Arisings

Reflecting on various arisings in life and thought....

We had our postulancy evaluation conferences this morning. Mine was a very good experience. Our formation co-directors are affirming, compassionate, generous, and wise. And my postulant brothers are perceptive companions on the way. My enthusiasm for the adventure of religious life remains undiminished, and the positive reinforcement I have received during this time of evaluation renews my determination to strive on toward what lies ahead.

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For chapel meditation and spiritual reading I am picking up selected writings of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Spanish priest and a Carmelite friar. For his wisdom as a spiritual master, he is officially recognized, among a handful of the saints, as a doctor (teacher) of the Church. Today is his feast day.

When I was a senior at Cornell University, in the first full flush of fervor for the faith, I registered for a class in Christian mystical literature, and I encountered John of the Cross. We read excerpts of The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle, and The Living Flame of Love. This was in the spring of 1999, before I completed my initiation into the Catholic Church (I was confirmed a year later, in 2000). It was long before I first dreamed of religious life, and a long, long time before I studied theology or developed good spiritual habits.

I was so in love with the idea of mystical union with God. Ah, the felicitous indiscretions of youth. Only a fool who doesn't know he can't swim dives into the deep end of the pool, and head first.

Did I really seek to sit at the feet of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila so early on? I'm an intelligent person, so I don't doubt that I comprehended John of the Cross on an intellectual level. John of the Cross wasn't over my head -- that wasn't the problem. The problem is that he was over my soul and way beyond it. I knew John of the Cross the way a high school calculus student knows pi -- maybe you can name the first 100 places of pi and define it correctly, throwing around phrases like "mathematical constant," "irrational number," and "transcendental number," but you don't speak with any authority, and you don't really get the magic of the meaning.

And so it was, too, with God, the mysteries of faith, and the adventure of life, period. I didn't know I had such a long way to go.

But the journey of faith unwinds in a spiral, and we pilgrims are fortunate enough to come around to the places we have been before with new eyes to see what we never knew existed below the surface of things. As a fellow Capuchin blogger notes, God graces us with understanding at the right time, after we have been seasoned by the pilgrimage.

I still have my wrinkled paperback from the The Classics of Western Spirituality series. I will be re-reading my annotated copy slowly, with devotion. Having lately been drawn into the image of a fire that burns but does not destroy, I will dare to re-read The Living Flame of Love.

Oh, speaking of the right time, I have just noticed inside my paperback the cover art credit: John Lynch, a Capuchin friar.

***

I'm still thinking about the challenges of organizing with the Catholic Church for social justice. I am beginning to understand the obstacles by consulting my own experience. A correspondent who does local faith-based organizing kindly invited me and the brothers to a benefit for a particular campaign in East New York. Here is part of my response:

Peace and Advent blessings be with you.

Thank you for the invitation to this fundraiser to support organizing around Walmart and fair retail jobs. It is not possible for me or the brothers to come, for a few reasons. First, this event is on a weeknight in Manhattan, which is too late for us, since we all have to rise early for chapel in the morning. Second, it is Advent, and we are making an effort as a household to spend the evening contemplatively at the friary doing spiritual reading and night prayer together....I say all this because I would like to be as intentional as I can about introducing the Capuchins to you.... Meeting the friars at our place for dinner (and prayer, if you are comfortable) would go a long way toward establishing a relationship. You could see what kind of persons they are. It would give you an idea what kind of actions they're willing and able to take. They care about justice and peace. Like me, they want the Church to be a leading witness to God's healing work in the world....

My colleagues who build social movements want to draw the Catholic Church into all of their campaigns for change. They want a visible Church for a world militant. I do, too. But often I suspect that they're only looking at the stones on the facade. And what they want, they see only superficially. They seek the blessing of a just and merciful God for their movements. They ask for it through the people of God they mobilize. But I ask, what kind of God do they really want the people to bring? It makes a difference whether the people of God are truly invited to bear with them the presence of the living God, or in reality a god who looks and sounds like the power of the people.

What shall I tell my faith-based and secular organizer friends? Catholics are not squares; they are, every one of them, living stones built into the edifice of the Church, with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. Some of those stones face only the inside of the Church. Not every believer will walk a picket line or occupy Wall Street. Other stones face only its outside. Not every believer will spend an hour in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

It is a truism among Catholics with a high theology of church, or ecclesiology, that you change the world by building the Church. On the other hand, if you are compelled by a strong theology of mission, or missiology, then you would aver that you build the Church by changing the world, by transforming persons in community. I know Catholics who subscribe to the build-to-heal model only, the heal-to-build model only, and to both models in dialectic.

To rebuild the Church and heal the world, we need Catholics of all minds. The wounded world needs a Church with strong inner and outer walls. The mending Church, both her indoors and outdoors, needs to plant itself firmly in the world. We need all Catholics, all sisters and brothers, all of these precious stones. As a community organizer turning religious, I am now trying to identify the stones around me and see how they fit together according to the blueprint.

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This afternoon we will visit the brothers at St. Joseph the Worker Friary in East Patchogue to tour their parish and associated ministries. We will rejoice in each other's presence through evening prayer and dinner. I have nothing but admiration for clergy and religious and the faithful who do suburban ministries; it is no small feat to spiritually pauperize the rich so that they, too, can enter the kingdom of heaven. I have long since cut my spiritual ties to the suburbs, but Long Island is still my home turf, and it will be very good indeed to claim it in the company of the Capuchins.