The Gospel of Mark: 1:4, 14-15:

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins………… After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

The gospel of Mark begins with a call to Penance.  In just the fourth verse, we hear the message of John the Baptist defined as “a baptism of repentance.”  And then, in the first words that Jesus speaks in this gospel, He repeats and reinforces John’s message: “Repent and believe the good news.”  The first words of his public ministry in the gospel of Matthew are nearly identical: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Jesus’ first act as He reveals Himself is to reinforce John’s call to repentance.  The Father, in His Mercy, has sent His Son to show us the path to redemption and salvation and the Son makes it immediately clear with His first public words that participation in the Kingdom requires an embrace of Penance. 

If we are to obey His teaching, we must have a clear understanding of what the word Penance means.  This is especially true in the modern world.  The farther we get from the time of Jesus and the birth of the Church, the more our culture wants to evolve toward the primacy of man.  Man seeks more and more to supplant God and to make himself the ruler of himself and all he perceives. 

As the culture evolves, it follows directly that the definition of Penance becomes watered down.  This is because the traditional definition of Penance directly challenges the course that modern man wishes to pursue.  Penance wants to be a restraint on man.  It wants to call him to discipline, obedience, and submission to the teaching of Jesus and the Will of God.  Many modern men do not want their freedom restricted by such considerations.  They do not want to accept that the responsibility associated with freedom can, in many ways, be determined by the traditional definition of Penance and its consequences.  Instead, they want to define responsibility and freedom entirely on their own terms.      

Technology has caused this change in our culture to accelerate.  The more connected we are, the faster impiety becomes acceptable and customary.  It becomes harder and harder to escape the messaging that calls us to these attitudes of sinfulness, and the outcome is a degradation of unity that already seems irreversible.  On one hand, many have embraced the secular rise of man.  On the other, many are doing everything they can to hold on to the Christian teachings that they believe are fundamental to living a moral life.  This division, which the traditionalist sees as the clear work of the enemy, is tearing the fabric of our culture apart.     

The tension between a traditional understanding of Jesus’ call to Penance and the desire of modern man to push the limits of his ascendancy is well established.  The genie may not go back in the bottle.  It seems theoretically possible for technology to be used to spread the teaching of Jesus, but it also seems that the negative influences are quickening and that the damage already done is extensive. 

This is reflected in the tragedies (particularly the violence) that our culture experiences on a regular basis.  It would seem obvious that a change in course is required and that the current path is untenable.  It would seem obvious that traditional values must be part of the answer.  But it also seemed obvious that the people of Jesus’ hometown should not have taken offense at Him, or that the Pharisees should have embraced Him instead of plotting to kill Him.

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I do not have the power to control the destiny of our culture.  I do not have the power to control the decision making of others. 

I only have the power to control my personal choices and the example I set. 

Once again, I have found that the Scripture I encounter in Mass speaks directly to the writing I have undertaken.  Today is the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  The second reading comes from chapter thirteen of the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.  It is one of the most well-known passages in the New Testament.  In part, it reads:

If I speak in human and angelic tongues,
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy,
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

As a Christian, the current culture likes to accuse me of intolerance, even of hate.  It is “a resounding gong, a clashing cymbal,” in my ears, but not in a good way.  It seems as if it is entirely bereft of the kind of Love that is spoken about here.  It often amounts to nothing, and if I were to conform myself to it, I would gain and become nothing.

I must choose to answer the culture in the true spirit of the above passage.  I must not brood over the injuries, real or perceived, that the culture brings to me.  I must bear with the culture and endure it.  I must not be jealous, pompous, or rude.  I must not seek my own interests or be quick-tempered.  In response to it, I must be patient and kind.  I must be a hopeful messenger about the true nature of Love.   

The reading in Mass ended with these words: “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  Love is the greatest because it is, to hearken back to chapter two, “both the fuel and the product of an engine of Life and Light” that God put into place to govern Creation.  Love is also the motivation which caused God to send His Son into the World to secure my salvation.  Love is God and God is Love, and this is what makes Love the primary, paramount, unassailable force in the Cosmos.    

Faith. Hope. Love.  These, with the addition of joy, are what form the expanded beginning of this journey that I defined at the close of the last reflection.  The pertinence of this Scripture to my writing is prescient and revelatory.  That my writing is at the stage where this Scripture speaks to it directly is not accidental.  I find it to be a part of the plan and a direct expression of the Will of God.   It demands that my sense of gratitude be expanded even further.

If I believe, as the Scripture indicates, that “Love never fails,” how can I make anything other than returning God’s Love to Him the primary pursuit of my life? If returning Love is my primary pursuit, does that not require obedience to God in general, and obedience to the opening words of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Mark in particular?

How can I not rush to understand and embrace Jesus’ call to Penance?

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The acceleration of the expansion of technology has happened within my adult life.  I can remember when cable TV did not exist, let alone the streaming devices and apps that have made traditional modes of watching TV obsolete.  I did not get my first computer until I was a senior in college.  When I began my working career, there was no such thing as the Internet or email.  My first cell phone came when I was over thirty years old.  The pace of change is unprecedented in the course of history.    

St. Francis was born about the year 1181.  He lived more than a thousand years after the birth of the Christ, but his understanding of Penance would have closely mirrored that of Jesus.  The progress of man was slow enough at that point in history, and Francis was committed enough to following the teachings of Jesus precisely, that I can surely glean the original intent of the teaching of Jesus on Penance from the life of St. Francis.     

Therefore, to introduce the full and proper definition of Penance, I am comfortable relying on the first chapter of Love’s Reply.  Please understand that even though this definition occurs in a Franciscan setting, its application is universal.  There is no order within the Catholic Church that would disagree with casting Penance in these terms.  Note that even though these words are more than sixty years old, they anticipate the assertion of the primacy of man and the influence of technology in today’s world.  These changes were just beginning at the time that Esser and Grau were writing, but they could already intuit the long-term impact they would have.

Here is a what Love’s Reply has to say about the true meaning of Penance:

“Unfortunately, in modern usage the word “penance” has taken on a somewhat narrow meaning.  By “penance” we usually understand the practice of works of external mortification, works that we undertake of our own initiative.  When penance is mentioned we almost involuntarily think of fasting………As a result, the “life of penance” has acquired a very restricted, not to say even a distorted, meaning.”

“Francis had in mind something greater and deeper since he understood penance primarily in the sense of gospel “Metanoia,” which literally implies a change of mind, the complete and unceasing renewal of a man who tends to God with all his being.”

What I wish to concentrate on here is the word “Metanoia,” and the idea that Penance calls me to an “unceasing renewal” that requires me to “tend to God with all my being.”

This is the opposite of what current culture calls us to.  In terms of Love’s Reply, the distinction sounds like this: 

If the Kingdom of God is thus established wherever God is made once more the center of life of the individual and of mankind, that kingdom is destroyed or threatened whenever man by sin puts himself in the place of God, for thereby he seeks to be lord unto himself, and loves himself rather than God.

In terms of the beginning of chapter seven of the gospel of Mark, which is now the subject of my daily Lectio Divina, it sounds like this:

“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written:  
        These people honor me with their lips,
        But their hearts are far from me.
        They worship me in vain.
        Their teachings are but rules taught by men.”

Technology and the pace of change seem to cast the desire of man to replace God as a new problem.  But in truth, it is age old.

In this passage from Mark, the Pharisees have questioned Jesus about the practices of his disciples.  They eat with “unclean” hands, and the Pharisees want to know why they do not follow the tradition of the elders.  Jesus informs the Pharisees that many of their traditions are contrary to the commands of God.  He talks about how the teachings of the Pharisees inhibit the teaching of Moses and the command of God to “honor your father and your mother.”  He summarizes his reply to the Pharisees by stating, “you do many things like that.”

He then calls the crowd to Him, and to emphasize the sinful will of men, He teaches that “nothing outside a man can make him unclean.”  Instead, it is “out of men’s hearts” that evil comes.

Metanoia, with its call to “tend to God with all my being,” asks me to live counter to the current culture and to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  Instead of “putting myself in the place of God and seeking to be a lord unto myself,” I am to condemn myself and my sinfulness and put Love for God ahead of all other concerns.  Instead of following the “rules taught by men,” and thereby locating my heart far from the Love of Jesus, I am called to discern and follow the commands of God, and thereby locate myself in the closest possible proximity to my Creator.

All of this requires the “unceasing renewal” of Metanoia.  Again, human frailty and the teaching of article seven of the OFS rule comes to mind:

United by their vocation as “brothers and sisters of penance,” and motivated by the dynamic power of the gospel, let them conform their thoughts and deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel itself calls “conversion.” 

The Rule calls me to “conform my thoughts and deeds to those of Christ.”  This is tantamount to asking me to “tend to God with all my being.”  The “conversion” of the Rule corresponds to the “unceasing renewal” of Love’s Reply.

The same equivalencies are also found in the Earlier Exhortation of St. Francis to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, which serves as the Prologue to the OFS Rule.  Here is the opening of the first section, Concerning Those Who Do Penance:

All who love the Lord with their whole heart, with their whole soul and mind, with all their strength, and love their neighbors as themselves and hate their bodies with their vices and sins, and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and produce worthy fruits of penance.

Oh, how happy and blessed are these men and women when they do these things and persevere in doing them, ………………………

To “love the Lord with my whole heart, my whole soul and mind, and with all my strength” is to “tend to God with all my being.”  To “persevere in doing these things” is to embrace “unceasing renewal.”

Of course, these words by Francis are, in turn, taken directly from the gospel.  In the twelfth chapter of Mark, Jesus is asked which is the most important command of all by a teacher of the law.  He responds,

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these.”

I begin with a gospel passage that shows Jesus instructing the Pharisees that their traditions are often in conflict with the commands of God.  I travel from that gospel passage to the OFS Rule, and then to the words of Francis, and then back to the gospel, all to confirm what I have found in the writing in Love’s Reply.  In doing so, I embrace article four of the Rule as mentioned in the last reflection, which instructs me to go “from gospel to life and life to gospel.”

This action is an example of Metanoia.  I am leaving behind the worries of the world and searching for relationship with God.  I am committing myself to placing that relationship with God at the center and core of my being.  I am not relying on my judgment, but I am instead seeking the words of my Father Francis, and even more so, the words of my Lord Jesus Christ, to guide me into Truth.  As Francis would have me do, I am seeking to become lesser, and in doing so, I am subordinating myself to God and the teachings of Christ.

This is an example of how I can “tend to God with all my being,” at least for a short stretch of time.  If my embrace of Penance is going to be complete, then I need to learn to follow this pattern “unceasingly.”

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God wants me to be relentless.  He wants me to devote myself to Penance unequivocally.  Therefore, according to the path to salvation that He has established for me in the gospels, He gives me everything I need to do so.  The gospel is full of passages that call me to this way of life. 

If I possessed enough energy and was a hundred times smarter, I could spend the rest of my life writing books on this topic.  I could read all four gospels from end to end, taking almost every story that Jesus tells and every event in His life, and fit them into the idea of tending to God with all my energy.  I could then revisit the Old Testament and the balance of the New Testament and reinforce this idea further.   In many ways, all that is in Scripture is an echo or amplification of this need to turn myself unambiguously toward God.

It would be the work of a lifetime.  But that is appropriate, because Penance is meant to be the work of a lifetime.  It is never complete.  It always calls to us.  It always seeks to capture our imagination and to direct our action.  It is an overarching concept that requires all the attention we can give it.  Thus the need for “unceasing renewal” as discussed above and “daily conversion” as called for in article seven of the Rule.

Here are several more examples from the gospels that might help keep both the need and the desire for Penance active in our consciousness.

• In the first chapter of Luke, Mary is visited by an angel.  The news that Gabriel brings to Mary is overwhelming.  And yet, she responds by surrendering herself to the Will of God.  Then, when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, she declares, in one of the most beautifully subtle and sensational sentences I have ever encountered in my life, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  She is speaking of using her soul as a tool to “tend to God with all her being.”  The result of her tending is joy, the same joy that became pervasive in the life of Francis when he learned to focus his entire being on the life and gospel of his Lord Jesus Christ.  The same joy that I added to the definition of beginning at the end of the last chapter.

These passages do not appear back-to-back in the gospel, but I began to pray them end-to-end while on my journey.  They are slightly tweaked to suit my purpose.

I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May the Holy Spirit come upon me,
and may the power of the Most High overshadow me.
May it be done to me and through me according to your Will and Word.
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my savior,
for he has regard for the humble and lowly estate of his servant.

I invite you to spend time praying with these words in this configuration.  Can they be used to express a desire to draw as close to God as I possibly can?  Do they express the humility and surrender that is required for such proximity to be developed?  Are they words that could be repeated often, not just daily, but multiple times each day, to help reinforce a desire to encounter God regularly in an attitude of unceasing conversion?    

• In Luke chapter nine (also Mark chapter eight), Jesus teaches his disciples about the path that He, as the son of Man, must follow.  And then He calls them to the same path:

“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”

If you read these words in the context of this discussion of Penance, is the true and deep meaning of Penance and Metanoia clear?  Does Jesus’ call to “deny myself” and to “lose my life for His sake” ring out to me as an invitation to tend toward Him with all my being?  Does the instruction to “take up my cross daily and follow Him” remind me of the need for unceasing renewal and constant conversion?  When He speaks about “gaining the world but losing my very self,” can I do anything other than think about the distorted state of the current culture I live in and the need to strive against the sinful usurpations it calls me to?

• If a reminder of my dogged tendency toward sinfulness will help my embrace of Penance, then I can find this in the gospels as well.  Peter’s intractable inability to grasp what Jesus was teaching gives me great hope, because I can see by his example that even the rock upon which Jesus would build his Church was fallible.  He was in direct contact with Jesus, a part of his inmost circle, and yet he often faced away from Christ, turning inward as he clung to his own very worldly definition of what salvation would entail.

He had to undergo adversity and conversion before he could decipher how to “tend to God with all his being” in a posture of “unceasing renewal.”  Only after he figured this out, was he fit to fulfill the role that Jesus selected him for.

Here is Matthew 16:21-23 (also Mark chapter eight), which demonstrates Peter’s inwardness and “human concern” perfectly.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”  Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

And then Matthew 26:31-35, where, in his inwardness and worldliness, he has the audacity to directly contradict what Jesus is telling him:

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written:

“‘I will strike the shepherd,
               and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”  Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”   “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”  But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.

Peter’s bravado could be excused, perhaps, if it only happened once and he learned his lesson.  But it seems that it was an ongoing problem.  The rebuke from Jesus in the first passage is stern.  I have a hard time imagining how I would react to Jesus calling me Satan.  That would shake me up, and I would hope that if it did happen, it would lead to my permanent conversion. 

But, if I am honest, I must admit that He regularly reveals my sinful nature to me.  Peter did not get it the first time, nor have I.  Even after the rebuke, Peter could not let go of his own view of what the coming of the Messiah meant, so it is not surprising that I struggle to let go of my own sinful need to control everything that happens around me. 

Peter and I are like the Pharisees.  We hold on to our worldliness even though it is in direct conflict with the commands that God speaks to us directly.  Peter may have been physically present, but the gospels make me as present to Christ as I need to be, and I also have recourse to the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.  Even though we are both right there for the message of Jesus, we often cannot free ourselves sufficiently from our human perspective to accept and adopt His teaching.  This is true even though we both confess Jesus to be the Messiah. (Luke 9:20)

Peter’s hubris, which amounts to an instance of the same ascendancy of man that is so prevalent in our modern culture, ultimately leads to a significant mistake.  At his lowest point, he denies Jesus outright, and he ends up with the bitter tears that initiate the Penance that will allow him to be reinstated by Jesus at the end of John’s gospel.

Do you, like me, see yourself as more like Peter than you wish you were?  Do you often fail to get the message and as a result repeat the sins you swore you would put behind you?  Is Peter an example of the need for “unceasing renewal?”  And are there times when your remorse is so bitter and you are so anxious to be forgiven that you would metaphorically jump out of the boat and swim to shore because you cannot wait one extra moment to be reunited with Jesus? 

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.”  As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.

Did Peter, in the end, “tend toward God with all his being” despite his sinfulness?

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At the beginning of his testament, St. Francis writes, “The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance in this way ……. And afterwards I delayed a little and left the world.”  This is the example I wish to follow.  I wish to do Penance and to leave the worldly influence behind just as Francis did. 

If I embrace Penance as fully as possible, if I turn my full attention to God and do not waver, and if I do so unceasingly, I can hope to be reconciled to Jesus just as Peter was.

To have a genuinely meaningful and successful conversion, I need my gratitude to translate into an embrace of the full and deep meaning of “Penance” as conveyed by the word Metanoia.  The Penance I seek is not, as current cultural conventions might suggest, simply the giving up of some relatively trivial and earthly thing.  Instead, it is a deep and unwavering commitment to turn toward the Lord and never turn back.  If my resolution is to have worth, it must go beyond the merely material and worldly.  It must not merely contain the negative but must also embrace the positive.  I must not merely give up the sinful, but I must embrace the Holy.

To embrace the Holy, I must embrace virtue, defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “a habitual and firm disposition to good.”  When Loves Reply defines Penance as “a change of mind, the complete and unceasing renewal of a man who tends to God with all his being,” it is defining a turn toward virtue.  This means that my work must be based at least as much in doing good as in ceasing to do evil.  If I seek to not only discontinue the negative, but to also begin the positive, I must replace the negative with its opposite.  I must enact the good that corrects and makes restitution for whatever the sinful behavior might be. 

In terms of the example of Peter, I must not only not deny Christ, but I must actively and passionately cling to Him as Peter likely did once he made it out of the water. 

I do this by seeking encounter.  I can encounter Christ in the Eucharist, in Scripture, in spiritual reading, in prayer, in Creation, and in my sisters and brothers.  Article 5 of the OFS Rule puts it like this:

Secular Franciscans, therefore, should seek to encounter the living and active person of Christ in their brothers and sisters, in Sacred Scripture, in the Church, and in liturgical activity.

I can actively spend time seeking Him in any of these venues instead of spending my time mired in the sinful actions I wish to set aside.

When St. Clare wrote letters of counsel to St. Agnes of Prague, this was very much the message she spoke to her.  The most famous passage from those letters reads like this:

….as a poor virgin, embrace the poor Christ.
Look upon Him Who became contemptible for you,
and follow Him, making yourself contemptible in this world for Him.
Most noble Queen,
          gaze,
          consider,
          contemplate,
          desiring to imitate Your Spouse,

[Who] though more beautiful than the children of men became, for your salvation, the lowest of men, was despised, struck, scourged untold times throughout His entire body, and then died amid the suffering of the Cross.

If you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him.
weeping with Him, you will rejoice with Him;
dying on the cross of tribulation with Him,
you will possess heavenly mansions with Him among the splendor of the saints and in the Book of Life your name will be called glorious among the peoples.

Because of this you shall share always and forever the glory of the kingdom of heaven in place of what is earthly and passing, and everlasting treasures instead of those that perish, and you shall live forever and ever.

“Embrace the poor Christ. Look upon Him, follow Him, gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate” Him.  “Suffer, reign, weep, rejoice, and die with Him.” 

All calls for Agnes, but also for me, to encounter Him.

The theme of separating myself from worldly influence shines through here.  Clare clearly calls Agnes to exactly the relationship with God that I have been discussing in reference to Penance.  Clare wants Agnes to not just tend toward Christ, but to “make herself contemptible in this world for him.”  She is to actively seek to suffer, weep, and die with Him on the Cross.  To rearrange the quote from Love’s Reply a little, this surely entails a “complete and unceasing change of mind” from the typical outlook of any day or age.

The final goal of my journey is also present. I am seeking eternal encounter with God. Clare promises Agnes that her firm embrace of Penance and Poverty will result in “possessing heavenly mansions with Him among the splendor of the saints” and “sharing always and forever the glory of the kingdom of heaven in place of what is earthly and passing.”

Franciscans use the words gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate to define an approach to prayer that is eminently well suited to the embrace of Penance.  An encounter or embrace of Christ begins with gazing, with simply placing myself in His presence.  It is fulfilled by my desire to imitate the example He set for me by His Incarnation, His Passion, and His ongoing presence and availability in the world.  This example is right in front of me if I sit observing a Crucifix or an Icon, and it is laid out before me in the gospels and elaborated upon in the rest of Scripture.  

In this approach to prayer, I place myself in front of an image of Christ and gaze upon it.  It is an act of Lectio Divina, where, instead of considering and contemplating Scripture, I consider and contemplate the image as a representation of all the Scriptural passages that inspire that image.  If I am gazing at a Crucifix, gospel passages about the Passion of Christ arise in me.  If the image is of a different scene, perhaps something like the Garden of Gethsemane, then passages relevant to that scene emerge.  

If you are having trouble deciding how to begin a commitment to Penance, resolve yourself to trying this practice.  Commit to spending time gazing at Jesus.  Let the considering and contemplating take care of themselves.  Let gospel passages arise in your thoughts as they will or read them in tandem with your gazing, but maybe not at the same sitting.

However you go about it, simply remind yourself often that Penance is what you seek.  Remind yourself that you understand Penance to mean a complete and continuous turning toward God with all your being.  As you gaze, remember that this was His Way during His sojourn on earth.  Jesus was always and unconditionally focused on His Father during His entire stay.  That is how He maintained his steadfastness in the Garden, resolving to do God’s Will despite the horrific hardships that awaited Him.

Imitate Him in this.  Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you dwell with God always, the same way that Jesus did.   

As His creation, it is Christ’s Love, Sacrifice and Mercy that make my redemption and salvation possible despite my sinful unworthiness.  I will embrace complete and unwavering gratitude, faith, belief, joy, and hope in response to this. 

I will, with an attitude of full commitment to Penance, resolve to give up all worldly concern, as much as possible, permanently, as I seek to return His Love to Him according to the nature and call of my Creation. 

I will resolve to give my entire self to Him, tending toward Him with all my being in a posture that embraces unceasing conversion. 

Proceed to Chapter Five: Self-Denial

Back to Chapter Three: Gratitude

The Letter of St. Paul to Titus, 3:3-7:

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

As I have indicated, spiritual reading was one of the main activities of my trip.  I read five or six books from cover to cover, and bits and pieces of several others.  Two of the books I read were of particular importance in shaping what I am attempting here.

The first was Heliotropium, by Fr. Jeremias Drexelius, S. J.  This book was published in 1627 and, to quote the cover, it is “The Famous Classic on Conformity of the Human Will to the Divine.”  I will draw from it in later reflections that focus more closely on that topic.

The second is Love’s Reply, by Cajetan Esser, O.F.M, and Englebert Grau, O.F.M. 

I first came across this book early in my Franciscan journey.  At times I would go to the convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Mishawaka, IN and sit in their chapel to pray.  These Sisters host the local Secular Franciscan fraternity I belong to.  Each Sister has an individual pew in the chapel where she sits regularly for prayer and Mass.  Many keep personal reflection materials in these pews.  One day I sat down and noticed this book, pulled it out, and began reading from it.

I was immediately captivated and knew I had found something special.  The book was first published in German in 1960 and was translated to English in 1962.  It was derived from various articles that had previously been published independently.  Cajetan Esser, born in 1913 and reposed in 1978, was a renowned Franciscan historian and scholar.  The version of Francis’ “Praises of God” that appeared in the last chapter is his direct translation from the original.

As soon as I began reading this book, I knew I wanted a copy for my personal library.  Unfortunately, it is out of print and hard to find.  When I searched Amazon, no copies were available.  When I searched Alibris.com, one of the main online clearinghouses for used books, one copy was available for $200.  I did not make that expenditure, although there are times I think it would have been worthwhile.  (I just checked Alibris now and there was a copy available for $20, so I ordered it to give to my fraternity.)

I waited and my patience somehow paid off when one of my fraternity sisters decided to give away some books she had.  Amazingly, as I looked at her shelf, I saw she had a copy.  I told her of its value and rarity, but she insisted on letting me have it anyway.  I am grateful for the poverty she embraced that day because it meant this book was available for my journey.

This reflection and the next two are directly inspired by the first chapter of that book.  I just reread it this morning and part of me thinks I should ditch my entire effort and just use that one chapter to convey everything this work hopes to communicate.  I am not sure I can do better.  The chapter is only nine pages long, but it touches on everything I seek to develop.

That first chapter focuses on gratitude, the definition of Penance as Francis understood it, and self-denial.  What follows in this reflection closely follows the discussion on gratitude.  The definition of Penance will be the subject of the next chapter, and then self-denial.  For all I will provide multiple quotations directly from the Love’s Reply text. 

I was wondering yesterday how I would write a full chapter on the idea of gratitude, but now I think I have the answer.  I am mostly going to steal it from Love’s Reply.

_________________

Esser and Grau introduce the connection between gratitude and Penance by referring to chapter twenty-three of The Earlier Rule.  They do not present it in its entirety as I am, but they quote from it liberally.  In the first volume of Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, this text appears in versified form and is five pages long.  Love’s Reply refers to these words as an “Exhortation of Prayer and Thanksgiving.”  To save space, I am changing the form, but I encourage you to seek out the original to get the full effect.  It is Francis at his absolute best.

All powerful, most holy, Almighty and supreme God, Holy and just Father, Lord King of heaven and earth, we thank You for Yourself for through Your holy will and through Your only Son with the Holy Spirit You have created everything spiritual and corporal and, after making us in Your own image and likeness, You placed us in paradise.

Through our own fault we fell.

We thank You for as through Your Son You created us, so through Your holy love with which You loved us You brought about His birth as true God and true man by the glorious, ever-virgin, most blessed, holy Mary and you willed to redeem us captives through His cross and blood and death.

We thank You for Your Son Himself will come again in the glory of His majesty to send into the eternal fire the wicked ones who have not done penance and have not known You and to say to all those who have known You, adored You, and served You in penance: “Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”

Because all of us, wretches and sinners, are not worthy to pronounce Your name, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, in Whom you were well pleased, together with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to give You thanks, for everything as it pleases You and Him, Who always satisfies You in everything, through Whom You have done so much for us, Alleluia!

Because of Your love, we humbly beg the glorious Mother, the most blessed, ever-virgin Mary, Blessed Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, all the choirs of the blessed seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, angels, archangels, Blessed John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, the blessed patriarchs and prophets, the innocents, apostles, evangelists, disciples, the martyrs, confessors and virgins, the blessed Elijah and Henoch, all the saints who were, who will be, and who are to give You thanks for these things, as it pleases You, God true and supreme, eternal and living, with Your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, world without end, Amen, Alleluia!

All us lesser brothers, useless servants, humbly ask and beg those who wish to serve the Lord God within the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and all the following orders: priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors, porters, and all clerics, all religious men and women, all penitents and youths, the poor and the needy, kings and princes, workers and farmers, servants and masters, all virgins, continent and married women, all lay people, men and women, all children, adolescents, young and old, the healthy and the sick, all the small and the great, all people, races, tribes and tongues, all nations and all peoples everywhere on earth, who are and who will be to persevere in the true faith and in penance for otherwise no one will be saved.

With our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, with our whole strength and fortitude, with our whole understanding, with all our powers, with every effort, every affection, every feeling, every desire and wish, let us all love the Lord our God Who has given and gives to each one of us our whole body, our whole soul, and our whole life, Who has created, redeemed and will save us by His mercy alone, Who did and does everything good for us, miserable and wretched, rotten and foul, ungrateful and evil ones.

Therefore, let us desire nothing else, let us want nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause us delight except our Creator, Redeemer and Savior, the only true God, Who is the fullness of good, all good, every good, the true and supreme good, Who alone is good, merciful, gentle, delightful, and sweet, Who alone is holy, just, true, holy, and upright, Who alone is kind, innocent, clean, from Whom, through Whom and in Whom is all pardon, all grace, all glory of all penitents and just ones, of all the blessed rejoicing together in heaven.

Therefore, let nothing hinder us, nothing separate us, nothing come between us.

Wherever we are, in every place, at every hour, at every time of day, every day and continually, let all of us truly and humbly believe, hold in our heart and love, honor, adore, serve, praise and bless, glorify and exalt, magnify and give thanks to the Most High and Supreme Eternal God, Trinity and Unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator of all, Savior of all Who believe and hope in Him, and love Him, Who without beginning and end, is unchangeable, invisible, indescribable, ineffable, incomprehensible, unfathomable, blessed, praiseworthy, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, gentle, lovable, delightful, and totally desirable above all else, forever.

Amen.  

It is a different experience to type these words instead of just reading them.  It takes a different level of concentration and awareness, and then, in the proofreading, a different sense of understanding emerges.  I debated whether to include the entire text, but I am glad I did.  You might think about typing or writing it out yourself to boost your appreciation.  Or at least try saying the words out loud.

If you review the words closely, you will find all the themes of the beginning of the Gospel of John.  Francis addresses our created nature, our wretched sinfulness, and the Mercy of God in sending His Son to secure our redemption.  The themes of returning God’s Love wholeheartedly and being a believer are present.  What took me five thousand plus words to describe, he achieved in about eight hundred and much more poetically than I could ever hope to achieve. 

Plus, Francis added an overwhelming sense of gratitude and thankfulness.  He begins by thanking God for Himself.  He then thanks God for our creation and for the gift of salvation through the Son.  And then He thanks God for the Son a second time in relation to the gift of the Kingdom that has been prepared for those who practice Penance. 

And then Francis proceeds to ask every holy person or entity that has ever existed, does exist, or will exist, starting with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Mary, and working his way down from there, to thank God on our behalf because we are too miserable and wretched to be able to thank Him properly for the underserved Mercy He showers upon us.

Finally, he reinforces the goodness of God as he “humbly asks and begs those who wish to serve the Lord God within the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ……… to persevere in the true faith and in Penance for otherwise no one will be saved,” while simultaneously encouraging us “to love, honor, adore ……… the Lord our God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, ………”

_________________

Love’s Reply takes this prayer and uses it to establish gratitude as the only proper response to the overwhelming Mercy of God.  Gratitude is the fountain that ultimately allows Penance to flourish.  These quotes demonstrate the tenor of what Love’s Reply works to convey regarding gratitude and thanksgiving:

“The very starting point of our life of penance is naught else than overflowing gratitude for the benefits which the mercy of the Father has bestowed on us in his true and holy love through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“What God in his goodness and mercy has done for us and continues to do is the beginning and starting point of any obligation on our part.  The life of penance, like the whole Christian life, is thus the grateful answer of man to the call of grace, to God’s saving mercy toward us.  It is from this gratitude, to the degree that it is true and heartfelt, and not primarily from our own will or desire, that there arises our obligation to lead a life of penance.”

“Francis fulfilled his happy duty of returning thanks for the marvels and wonders of God’s love not only by his words, but even more by his whole life.  His “life of penance” is the total and unreserved answer of a heart full of gratitude for all that God has bestowed upon us in and through Christ.”

I want to call special attention to one specific idea here: 

“It is from this gratitude, to the degree that it is true and heartfelt, and not primarily from our own will or desire, that there arises our obligation to lead a life of penance.” 

The starting point of my life of Penance is not my weak and often inadequate will.  I do not wake up and decide on my own one morning that I am going to suddenly begin a life of Penance.  That decision does not happen in a vacuum.  Left to my own devices, I would never choose such a life.  It is too hard, and a limited and underdeveloped human perception would not conceive it, let alone countenance it.  The worldly perspective of my human will would never arrive at the pressing need to embrace Penance on its own.   

Only the big picture of salvation (the beginning point of my journey from the last reflection) can allow me to conceive the role that Penance must play in a well-organized existence.  I must embrace my status as a creature.  I must accept my sinfulness.  I must recognize my need for help and believe in God’s prodigiously Loving response to that need.  Only when I wholly internalize and actuate these insights can I develop the gratitude that then leads to an acute need and keen desire for Penance.  

In the words of Francis’ prayer, I am “miserable and wretched, rotten and foul, ungrateful and evil.”  After accepting this, I instinctively wonder what consequences ought to follow from my wretchedness. 

If I am honest with myself, I recognize that a life lived in such a state deserves punishment.  If those qualities persist in me then eternal damnation is what I should receive as my reward.  I would not expect second or third or hundredth chances from my Creator.  At some point, I would expect Him to say enough is enough, and off you go, out of my sight, and out of my awareness forever.

But He does not do that.  Instead, He Lovingly calls me to conversion with no limitations and no restrictions.  He will call me back not hundreds of times, but thousands of times, even millions of times, if that is what it takes to secure my redemption and salvation.

The only proper response I can give to such a display of steadfast Love is unequivocal, unambiguous, and unmistakable gratitude.

It takes this enhanced perception for me to fully desire a reverential disposition toward Penance.  If I have any other motivation, especially including a willful decision made on what is otherwise a whim, then the commitment will not stick. This “true and heartfelt” level of gratitude is a prerequisite if I want to reach the first destination on my road to eternal encounter with God.  To reach Penance, I must fuel my journey with the Love that this sense of gratitude will reflexively inspire in me. 

All that said, my wretchedness still means I am incapable of offering proper thanks for everything that God has done in Christ for me.  Even if I accept the points above, both my will and my gratitude are still tainted by my wickedness.  I am too corrupted, too mired in the habits of sin, and simply too human to achieve gratitude on my own.  I do not possess enough guile, astuteness, strength, or fortitude to succeed by my will alone.  I need help. 

If I have already acknowledged that I need God’s help to achieve salvation, then I can safely assume I need His help to achieve this attitude of gratitude as well. 

Francis calls on the whole church and the full court of Heaven for assistance in offering proper thanks. The assistance that Francis beseeches is meant to secure just what I need, the help and blessings of God.  Francis wants all the Holy in Heaven to pray for and with his Order as they seek to render proper thanks for everything God has done and continues to do for them.  I would be wise to do the same.  I should seek help from this same cohort if I hope to develop and express a thorough sense of thankfulness and gratitude on my journey. 

Remember that even though Francis wrote these words as part of a Rule for those who would enter his religion, he did not exempt himself.  He joined his followers in adopting this way of life and was much more stringent with himself than he was with them.  He not only spoke to his followers about gratitude, but he also provided an impeccable example of what gratitude lived out looked like.  He did not simply point out to them that they were wicked, etc., but he signified that he shared these traits.  The position of minority that he insisted on meant that he also saw himself as a miserable wretch in dire need of God’s Mercy.  He, despite being one of the greatest saints in history, worked tirelessly right alongside his brothers to seek and adopt the bearing of gratitude and then Penance that he called his followers to. 

The final quote speaks of Francis “fulfilling his happy duty ………. not only by his words, but even more by his whole life.”  The example that Francis set for his followers was not wishy-washy.  His entire existence reflected his gratitude and the totality of his commitment.  He was all-in, and his passionate dedication did not cause him grief, but led to joy and happiness. 

As I ask the assistance of the cohort of Heaven for help on these beginning steps of my journey, I can specifically add Francis to my petition.  I can be sure that he is not above me in this endeavor.  Instead, he is my brother as I seek to fulfill the calling that he sets before me. 

As the language of my profession asserts, he is my help. 

May the ……. intercession ……. of our Holy Father Francis ……. always be my help so that I may reach the goal of perfect Christian Love.

I want to align myself with Francis.  I want my devotion to be as complete as his and I want to be joyful in the gratitude that I express in thanks for everything that God has accomplished for me.

Gratitude must not be something I give lip service to and then move on from.  It must be at the core of my being.  It must always reside in my awareness.  It should spark in me an attitude of Penance that imbues my entire existence with an unquenchable desire to be converted from miserable wretch to saint. 

Gratitude was the first step in the conversion of Francis.  I hope it does something similar for me.

_________________

My citing of Francis’ Praises of God in the last chapter and his “Exhortation of Prayer and Thanksgiving” in this one reminds me that to be aligned with him I must visit the stories of his life again and again.  I need to be consistently reminded of the passion he had for the entire religion he established.  If I am to follow his charism, I must know it well. 

As I traveled, along with the works I mentioned above, I also focused on reading various biographical works on St. Francis.  I had not recently read The Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano, so I read it again.  I also read The Legend of the Three Companions and The Assisi Compilation.  And I read all of Francis’ own writings as compiled in the first volume of St. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents.            

When you have the luxury to do a cross section of spiritual reading all at once, the connectedness of the works jumps out at you.  The impact of each work is magnified by what is contained in the others.  I found this especially true when I was reading the various lives of St. Francis.  Even though many of the stories were repeated from work to work, they grew and were enhanced each time I read them.  My appreciation for Francis’ depth of commitment to gratitude, Penance, and Poverty was especially enriched by reading his words and the stories of his life.

The dedication present in his life is so far beyond what I can muster it is bewildering.  I often daydream about becoming a saint, but when I read about the accomplishment of St. Francis and his overwhelming holiness, I am reminded of my own foolishness.  The idea that I could begin to approach his devotion seems so far-fetched that I find it hard to imagine where to start.

And yet, start I must.  Francis’ “Exhortation to Prayer and Thanksgiving” served as the starting point for Esser and Grau as they composed Love’s Reply, which means it is also a suitable starting point for me.  As I read about Francis’ attitude toward Creation, his thankfulness for Penance and the other gifts that “God gave him,” and his obsession with the life, and particularly the Poverty of Jesus, I can empathize with the inestimable feeling of gratitude that Francis experienced in direct response to the plan initiated by God to ensure the salvation of every human being created through His Love. 

This “true and heartfelt” gratitude begins my movement toward Penance, forcing me to accept and affirm this corollary; it is not my will and not my work, a solely human work, which enables my salvation.  Instead, salvation is enabled by the action of God with some fortunate help from the prayers of the entire church and the full court of Heaven.

Depending on myself for my salvation would leave me with a very dismal outlook where eternity is concerned.  If I thought I could achieve redemption through my human action that would be a flawed assertion of my ego in direct opposition to the plan of God.  It would be sinful for me to think that I am in command of my destiny when I think about achieving the goal of Heaven. 

Instead, it is a great comfort to accept that God is in charge.  It runs contrary to modern culture to cede control of anything to anyone.  But in fact, I am not conceding anything.  I am simply recognizing and accepting the true nature of my human condition.  I never had control of this situation and never could.  It could never be realistic for me to expect to chart my own path to redemption because I cannot expect to avoid or overcome my own abysmal and sinful narrowmindedness. 

Always, I have been at God’s Mercy.

It is easy to think of His Love and His Mercy as the same thing, but deeper reflection suggests that Mercy somehow, as mysterious as it might seem, extends His Love further even though His Love is already all-encompassing.  It sounds absurd, but the exceptional thing He has done in removing the initial responsibility for my eternal well-being from my control seems to go beyond Love.  Even though it seems improbable, Mercy somehow makes His Love greater than it already is.

In His Wisdom, I do not have to labor at figuring out the detailed mechanics of salvation.  There is nothing for me to ascertain, or discover, or construct.  Life appears to be a series of challenges, but it can be simple if I adhere to the course He has established.  I need to believe, to be obedient, and to follow with a humble and loving attitude a path ordained by His Mercy that begins with gratitude and flows into Penance.

This pathway is initiated and detailed in the Gospels.  If the multiple sources I read about Francis during my trip make anything clear, it is that all his followers are called to a gospel life.  The first sentence of the Later Rule says this:

The Rule and Life of the Lesser Brothers is this:  to observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience ……..

Article four of the OFS Rule says this:

The rule and life of the Secular Franciscans is this: to observe the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by following the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who made Christ the inspiration and the center of his life with God and people.

Secular Franciscans should devote themselves especially to careful reading of the gospel, going from gospel to life and life to the gospel.

There cannot be a simpler response to God’s Mercy: Pursue the path to salvation laid out by the example Jesus set and the Word that He spoke! 

Because He anticipates my frailty, His Mercy also causes Him to send me The Holy Spirit as an Advocate to help me remember, understand, and follow His lead.  He has thought of everything.  I have all that I need. God has taken the primary burden of achieving salvation away from me and opened a pathway to Heaven that I can be sure I have the means to travel.  He knows what I am capable of, what I can and cannot realistically achieve.  Beyond that, He Loves me to such an extent that He could never chart a course for me that is inaccessible. 

I already touched on the final quote from Love’s Reply regarding the wholeness of Francis’ gratitude, but I also want to re-emphasize the words “happy duty.”  I want to acknowledge that Francis’ approach to gratitude is linked to his approach to joy.  God’s plan for our salvation should not just engender gratitude in us, but also joy.

Again, it may conflict with current cultural conventions, but I should be joyful that I am not in primary control of my salvation.  If I was, and I admitted my woeful shortcomings regarding my ability to achieve salvation on my own, that would be a source of great sorrow.  I would have to accept the inevitability of my failure to achieve an eternity spent in the blissful presence of God in Heaven.

But, if I believe in His Mercy, this sorrow is precluded.  It is replaced by a joyful sense of peace that resonates and resounds through the core of my being. 

His Creation of me.  His Love for me.  The sending of His Son to redeem me.  His Mercy.

All result in an overflowing of joy and gratitude in my heart that, as Francis indicates, my human capabilities are woefully insufficient to express.

_________________

As I mentioned above, one of the benefits of reading multiple spiritual works in concert is that they tend to enhance each other.  The entire conception of these reflections is dependent on the interaction of the different spiritual readings I undertook.  The themes in Love’s Reply resonated with Heliotropium, which resonated with the books on Lectio Divina, which resonated with the stories and words of St. Francis.  These varied works came together to form an integrated set of ideas that is more expansive than any individual component.

This beneficial effect also extends to the reading of Scripture.  As I immersed myself in the reading of these various spiritual books, I found that I was more fully aware of the Scripture I was also reading.  Connections became apparent that I might have otherwise missed.

I have already cited how the parables about seeds in chapter four of Mark intersected with and inspired my first reflection.  In the second reflection, the story from chapter five of Mark about the woman healed by touching Jesus’ cloak was just what I needed to fully communicate the importance of belief that I was trying to express.    

As I began this reflection, I moved to chapter six of Mark.  This chapter begins with Jesus teaching in the synagogue in His hometown.  The residents are amazed at His Wisdom and the miraculous healings He performs.  At the same time, they take offense at Him.  Jesus is in turn amazed at their lack of faith and as a result, “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. “ 

This further reinforces the assertions I have made about belief.  Jesus responds to belief, but He is also restricted by disbelief.  I am sure He has the power to heal anyone He wishes, but it is more important to understand the primacy of belief than it is for every possible miracle to be performed.  Thus, a lack of belief leads Jesus to impose a constraint on Himself as an extension of the teaching He hopes I will accept.  

But this story also speaks about gratitude, or more precisely, ingratitude.  The people of Jesus’ hometown are aware of the Wisdom and Power possessed by Jesus.  They have witnessed His teaching and His miraculous healings.  When I place myself in the scene as part of my prayer routine, I am also amazed at Jesus.  My wonder leads me to adopt an attitude of irresistible gratitude.  I can identify that the Love inherent in the healing work of Jesus also applies to me.  The seed planted in the story of the woman from chapter five fell on fertile ground.  My ability to appreciate the actions of Jesus in this story is a sign that it is growing.  If my progress remains steady, it will come to full fruition.

However, the people of his hometown reject this seed.  It is incomprehensible to me why they adopt an attitude of such woeful ingratitude toward Him, but this is what happened. 

It also happens in a similar story from chapter three of Mark.  Jesus is again teaching in a synagogue.  A man is present with a withered hand.  There are also Pharisees present, waiting to see whether Jesus will heal the man on the Sabbath.  Jesus asks them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”  He then heals the man.  In response, the Pharisees begin to plot against Him.

The Pharisees are guilty of the very thing they wish to condemn Jesus for and more.  They assert that Jesus has violated the Sabbath by healing on the day of rest, yet they begin to plot against Jesus on that same Sabbath.  Check the quote from Jesus again.  He knows exactly what is happening.  When He uses the word “kill,” He presages the sin of the Pharisees.  Jesus’ supposed violation of the law was an act of healing goodness.  Theirs goes well beyond ingratitude and becomes an act of “evil.”

Again, how can this be?  How can the Pharisees witness the healing power and goodness of Jesus and respond with disbelief and ingratitude? 

To find the answer, I must put all the Scripture together.  The parable of the sower, Mark chapter four, speaks directly to what I am witnessing.  “The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” 

The people of Jesus’ hometown and the Pharisees are blinded by their worldliness.  They are completely unaware of the seed that Jesus is offering them.  This seed has fallen in a thicket of thorns planted and carefully tended by the opponents of Jesus, who never understand how flawed their garden is.  They wish to choke Jesus with the same thorns that blind them.  The seed that Jesus tried to give them finds itself completely thwarted.  

   _________________

I want to invite you to experiment with these connections yourself.  Return to the quote from Titus at the head of this chapter.  This quote is read for the Mass at Night and the Mass at Dawn on Christmas day.  It is another intersection between the writing I was considering after my trip and the Scripture I was encountering as I moved through life.

Spend some time with these words.  Does this piece of Scripture capture the human sinfulness that has been discussed at length in the last two reflections?  Does it support the idea that gratitude is not initiated by human will or works (“not because of righteous things we had done”), but by the kindness and Love of God?  Note especially the appearance of the words, “His Mercy.”  Are my conclusions about His Mercy consistent with this passage?

Compare the passage to what you have read so far in these reflections.  Does the combination of the two deepen your understanding of each individually? 

Then focus on the last phrase.  “…. we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”  I have stated that the goal of my journey is an eternal encounter with God.  This phrase lends hope to the possibility that my goal is achievable.  Do not read the last couple sentences of this reflection yet.  Come back to them when you have concluded your own contemplations to see how your experience compares to or differs from mine.

   _________________

When I spent time with this piece of Scripture, I decided the beginning I described in the last chapter would benefit from a couple additions.

I asserted above that the saving plan of God ought to elicit a response in me of not just gratitude, but also of joy.  Perhaps joy ought to be part of my beginning.

But this phrase concerning hope also brought forth an intensely joyful response in me.  It is not just gratitude and joy that should be linked.  Hope needs to be added as well.  As I move forward to the next reflection and a discussion of Penance, all three of these should accompany me.

This leads me to conclude that my beginning should now include not just faith and belief, but also joy and hope.

How does this compare to what you discovered while contemplating this phrase?

What would you add to my conclusion for your own use?

Proceed to Chapter Four: Penance

Back to Chapter Two: Beginning

The Gospel of John 1:1-11:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. 

Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of all mankind. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that Light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the Light; he came only as a witness to the Light. The true Light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 

He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.

During these reflections I hope to give you some insight into what I experienced during my retreat last fall.  I am going to be writing in the first person, using words like “I” and “me” to convey what it is that the Spirit “gave to me” during my journey.  The ideas I hope to convey are, on one level, meant for me and the furthering of my own personal movement toward God.  But, on another level, I am convinced that they were meant to be shared, which is why I am presenting them for your consideration.

Although I am writing in the first person, you are invited to put yourself in my place.  I can believe that what I am describing is universally applicable, but you have the responsibility of discerning this for yourself.  You need to decide whether what I am describing applies to your personal circumstances and to what extent.  When you read the words “I” or “me,” do not relate them to me.  Read them as if “I” and “me” is you and decide for yourself if these sentences describe your own experience and journey.  

This week was the third Sunday in ordinary time, year C.  The gospel began “a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.”  This applies here.  I am an individual part of a greater body.  I must consider the Word and allow it (Him) to speak to my individuality.  The Word applies to all of us, but the needs of each differ at any moment in time.  One mystery of the Word is that it speaks to the needs of each of us eloquently despite the differences in our circumstances.  The challenge is to fit the Word to my situation, my talents, and my calling so that it (He) continually moves me closer to God and my salvation.

_________________

These reflections originated in my journey, so it might be helpful to think of the overarching idea of “journeying” applying directly to them.  If Penance, Poverty, and the Will of God were thought of as physical locations, the first stop on the journey would be Penance.  The road from Penance leads to the Will of God, but it passes through Poverty on the way.  As you observe my journeying, please be open to the idea that Penance, Poverty, and the Will of God are not individual locations that are connected by a vague and wandering path through the wilderness.  Instead, they are intimately connected by a well-defined road that leads directly from one to another and beyond. 

The beyond, the ultimate destination of this highway is a healthy, productive, and eternal encounter with God. 

Just to be clear, If I understand and practice Penance properly, it inevitably leads me to a life with Spiritual Poverty at its center. 

If I embrace Spiritual Poverty fully, it in turn inevitably moves me toward an undeniable desire to embrace the Will of God and make it the focus of my daily existence.

Living a life aligned with the Will of God is what will then take me to the ultimate location that I am seeking, which I might define as Heaven, but I prefer to think of as eternal encounter with God.  This is because the encounter happens not just in Heaven, but now as well.  I should be looking for opportunities to encounter God for the entire length of the journey.

The flow of this journey from Penance through Poverty to the Will of God is the essence of what the Spirit gave me during my retreat and it is at the core of what I hope to convey through these reflections.

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The road I wish to describe, however, does not begin with Penance.  It begins with a frank recognition and acceptance of what it means to bear the human condition through this earthly life conferred on me by God.  I must honestly acknowledge the essence of my being.  Conveniently, there is another beginning which can help me understand this starting point, and that is the opening of the gospel of John, which I have quoted above. 

The first thing I must accept is that “through Him all things were made.”  All things, by definition, includes me.  “Without Him, nothing was made that has been made.”  Without Him, I would not exist.

And not only was I initially created by Him, but His creation of me is ongoing.  His Love sustains me moment by moment in my earthly existence.  My worldly life will end the moment He, in His Wisdom, chooses to use His life-giving Love to transfer me from here to whatever awaits me.

My identity as a creature, as something Lovingly created by God and fully dependent on God, is fundamental to understanding the starting point of the journey. 

Repetition of the word “Love” is not accidental.  Love brought me into being and it nurtures me endlessly.  I am created by Him and for Him through His Love.  My essential and eternal purpose is to return His Love to Him and thereby to participate enthusiastically and willingly in His plan to increase the amount of Love present in the Cosmos.  The purpose of all His Creation is the expansion of Love.  The purpose of my individual Creation is to contribute to that expansion. 

But Cosmos is not the right word.  I do not know what word to use.  I am not sure the right word exists.  By Cosmos I mean God in the broadest and most limitless sense my feeble human imagination can conjure.  The purpose of Creation is the expansion of Love within the full and complete effusiveness of God.  He is Creation.  Creation is He.  I might say the Cosmos and God are intertwined, but even that suggests a degree of separation that is incorrect.  They are one and the same and Love is another name for them.  They are already limitless, and yet, they are building, growing, and expanding and God asks me to participate with Him in that work. 

He has no boundaries, but I still must think of Him as ever increasing.  As each of us returns His Love in thankfulness for our Creation, as the overall amount of Love present in the Cosmos expands, He expands with it to both contain and diffuse all that Love.  The cycle is repetitive and circular.  He uses his Love to create.  We return His Love as an expression of gratitude for our Creation.  In the process, more Love comes into being, but He does not hoard that Love to Himself.  Instead, He returns it to us again and again, using it to Create more and more. 

Love is both the fuel and the product of an engine of Life and Light that God placed into motion at the beginning of History, maintains through current times, and projects into the future.  He is always increasing as Love is always increasing and it is this perfectly constructed engine that energizes and guides the entirety of His Conception. 

And all of it is Good, for, as Francis wrote for us in The Praises of God,

You are the holy Lord God Who does wonderful things.

You are strong.  You are great.  You are the most high.
	You are the almighty king.  You holy Father,
	King of heaven and earth.

You are three and one, the Lord God of gods;
	You are the good, all good, the highest good,
	Lord God living and true.

You are love, charity; You are wisdom, You are humility,
	You are patience, You are beauty, You are meekness,
	You are security, You are rest,
	You are gladness and joy, You are our hope, You are justice,
	You are moderation, You are all our riches to sufficiency.

You are beauty, You are meekness,
	You are the protector, You are our custodian and defender,
	You are strength, You are refreshment, You are our hope,
	You are our faith, You are our charity,
	You are all our sweetness, You are our eternal life:
	Great and wonderful Lord, Almighty God, Merciful Savior. 

Does that make sense?

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He is “the Good, all Good, the highest Good.”  This is without question. 

However, the same cannot be said about me.  The second thing I must accept as part of the human condition that defines the starting point of the journey is this:  I often fail to fulfill my end of the bargain. 

My primary responsibility in the order of Creation proclaimed by God is to return His Love to Him.  All too often, however, in my sinfulness, I forget not only that responsibility, but I forget about God completely as “the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth” grow and choke out the seeds of Love planted in my heart on an ongoing basis by the Spirit. 

I forget or ignore the immense Love that brought me into being and that sustains me moment by moment.  Instead, I find myself full of deception and self-focus and I begin to think of myself as my own creation.  I am in control and my destiny will be determined by me, not by the God who, no matter how much I deceive myself, I remain dependent on.  

In terms of the beginning of the gospel of John, I do not “recognize and receive Him as He comes to that which is His Own.” 

The world was made through Him.  He was and continues to be in the world.  The world and everything in it, including me, belongs to Him.  And yet I barely remember to thank Him.  I barely spend any time with Him.  I am always distracted away from Him.  The greatest benefit of my trip was the ability to set aside, at least for a little while, most of my worldly distractions.  I was able to concentrate on Him much better.  At times I was able to simply sit with Him or walk with Him or read with Him without having to worry about all the normal anxieties of life.  I cannot tell you how refreshing this was.   

But as soon as I got back, Christmas intruded on the peace I hoped to maintain.  That sounds like a horrible thing to say, but I know from personal experience that Christmas is a superlative example of what I am describing.  Christmas is meant to be a time where I prayerfully focus on His Advent, His coming into the world.  Instead, it is the season most full of distraction, the season where I fail most consistently, completely, and spectacularly to set aside the concerns of the world in favor of simply being with Him, just the two of us, away from everything that separates instead of unites us. 

My intentions start out good.  I want to honor Him in the season.  But somehow, the preparations become the focal point and He gets lost in the rush to get everything just right so that maybe, at the end, I can find a couple moments to be with Him.  At best, my good intentions wind up being ninety percent about preparation and ten percent about prayerfully celebrating His Advent.  That is how it is, and it seems impossible to get around it.

And then, as soon as Christmas is over, I find myself trying to catch up on every worldly thing that got neglected during the Season.  The enemy is very good at what he does, and I am very poor at resisting him.  Worldly distraction is always present.  There is always something pending that seems too pressing to ignore.  “If I can just get such and such behind me, then I can concentrate on God!”  But such and such never ends, and the enemy is always calling me to the next relentless distraction. 

My sinfulness persists in ways that I often fail to realize.  I am so set in my habits that what started out as willful recurs on autopilot.  I careen through life wrapped up in and diverted by earthly concern and my ability to “recognize and receive Him” withers away from deflection and inattention.

I am a sinner.  On the highway to Heaven, I am a pothole, a detour, or a roadblock.  In the engine of Life and Light, I am the burr that keeps the cogs from turning or the dirt that gums up the works.

Or, in terms of the OFS Rule, I am frail.  Article seven states:

“Human frailty makes it necessary that conversion be carried out daily.”

This describes my human condition perfectly.  I am weak, fragile, and feeble.  I am easily manipulated and sidetracked.  I have great intentions, but most often I lack the fortitude to see them through.  I am imperfect, helpless and in need of bolstering.    

I am incapable of healing myself and I need the assistance of the God who created me, the God whom I must depend on.  If I do not recognize and accept this, my journey toward Heaven and salvation will be derailed before it ever starts.

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The third thing I must acknowledge at the beginning is that, fortunately for me, God, in His All-Loving Wisdom, is aware of my need.  He understands my sinfulness and my dependency.  In His Mercy, He makes provisions to send me help.

Therefore, as the opening words of John remind me, He sends “the true Light that gives light to everyone” into the world.  This Light “shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.”  It is “the life that is the Light of all mankind.”

God sent Jesus into the world as an antidote to my sinfulness.  Not our sinfulness, but my sinfulness, specifically.  If I were the only person that He ever created, still, in His Mercy, He would have sent Jesus to me to make my salvation possible.  I may be an individual part of a greater body, but God is individually concerned with the salvation of this individual part.  He wants me to be saved.  He wants me to enjoy the eternal encounter with Him that is Heaven.  He Loves me unconditionally and He sends His Son into the World to save me!

This is an astounding thing to consider.  I must recognize and accept that I am unworthy of this action by God.  The accumulated weight of the sins of my life ought to make me repulsive to Him.  It ought to make me unlovable to Him.  If He was like me, He would distance Himself from me, not seek to draw closer to me.  He would look at my case and toss me aside, knowing that I am unfit to be remembered by Him, let alone to be admitted into His presence for all of eternity.

Instead, He sends His Son into the world “not to call the righteous, but to call sinners.”  To call me.  He sends His Son to be a True Light that shines against my darkness, more than bright enough to overcome that darkness if I will simply turn toward the Light and believe in Him.  He sends His Son into the world to call me back from the brink, to make forgiveness feasible, to make redemption and salvation possible.

And He did not do this once.  He does it every day.  Every day He sends His Son into the world tens of thousands of times as Mass is celebrated.  Every day the sacrifice of the Son is remembered, recreated, and repeated as the Eucharist is blessed on the altar in the hands of the priest.

St. Francis affirms this in his First Admonition:

Behold, each day He humbles Himself as when He came from the royal throne into the Virgin’s womb; each day He Himself comes to us, appearing humbly; each day He comes down from the bosom of the Father upon the altar in the hands of a priest.

He further instructed his followers, in the Later Admonitions, to respect priests unreservedly, even if they are sinners.  This is because they are the agents of His daily coming.  When they consecrate the Eucharist, preach the Word, and administer the sacraments, they make Christ truly present to me in the world:

We must also frequently visit churches and venerate and revere the clergy not so much for themselves, if they are sinners, but because of their office and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of Christ which they sacrifice upon the altar, receive, and administer to others.  And let all of us know for certain that no one can be saved except through the holy words and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which the clergy pronounce, proclaim, and minister.

Jesus comes to the entire world, every day in every location, to continue His saving work.  He is tireless and indefatigable.  He never rests, but instead works continuously, around the globe and around the clock, to ensure the salvation of as many souls as possible.

Beyond the Eucharist, the Son is also truly present in Scripture as the Word.  I have always recognized the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but it was only because of the reading I did on my trip that I came to recognize the true presence of Christ in His Scripture. 

In his book on Lectio Divina, Seeking His Mind: 40 Meetings with Christ, Father M. Basil Pennington, O. C. S. O., put it like this:

If one enters the abbatial church at St. Joseph’s Abbey (and this is not the only place one will find this), one will always find two lamps burning: one burns before the tabernacle, proclaiming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic; the other burns before the sacred text enthroned in the middle of the choir, proclaiming a real presence of Christ the Word in his Scriptures.  The word abides in the Bible ever ready to speak to us.  Our Bibles should never be just put on the shelf with other books or left haphazardly on our desks.  They should be enshrined in our homes and offices, proclaiming a real presence.

I can be strengthened not only by the Body and Blood of Christ when I partake in the Eucharist, but also by Christ as the Word, ever present in Holy Scripture, particularly when I practice Lectio Divina.  I can pick up my Bible, invoke the aid of the Holy Spirit who was promised to me by Christ and by my Baptism, and I can truly encounter Christ at any time I wish by reading the Word. 

And finally, God is also truly present in His Creation.  “Through Him all things were made.”  

The reason I can appreciate beauty is because this faculty allows me to recognize Him in every aspect of the physical world He has so Lovingly placed me in.

On my trip, my attentiveness was freed from most of the distractions that normally cripple it.  This encouraged many meaningful appointments with Him as I traveled through His Creation.  I can recall these encounters as if I am still in the moment:

• He is present in the reflection of the trees on the gently rippling water as it enjoys the same cool breeze I feel on my face when I arrive in southeast Arkansas late in the afternoon on the first day of my trip. 

• On Port Aransas Bay, He lights up the night sky with a full moon that, when I take a picture of it through a cloak of wispy clouds, gives off a spectacular aura that somehow does justice to every shade of red in the rainbow.  I can only experience this startling sight because the technology of my phone captures light my eyes could not otherwise see.  This technology is only available because He makes it possible.

• The shallow water that barely trickles around my feet as I stand in the center of the Frio River reminds me that He is responsible for the dry season that cycles through the hill country of Texas every year.  I wonder, when the spring rains fall and filter down through the maze of scenic hills surrounding the river valley, will I be able to stand in the replenished river in the spot I now occupy?  Or will the depth or the rush of the water make it inaccessible to me?  Thankfully, the river, no matter what state it is in, reminds me that He is always accessible. 

• The aquifers flowing beneath the desert in eastern New Mexico source their water from snowfall that melts off mountains visible far to the west from a rock face above a cenote that serves as an oasis of life in an otherwise barren landscape.  Erosion of limestone that is the remains of the creatures that lived in the sea that once occupied this barren landscape creates subsurface voids that cause the structural collapse that allows the subsurface water to fill the crater that is the cenote.  These miraculous sequences are surely evidence of the exquisite detail He employs to fashion the wonders of nature that are just as surely meant to continually call me back to awareness of Him.

• Mount Graham thrusts eight thousand feet above the valley that holds my campsite in eastern Arizona.  The road that leads to the top of the mountain is so curvy that I turn back before I reach the top because of the disorientation I feel at the vastness that greets me over the edge of every turn.  The might, grace, and glory of that landscape physically repulses me, but still my spirit is inexorably drawn to it.  The potent solidity of the mountain reminds me of the Loving steadfastness of my Creator.  The mountain seems as if it has been there forever, watching over the landscape below.  He has been there forever, watching over me and every other element of His Creation.

• On the last evening, I sit in awe as He sends the setting sun reflecting off the cliffs across the Colorado River from my vista in western Arizona, blessing me with an original shade of orange that forces me to thank Him for every blessing He has ever brought into my undeserving life.  It seems as if that color was created just for me, so that, despite the vastness of every scene I passed on my journey, I would know that I was still the focus of His enduring Love.

As a Franciscan, I of course feel obligated to give recognition to some birds I met along the way.

• Brother Roadrunner walks up to within a foot of me as I stand motionless watching him dart about catching grasshoppers with an agility I cannot follow with my naked eye.  The ranger watching me watching him asks, “How did you do that?”  Roadrunners are notoriously skittish, but this one graces me so that I recall my spiritual father Francis, his reverence for Creation, and the joy it brought him.   

• Sister Kestrel repeatedly crashes through the tree that shades my campsite in pursuit of a midday meal, but the unknown sister bird she pursues manages to escape.  I think of the deep connectedness of Creation and the Canticle of Creatures so lovingly composed by Francis, and I stop and wonder at all the brothers and sisters I am surrounded by.  Sister Kestrel is following her nature, but all too often, my nature brings harm to that I am responsible for nurturing. 

I did not mention it above, but God is also present in the people I interact with every day.  This means that the kindness of those I met along the way also manifested His Love for me in multiple ways.

• A man in New Mexico tells me that he sold his home in southern California and is journeying cross country in his RV as he seeks a new place to live.  He has a YouTube channel.  As he goes, he is visiting significant Catholic sites along the way and posting videos so his friends can see and appreciate the beauty he encounters in these places.  He used to be on the security detail for a bishop, and he leaves a note on my windshield offering to put me in contact with a friend if I want to tour the cathedral and meet the bishop when I get to California.

• A man in Arizona stops and chats with me each day as he walks his dog in the evening.  Unbidden, he is keeping an eye on my site for me when I am off hiking.  We do not talk about anything special, but the gentle kindness of this man is striking.  Somehow, after each conversation, I feel better about the world.  It is a rare charism; one I have only encountered in people I knew to be holy.     

There could be a hundred or even a thousand bullet points added to this list if I had the patience and the acuteness of memory to list every breathtaking example of His presence that I experienced on my trip.  Today, I am reminded of it all again as I look out the window and watch a gentle snowfall slowly cover the ground.

He is present throughout His Creation while, at the same time, He encompasses it.  It is an incomprehensible mystery to me.  His constant coming and availability, when I take time to remember and welcome them, fill me with astonishment.

All this means that His Mercy and Forgiveness are not distant concepts.  He truly came in the Incarnation.  He continues to truly come in the Eucharist.  He is truly present and available in Scripture as the Word.  He is truly present in His Creation, which means He is truly present within me as a creature brought into being by His Loving Hand.

His presence is quite literally everywhere, and yet all too often, I find ways of sinfully ignoring Him.

But still He persists.  He remains accessible to me in all these different ways.  His mission of calling sinners to repentance is that important.  My redemption and salvation are paramount.  He insists that I find my way home.

Why?  Because He Loves me that much!    

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There is one last aspect of beginning found in these opening verses of John that I wish to present.

John the Baptist came to us as “a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.”

The final aspect of beginning is this need to believe, to have faith.

I have been praying with the gospel of Mark, chapter five, the last few days.  It contains one of the greatest expressions of faith contained anywhere concerning the power of Jesus, and the power of belief in Him as the Son of God capable of healing all our sufferings and iniquities.  This story speaks to the healing of a physical ailment, but it also speaks metaphorically to the healing of our souls from sin.  (Mark 5:25-29)

“And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

“If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  This is the saving power of belief in Jesus.  The woman has looked throughout the world for healing for her suffering, but she has not found it.  In fact, the harder she looked, the worse her suffering became.  But when she just comes close enough to Jesus to touch his cloak, she is healed.

What is the response of Jesus?  He turns to find out who has drawn power from Him.  The woman is scared, afraid that this teacher might be like the other teachers, offended by her forwardness.  But Jesus is not affronted by her audacity.  Instead, He is moved by her faith.  He tells her in verse thirty-four, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

This is not the only story where Jesus is moved by faith.  In chapter one of Mark, a leper comes to Jesus full of belief and says to Him, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”  Jesus, “filled with compassion, reaches out with His hand and touches the man,” curing him.

In chapter eight of Matthew, just after Jesus heals the leper above, he encounters a Roman centurion seeking a cure for his servant.  Jesus offers to accompany the soldier to his home but the soldier replies, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.”  He acknowledges the far-reaching power of Jesus and suggests that Jesus just heal the servant from where they stand.  Jesus replies by saying “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”  And the servant is healed at that moment.  

Jesus responds to faith.  He responds to belief in Him.  “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”  Every time we sin, we are injured, and we die a little bit.  But every time we embrace belief and faith in Jesus, it gives Him the opportunity to restore our health and life.  This is the essence of a life well lived.  We try, we fail, and we return to Him in search of His Mercy because we believe that in His overwhelming Loves for us, He will grant it. 

In the same article of the OFS Rule where the frailty of the human condition is mentioned, it is followed immediately by this: “On this road to renewal the sacrament of reconciliation is the privileged sign of the Father’s mercy and the source of grace.”  Grace is the ability to believe that in the sacrament, Jesus can and will heal our souls from the damage they have taken due to sin.

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This is the attitude of faith that I must carry forward into the rest of these reflections.  I must pray for my faith to be increased.  I must return to these stories often and refresh my belief in the healing power of Jesus.  I must have faith that Jesus wants me to make progress in my relationship with Him.  He wants me to experience His Mercy.  He wants to forgive me.   

He wants to make me fully capable and fully qualified to participate in His Father’s plan for the expansion of Love.  I am not meant to be a detour on the road or grime fouling up the gears.  I am meant to be a fully functioning, healthy participant in the plan of God.  One of many who uses her/his individual gifts and talents to serve the impeccable plan of God for the coming of the Kingdom and the salvation of all who are simply willing to, as John the Baptists testified, believe in the Light and the life that came and continues to come into the world.

This is what I am called to, and the healing power of Jesus can restore my soul to working condition whenever the wear and tear of this life makes it fray.

The woman in the gospels believed that “if she could just touch His clothes,” she could be healed.

I believe that when I encounter Him in the Eucharist, or in Scripture, or in His Creation, His healing power and Mercy are available to me.

He can make me whole.

Proceed to Chapter Three: Gratitude

Back to Chapter One: Background and Introduction