Quo Vadis?

One cold childhood night, my father taught me how to rebuild a fire... Be it an unseasonably crisp fall evening, the fragrance of smoke pouring out of an often-used chimney, an array of fall foliage colors, or even the tone of someone's voice, these seemingly infinitesimal sensory details often spark the vivid remembrance of a moment long ago. Why do we have such memories? Do they serve as a way of avoiding previously made mistakes? Did God give us memories so that we might have roses in December? Or might it be something much more profound? Are they seeds of contemplation that we are meant to dwell on, ponder, prayerfully reflect on, and contemplate? ‘Warm’ Love When I was nine, maybe ten, my family and I arrived home on an unseasonably cold fall night. My mother immediately requested that my father rebuild the fire. This being a favorite pastime of mine, I eagerly stood by to watch. While other fire-building occurrences remain a haze of insignificant details, this one lives vividly in the depths of my mind. I even remember it verbatim.  He opened the wood stove, picked up the poker, and started clearing away ash. Curious, I remember asking: "Why do you clear away all the ash?" Immediately, my father answered: "By removing the ash, I am killing two birds with one stone. I isolate any embers while simultaneously allowing oxygen to flow more freely."  "Why is that so important?" My father stopped his work and looked at me, balancing on his toes in a crouched position. Moments passed as he considered my question. He then called me close. As I approached, he handed me the poker and almost whispered: "Let's do this together." Feel the Difference I took the metal rod, and he guided me in front of him. He wrapped his hands over mine and started to guide my movements. The ash continued to fall through the grate, and what was left behind was a small pile of embers. My Father asked me: "Do you feel much heat?” I laughed and said: "No Dad! Of course not!" My father chuckled, then responded: "I imagine not! Certainly, as they are, they are not going to heat the house, but notice what happens when I do this." He put the poker down, positioned himself closer to the stove, and began to blow hard onto the embers. They suddenly began to glow a fiery red. My father then said: "Here, you try." I emulated his actions and blew as hard as I could. Likewise, the embers turned a vibrant red for the briefest of moments. My father asked: "You see the difference, but did you also feel the difference?" Smiling, I answered: "Yea! It was warm for a second!" "Exactly," my father interjected: "We clear the ash so that oxygen can fuel the embers. Oxygen is absolutely necessary; the embers burn brighter, as you saw. We then fuel the fire with other small flammable items, starting small and then moving on to bigger items." My father then instructed me to get newspapers and small sticks from the kindling box. He meanwhile went to the side porch and collected several boards and larger logs. He then crumpled the newspaper and laid it on the small pile of embers. He then instructed me to blow on the pile as I had done before. "Keep going! Don't stop! Almost there!" my father encouraged, until quite suddenly, and just as surprisingly, the newspaper caught fire. Startled, I jumped back a little but was then calmed by the burst of warmth I also felt. At that moment, I remember smiling from ear to ear, and my father, also smiling, instructed: "Now, we can start adding slightly larger items. We'll start with these twigs and such. They'll catch fire like the paper did. Observe…" Sure enough, after a few moments, the sticks were burning. The heat was significant. My father then added small logs, and old fence boards, and waited as before. I had to back up because the heat was unbearable up close. Finally, 30-40 minutes later, the fire was literally roaring as my father put in the largest of logs. He said: "With these, the fire will burn several hours into the night. You have learned that the hardest part is getting the fire going. Once ablaze, it is easy to keep it going as long as you feed it and allow the oxygen to fan the flames. A fire without oxygen, without fuel, will be extinguished." To Remember… The desire for God is written in the human heart. The fact that humans are made in the likeness and image of God results in an ember, a desire for happiness that lies in each of us. This ember can never be extinguished, but if left uncared for, leaves its owner unhappy and without purpose. Clear away the ashes (through Baptism), and we allow God's love to fan the flame. Our deepest desire starts to be oxygenated, and we begin to feel the effects of God's love. As God's love stimulates the fire within to grow, it requires sustenance—an active daily choice to kindle the flame. The Word of God, prayer, the Sacraments, and works of charity keep the flame well nurtured. Left unaided, our flames reduce once more to a struggling ember, starving for the oxygen only God can provide.  Our free will allows us to say ‘Yes’ to God. This not only fulfills our innate individual desire for happiness but our ‘Yes’ can even ignite someone else's desire for conversion, giving validity to Saint Ignatius's words: "Go forth and set the world on fire."

It was the year 1944—the world was shaken by poverty and the travails of World War II. The war was nearing its end; Russian Army was liberating the Slovak Republic from Nazi occupation.  On the night of November 22, the Red Army had taken over the small village of Vysoká nad Uhom. Fearing the aggressiveness of violent Russian soldiers, people hid in their basements. 16-year-old Anna Kolesárová was hiding with her father and brother in the cellar of their house when a drunken soldier discovered them.  Out of fear, her father asked her to prepare food for the soldier. In an attempt to disguise her youth, she had worn long black clothes of her mother, who they had lost when Anna was ten. The soldier soon realized that Anna was only a teenager and attempted to force himself on her. The scared girl vehemently refused his advances. Aggravated by her actions, the soldier pointed a gun at her. Somehow, Anna escaped his grip and ran towards her father, shouting: “Goodbye, father!” With a rifle, he shot her in the face and chest.  This young girl, who had gone for the Holy Mass every day despite the alarming conditions prevailing in the region, succumbed to death with the final words: “Jesus, Mary, Joseph!”  The very same night, her father buried her in a makeshift coffin. A week later, Father Anton Lukac gave her a formal funeral, stating that Anna had received the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion before her death. After the church funeral, he wrote a note into the register of deaths: hostia sanctae castitatis (host of holy purity).  On her beatification on September 1, 2018, Pope Francis confirmed that the young Catholic girl had died in defensum castitatis, i.e., to preserve her virginity. With so many other Saints like Maria Goretti, she is now venerated as a virgin martyr. 

You may have a million reasons to say ‘no’ to a possible good deed, but are those really valid? I sat in my van waiting for my daughter to finish her horseback riding lesson. At the farm where she rides, there are horses, sheep, goats, bunnies, and lots of barn cats.   I got distracted from watching my daughter when I noticed a boy leading a newly sheared lamb back to its pen. Suddenly, the animal decided it did not want to go to the pasture and plopped down right there in the pathway. Try as he may, the boy could not get the lamb to move (a full-grown sheep is not little, weighing on average over 100 pounds). He pulled on the leash. He went behind the lamb and tried to push on the rear end. He attempted to lift it up from under its belly. He even tried reasoning with the sheep, talking to it, promising to give it a treat if it would just follow him. Still, the lamb lay in the middle of the trail. I smiled and thought to myself: “I am that lamb!” How often do I refuse to go where the Lord is trying to lead me? Sometimes, I am afraid to do what Jesus is asking of me. It is out of my comfort zone. Someone may not like me if I speak the Truth; it might offend them. Am I even qualified for the task? Fear prevents me from fulfilling God’s incredible plan for me.  Other times, I am too tired or downright lazy. Helping others takes time, time that I had planned to do something else—something I wanted to do. There are times when I feel that I do not have the energy to volunteer for one more thing. Sadly, I refuse to give a little more of myself. Selfishness prevents me from gaining the graces God is sending me. I am not sure why that lamb stopped moving forward. Was it afraid? Or tired? Or just plain lazy? I don’t know. Eventually, the little shepherd was able to coax his lamb into moving again and got it to the green pastures where it could safely lie down. Like the shepherd boy, Jesus pokes and prods me, but in my stubbornness, I refuse to move. How sad! I am missing out on opportunities, perhaps even miracles. Truly, there is nothing to fear, for Jesus promised He’d be with me (Psalms 23:4). When Jesus asks something of me, “there is nothing I lack” (Psalms 23:1), not time nor energy. If I do get tired: “He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul.” (Psalms 23:2,3) Jesus is my Good Shepherd. Lord, forgive me. Help me to always follow You wherever You may lead me. I trust that You know what is best for me. You are my Good Shepherd. Amen.

It’s easy to be caught up in the ordinary and lose sight of purpose. Donna reminds us why we should hold on.  I used to think that if ever I made a serious spiritual commitment and embarked on a discerned path toward holiness, every day would be filled with holy moments, and everything I encountered, ‘even adversities, would be considered all joy.’ (James 1:2) But the spiritual life, indeed, life in general, isn't quite like that. About ten years ago, I became an oblate of Saint Benedict. At the outset of my oblation, as my prayer life deepened, and my ministries became more fruitful, the possibilities of Christian perfection seemed endless.  But the temptation to judge others unfavorably by comparison began to nip at my heels. When family members outrightly rejected some of the fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church, I felt rejected by extension. When a fellow oblate questioned my public witness in support of the sanctity of life—didn't I know that hearts and minds have only ever been changed through unconditional love, not veiled criticism?—I felt like a Pharisee holding my sign. Holy Meteors… Alas, while I never doubted my decision to become an oblate, the realization of my basic unworthiness deflated my spirits. How I longed to rediscover that heady sense of interior freedom and joyful buoyancy, arising from the belief that my Catholic faith, lived out under the guidance of the Rule of Saint Benedict, could move mountains. Ironically, the wisdom of a 20th-century rabbi helped me find the way by pointing to the time-tested directive: "Remember why you started!" In Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Jewish pastor Abraham J. Heschel suggests that faith is not some constant state of fervent belief, but rather a loyalty to the moments when we had such ardent faith. In effect, ‘I believe’ means ‘I remember.’ Likening holy moments to ‘meteors’ that flare up quickly and then disappear from sight, yet “ignite a light which will never be extinguished,” Heschel exhorts believers “to guard forever the echo which once burst upon the deep recesses of your soul.” Most of us can recall experiencing these ‘shooting stars’ at significant moments in our faith life, when we felt high and lifted up, touched by God's glory.  My Shooting Star Moments My first such memory occurred at age seven when I saw Michelangelo's Pieta at the New York World's Fair. Though I had made my first Holy Communion earlier that year, the beauty of the white marble sculpture of the Blessed Virgin with the lifeless body of Jesus in her lap, set against a celestial backdrop of midnight blue, struck me with a deeper awareness of His—and Mary's—profound sacrifice and love for me than reciting the catechism ever had. The next time I received Jesus in the Eucharist, I did so with greater understanding and reverence. Another transformative moment happened at a ballroom dance class! Christ, after all, is  Lord of the Dance in the hymn of the same name. In the writings of Catholic monastic Thomas Merton, God is the ‘Dancer’ who invites each of us to join Him in a ‘cosmic dance’ to achieve true union. (The Modern Spirituality Series). When the instructor partnered with me to demonstrate the foxtrot, I nervously joked that I had two left feet, yet he simply said: "Follow me." After my initial stumble, he immediately pulled me in so that I didn't have the space to falter. For the next few minutes, as I was effortlessly gliding throughout the room in his wake, swinging and swaying to Frank Sinatra singing Fly Me To The Moon, I implicitly knew what it would be like to be in step with God's will– exhilarating! Christ had His Moments too! In Scripture, God clearly creates moments of transcendence to strengthen our faith in times of trial—the Transfiguration of the Lord is a prime example. The memory of Christ manifested in all His dazzling glory certainly provided the disciples with a necessary contrast to the horror and shame of His ignominious death on the Cross. It also imparts a hopeful vision of our future glory ‘come what may.’ Surely the memory of  His Father's words: “This is my Beloved Son; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5) sustained and comforted the human Jesus from  Gethsemane to Calvary. Indeed, ‘Remembrance’ is a preeminent theme in the Passion narrative. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, He established the most consequential Memorial of all time and eternity—the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When Jesus on the Cross promised to remember in Paradise, the good thief who validated Him on earth, the world sighed with relief. That is why Saint Benedict's reminder to ‘Never despair of God's mercy’ is his Rule's final and most fundamental spiritual tool. For though we, like the good thief, know ourselves to be deeply flawed, still we can be confident that Christ will remember us because we remember Him—in other words, we believe! For a perfect life on earth does not exist. Yet there are perfect, glowing moments, set among ordinary—often trying—moments, that illuminate our path, 'gliding’ our steps to Heaven, where we will ‘play among the stars.’ Until then, let us love in remembrance of Him!