Two Books for Times of Trouble that Can Enlighten Us at Any Time

These are little books but they deliver a big dose of food for thought that seems especially appropriate during Lent.

The Way of the Cross in Times of Illness
by Elizabeth Thecla Mauro

3. Jesus Falls the First Time

Why do we always assume that this first fall came from your weariness and physical pain? Could you have fallen in fear? You, Jesus who are both God and human, you understand how fear and anxiety can paralyze the will, paralyze the strength of the body, and sometimes paralyze even the strength of the spirit.

I admit that there are times when I am overtaken with fear, and I feel unable to move, to think, to pray--even to This fear brings with it a weariness that defies description and snatches away the small pockets of peace I am seeking in my life.

So, I fall now with you, Jesus, prostrated in fear, knowing that I must rise and go on. My face is dirty; I am gasping through the dust of the road.

But I get up with you. I breathe in deeply, and breathe out.

With you, I move slowly forward.

Yahweh, I called on your name from the deep pit. You heard me crying, "Do not close your ear to my prayer." You came near that day when I called to you; you said: "Do not be afraid."

Lamentations 3:55-57 (JB)

I rarely do the Stations of the Cross although I often have one catch my eye during times when I am waiting for Mass to begin, thereby beginning thoughts about it. Most often I will think about them when contemplating the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. Although this simple, inexpensive book is presented as being for a time of illness, when reading through it I found much that is worthy of contemplation during Lent. It is worded so that the stations can apply to illness, but not so specifically that the contemplations cannot be used at any time, especially in any time of distress. Highly recommended.

Caring for the Dying With the Help of Your Catholic Faith
by Elizabeth Scalia

The Long Tunnel

Some people say the process of dying involves the appearance of a long tunnel through which one passes, moving toward the light. Just as those who report back from a "near death experience" say they felt "pushed along" through a tunnel, you may feel like you are being "pushed along" by circumstances, and unable to halt the forward motion -- a prisoner of sheer momentum. You would be right. As the journey's end nears, there seems to be no further chance to hit the brakes or to pull back a bit.

This is a scary feeling. A new skier would never attempt an advanced trail, and yet here you are moving through this experience at a breathtaking pace. Everything seems out of your control. This might be a good time to make an assessment of what you can control. You can control being wholly present to a person who is dying. That doesn't seem like very much, but it is everything.

Together with Our Lady
When Mary, the mother of Jesus, was told that her Son had been arrested, her world also began to spin out of control. In truth, you are very much Mary's companion right now, just as she is yours. What you are living through, she has survived:

• Just as your access to your loved one is decreasing as their need for sleep increases, Mary's access to her Son was closed off.
• Like you, Mary had to stand by and watch helplessly while her loved one took on the "job of dying."
• Like you, Mary had to watch the one she loved let go of her to take His leave.
• Mary, too, had to let go, and to trust that she would see Him again.
• As you lean on family and friends, remember that Mary had John and Mary Magdalene beside her for support.
• After Jesus' death, Mary had to live and eat and worship with an imperfect "family," some of whom had let her -- and her Son -- down. It is not really a unique experience, as families go.

Being "wholly present" may not feel like you are doing very much. It may seem like a pitiful amount of "control" for an adult to have over any person or event. But as Mary taught us, being "present" to another person has power. It is saying, "I will be a witness to your whole life and death, so that all you are and have been will remain in me,when you have gone. And I will help you say goodbye."

Being wholly present to a dying person is a great responsibility, one that requires all the control of which you are capable.

In the midst of our very busy lives, the last thin we are likely to think about much is how to handle the details of death. for that very reason, when tragedy occurs, we often are faced with many details which we don't understand and about which we are not prepared to make decisions. This immensely practical book is instructive on several levels. Naturally, the main information conveyed is of those modern practicalities so that we can understand them not only conceptually but in relation to Church teachings. Pain management, organ donation, hospice care, living wills, grief management are but a few of the issues upon which this slender book gives straight forward information.

What raises this volume to a different level than a "how to" book, however, is the sensitive and thoughtful spiritual commentary that is intertwined with the practical information. As one can see in the above excerpt, the anguish our souls feel during such a time is met with reminders of how our faith is there to provide comfort and encouragement ... and even, possibly, beauty, grace, and joy.

As I read through this book, I was moved to contemplate Jesus' passion as experienced by those around him, which is most appropriate for this time of Lent as we draw closer to Holy Week. It is not the sort of book I would normally read but some of the images have remained with me and will doubtless feed my contemplation during Holy Week. This is a book that I would recommend everyone keep on hand for those unexpected times when our lives are thrown into anguish and we need solid advice of both the practical and spiritual sort. Highly recommended.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

The Waiting by Tom Petty

I am impatient by nature. This is not helped any by the fact that our national psyche is one of wasting no time in doing something about what we want. Whether it is solving a problem, getting something we want, or trying to make an unpleasant situation better, we are conditioned to fix, to solve, to heal ... to control. And we want to do all these things now.

I am getting better at waiting. Some of it has to do with age and learning over time that everything can't come at once. Most of it has to do with God. I waited a year to realize that he was there after making my bet with Him. I waited six months to even begin RCIA classes after realizing that I needed to become Catholic. I waited four months to attend the Christ Renews His Parish retreat after realizing I needed something more that I could get from reading books by myself. I waited 6 weeks after realizing that I was being told through private discernment I might become the leader of my CRHP team for the actual discernment to make it from a possibility to a reality.

The waiting seemed long but in every case the payoff was huge. In fact, it was life changing.

In all of these cases, once I realized the steps to be taken, my job was to keep myself open to God's will and wait. In essence, I was to be passive and not attempt to control or affect anything. The keeping open was never the problem that the waiting was. Can't we just get on with things?

This morning's devotional reading highlighted waiting and being passive in such a good way that I couldn't cut any of it. Hence we have a very long passage below . Perhaps you will find it as fruitful as I have.

From Action to Passion
Henri Nouwen

I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had cared deeply for people. When he was fifty he found out he had cancer, and the cancer became more and more severe.

When I came to him, he said to me, "Henri, here I am lying in this bed, and I don't even know how to think about being sick. My whole way of thinking about myself is in terms of action, in terms of doing things for people. My life is valuable because I've been able to do many things for many people. And suddenly, here I am, passive, and I can't do anything anymore."

And he said to me, "Help me to think about this situation in a new way. Help me to think about my not being able to do anything anymore so I won't be driven to despair. Help me to understand what it means that now all sorts of people are doing things to me over which I have no control."

As we talked I realized that he and many others were constantly thinking, "How much can I still do?" Somehow this man had learned to think about himself as a man who was worth only what he was doing. And so when he got sick, his hope seemed to rest on the idea that he might get better and return to what he had been doing. If the spirit of this man was dependent on how much he would still be able to do, what did I have to say to him? ...

The central word in the story of Jesus' arrest is one I never thought much about. It is "to be handed over." That is what happened in Gethsemane. Jesus was handed over. Some translations say that Jesus was "betrayed," but the Greek says he was "handed over." Judas handed Jesus over (see Mark 14:10). But the remarkable thing is that the same word is used not only for Judas but also for God. God did not spare Jesus, but handed him over to benefit us all (see Romans 8:32).

So this word, "to be handed over," plays a central role in the life of Jesus. Indeed, this drama of being handed over divides the life of Jesus radically in two. The first part of Jesus' life is filled with activity. Jesus takes all sorts of initiatives. He speaks; he preaches; he heals; he travels. But immediately after Jesus is handed over, he becomes the one to whom things are being done. He's being arrested; he's being led to the high priest' he's being taken before Pilate; he's being crowned with thorns; he's being nailed on a cross. things are being done to him over which he has no control. That is the meaning of passion -- being the recipient of other people's initiatives.

It is important for us to realize that when Jesus says, "It is accomplished," he does not simply mean, "I have done all the things I wanted to so." He also means, "I have allowed things to be done to me that needed to be done to me in order for me to fulfill my vocation." Jesus does not fulfill his vocation in action only but also in passion. He doesn't just fulfill his vocation by doing the things the Father sent him to do, but also by letting things be done to him that the Father allows to be done to him, by receiving other people's initiatives.

Passion is a kind of waiting -- waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will yoube my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say "Yes " or "No." That is the great drama of Jesus' passion: he had to wait upon how people were going to respond. How would they come? To betray him or to follow him? In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death. It is also the agony of having to wait.

All action ends in passion because the response to our action is our of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community -- they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus' love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one who waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of God's love is revealed to us. If God forced us to love, we would not really be lovers.

All these insights into Jesus' passion were very important in the discussions with my friend. He realized that after much hard work he had to wait. He came to see that his vocation as a human being would be fulfilled not just in his actions but also in his passion. And together we began to understand that precisely in this waiting the glory of God and our new life both become visible.

Precisely when Jesus is being handed over into his passion, he manifests his glory. "Whom do you seek? ... I am he" are words that echo all the way back to Moses and the burning bush: "I am the one. I am who I am" (see Exodus 3:1-6). In Gethsemane, the glory of God manifested itself again, and they fell flat on the ground. Then Jesus was handed over. But already in the handing over we see the glory of God who hands himself over to us. God's glory revealed in Jesus embraces passion as well as resurrection.

"The Son of Man," Jesus says, "must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him" (John 3:14-15). He is lifted up as a passive victim, so the cross is a sign of desolation. And he is lifted up in glory, so the cross becomes at the same time a sign of hope. Suddenly we realize that the glory of God, the divinity of God, bursts through in Jesus' passion precisely when he is most victimized. So new life becomes visible not only in the resurrection on the third day, but already in the passion, in the being handed over. Why? Because it is in the passion that the fullness of God's love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control.

When we allow ourselves to feel fully how we are being acted upon, we can come in touch with a new life that we were not even aware was there. This was the question my sick friend and I talked about constantly. Could he taste the new life in the midst of his passion? Could he see that in his being acted upon by the hospital staff he was already being prepared for a deeper love? It was a love that had been underneath all the action, but he had not tasted it fully. So together we began to see that in the midst of our suffering and passion, in the midst of our waiting, we can already experience the resurrection.

Imagine how important that message is for people in our world. If it is true that God in Jesus Christ is waiting for our response to divine love, then we can discover a whole new perspective on how to wait in life. We can learn to be obedient people who do not always try to go back to the action but who recognize the fulfillment of our deepest humanity in passion, in waiting. If we can do this, I am convinced that we will come in touch with the glory of God and our own new life. Then our service to others will include our helping them see the glory breaking through, not only where they are active but also where they are being acted upon.

Bread and Wine: Readings For Lent And Easter

Last night I realized that the waiting may be beginning again. After our scripture study I was quite surprised and flattered when a fellow attendee who I respect immensely approached me and tentatively said that she wanted to "plant a seed." Actually she wanted to plant a couple of seeds in sharing ways she had served the parish that had furthered her relationship with God. One suggestion is just not for me. The other suggestion though ... the other is one that a friend recently had been telling me about in the same way. However, where my friend's words hadn't particularly moved me, this acquaintance's words did break through in such a way that I was envisioning it all the way home.

I don't want to plunge in without a little more than a sudden surge of imagination. I am quite good at imagining things. This needs to be based on a bit more, especially as I already am involved up to my elbows in various parish activities. Last night and again this morning I told God that I'd wait until I had more than just a glimmer. I'd let Him guide me in this.

This waiting is a familiar feeling. It took me back to those previous times. And I am not impatient either for the "yes" or "no." I am content to wait in this instance and see what, if anything, unfolds.

I realize that, unlike the excerpt above, my waiting is all about whether I should "do" something. However, all this waiting for God's word about His will is excellent practice in not doing anything at all but being passive. I hope and pray that when the days come that I am "handed over," as those days will inevitably come to us all in our lives, that I may benefit from all this practice ... and thus do God's will by not doing.