1- While the world changes, the cross stands firm.
2-Only those who have experienced the solitude and the silence of the wilderness can know the benefit and divine joy they bring to those who love them.
3- No act is charitable if it is not just.
4- When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture.
5- The unclean spirit enters easily into a man, and easily goes out from him.
6- For the devil may tempt the good, but he cannot find rest in them; for he is shaken violently, and upset, and driven out, now by their prayers, now by their tears of repentance, and now by their almsgiving and similar good works.
7- The Cross is steady while the world is turning.
A woman stands inside the Carmine Maggiore Church.
There are 12 mystical places we visit at mass. How is this possible? A Catholic Church is a holy place. It is a living and breathing house built by humans and spirited by God — part earth, part heaven, and, in the earthly realm of Time, yesterday, today and tomorrow. When we enter a Catholic church for Mass, itself an event out of time, we visit surprising places that coexist there. And we are met by one that comes to visit us in a way not humanly imaginable.
In this mystery to which we are blinded and hope to see, which is true and not imaginary, what is expected of we who are the guests?
How to Be During a Visit to a Mystical Place
Here are two sets of verses that generally approach that question:
Then I said, “Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.
As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God.
—Psalm 40:7-8,17
I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
—1 Timothy 3:14-15
Now, let’s see what we can learn from the 12 wonderful places that we visit at Mass.
Bethlehem
We don’t know if there was any type of gate at the entrance of the stable in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. If there was one, it would have been pretty humble, for animal control like a low wall keeps cows local. As we enter our church, it is often through a great set of doors, in some cases quite formidable. Yet, it may as well be a shepherd’s gate, easy to enter in order to reach the humblest of scenes, our infant God lying in a manger, a food trough. He is the Bread of Life. The Son of God wants the children of God to be unhindered for,
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. — John 6:51
In Hebrew, Bethlehem means “The House of Bread.”
And this is the simple, gentle, silent night image we have of the Christmas Nativity that blessedly fills our hearts with momentary serenity until the unwrapping begins.
But “Bethlehem” has a second meaning, one that King Herod knew.
Do you recall the Parable of the Tenants? A landowner planted his vineyard and rented it out to tenants. When he sent his servants to collect his share, the tenants abused them, beat them, and killed them. So the landowner sent his own son, to whom he expected the tenants to show the respect due to himself. But the tenants killed his son, expecting to take his inheritance.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” —Matt. 21:40
In Bethlehem, God has come to His vineyard where the sinful have rejected His messengers from the beginning. The war between holiness and sinfulness, Heaven and Hell, is no longer a “proxy war,” as we say today. The Lord has come to earth and stands on the battlefield to mete out justice, to defend His saints, and to begin the ultimate defeat of Satan. In Bethlehem, Heaven has invaded the realm of sin. The first counter-attack comes from Herod, who orders the execution of Bethlehem’s newborns, in an attempt to end God’s intervention and Heaven’s invasion.
Herod knew that “Bethlehem” also means “The House of War.” Think of what you are about to witness as you enter those formidable Church doors on your next visit. Where should your focus be? Will you pray for the grace to hold incredible joy and frightening gravity within your heart at the same time? Or will you sip coffee and chat?
This is not a new idea. After all, we begin the Mass with the Sign of the Cross.
The man pushed his gas-powered, unassisted drive lawn mower back and forth across the lawn. He muscled the machine forward and back, left and right, in a search for perfectly straight lines. The sun beat down on him, then flared in his eyes as the hours passed.
At last he released the dead man’s bar. As the engine sputtered to an exhausted stop, he raised both fists to the sky in triumph. But he froze, as in the new deep silence he heard something. A small sound, but of words that could break stars. A voice of all voices echoing a simple thing like a fugue. Finally, he made sense of it.
And God said to the man, “You missed a spot.”
Since that day, the man has been on his knees searching for that spot. Some day, he may sit up and ask, “Can you show it to me?” On that day he will have found it.
Charles Bosseron Chambers. St. Joseph and the Infant Christ. Public Domain.
On this Feast of St. Joseph, I’m reminded and awed by the sacrifice and faith of this man of whom we know so little. Yet he stands as the protector of the Church. It seems to me that his sacrifice was, at the very least, an image of the Passion of his “foster” son.
We remember Mary and the sword that pierced her heart because of what she knew would come, and what she witnessed when it came. St. Joseph, as far as we know, knew nothing beyond the fact that God commanded him to take Mary as his wife, and that her child was holy. Did he overhear Simeon’s prophecy? Did Mary ever tell him? He witnessed her labor and his birth. He led them into safety and then led them home. St. Joseph searched for Jesus in Jerusalem. He stood back when Mary spoke on finding him “at my Father’s business.” He was long gone by the time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
He was also the only man to ever live with the only two sinless people in history.
What feelings he must have had in his heart each morning, seeing them for the first time, and knowing that the treasure and hope of all humanity had been placed in his imperfect hands, though neither really belonged to him?
Catholics remember the Seven Dolours (Sorrows) of Mary on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 15th. The sword that Simeon told her would pierce her heart is represented as seven separate blades:
The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35)
The flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
Loss of the Child Jesus for three days (Luke 2:41-50)
Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)
Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30)
The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)
The burial of Jesus (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47
Though not celebrated by a particular feast, and not a unique teaching of the Church or her tradition, could we not also see seven sorrows in the life of St. Joseph? It just happens that the Confraternity of St. Joseph provides such a list:
The Doubt of St. Joseph on being made aware of the message of the angel of the Annunciation.
The Poverty of Jesus’ Birth and how this must have felt to St. Joseph who knew for whom he was called to provide.
The Circumcision when Jesus first shed his blood and St. Joseph, as his legal father, understood what this might mean for the one he named “Jesus,” “God saves.”
The Prophecy of Simeon, which foretold his inability to protect his beloved Mary from the sword that would pierce her heart.
The Flight Into Egypt, a dangerous journey, spurred by a lethal threat, into an unfamiliar land.
The Return From Egypt, repeating the trek through a dangerous wilderness. St. Joseph was not able to settle his family in his hometown for fear of Herod’s heirs.
Losing Jesus in Jerusalem for three days, after which his legal son announced that St. Joseph was not his Father.
This is the last we hear of St. Joseph. Tradition has him on his deathbed with Mary and Jesus by his side. God spared St. Joseph, who had silently endured his sorrows and did as he was told to do, the temptation to stop the crucifixion of the Son of God out of duty and love.
This carpenter, whose only conversations in the gospels were with angels, forever stands guard to protect the Church and our souls.
Fatherhood has been the great penance and joy of men from Adam to St. Joseph to us. It is right and just. Adam gave up everything by placing his will into the hands of another. Joseph regained everything by having God’s will placed into his hands. This is the great privilege of sharing in the fatherhood of the Father, which made St. Joseph more father than foster. It is the passion at the center of true fatherhood.
I was walking to Universitatis in a land of peacock stones of the sea and vast luminous green fields, dotted with thatch-roofed cottages. I rounded a hillock and was greeting by a lovely pastoral scene, like the painting of an artist longing for home.
There was a young man there, tending sheep, though for all intents and purposes he seemed to be enjoying the day while leaning up against a tree and keeping to its shade. With him were two boys. All were wearing the clothing of shepherds, though the boys’ dress was slightly cleaner and fancier than the young man’s. All three looked up at me as I approached and offered them my best impression of a local greeting. They turned to each other and smiled. But before the boys’ smiles could turn into laughter, the young man held up a finger and spoke to them.
“What can you teach me today of what you have learned since last time?” he asked them. I just stood there quietly; it seemed the thing to do.
The older replied, “We learned your prayer like you taught us, but I can say it fastest!”
“No you can’t!” The words became a brief physical battle until both boys began reciting speedily, switching back and forth, with an occasional punctuation delivered by foot or elbow.
“Pater noster…”
“Ár n-Athair atá ar neamh…”
“Sanctificetur nomen tuum…”
“Go naofar d’ainim…”
“Go dtagfadh do regnum tuum”
“Fiat voluntas tua, sicut an talamh mar a dhéantar ar neamh.”
They ended together with a resounding, “Amen!”
After a brief silence, as the breeze reclaimed the ether, and our heads nodded slightly with the branches, intelligence slowly returned to our faces.
“Did we do it right, Druid?” asked the eldest timidly.
“Well…” said the shepherd. “Well, yes, you did. And don’t call me Druid.” The boys didn’t know whether to smile or not.
“Boys, remember I taught you one prayer in two different languages. Next time, straighten them out into two and you will have time to learn the second half in each language.” The boys nodded eagerly.
“Practice a little bit now…quietly…before it’s time to go home. And I will also practice.”
The boys’ voices blended like a psalm as they helped each other to learn.
To the shepherd, it was like a bard’s gentle song over babies meant to be sleeping. He sat comfortably with his back to the tree, eyes closed and mind at ease. If a gnat landed on his nose, or a raven cried overhead, he would open one eye slowly, very slowly, until the interruption had passed. He would occasionally ask a question about something being said, or about anything at all, though he didn’t always seem to require an answer. Every so often, he would correct a mispronounced word, or ask that a line be repeated. He wondered if their efforts were answering their need, or if they were listening to what they were saying.
I could tell he was praying.
Today, one of the interruptions to his listening and meditating was the clanking of the bells of two cows grazing in the nearby field. A question for his students suddenly came to him from the sound under the sun and the dark beneath his eyelids.
“Ciúnas a pháisti!” he suddenly said. “Be quiet, children!” The ones who had been reciting, stopped. I, who had been dozing, awoke. The three of us stared at the shepherd.
“I have a question for you,” he told us. We all stood up at attention, listening.
“Imagine two cows, one black, one brown. They are being led into the upper pastures…”
“Like at Beltaine?” offered the younger boy.
“No, not like at Beltaine,” said one wagging, silent finger.
“Now, as the two cows approach the pasture gate, only one may pass between the posts at a time. So, one cow is leading, the other cow is close behind. But the second cow wishes to arrive at the upper pasture first. She tries to push past the first cow, which moves to block her way. Tails are swishing, horns are tossing. Suddenly, there is a bellow of pain from the first cow. The horns of the other have poked through the thick skin of her rump.” The shepherd paused.
“Do you all understand what has happened here?” he asked us.
“Yes!” came the boys’ voices and my nod
“Now, here is the question…are you ready for it?”
“Yes!” they shouted in one voice.
“Then here it is.” The shepherd looked long and hard into the face of each child as he asked, “Which cow can say, ‘I have both tail and horns at the same end?'”
The oldest spoke up first. “The first cow!” he guessed confidently, and the other nodded in agreement.
“Níl ceart!” the shepherd shouted back with a grimace. “Not right!”
“The second cow!” said the younger, while his brother agreed with his answer.
“Níl ceart!”
“Both cows?” asked the eldest timidly. The other repeated this answer, which was the only possible one remaining.
“Níl ceart!” was the shepherd’s answer, once again.
The boys and I looked at each other, wondering what the answer could be. What had we missed? Not the first cow. Not the second cow. Not both cows. They asked the shepherd if he would repeat the question.
He took a deep breath and retold the story of the two cows fighting for first place between the posts of the narrow pasture gate. He described how the horns of the one behind poked the behind of the one in front. Then he repeated his question, “Which cow can say, ‘I have both tail and horns at the same end?'”
“The first cow?”
“The second cow?”
“Both cows?”
To each answer came the same “Níl ceart!” from the shepherd, who slapped his palm against the ground each time.
The boys looked at each other’s blank faces and saw no glimmer of understanding. “We give up,” was their unspoken admission.
The shepherd then, at last, turned to me, his face showing that he expected an answer. All I could do was offer a sad shrug.
The shepherd glared at me, then at the boys. But his grim expression softened into grin.
“Neither cow could say it,” he told them. “In your eagerness to seem wise, to be first, you have forgotten what you have known all along. Cows cannot speak.” The boys slapped each other on the back for being equally ignorant.
“So, you, one walking to Universitatis. What do you have to tell me?”
“If you are he for whom this message is meant, and I know you are, I am to tell you, ‘Behold, your ship is ready.’”
“I see. The one who shrugs as if he is dumb, speaks like an angel. Boys, come here.”
They rushed to him and he patted their heads in blessing. “I am leaving and you will need to watch the sheep for a while. You will also need to tell your father that I have gone.” They nodded.
“Make certain you tell him in a timely way. There will be two sheep missing this evening, and you will find them but you will also get home too late and must jump into bed. In the morning, your father will leave for the outer fields before you rise, so you will have to wait until he gets home. He will no doubt be very tired, so you may have to wait to tell him by the following morning.”
“Or the next!” the boys blurted out laughing.
“Now, show respect to your Dadaí. He has shown respect enough to me for these past six years.”
He blessed them again and dismissed them, telling them to go watch the sheep. He said he would see them again when they had turned into men, and were no longer dumb cows vying to be first. Then he looked at me, nodded, and walked away.
I turned back onto the path on which I had been walking, the path to Universitatis. At one point, I reached a fork. One way was wide and seemed to lead to a beautiful valley. The other was rocky and narrow and it was impossible to see where it led.
I sat down on a stone, thinking. There was a day when I would not hesitate to take that wider path.
I am still sitting on the stone crutch of the fork, trying to decide which way to go.
All past persecutors of the Church are now no more, but the Church still lives on. The same fate awaits modern persecutors; they, too, will pass on, but the Church of Jesus Christ will always remain, for God has pledged His Word to protect Her and be with Her forever, until the end of time.
Without confidence and love, there can be no true education. If you want to be loved…you must love yourselves, and make your children feel that you love them.
If one is to do good, he must have a little courage, be ready for sacrifice, deal affably with all and never slight anybody. By following this method I have always had significant success, in fact, marvelous success.
Act today in such a way that you need not blush tomorrow.
This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized and still others to hope for God’s mercy. And so He bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.
If young people are educated properly, we have moral order; if not, vice and disorder prevail. Religion alone can initiate and achieve a true education.
Run, jump, shout, but do not sin.
Do not try to excuse your faults; try to correct them.
Once, when I was a younger man, I found myself wandering in a shadowy wood. The wood gave way to hills, the hills to plains. The plains to a path that sought to be straight and led me to a stable with a manger.
Yes, that stable, made part by God in the rock and part by men of stones and wood and so recently swept by angels.
No need to be saccharine. I knew what I would find. A flood of tears left my eyes. She shone through my shimmering sight, kneeling at the manger and called to me with the gesture and expression of a mother urging her child to come and see.
As I stood by the manger, she lifted her baby and gave him to me. Heaven filled all of me and I wondered to live. She let me hold him as we walked in that jeweled tabernacle smelling of straw and glory.
—————————-
Not so long later, I stumbled in on them again. This time, he walked with me like a son learning the world. “Look,” I pointed at the stars filling the sky.
“You made this.”
But he looked at me instead of the stars, smiling and never speaking. God! My heart was struck and wrought! For each thing — the grass, the birds, the squirrels, the sounds, the smells — “You made this!” My tears could not be quelled and his silence could not sing louder.
—————————-
Today, I knelt with my face in an empty manger, my tears darkening the blessed thing. He came to me and bent down to lift my head.
“Look,” I told him. “All these gifts and I am old and have nothing but tears. Look at my tears!”
But he was looking at me, not the tears. And his smile came through his own tears and brought my smile through mine. Then, with his wounded hand he touched my heart and spoke to me.
There once was a young man who cursed the world with a snowflake. He didn’t intend to curse the world at all; it happened very innocently.
It was early in March. The weather was warming and the last of the snow was finally melting away. He stood looking out of his window at the shrinking patches of gritty white, and uttered the words he would come to regret.
“When the last of the snow is gone, the Winter will be over.”
Now, I realize that it doesn’t sound like much of a curse. But a curse it was, and this is what happened.
The morning after he spoke those fateful words, he awoke and arose to prepare for a new day. Remembering what he had said, he went to stand at the window, confident that this was the day that the winter would go. He could see no white on the colors outside and he was glad.
He was almost too glad to notice the single snowflake resting stubbornly on his shaded windowsill.
But it did catch his eye, crystalline and cold, sitting there on the dark sill. He put his thumb on it, crushed it, melted it. Then he proceeded with his day sometimes fancifully thinking to himself that he had vanquished the winter.k
The day came and went, not a snowflake or ice crystal in sight. You could sense the anticipation in everything, as if all of nature was holding its breath, expecting the arrival of Spring.
But it didn’t come.
The young man went back to his room that night and looked out the window. He was disappointed. Where was the reward for his heroic deed of the morning? He laughed at his own presumption. Then his eye was drawn to a small reflection of moonlight, a speck of luminescence — the snowflake lying on his windowsill.
It seemed strangely similar to the one that he had crushed that very morning. The creature lay in exactly the same place. It even looked the same, though he knew that every snowflake must be unique. “So, you’re the reason,” he said, and crushed this snowflake with a finger.
By morning, the spring had still not come and the snowflake was back on his windowsill.
Again and again the young man crushed it, melted it, blotted it away. But each morning it was back, and each morning the winter continued.
Weeks passed, then months. Still the world was a victim of his failure, lying under his curse, “When the last of the snow is gone, the winter will be over.” The summer came and went on the calendar, but the winter stayed in the world. It flourished again in its months and continued through the rest, one year, then two and three.
The snowflake on his shaded windowsill remained as he and the world withered under its weight.
Then one year, one day after sitting there with no hope, watching the cursed little snowflake clinging haughtily to his sill, cursing the world, a thought came to him. It was really more like a feeling that came over him, or an idea that wriggled its way from his heart.
Being careful, so as not to bruise it, or melt it, or crush it, the once young man lifted the snowflake from his cold windowsill and carried it out of his room. As the world lay cold and near death, he brought the snowflake outside, into the chill air, and raised his hand up into the last beam of sunlight.
As the light of the sun touched it, the snowflake crumbled, then dissolved, then evaporated into the air. The winter died. The sun filled the world with spring.
What does a mystic do? First, we need to know what a mystic is. A mystic would be someone who purposely seeks union with God. Some would describe it as absorption into the mind of God.
The term “mind of God” is itself a confusing phrase when one considers that God is “mind” and doesn’t have a mind. It’s understandable that we reach for ways to clarify what cannot be clarified, and use the term to describe what we imagine to be the deepest “thoughts,” “motivations,” or “essence” of God, as if there is the same kind of layering or compartmentalization in God as in the human person and personality.
God’s call and grace are necessary.
For Catholics, it is also important to understand that a mystic is called by God to be such, and is given the grace to answer that call. Many religions call believers to become mystics. The fact that those who seem to accomplish this feat, in the eyes of others at any rate, are usually known by name attests to the apparent difficulty of the challenge. Yet there are probably moments, at least, during which any believer who consciously makes the attempt seems to succeed.
In Christianity, the rule for this success may simply lie in the verse “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you.” Still, it is of utmost importance to recall that, without God’s call and grace, mysticism is usually a dangerous pursuit and lethal to the soul.
With this in mind, we may conclude that mysticism itself speaks of the “mind of God” in that it is simultaneously a greatly difficult and supremely simple endeavor. This is borne out among the Catholic saints who are also known by reputation to have been mystics. Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Thérése of Lisieux, for example, link simplicity and mysticism in their teachings as well as in their very lives. The first two were stigmatists; the latter taught that perfect unity with God could be attained by following what she called the “Little Way.”
Some Catholic mystics, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, were geniuses who recognized the limits of the human mind seeking to know God, and completed their lives in contemplation rather than research. Others, such as Saint Joseph of Cupertino, were considered to be simpletons — in the case of Joseph, too stupid to be permitted to celebrate the Mass, yet able to enter into such ecstatic union with God that he would levitate.
Sometimes I feel that mysticism is like connecting the dots. As children we enjoyed that coloring book puzzle wherein we were unwittingly taught how to count. We were fascinated by the picture that formed before our eyes as we joined what seemed to be unrelated bits and pieces.
The mystic, I think, has learned how to see each fact: each thing, each thought, each action, each sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch as having a direct connection to God. The resulting picture is like the Sun — a source with an infinite connection to an infinite array of points. It is the simple picture of unity with, and absorption into, God.
While the world changes, the cross stands firm.
