The Trinity: the Unbroken Cycle of God's Love

Next Sunday is Trinity Sunday. The Trinity is the unbroken cycle of God’s love; we are part of that cycle.

When God made you and me God embraced us like a mother would bundle up a beloved child to go out into the cold for the very first time. And like a parent might slip a little identification note into a child’s pocket, just in case he or she should get lost, God put a little piece of Godself inside of each of us. That little piece of God is our immortal soul; it is the presence of Christ within us. Life is the journey of our soul back home to God.

‘God’ is a word that we use to describe an indefinable reality. Because our minds and bodies operate in time and space, we are only comfortable thinking and speaking with intellectual constructs. We make our Creator into our own image and likeness. We paint pictures, cut stained-glass images, and sing songs about a transcendent reality that cannot be packaged into the limited box of human understanding. 

But what the intellect struggles to grasp, the soul already knows. I intuitively know that there is a central, loving, and personal source of all creation. I know this because God embraced me before I was born. 

In the New Testament Saint John tells us that, “God is Love.” Back in the 1970s, Carole King wrote a song entitled: ‘Only Love is Real, Everything Else An Illusion’. For me this song speaks of God.

God is love, a pure love that permeates the universe; a love that draws us home. We Christians use an intellectual construct in attempting to describe the dynamic of that pure Love. That construct is the Trinity. 

The Benedictine theologian Kilian McDonnell gave us a model he calls the Trinitarian Cycle of Life. Father McDonnell uses this analogy to describe the underlying Trinitarian dynamic that flows throughout the universe. In this dynamic God as Father reaches through God as Son and in God as Holy Spirit to touch and transform the world and the church and to lead us back home.

We are part of that dynamic. God sent each of us into life to be a conduit of God’s love; to help that love permeate our world. The Trinity is the unbroken cycle of God’s love.

On Trinity Sunday, and everyday, let us remember and rejoice, really rejoice, that we are part of that cycle.

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

We Are All Called to be Good Shepherds

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd." But that’s not the end of the story. He calls us to be good shepherds as well.

In preparing for this homily I researched what it meant to be a good shepherd back in Jesus' time. And I came away with great respect for shepherds. Sheep are innocent and lovable creatures, but without a good shepherd they are totally defenseless. They are at the mercy of wild animals, storms and robbers.

The vocation of being a shepherd was something very special. They were sometimes called to risk their own lives to protect their sheep. In the book of Samuel in the Old Testament, King David, as a young shepherd boy, fought off a bear and a lion to protect the family flock. To be a good shepherd was to be a loving and courageous human being.

In my ministry as a hospital chaplain for our brothers and sisters who suffer with anxiety, depression and addiction, I often reflect on Psalm 23. In it the Psalm writer, who we believe to be King David, says, “The Lord is my shepherd.”

I always focus on one line in particular: “You anoint my head with oil.” And I explain how in ancient times, and even still today, shepherds rub oil on the heads of their sheep to give them peace and comfort. This is necessary because when a large number of sheep are together, these little microscopic insects, these little gnats, are attracted by the smell of wool. They buzz around the heads and torment these poor sheep that are helpless to swat them away. The shepherd anoints the head of each sheep and rubs in this special oil. The fragrance repels and drives away the insects leaving the sheep in peace. 

I tell my hospital friends that we are like those sheep. Only instead of insects buzzing around us, we sometimes have negative thoughts that buzz inside our heads. They are the anxieties and guilt and anger, the obsessions and compulsions that we carry. They can lead us into depression or addiction, into loneliness and self-alienation.

But just like those good Mediterranean shepherds who anoint the heads of their sheep, our loving God anoints our human heads with the oil of his love and forgiveness to free us from the thoughts that torment us.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd. But that’s not the end of the story. We are called to be more than helpless, passive sheep. We are called to be active good shepherds as well.

As we continue our journey through this Easter season, let us resolve to be good shepherds for all our sisters and brothers – without exception - and to anoint them with the oil of our love and compassion, our forgiveness and inclusion.

4^th Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

Lazarus and the Problem of Evil

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother [and my sister] would not have died.”

            John 11: 32

I had prayed for James Foley, the American journalist who had been abducted by ISIS in Syria. And for Kayla Mueller, the American human rights worker who had been volunteering in Syria with Doctors Without Borders. When I heard the news that they had been killed, I felt like my own brother and sister had died.  “Lord, if you had been here . . .” Why does our all powerful and all loving God permit such evil to exist?

God gives us free will to choose goodness over darkness. Some choose the darkness and as a result bad things — evil things — happen. The consequences of those choices create a nightmare for us. But in God’s reality they represent only a microsecond in time compared to the eternity that awaits us.

Look at Sunday’s Gospel: Lazarus lay dead in a tomb for four days. His sisters cannot understand how their best friend Jesus, the miracle worker, could have let it happen. In the end Jesus brings Lazarus back to life and those four days of sorrow become a distant, faded memory compared to the joy of being reunited.

And that is how it will be for us. The pain felt by Martha and Mary is like the pain we experience in dealing with the presence of evil in our world. But in God’s eye it is temporary — like the four days that Lazarus lay dead in the tomb. There is so very much more that God has waiting for us.

The cross, the symbol of our faith, is God’s answer to the problem of evil. In the center of the cross, in the center of the pain and the suffering, we find God in human form. The message of the cross is hope. It tells us that we are not alone, that God is with us in the pain and the suffering; and someday it will all make sense, there will be a resurrection.

And all the people we have lost in our lives, perhaps our parents, perhaps our children; all those who have been dear to us; and all the James Foleys and Kayla Muellers will share with us in the joy of God’s presence for all eternity.

In the face of the evil we are confronted with each day, let us be at peace in the knowledge that God is always with us, holding our hand, leading us to a place where there will be no more pain, no more suffering and no more darkness.

5^th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

Blindness and the Pool of Siloam

This Sunday’s Gospel has Jesus curing a blind man. It’s a wonderful story. The appeal is in the magic, the joy, the miracle that happens; but that’s not the end of it. As we hear in the Gospel, things get pretty complicated for that man.

Jesus brings him out of darkness for a purpose. He sends him into action: “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means, 'the one who has been sent'). The Gospel writer doesn’t tell us the man’s name. Maybe he’s meant to be you and me.

Where Jesus used spit and mud to give sight to the blind man, he uses the Gospel — handed down through the centuries — to give sight to us. But once we are brought into the light, our life too can get complicated. For the Gospel calls us to action - maybe even to make changes very close to home.         

Seeing by the light of the Gospel, how can we fail to recognize Christ in the relative or friend whom we haven’t forgiven or spoken to for years over some incident that maybe we can’t even remember? And once we do see, what action do we take?

Seeing by the light of the Gospel, how do we miss the Christ standing in the shadows who listens and watches with sadness as we buy into gossip or bullying; as we condone, by our silence, the racially or ethnically degrading joke, the anti-Semitic or homophobic remark? And once we do see, what action do we take?

Once we recognize conflict between our life and the Gospel we are called to act. To fail to do so is to pretend not to see. And everyone knows that, thanks to Jesus, we Christians can now see.

As we continue our journey through Lent, let us examine our life by the light of the Gospel; and where we see that change is needed, let us go wash ourselves in the pool of Siloam and then come back to truly love one another as God loves each and every one of us.

4^th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

The Woman at the Well

This Sunday’s Gospel has Jesus reaching out to a social outcast within a land of social outcasts. The encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well happens in Samaria. It is a place that the Jewish people avoided like the plague. They saw the Samaritans as ritually unclean; too polluted for respectable, God-fearing people to be around.

Yet Jesus goes into this place, sits down at a well and carries on a conversation with an unaccompanied woman. In those days, and particularly in that part of the world a woman out by herself was considered an outcast even by her own people.

But this woman has bigger issues. She’s been married five times and is now living with a sixth person. Her own people look down upon her and, from her conversation with Jesus, it is apparent that she has little self-esteem.

Despite her lifestyle and self-alienation, Jesus reaches out to her and offers her living water, the presence of God. And this woman, this social outcast, this sinner, recognizes and accepts Jesus as Lord; while his own people, the upstanding people of the Mosaic Law do not. And she is so moved that she runs back to her village to bring her fellow outcasts to meet him.

Society, and our institutional structures and sadly maybe even our own families, sometimes throw people out; sometimes it's other people, sometimes it's even ourselves.

And maybe we buy into it; we see ourselves, and others, as unworthy of God's love – because we or they are different, because we or they don't quite fit in. But even then, God comes into our darkest places to find us and to give us the living water of his love - like he did for that Samaritan woman in today’s gospel.

As we continue our journey through Lent, let us recognize that in spite of our bad choices, our mistakes and even our sins, God loves us very much. And let us go out into the Samarias of our own life, and love and accept others as God loves and accepts us.

                                                                                3^rd Sunday of Lent

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

Angels in the Desert

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days . . . He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him."

Mark 1: 12 - 13

     How many of us have spent time in the desert? I know I have. That desert can take many different forms. It might be a diagnosis of cancer or some incurable, progressive illness. It may be an addiction or the dark night of depression or the loss of a loved one. Whatever it is, our time in the desert is a time of very deep wounds.

     We all experience the desert during our lifetime, some of us more than once. But God is with us in that desert. And in his great love, God sends angels to minister to us and help us get through it. Those angels are ordinary people. They don't see themselves as angels, just people moved by compassion. And we, in turn, are called by God to be angels in the desert; to recognize and transform our own woundedness and become wounded healers for others.

     I have a friend who was a corporate executive. He spent years in the desert as a high-functioning alcoholic. But not high-functioning enough to save his marriage or his career. He eventually hit rock bottom and ended up in a homeless shelter.

     Some angels from Alcoholics Anonymous helped him get through his desert. He's been sober for 20 years and volunteers as a spiritual group leader in an addiction recovery program. My friend became and angel in the desert: he transformed his own woundedness and became a wounded healer for others.

     Some years ago I saw a story on CNN about a young man in Oregon who had lost both legs in a terrible accident. He went through many painful surgeries. While he was in his desert he was ministered to by an angel, a compassionate physical therapist who himself had survived Polio. As part of his therapy this young man learned to play basketball from his wheelchair.

     He later transformed his own wounds in a unique way: he reached out to handicapped, inner-city kids and taught them to play basketball. He built a team and later formed a basketball league for special needs teenagers. This young man became an angel in the desert: he transformed his own woundedness and became a wounded healer for others.

     When I was in my early twenties, I went through the dark night of depression. It lasted several months and was the most painful time of my life. While I was in that desert I met an elderly priest who was an angel to me. He told me that when he was a young priest he too went through the dark night of depression. But through the grace of God he had gotten through it and went on to build a joyful and productive priesthood.

     That angel inspired and encouraged me; he gave me a great gift - the gift of his own woundedness. It helped me get beyond my own desert and to go on to build a family, a career and eventually to follow Our Lord as a Catholic deacon. Over the years I have looked to pay it forward by reaching out to others who appeared to be going through dark times, and by volunteering as a hospital chaplain for our sisters and brothers who suffer with depression. 

     As we journey through life, we all spend time in the desert. We are all wounded. Whether it's illness, grief, depression, addiction or whatever. But in those deserts we have been graced by God and ministered to by his angels or we wouldn't be coming to church or reading spiritual reflections. 

     Let us use this Lenten season to reflect on our own time in the desert. And let us resolve to use our own experience - our own woundedness - to be angels in the desert for others.

     What are your wounds and where are you being called to minister and bring healing?

                                   1^st Sunday in Lent

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/

Epiphany - God is in the Pots and the Pans

     Saint Teresa of Avila, the great 16^th century spiritual writer and Carmelite mystic, tells us that we are never closer to God than when we’re immersed in the ordinary things of daily life. She wrote something that stays in my mind everyday: “God is in the pots and the pans.”

     Those three wise ones from the East, the Magi in the Gospel for Epiphany Sunday, were searching for an earthly king in all his splendor. Instead they found God in the helplessness of a little baby and the dirtiness of a manger. They had an epiphany: they found God in the pots and the pans. Where are you looking for God?

     Many years ago I had an epiphany experience of my own. I had always been a person of faith and hope but some bad things were happening in the world. The news was filled with violence and war, and stories about homeless people dying in the streets and children being abducted. It seemed as if hatred and human suffering were overpowering goodness and love. I began to ask where was God in the face of so much pain and suffering? I could no longer see Christ present in our world. Then one day something special happened.

     It was a beautiful October morning as I drove down Central Park West. I had been driving in early on Saturday mornings with coffee and sandwiches looking for people who were homeless. I spotted a disheveled young man huddled in a red sweatshirt, sitting on a park bench, rocking back and forth and staring into space. After saying good morning, I offered him some hot coffee, but he didn’t respond.

     Sitting down on the bench, I poured us both some coffee and placed his cup and a few cookies down next to him. He continued to stare into space. Sipping my coffee I carried on a one-way conversation for a while. He began to chatter in nonsense sounds to each squirrel that ran by.

     After a while his fingers inched over to the coffee and he gulped it down as he continued chattering with the squirrels. I finished my second cup of coffee and said good-bye, but he still did not acknowledge my presence. Walking to the curb where my car was parked, I kept thinking how this young man was so badly damaged in mind and body that he probably wouldn’t survive the winter.

     Lost in my own sadness, I pulled away from the curb. As I drove down the street I glanced in my rear view mirror. My friend had left his bench and was standing in the street waving good-bye to me.

     My eyes welled up with tears; I realized that what I was seeing in my rear view mirror was Christ. Not that this man was Jesus in disguise, but rather that the Christ, the presence of God within him, in the midst of all his brokenness, was reaching out and connecting to the Christ, the presence of God, within me. At that instant my eyes were opened and everything made sense.

     God places a little piece of himself inside of each of us when we are born.  That little piece of God is our immortal soul. It is the Presence of Christ within us.  And like those wise ones from the East, the Magi in the Gospel, our soul is on a journey to its eternal home with God. It is a journey that must go through and see beyond the pots and the pans of life.

     But Christ is present in those pots and the pans just as surely as he was present in the center of that manger. It is the Christ who dwells in the depths of our being who surprises us and fills us with hope and wonder, like he did for those wise ones from the East, like he did for me that day in Central Park.

     It is Christ who makes it possible for us to go home by another way.

http://www.deaconlex.blogspot.com

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Readers of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on Amazon.com:

Just to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Follow-My-Friend-Experiencing/dp/1456360728/

Synchronicity as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Ministry

http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Work-Holy-Spirit-Spiritual/dp/1463518781/