Quo Vadis, Domine?

Today is the 4th Sunday of Easter in the Extraordinary Form. The gospel today is from John, where St Peter asks Christ, 'Quo vadis, Domine?', 'Where are you going, O Lord?'. This is where the first Holy Father promised Christ to go where ever He went, even unto death, and Christ foretold that St Peter would deny Him three times. According to Holy Tradition, St Peter asks Christ this same question again, where upon fleeing Rome, he meets Christ, carrying his cross toward the Eternal City.

It is one of my favourite stories, and I have written a reflection about it earlier in the academic year.
Read it here: http://derelictlife.blogspot.ie/2013/01/agapas-me.html

I Had One Once.

I had one once, once upon an age ago,
When my world still held some colours,
And little dreams and hopes dashed about,
Giggling in gaggles and schools amidst the flowers.

But, I am blind now, and the world is
All white, and black, and gray.
Age has left me with little, little reason
And thinking in syllogisms helps pass the time

As I wait for the drip to go
Drip, drip, drip,
Sliding little drops of narcotiacs into
Empty, empty spaces.

I had one once,

But I left it in a box, in a far away place.
On a hill, amidst the bright and pretty flowers,
Broken, and shattered, and still working,
Albeit all the missing pieces.

The oxygenated grass is gleaming.

Not exactly Holy Thursday thoughts, though maybe those for later.

'We have a strict right to the love of God, because of our vocation is to follow Him; we cannot do this unless we love Him. Jesus will assuredly give us a sensible love of Him, if I only ask. I must ask, seek, and knock daily and hourly.' - Fr William Doyle, SJ

On Suffering and Lent.

After showing my friend the Bl. Dom. Marmion article featured in the last post, she asked, 'Is this a way of telling me, I should suffer during lent?'

That would probably seem to be the question on many minds, to which I can only answer:

Uh. Yes... Pretty much.

Why must we suffer? Suffering is such a taboo phrase in today's culture. We actually not permitted to suffer in society. Unwanted babies who upset our lifestyles and require to suffer living a more simple life are aborted and thrown into the dumpster (literally). Grandma who can't take of herself anymore gets offed, so she doesn't make us suffer to take care of her. Can't suffer the pangs of parenthood, dump the kids in school, the teachers are supposed to teach them everything right?

Such is our lavish culture of comforts and express services that we no longer even have to suffer patience for what we want. It's all here, and now. Sex doesn't need to wait for marriage. Shopping doesn't need to wait for the drive to the mall. Come on, when was the last time you rapped your fingers impatiently waiting for your website to load on your 100mb/s modem?

So why suffer? 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily; and follow me' (Lk 9:23)

Very simply put, because of Love. We love Christ, and therefore want to be with Him everywhere. He denied Himself in the desert for forty days. We want to be with him in the desert. He carried His cross on His blooded and torn shoulders. We want to carry our cross. He was nailed to His cross and suffered. So,  must we want to be nailed to ours and suffer.

It is this unity with Christ on the cross through suffering that earns us our salvation, the chance to be with Christ whom we love the most for all eternity!

And so how can one suffer? Christ lays it so clearly in the aforementioned verse:
1. Let him deny himself.
2. and take up his cross daily.

The first kind of suffering is self-denial, it is a voluntary penance. It is mortification, the dying of the self. What the church prescribes yearly, as the obligatory abstinence from flesh meat during fridays and Lent, and the fasting during Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. This is the minimum one should do, and of course one may do more. Why not give up meat every friday?

It doesn't have to be a huge mortification; and they are not supposed to affect your health, it could merely be something very tiny like eating everything on your plate, especially if you hate it. It could be taking a cold shower once a week if you usually take warm ones. It could be praising God for all the good things that He's given to your enemy (or annoying little sister) when he annoys you. But it has to hurt.

It has to hurt in order to detach ourselves from the world so that we may be untied with Christ on the cross. Only when are bound to Him, can we be with Him in heaven, where we belong. These little mortifications are the purifying fires that purge ill habits and impurities, and make us tough and strong, and capable of facing the evils of the world. They reign in our passions and give us strength to say 'no' in a world that has forgotten how. Most importantly, they teach us to turn to cross to endure them, because without His grace we would fail.

The second kind of suffering is given to us. These crosses that the Lord generously sends our way. These are the ones we have no control off, the accidents, the injuries, the slip-ups, the cancers, the thunderstorms, the disappointments. The Lord gives these to us that we may endure them, and like in mortification, to turn to His cross for strength, and to give them back to Him as a penance.

There is not one rugby player who has won games who has not had to suffer the pain of being tackled and stepped on during training. There is not one sprinter who has won medals who did not endure limping home on jelly legs. There is not one doctor who has not had endure being dressed down by consultants or 36 hour shifts. One has to suffer to get to where one wants to be. So it is with Heaven.

The road to Heaven is a thin and narrow one, filled with many thorns, briars, and pitfalls. However, Heaven itself is the most wonderful place that one could ever exist in. To be forever, permanently in the loving presence of Jesus. To go to Heaven, we must imitate Christ, the ruler of Heaven. We must suffer.

Obedience and Lent.

My deepest apologies for allowing the weeds to grow wild in these last few months. Being the new year, I do resolve once again to blog a bit more regularly, hopefully at at least once a week, if my brain will churn out something more than, 'sleeeeeeeep.' 

My thoughts today turn towards obedience, as the Lord has directed much of the last few weeks. Here is an interesting reflection by the Bl. Dom. Marmion, OSB, for Ash Wednesday.

What the good abbot is getting across here is the necessary virtue of obedience. Obedience first and foremost to God, to His vicar on earth, and to His church. Obedience is the first virtue one must have as a Christian. So highly valued is this virtue by God, that He Himself was 'made subject' to His earthly parents. The creator submitting Himself to the created to demonstrate how valuable this virtue is.

This is also the most difficult virtue to master, for it requires humility. It requires one to become low, and to sacrifice one's personal desires, one's self to the will of another, requires one to be dependent on another. How foreign that must sound to the modern ear! Today's young heroes are proud, independent, rebellious, with little care for morals or laws, and these are whom society role models. How is one supposed to learn the virtue of obedience while talking back to one's parents? 

Yet, this is what Christ desires most, the complete submission of self to His Divine Will. That is why the religious life is the highest form of living, because they live under a vow of strict obedience to their superior. It is a fast-track to holiness, they are, ideally, sacrificed themselves to be subject to their superior and to the rule. Consider how, they, despite their keen desire to be unseen and unheard, wear their habit in public out of obedience and as a symbol of their state in life. But, it is not only them who are called to obedience, Christ calls us all, 'The man who loves me is the man who keeps the commandments he has from me;' (Jn 14:21). 

The question then, is how does one discern the Will of God? The very first, though not very obvious answer, is to ask Holy Mother Church, to whom the safeguarding of the very teachings of God was given. While God certainly has an individual plan for each of us, it would be contrary for His plan to contradict what He has given the Church to guide each of us. Which is why, to follow what the Church has in her traditions and in her law first, before attempting to seek additional means of expiation, is most acceptable to God. 

For some of us, even the 1983 reduced obligatory periods of abstinence in lent (only Fridays) are crippling enough, whereas to others, to submit and obey to that first before seeking other penances (under the guidance of a spiritual director) is the struggle. At the end of the day, it requires that we put ourselves last, and Christ first, that requires much prayer for grace to achieve. That is what Lent teaches us, to depend solely on Christ, to lean completely on His cross, that is how one wades through the sufferings that can come through obedience.

However, such obedience is not merely limited to Lent, but to our entires lives, our entire Faith. How often does one ignore or neglect to find out the Church's teachings before seeking one's own method? How often does one choose to deny the Church until one has been persuaded to view of Holy Mother Church? 

How often in music ministry does one ignore the documents of Vatican II that state, '[Gregorian chant] should be given pride of place in liturgical services.'? Is one's understanding and knowledge greater than that of the council, of the Magisterium? Has one actually tried to use chant in Mass? To understand the chant?

How often does one receive communion on the hand, knowing full well that the Church prefers one to receive communion on the tongue? 

How often does one ignore the Church's teachings on chastity, and purity, in order to justify one's lifestyle choices? 

How often does one ignore the Church's teachings on the necessity of frequent and regular confession? How often has one receive communion in the state of mortal sin, just because one didn't want to stand out?

I ask these not to accuse, but as a most wretched sinner guilty of all of them, to drive home the unhappiness of disobedience and the difficulty of obedience. However, God is not blind, every act of obedience pleases Him greatly, and He will surely affirm and reward us for it.

We have, as the adopted sons and daughters of God, the obligation to know what He desires of us, first and foremost through the Church, and to carry out His will. If we do not obey Him, especially on what has been made explicitly clear, we cannot truly love God. And if we do not love God, we will never find joy and peace.

Try obedience this lent!

UPDATE: Follow up post: http://derelictlife.blogspot.ie/2013/03/on-suffering-and-lent.html

Agapas me?

I cannot study for my impending examinations anymore. So, while waiting for the right time to leave for Mass, I thought I might resume my writing. My apologies that this blog has been quite barren for the last few months. Med School, like the tempest that it is has completely engulfed me in a tsunami. All these fatal watery allusions should also allude to you, my dear reader, my desperate need of prayers! I would be most grateful if you would stop and say a short prayer to St Joseph Cupertino, the patron of students taking exams, and St Giuseppe Moscati, the patron saint of doctors, for me.

There are two kinds of conversions. The ones that happen to St Paul, like a flash of lightning. Where one is thrown off one's horse and immediately realises God, and makes the appropriate response: to love Him completely without turning back.

Then, there are the type of conversions that happen to St Peter. Slow, and gradual, and they continue on for the rest of one's life. Unlike St Paul, who was a great intellectual and of strong character, St Peter was not so bright, impulsive, headstrong, intense, and cowardly. Which is why I relate quite a bit to the first pope.

How often have I found myself, upon hearing my Lord speak, ask, 'Quod vadis Domine?' (Where are you going, O Lord?), and upon hearing the answer that I, like St Peter, not yet completely ready, to blurt out, 'Quare non possum te sequi modo? animam meam pro te ponam.' (Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.') Though of course, St Peter, in all his impulsiveness, loved our Lord completely with all his being. He really meant it at that time, and I hope that I do to.

And yet, sooner or later, one finds himself, as did the Holy Father, to have fallen into mortal sin. To have denied Christ. For that is what a mortal sin is, to choose, for whatever moment, to deny any truth about God. That His love is not enough, or that His promises are not true, or to deny Him, as Simon Peter did, completely.

And later on, one creeps back into the confessional, with contrition, into the arms of the Lord, as He stands by the fire, reminding us of what we have done, as He did St Peter. And He asks, 'Do you, Agape me?' Do you love me with a complete, unconditional and sacrificial divine love?

To which one replies, 'Lord, you know that I Philio you', That I love you with the imperfect, emotional human love. As like St Peter, desiring fully to love the Lord, but fearing to fall again into that dreaded trap of denial, because we are still attached to the world.

And again He asks again, 'Do you, Agape me?'

And again one replies, 'I Philio you.'

And finally He accepts, and asks, 'do you Philio me?'

And we are disappointed, like St Peter, and reaffirm, 'yes, I Philio you.'

The Lord accepts this, because at that time, He knows that is all that one can give, He lets us carry a cross that is always heavy to us, but never more than we can bear. However, He will not accept philio from us forever, He will continue to pursue us throughout our lives, asking us, as he did the rich man, to abandon all the world and follow Him, to follow Him home.

And so I hope, that one day too, I will, in a similar way to St Peter, meet the Lord on the road, weak as I am and running away again. And I will ask, 'Quo vadis Domine?'

And He will ask me, 'do you Agape me?'

And I can finally, with the grace of God, say, 'Yes Lord, I Agape you.', and never turn back.

And finally, He will say, 'come, follow me home.'