Second Chances

We are a country known as the place of second chances. If you mess up or fail in one endeavor you can try all over again. Mary as the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of our country. Under this title she is part of God's second chance. Only four people have ever come into this world free of sin. Adam, Eve, Mary, and Jesus. Adam and Eve were part of the first creation, sin free.. They messed up. So God begins a new creation, our second chance. We say that we baptized people are a new creation.

Mary is the new Eve if you will. She is a person without sin, the Immaculate Conception. She is our mother in this new creation. We mess up but she never gets angry, throws a fit, makes us take a time out. She does not sin. She is always giving us second chances when we seek her comfort. Jesus does this too. He gave us confession. Peter is the first pope. He needed a couple of second chances. We are a church of second chances.

Eucharistic Miracles

What is all this interest in miracles and relics that I read about? They have always been here, but it seems as if they make headlines in the Catholic Press. My take on this is that we have given up on trying to dialogue with the postmodern world. Our old arguments don't seem to be moving a lot of people to take our faith seriously. The pope says that our faith should appeal to reason, but we don't seem to be able to do that very well as far as many outsiders see it. Our moral stance on some issues seems not to be very convincing when we give our reasons.

Rather than live in some state of feeling irrelevant in the secular world, we turn inward. Thus the focus on miracles. It is not to convince outsiders who see us as irrelevant, but it does give a boost to our own faith. I think that the internal changes we make, such as liturgical language, are part of this inward look. When it comes to social justice issues we cannot agree amongst ourselves much less convince others of any stance. Conservative Catholics politically think we need to be at war. Others seem to disagree with this stance. For some of us, helping the poor is a matter of the virtue of Charity. For others of us it is a matter of Social Justice. Miracles seem to be the one place or issue upon which we can be in some agreement.

There are many miracles that give us great joy and hope. I see them in people recovering from various addictions. Bu then these miracles have to get out and make the world a better place. They are not looking inward all the time.

Time Out

why is it that some people cannot take some time off for themselves? "I have so much to do," is one thing I hear. "I think of all the things that still have to be done and no one else will do them,? is another thing I hear. Is there some guilt in this? Some control issues? Whatever it is, try thinking about God in the following way.

Now God can do all things and is all powerful, we say we believe. God did thane a day off in Genesis, to rest. The world got on without God at work for a day. God does not seem to have a need to solve all problems. Look at all the good people that suffer from maladies, hunger, disease, cruelties of one sort and another. God does not seem to fix this. So if God is not going to fix everything and do everything that we think needs doing, then why should we? Maybe God is trying to tell us something. maybe some things just don't get done by God much less than by us who are far less powerful.

I am going home to read a book.

To Rest

How do we know when it is time to rest the soul? I suspect that when we wake up from sleep and still feel weary within, then it is time to step away. At this point, if we try to keep going and not to rest the weary soul, we will drag down those around us. We are not called by God to be slavish in our service, but to pace ourselves. Even Christ stepped aside and went off alone to a quiet place. The world managed!

There is a time to work, a time to play, and a time to be your own best friend. Sometimes I get to be of service to another weary soul. I say, "Take the day off and I will take care of things." What better gift can we give to someone in this busy season? So be good to yourself. You never know when your lightness of being will be a service to a dry and soul-burdened friend.

The Wilderness

I think of the dying process as a wilderness. It is not a place in which we have been before. We generally do not get to do a dry run for the dying process. We might feel alone, berift, anxious and fearful among other things. Who will be that comforting voice to tell the dying person that God is with them, and will not abandon them. The voice of comfort says that you'll not die alone. God will lift you up from this wilderness. Someone who provides palliative care, deals with pain management. But that person may have no hope in a loving and present God, or any belief in anything after death. That person will not be the comforting voice for we people of faith.

The believing, loving, hopeful care giver, with their gentle and calm voice, will the "Voice in the Wilderness" about which we hear in the Advent readings. Some people who feel like life is a wilderness journey need the voice of John the Baptist, saying "Watch and Repent." But most of us need someone gentler and more comforting. To know that there is a God who walks with me and loves me will bring me eventually to repentance. It will be a repentance due to gratefulness and not to fear.

Drained

I looked out the window this morning. It was snowing. I was to give a workshop this morning. My mind began to race with "first thoughts." No one will come to help make coffee and set out the treats. Few people will come to the workshop. I will have no income. I will go to debtor's prison. My life is in ruins.

These are "first thoughts." We don't control the first thoughts. They just come. It is what we do next that tests our spiritual condition. I decided to lay there in bed for a bit and be with God. I did. Then I got up and poured some coffee, studied my notes, prayed, and said my Holy Office morning prayer. I went over to the hall where I was to teach. There was someone there to make the coffee and set up the food which I brought out. We smiled. I rejoiced that Barbara was there to help. "It will be what it will be," we said. I set up some chairs. I did not get crazed. I thought maybe five people might come. Whining and self-pity were ready to take center stage. But they did not. Grace was center stage this morning. "All will be well," said Julian of Norwich.

Over 40 people came. There was plenty to eat. The sound system did not work, but everyone came up close and I did not have to shout. The morning went well. The snow stopped in time for everyone to drive safely at the end of the morning. Are you testing me God? I am not that together! So now the workshop is past and I feel drained, not from the teaching so much as from all those messy feeling and behaviors that were trying to break through to have their way. I love Grace.

C Note

When we sing the Amen at the end of a prayer, we generally end up on the C note. No matter where we reach for the "A" in Amen, the "Men" of Amen goes for the comfort of the C note. Why? Because a prayer of this type is to bring us to a place of rest for what comes next. So we reach for a higher or lower note just prior to the C, but the final note will be C.

I find chanting to be a mirror of the spiritual life. We stretch and then we rest. We cannot always be one or the other. In this season of Advent we stretch ourselves to get into a "Waiting" mode. Waiting for God is not natural to us. We can do westerners do not wait well. Waiting takes some effort and preparation. We have to smooth out the path for Christ. We have to work on ourselves. Then we have to rest. Hopefully, The Christmas season is a rest time. Daily we must rest. There is a C note place in all of us that calls us to rest.