Every Heart Beat

When I was a young man I attended church at a First Baptist Church in a small town in rural Virginia.  They used to reward us for memorizing scripture.  Free pizza hut pan pizzas, candy, even money.   The very first challenge I received in youth group was to memorize the 23rd Psalm.  "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."  I still remember sitting in my room at night opening my King James bible and closing it, reciting what I could and then repeating, until I could say the entire Psalm without fault.  That week at Wednesday night youth group I received a certificate for a free personal pan pizza.  I didn't even realize the true gift was the Psalm itself, all I wanted was free food.

Years later I find so much comfort in that Psalm.  When we pray it in the Liturgy of the Hours or sing it at the Mass it touches me in ways that I cannot express in words.  The very thought that Ezekiel expresses in the first reading for today when he says that God himself will be the one to enter into the dark, cloudy places where we have been scattered.  That He will be the one to give us rest, the one to pasture and feed us.  How apropos that the Church in her wisdom has chosen these very readings.   To remind us that even in the darkest of times God will set a table for us, and all we have to do is come in and eat.  He himself will robe us and put a ring on our fingers.  Heaven itself will rejoice at this one single sheep coming back as if they were the only one in the universe, ah how grand a party that will be!

478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.

Christ died for us while we were still sinners.  That's so powerfully important for us to understand.   It isn't about getting right first, it's about letting Him make you right.  I have heard people say "when I get more time, then I'll pray more."  Or "I'll go to adoration when I retire, I'm too busy now."   God does indeed love you exactly as you are, but too much to leave you there.   He wants the best for you.  He wants you to live that life of fullness that he created you to live.  Not a life of half truths, not one filled with clouds and darkness, but one filled with joy and peace.   That peace comes directly from a relationship with the Shepherd.   It is He who will provide you with food to pasture on, and He is indeed the very rest you seek.

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." - St. Augustine

God seeks us out in the darkness where we are, and He sets a feast right there before our enemies.   The thing is, that feast does not leave us unchanged.  He IS our pasture.  The incarnation, the Sacred Heart, became man that man might be transformed into that image that he was created to be.   Every day at Mass he condescends to our level, becoming what we need, sustenance.   Food.   Drink.  Bread and wine.  It is in this way that Christ pastures us.   He gives us himself to eat, the true bread from Heaven, the real Manna, greater than anything our forefather's received in the desert.   It is this very bread which gives us life, which transforms us, if we let it, into the body of Christ itself.   We become 'christ's' in the world.

That means we are challenged by this Eucharistic feast which we partake of.   Challenged to not just be pastured and find our rest, but also to go out into the world as shepherds.   To find the lost sheep and guide them to the table in the midst of their own enemies.   To point them like sign posts to the Eucharist, to the Church, to Christ himself and show them the peace and joy they can only receive in a relationship with Him.  We must feed them.  We must help them find rest.   The darkness is all around us.  Poverty, illness, abortion, moral decay....  These are just a few of the clouds and darkness that gather around our children, families, and friends.   These are the oppressions which push down the widow, the orphan, and the refugee.   Brothers and sisters, The love of God has been poured out into our hearts.  Are you ready to leave your comfort zone, and be the vessel through which God can reach the one who is lost?  Are you ready to be the living heartbeat of Christ's sacred heart, drawing others to Him through the sound of your own life?

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Silent Night, On a Somber Note

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  It's a time of celebration, a time of great joy, and yet here I am at one A.M. in the morning having very somber thoughts.  I want to share those with you if you will bear with me.  I intended to write something uplifting, something joyful and edifying.  We will see if that comes out it.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit has his own idea of what my blog posts should be about.

I ran into a friend earlier today at the store while getting some things for dinner and for the house.  He stopped to talk to my wife and I as we were moving thorugh the freezer section.   We talked about his plans for the next few weeks.   He is travelling down south to a place he owns in a warm climate.  He'll be gone for a few weeks.  He has to decide if he's going to keep the place or sell it.  It is a good time to get away, right after Christmas.   He said he'll spend Christmas with the family then fly down.  Then he looked at me.  I guess I reminded him of her.  We spent some time together before she passed.  Tears came to both of our eyes.  He didn't want to talk about it, I didn't want to bring it up.  We hugged.  We talked anyway. It's the first Christmas since she went on to the next life.

I hope this Christmas for him will be one in which he finds how to deal with the sorrow and finds comfort.  The Gospel reading for the Night Mass tomorrow talks of how Joseph and Mary had to journey to a place with many memories.  He had to return to the land of his family to be counted in the census. Like my friend, he had to go back.  Decisions had to be made.  Worries sorted through.  As they journeyed together conversations had to be had.  Christmas Eve was a time of hardship.  A time of fear.  No money, no place to stay at an inn, a baby on the way.

Then the angels came to the Shepherds in the field.  They proclaimed the good news!  “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  I think often we forget how much fear was involved the night before Christmas.  So many strange things happening.  Life was going on though.  Christ, the king of the universe, was being born into the world.  The greatest event in all of human history, the salvation and restoration of mankind to a right relationship with God, began in the still and darkness of night.  It began with a journey.  Both for Mary and Joseph, but also for all those who came to see Christ.  They had decisions to make.  Shepherd or wise man, both had to go on a journey looking for answers.

Just like my dear friend who is flying out to make decisions, what they all have in common is they are looking for answers.  You and I, we are looking for answers too.  Truly though the answer lies in one man, Jesus Christ.   He is the full revelation of God.  Everything we need to know about mankind, everything we need to know about God, everything we need to know about life... all of it lies in this God man, born in the darkness of night.  Shrouded in mystery.  Placed in a manger.  The Bread of Life.  The Son of Man.  Emmanuel.  God with us. 

Tomorrow as we begin our Christmas season anew, let us begin to search earnestly for answers.  Don't let Christmas get away from you.  Too many times we get so caught up in the presents, in the food, in the atmosphere, that we don't spend time in prayer.. time with Christ.  We too have a journey to make, we just don't know when the final flight will occur.  Christ is being born into our world in the past, present and future.   What does that mean to us?   What do we do about it?  There can be a lot of fear.  A lot of doubt.   A lot of questions.  We know though, that a wise man once said, "We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."   Wise men still seek him, that's where the answers are. 

His servant and yours,
Brian