of Man is first the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is fully human and fully divine, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He was sent by the Father to give us the Spirit, through whom all children become of God, that is, become fully who are to be, full of grace according to His plan. 

May we all cherish the womb of Woman so we may cherish the womb of the Spirit. In the Womb, may all be born and baptized in the one Spirit. 

Left Undone

We are all probably familiar with the maxim, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 

I do believe that the evil in the world is often the good left undone. This is of our own doing, of course. We should never blame some twisted serpent tempting us to do what we know is wrong or don't do what we know is right. We do know the difference between good and evil, we just continually seek to be that sole arbiter and source of truth. Thus we continue to have the moral relativistic mess we live in. Again, all of this is of our own doing and will be our undoing, if we do not accept the truth of who God created us to become.

There are too many sins of commission to list in the history of us. We can confess away our sins of the past. Yet if we remain repeat offenders, then we ought not be surprised by our culture--a culture of consumption instead of generosity, a culture of me instead of we, a culture of death instead of life. 

But what of those sins we ignore or deny? What of our sins of omission and of the good left undone?

In the Episcopal Church, there is a beautiful line in their Prayer of Confession:

"Most merciful God,

we confess that we have sinned against you

in thought, word, and deed,

by what we have done,

and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart;

we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

have mercy on us and forgive us;

that we may delight in your will,

and walk in your ways,

to the glory of your Name. Amen."

"By what we have done, and by what we have left undone" echoes its inherited Catholic teaching on the sins of commission and the sins of omission. Yet I wonder how many Catholics, Anglicans, and Episcopalians, let alone other Christians, give serious attention to the good we leave undone.

In my line of work, we are highly sensitive to parental fatigue, especially the anxiety from all of the decisions parents face. We tell ourselves, How can we handle any more, let alone all the good left undone? There is just too much, right?

Wrong. The more we allow good to be undone, the more troubling decisions we will continue to face, and the more anxiety, stress, and fatigue awaits us in our future. This is not about making more decisions. This is about always making the right decisions when the good is before us. The good begs of us not to be left undone. We know this to be true because God gave even those who do not believe, a conscience and free will. The good is always there to be done. 

This will not be easy. Life is difficult. Whoever told you otherwise, lied or left that good truth untold. You are likely to be persecuted at some point or feel the weight of your cross as a result of repeatedly doing the good. That burden you feel is the good waiting to be done. 

Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, "Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched" (Spe salvi 33). The Pope continues to teach about God increasing our desire to receive God. The Pope is teaching us that grace is necessary, that is, God's presence in our lives is required to do good in this world, and prayer is a primary means to purify and prepare our hearts to stretch and be filled by He who frees us from the "illusion of innocence" and from the "numbness of my conscience."

Prayer enables us to be "ministers of hope" in which we witness to the world the goodness of God, despite the evil, sin, and pain that clearly exists. We leave the good left undone because we believe our hearts are full, which is a lie we tell ourselves to excuse us from the good left undone. Our hearts are never full because God created us to be filled, to be ever filled by His grace, which is boundless.

God created you and I preciously, that is, precisely for His grace. Only by our cooperation with God will the good be done. That is why we pray, "Thy will be done." We pray for God's will be done through us. We pray to stretch our hearts so that no good is left undone.

Encourage one another to always becoming ministers of hope, the hope that comes from believing. We are called in faith to trust that our hearts continue to be stretched. To believe that we continue to be filled with the everlasting love of God so that good always be done, according to His will.

Our Lady of Untier of Knots, pray for us.

The Cold January

January is cold.

Why must I wake up?

The air is dry.

The wind cuts thru to my bones.

I am blinded by the diffused light.

Why must I wake up?

January is cold.

Why must I wake up?

The warmth of this bed keeps me lying where I am.

My stiff body doesn't want to move.

Why must I wake up?

January is cold.

Why must I wake up?

I want to stay here, dreaming of Summers past.

Here remembering you with me, when we were together. 

Here is where I belong.

Yet here is no more.

Why must I wake up?

January is cold.

Stop Chasing

Our dog, Wonka, who is predominantly Jack Russell is notorious for bolting out the front door if left open. Too many times, someone left the door opened or wasn't paying attention when leaving. Wonka dashes out and next thing I know I am looking for my lost dog.

This got me wondering what is he chasing out there. I don't think Wonka even knows what or why he chases. Some might say it is his animal instincts. I see it as a lack of discipline. Perhaps it is both.

How many of us are like Wonka? How many of us lack the discipline to stop chasing? How many of us blame it on that's just how God made me? How many of us feel lost once we realize we too have bolted out the door, chasing that someone or something we think we need but just desire at that animalistic level?

Well God has something to say to us. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, goes after the one lost sheep. Yet why did the sheep leave the flock in the first place? I suppose the sheep lost focus, was distracted by the chase, and before realizing it, is lost. If we just stop chasing, maybe we will find what or who we truly need.

Flesh in Love

When you realize how precious this life really is, you live differently. You understand time is precious and all earthly things are fleeting. Yet life in the flesh does not stop there. God became Man.

What is most important is feeling it all in the flesh because that is the fullness of this earthly existence. This has little to do with carnal knowledge (because that is fleeting) and has most to do with bodily expressions of authentic love (because that is lasting). This is more than Christian anthropology. This is about each of us becoming who God created, feeling it all around and all beyond.

"Feeling it all" is a truly sacramental encounter. This is ultimately about an incarnational experience in which the authenticity of human nature reciprocates its genuine dignity with divine love.

You feel it all because Love has transfigured you. You abide in the divine presence, which is beyond self. You seek the divine in the present moment. You truly love. You experience God. And then you want to remain in Love. You seek shelter in Him who is Being With. You believe you are God's beloved. This is who God made you to be, a person being in a communion of love.

When you surrender all to God, you are not left with nothing but have everything. You feel it all because this life in the here and now is not enough, yet too much to handle alone. And that's the key.

God created us to be in communion. Yet we struggle to understand this. We struggle to appreciate and too often confuse communion with a contract instead of a covenant. This is the great biblical lesson that is dearly missed by today's modern relativistic mindset. A communion of persons in love is one of self-giving, not one of mutual exchange. A communion of persons in love is one of self-sacrifice, not one of equality or even equity. 

Communion is so foreign to our fallen nature that the primacy of grace is required to empower the genuine human being of self. You understand when you have lost all and surrendered everything to God. It is only then that you gain beyond measure. The most common experience of this is Music when it touches the heart. You gain a glimpse of Communion when you experience and understand music as moving you beyond self to being with.

This is the Paschal Mystery that is for us, flesh in life, "real presence." Your old self must die to be reborn to new self. You must empty yourself in flesh to be resurrected in a new body. You must be incarnated sacramentally. And Christ is the only model. God became man so you and I might become Christ to one another. In Him, who is Lord, we are servants to one another.

Your body is essential to your soul, else God would not have become Man, nor would have taken on and conquered Death in bodily way. Only the mortal body can overcome Death and be resurrected. Therefore you incarnate must fully experience death to enter Eternal Life. Yet never alone. To pass through death, you must die in Christ. There is no other way to rise in eternal life.

Sacramental Eyes

To see with a sacramental view is an essential and basic aspect of being Catholic, not just living but being. But too often we do not see as we ought, as God intended us to see.

Sin blinds us. Grace clears our vision.

To see with sacramental eyes leads naturally to wonder and awe because you see mystery not to be solved but to be embraced.

To see the world thru a sacramental perspective opens the mind and heart to have encounters of love with God, self, and others because you see God incarnate and you see the image of God in every person. And then everything can be experienced as a matter of grace.

To love thy neighbor as thyself requires sacramental eyes.

To tend the garden given to us by God requires sacramental eyes.

To forgive others as you have been forgiven and to love even your enemies requires sacramental eyes.

To have sacramental eyes is to see how God truly created all and everything, out of nothing and from self-giving love.

To love as God loves us requires a sacramental view of reality.

Forged by Divine Fire

The more I concentrate on God forging me by the fire of His Love the stronger I feel internally.

My desire is not to be just heated metal. Yes, hardened by hammering molten metal but not so much where eventually light reflects off some shiney surface to blind others. The metal forged within me by divine fire is to frame something great.

My deeper desire is to be like glass blown by the breath of God. To be transluent for His light. May His fire form the rest of me so that the Light of His Love beams through my core. May I be also blown glass so that others see the colors of God's love refracting off me. This is something truly great.

I want to be a lantern of God's Love. Framed by strong metal holding together vulnerable glass which allows His Light to shine through and out. Both metal and glass are necessary for this lantern. Both forged by divine fire separately so they can come together as one for His purpose.

And this is how each of us is prepared and how a loving relationship is formed. Strong enough to embrace your beloved in every need, yet vulnerable enough for your beloved to enter into your inner sanctuary whether the light is dim or bright.

How do you know if he or she is your beloved? He or she risks being a lantern of God's Love with you.

Crossing the Bridge

I am crossing the bridge between surviving and thriving. Over the past year I have been living the life of a surviving spouse. I never had given that label much thought prior to the passing of my wife. When I first came across this label applied to me, I resisted it and resented it, understandably so. I felt like I had not survived anything. I was devasted by the loss of my wife. Not until the aftermath of the shock had I begun to understand the survival mode involved in the grieving process. 

I was definitely surviving once the shock began to lessen. I began to survive minute by minute, then hour by hour, and then day by day. Even after more than a year, there are days where I am just surviving with my tears of mourning.

Those days have begun to occur with less frequency. So I have reflected on how this has occurred. Yes, time is a factor, but time alone does not heal. Time does allow for healing, but the real healing begins because of hope entering into one's heart. This light of hope in my heart comes from my Christian faith, no doubt. Yet this faith cannot exist in isolation.

I cannot live my life of faith alone. Honestly I do not know how anyone can live alone in this world. God created us to be for one another. Even God himself is not alone. God is the perfect communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God. That is, I am to be in communion with other people. My family, friends, and faith community support me and accompany me along my way.

Because I have this strong conviction to the vocation of being a husband again, God calls me to be in an intimate communion with my next beloved woman of God. The hope I see in this vocation is the light on the other side of this bridge that I am walking, from a life of surviving to a life of thriving. I am eager to return to such a life.

I know first hand what such a thriving life of a husband is like. I once had that life. Yet I am not seeking that exact life again, not at all. The woman whom God is preparing for me is not the same woman who was my wife. This is why I must trust that God is making me ready for her, my new beloved. He is preparing us so that together we may thrive according to his will, not ours.

I walk this bridge, not alone, but with two women. First I continue to walk with my first wife who has passd this earthly existence into the next. She remains in my heart for all eternity. Our love remains an essential part of me. The other woman on this bridge is my future beloved whom God is making ready for me. She too is with me, but veiled. God will reveal us to one another when he has made us ready, at his time and in his way.

If we cross this bridge too quickly, I could miss her or she could miss me. God wants us to know one another as beloveds so we must trust that he walks with us too on this journey to one another. God desires for us to meet on the other side of this bridge where we will thrive together in love, joy, and peace. This is where my trust rest, on this bridge from surviving to thriving where God walks with us, never alone, always together.

Suffering without Children

God reveals to us that children are a great blessing to a married couple. They are also a great blessing to the world. This there is no doubt.

What of those married couples who are unable to conceive children? What of those married couples who struggle to conceive and in that painful struggle were unable to remain married?

What of those married couples who so desired to have children and in their hour of greatest need did conceive but loss the baby?

What of those married couples who tried earnestly to have children in every ethical and moral way yet were never blessed so?

To suffer through life without children is a daily reminder that God, the Author of Life, denies you this great blessing. There is no poorer soul than the person who understands such a blessing, desires to be blessed, yet remains without child.

This poverty remains when the married person is no longer married due either to death or divorce. This poverty continues to be a source of great suffering. The no-longer-married person continues to see others who are married, widowed, or divorced relate to one another through their common bond of children.

Let me offer my own personal example. I, a widower, attend a grief support group. The table at which I sit has others like me who have lost a spouse unexpectedly. This group of men and women are a beautiful testimony of faith in their sufferings. We support and lift each other up in ways that only we understand. Yet I sit there uniquely alone because I am the only person without children. This has been the story of my married life and continues to be my story as a widower. I suffer in my poverty of not having the blessing of children.

During grief support, not a conversation happens without one of them speaking of the blessing of their children. What I hear is the blessing but I also hear, "Yes, I lost my spouse but at least I have my children."

I do not resent anyone who has children. I am happy for them because I do understand that children are a great blessing. This is why I suffer. I understand and desire, yet remain without.

I also belong to a wonderful, truly wonderful, small faith community at my church. All of them with the exception of myself and one other person have children. And to no surprise, conversations frequently center on or are redirected to the blessing of their children. I am sincerely happy for them and again feel no resentment toward any of them. Yet I sit there again suffering without children.

I work for a publishing company in which the vast majority of our products focus on children, are for families with children, school programs for children, or parish programs for all ages of children. The majority of my job has been to develop products for the benefit of children. This has been a tremendous blessing in my life. Yet this can be and has been painful. Part of me has adapted to the reality of suffering without children just so I can survive, cope, and hopefully joyfully live in the moment.

So many conversations and moments in life rightfully focus on children. My family, whom I love dearly, continues because of children. Framed photos of children are displayed in our homes, rightfully honoring the blessing of children and grandchildren. All three of my brothers are married with children. My nieces and nephews are a tremendous blessing to me and was to my wife when we were together. When we realized that God was not going to bless us with children of our own, we decided to be the best uncle and aunt we could be to our nieces and nephews. Again I love and cherish each one of them as a great blessing in my life. Yet I have not experienced the beautiful messiness of raising and caring for childen. So I have never been called, Daddy.

I have found that if I can apply my Christian faith of embracing poverty then the sting of my suffering is less painful. Yet there is only so much a Christian widower with no children can offer on the Cross of Christ. I feel like that I have literally offered up everything of my life. At some point, if everything meaningful in life is placed on the Cross, what is one left with? Lord, shall I remain crucified? Perhaps that is God's plan for me thus far. I know there is great hope and await for God to bless me. So in my poverty, I wait for my resurrection in prayer.

The Grief of God

If grief is the price of love and God is love, how God must grieve! Is this not the essence of the Cross of Christ?

When you see the blood and water flow forth from the side of Christ, know that the blood comes from every broken heart and the water from all the crying eyes in the world. If we seek unconditional love and eternal life, then we need to say yes Lord to His Love. We need to say, Jesus I trust in You.

The Church teaches us to offer up our sufferings to God and place them on the Cross. This is not a situation of misery loves company. This is the only way our sufferings can be redemptive. We must learn to grieve with God so He who is love can fully embrace us even in our sufferings. That full embrace of God is only possible if we let God embrace us. He can never force his love on us, nor can we fully receive his love unless we say yes to God.

I need to accept all that God has planned for me, even when that includes the sufferings of this earthly life. I need to accept that in this earthly existence life is fragile and love can be lost. This does not mean life is without meaning nor love is without significance. The opposite is true. The meaning of life is known when we sacrifice for love. This sacrifice is not denying nor ignoring one's own needs. The opposite is true. Sacrificing for love is offering the full, sincere gift of self to another whom God has given as one's beloved. Just as Christ has done for me, I am called to do same for another, for my beloved.

Your beloved may be your spouse, your sibling, or your closest of friends. Your beloved is that one person in your life whom you can be your truest self. Your beloved is the one with whom you can be in that most vulnerable space as you offer yourself as a sincere gift, trusting that your beloved accepts all of you.

This is what God has done for us. He offers Himself, fully vulnerable, as the most sincere gift to us. When we sin, we reject God in his vulnerable, sincere gift of self. In sin, we reject God's love. In our sins, God grieves because He is to be our most beloved of all beloveds.

I imagine God grieves in my rejection, neglect, or loss of His love. Knowing the pain of grieving personally, I vow every moment to love God evermore. I know that I will fail at times, but in sickness and in health, I vow still the same to love. I ask for his mercy and forgiveness when I fail to love Him as He deserves.

In my own grieving, I realize evermore the depths of God's love for me. Not because I grieve like God, but because God grieves ever the more than I could possibly imagine. God's love is greater than my best love, His grieving is beyond what I can comprehend. The price of His love is The Cross where Love becomes redemptive and salvfic, where Life has meaning.

In this earthly life, love and grief will always be intimately connected just as life and pain are connected. Yet with God's grace, his plan for love and life is worth the grief and pain. This life in Christ is worth every painful experience, worth every grieving moment. Why? Because unconditional love and eternal life are worth the price, which Christ has already paid.

Grow In Love

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples,

"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;

so ask the master of the harvest

to send out laborers for his harvest."

--Matthew 9:37-38

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,

"Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.

Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

--Matthew 10:5-7

Jesus said to his Apostles:

"As you go, make this proclamation:

'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'

Cure the sick, raise the dead,

cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

--Matthew 10:7-8

These pasaages come from a few Gospel readings during the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time. Reflecting on these passages, I am led to consider Jesus' message for me today. What can I learn from what Christ is teaching his chosen twelve? What is God teaching me?

Seems to me that Christ is demonstrating how to grow in love when proclaiming the Gospel. So I want to apply his way of growing in love to my life. Since I am called to witness for Christ, my life must be a gospel proclamation.

The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few. Go to the lost sheep.

Cure, raise, cleanse, and drive out.

So what do these have to do with my life as a gospel proclamation? What meaning do these have for a life of growing in love?

Those in need of love are many, abundant. Yet those who labor in love like God are few, only the chosen.

Those chosen who seek to love like God are sent out to love the world. They need to seek to love first those lost like they once were. That is, the chosen are to first love family, friends, and close loved ones. In this way, the chosen are tested, grounded, and strengthen in the way of God's love. You and I, if chosen, are called to something greater than ourselves and beyond our own abilities. 

When you encounter your lost loved ones in need of God's love, be sure to love them by curing them from what prevents them from accepting the ultimate cure of God's love. How do we cure them? You walk with them in truth and in love, inviting them to receive the merciful love of God's grace in the sacraments. You and I are not the cure, God is. You and I are not even the doctors, God is the Divine Physician. We are only messengers of God healing grace.

God calls us to cleanse our lost loved ones of what blocks or covers over love. This most likely means we need to meet them where they are, even if things get messy. We must be willing to enter into their messy lives without judgment by bringing forth the memories of messiness from our own lives. The cleansing is not about pointing out their faults, nor our own, necessarily. This cleansing is about being vulnerable together before God. We are called to demonstrate to them how we were cleansed ourselves so they can see in us the truth, beauty, and goodness of God. We need to empathize with them by sharing our own stories and listening to theirs. We must keep the memory alive of how we were cleansed by the redemption of Jesus Christ.

God also calls us to raise up our lost loved one. How do we raise them up? We never give up on them. We walk with them. We are there when they need us most. We encourage them when they are down. We hold them up when they are weak. We embrace them when they are in pain. We even carry them when they can no longer move. We are to be Christ to them so they know that they are seen, that they belong, and that they are loved even in their weaknesses and sins.

God calls us to stay with our lost loved ones until the light of love drives out the darkness within, driven out enough so they who were once lost, may shine with God's love for others in the darkness. In this way, the light of God's love will take root and bloom.

The darkness that prevents, blocks, ignores, or neglects love is more like the soil in which the seed of God's love is planted. This is a matter of perspective. What seems to prevent or block may in truth be nutrients that strengthen instead. What seems to ignore or neglect may in truth be spacing between waterings. Again, this is a matter of perspective, a perspective that calls for growth. And in order for growth to happen, we need one another, we need to be like a garden where God tends the soil of our souls.

For the lost loved ones the darkness is overwhelming, but God's consuming love in our fallen yet redeemed world is greater. We cannot overcome the darkness alone. We need one another to ground us in the truth and be beacons in the darkness, helping one another to make it thru the storms. Yet though dark storms may overwhelm us in the moment, the rains that come in these storms can cleanse us, if we open up ourselves to God's grace and plan for our lives.

In the storms of our lives, love is often planted. Love needs patience to grow within. Within that darkness, love is germinating, taking root, feeling the warmth of the Holy Spirit. That dark warmth is nurturing the roots before the flower can bloom. This can be painful, and often is. That is what growing pains are.

This is not a process that can be rushed, pushed, or falsely fabricated. This I know too well. Therefore time is necessary for us to grow in love, if we are to flower and bloom as God desires for us. To grow in love takes a lifetime.

Simple, Not Easy

Life is simple.

This doesn't mean life is easy.

Life is difficult,

But the choices are clear.

And timing is key.

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once said:

"Patience is not an absence of action;

rather it is "timing." It waits on the right time to act, for the right principles, and in the right way."

Patience is a struggle, at least for me, because patience is all about timing. And my timing has not been good, thus I struggle mightily in telling a joke. I am learning that I need to be patient, or more specifically I need to trust in God's timing.

In a relationship, patience with one another requires clear, effective communication to be synchronized or in harmony with your beloved. And this is best achieved when both are trusting in God's plan for them.

This is where the analogy of dancing makes so much sense to me, despite being a terrible dancer. The couple dancing must not only trust each other but also coordinate their efforts according to the rhythm of the music they both hear. The music is God's plan for them. If either or both dancers are not paying attention to the music or struggle to move with the music together, then the couple will be frustrated in their relationship, stumbling along the way.

Consider what Saint Paul writes:

"I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: . . ."

--Ephesians 4:1-3

Over the last year, I have struggled with my impatient heart because I have been dealing with the impact of grief and its companion anxiety. Slowly the Holy Spirit is purging the impatience and anxiety in my heart, but my impatience demands the newness of God's plan for me to be contained in this old self.

Consider what Jesus tells the disciples of John the Baptist:

"People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined.

Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

--Matthew 9:17

This process of purging is not without pain or difficulties. The pain is most often self-inflicted and the difficulties often impact my relationships. My old heart must be made anew to receive the fullness of the new love God has planned for me. And recently new wine has been slipping away. This has been devastating to me.

Recently I have been stoking the fire of the Holy Spirit. God did not abandoned me, but accepted my, um "determination" or "stubbornness." He met me where I was at while I continued to stoke the fire. This painful process remains in some degree while the burn consumes every remnant of my old self. This is the reality of our earthly existence.

Many of my selfish impatient ways that stoked the fire were purged from me recently, leaving me utterly exhausted and feeling empty. Despite my stubborn ways, God forged within me a confidence that I could not have made on my own. This newly forged confidence has restored in me the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Only focusing on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and opening myself up to his grace has this patient confidence been restored.

Patience is one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23).

Consider this passage:

"See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.” — James 5:7-8 

Ashes from the fire of the Holy Spirit can fuel the soil of your soul. Yet patience is necessary to tend the garden of your heart. God knows what he is doing for he alone is Creator. Allowing God to properly nourish the soil will yield a great harvest of fruit within your relationships. Believe me, this is not easy.

Like in gardening, turning the soil is necessary to cause the heat required to activate the nutrients that feed the plants. Yet if you overturn the soil too often, if you stoke the fire before it is ready, you will not yield the results you desire nor need. You must learn to let the ground rest, to not rush the process. You cannot force growth. Be ready for the blooms when they arrive for the harvest will yield a great feast.

That is God's plan for life and love. Simple but not easy.

Memento Mori

"Remember death." Memento Mori.

This Stoic motto has found a renewed interest in today's culture. The interest comes from a place less about death and more about seeking a more meaningful life.

The following most likely will come across as ramblings, but that is the best I can offer on the connected topics of life, death, love, and grief.

Personally over the last year, Death and I have faced each other intimately with intensity. My wife of nearly twenty-five years unexpectedly passed away in May of 2022. So Death has hit me hard this past year. Every moment of every day, I remember death and felt the sting of death beyond comprehension, beyond explanation.

I know Death so personally that I want to forget Death. But forgetting Death is not an option. If I was to forget Death, I would not only ignore the reality of this mortal coil of our earthly existence, I would forget the value of life to its fullest. That is, to remember death is to appreciate life and to see every moment of every day as a blessing with purpose.

Memes abound on social media on so many topics, including death and grief. I have found comfort in some of these inspirational sayings but I have come to realize my need for the inspiration of people closest to me in my daily living. I need intimacy in my life and this is only possible by being vulnerable to one whom God brings to me as gift. This is a struggle for me. 

I deeply desire and need intimacy. This is part of the essence of who I am. I know and believe that God calls me to be husband, again. However, the closer I grow in love with another woman, the greater the risk of the pain and suffering that I have already experienced once. The severity of the pain I have in grief is due to greatness of love Brandi and I shared as husband and wife.

Furthermore, I find myself in a rare situation. Most single men at my age are single either because they never married or their marriage ended in divorce. So for most of these single men, the potential first or next wife is not concerned about the other woman because either there was no other one or the other woman is at best the mother of the children. I realize this is an oversimplification or perhaps unfair stereotype. I mean no offense to any single man or single woman. My point is this: the end of my marriage had absolutely nothing to do with my choices nor my behavior.

Though my marriage was far from perfect, we had a really good marriage. In fact, our marriage was getting better than ever a few months before Brandi passed away. Brandi and I loved each other faithfully and unconditionally. We were committed to loving one another for the rest of our lives. That commitment was a daily choice we made to one another in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.

Yet I cannot deny who I am nor God's calling in my life. I cannot imagine what a woman feels, let alone a single woman whose previous marriage ended in divorce who dates a single man who is now a widower. The dynamics is unique and not easy to navigate. There will always be another woman whom the widower loved to his fullest. 

Yet I know for me personally, God has given my heart a capacity to love beyond what I thought ever possible. I am a one woman kind of guy, yet I will never stop loving Brandi. Somehow God expanded my heart to hold this incredible gift of love for two women with faithfulness and fidelity. I just pray that God brings forth a woman whose heart can love the man I am, a man who remembers death because in doing so I hold onto the life and love I had with Brandi.

In this process of grief, I have learned:

1. Life and love are to be cherished. We should always be grateful for every moment we can spend with those who choose to walk with us.

2. Time is limited. Death does come like a thief in the night. So we need to spend our time together intentionally and without fear.

3. Our earthly life is one of perpetual healing. Yes, each moment of each day moves us closer to our last. However, each of us has a choice on the perspective we take. You can fear death knowing the inevitable ends approaches or you can enjoy life knowing that we continually heal from the growing pains of loving life to the fullness. The choice is clear, though never easy. I choose memento mori.

Noble Metals

This was written originally for a series I wrote called, God's Game Plan for Men.

Allow me to speak briefly one more time, about the virtuous living of the husband. Note that the sign of his nobility, a reminder of his commitment, is his wedding ring.

The wedding ring is made of at least one of the noble metals: silver, gold, and platinum. These metals are referred to as noble because they are well known for their ability to resist oxidation. In other words the ring resists rust no matter its exposure. These metals have a sense of permanence in the air because they do not deteriorate according to changing winds.

Likewise his ring is to make well known to all of the permanence of his marriage. The virtuous husband lives according to a life composed of chastity and intimacy. Chastity is about integration for completion. In other words the husband is able to resist lust because of what he is “made of.” And most importantly his noble heart never breaks with rage or anger when weathered by his environment. He is able to give the whole gift of himself to his beloved without reservation, because intimacy is his response. Violence is conquered with valor, and his ring of honor is due to God being Lord in the sanctuary of his home. He is as Christ is to the Church, hers.