I have been struggling with tremendously dark thoughts and too little hope, but the trees and flowers force me up despite much physical pain. They need me. They give unconditional love. When I smile at them and greet them warmly, they smile back and greet me with purity and love in full reflection of His Real Presence and Heaven.
As for pain at all levels, there is nothing to be done but endure it. Even with dark thoughts and grave disappointments in myself and others, especially those of us who lay claim to the Eucharist and the "true church", we must persevere and try to be better Christians, better human beings, better reflections of His Real Presence: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I suppose if nothing else from these blogs in which I reveal the actualities of my lived experience as a type of case study, and do so with as much authenticity as my research-trained intellect can, I pray that others have some sense of scandal and shame that we all should bear, and that we uplift our ways and strive to at least fake living more as if we truly believe we have His Real Presence in us.
If He really is in us, then why the coldness and scrutinizing, the judging, the lack of giving back peace when proffered? Well, perhaps I need to persevere more and just keep going in where I am not welcomed or accepted. Perhaps change will come through the silent shunning and persecution of that which they do not bother to discover the myriad other facets of a human being's capacity to love and to give and to laugh.
In this current pain siege, I have also felt the pain and union with those in the Middle East who are being brutally murdered on top of all manner and types of religious persecution. I also grieve and suffer with the Muslims who are peaceful and trying to live the good aspects of their religion--just as there are good Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, and other forms of religious followers who are simply good people and who love God even if they are not followers of Jesus Christ.
However, I can attest for any out there who suffer in daily life with whatever form of suffering, that feeling guilty that one struggles to manage the suffering when others elsewhere are being killed physically for their faith, does not lessen one's suffering nor the reality of the critical aspects of it. Pain is pain, and we cannot make ours go away or diminish it by any particular knowledge that ours is not as horrific politically or physically, or that we are not being physically martyred.
What we can do is to unite our sufferings and pray with our fellow sufferers. Sometimes I think that those who suffer at the words, neglect or physical abuse by a spouse suffer mightily, for that is a personal assault against love, often in the twisted name of marital or cohabitation love. God is love, and such warped, contradictory love is a direct assault upon His Real Presence.
I wonder if we could suffer a martyrdom of death for our love of Christ, in some way more heroically, knowing it was going to be over, once and for all? Does it help to know that we are dying for a huge and public cause, that of the way saints of all centuries suffered and died, or that of Jesus' own way of death?
One can begin to feel guilty and ashamed for not being able to suffer out the long haul when compared to those martyrs unto blood.
Being unkind within our own parishes is perhaps the greatest shame. Trying to discount it or hide it away, or excuse it away, does not bring about change. Perhaps my staying away from Mass when I am not welcome is not helping bring about eventual change for the better, or in others learning that there is a human being, a human soul, a good person, a loving, genuine, and devout Christian and Catholic Christian within the one they fear or judge.
I consider Jim Foley, the journalist who was beheaded last week in Syria. He had been kidnapped once and escaped, only to return to Syria against the wishes of family and friends due to the dangers there. But he had a passion and a mission to expose to the world the terrible plight of the non-Muslim Syrians against tyranny and terrorism by radical Muslims. Jim Foley was not welcome according to his terrorist captors and executioner. He witnessed, all the same, and others got a message, not the least of which is to love love, to love God, and to love one another.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Little children, let us love one another for love is of God.
Although much of recent writing topics upon the journey and plight regarding persecution within the Church toward what is atypical in spiritual phenomenon or those deemed spiritually different, it is nothing compared to the tremendous persecution that has faced Christians since the beginning of the Church.
The news is filled with the horrible plight of Christians in the Middle East, many of them Catholic Christians but some of Protestant and non-denominational Christian churches. It is horrific and barbarian to think humanity remains caught in murder due to religious differences. [I was going to post a photo, but they are too graphic.]
Today we commemorate the heroic martyrdom of Maximillian Kolbe during World War II. As a Polish Catholic priest, he was considered a threat to the Nazi regime due to his Christian publications. Most of us know of his life and death.
He was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When a man was singled out to be put to death in retribution for another prisoner's escape, the man cried out to be spared as he was a husband and father. Maximillian stepped forward immediately and offered to die in place of the man selected. Why should the Nazi's take Kolbe over this other man? Maximillian Kolbe responded, "Because I am a Catholic priest."
He and some other prisoners were placed in a type of cage in the prison yard in the heat of August and starved to death--no food and no water. Kolbe encouraged his fellow victims with prayer and hymns. As the men died slowly, one by one, Maximillian Kolbe continued to live. The prayers and hymns increased the disdain in the Nazi guards for it was a tremendous witness of Christ to all the prisoners in the camp as word spread of the triumphant joy in Christ in the face of such brutality.
The guards eventually injected the priest in order to kill him. The man he replaced in death went on to live his life and be rejoined to wife and children after he and other prisoners were liberated at the war's end.
Maximillian Kolbe and many others (including Edith Stein) are remembered on earth and have gained glory in heaven, for their courage and selflessness in dying for the love of Christ and as persecuted Christians. Another such martyr was the Lutheran minister and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Seeing photos of Christian children, kneeling to be beheaded, or of Christian women being shot to death, remind us of the seemingly never-ending plight of non-Christian aggressors, threatened by Jesus Christ alive today in the bodies, minds, hearts and souls of those of us who claim Christ as our Lord and Savior. We take up the cross and follow Him daily, even unto death, death on the cross of persecution small or great, in whatever form and to whatever earthly end we may encounter.
Do those of us who are not put to physical death in physical martyrdom have survivor guilt? Perhaps we should, in some regards. But I think if we grasp that we are part of the Body of Christ, we die with our fellow Christians with each act of aggression and atrocity meted out by those who commit evil--many of them doing so in the name of a god they believe has commanded them to kill those who do not follow their proclaimed religion and religious practices.
In our daily lives, we are called to die to ourselves in various ways and mostly not physically due to martyrdom. But we yet persecute one another in little and large ways, and this must cease if we are to break even a tiny aspect of the cycle of evil, of man's inhumanity to man.
I read that the apostle John, in his later years, always addressed others with the words: Little Children. This was accompanied by his reminder, "let us love one another." The other day I considered using these very words when in conversation with the woman who was becoming flustered over the atypical experience I have during Mass. Such a simple little thing it is--but different and open to such doubt, fear and judgment by others.
I wonder how priests and parishioners or some contractors and workers, would have reacted on several occasions, had I addressed them thus: Little children, let us love one another. I'd like to think that if others addressed me in these words, that I would be moved in the heart and my mind to reflect upon ways in which I have fallen short of the simplicity of child-like love and sweetness to others.
Today in the Gospel reading, Jesus teaches us again about forgiveness--God's for us and how we ought for others. "Forgive from the heart." These Living Words from the Mouth of God stand out to me, now. I have work to do, within, and also to continue being an immolation in whatever sense or way the Lord reveals.
Today I return to the little chapel with the handful of people who come for daily Mass: Little children among little children that we all are, the world over. Let us love one another for Love is of God.
