beauty brokenness
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Finding Blessing In Brokenness

There is not one person among us who is not broken in some way. We carry with us the scar of original sin, which weakens us in every aspect of our lives. It is true that some of us carry heavier burdens than others, but we can not judge another’s trials  for brokenness can be deeply hidden. For some, our brokenness is right there for everyone to see: a woman in a wheelchair or a veteran struggling to walk with a prosthetic leg. But, for others, the woundedness is hidden; the girl standing next to us in the checkout line is reeling from her parents’ announcement of divorce or the dad standing handing out snacks at his son’s soccer game is dealing with a diagnosis of cancer. We can look at every single person that we brush by daily and acknowledge: we all share in this brokenness.

One of the hardest thing that Christians must do is to find blessing in our brokenness. No, our reaction to brokenness is blame: “This would have never happened if he’d only agreed to counseling!” We get angry – at others and at God. We may feel shame: “I don’t want anyone to know my family’s issues; I’m so embarrassed.” So quietly, with great care, we tip-toe through our day – unable or unwilling to not only acknowledge the blessing in the brokenness.

Fr. Henri Nouwen is well-known for pondering questions such as, “How can I possibly find blessing in this mess? In the diagnosis? In this tattered relationship? In this time of loss?”

The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness from the shadows of the curse, and put it under the light of the blessing … The powers of the darkness around us are strong, and our wold find is it easier to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people. But when we keep listening attentively to the vice calling us the Beloved, it becomes possible to live our brokenness, not as a confirmation of our fear that we are worthless, but as an opportunity to purify and deepen the blessing that rests  upon us … (Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World)

However devastating a situation we may be in, Christ walks with us. Our God is not a distant or far-off god, who  like a child bored with an old toy, has abandoned us. Our God is not a god who favors one person over another, Nor does God, like a beggar at a banquet, try to snatch a bit our happiness to keep for himself.

No: our God calls us Beloved: you. Me. That kid picking  his nose on the bus. The snooty waiter at the coffee shop. The mom struggling with a toddler and a grocery cart at the store. We are all Beloved. And it is this quality alone (this gift, this grace!) from God that allows us to drag our brokenness into light from darkness. We show it to everyone, and they allow us to see theirs. We acknowledge our sinfulness, the part we play in our brokenness and the brokenness of others. Then, our brokenness no longer frightens us or brings shame. Why? Because our brokenness – which has been known by God for all eternity – was carried on His back and nailed to that cross as He suffered and died or His Beloved. It was redeemed both in beauty and brokenness, and that redemption is ours by our heritage, by baptism and by living a life worthy of the Beloved Children of God.

Our Lady Rosary
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Our Lady Of The Rosary: The Life Of Christ Through A Mother’s Eyes

Today we celebrate Mary as Our Lady of the Rosary. As beloved as the rosary is by some people, others find it challenging or even impossible. One gentleman admits that he just could NOT pray the rosary, until he was challenged by this:

I have NEVER been able to pray the Rosary without either falling sound asleep, veering off the road or falling out of my chair. But [my friend] was right; our nation is in need of prayer, and I sheepishly agreed to join in. I brought the rosary on to the trail with me, and suddenly what had begun as a place of fitness became a place for prayer – the best place, it turns out, at least for me. The repetition, the running. There are no distractions, just the plodding and the prayer.

Praying the rosary can be hard – we fall prey to distractions. Yet, that is the challenge of any prayer – to be truly present before the Lord. The rosary gives us circumstances, images and events from Scripture to help us focus and then, (if we are blessed enough and tenacious enough) the Aves and the Pater Nosters become the background music.

Spiritual tenacity will lead us to a most important perspective: the life of Christ through His mother’s eyes. There was no one on earth who knew Christ better than Mary. Any mother can tell you that she knows what her child is thinking just by a glance at the child’s face or that she too suffers when her child is in pain. From His conception to His final days on Earth, Mary stood as witness to both Christ’s public and private lives. Because of this, the rosary is the prayer allows us into the heart of a mother, whose greatest concern is bringing people closer to her Son.

Devotion to the rosary is one hallmark of sainthood. From St. John Paul II to Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen to Mother Angelica, praying the rosary daily was the most important prayer outside the Mass.

The rosary is actually a very humble prayer. From a simple cord rosary to rare antique rosaries to rosaries designed for athletes, they  are all essentially the same: a crucifix, a cord or chain, and beads. (An Irish mother is wont to say, “Your forgot your rosary? Use your fingers! Why do you think God gave you 10 of them?!”) It takes about 20 minutes or so to say a rosary. Twenty minutes to praise God, to glorify God through His Son, and to glimpse the Son’s life through the eyes of His mother. It takes no special equipment, very little time and can be prayed by anyone, anywhere, any time. Yes, it is a humble prayer, but a prayer of immense grace.

The fact that our Church continues to include the Feast of the Holy Rosary on the liturgical calendar testifies to the importance and goodness of this form of prayer. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, ‘The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.’

Mary’s only desire was to be obedient to God by bringing forth her Son. By praying the rosary and meditating upon each mystery, we are not simply bystanders to the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ, but we become witnesses through the eyes of His mother, our mother. Our Lady – our mother – of the Rosary is eager to bring each of closer, more intimately involved, in the life of her Son. Through dedicated prayer of the rosary, she will gently lead us deeper into the mystery of our salvation through her Son, Jesus Christ. And as Catholics, there is nothing more important for our life on earth than this.

Trinity
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The Trinity: Three Persons, One Substance

Yesterday was the celebration of the Holy Trinity. What an immense blessing it is for Catholics who are able to recognized our bodies as a “home” for the Trinity when we sign ourselves: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Our baptism has indelibly marked our souls in the name of the Triune God.

Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote and spoke extensively regarding the Trinity. In 2009, he said this:

Today we contemplate the Most Holy Trinity as Jesus introduced us to it. He revealed to us that God is love “not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance.” He is the Creator and merciful Father; he is the Only-Begotten Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, who died and rose for us; he is the Holy Spirit who moves all things, cosmos and history, toward their final, full recapitulation. Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is wholly and only love, the purest, infinite and eternal love. He does not live in splendid solitude but rather is an inexhaustible source of life that is ceaselessly given and communicated. To a certain extent we can perceive this by observing both the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the stars, the galaxies; and the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary particles. The “name” of the Blessed Trinity is, in a certain sense, imprinted upon all things because all that exists, down to the last particle, is in relation; in this way we catch a glimpse of God as relationship and ultimately, Creator Love. [emphasis added.]

It is amazing to contemplate the endless and “inexhaustible” life that is the Trinity, yet even more astounding that this life dwells in us! Indeed, the only way for this life to be “deadened” in us is through mortal sin. Not only that, but as Pope Benedict pointed out, the entire world is imprinted with this life. Imagine how radically different our world would be if each and every person recognized this and lived accordingly. Imagine how different your world would be if you recognized this and lived accordingly!

Pope Benedict also stated that we have clear evidence of the Trinity:

The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: love alone makes us happy because we live in a relationship, and we live to love and to be loved. Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that imprinted upon his “genome”, the human being bears a profound mark of the Trinity, of God as Love.

One could say (although only as analogy) that our baptism “tattoos” the Trinity onto our souls. We are for all eternity marked, claimed for God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And this imprinting is pure love. Again, what a gift and blessing this is. God the Almighty – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – has claimed us and marked us for love for life, for eternity.

crucifix
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4 Reasons To Have A Crucifix In Your Home

We are used to seeing crucifixes in church and that seems “normal,” but why have a crucifix in our homes?

(By the way, there is a difference between a cross and a crucifix. A cross is a simple reminder of the instrument the Romans used to execute criminals. A crucifix is a cross with a corpus, or body, of Jesus on it.)

  1. We should have a crucifix in our homes because the saints have set this example for us. “Prayer in front of a crucifix is encouraged as a means of focusing contemplation on Christ. Many of the saints practiced this, both in everyday prayer and also when they were suffering. Catherine of Siena was known to look upon a Crucifix for hours each day and when Joan of Arc was martyred, she asked a member of the clergy present to hold a crucifix before her.”
  2. It reminds us not to run from the tough stuff. Jesus relied on his twelve Apostles for so much. The night before He died, He begged them to stay with him throughout the night, and they all fell asleep. On the day when He needed them most, only John stayed with Him, choosing to remain with the Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross. John didn’t leave, and we should try and emulate that.
  3. Our home is a “domestic church,” and it is a holy place. Think about it: your home is inhabited by people who belong to God through baptism, are confirmed in the Holy Spirit, sanctified through the grace of the Sacrament of Marriage and fed with Christ’s Body and Blood. It is a place where forgiveness is taught and sought, where our faith is passed on from one generation to the next and Christ’s love is exemplified (though imperfectly.) Our home should reflect all of this with a prominent sign of Christ’s sacrificial love: the crucifix.
  4. The crucifix is a constant reminder that Christ has conquered sin and death, and ultimately conquered evil. We are surrounded by evil. Sometimes, it seems as if evil has the upper hand. That is not so, and Christ’s death on the cross is proof. Simply have a crucifix to gaze upon in our homes is a reminder of this, and a way to strengthen us for battle. The traditional hymn, Lift High the Cross tells us: Come, brethren, follow where our Captain trod, our King victorious, Christ the Son of God. Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred Name.

If you’ve never had a crucifix in your home, consider getting one. Ask your priest to bless it (it only takes a moment!) If you do have a crucifix, consider putting more in your home: in the bedrooms, for example. The crucifix ix a sign of God’s overwhelming love for us; who doesn’t need a constant reminder of that?