Spiritual Reflections

"It is only with the heart that one sees right,," wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery. "What is essential is invisible to the eye." Each column is a spiritual reflection on the beauty that hides behind appearances and the peace that is beyond all understanding.
Feb. 04, 2012

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you see the glass half-empty or half-full? In today’s sacred texts, we will meet both kinds of people. Job, who is featured in the first reading, is bemoaning the very fact of his existence. He is a representative figure from whom many lessons may be learned, but at this point in his story, Job epitomizes the person whose contentment and well-being are intrinsically bound to his success as a patriarch of a large family, to his health and material wealth, and to his good name.

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Jan. 28, 2012

Like two sacred bookends, the first reading from Deuteronomy and the Marcan Gospel complement one another. Together, they attest to the truth that God’s promises are always fulfilled. Speaking for God, Moses announced that God would raise up from among the Israelites a prophet who would also speak for God, as he did. “Listen to this prophet,” advised Moses. When the Marcan Jesus began his public ministry in Capernaum’s synagogue, those present sensed that his words were empowered by God. He spoke with such authority that even evil spirits listened and obeyed.

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Jan. 22, 2012

Inherent to the life and growth of all believers is our awareness of the constant need for repentance. We repent daily and are thereby converted to Christ and the Gospel. Through our willingness to accept repentance and conversion as our graced lifestyle, believers become witnesses who invite others to draw nearer to God as well.

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Jan. 15, 2012

Two weeks into the new year, the sacred texts alert us yet again to the fact that we do not create our own lives or futures, regardless of our penchant for planning and organization. We are called into being, called to serve and called into the unknown future by a God who knows and loves us and never departs from us. Our response to God is constituted in what we do with all the divine calls that punctuate our days and nights with possibility.

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Jan. 08, 2012

Through the centuries, a variety of interesting legends have grown up around this feast of the Epiphany. Although the Magi from the east are not named, described or numbered in the scriptures, most legends agree that there were three of them. One particular legend, told to world explorer Marco Polo on a trip to Persia (Iran), described Balthazar as a young man, Caspar as middle-aged and Melchior as a senior citizen (The Travels of Marco Polo, or, the Description of the World, 1298).

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Jan. 01, 2012

With great hope and genuine pride, the church begins this new year with a celebration of Mary, mother of Jesus, proto-disciple and model of strength, grace and courage for all believers. In his Christmas Eve homily in 1978, Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero affirmed the important role of Mary in God’s plan of salvation.

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Dec. 23, 2011

Christmas

A few years ago during a Sunday homily, a Catholic priest in Australia preached to his congregation that the most dangerous place on Earth was a woman’s womb. I know what he was trying to get at, however poor his attempt, however misplaced his intentions, however misogynist his worldview. A terrible sadness rose in me when I heard about this, and a great anger. But why does this come to my mind now as I begin to reflect on the coming Christmas Mass at dawn?

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Dec. 16, 2011

I was selling my novel, The Book of Sins, at the Call to Action conference several weeks ago when a woman came over and asked in a hushed voice, “is your book all about Jesus?” She was slight, gray-haired and kept looking over her shoulder as if to make sure no one was listening. Her name tag said she was a member of a religious community. I can’t remember the state she was from or her name. She bent in and whispered, “I don’t do much with Jesus anymore. My spirituality is very different now.”

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Dec. 09, 2011

ADVENT

There have been so many false prophets recently. We now have at least three presidential candidates claiming God wants them to run and, I assume, win. So, when Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, “Test everything, retain what is good,” it rings particularly true to me, for I have grown skeptical even of my own use of God’s word in support of what I hold to be true. How do I know if the Spirit of the Lord is upon me or the spirit of ego, illusion, power-lust or despair?

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Dec. 02, 2011

Cookie Monster has made his position known. “99 percent of the world’s cookies are consumed by 1 percent of the monsters,” he has reportedly said. “OCCUPY SESAME STREET!” And while mainstream pundits still ask balefully, “what do the Wall Street occupiers want?” every child on earth knows there is something dangerous and wrong when 1 percent of the monsters consume 99 percent of the cookies. They want it to stop; the situation is catastrophic.

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Nov. 23, 2011

Come on, God. Can’t you do better at saving us from ourselves? Stop hardening our hearts and letting us wander from your ways. Come down and really blow us away with something big -- mountains quaking, heavens rending, something like that. We need to see you’ve wrought something awesome. Rouse yourself, for heaven’s sake, and come.

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Nov. 18, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

April 21, 1965
Awoke at 5:30. Usual expression over failures, inefficiency, incapacity to cope. Dom Hubert von Zeller’s book, Approach to Calvary, invaluable, teaching one to accept this discouragement which he says will increase with age. But I must learn to contain myself, to do my own work which is writing, correspondence, and the constant study, meditating on both natural and supernatural life. But women, we see the burdens of others, and how little one can do to lighten them. No matter how we try to change things, clean things up, make order, it essentially remains the same. It is hard to keep from heaviness of heart. One must just keep going and my work is to write and I am neglecting it. New resolutions. Will I ever learn that it is only myself I can work on and so much needs doing there.

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Nov. 11, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

Feb 26. Day of Recollection
It seems to me that one of the happiest lessons in the gospel is that of love. That we are told to love one another and to show that love by giving. And that love becomes more like that of God when we see Jesus Himself in those around us, as the apostles did on Mt. Tabor, when the celestial light faded, and “they saw only Jesus,” most loveable. They loved, because he first loved them, and even in those three, there were the sins of the world -- they would deny Him, desert Him, at the end, and the weak of faith and greedy of the first place, while he was still with them.

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Nov. 04, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

February 12, 1959
It is hard to convince anyone, priest or people, that Charity must forgive seventy times seven, and that we must not judge. The bitterness with which people regard the poor and down-and-out. Drink, profligate living, laziness, everything is suspected. They help them once, the man who comes to the door, but they come back! They want more help. “Where will it end? Can I accomplish anything? Aren’t there poorer people whom I should be helping?” These are the questions they ask themselves which paralyzes all charity, chills it, stops all good work. If we start in by admitting that what we can do is very small -- a drop in the bucket -- and try to do that very well, it is a beginning and really a great deal.

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Oct. 28, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

August 8, 1952
I fail people daily, God help me, when they come to me for aid and sympathy. There are too many of them, whichever way I turn. Mike K. again tonight. It is not that I can do anything. I must always disappoint them and arouse their bitterness, especially when it is material things they want. But I deny them the Christ in me when I do not show them tenderness, love. God forgive me, and make up to them for it.

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Oct. 21, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1950
It was a spring-like night tho cold. Then at 1 a man and women came bringing a drunken woman in and I was very harsh in not taking her. As Tom said, before dawn came, I had denied our Lord in her. I felt very guilty -- more for my manner than for doing it, as we could not have all the other women in the house disturbed.

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Oct. 14, 2011

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008; abridged paperback: New York: Doubleday, 2011).

March 4, 1945
One night I dreamt that I was struck. I have a haunting memory of having read somewhere of a woman being torn to pieces by a mob and I have felt so surrounded by hatred that I was afraid. I wrote to Fr. Hugo and without telling him details, told him of my feeling surrounded by hate but he did not reply, answering only about his own work, his own complaints. We are all so alone.

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Oct. 08, 2011

Did you receive an invitation to the recent wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton? Neither did I. But wouldn’t it have been special if we had? Invitations to great events like weddings, birthdays and anniversaries are chances to socialize and celebrate together the blessings that fill our lives with joy.

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Oct. 01, 2011

Have you ever participated in a community garden? People procure a plot of land together and take on the responsibility for tending that plot so that everyone in the group can share whatever they have agreed to plant. Vegetable co-ops are especially popular in big cities where arable land is scarce and food prices often soar out of range for economically strapped families. If every member of the co-op is consistent and committed in their efforts, then all can enjoy their harvest; if each does not perform their duties regularly and well, then the crops fail, and all suffer the losses.

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Sep. 23, 2011

When a man and a woman who love each other wish to commit themselves to one another for life, they celebrate that love and their life together with the exchanging of vows and the declaration, “I do!” In order for their love to grow and their marital commitment to deepen, every day of their lives together must also be affirmed and reaffirmed by an endless catena of “I dos.” At times this declaration will trip happily off their tongues; at other times, it will require strength, courage and perseverance to continue to say and to mean “I do!” In truth, there are also times when one partner or the other (or both) becomes wearied by the effort required to sustain a good relationship; some may even decide to say, “I don’t” or “I won’t” or “I can’t.” It is at these times when the human prerogative to change one’s mind and heart is most challenged. Today, the sacred texts and their authors invite our serious consideration of this prerogative.

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