In His Shadow

Each morning I sit beneath the crucifix and observe the shadow it casts upon the wall. 
The shadow spreads beyond the crucifix and appears larger than the crucifix itself. 
The shadow is an example for me. 
I myself must remain small, but the good I do should extend beyond my little life 
and fill the world around me with the largeness of Christ's love. 
Lord, help this to be so.

In the Upper Room

It was several years ago that I was introduced to The Book of the Savior, a compilation of poetry and essays published by Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward in 1952.  The book is hard to find and I especially treasure my copy.  I've been reading it ever so slowly, perhaps an essay or poem each week, and have been savoring most of what I read.  One of the featured poets in the anthology, Charles O'Donnell, C.S.C., deeply moved me with his poem In the Upper Room.  A google search revealed very little about Fr. O'Donnell other than the fact that he had been the president of Notre Dame University from 1928-1934.  I don't know of anything else that he might have written.  But this, oh how it moves my heart!  Perhaps it moves yours, as well.

source

In the Upper Room

~ Charles O’Donnell, C.S.C.

What did you hear last night, your head on His breast there?

It was Peter in the dark supper-room

Asking of John,

Who with Mary, His Mother, was just returned

From burying Him.

I heard His blood moving like an unborn child,

And His heart crying.

I heard Him talking with His Father

And the Dove.

I heard an undertone as of the sea swinging, and a whispering at its centre.

I listened, and all the sound

Was a murmuring of names.

I heard my own name beating in His Blood,

And yours, Peter,

And all of you.

And I heard Judas,

And the names of all that have been

Or shall be to the last day.

And it was His Blood was calling out these names,

And they possessed His Blood.

Did you hear my name?

Asked a woman who was sitting at His Mother’s feet.

I heard your name, Mary of Magdala, and it was like a storm at sea

And the waves racing.

I heard Peter’s name,

And the sea broke, I thought, and ran over the world.

You heard then the name of Mary, His Mother, Peter said quietly, as he wept there, kneeling.

I did, and it was like the singing of winds and they moving over an ocean of stars, and every star like a hushed child sleeping.

Again Peter-

What of Iscariot?

I heard the tide come in and I felt the tide go out,

And I saw a dead man washed up on the shore.

And then John fell to weeping, and no one there could comfort him but only Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and he could tell them

No other word.

From the Womb to the Tomb

At Old St. Mary Church in downtown Milwaukee, the creche is situated just below the 14th Station of the Cross where Jesus is lovingly placed in the sepulchre by his friends.  Here the birth of our Lord is placed so closely to His death.  How fitting that is for all of us live with the shadow of our death hanging ever near, never knowing when we may breathe our last, and preparing every step of the way for a holy death.  And the best way in which we can prepare for death is to take frequent advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. How perfect it is that the confessional is right between the two scenes of life and death, for the forgiveness of our sins was the reason that our Lord was born and it was for this that He died.

My Savior Jesus,

From the womb to the tomb your sole purpose was to free us from the burden of our sins.  Thank you for the beauty of your birth and for the redemption that your suffering and death brought to our souls.  May we remember to frequently take advantage of Sacramental Confession and Absolution and be blessed to rejoice with You forever in heaven for this magnificent gift!

Amen,

Thrice Bereft

"Lift your soul off the earth; lift it up, bravely, calmly. Do not let its fragrant petals drag in the soil; do not let selfish hands pluck you. Be not afraid that you will be crushed under foot. A Divine Gardener watches with jealous love over your growth, refreshing you with the gentle dew of His Heart's Blood, while he warms the Golden Mantle of His grace. It is true that we are on earth, but our souls are made to be lifted up, up from the earth to God."
 ~Letters from Fr. Page by Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP

the altar at St. Joseph's Church, Baraboo, Wisconsin

the twelfth station, Jesus dies on the cross, St. Joseph's Church, Baraboo, WI

St. Joseph's Church, Baraboo, WI

Each year when my family and I enjoy our annual camping vacation, we attend Sunday morning Mass at St. Joseph's Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  It's one of my favorite churches, full of beautiful statues and stained glass. Mass at St. Joseph's is always reverent despite the faint scent of campfire that hovers about my family and I while we worship.

This year something caught my eye that I had never noticed before.  While looking at the altar, I was struck by the image of St. Mary Magdalene, bereft, upon her knees in grief, at the foot of the cross. In many churches it's common to see the Blessed Mother and St. John standing at the foot of the cross, but here, they were absent, and Mary Magdalene alone was portrayed in her sorrow. Glancing to my side at the stations of the cross, I saw that once again, there was the Magdalene on her knees, this time joined by Our Lady and the disciple that Jesus loved.  And finally, as I turned to leave the church after Mass, I saw yet another image in stained glass, of the saint who loved much, on her knees before our crucified Lord.

I thought of the three times that our Lord asked St. Peter if he loved Him after His resurrection, and St. Peter affirmed his love with three verbalizations.  In contrast, Mary Magdalene gave three obvious, yet wordless, displays of love for Jesus, not just as seen in the artwork at St. Joseph's Church, but also in scripture.  She knelt at His feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, with her alabaster jar of ointment, broken open and spilling love for the Lord with abandon.  She knelt at the foot of the cross on Good Friday in utter despair.  She knelt at the entrance of the tomb not realizing the glory of the resurrection that was just beyond that tearful moment.  In each situation, her love was evident without requiring any questioning from the Lord.   She is a fragrant flower, blooming at the stem of Love and Mercy. 

And the Lord blessed her for her openness, for her inability to hold back her feelings, for her willingness to release her sins and accept the forgiveness of God, and then to go forth to proclaim His love to the world.   He accepted her passionate grief, knowing that her own love, watered by her tears, nourished by her compassion, would blossom into a witness for the world on how we, too, are to love the Lord; that is, fully, wholly, unreservedly, through our sorrows and joys, our sufferings and our triumphs, our losses and our gains.

Then, in the end, sweet Mary Magdalene is rewarded for her love with a magnificent entrance into the heavenly gates, carefully holding her jar of fragrant oil, now standing tall, no longer kneeling in sorrow, blissfully entering into the eternal arms of her Savior.

St. Mary Magdalene by Christi Jentz

The beautiful painting above is an original creation of Christi Jentz and is available for purchase in small giclee (pronounced zhee-klay) reproductions and cardstock.  Please visit her fabulous and informative website,  Lumen Christi Art, for more details on how to order her artwork or to simply enjoy the art and background information that she offers.  You'll want to check back frequently to read her fascinating blog updates.   

Crown of Thorns

It's blackberry season again.  This time of year you will often find me in my backyard blackberry patch gathering the black jewels for my family to enjoy.  I inherited all of my blackberry bushes from my dad when Paul and I bought our house 21 years ago.  Dad transplanted the bushes to our garden from his own. Blackberry season is filled with loving childhood memories of my dad who was truly a master gardener far better than I could ever hope to be.  It's seven years ago this month since my dad passed away.  I pray that he and Jesus are reveling in a blackberry feast in heaven.  Here's a post from the archives about this luscious fruit:

 
Standing in the hot sun, plucking the dark, plump blackberries from the canes and dreaming of the treats I might create with the fruit, I carelessly turn and catch my bare arm on the thorns.

I call out in pain and pull a thorn from my skin. I watch the blood gush out in a bright, red drop.

Didn’t he tell me to wear long sleeves while picking berries, as he dug the heirloom canes from the ground for me to transplant into my garden?  I rarely listened to him when I was young, and now that I am not so young I still fail to listen to the sound of his memory in my mind.

But now, my thoughts wander back to a garden long ago, a garden rich and lush with berries in abundance.  There he stood; my father, long sleeves regardless of the heat, picking those berries
day in and day out,until the canes were picked clean, and then gently carrying hispurple treasures to the kitchen where they would be quickly eaten.

But another man didn’t enjoy sweet berries after enduring the pain of thorns.  He wore those thorns tightly wrapped against his head with no one to pull them out when he cried in pain. There was only a stranger, a lovely, gentle woman, who kindly offered her veil to dry his blood.

He carried those thorns with him to his death and was only offered the bitter taste of gall to quench his deep thirst; a taste He refused, as the taste of our sin that filled his mouth was all the bitter He could bear.







Oh sweet Jesus,

how I wish You could have known the flavor of fresh summer-picked blackberries instead of the bitter gall of our sin.

And how I wish I would refrain from complaining when the thorns grab hold of my skin.
 
I want so much to be brave and strong like You,
to wear my crown of thorns without complaint.
 
For I know that when I do you will be holding out my reward,
a treasure sweeter than any berry, a life of eternal joy with you
in your heavenly garden.  Amen.

Holy Images

I woke to the sound of my own screams, grateful that the shouting was from a dream and not reality. Trying to shake the images of the nightmare from my mind, I rubbed my bleary eyes and then took a good look at myself in the bathroom mirror.  I noted that my girth and my age are all too evident lately and  I couldn't help but grumble about being scared awake only to confront my constant battle against my pride and vanity.  My day didn't seem to be starting on a very good note.  On my way to Mass I reminded myself that God loves me as I am and told myself to continue to work on being nice on the inside so that it might combat my distaste for my outward appearance.

After Mass, as I knelt before the crucifix, I realized that right before me I was seeing the ultimate in horror and humility-Jesus tortured, not in a dream but in reality, and humiliated, not because He was uncomfortable with how he looked, but because His pride was physically stripped away from Him.  I was not alone. Surely, I could unite the minor irritations that began my day to His suffering and bring some good from it.

I arrived at work and the first client I met was wearing large sunglasses even though it was not bright and sunny inside the WIC Clinic.  As we began to discuss the eating habits of her four-year-old son while her well-behaved children sat quietly waiting, I heard her sniffling and when I looked closely, I noticed tears running down her face behind those sunglasses.  I handed her a box of kleenex and she apologized for crying as she removed her sunglasses to reveal tear-soaked and tired eyes.  I'm not the only one wanting to hide the parts of me that are less than flattering.

Then she told me that her mother had suddenly died of a heart attack last week while babysitting for her children.  Her mom had kept the children overnight and nobody had discovered her death until the next day.   Her children had been alone in the house with their dead grandmother and were now unable to sleep at night from the trauma of that experience.  She went on to say that the funeral would be the next day and she was overwhelmed from all that she had to do.  She pointed to the picture on my desk of Our Lady of Guadalupe and said that it was seeing Mary on my desk that brought out her tears.  The image of a tender and loving mother allowed this woman to release her pent-up grief, if only for a moment, and brought about some much needed compassion and prayers from this listener.

Those holy images of our Lord and His Mother do so much good in this world.  Every time we glance upon their loving countenance we can't help but be changed for the better.  How blessed we are to have the continual love of Jesus and Mary to surround our hearts as we make our way through our days filled with both minor aggravations and major sorrows.  Their images are a balm that remind us that not only that we are greatly loved by them, but also that we are called to love others as they love us.  Jesus and Mary are always with us!  Let's do all we can to share them with others in all we say and do!

At the Foot of the Cross

The expressions on the face of Christ and of His Blessed Mother speak the only necessary words...

Artwork by Hippolytes Lazerges 1817-1887

Wisdom from Archbishop Fulton Sheen

“And yet at that moment when a tree of his own creation turned against Him and became a cross, when the iron of His earth reacted against Him and became nails, when roses rebelled against Him and became thorns, at that second when a sickle and a hammer combined to cut down the weeds on Calvary’s hill to erect a gallows and drive nails through hands to render impotent the blessings of love incarnate, He, like a tree which bathes in perfume the ax which kills it, lets fall from His lips for the earth’s first hearing the answer to the riddle of hate and anger: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” ~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Ah, Fulton Sheen.  I don't think it was possible for that man to have written anything that wasn't soul-moving.  A good friend of mine recently sent me his beautiful poem, Complain! on the value of complaining to God alone.  I could use a lot of work in this area, complaining far too often to others instead of saving my sorrows for God alone, so hopefully the inspiration I feel in reading and re-reading this will become a valuable asset to my spiritual life.  Am I alone in that particular struggle?  I hope not and so I felt that this poem was too good not to pass on.  I am grateful to God for the wisdom of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.  He was, and through his writings continues to be, a great witness to the faith!

          Complain!

by:  Archbishop Fulton Sheen

God does not frown on your complaint.

Did not His Mother in the Temple ask:

“Son! Why hast thou done so to us?”

And did not Christ on the Cross complain:

“My God! Why hast Thou abandoned Me?”

If the Son asked the Father,

And the Mother the Son – “Why?”

Why should not you?

But let your wails be to God,

And not to man,

Asking not, “Why does God do this to me?”

But: “Why, O God, dost Thou treat me so?”

Talk not about God, as Satan did to Eve:

“Why did God command you?”

But talk to God, as Christ to His Father.

And at the end of your sweet complaining prayer

You will say: “Father, into Thy Hands I commend my spirit.”

You will not so much be taken down

As the thief on the left,

But be taken up as the thief

Who heard: “This day, Paradise.”

They who complain to others never see God’s purposes

They who complain to God find that

Their Passion, like Christ’s, turns into compassion.

Only He who made your wound can heal it.

The Love that tightened your bow-strings

Did so, not in hurt, but in love of music.

Do not all lovers ask in doubt: “Do you love me?”

Ask that of the Tremendous Lover

And each scar will seem a kiss!

  

God is not “way up there.”

He is taking another body – your own

To carry on the world’s redemption.

Too few offer Him a human nature

Like Mary at the angel’s call –

So He conscripts you, drafts you,

Inducts you into His Army.

Complain that your shoulders

Ache beneath your pack –

But see His  own, smarting

Under a cross beam.

Complaint to God is dialogue,

And dialogue is prayer.

Not the ready-made, packaged, memorized

Lip-service of the book and candle,

but the encounter and the union

That only lovers know!

Mary Kept All These Things

"And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." ~Luke 2:19






















As she was nurturing His body for the growth of infancy and for the love of childhood did she realize that she was preparing Him to die?

When she felt that first interior kick in belly swollen with His life, did she think about the nail that would fasten His feet tightly to the wood to redeem our sinful souls?

As she wrapped Him tight in the swaddling, held Him close in the dark damp cave so cold and nursed Him to fill his empty stomach, did she understand about His empty heart hungry for the love of the world?

When He suckled til satisfied and dozed in her arms while one last drop of milk slipped from the corner of His mouth onto the cold stone floor, did she see it as a foreshadowing of the one last drop of precious blood that would drip from His open side?

As His little chubby hand finally released her finger and He gave way to the deepness of sleep, could she feel the grip He would have upon the nail that would one day hollow his hand?

When she stroked His fragrant brow with a mother's tender love, did she picture the thorns meant to pierce that very spot in a vain attempt to mar His perfection?

As she finally set Him down to rest in the manger made of wood, did she know that the wood from which His resting place was made was the same wood from which His beaten and bruised body would hang until lifeless?

When she watched Him as He slept so soundly did she think about the last time His body would be taken from her arms and laid in another dark damp cave so cold?

And do we know?

Do we know that as we prepare our hearts and our homes for Christmas, as we shop and cook and clean, as we wrap and write and decorate, striving to make our hearts and homes a fit place for Christmas joy, that the same child who will be born within us will also die within us? Each time we carry our crosses of suffering, torment and shame, our crosses of sorrow, lament and pain, He dies a little more within us and we inch our way a little further into our own new life because of His death.

Be born in us, O Lord! Be born so that we may die to sin, to hate, to poverty, and to evil. Be born so that we may die to pride, to anger, to jealousy, to vengeance. Be born so that we may die to excess, to waste, to greed and to vanity. Be born so that we may live in Your love and die for Your love alone! Come, Lord, be born, live and die within us, your weak, fragile, tender, human hosts so that we may truly live for all eternity in the light of Your sweet and precious Love! Amen.

Contemplate a Crucifix

"If you ever feel anxious or afraid or if you ever wonder does God really love me, does God really care, do I matter, contemplate a crucifix. In the crucifix we see Jesus with his head bent to kiss us, his arms opened to embrace us and his feet nailed fast to pardon our sins. We can never pass a cross or a crucifix with indifference because there we see God's compassion, God's heart, God's love put on full display for us."

~Bishop Donald Hying, from the July 3rd homily at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist

Kiss the Pain Away

With a poke of her finger
the child's blood oozed out.
She startled at the pain
but patiently cooperated
while together we watched
the hemocue vial fill with a drop
of her blood for the iron test.

With a bandage, a sticker
and a kiss from her mother
she was on her way-
proudly showing her wound
to anyone who would look...

With one stab of the lance
His blood flowed,
sticky and warm down
his thin, battered side.
There was no movement on His part,
no startled jerk in response
to the pain.

But it was she who winced
and grabbed at her own side
in a fruitless effort to stop
the pain she felt.

Unable to reach him
to give that motherly kiss
that takes away the pain,
she simply stood,
working against the swoon
and watching the drops of blood
as they splattered down.

One precious drop fell on her sleeve
and she wiped it with her forefinger.
Tears fell and mingled with the blood.
She gently rubbed the tears and blood
between her forefinger and thumb
as if that caress would ease the pain-

that pain-

foretold so many years before
in those curious words-

"A sword shall pierce your heart"

-and now she understood-
two Sacred Hearts, one unbearable pain.

His blood, her tears,
poured out silently,
eternally,
together,

poured out
without an end.

And now...I reach
out my hands in my desire
for Him,
my need to lessen His pain;
I receive His body, His blood,
her tears-
into my own body
where it mingles with my blood
and is released in my tears.

My action of deep faith and love
does what she could not do
on that black day.

She couldn't ease His pain
or lesson her own sorrow then,

but now...

she takes my hand, leads
me to Him
and I become the one who
can kiss the hurt away
with my devotion
and my love.

Crow on the Cross

There he proudly sits, beak in the air

right at the peak of the cross,

as if he can smell sin, pain, death;

he knows what this instrument is used for

and he wants to be the first to see it happen,

wants to call out death with a single "caw!"

But he's too late!

The deed has been done,

the blood of my redemption

has been washed from the cross,

the tomb stands empty.

His Spirit soars beyond the crows!

Let him wait,
wait for eternity

he will never find what he is

looking for; sin is no more.

We have been set free!

Love is all that remains.

Don't Mark My Words

Summertime gets very loud at the WIC Clinic where I work as a nutritionist. For three days each week, some nurses from the School-based Health Program come and give out free immunizations to the little ones who may have fallen behind on their schedules. Needless to say, we listen to A LOT of crying and screaming when the nurses are poking the babies and toddlers with the necessary medicine to keep them in good health. Knowing the pain that the children experience to cause such wails makes me think about the pain of Christ during His own piercing.


Even before the needle stabs his arm,
he knows what is coming and he begins to cry.
Sometimes his mother tries to comfort him
with gentle words and a soothing touch,
but at other times, bone tired and irritable,
she chastises her toddler for carrying on so,
and harshly yells at him to "Shut up or I'll really make you cry!"
Her cold words to her little one must hurt him
more than any needle ever could.

In another time, long, long ago,
He was also stabbed, not by needles but by nails and sword.
He knew what was coming, yet He faced it with courage,
His only tears falling silently in the garden
where they mixed with His blood-tinged sweat as He prayed.
When His time of crucifixion arrived,
His mother stood silently beneath His cross,
longing to reach out and comfort him,
as the crowd harshly jeered
"If you're really the Son of God, why don't you save yourself?"
I wonder if their words hurt him more
than the pain of the nails through His hands.

I also wonder if my own words
quickly spoken without thought to my children
while I am tired or angry,
hurt Him as well, even today.

My sweet and gentle Jesus,
you never hurt anyone,
not physically or with your words,
yet we continue to hurt you
over and over again
with thoughtless remarks
and cruel scoldings.

Teach us to use words of love and
words of kindness,
when we speak to others
so that the pain-inducing stabs
that fly from our tongues
won't leave a permanent
mark of pain in their wake.
Amen.

Crown of Thorns

Standing in the hot sun,
plucking the dark, plump
blackberries from the canes
and dreaming of the treats
I might create with the fruit,
I carelessly turn
and catch my bare arm on the thorns.

I call out in pain
and pull a thorn from my skin.
I watch the blood
gush out in a bright, red drop.

Didn’t he tell me
to wear long sleeves
while picking berries, as
he dug the heirloom canes
from the ground
for me to transplant
into my garden?
I rarely listened to him
when I was young,
and now that I am
not so young
I still fail to listen
to the sound of his memory
in my mind.

But now, my thoughts wander back
to a garden long ago,
a garden rich and lush
with berries in abundance.
There he stood;
my father,
long sleeves regardless
of the heat,
picking those berries
day in
day out,
until the canes were picked clean,
and gently carrying his
purple treasures to the kitchen
where they would be quickly eaten.

But another man
didn’t enjoy sweet berries
after enduring the pain of thorns.
He wore those thorns tightly
wrapped against his head
with no one to pull them out
when he cried in pain,
and only a stranger,
a lovely, gentle woman,
who offered her veil
to dry his blood.

He carried those thorns with him
to his death
and was only offered
the bitter taste of gall
to quench his deep thirst;
a taste He refused
as the taste of our sin
that filled his mouth
was bitter enough for Him.






Oh sweet Jesus,
how I wish you could know
the flavor of fresh summer-picked
blackberries.
And how I wish I would refrain
from complaining when the thorns
grab hold of my skin.
I want so much to be brave and strong
like You,
to wear my crown of thorns
without complaint.
For I know that when I do
you will be holding out my reward,
a treasure sweeter than any berry,
a life of eternal joy with you
in your heavenly garden.

This, too

I’m afraid that I will never know what it is like

to be whole and peaceful this side of heaven.

Whenever fresh pain enters my heart,

the remnant of a voice from the past comes back to haunt me,

“It’s your Good Friday, Anne, get on the cross."

I cry softly in the early morning hours of darkness,

desperately hoping God will hear me,

and release me from this pain,

but silence is the only reply.

Lonely, empty, long-lasting silence.

And when the help does finally come,

in the form of friends and family who really do care,

and put their arms around me and tell me that they love me,

I find that their love hurts, too.

I don’t believe that I deserve it.

Unworthiness and low self-esteem are my constant companions.

With a sigh, I ask God,

“This too, Lord? Do you want me to accept this pain too?

Do you want to take all of what I am, all of what I am not and all that I will never be?”

I’ve tasted resurrection; I’ve had joy after the sorrow of the past.

Now, I am here on the other side of that hill again,

standing before the cross that is waiting for me once more.

It beckons to me with the knowledge

that Jesus died because He loves me

and if I truly love Him in return,

I must also die to myself.

Like a child, I greedily beg to hold on to the joy for a little while longer.

I bite my lip to hold back the tears.

The blood dries hard on my lip like the happiness that is shriveling in my heart.

Lip biting is useless; the tears come anyway.

Never-ending tears.

I walk the familiar pavement that leads to my cross,

face to the ground hoping my tears will go unnoticed.

Cold November wind stings my damp face.

I hear the Spirit’s reply;

"This too, Anne. I want all of you.”

I bravely surrender my desires and reach out for my cross.

“This too, Lord. I give you my all.”