Movements of the Spirit

Lately as my spiritual reading I have been reading a lovely work entitled The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life. I cannot recommend this work highly enough. It is a collection of short (ca. 5 pages) passages from the great mystics of the Syriac tradition - for those who don't know the Syriac tradition embraces the Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara and Maronite traditions among others. I love the fact that this book, like The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, is also simply a collection of short passages. That makes it possible to read an inspiring piece of advice from a great saint in the morning or evening and then carry that advice with you for the rest of the day.

Contained in this collection is a passage from the writings of Evagrius. Although never canonized, Evagrius is probably the most influential spiritual author in the Eastern and Oriental traditions. Recognized for his brilliance, his works are studied by almost the entire East and Orient alike: Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Slavic, Assyrian, etc. You name it. The passage contained in The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life I found particularly interesting. Although Evagrius himself wrote in Greek, this passage survived only in a Syriac translation - many Evagrius' more speculative theological works were later condemned by the Church and the Greek editions were subsequently destroyed.

The particular passage translated in this lovely book contains many gems of advice, but there was one in particular that struck me. Evagrius says that while we are praying, should we be inspired by some insight from the Holy Spirit, or should the Spirit move our mind to some beneficial thought, we should cease our prayer and focus on the movement of the Spirit. He says that this is more beneficial to our souls than plodding through our prayers for the sake of finishing an allotted number of prayers.

I found this advice particularly interesting because I have read the same piece of advice from almost every great mystic across the traditions of the East and West. St. Teresa of Avila, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. John of the Cross, etc., etc., etc. all say that when we are at prayer or spiritual reading we need to be attentive to these movements of the Spirit. This was one of the reasons St. Theophan recommends allotting a certain amount of time to prayer rather than a certain number of prayers to say. Often when we are at prayer, a word or a phrase catches us, it grips our hearts, and we are led into deeper spiritual insights. Were we to ignore these movements then it is the same as telling God that what we have to say to Him is more important than what He has to say to us. It also stops us from really assimilating the prayer, its content and meaning, into our hearts and making the prayer our own.

The only exception I've seen given to this rule is while one is praying the Liturgy of the Hours. St. Teresa of Avila, if memory serves me correctly, pointed out that when such a movement strikes our hearts during the celebration of the Hours, we ought not to pause over it for fear of disrupting the movement of the prayers. Rather, we ought to make a mental note of the word, phrase, or prayer that struck us, and then go back later on and reflect further on that prayer.

For me personally, this advice from the saints is very difficult to implement both in my prayer time and in my spiritual reading. When praying I want to get through all my prayers before my time is up. And I have so many books that I want to read that should I stop to reflect on every passage that struck a cord in my heart, I would never make it to the end of a single book. But this is one of the most common and profound ways in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the prayers of the Church and the writings of the saints. Great patience is needed; patience and the ability to shut up and listen (something that I struggle with). May God grant us all the grace of being attuned to the movements of the Spirit in our hearts during our times of prayer and spiritual reading.

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

The Arena: St. Ignatius Brianchaninov's Councils on Prayer: Part 4 Why the Jesus Prayer?

I figured it was high time that I wrap up the series we've been working on based off of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov's The Arena. I'm still planning a few more posts and an addendum based off of some recommendations from St. Theophan the Recluse, but my books are still packed away in boxes, so I'm going to have to really dig to find the materials I need. Today, however, I want to touch on St. Ignatius' introduction to the Jesus Prayer itself.

In this basic introduction to the Jesus Prayer St. Ignatius does not give us basic instructions for praying the Jesus Prayer, so much as demonstrates for us what the Jesus Prayer is and why it is important. Based off of the writings of the Patristic Fathers, he identifies for us two types of prayer: singing or hymnody, by which he means specifically the singing or prayerful reading of the Psalter, and prayer, by which he specifically means the Jesus Prayer. He makes the claim that any time the ancient Fathers speak of prayer the mean specifically the Jesus Prayer. I don't have the resources to verify that his claim here is true, but we will operate under the presumption that it is - who better to interpret the words of the saints than a saint, after all.

The Jesus Prayer itself, says St. Ignatius, is divided into two forms: the vocal and the mental. It is necessary that we start with a vocal recitation of the prayer and from there move on to the mental. Mental recitation is achieved when vocal prayer becomes concentrated, focused and attentive. To quote St. Theophan, mental or attentive prayer is achieved when the mind descends into the heart and is held there. Attentive prayer means that we enclose our minds in the words of the prayer, and conform our hearts to the words. In other words, we prayer slowly, with attention, and with compunction of heart. Our hearts must be attuned to what we are saying. This, for some, takes time and great effort. For others it is obtained easily and with little effort. The Spirit blows where it wills, I suppose. I've seen people who have prayed and struggled for years and still do not possess prayer of the heart despite their best efforts. I have also seen people who were, seemingly, beginners in the spiritual life, but who were given prayer of the heart almost immediately. Whether we are given such prayer right away or it takes years for us to receive the gift is not important. What is important is that we persevere in prayer with patience, always expecting and hoping for this great gift of God. Our Father has promised to give us all things so long as we ask in Jesus name, but He didn't promise to give us those thing immediately upon request. We have to be patient and allow our Father to prepare our hearts for the reception of the power and fire of the Holy Spirit.

St. Ignatius points out, however, that the above mentioned conditions - attentiveness, compunction, unhurriedness, etc. - are conditions for all prayer, not just for the Jesus Prayer. But, he says, these conditions are more easily obtained and observed in the Jesus Prayer. In the Psalms we have reflected a vast array of human emotion, theological thought and insight, and a wide array of other thoughts. I remember my spiritual father once telling me that in the Psalms we can find reflected every single human emotion. There is a Psalm for every feeling that we might feel. The Psalms, in many ways, are very human and are themselves some of the most beautiful prayers ever composed. Because of this great diversity, however, it can often be difficult to focus one's attention and one's heart while praying the Psalms. We move from great rejoicing, to lamentation, to repentance, to praise at a rapid pace and it is often difficult to keep up.

The Jesus Prayer, on the other hand, has but one thought: "The thought of the sinner's forgiveness by Jesus." This specific emphasis and focus, the saint warns us, is very dry. It is dry. Anyone who's ever persevered in the Jesus Prayer for any length of time knows that after awhile it can "get old," as we say nowadays. The words are simply repeated as though we are on autopilot. Our mind and heart aren't in the words because the words, for us, have become stale, old, dry. But we must persevere, we must hold our mind in attentiveness. We must bring the movements of our hearts into harmony with the words of the Jesus Prayer. The power to do this comes from the name of Jesus.

This is where I believe the great wisdom of our Mother, the Church, comes into play. The Jesus Prayer is great work, but it is work that must be done if we wish to progress in the spiritual life. But we need a break from labor every now and then. I remember reading one of the Eastern saints (I forget who) who mentions how if a bow is always strung up and ready to fire it will eventually snap. So too with the spiritual combatant who never "relaxes" so to speak. Soldiers on the battle front have to be removed every now and then, otherwise they reach the breaking point and their minds simply snap; they lose their grip on reality. So too in the spiritual life and particularly in the work of the Jesus Prayer.

My own personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that this is why we must balance our practice of the Jesus Prayer with Psalmody, or more specifically with our participation in the Liturgy of the Hours. The Hours can be a breath of fresh air that rejuvenates our practice of the Jesus Prayer. It is here that our Mother nourishes us and strengthens us so that we can go back into the arena of our hearts and fight once again with the name of Jesus as our weapon. Through the liturgical life of the Church, particularly the Eucharistic celebration and the Hours, we are brought out of ourselves and we celebrate the mysteries of Salvation History with our brethren. We are strengthened by our Mother and our brethren because we see that we are not in this fight alone. We are nourished by the very Body and Blood of Christ, and finally we are sent back into the world to continue our combat. This is why Sunday is such an important day, and why rest - not necessarily the rest of the body, but especially the rest of the soul - is so important on that day.

One final thought from St. Ignatius before I close out today's reflections. He closes off this chapter by asking, "What is it that will be given to a person who prays in the name of the Lord Jesus that can fill him to overflowing with joy?" The reply: We will be given the Holy Spirit! It is very interesting to reflect on the Jesus Prayer and its connection to the giving of the Holy Spirit. I remember hearing a priest once give a talk on the phrase "Lord, have mercy" that is repeated over and over in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. He said that the Greek word for "mercy" is actually derived from the same word as the Greek word for "anointing." When we ask for God's mercy, therefore, we are not simply asking for the forgiveness of our sins (although that is certainly an element). Above all, however, we are asking for God's anointing. And what is the anointing with which God anoints? God anoints us with His Holy Spirit! When we pray the Jesus Prayer we are not just asking for the forgiveness of our sins, we are also asking for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We are asking for.... wait for it.... Baptism in the Holy Spirit! That's right, I said it. I used those words that many have come to associate with the Charismatic Renewal but which, in reality, stretch all the way back to the Early Church. I hope to be able to write on this more later on, but for now suffice it to say that Baptism of the Holy Spirit simply means a release of the graces and power of the Holy Spirit that were given to us in the Sacraments, particularly in Baptism, Chrismation/Confirmation, and the Eucharist. To use the language of St. Theophan the Recluse, Baptism of the Holy Spirit means the (re)kindling of the divine spark that was implanted in us at our initiation into the Church and that has been dormant within us through our own negligence and forgetfulness.

So in praying the Jesus Prayer, we are really praying for so much more than the forgiveness of our sins.  We pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that the reign of Christ's Kingdom come in our hearts and spread from us throughout the world, that God's steadfast love bear fruit in us and through us in all of mankind. In short, when we pray the Jesus Prayer we pray that Christ's mission, His Gospel, His Good News of the coming of the Kingdom, be fulfilled in us and through us in all Mankind. May heaven consume us! CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

The Joy of the Resurrection

As I was praying through Safro this morning I was inspired to offer this sort of follow-up to my last post. In the "Sedro" of the "Hoosoyo" (I'll have to look up the definitions of those terms later so that I can explain just exactly what sedro and hoosoyo are) I found the following lines:

"Put joy into our hearts,

that we may be consoled amidst the trials of this world,

give witness to your name before all people,

and that they may know you (Christ Jesus), the Father and the Spirit..."

I was stunned yet again by this emphasis on joy that I find in the Maronite tradition. We are called to witness to Christ by sharing our joy in Him. Christianity, particularly Apostolic Christianity in its Catholic and Orthodox traditions, is not a doom-and-gloom religion, but a religion of joy and hope. Joy in the fact that the Kingdom of God is here; and hope in the Kingdom of God yet to come - a dynamic tension of the "already" and the "not yet." Christianity is a religion of joy because we have so great a redeemer; because while we were yet sinners Christ Jesus offered His life for us that we might have life in its fullest. Christianity is a religion of joy because of the great love that God our Father has for us in sending us His only Son as the light of the world shining in the darkness. Christianity is a religion of joy because with Christ we die to the old man and are raised to new life in the bosom of the Trinity, the Trinitarian life.

In the hymns for Pascha the Byzantine tradition calls us to rejoice in the Resurrection, to dance, to embrace one another, to shine, to radiate the light of the Resurrection that has shone on us. The angels shout, and all creation is turned upside down, reeling with joy in the fact of the Resurrection and reveling in its renewal. This Paschal joy must permeate our lives.

So often we think that if we provide better arguments, if we study apologetics more thoroughly, if we engage in informed intellectual debate, then we can convince people of the truth of Christianity. But, as St. Paul says, we preach Christ crucified and risen, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. Intellectual arguments are good, but they only go so far. One does not change hearts by offering "proofs" of this or that truth of Christianity. We change hearts by reveling in the folly of the Cross and rejoicing in the impossibility of the Resurrection. We change hearts by becoming fools steeped in God's foolishness, which is wiser than the greatest wisdom of men.

I often ask myself why certain writings from the saints and from a handful of modern authors and theologians really have a lasting impact on the Church. One thing that I find common to all of them is the amount of joy contained in those writings (yes, even within the writings of the great scholastic thinkers like Aquinas and Bonaventure). One need only read a few pages from the writings of folks like Catherine Doherty or Archbishop Joseph Raya or Fr. George Maloney before one is really infected with their joy in the risen Lord. Likewise one need only read a few lines from someone like St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Therese of Lisieux, or St. Francis of Assisi before one can almost see the light of their joy radiating off the very pages.

If we are to effectively evangelize the world around us, we must be Christ's light shining in that world. We must radiate the joy of the Resurrection. We must cry out the joy of the Resurrection as the angels in the empty tomb did to the myrrh bearing women. We must triumphantly sing the song of victory with joy and gratitude in our hearts and permeating our words. Only then will we truly begin to change the hearts (and gradually the minds) of those around us.

Christ is risen!

CHRISTOS ANESTI

El Maseeh qam

People of the Resurrection

I believe there is a temptation among Christians today to view ourselves as people of the Cross. Christians, whether we like it or not, are among the most persecuted peoples in the world. Although here in the U.S. the persecution is really one more of words and defamation than anything else, in other areas of the world Christians are murdered simply because they are Christian. Whether our reputations are murdered by the media and popular public opinion or our bodies are murdered by those who hate us and do not want to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, one cannot deny that we are a persecuted people. In reaction to this ongoing persecution many Christians (I would venture to say most) have emphasized our participation in the sufferings, the Cross, of Christ. This is done almost to the point that we forget that in reality we are people of the Resurrection. As St. Paul points out to us, without the Resurrection the Cross is meaningless and our faith is in vain.

But what does it mean to be people of the Resurrection? How do we live in the light of the Resurrection and the hope of future glory in the coming Kingdom? This morning, while praying Safro (Maronite Morning Prayer) a couple of beautiful prayers illumined some answers for me. In the opening prayer we prayed:

"O Lord,
Allow us to share the joy of the apostles and holy women
on this glorious morning when they carried the good news.
Today, let their joy be ours, for in spite of two thousand years
this event which we commemorate is always present..."

It is often difficult to remember that Christ's Resurrection, although it is a fixed moment in history, is always present with us. It is an ongoing moment that we enter into through holy Baptism and we participate in through our participation in the life of the Church, Christ's Body. The Resurrection is now. Do we experience the joy of this moment in the same way as the apostles and myrrh-bearing women experienced it? Imagine the joy that Mary Magdalene experience when she realized the man in the garden was Jesus! He is alive! He is risen! Do we experience that same joy? Do we reflect that joy in our lives and attitudes? The first prayer of Safro has this to say:

"O Christ,
may we understand the meaning of your resurrection
so that we may not see in it a purely historical event
or only a foundation of our faith,
but a life which we must realize in ourselves every day,
a hope which we must draw each moment from our faith,
so that our souls may become just by your life,
and our hope may be united to your hope,
and in your kingdom we shall glorify you face to face.
Both here and there we shall praise you with a ceaseless love, forever."

The Resurrection is not simply a historical event; nor is it merely the foundation of our faith. It is both of these and so much more. The Resurrection is a life that we enter into through Baptism and that we must live every day. It is a life filled with joy and hope despite, or perhaps because of, the sufferings and persecutions that we undergo. The Cross is not something to focus on. It is passing. When we enter into the Cross of Christ we also enter into His hope that the Father will raise Him up in glory on the third day after His death. Since we have been raised in glory in Christ, do we rejoice in the Father Who has raised us up with Christ? Do we radiate the joy of Christ, the light that burst forth from the empty tomb? We cannot evangelize the culture around us by beating our chests and saying "Woe is me" because we are made to suffer here and now. We suffer, yes, but the battle is over and Christ is victorious! Why do we hang our heads as though we've been defeated? A priest I once knew used to say, "We know who wins." Indeed we do. We know Who has already won. We ought to rejoice in the victory of Christ and radiate the light of the Victorious One. When we are joyful in Christ, when we radiate the glory of the Resurrection, only then will the darkness in the world around us be dissipated.

Christ is risen!
CHRIST IS RISEN!!!
CHRISTOS ANESTI!!!

Shout that out at the top of your lungs and let those words penetrate to the depths of your being. Our God is alive and with us always! What seemed like defeat was turned into victory. So too today. Despite everything, let us continue to live in the reality of the Resurrection, rejoicing in our hope in Christ and in God our loving Father. May heaven consume us! CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

Christ Incarnate - Christ Crucified

For us Catholics tomorrow is "Good Friday," or "Great and Holy Friday," or "Great Friday of the Crucifixion" depending on which of the Catholic traditions you belong to (Roman, Byzantine, Maronite, etc.). Growing up I remember there being this huge emphasis that on Good Friday "God died for us." Jesus, Who is both God and man, gave His life that we might also have life. Christ died in order to free us from our slavery to sin and death.

This, of course, is all true. But for me it has always rung as somewhat ambiguous. I have always experienced Good Friday as a pie-in-the-sky type event; an event of great spiritual importance, but spiritual here in the sense that it has little to no impact on the day-to-day nitty-gritty of daily life. Christ died for my salvation. Peachy. Okay, time to punch the clock and set about another day's monotonous work.

I can only presume that I am not alone in this experience. As Christians who hope for a Kingdom yet to come there is a strong temptation to focus our sight on the eschatological "not yet" of Christ's Kingdom and to all but forget the "already," the here and now of this Kingdom. We look at the world around us. Perhaps we get a little depressed or jaded at how secularism is taking over even within the Church. We see how the ideals of Christianity have not been lived up to, but are being casually swept aside as "inadequate." We may even see Church leaders who are behaving and speaking in such a way that is completely against the teachings of the Church. The temptation at this point, at least for me, is to brush it off. "Eh. At least we still have the coming Kingdom to look forward to." But this was not Christ's response when He saw mankind steeped in sin and death.

One of the things I love most about the writings of Archbishop Joseph Raya as well as Fr. George Maloney is just how very "Incarnational" they are. Archbishop Raya in particular puts a very strong emphasis on Christ's humanity, without of course ever losing sight of His divinity. "Christ-God became man..." It is as though Archbishop Raya was completely enthralled with this reality. "God became man." One could mull over this reality for the rest of one's life and not even begin to scratch the surface of the depths of this mystery.

I believe this reality is very important for us to remember. We live in times that are very "heady." We like ideas, information, facts, abstracts, philosophy. So many of us have our head in the metaphorical clouds while at the same time being almost completely out of touch with material reality. This I've even observed to be true among Christians. As Christopher West points out, many Christians have the attitude that the body (the material world) is bad and only the spirit is good. So many Christians seek a way to escape from the body; to be solely spiritual. This, of course, is completely against man's nature and, were it true, would render Christ's Incarnation laughable. Why would God take on flesh if flesh itself were evil? Where would the power of the Cross be if Christ Himself hadn't taken on flesh?

So as we celebrate the memorial of Christ's Passion, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection, I believe it is also important that we look back to His Incarnation and Birth. Just a few days ago we celebrated the feast of the Annunciation (March 25), exactly nine months before we will again celebrate Christ's birth. It is very telling that we would celebrate the Incarnation this year during great Lent - and during Holy Week no less. Christ's Crucifixion is rooted in His Incarnation. St. Anthanasius tells us that what is not assumed cannot be saved. If Christ hadn't become incarnate, then His Crucifixion would've been meaningless to save us. Had Christ not taken on flesh, then we would still be enslaved to sin and death.

The (relatively) recent movie, The Passion of the Christ, I believe did a wonderful job driving home to Christians just how very real, how very physical Christ's sufferings were. Whether or not such a movie was appropriate is a different question, but we certainly can't argue the portrayal itself. I remember one Lent reading a portion of the book A Doctor On Calvary in which a medical doctor examined the Shroud of Turin to decipher just what exactly the Person in that image had undergone just hours before His death. It was truly horrifying.

As I was driving to work a couple days ago I was thinking of how the weight of my own sins feel on me personally. We speak of "a guilty conscience" or of something "weighing on our shoulders." That got me to thinking, if we were to experience the cumulative weight of our own personal sins on our shoulders, not only would we be crushed under them, but we would probably also be driven insane. Now take that weight and multiply it by every human being who has lived, is living, and will ever live. Imagine the extreme weight! It would be unbearable. And yet that is what Christ bore on His human shoulders as he ascended the hill of Golgatha. It is said that the Cross itself would've had to have weighed at least 200 lbs. A weight that is extremely difficult for even a health and strong man to carry any real length. Now imagine having been beaten to nearly an inch of your life and having lost a great quantity of blood in the process. Let's see you pick up a 200 lb. object and carry it for more than a yard without any help! My wife just gave blood yesterday. She could barely support herself, let alone one of our children, and definitely let alone 200 lbs. of solid wood.

Christ carried the suffering and sin of the world on His shoulders. This is something wonderful that I discovered in the writings of Archbishop Raya and in his enthrallment with the Incarnation. When confronted by our own suffering and sinfulness, Christ's response was not a philosophy of suffering or a code of ethics. Christ's response was action. He healed the sick, restored walk to the lame, made the mute speak, and the deaf hear! He raised the dead from their graves, He fed the hungry, He forgave sins! This was not heady abstract stuff, it was concrete action on His part. God didn't become man to give us some guidelines and a rule book. He became man to literally pull us up out of the mire of our sins, to confront the sufferings we had caused ourselves because of sin and death. To give us a new way of life in Him, as brothers and sisters in Him instead of slaves to sin.

So as we celebrate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, I believe it is important that we also keep close to heart the Incarnation and Birth of Christ. Never lose sight of the fact that God has physically entered human history in order to address directly the problems with which we are faced both individually and corporately. To quote St. Athanasius again (or was it St. Irenaeus???), "God became man in order that man might become god." May heaven consume us.

The Powerlessness of God

Have you ever been completely and utterly powerless? Have you ever been in a situation that at any other time you would've had the ability to influence the outcome, but at that given moment you were powerless to influence of affect anything? Have you ever felt like you had both hands tied behind your back and that you were completely bound and gagged?

I've had these feelings many times over the past several years. One time in particular has always stuck out to me. After my first child, a beautiful little girl, was born we were overwhelmed with the diagnosis that she was "special-needs," having an extremely rare syndrome that not much is known about. When she was a few weeks old she had to undergo surgery in order to have a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. For me the hospital trips and the "special-needs" diagnosis weren't so bad. Sure such things were overwhelming and felt beyond my control, but overall it wasn't that bad. What was the worst for me was the night immediately after her first surgery.

I remember getting to the hospital from the job I had been working and relieving my wife so that she could go home and get some much-needed sleep. My daughter had just had her first surgery about an hour before I arrived, so I was holding and comforting her as best I could. I sat up with her all night and tried to comfort this tiny little person who barely knew life and was already learning about pain. But I was still elated at my first-born child, and so sitting up all night was a wonderful bonding experience for me with her.

What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the fact that typically while children are coming down off of morphine after surgery they will often stop breathing. The first time my little girl stopped breathing scarred me. She was sitting in my lap crying and all of the sudden she just refused to inhale. Nurses rushed in because monitors had started to beep wildly. It didn't take much effort that time to get my little girl breathing again. But the second time that happened things were more difficult. They had to take my angel from me and place her on the hospital bed. Doctors and nurses surrounded the bed and pumped air into her with the big blue bag. I stood behind them watching as my daughter's entire body went rigid, arms and legs stretched out as far as they could reach. She turned a deep shade of purple, and I wondered if this was it, or if she was actually going to start breathing again. I was powerless, there was nothing I could do. I was watching life slip away from the child to whom I had given life, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Fortunately the doctors got her breathing again and she is alive and well to this day.

But I was reminded of this as I was praying Safro/Morning Prayer this morning. In it we read the account of Christ's trial from the Gospel of Matthew. The irony struck me. God was powerless. Jesus, Who is "Light from Light and True God from True God;" Jesus Who is the Word of God that spoke all of creation into existence; Jesus Who created us from nothing, was powerless before His persecutors. He was powerless because He gave up His power as God when He chose to take on our flesh for our salvation.

The prayers from Safro today emphasized this humility of Christ. But the prayers also pointed out how this humility leads to glory. Powerlessness leads glorification. Christ was raised up because He, although being God, did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped. The entire Paschal Mystery, as the Maronite tradition teaches us, is a mystery that causes both sorrow and joy, or perhaps it would be better to say that the mystery leads from sorrow into joy. All throughout Lent we have been repenting in sorrow over our sinfulness. But that repentance has not been a repentance without a goal, a repentance that leads only to despair, self-loathing, and guilt. Our repentance has been a repentance focused on hope in Christ and in His Resurrection. In our powerlessness to overcome our sinful nature on our own, may we continually turn to Christ and hope in Him. May heaven consume us.

Kim's Gift

Here are a handful of pictures of my current prayer rope. This prayer rope was made possible by my dear friend, Kim, who provided me with both the color combo and the material. Kim, if/when you read this I hope the pictures are good enough so that you can clearly see what you made possible. May God bless you abundantly. :)