Damien of Moloka'i

I was fascinated to read Blessed Damien's Wikipedia article. I had no idea that:

1. There was so much controversy around him
2. Gandhi had taken him as an inspiration
3. He had once been voted greatest Belgian of all time

Of course whenever you talk about someone who served lepers, Franciscans everywhere get excited. Francis himself, in his Testament, presents his encounter with lepers as the environment of his conversion:

The Lord granted me, brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: When I was in sin, it seemed very bitter for me to see lepers. But the Lord led me among them, and I had mercy on them. And when I left that place, what had been bitter was changed into sweetness of soul and body, and I lingered a little, and left the world.

As one of my formation directors once pointed out to me, Francis' time with the lepers was not just an act of charity, but an act of minority. And this is the core of the Franciscan vocation, to make yourself minor. To go to those placed below you in the world's structure of class or hierarchy, and put yourself below them. In the end it's nothing more than an imitatio Christi, an imitation of the descent of the Word of God, who did not consider equality with God something to be "grasped at." (Phil. 2)

St. Catherine of Bologna

Catherine was a 15th century Poor Clare, known for being a foundress of convents and famous novice mistress. Today's Office of Readings has an excerpt from her Treatise on the Seven Spiritual Weapons. Here they are:

1. diligence
2. distrust of self
3. confidence in God
4. remembrance of the Passion
5. mindfulness of one's own death
6. remembrance of God's glory
7. the injuctions of Sacred Scripture, following the example of Jesus Christ in the desert

I was fascinated with diligence as the starting point. Our word in English is, of course, related to the Latin verb diligo, one of the ways of expressing the act of love. And isn't that what spiritual practice is all about? It's not what you do, but how you do it.

Spiritual practice means to do whatever it is you are doing diligently. This is to say that you do it with love for your act, mindful and attentive to what you are doing and to yourself as you are doing it. In this way you are attentive to the act you are doing, rather than just thinking about the result, or worse, what you have to do next.

After all, the future doesn't exist yet, so if you are always ahead of yourself, thinking about the next thing you have to do rather than what you are actually doing, you are living in an un-reality. And living in unreality is a sure recipe for depression.

Check out a fuller biography of Catherine here.

The Franciscan blogosphere is lively this morning. Don has a fine reflection on the dialectic of contemplation and action to which we are all called, and Chiara has a lovely fable that reveals the truth about God's expectations of us.

Announcements

1. Check out our latest Franciscan Blogroll addition, the Mercy Blog. The author is a brother of the Anglican TSSF, and seems to have a fine cat.

2. Our blog is now showing up in the results of most popular search engines.

Following the Beast

In these Easter days we read from the book of Revelation in the Office of Readings. We're in chapter 13 right now, and the great Beast has appeared. The "whole earth" follows the Beast "with wonder." They say, "who is like the Beast, and who can fight against it?"

Who is the Beast? For John the Seer's first readers it was probably the power of the Roman empire. But for us it is those same imperious forces of oppression and control, remaining with us in new forms. It is the selfishness and violence that emerges from the human heart and explodes into the great wars and occupations and genocides all around us. It is that cluster of pride, lust, and selfishness that Christian technical jargon calls the "world."

And the Beast speaks and calls his followers. He transmits his values through television, through the media, through education. And we follow because to follow the Beast seems like the only game in town. And as Revelation tells us, only those with the mark of the beast were allowed to buy and sell. Then, as now, economic security is bought at the price of accepting the values of the world.

There is another voice, however. The Word of God is spoken in the silence of the human heart. It is the very illumination of the human mind, the atmosphere of its genuine discernment. But God's voice is quiet, however, and easy to miss amid all of the noise and distraction that the Beast causes in the world. It is a humble and patient voice, compared to the proud voice of the Beast, always demanding instant action and gratification.

We've all had the experience of realizing that the loudest person in the room is not necessarily the one worth listening to.

And this is what Gil Scott-Heron meant in his famous poem The Revolution will not be Televised. It's often quoted wrongly, but if the poet is understood we realize that the real revolution couldn't possibly be televised.

The real revolution, the one that will change the world, is when "you change your mind about you look at things." And this will always be unavailable to television or to any of the Beast's voice-boxes, because it happens in the secret, inner place where God's Word meets the human person. And that's the mystery we call Jesus Christ.

Blessed Jeremiah

Today is also the feast of Blessed Jeremiah of Walachia, a 16th century Romanian Capuchin who came to some fame serving his sick brothers in Italy.

And let me tell you from personal experience, this ministry is no joke.

I couldn't find a bio about him in English, but if you want to practice your Portuguese, click here.

New Sidebar Section

I've added a new section to our sidebar. Entitled "Be a Friar," it has links to vocation websites. I have to set the limits somewhere, so I have included only my own branch of the Order as it is here in the United States.

Use the "outside the USA" link for other jurisdictions.

If I have missed your page, or if there are other questions, email your humble blogger here.

The Good Shepherd

Today the Jesus of John's Gospel names himself the Good Shepherd, a metaphor with deep roots in the royal theology of the Old Testament. It is an imagination which continues down to our own day; we still talk about pastors and "pastoral" care, and Latin rite bishops and abbots still carry crosiers that resemble the staffs of shepherds.

The first religious house I ever lived in had a pet sheep. They had received her from someone for nothing, so they named her Charity. She didn't have much personality, but earned her stay as a kind of independently contracted lawn-mower. In the morning you could put her in a section of field, and she would alternatively eat grass and sit there all day. Then you could put her somewhere else. Thus Charity helped cut down on the need for lawn care by humans who usually have something better to do.

Being a city kid, I hadn't known any sheep before Charity. My acquaintance with her helped me understand that, though sheep look peaceful and sweet in pictures (especially religious ones), what we see as peacefulness is more accurately termed stupidity. And when you're around sheep, you realize that they don't smell very good.

So imagine yourself as a shepherd, caring for a group of stupid, stinky sheep. Some danger arrives, maybe wolves or robbers or whatever. Do you protect yourself, or do you save the sheep? What if you can't save the sheep without putting yourself in danger? Are you going to put your safety or even your life in jeopardy for a bunch of dumb, smelly sheep?

Of course not. Even if you consider the lives of the sheep to be as intrinsically valuable as your own (and I bet few people would act this way if that's what it came down to), you have an instinct for self-preservation.

Therefore notice how outrageous Jesus' claims are today. He is the Good Shepherd who loves the sheep in a way that goes beyond all reason. He goes so far as to lay down his life for the sheep. Imagine: it's hard enough to contemplate giving up one' s life for a fellow human whom we love, but for some sheep?

Our God is a curious God. This is a God who loves the world so much that he is prepared to let go of of the power, control, and prestige that any reasonable reflection expects of a "supreme being."

This is why it is God himself who is the perfect model of holy poverty. He gives up even what it means to be God in order to enter into the vulnerability which is solidarity with creatures. And through it, even though we kill him over and over in each other, the whole process ends in the great reversal of Resurrection because of the indestructibility of so perfect a love.

When we let go of the good things of the world, that is only the beginning of holy poverty, of living sine proprio, without anything of our own. When we begin to surrender for others what is properly ours by nature, our will, our gifts, our powers, that's when we begin to imitate the God who lays down his life for his sheep.