Amor ipse notitia est

This past Sunday’s readings were saturated in love.

Love, that willing of the genuine good of the other, is the inner logic of creation that defines life’s meaning, grounds hope, and makes trust possible.  Love also, according to St. John’s epistle, gives us knowledge of God.

Why?

Hmm. Think of any relationship of substance you have.  If you love someone, they will open the mystery of their inner self to you and grant you access to the sanctuary of their heart.  But there’s no other way in than love that yields trust. It’s an awesome privilege, really, to be granted access to another’s inner world; and whenever I realize I have been allowed in I feel unworthy and grateful all at once.

One friend years ago once said to me, ‘You know, it’s scary to open this much to you.’  Indeed it is, it’s risky, which is why one should carefully guard the pearls in their soul until the ‘other’ who seeks admittance has proved him/herself worthy by means of faithful love.

In Christ, God did this in the most extreme way — on the Cross he, in essence, said: ‘You can trust me, I won’t hurt you.’  St Teresa of Avila said God reveals His deep ‘secrets’ in prayer to those who love and trust him.  And in prayer, we reciprocate this trust as we share with Him all our deep secrets.

And he listens with great attentiveness.

Imagine afresh daily that, as you pray, the Creator of the 300 sextillion stars is utterly rapt in the details of your every secret; your every word and sigh and tear.

Why?  He’s love.

Then go, and do the same.

Holy Farming, Iowa!

I love today’s feast because it’s the feast of St. Isidore the Farmer.  Aside from the fact that he was a saint, why the love?  A non-exhaustive list…

First, he was a farmer.  Yo, Iowa, our patron saint.  Second, he was married to another saint, Maria Torribia.  Marriage is to be a 2-saint-making sacrament.  Third, he was a hard working peasant who earned his living by the sweat of his brow.  God loves hard and sweaty labor.  Fourth, he and his wife suffered the death of their son, and found a special path to holiness through a tragedy all-too-common back then.  How many parents could use their patron prayers?  Lastly, he was a layman.  Not a priest or monk.  He reminds us of the real Vatican II revolution: not lay liturgical or ecclesial ministers, but saints in the fields, in the marketplace, in the homes, in the marriage beds, who are willing to sweat the small stuff day to day to bring to the world the Big Stuff of the Kingdom of truth and life, the kingdom of holiness and grace, the kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

Sts Izzy and Maria, pray for us.

Orans

The earliest images of the ‘church personified,’ painted by 2nd century Christians in Rome, were of a woman named ‘Orans,’ prayer.  She is the icon of the Church at prayer, the Church seen as Christ’s virgin Bride interceding of behalf of all and for all.

Orans Adoring

Every Monday at Dowling Catholic High School here in Des Moines, they have Exposition of the holy Eucharist during the school day for parents to come in and pray for their children.  {aside: what an unspeakable privilege it is to have the Eucharist in the building where we Dowling-dwellers work, giving me no excuse for failing to Adore}  Over the last three years, whenever I have entered the chapel to pray on Expo-Monday I have never once, aside from the school priest-chaplain, seen a man in the chapel praying during those hours.

Now I fully admit I may have missed a Dad, but just the other day I shared with a friend this ‘praying women’ observation.  Then the very next day I came across this article.

Woman’s Witness

As I reflected that day more deeply, I recalled that it is my wife so very often who calls our family to prayer in the evenings with great consistency and vigor.  She loves prayer, and I watch and learn.

So, I would like to say ‘thank you’ to all you women who pray so faithfully.  To Dowling Dads, before the school year ends shed a little blood, leave work and risk some time in your busy Monday to confront Christ-in-Your-Face about your child. Adoring Christ’s sacrificial Sacrament will empower you to look like your supposed to, which is the best gift a Dad could ever give his kids.

Don’t give up on us guys, O Women, we need your Orans to help us look like Him…

A Farewell to Iowa

As we prepare to depart the holy dirt of Iowa, I thought I would share a few scattered thoughts on the impact of Iowa-grace on my life, and that of my family.  The lists are by no means complete, and no offence intended by omissions!

What will I miss most?  Friends.  We made some fast and lifelong friends, extraordinary people who have left a very deep mark in our lives.  Colleagues.  The Catholic Church in Iowa has some exceptional people in her ministerial employ, ordained and non-, and working with these people has definitively shaped my vision of faith and life.  Too many to name.  SJEC. I have loved working for the Center, and, even more, with its astounding co-workers. Rachel Egan, a quiet light of Christ’s joy. Faye Akers, a peaceful spirit with astounding organizational skills. Jerry Deegan, a personal hero, mentor, man of noble character.  The hidden saints.  As with anywhere else I have been in my life, those I consider to be holy-as-hell are the low-key people who ‘do the truth in love’ without fanfare.  Serious social gospel.  The faith communities of SW Iowa are really committed to doing the works of justice and mercy.  Moderate sized city with a small town feel.  I love the just-enough-metro feel of Des Moines, but even more the fact that nearly everyone here is from Iowa and everybody knows everybody.   Weather.  I love 4-seasons.  NOLA has 2: blazing and simmer.

What are some of my hopes for Iowa?  Schools.  That the awesome Catholic schools of SW Iowa will continue to inspire excellence for our young people in all-things-Catholic, and cause outsiders peering into their halls, classrooms, offices and athletic fields to remark, ‘So that’s the Catholic difference!’  Parishes.  That clergy and laity alike will be filled with a fresh flush of the Spirit, a new infusion of joy and a living-explicit-fruitful love for the Person of Jesus Christ that will cause non-Catholics, gawking at our edgy Christian behavior, to quote Acts 2:13, ‘They have had too much new wine!’   Of course, anyone who has been to a lecture of mine knows that’s a perfect lead into my favorite Belloc stanza: Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,/There’s laughter and good red wine./At least I’ve always found it so./Benedicamus Domino!

What was a highlight of my four years?  Knowing, learning from and walking with Fr. Jim Polich to his death on 11/20/11.  In death he has proved himself to be even more a father to me and to my family than he was while still here ‘in the flesh.’  And I’m not alone in that sentiment.  A true intercessor, I suggest to you.

We will miss you Iowa (I write with tears), and we are grateful to God for bringing us here to taste and see His goodness in you, His people.

Brooding with God

Have you ever gotten lost in nature, strayed off the beaten paths of concrete and asphalt, and experienced the resuscitation deep in your soul of the primal wonder, beauty and wild majesty of the natural order?

I’ve mentioned before that when I was a child I found nature to be enchanted, allusive, disclosing a realm of mystery that seduced my little heart and made me want to spend countless hours just gazing at her beauties for no real justifiable reason.  Just cuz.

Then I became a teenager, was subsumed by raging hormones, rock music and a culture that found such an imaginative world to be, well, childish. And nature became flat, lifeless, self-referential and needful only if useful.

It was only after my faith-awakening in 1987 that, of sudden, the dead world suddenly sprang again to life and resumed its lovely, iconic song.

Today as I was walking alongside a local lake, its placid face troubled by a steady and warm SW breeze, and I could hear, in the whispering silence, an echo of that ancient brooding of the Spirit that once transformed chaos into cosmos.  And I shed a tear of gratitude that I was able to again be a child, without shame, in the Kingdom of our child-like God.

Amen.