Straight Talk on the Beatitudes

Heaven in Our Hands: Receiving the Blessings We Long For
Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.

My friend Susan lent me this book. As happens sometimes with those books that are given because "you'll really like it" this one languished in my book stack for some time. I would glance through it and always be pulled away by some newer book, something more "a la minute" than this seemingly simple take on the beatitudes. In fact, the very simplicity was not appealing. Hadn't I heard all this stuff before? Yes, but when will I ever learn not to take things at face value?

When I finally picked this up to "blast through" it so that I could return it, I discovered that the straightforward simplicity hid things I needed to hear. Things we all need to hear. Father Benedict Groeschel has a real talent for expounding on a subject with examples and angles that show us the subject from a new light. He also has a talent for tossing in little laughs here and there along the way that make this most readable as well. All in all, one winds up reexamining a subject that was thought to be well understood. No matter how simply written about, that is something to be valued.

In fact, this is one of the more successful books that Tom and I have read together every evening. We have just begun but it has provided food for thought and conversation between the two of us that "deeper" thinkers such as C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft have failed to do. In short, this hits both Tom and me where we live spiritually and practically. Believe me when I say that we are very different in our approaches to our faith life and for a book to do that means it has a wide appeal.

Highly recommended.

Oh, and Susan? I'm going to be hanging onto this for a little longer.

[On the subject of mercy]

What if you suspect that someone might be abusing your charity? Decide once and for all not to let it bother you in the least, and then live by that conclusion. Better to take the chance of being cheated than to neglect mercy. Merciless people never have to worry about being cheated; they just don't help anybody. Foolish people, on the other hand, help everybody! Those who decide to be merciful in an intelligent way should probably expect about a 12 to 15 percent loss on their investment. This is the amount I figure will inevitably go to charlatans or crooks or people who could be helping themselves a bit more than they are. ...

I suspect that a great many people would like to be merciful but are unsure of how to begin and afraid of being cheated. My advice is: take stock of your limited resources -- time, money, mercy -- and decide what to do with them. Then just try it! And if you're afraid of being cheated, cheer up. You've already been cheated by lots of other people besides the poor: the federal government, many prominent corporations, most financial institutions, and perhaps even some religious organizations!

... Having been cheated regularl.y and repeatedly by these very respectable people, you've managed to live with it. And you've probably lost much more to the government than you're ever going to lose to somebody who needs mercy. In short, the fear of being cheated is not a legitimate reason to avoid practicing mercy.

The Beatitudes Shown in a Whole New Light

Why did I never think of the Beatitudes this way? It all is so clear once we read it ... obviously that's the advantage of having so many years of study and reflection as Josef Ratzinger does. This is just a tidbit and you really should read what goes before ... and then follow as he takes each of the beatitudes under reflection.

This reflection upon Paul and John has shown us two things. First, the Beatitudes express the meaning of discipleship. They become more concrete an real the more completely the disciple dedicates himself to service in the way that is illustrated for us in the life of Saint Paul. What the Beatitudes mean cannot be expressed in purely theoretical terms; it is proclaimed in the life and suffering, and in the mysterious joy, of the disciple who gives himself over completely to the Lord. This leads to the second point: the Christological character of the Beatitudes. The disciple is bound to the mystery of Christ. His life is immersed in communion with Christ: "It is not longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). The Beatitudes are the transposition of Cross and Resurrection into discipleship. But they apply to the disciple because they were first paradigmatically lived by Christ himself.

This becomes even more evident if we turn now to consider Matthew's version of the Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:3-12). Anyone who reads Matthews' text attentively will realize that the Beatitudes present a sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus, a kind of portrait of his figure. He who has no place to lay his head (cf. Mt 8:20) is truly poor; he who can say, "Come to me ... for I am meek and lowly in heart" (cf. Mt 11:28-29) is truly meek; he is the one who is pure of heart and so unceasingly beholds God. He is the peacemaker, he is the one who suffers for God's sake. The Beatitudes display the mystery of Christ himself, and they call us into communion with him. But precisely because of their hidden Christological character, the Beatitudes are also a road map for the Church, which recognizes in them the model of what she herself should be. They are directions for discipleship, directions that concern every individual, even though -- according to the variety of callings -- they do so differently for each person.

Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI)

What is a Happy New Year for Christians?

But, what do most people mean by Happy New Year? Doubtless they mean a year free from illness, pain, trouble or worry; that instead, everyone may smile on you, that you flourish, that you make plenty of money, that the taxman doesn't get you, that you get a rise in salary, that prices fall, and that the news is good every morning. In short, that nothing unpleasant may happen to you. (G. Chevrot, Eigth Beatitudes).

It is good to wish these material good things for ourselves and others so long as they do not make us veer away from our final goal. The new year will being us our share of happiness and our share of trouble, and we don't know how much of each. A good year for a Christian is one in which both joys and sorrows have helped him to love God a little more. It is not a year that comes, supposing it were possible, full of natural happiness that leaves God to one side. A good year is one in which we have served God and our neighbour better, even if, on the human plane, it has been a complete disaster. for example, a good year could be one in which we are attacked by a serious illness that has been latent and unsuspected for many years, provided we know how to use it for our sanctification and that of those close to us.

... Let us resolve to convert our defeats into victories, each time turning to God and starting once again.

And, finally, let us ask Our Lady for the grace to live during this new year with a fighting spirit, as if it were the last that God was going to give us.

In Conversation With God Vol 1: Advent and Christmastide

I know I said I wouldn't post again until tomorrow but this hit me right between the eyes and I couldn't get it out of my head, so I thought I'd share it.

A good year for a Christian is one in which both joys and sorrows have helped him to love God a little more. Obviously this is a no-brainer but sometimes I have to see things put together just the right way to have it sink in. We can't avoid the bad or good. Each is coming our way in the coming year. Indeed. Either can bring us closer to God or take us further away from Him depending on how we approach it. That just make it more imperative that I thank God for helping me through both. And to give me that fighting spirit.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Strength, Security, and the Beatitudes

For all our technological advances, people haven't really changed much since the time of Jesus. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way most people view the Beatitudes. Then as now, they represent what the world would consider weakness and softness. After all, who wants to be poor, meek, and persecuted? ...

But when we look at Jesus, we realize that he is the both the perfect example of the Beatitudes lived out and also the strongest and most secure person who walked the earth. Jesus was nobody's fool and he was certainly no shrinking violet. At the same time, he was constantly mourning over those who didn't know God. In silent strength -- meekness -- he taught his disciples by example, by parable, by reaching out to everyone who would accept him.

Perhaps if we thought more about Jesus, or tried to place ourselves among the crowds who heard him teach and saw him minister, we would change our point of view... We might see that living the Beatitudes requires a good amount of strength and decisiveness.

Word Among Us

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity

Surprised by Jesuits

MY LIFE WITH THE SAINTS
by James Martin, SJ

An elderly Jesuit who had spent many years in "the missions" smiled slyly when I mentioned the last rationale.

"You know," he said, "part of coming to know the international Society is discovering that Jesuits from other countries can be just as much of a pain in the ass as the American ones!"

In my six years as a Catholic I have heard one consistent thing about the Jesuits which is accurately echoed by the excerpt above. They always seemed to be the progressive trouble makers in any story, unless there was a stalwart traditional Catholic Jesuit in which case he was the target of the other trouble making Jesuits. More often than not when I had personal encounters and arguments spirited discussions about Catholic doctrine with other much more progressive people they would cite being taught by Jesuits to "question everything" as their authority. I found this just plain annoying when I had struggled my way through many questions of my own to get precisely to the traditional Catholicism that they had been handed on a platter and seemed to be spurning. None of this added up to making me very open to the way that Jesuits practiced the Faith.

Of course, the Jesuits did have those aforementioned stalwart traditionals that I could admire. They had staunch supporter Karen Hall who I have admired for some time so I felt I could trust her judgment. I even have come across blogging Jesuits who seemed like pretty good guys. However, this really did not sway my overall judgment of cautious observation and keeping an arms length from anyone who seemed too swayed by this group with dangerous tendencies.

Then I began reading this book and it literally and seemingly effortlessly brought me back to a place with God that I had been floundering trying to reach on my own.

In a way my floundering was brought on by too much information. Reading around St. Blog's one will see various devotions to different orders and their own individualized sorts of prayer and living. These would be written about with such affection that it seemed only natural to give them a try. After some time I discovered that none of these served me very well. Not only that, but somehow I had forgotten how to pray in the way that I used to when it was so effortless and fruitful. Thus began a period of that "floundering," of trying to remember what it was that I used to do to see God in everything and to pray without worrying about the mechanics.

Worse still was the fact that without any motivation I really was caring less and less if I prayed at all. Oh, I knew that was the way back to God and that personal relationship that I should be trying to nurture. However, with so many other things to attract my attention, not least of all this blog, it grew harder and harder to carve out that private, personal time. Added to this was the fact that, once I had accepted God's existence, I always had seen evidence of Him reaching out to me through all the encounters of my day and the things in my life. However, I had read several cautions about this sort of faith and trusting too much to our imaginations and so had been pulling back from that also. In short, I didn't know what to think or how to connect any more.

Then, one of my very best friends generously surprised me with some books from my Amazon wish list and included My Life with the Saints. (If you're not reading her blog then you're missing some of the most sincere and insightful writing around.)

The initial interest that made me include this book on my wish list had waned and honestly I began reading it mostly because the other book she sent was a much more challenging looking read. However, I soon became caught up in Martin's excellent story telling. He wove the saints' stories around his own progress through answering a call to the priesthood and the personal challenges it entailed. I will vouch for his skill in communicating enthusiasm by telling you that I actually wrote one of Thomas Merton's books on my "to read" list after reading the chapter about Merton's life. I have always thought Merton was quite a whiner and this was the first account that made me interested in trying one of his books beside The Seven Storey Mountain which I loathed. (Please don't tell me all the reasons I am wrong about Merton ... I honestly believe that he has a lot of value for all his devotees. We can't all like everyone and I venture to guess that there are saints I love who many would not like.)

Where the personal aspect in this book came in, however, was when Martin began writing about Ignatius of Loyola and explaining the precepts of Jesuit prayer and theology.

In an Ignatian contemplation we attempt to place ourselves in a particular scene, often from the Gospels. In the story of the Nativity, for example, Ignatius asks us to imagine ourselves with Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem: "to see with the sight of the imagination the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem, considering the length and breadth, and whether the road is level or through valleys and hills; likewise looking at the place or the cave of the Nativity, how large, how small, how low, how high, and how it was prepared."

I don't know how to express what a sense of homecoming and joy I felt at reading this. It was how I had prayed from the beginning, imagining how the dew on the grass felt when Mary arose from traveling overnight on the caravan to Elizabeth's, how the sunshine would have hit both of them warmly as they embraced at the Visitation. This was right. This was me. It was cemented by Martin telling how he had been unable to get into using his imagination in this way.

"Isn't it all just in my head?" I asked. "Won't I just make the people in my fantasy do what I want them to do?"

"Not necessarily," he said.

I sat there, confused.

"Let me ask you something," David said. "Do you believe that God gave you your imagination?"

"Sure," I said.

"Don't you think that God could use your imaginations to draw you closer to him in prayer?"

Yes! And Amen!* Though in the back of my mind I was finding it tremendously ironic that the order whose spirituality seemed to speak to me most was one that I distrusted. But that is in line with my experience also. Not only do I know much less that I usually think but God often is making a joke out of it at the same time. Which came home again just a couple of pages later.

Theologians often describe Ignatian spirituality as "incarnational." In other words, while it recognizes the transcendence of God, it is also grounded in the real-life experiences of people living out their daily lives.

It is a spirituality that reminds us that God speaks to us through prayer -- but also through our emotions, our minds, and our bodies. God can communicate through sexual intimacy, romantic love, and friendship. God can be found in Scripture and in the sacraments. God can show his love through your sister, your coworker, your spouse, your next-door neighbor, a teacher, a priest, a stranger, or a homeless person. Finding God in all things. And all people.

And through prompting a loving friend to give a book that leads someone back to the path she has wandered far from when she has lost her way. Just the way I experienced this morning and have recognized since God began calling me to him. Gosh darn it ... I think I have a Jesuit soul. For all the reasons I mentioned above, that ain't easy to admit, y'all!

For the first time in I don't know how long I was actually excited about prayer. I couldn't wait to get back to my "mind's eye" realizations, through God speaking to me through Bible flips. Just in case, I didn't get the point, today's morning psalm in Magnificat was one that Third Day had made into one of my very favorite songs, one that is on practically every Godmix playlist I make.

To you, O Lord, I lift my soul
In you, O God, I place my trust
Do not let me be put to shame
Nor let my enemies triumph over me

My hope is you
Show me your ways
Guide me in Truth
In all my days
My hope is you

I am, O Lord, filled with your love
You are, O God, my salvation
Guard my life and rescue me
My broken spirit shouts
My mended heart cries out...

Topping it off, with this song ringing through my head, I turned to the reading from Hebrews which spoke both to my feelings and to this book about saints which brought me to that point. It was to me that final push to point out that I was back on track.

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Because of it the ancients were well attested.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us 2 and persevere in running the race that lies before us.
Hebrews 11:1-2; 12:1

Of course, this is much more a personal testimony than a book review. I am not yet done but have had my eyes opened wide. Most likely that will not happen for most people reading this book. However, I can promise you a well told tale of Jim Martin's life and faith so far, always surrounded by that "cloud of witnesses" who watch, applaud, and help all of us on our way to our ultimate goal. You will find saints and people who are saintly but not yet accorded that spot on the calendar by the Church (such as Mother Teresa). You will find an inspirational story to help remind all of us that our searching is not in vain. If you are very, very lucky, you will find a nugget directed right at you that will help get you on track and turned in the direction you need to go.

*Updated
I occasionally have been surprised by my own imagination enough to realize that God uses it to get your attention. From the time that I was idly wondering whether I was making something up or whether a thought came from God and had, "YOU SHOULD KNOW MY VOICE BY NOW!" sternly thunder through my stunned mind ... to the time that I was imagining myself on the hillside listening to the Beatitudes when meditating on the Luminous Mysteries and was startled to suddenly see in my mind's eye Jesus looking over at me and saying, "Come little sister" and patting the ground next to him so that I would learn more about the Beatitudes that I found so boring and uninspiring. These are things that it never occurred to me to invent ...
Tags: Christianity

The Beatitudes: Happiness on a Higher Level

Those who heard Him preach the Beatitudes were invited to stretch themselves out on a cross, to find happiness on a higher level by death to a lower order, to despise all the world holds sacred, and to venerate as sacred all the world regards as an ideal. Heaven is happiness; but it is too much for man to have two heavens, an ersatz one below, and a real one above. Hence the four "woes" He immediately added to the Beatitudes.

But alas for you who are rich; you have had your time of happiness.
Alas for you who are well-fed now; you shall go hungry.
Alas for you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep.
Alas for you when all speak well of you; just so did their fathers treat the false prophets.

Luke 6:24-26

Crucifixion cannot be far away when a Teacher says "woe" to the rich, the satiated, the gay and the popular. Truth is not in the Sermon on the Mount alone; it is in the One Who lived our the Sermon on the Mount on Golgotha. The four woes would have been ethical condemnations, if He had not died full of the opposite of the four woes: poor, abandoned, sorrowful, and despised. On the Mount of the Beatitudes, He bade men hurl themselves on the cross of self-denial; on the Mount of Calvary, He embraced that very cross. Though the shadow of the Cross would not fall across the place of the skull until three years later, it was already in His Heart the day He preached on "How to be Happy."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: Lessons in Self-Crucifixion

The Beatitudes cannot be taken alone: they are not ideals; they are hard facts and realities inseparable from the Cross of Calvary. What He taught was self-crucifixion: to love those who hate us; to pluck out eyes and cut off arms in order to prevent sinning; to be clean on the inside when the passions clamor for satisfaction on the outside; to forgive those who would put us to death; to overcome evil with good; to bless those who curse us; to stop mouthing freedom until we have justice, truth and love of God in our hearts as the condition of freedom; to live in the world and still keep oneself unpolluted from it; to deny ourselves sometimes legitimate pleasures in order the better to crucify our egotism -- all this is to sentence the old man in us to death.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Peacemakers and Those Reviled

Let Him come into a world which believes that one must resort to every manner of chicanery and duplicity in order to conquer the world, carrying doves of peace with stomachs full of bombs, say to them, "Blessed are the peacemakers," or "Blessed are they who eradicate sin that there may be peace"; and He will find Himself surrounded by men engaged in the silliest of all wars -- a war against the Son of God; making violence with steel and wood, pinions and gall and then setting a watch over His grave that He who lost the battle might not win the day.

Let Him come into a world that believes that our whole life should be geared to flattering and influencing people for the sake of utility and popularity, and say to them: "Blessed are you when men hate, persecute, and revile you"; and He will find Himself without a friend in the world, an outcast on a hill, with mobs shouting His death, and His flesh hanging from Him like purple rags.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Holy, The Merciful, and The Pure

Let Him come into the world which denies Absolute Truth, which says that right and wrong are only questions of point of view, that we must be broadminded about virtue and vice, and let Him say to them, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after holiness," that is, after the Absolute, after the Truth which "I am"; and they will in their broadmindedness give the mob the choice of Him or Barabbas, they will crucify Him with thieves, and try to make the world believe that God is no different from a batch of robbers who are His bedfellows in death.

Let Him come into a world which says that "my neighbor is hell," that all which is opposite me is nothing, that the ego alone matters, that my will is supreme law, that what I decide is good, that I must forget others and think only of myself, and say to them, "Blessed are the merciful." He will find that He will receive no mercy; they will open five streams of blood out of His Body; they will pour vinegar and gall into His thirsting mouth; and, even after His death, be so merciless as to plunge a spear into His Sacred Heart.

Let Him come into a world which tries to interpret man in terms of sex; which regards purity as coldness, chastity as frustrated sex, self-containment as abnormality, and the union of husband and wife until death as boredom; which says that a marriage endures only so long as the glands endure, that one may unbind what God binds and unseal what God seals. Say to them, "Blessed are the pure"; and He will find Himself hanging naked on a Cross, made a spectacle to men and angels in a last wild crazy affirmation that purity is abnormal, that the virgins are neurotics, and that carnality is right.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Poor in Spirit, The Patient, and They Who Mourn

The Sermon on the Mount is so much at variance with all that the world holds dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black black, and white white are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays live.

The Lord Who says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," comes into the world that believes in the primacy of the economic; let Him stand in the market place where some men live for collective profit, or where others say men live for individual profit, and see what happens. He will be so poor that during life He will have nowhere to lay His head; a day will come when He will die without anything of economic worth. In His last hour He will be so impoverished that they will strip Him of His garments and even give Him a stranger's grave for His burial, as He had a stranger's stable for His birth.

Let Him come into the world which proclaims the gospel of the strong, which advocates hating our enemies, which condemns Christian virtues as the "soft" virtues, and say to that world, "Blessed are the patient," and He will one day feel the scourges of the strong barbarians laid across His back; He will be struck on the cheek by a mocking fist during one of His trials; He will see men take a sickle and cut the grass from a hill on Calvary, and then use a hammer to pinion Him to a Cross to test the patience of One Who endures the worst that evil has to offer, that having exhausted itself it might eventually turn to Love.

Let Him come into our world which ridicules the idea of sin as morbidity, considers reparation for past guilt as a guilt complex and preach to that world, "Blessed are they who mourn" for their sins, and He will be blindfolded and mocked as a fool. They will take His Body and scourge it, until His bones can be numbered; they will crown His head with thorns, until He begins to weep not salt tears but crimson beads of blood, as they laugh at the weakness of Him Who will not come down from the Cross.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: The Key

The key to the Sermon on the Mount is the way He used two expressions: one was, "You have heard"; the other was the short, emphatic word, "But." When He said, "You have heard," He reached back to what human ears had heard for centuries and still hear from ethical reformers -- all those rules and codes and precepts which are half measures between instinct and reason, between local customs and the highest ideals. When He said, "You have heard," He included the Mosaic Law, Buddha with his eightfold way, Confucius with his rules for being a gentleman, Aristotle with his natural happiness, the broadness of the Hindus, and all the humanitarian groups of our day, who would translate some of the old codes into their own language and call them a new way of life. Of all these compromises, He said, "You have heard."

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

The Beatitudes: Taking On the World

The fascinating thing about this passage and the ones I will post over the next few days is that Sheen wrote this in 1958. 1958! I think of that as being an innocent, happy time where these problems had nothing like the emphasis they have in our modern lives. However, we can easily see from what Sheen says that was not case. His words could have been written today.

In the Beatitudes, Our Divine Lord takes those eight flimsy catch-words of the world -- "Security," "Revenge," "Laughter," "Popularity," "Getting Even," "Sex," "Armed Might," and "Comfort" -- and turns them upside down. To those who say, "You cannot be happy unless you are rich," He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." To those who say, "Don't let him get away with it," He says, "Blessed are the patient." To those who say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you," He says, "Blessed are those who mourn." To those who say: "If nature gave you sex instincts you ought to give them free expression, otherwise you will become frustrated," He says, "Blessed are the clean of heart." To those who say, "Seek to be popular and well known," He says, "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely because of Me." To those who say, "In time of peace prepare for war," He says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

The cheap clichés around which movies are written and novels composed, He scorns. He proposes to burn what they worship; to conquer errant sex instincts instead of allowing them to make slaves of man; to tame economic conquests instead of making happiness consist in an abundance of things external to the soul. All false beatitudes which make happiness depend on self-expression, license, having a good time, or "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die," He scorns because they bring mental disorders, unhappiness, false hopes, fears, and anxieties.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

Why Twelve Apostles?

The number twelve is symbolic. The Book of the Apocalypse speaks of the twelve foundations of the Church. There were twelve patriarchs in the Old Testament, and also twelve tribes in Israel; there were twelve spies who explored the promised land; there were twelve stones on the breast of the High Priest; when Judas failed, a twelfth Apostle had to be named. The Apostles are most often referred to in the Gospels as "the twelve," that title being attributed to them thirty-two times. In choosing these twelve, it was evident that Our Lord was preparing them for a work after His Ascension; that the Kingdom He came to found was not only invisible but visible; not only Divine but human. But they had so much to learn before they could be the twelve gates of the Kingdom of God. Their first lesson would be the Beatitudes.

Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen

I will be following up this with several excerpts about the Beatitudes also as Sheen presents them in a way that I really never had thought of and y'all may like it also.

The Way I Feel Right Now

Last year I had a really wonderful Holy Week. Rose and I together wound up traveling a parallel spiritual journey that made Easter the most joyous ever. I told all this to a friend who loves Lent. She said that she couldn't believe I was someone who had to be practically forced into looking forward to Lent this year. The funny thing is that I dove into Lent but once the discipline of limiting blogging time set in, it has been a relatively smooth, unemotional ride. I did have an exceptional time during the last week of being allowed to see the "design on the embroidery" in many situations. What a blessing and one that never came without selfless service, which I am not usually involved in very much. (Ahem. We will talk about that some other time.) However, those incidents were not particularly connected to Lent.

In one way I have surprised myself. I've had the opportunity for adoration over the last two weekends, pretty much any time I'd like ... yet I haven't been moved to take advantage of it. And, let me tell you, adoration opportunities are very rare in our parish and I'm one of a relatively small group of people who have access to this opportunity over these weekends. Usually I'm on this like a chicken on a June bug. Still I didn't go. No particular reason; just didn't feel like it. At the same time I've been watching myself, observing this as if from a distance. I think that sometimes we are drawn to Him and other times, well I don't know, it just isn't how He is going to reach us, or at least me at this moment.

So I've been thinking about this some, the missed opportunities and my lack of reaction, just riding along in my head wondering what this Holy Week will be like. I'm planning on making time to watch The Passion of the Christ next weekend (if every other Christian in town hasn't rented it first, in which case I suppose I'll be forced to buy it). I'll go to Mass for Holy Thursday and Good Friday. I skip the vigil services on Holy Saturday. Not only are they packed and lengthy but I like to find the open tomb the way the women did, on Sunday morning. (Also, I keep a special place in my heart for the Vigil Saturday in 2000 when I came home to the Church.)

Waiting up for Hannah to come back on Saturday night I was typing in posts about the beatitudes that went perfectly with Holy Week (y'all will just have to keep coming back to see them, won't you?). Looking at these readings I wasn't amazed, just matter-of-fact in my acceptance that they mirrored Holy Week so perfectly and came up at just the right time to end on Good Friday. The fact that they were the perfect preparation for me didn't escape me either.

Then, Sunday morning, I realized that I'd better have some things to post for Easter itself. Kind of like a forgotten homework assignment I just remembered, this made me tired. Surely every other blog I knew would have something great for Easter. Right? But it doesn't hurt just to see if anything hits me right (which is the only way that anything winds up on this blog). I turned to my "go-to" devotional, In Conversation with God ... and I found where Jesus was waiting to touch my heart. He had the prep work done and was ready to make His point. As I slowly turned the pages for Holy Week, phrases leapt out at me, perfectly speaking to my heart, bringing tears to my eyes as I thought of what Jesus endured ... for me. That was when I knew that I don't have to wonder about what this Holy Week and Easter will be like. They will be perfect for me because God is waiting for me there ... in the right time, Holy Week itself.

Who could ever figure out the Holy Spirit? I am so thankful that I wasn't trying to "force" anything because, naturally, He has this Easter all planned for me. I just haven't gotten there yet. And what did He did to make this point to me? This blog. Kinda funny, huh? But then He works in ironic ways too, doesn't He?

There's a woman who is embroidering. Her son, seated on a low stool, sees her work, but in reverse. He sees the knots of the embroidery, the tangled threads. He says, "Mother, what are you doing? I can't make out what you are doing!" Then mother lowers the embroidery hoop and shows the good part of the work. Each color is in place that the various threads form a harmonious design. So, we see the reverse side of the embroidery because we are seated on the low stool.

Saint Pio