Tag: Holy Week

Posted on

Standing in the Gap

Holy Week invites us into Hope.

Hope sounds lovely, until you actually get into the hoping. There is an often painful gap between what is and what is yet to be!

Jesus literally stands in the gap. He is the one mediator between the human race and God, who eagerly desires all men and women to experience his fullness (1 Timothy 2:4-5). Jesus burns with desire to celebrate the heavenly Passover and so share God’s abundance with his beloved children (Luke 22:15). He suffers intensely in his longing – because God’s chosen children so often do not desire what he desires for them, causing him to weep over our hardness of heart (Matthew 23:37).

Jesus stands in the gap between heaven and earth, He stands especially with the poor, the outcast, the abused, and the abandoned. In his Passion, he willingly plunges into the depths of human misery, uniting himself with all the agony that any of us have ever experienced.

My understanding of the Passion shifted significantly over the last decade as I began experiencing the healing love of Jesus. I used to focus more on how much Jesus suffered physically, how hard he tried, or how much he sacrificed. Looking at the Cross would sometimes cause me to feel that I needed to be better or do more. Without realizing it, I was restlessly striving to be “good enough” so that I could be worthy of love.

Jesus reminded me how his Passion is much more about union. He brings his love and truth into all the darkest and most chaotic moments of human existence. He willingly unites himself with the particular sufferings of each member of the human race. He brings the perfect communion of his eternal Love into each and every one of those places. We are no longer alone in our misery. Love wins.

Little by little, he’s shown me how he was always there in my most agonizing moments – not only my worst sins but also all the moments in which I ever felt terrified, ashamed, powerless, alone, abandoned, neglected, or unprotected. Some of those moments were quite early in my life. And then they’ve been reinforced again and again in no shortage of agonizing situations. It’s a very familiar story to me to feel misunderstood, abandoned, and left alone and unprotected in the face of a massive threat. In those moments, it feels not only like I’ll be alone and unprotected in the face of overwhelming chaos, but that my very lovability is on the line as I walk on the edge of that knife. Impossible pressure. Exhausting to try so hard. But so familiar to me.

On any given day, present-day struggles can still elicit embodied memories of all the times I have felt that way. In comes the seduction of the evil one for me to seize control of my life and manage things for myself. That may come in the form of a restless pressure to produce or accomplish. When that gets unbearable and exhausting, then I am prone to escaping and avoiding and self-soothing. And if I begin to feel violently tossed around in that spin cycle, I am even more prone to isolate and not want to be seen and known by others (how could they love me now?). Unchecked, that isolation and fragmentation become a living hell.

I’ve learned from neuroscience that these initial reactions happen automatically and instantly (in a fraction of a second). I’d so much rather not have the reaction in the first place. But that’s not how the brain and nervous system work. God hardwired us so that our bodies can remember, adapt, anticipate, and react for survival – before the rational brain even gets involved.

What has changed in me, little by little, is a growing gentle awareness of reactions as they start happening, and a growing invitation from Jesus to be one with him in his Passion – even when I can’t just shake it off. On retreat this summer, he showed me what it was like for him when every one of the apostles forsook him and fled (Matthew 26:56). He showed me the union between him and me in every moment of abandonment in my life. He didn’t stop these moments from happening, but he was always there, loving me and choosing me. If he and I are one in the Passion, all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well (even if it feels awful in the tension of the present).

The good fruit of this invitation is most obvious to me when he invites me to stand at the Cross of others. In those moments, I get to weep with those who weep, and to witness what it’s really like for them. I get to stand with them in the gap. I know this has been a great gift to many abuse survivors, who often feel like they are unwelcomed and unwanted in our churches. The community and/or the clergy often don’t want to be burdened with the full truth, the messy symptoms, or the painful tension of what it is like for some of the suffering members of Christ. There are times in witnessing the suffering of others that I simply feel the ache of the love of Jesus on behalf of that beloved child of God. Sometimes there are no words, but only tears or groans. They know the difference between someone standing at the foot of their Cross and someone forsaking them and fleeing.

Jesus invites us as beloved disciples to stand with him at the Cross on Good Friday (and to stand with others who are painfully united with him as members of the suffering Body of Christ). He invites us to stand in the gap of Holy Saturday – trusting in his promise of goodness and resurrection and perhaps having no idea how all will be well.

Few do. In the words of the poet T.S. Eliot, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” We prefer to flee from the tension of Hope.

Early in my healing journey, I thought that healing would make the pain and tension go away. Had I known that I would suffer even more, I may have fled! Healing is not always the elimination of tension or pain.  It’s an ongoing encounter with God’s love and truth. It shatters our loneliness and brings you and me ever more deeply into love and communion. If we look at the Saints, we see that this lived communion actually brings more suffering, even as it brings more joy and peace.

One suffering I never anticipated was seeing with ever greater clarity what is diseased and unwell in Christ’s Church. The more I heal, the more clearly I see unnamed abuses, an unwillingness to let go of power structures (not just among clergy but also in parish communities), an unwillingness to be with others in big and intense emotions, a preference to spiritualize or intellectualize, and a contempt or marginalization of people who don’t fit the culture of our comfortable club.

I know very few Christians who are really great at standing at the foot of another’s Cross. Sometimes I’ve felt judgment or contempt on this point, but more and more I realize how much it makes sense. This is where the Church was during Holy Week, when Jesus willingly entered his Passion. All of his chosen priests forsook him and fled – just as I often have. One, apparently, came back on Good Friday to stand with the three Mary’s at the foot of the Cross. Mary Magdalene and a few of the faithful women came to the tomb Easter morning (amidst agonizing tension and loss), while the chosen leaders of the Church cowered in the upper room, and most others were nowhere to be found.

I have huge Hope and imagination for what the Church could be like, as I and others begin to embrace the invitation to stand in the gap. This gives me a sense of what Martin Luther King, Jr. must have felt when he gave his “I have a dream” speech. It’s exciting to see Hope surging in the hearts of some. But it’s agonizing and paralyzing when others exhibit hostility, passive resistance, or apathy when invited to the wedding feast.

Meanwhile, you and I are invited to stand in the gap – just as Moses stood between the stubborn and hard-hearted Israelites and the God who was leading them into so much more. No amount of rational arguments or meticulous strategic planning will change people’s hearts. You can’t coerce someone to give up their precious self-preservation and survival tactics. I was so struck on retreat this summer at how Jesus lovingly chose the disciples and told them repeatedly how much they were worth in his Father’s eyes (Matthew 6:28-30; 10:31), even as he told the truth to them about their fear and their turning away from him. He knew that they wouldn’t be ready until they were ready, and that some of them would never want it.

Mother Mary is the ultimate model of Hope. At each moment of her story, she stands in the gap, waiting for God’s promises to unfold. She sees with clarity the flaws and resistance of the apostles, and stands patiently in their midst, trusting and waiting for the divine goodness she knows will ultimately emerge. And it does.

Jesus invites you and me as beloved disciples to join her and the Saints of every age, to stand in that gap, to abide patiently in the tension of already-but-not-yet, to taste and see how good God is while waiting together for so much more.

Posted on

Self-Denial vs. Deprivation

“It is just as much a sin to deprive the body without discernment of what it really needs as it is to indulge in gluttony.”

These were wise words of Francis of Assisi to his band of brothers in the 1220’s. This is the Francis of Assisi who embraced radical poverty, including fasting and prayer vigils that most today would consider austere. He often meditated on the sufferings of Christ, and desired to be one with Jesus on the Cross. But Francis was known above all else for his radiant joy – a heart bursting with praise and gratitude. He surrounded himself with beauty and delight, but never grasped at it. He freely gave it all back to God.

The daily invitation of Jesus was imprinted in Francis’ heart: to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow him (Luke 9:23). How, then, can we make sense of his caution about not depriving ourselves of what we really need?

Francis of Assisi, with his marvelous grasp of the human heart, understood intuitively what contemporary research proves consistently: there is a connection between unmet human needs and unwanted behavior. Whenever we human beings are chronically deprived of play, rest, connection, community, understanding, safety, nurture, or meaningful purpose in life, it is only a matter of time before we start acting out with entitled behaviors.

Deprivation feeds entitlement. Entitlement then seizes. Our grasping attitude may not be that far from that of Sméogol in Lord of the Rings: “We wants it, we needs it! Must have the precious! They stole it from us!” If you are not a Tolkien fan, then I imagine you can resonate with the words of the apostle Paul, “The good I desire I do not do, but I do the evil I do not want” (Romans 7:19).

The immediate instinct in these cases is to assume that it is a problem of laziness or lack of discipline – often with no small amount of self-contempt and shame. We then punish ourselves by deprivation, telling ourselves we are doing penance and following Jesus. But in many cases, these penances embraced without discernment also begin to cut us off from what we truly need – from the things our hearts (and limbic brains) were looking for in the first place.

As a priest, I’ve worked with hundreds of people over the years who struggle repeatedly with the same patterns of behavior. Any time I have curiously explored, I have always found a significant deprivation of one or more authentic needs. Deprivation is not the primary reason why people get stuck in unwanted behaviors, but it is almost always there as a driving force!

I’ve learned much from contemporary Christian authors like Mark Laaser or Jay Stringer. Mark (now deceased) helped thousands to find freedom from their addiction to pornography or worse, not to mention helping to restore many marriages. Jay conducted research with 3,800 men and women struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors. His book (entitled Unwanted) explores the causes and contributing factors that need to be addressed if a struggling individual desires to live differently. Both make a convincing case for the importance of paying attention to our human needs, whatever our unwanted behaviors might be. Mark and his wife Debbie (in the book Seven Desires) describe how every human needs to be heard and understood, affirmed, blessed, safe, touched in a meaningful way, chosen, and included. Jay discusses the importance of delight, rest, play, creativity, meaning, and purpose. If we have a serious lack in any of these areas, we are likely to find ourselves unfree in our decision making.

Today’s authors give more precise language to these needs, they are by no means the first to notice them! I think of the Rule of Saint Benedict (he lived from 480-547). Most of us today would find their monastic lifestyle quite penitential. But it is moderate compared with the desert monks that Benedict had learned from. His Rule seeks balance and adaptability. He frequently acknowledges the importance of a wise abbot offering accommodations to monks regarding their prayer or eating or sleep, based on what is truly best for them and the community.

And then there is the quotation from Francis. Here is the fuller story from his companion and biographer, Thomas of Celano:

“One night while all were sleeping, one of his followers cried out, ‘Brothers! I’m dying! I’m dying of hunger!’ At once [Francis] got up and hurried to treat the sick lamb with the right medicine. He ordered them to set the table … Francis started eating first. Then he invited the brothers to do the same, for charity’s sake, so their brother would not be embarrassed.”

Francis concludes with the important lesson: it is just as much a sin to deprive the body without discernment of what it really needs as it is to indulge in gluttony. And then he reminds them of the supreme rule of charity (Christ-like love of God and neighbor). Our freedom in receiving and giving love is the ultimate test in discerning the wisdom of any self-denial.

Finally, let us not forget the example of Jesus himself. His human needs mattered. As a human being, he definitely received understanding, safety, nurture, delight, care, connection, rest, and play – not all the time or from everyone, but in ways that left a lasting impact. Throughout his childhood, he received from Mary and Joseph, not to mention his heavenly Father. He spent less than 10% of his life giving in public ministry – and even then he received care from friends like Lazarus or Mary or Martha. Even in Holy Week, Jesus rested in Bethany with those friends – receiving hospitality and love. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he entered his Passion, Jesus reached out to his other friends (Peter, James, and John), asking them for connection and care.

Sometimes we don’t get what we need. Sometimes God even asks us to sacrifice things that we truly need – but usually he doesn’t. Over time, as deprivation of authentic human needs intensifies, our freedom tends to diminish, and with it our ability to receive and give freely in love. Our “sacrifice” will become joyless; our resentment will increase – and with it a Gollum-like grasping of entitled behaviors.

Discernment is the key. Jesus tells us to test a tree by its fruits. If self-denial is leading to growth in freedom, growth in faith, growth in hope, and growth in love, then we know it is being led by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, our greatest calling is to make a total gift of self and become the grain of wheat that dies so as to bear abundant fruit. That self-gift is only possible if (like Jesus) we humbly allow ourselves to receive, again and again, all that we need. Francis of Assisi and many other Saints understood. Their humble acknowledgement of their depth of human need allowed them to receive. Their receptivity opened them to the amazing joy of self-gift. May we learn from their example!

Posted on

The Descent of Jesus

We enter another Holy Week. Jesus’ hour has come. Although he begs his Father to allow the cup of suffering to pass, in the end Jesus freely and willingly plunges into his Passion for our sake. He drinks the cup to the dregs, descending fully into the depths of human misery, indeed into the very hell that our misused human freedom has “created.”

I love this quotation from Charles de Foucauld (taken from André Daigneault’s The Way of Imperfection):

“All his life, Jesus only descended: descending in his incarnation; descending in becoming a small child; descending in obedience; descending in becoming poor, abandoned, persecuted, tortured; descending in reaching the last place.”

All this descent of Jesus is “for our sake” – as we profess in the Creed.  He desires to redeem us and save us. The redemption he brings is so much more than standing in our place and paying the price on the Cross. Some Christians have a rather narrow or distorted view of atonement that almost paints God as a vengeful and petty deity whose wrath can be appeased only by blood. Jesus reveals our Father to be eternally kind. To be sure, there is a great sense of justice in Jesus paying the price, but that standing in our place says much more about God fully respecting the gift and dignity of human freedom (and its real consequences) than it says about him being in any way demanding.

Jesus tells us why he has come from heaven “for our sake” – to seek out and save what is lost (Luke 19:10). I wrote last time about the great dignity of our human nature, even after the fall. We all have deep and dark places in our hearts in which we feel broken and shattered, marred and disfigured, unlovely and unlovable. Jesus reveals to us that there is no place too deep or too dark for him to enter. His desire to descend is unlimited – or rather, limited only by our resistance to receiving him.

There is so much that is comforting in this message. Jesus is not deterred by how seriously and how often each of us has turned our backs on him. He prays for his persecutors. He does not flinch when his closest companions misunderstand him, abandon him, deny him, or betray him. At Peter’s third denial, Jesus turns toward him with a gaze of kindness that incites Peter to rush outside and shed bitter tears.

The deeper truth of Holy Week is that Jesus desires to descend fully and deeply into the worst of our human experiences in order to rescue us, heal us, transform us, and exalt us. Hebrews 5 tells us that Jesus not only offered prayers and supplications for us, but did so with louds sobs and tears. It was not simply a matter of paying a price. Rather, he freely and willingly united himself with every human experience of misery and suffering – every loss, every betrayal, every rejection, every abandonment, every single moment of darkness. Jesus descended.

Philippians 2 describes the dynamics. Jesus, though truly divine, freely chooses to descend, to empty himself completely and totally for our sake. He is therefore exalted and raised above every other creature. He does this, not for his own glory and exaltation (he had no need of it!), but “for our sake” – in order that where he is, we also may be (John 14:3).

Nor does Jesus descend in order to rescue and exalt the “good” people or the “good enough” people. We are all the lost sheep, the lost coin, his lost sons and daughters. Remember whom he chose to hang around with the most – the poor, the lame, the crippled, and the outcasts – including those considered to be the worst of sinners.

I know in my own life I have often vacillated back and forth between a puffed-up confidence (as though I “have it all together”) and a deep discouragement. In both cases, I am somehow trying to be my own savior. Meanwhile, I need only allow Christ to complete his descent into the places of my heart in which I feel the most desperate and discouraged, and his love begins to transform all.

True Christian humility always brings with it a twofold conviction: (1) My own radical poverty; and (2) unshakable confidence in God’s eternal mercy. This is the humility we see in the Virgin Mary and her Magnificat – her song of praise to God in the presence of Elizabeth (Luke 1:46-55). She deeply understands that all is gift, proclaiming God as her savior – AND she eagerly praises the amazing things he is doing in her and through her, so great that all generations henceforth will call her blessed.

At the Cross, Mary freely shares in the sufferings of her Son, having compassion not only on him, but on every lost child of God who stands in need of mercy. Her Son loves us, and therefore so does she. The fact that many of us keep messing things up does not for a moment cause him to falter in his descent, nor her to falter in her deep motherly compassion on those who suffer with her Son.

How many of us attempt (in our prayers or piety) to try to “go up” to God? How willing are we to be truly vulnerable, to let him see us fully, and to love us where we most need his love? Do we not sometimes take the lead of Adam and Eve in the fall, hiding ourselves from God and covering our nakedness?  Toxic shame is one of the devil’s favorite tools to convince us that no one would ever love us as we are.

The descent of Jesus says otherwise. He desires every piece and fragment of our broken hearts. There is no limit to his desire to descend.

Posted on

When Hope Hurts

As followers of Jesus, we are people of Hope – especially during Holy Week and Easter.

This year we will experience a Holy Week like no other – gathering the family around our tablets and TVs to view the live stream of the holiest liturgies of the year.

I think back to the middle of March – which now feels like ancient history – and remember how I wept and sobbed over the cancellation of public Masses. The part that was the most painful for me was when it fully dawned on me that our faith communities would not be gathering together for Holy Week and Easter. Having had time to process my grief, I am now grateful that we’re doing our moral duty and serving the common good by joining in the shared effort of social distancing. I’m grateful for all the creativity and innovation that has opened up new opportunities. I’m getting accustomed to Mass on facebook live and Zoom meetings. But let’s face the facts: it’s still hard.

Since the middle of March, there have been far greater hardships for many than the temporary disruption of prayer gatherings and public Masses. Some find their entire livelihood in grave peril; others are under enormous daily stress; many others have died of COVID-19 or lost a loved one.

All of us have felt our daily lives turned upside down. Almost everyone I know seems to be experiencing a significant spike in anxiety or a resurgence of unwanted behaviors. So much is uncertain and unknown; so much can change so quickly. We trust God, but it’s incredibly hard at times to keep believing that it’s somehow all going to be blessed by God as part of his greater plan.

Hope is hard. The Christian virtue of Hope is not rosy optimism; it’s not a feel-good pretending like everything is just swell. Hope involves longing and desiring, watching and waiting. Hope stretches our human hearts far beyond what feels easy or comfortable. Indeed, keeping Hope alive in our heart can be painful. It’s so much easier to try to avoid, it, numb it, or even kill it – choosing instead a path of self-soothing or self-reliance. But we cannot save ourselves.

Holy Week is a time of Hope. The death and resurrection of Jesus, his Paschal Mystery, constitutes THE human story. Without Jesus dying and rising, our human existence becomes empty, fruitless, and meaningless. On the contrary, as we allow ourselves to be plunged into those saving events, we are brought to new and more abundant life.

In the “in between” of that transformation stands the virtue of Hope, like a brave soldier standing in the breach. It can be far more agonizing than we may realize. It’s quite possible that only a few Christians these days are truly steeped in Hope.

Hope is the virtue of Holy Saturday – a day that is easily overlooked. Many are bustling about preparing for Easter; others are pre-binging on food or Netflix or some other pleasure. The invitation of Holy Mother Church – rarely accepted – is to engage in fasting and silence and prayer as best we can, to continue keeping our vigil at the Tomb of Christ, watching and waiting in Hope.

Think of the various characters in the Gospels and imagine what their experience of Holy Saturday was like. Think of Peter and the other apostles, having suddenly lost their Lord and their friend Jesus – and under the shameful circumstances of having abandoned him or denied him. Jesus had recently given a glimpse of glory to Peter atop Mount Tabor in the Transfiguration. Maybe that remembered experience emitted some faint glimmer of Hope amidst his overwhelming feelings of grief and disillusionment, fear and doubt, guilt and shame.

Think of Mary Magdalene and the other faithful women, holding Jesus in their hearts, continuing to love him even when it hurt so much. Their instinctive and intuitive Hope drew them to the tomb on Easter morning, even if they didn’t understand what was happening in their hearts.

Think of Jesus’ own mother Mary, who had borne him in her womb, nursed him, taught him to walk, taught him to read the Scriptures, taught him to pray, and so much more. Over the course of 33 years, she was more intimately close to him and held more conversations with Him than any other human being. Scripture does not record these, but Luke does tell us more than once that Mary kept pondering these mysteries in her heart. She is perhaps the one person who was not entirely surprised at his Resurrection.

But even for Mary – nay, especially for Mary – there was that agonizing in-between moment of Hope between the first day of Good Friday and the third day of Resurrection. If the experience was anything like the previous patterns (the birth of Jesus, the Flight into Egypt, the Presentation in the Temple), she knew and believed God’s promises, but did not know how those promises would be fulfilled.

That is what is so hard about Hope. It is an invitation to plunge into the depths of Jesus’ suffering – which involved far more than physical torments. He freely chose to dive into the depths of our fallen human experience – including the isolation, the loneliness, the fear, the shame, the rejection, and the abandonment that so many of us experience. When he cries out “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” He is crying out with and for each of us from the depths of our hearts – places we are often not willing to go ourselves, because they hurt so much. Jesus allows himself to feel the pain of rupture from God and rupture from neighbor that is part of the story for each of us who are fallen.

Then it’s our turn. Like the Virgin Mary, like Mary Magdelene, like so many of the other disciples, we are invited to keep vigil at his Tomb. We are invited to keep believing his promises – even when it seems impossible anything will ever change. For each of those followers, Easter morning was a wonderful surprise. The risen Jesus brought them joy in a way they had never imagined possible.

During “normal” Holy Weeks, Catholics show up in large numbers for Good Friday, and are often moved to tears at the torments Jesus endured on the Cross. This year, only the priest celebrant will get to kiss the Cross.

During “normal” Holy Weeks, most Catholics give little thought to the experience of Holy Saturday. This year, we all have an extended Holy Saturday opportunity. We have been given a share in Jesus’ suffering and death. In the form of all this unrest and all these unknowns, we have an opportunity to share in the same disorienting and agonizing experience of those early disciples on that first Holy Saturday. Like most of them, we do not know how long it will last, whether it will get better, or how it will get better. We surrender in Hope; we wait in Hope, even when it hurts.

We are free to choose. We can plunge fully into the deep waters of Hope. Or we can keep popping up for air. There are any number of ways we can do that. Some turn to the false soothing of food or alcohol or pornography. Others minimize or deny, pretending like it’s not really that hard (thus distancing themselves from genuine Hope). Still others crack a joke or enter into fault-finding and peevishness – anything that will distract us from the present agony of abiding at the Tomb in Hope.

These are normal ways of avoiding – and they make sense. We all do at least some of them. The truth is that tt is terrifying to be under water for a long period of time! For many of us, it feels like it will be too much or too long. Indeed, that is the whole point of being plunged into the waters of Baptism – we actually die with Christ!

We Catholics think often of Good Friday and of suffering with Jesus. This year, I invite each of us to think especially of Holy Saturday, and give ourselves permission to experience the full depth and breadth and length of Christian Hope. It is not for the faint of heart! If we allow it, it will grow and crescendo into an earthquake that will finally break open the cave of our heart; it will roll away the stone so that we, too, can be surprised by the joy of the Risen Jesus.