PRACTISING GOD'S PRESENCE

PRACTISING GOD’S PRESENCE

How do we practise the presence of God? Through prayer and service.

Service is being involved in something that is for the people of God.

At times, we might be involved in larger things – clothing the naked, sheltering the poor, helping the refugees, visiting the sick or imprisoned, but it is always small to begin with. It begins with small gestures. Being kind to your family and the people you work with, saying a patient word, writing a card, sending a flower.

Be attentive. Be attentive. Be attentive.

When we pray frequently and know that God is in us here and now, we are very attentive to others because we are less preoccupied with ourselves. We are less worried about ourselves and if we are not very worried about ourselves we see other people more clearly. We see their struggle. We see their beauty. We see their kindness. We see that they are not trying to hurt us but that they have their own problems. We are much gentler, because we are in the presence of the Spirit. We realise these people are also struggling.

This is one of the greatest and first rewards of following Jesus. Suddenly, the Spirit in you sees the Spirit in them. The Christ in you sees the Christ in them. The heart of God in you sees the heart of God in them. Spirit speaks to Spirit, heart speaks to heart, and Christ speaks to Christ. You cannot see Christ in the world, but the Christ in you can see Christ in the world. You cannot see God in the world, but God in you can see God in the world. The spiritual life is the recognition of the Spirit, in the Spirit, for the Spirit. It is the mutuality of the Spirit seeing the Spirit. It is the mutuality of God praising God.

We begin to see how good people are underneath all their violence, their hatred, their revenge, their illusions, and their aspirations. We realize they are people of God and that the Spirit of God also blows through them and breathes in them. We realize that people are wonderful, that they are beautiful, that they are persons sounding through the love of God. We see it and are glad. We can say, “It is good to be with you, because you remind me even more of God’s love.” Community starts forming. New life starts taking place.

We do not do service to earn anything. It is not an anxious need to save the world. We don’t act on the condition that change will take place. No. You can see how intense that might become. If our only concern is “I better help him or her,” or to do things to change a person or the world, or the country, or the politics, or the social condition – if change is the condition of service – we are going to be very bitter and very soon. But if service is an expression of gratitude for the love we have already experienced then we can be free and engage in change without trying so hard. Service is an expression of the gift you have within you that you want to share with others.

In a way, service is an act of gratitude. We are so full of God’s presence, we are so aware of God’s promise, that we don’t want to hold it back. We want to share it. The disciples went around the world to announce that God is with us and that we can already now enjoy his presence. The disciples’ concern for the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the dying was an expression of a deep faith in God’s presence. “What you do for the least of mine, you do for me” (Matthew 25:40).

When you practise the presence of God, you will find yourself drawn to the poor, to people who are struggling, to places where people are in pain. You want other people to realize that God is with them. Service means to simply bear witness to that new life in you.

The Spirit in you will draw you closer to those who suffer or to those in pain, because you will see there the presence of God. We want to be there with the people and reveal to them that God has not left them alone. We want to tell the world that something great is happening and that the Spirit is not just for us but for them too. We want to call forth. We want to say, “Trust that the Spirit of God is within you and live according to that Spirit. It will make all things new.

“You will have more energy than you thought. You thought you were broken, and you are, but in the midst of your brokenness and poverty there is something in you. You have a gift. Let that gift come to fruition in you.”

All the little actions that you do are actions of gratitude. Human service, action for your neighbour, whether it is small or large, whether it involves individuals, communities, or countries, actions of service are to be done out of gratitude.
They have to be acts of eukharistia (eucharist, gratitude).

Acts of service have to be an expression of the fact that God has come to us and dwells in us, and that God has already given us a life eternal because he has already given us his breath. We are already in God. We have already overcome in principle death and evil, and therefore can be free to live gratefully and to manifest our gratitude through our care for the neighbour, the people of God, and for the world. It is very freeing to know that the presence of God is practised by acts of grateful service. It makes all the difference. Prayer and service are what life is about. It is how the Spirit of God reveals God to you. Prayer and service are at the heart of following Jesus.

RESTORE THE CHURCH - WHO?

Who Will Restore the Church?

Mass attendance is down. Financial contributions at the parish and diocesan levels are down. Catholic marriages and infant baptisms have been plummeting for years. Most of these trends did not begin with the abuse crisis, but anecdotal evidence from the last year suggests that the crisis has accelerated these trends.

Who will restore the Church? Where will the renewal we all know is needed – and which we all long to see – come from? From the bishops? From Rome? I have said many times: If it is to come at all, authentic reform in the Church will come through and with the bishop of Rome and the bishops in communion with him. For those with faith, this is little less than a tautology. It just doesn’t get us very far.

Trusting that the Lord will preserve his Church doesn’t require us to believe or expect that reform will spring from Rome or begin at the initiative of one of the successors of the Apostles. History tells us that most great ecclesial reforms have not begun with the pope. Most great reforms have not begun with bishops. The pattern, always, is that renewal begins with sanctity, wherever it is found.

Sanctity is not the province of the clergy. Let me rephrase that: sanctity is not only for those in holy orders. The call to sanctity is universal, extending to all the baptized, indeed to all humanity. I was once at a conference where someone was commenting on something Pope Francis had said about holiness. A prominent social justice activist sitting beside me scoffed: “I’ve never thought about holiness a single day in my life.” I was inclined to believe her.

And why not? There is a lot of good work to be done in this vale of tears and a lot of that good work doesn’t require even a smidgen of holiness. Being a decent person doesn’t require us to strive to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. But we’re called to more, much more.

In his very first homily as pope, Francis warned the men who had just elected him against the futility of good works that don’t proclaim Christ:

We can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord. When we are not walking, we stop moving. When we are not building on the stones, what happens? The same thing that happens to children on the beach when they build sandcastles: everything is swept away, there is no solidity.

*

If we forget this – if our efforts, however well intentioned, become separated from the proclamation of the Good News – then our efforts will not fail, they will be make things worse: “When we do not profess Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis says, “we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.”

The point is this: the work of restoring the Church – addressing the urgent needs of the moment, earnestly seeking justice, restoring the battered Body of Christ – does not come before the work of proclaiming the Gospel. These works are one and the same. Now, in this moment of crisis, is not the time to set aside the work of evangelization in order to deal with seemingly more pressing problems: “Let the dead bury their own dead. You go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put it beautifully. His words were spoken in 2012, but seem perfectly suited for today:

Sin is part of the human terrain and a daily challenge to our discipleship. And if our hearts are cold, if our minds are closed, if our spirits are fat and acquisitive, curled up on a pile of our possessions, then the Church in this country will wither. It’s happened before in other times and places, and it can happen here. We can’t change the world by ourselves. And we can’t reinvent the Church. But we can help God change us. We can live our faith with zeal and conviction – and then God will take care of the rest.

The Lord is purifying his Church. Good, we say. It’s about time, we say. But are we willing to let Him purify us? Can we really expect the Church to undergo purification and at the same time expect that we, who are part of the Church, should be spared the pain and anguish of that purification?

Who will restore the Church? He will. And if we are willing, he will accomplish great things through us. All it will cost is everything – which in the end, is nothing.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. (A Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola)

"SHOW US JESUS"

In 2007, Benedict XVI celebrated Our Lady’s birthday at the famous pilgrimage site of the Basilica of Mariazell. There he asked her to allow us to gaze upon Christ.

Let us join with him in asking this of Our Lady, on her feast.

“Show us Jesus!” Let us make this prayer today with our whole heart; let us make this prayer above and beyond the present moment, as we inwardly seek the Face of the Redeemer. “Show us Jesus!”

Mary responds, showing him to us in the first instance as a child. God has made himself small for us. God comes not with external force, but he comes in the powerlessness of his love, which is where his true strength lies. He places himself in our hands. He asks for our love. He invites us to become small ourselves, to come down from our high thrones and to learn to be childlike before God. He speaks to us informally. He asks us to trust him and thus to learn how to live in truth and love. …

“To gaze upon Christ”: let us look briefly now at the Crucified One above the high altar. God saved the world not by the sword, but by the Cross. In dying, Jesus extends his arms. This, in the first place, is the posture of the Passion, in which he lets himself be nailed to the Cross for us, in order to give us his life. …

“Show us Jesus!” … And we know that Mary hears our prayer: yes, whenever we look towards Mary, she shows us Jesus. Thus we can find the right path, we can follow it step by step, filled with joyful confidence that the path leads into the light – into the joy of eternal Love. Amen.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

A beginner’s guide to the works of John Henry Newman

Even by Victorian standards, John Henry Cardinal Newman was a prolific writer. He wrote and published in many genres, from the controversial to the pastoral; from fiction and poetry to historical sketches and educational theory; from doctrinal apologetics to the defence of religious faith as reasonable. During his lifetime and throughout the decades since his death, scholars and students have read, analysed and discussed these works.

I’ve been a student of John Henry Newman since I was a student in college when the Newman Centre at Wichita State University held a week-long Newman School of Catholic Thought on his life and works. Many famous Newman scholars have informed my studies, including Fr Ian Ker, Edward Short, Joyce Sugg and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Newman, however, is being canonised not because he is a great and prolific writer, with a style and mastery of the English language that even his harshest critics acknowledged in his day. It’s the holiness and faithfulness to Jesus Christ and His Church that Newman expressed in those works that led to his Cause, devotion to him and prayers for his intercession.

So, which among his many works would help someone who has never read anything written by Newman understand why so many have been devoted to this saint?

Here are my suggestions.

Start with the Meditations and Devotions, a collection of prayers and reflections for students at the Oratory School in Birmingham. It was compiled and published by Fr William Neville in 1893, three years after Newman’s death. The saint’s simple, confident and humble faith is evident on the pages of this work, including his devotion to Our Lady, to his patron saint Philip Neri and to the Stations of the Cross, meditation before the Blessed Sacrament and the holy rosary.

In the “Meditations on Christian Doctrine” the reader will find one of his most famous quotations:

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me – still He knows what He is about.

Other meditation highlights include his “Short Road to Perfection” and the “Prayer for the Light of Truth”.

The neophyte should continue on the road to understanding Newman as a pastor of souls – that quality of his life that Benedict XVI highlighted at the beatification Mass in September 2010 – with a sampling of his Parochial and Plain Sermons. Newman was preaching in the 19th century to many nominal Christians in the Church of England: they hardly knew what they believed and barely acted on what they thought they believed.

In sermons such as “The Religion of the Day”, “Unreal Words”, “Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the World” and “Christ’s Privations a Meditation for Christians”, he asked his congregation at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford why they did not – for example, in that last sermon – “have some little gratitude, some little sympathy, some little love, some little awe, some little self-reproach, some little self-abasement, some little repentance, some little desire of amendment” when hearing week after week what God has done for them. He told them exactly why:

But why is this? why do you so little understand the Gospel of your salvation? why are your eyes so dim, and your ears so hard of hearing? why have you so little faith? so little of heaven in your hearts? For this one reason, my brethren, if I must express my meaning in one word, because you so little meditate. You do not meditate, and therefore you are not impressed.

Then the offers the solution:

What is meditating on Christ? It is simply this, thinking habitually and constantly of Him and of His deeds and sufferings. It is to have Him before our minds as One whom we may contemplate, worship, and address when we rise up, when we lie down, when we eat and drink, when we are at home and abroad, when we are working, or walking, or at rest, when we are alone, and again when we are in company; this is meditating. And by this, and nothing short of this, will our hearts come to feel as they ought.

After the reader has sampled some of Newman’s works, an introductory biography would be helpful, such as Joyce Sugg’s John Henry Newman: Snapdragon in the Wall (Gracewing) or Fr Juan Velez’s Holiness in a Secular Age: The Witness of Cardinal Newman (Scepter Publishers).

Then, more Newman on characteristic religious themes. Here are some examples.

On conversion: the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, to understand why Newman came to believe that the Catholic Church was the “one true fold of Christ”, the one and only true Church.

On conscience: chapter five of his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, describing the rights and duties of a believer in obeying his or her well-formed conscience, not as means of being consistent with themselves, but of hearing the voice of God through “the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

On the role of the laity in the Church: chapter nine in The Present Position of Catholics in England, lectures given to the lay brothers of the Oratory in Birmingham.

On the dangers of liberalism in religion (believing that one religion is as good as another): his Biglietto Speech when he was given the cardinal’s hat in 1879.

On death, judgment, heaven and hell: The Dream of Gerontius, read aloud and supplemented with listening to Edward Elgar’s dramatic setting of the poem.

The Development Christian Doctrine; The Idea of a University; and Grammar of Assent should follow, especially for readers with theological, educational and philosophical interests. And after reading these three of Newman’s four great works (the other being the Apologia), readers should go back to the Meditations and Devotions; his sermons; and never forget his hymn Lead, Kindly Light.

Stephanie A Mann is the author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation (Scepter Publishers). She lives in Wichita, Kansas, and blogs at supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. All the Newman works cited are available in print and online at newmanreader.org