Getting to the Point: poverty

Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts

Thursday, December 24, 2015

If You Can't Find Christ...

Well, a very Merry Christmas to you all. This will be my last post for the year 2015, as I customarily take a bit of a break from blogging between Christmas and New Years.

I would like to share my 'Christmas present' from God this year - I generally ask the Lord for a word for the big seasons and feasts of the year, and He generally has something to say to me, somehow. This year my present came early, some weeks ago, and I have been pondering it ever since.

It is, Adeste Fideles. Traditionally the title of the carol is translated as 'O Come, All Ye Faithful', but any first year student of Latin knows that's not quite right. The Latin verb for 'come' is venire, and the imperative would be Venite Fideles.

This is 'adeste', which means something quite different. It is the Latin verb 'adesse' which is from the verb 'to be' and is literally 'to be towards'. It is rightly translated as 'to be present, to be here'. When a teacher in Latin class is doing the roll call, the students respond to their name with 'Adsum' - I am here.

So, 'adeste' you faithful ones. Be present. Be here. Christmas is so busy, so very, very busy. In MH this year it got even busier what with Fr. Pat's death and funeral this week. But it's always something, and so much of what it is, beautiful as it all is with the fancy food and the sparkly decorations and the visiting and frolicking... well, it's all very good and proper and right.

But... adeste. Don't forget to 'be towards' what the whole thing is about. Be present... to what? To the Christ child. To the mystery. To God made man for us. To the manger, Mary, Joseph, the ox, the ass, the star, the shepherds. To the story, but it is no pious fable, no made up mythology. It is all true, it all happened, and it continues to happen in each one of our lives. He is present - are we?

I still hope to write about Fr. Pat McNulty at some point - his was a life worth memorializing. But a key story of his life and his relationship with Catherine Doherty seems relevant to what I'm trying to say here. Warning for mild vulgar language in this story - if you are offended by such, stop reading here.

In 1968, Fr. Pat crashed and burned in his parish ministry, and came up to MH to recuperate. Catherine put him in poustinia three days a week and sent him to the farm the other three days. So after a few weeks of this, he came down on Sunday. Fr. Pat was a man of volatile temperament and blunt direct speech, and was working through a lot of things at this point. So he sits at Catherine's table at brunch and promptly explodes at her. "I have a parish back in Forth Wayne going to hell in a handbasket, and here I am up in Canada shovelling horse shit! What good is that supposed to do?"

Catherine looked at him with great compassion and kindness, reached out and took his hand and simply said, "Father Pat, if you can't find Christ in the horse shit, you won't find him anywhere."

This became the transformative word for his life. We think we have to go here, go there, do this, do that. We have to 'Come' if we are 'Faithful' - go somewhere else, have our life be something else, if we are to find Christ. This is, well, it's horseshit! Christ came here. That's pretty much the whole point of Christmas. Christ is here, Christ came to where you are and where I am. We don't have to go looking for him; He came looking for us. Adeste! Be present to the mystery of your own life, in all its mess and murk and mire. God is lurking in there somewhere.

Now yes, you and He together might start cleaning up the place a bit together at some point. But that is the whole point of mercy, which is more than just a Jubilee Year to celebrate and then forget. He has come to us in the exact situation of our exact life as it is lived exactly right now, before we get it all cleaned up and shipshape for him. If I could ask for one Christmas gift from the Lord for all the people in my life, my directees especially, but all of you, all of us, it is that we could learn to trust that, rejoice in our poverty, and simply relax a bit and rest in God's love, present in our lives as they are today.

He is in the mess and the mire. He was 2000 years ago and He is now, for you and for me. Adeste Fideles, and a have a very Merry Christmas on account of it.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

On Wednesdays I am going through the chapters of my new book Idol Thoughts, to discuss some of the basic ideas therein, hopefully in service of persuading a few of youse guys to part with a few pennies to buy a copy.

We are on chapter six now, which explores the thought of avarice. We have talked about gluttony and lust already; now with avarice something new is introduced into our minds. Gluttony and lust are both disordered expressions of immediate physical urges. They are matters of the body, primarily, and only secondarily are ‘thoughts’ about reality, as we make the fatal move of thinking that our true and vital happiness lies in the immediate satisfaction of physical cravings.

Avarice begins the great journey inward to more strictly intellectual projects, while still having an immediate physical expression. Where gluttony and lust, being of the body, are both matters of the immediate moment, of the urgent ‘now’, avarice asks the fatal question: but what about… tomorrow? Will I have what I need for my life… tomorrow?

Happiness as material security—this is the fatal mistake of avarice. It is not a matter of never making plans for the future, or not being responsible and prudent in one’s financial affairs. Dickens’ Mr. Micawber who lurches with his family from one financial crisis to another is not a picture of Christian virtue.

Where avarice goes wrong is that it locates our security for the future in our material wealth, and that it identifies happiness with that material security. The miser clutching his treasure to himself, the greedy tycoon never satisfied with his wealth but always grabbing for more, Smaug the Dragon on his bed of gold coins—these are the common pictures of avarice.

But we have to be careful not to leave it there, in its grossest and most obvious manifestations. Most of us do not sleep on a bed of gold coins (nor would we find it particularly comfortable, not being dragons). We are not thereby assured of freedom from greed.

It really boils down to a question of security. Where do we place our security? In things, and making sure we have enough things to last us? That seems… unwise somehow. Things are flammable, you know. Or is our security elsewhere? Say, in the heart of God?

It’s all about the future, and as Christians we have to take the long view about that particular subject. Our future as we understand it is going to be considerably more than the eighty or ninety years we may hope for, and if our one wealth is what we own… well, I don’t think They receive that currency There.

Money and goods are important in securing our future, though—the Gospels are clear on that point. But the security lies not in hoarding but in sharing, not in piling up but in clearing out, not in taking but in giving. It is impossible to read the Gospels thoroughly and not get it that almsgiving, sharing our treasure with the poor, is of the essence in deciding our eternal fate. I could quote a half dozen passages to you on precisely that point, but really if you don’t already know that to be so, you need to crack open your bible and get reading, because it’s all over the place, directly in the words and preaching of Jesus Christ.

And this is the real damage done by avarice—it chokes off our generosity to the poor. And by doing so, by making it very hard for us to give alms, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, it actually makes our future profoundly insecure, imperils our real future happiness. We are meant to be people oriented towards the future, but that concern for tomorrow rightly understood makes us intensely involved with alleviating the misery of today, serving the needs of our brothers and sisters today.

In the book, I give a whole series of Gospel passages to meditate on to counter the lie of avarice—it is a core theme in the Scriptures.

And avarice is a core sin in humanity, one that causes so much misery in this world, so much needless suffering of the poor and the abandoned. If every believing Christian took to heart what Our Lord says about these matters and gave what they could, shared what they had, so many tragic and harsh situations would simply not be so, so many evils would be averted.

But to do that we need to believe that Our Father in heaven loves us and is caring for us and that our whole life is nothing else but to live in His presence and share in His love, and that is where prayer and meditation on the Word of God comes in.

I have quite a bit more to say on the subject in the book, but will leave it to you to discover it there.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Playtime is Over

As I mentioned yesterday, I am heading out to Cana Colony later today for a week of ministry to families. So I won’t be blogging this week. I did want to post this, though.

I am thinking particularly of my many American readers who of course have had to face the Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage earlier this week. My own thoughts on this issue I have expressed extensively on this blog, and have no need or desire to go into all over again.

Rather, I want to share this article from 1966 by Catherine Doherty, which I think takes the whole question to a much deeper level, a much more vital and essential point than this or that social issue or moral crisis. So I leave this with you as I leave to go and serve the families at Cana, asking for your prayers for them and for all families trying to live the Gospel in these difficult days:

A Question of the Letter 'O'

We’re on the home stretch of going through Pope Francis’ pre-Christmas (!) address to the Roman Curia. For those arriving late to the party, I am doing this because I was rather horrified at the social media response to that address of ‘Yay, Pope Francis! Stick it to those jerks in the Vatican! Woohoo!’

Yeah, no. When a figure on the global scale of the Pope offers an examination of conscience like this, the right response to it is not, ‘Look at those guys squirm!’ but ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.’ And so I have been going through the Pope’s fifteen spiritual diseases one by one, and using them as a springboard for personal examination.

We are up to disease thirteen, which is the:

disease of hoarding. When an apostle tries to fill an existential void in his heart by accumulating material goods, not out of need but only in order to feel secure. The fact is that we are not able to bring material goods with us, since “the winding sheet does not have pockets”, and all our earthly treasures – even if they are gifts – will never be able to fill that void; instead, they will only make it deeper and more demanding.

To these persons the Lord repeats: “You say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. So be zealous and repent” (Rev 3:17, 19). Accumulating goods only burdens and inexorably slows down the journey! Here I think of an anecdote: the Spanish Jesuits used to describe the Society of Jesus as the “light brigade of the Church”. I remember when a young Jesuit was moving, and while he was loading a truck full of his many possessions, suitcases, books, objects and gifts, an old Jesuit standing by was heard to say with a smile: And this is “the light brigade of the Church”? Our moving can be a sign of this disease.

At first glance this disease seems to refer specifically to those in consecrated life, those with vows or promises of poverty (like me!). Indeed we who have freely chosen to take up that particular call of austerity and dispossession must constantly examine not only our consciences but our drawers and closets, our shelves and rooms, as material goods do seem to have a way of accumulating, even without our direct intention to have them do so.

It is a well known truism in my community of Madonna House that being transferred from one house to another is the great invitation to take stock and pare down one’s possessions. Those of us who find ourselves in long-term assignments have to be doubly vigilant, then.

So this disease of hoarding is one that I know religious and other types of consecrated have to be watchful of. What about the rest of you guys? Are the laity off the hook, and able then to acquire and hoard freely? Is that the general idea of Christian life—that the consecrated live austerely while the laity stack up possessions without any brake or qualms?

I don’t think so – do you? The sin of avarice (read all about it in my new book!) applies to all of us, don’t you think? The rich fool in Luke’s parable (Lk 12) is a lay man, after all. As is the rich man who denied Lazarus even a crust of bread (Lk 16). And that is the heart of the matter—the world’s goods are given to us for our use for our need; to store up and stock up beyond our reasonable need is to deprive and deny the poor, and if the Lord taught us one thing clearly in His life among us, it is that to deny the poor is to deny God.

It does bear witness, as the Pope says, to a spiritual emptiness, something amiss in our relationship with God, our trust in Him. So if we see ourselves constantly expanding our tents to make room for the next shipment of goods, it is a call on our part to prayer and fasting, interior examination and spiritual renewal. Material good is not our security; God is our security. In English, one little letter makes all the difference – but to remove that little ‘o’ can be quite a battle.

While the battle is fought on the front of how many clothes are in our closet or how many nice things are in our house, we have to be aware that the spiritual ramifications are immense and urgent—do I believe in God, or don’t I? Is He my all-in-all or not? Where is my security? And what about the poor? Big stuff, big questions, and eternal life hangs upon them.

So no, questions of poverty, avarice, hoarding, and generosity are not only for those with vows or promises. It is a basic Christian stance towards reality, which plays out in the concrete and very material choices we make each day, buying and selling, giving and taking, keeping and losing. Let us pray to choose wisely and well, mindful of Who we are really choosing or failing to choose in it all.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Not A Question of Clowns

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Be poor, childlike – It is time to resume the Tuesday stroll through the Little Mandate, the words given to Catherine Doherty as the essential spirit of Madonna House. Today we come to the last two words of the second paragraph, ‘be poor, childlike.’

Personally, I have always struggled a bit with the spirituality of childlikeness. Being the youngest child of a large family, I grew up chasing after my older siblings, and definitely internalized the belief that ‘bigger is better’, that being a grown-up is simply the way to be. Don’t they get to have all the fun?

At the same time, I don’t have a lot of natural ‘playfulness’ or whimsy—the approach to childlikeness one sometimes encounters that involves acting like a child (clown noses and frolicking and all that) does not get very far with me. Teasing and repartee aside, I am basically a serious person. I admit that those who know me personally may be snorting in derision right about now – ‘Teasing and repartee aside? What else is there, ever, with Fr. Denis?’ Hey, I’ve got layers, folks. Lots and lots of layers.

So I have always had to approach this childlike business from a serious standpoint. What does it mean to be ‘childlike’ in the spiritual sense, in the sense that naturally pairs it here with being ‘poor’? Catherine’s favourite prayer, which we print up on cards, was “Give me the heart of a child, and the awesome courage to live it out as an adult.”

Why awesome courage? What is it about being a child that requires awesome courage in an adult? That prayer is the key to this business, I would suggest. And what that key delivers up to us is the word ‘trust’.

It is the essence of spiritual ‘adulthood’ (not maturity) to seek to live life by one’s own terms, one’s own ideas, one’s own power. Children, by definition and irrespective of their virtues or lack thereof (they ain’t all angels, as any parent will assure us), cannot do that. A child is dependent; a child lives under the authority of and in a sense at the mercy of his mother and father or other guardian. A child is weak, poor, and must trust, for there is no other option.

It is one thing for a child, particularly a small child, to live that way. Natural, even, and it is a terrible sadness to see a child who has lost his trust of the adult world too early, due to some great calamity or abuse. But the Little Mandate is addressed to adults—adults who know what the world is like, know how perilous an affair life can be, know just how difficult it all is to make it in this world.

And… choose to live in that same place of trust, of dependence, of abandonment to the ideas, terms, dispositions, power of… Another. This is all one with the littleness and simplicity that immediately precedes it in the Mandate. To make room for God and to approach the demands of the Gospel directly, squarely and without compromise requires us to have this childlike spirit. And being adults with this spirit, it does require awesome courage from us, because we know just how much it will hurt us to open ourselves to that level of divine life and charity and Gospel values.

It is not a question of ‘send in the clowns’, this childlike affair. It is a question of ‘send in the Spirit’, Lord, and don’t hold anything back. Letting God have his way with us. Choosing to care for little else—nothing else, really—than that. That’s where it’s at, and that’s a pretty serious business, after all.

But joyful, too, and ultimately it is light and fun and a bit silly—finding out that we really are those children of God who can rest in His heart and not take ourselves too too seriously. And that’s the story of the Mandate, so far.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Heart of My Heart, Heart of the Gospel

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love... love... love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

The Little Mandate of Madonna House

Going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me. We continue to spend our Tuesday’s going through the Little Mandate, the core words we believe God gave to Catherine Doherty our founder, which define our spirit and way of life.

Today we wrap up the first paragraph. Catherine has called this first paragraph the ‘heart of the Mandate’, and said that the rest of the Mandate is essentially commentary on it. I would say that these last words of the paragraph are the ‘heart of the heart’, then.

Certainly she experienced her original call as precisely that: she was to go and live in the slums of Toronto and be poor with her poor neighbours, to live as they lived and love and serve them in simple ordinary ways. She didn’t know much of anything beyond that, only that she was to do that thing, that after the selling of all she had, she was to go and be one with the poor, and in that, one with Jesus.

From the beginning, then, MH has been almost allergic, in terms of our own apostolic work, to anything partaking of professional social work or any other ‘professional’ model of service. Not for us the detached clinical objectivity of the therapist or case worker, the careful delineation between the ‘client’ and the ‘qualified expert’. We are not against that sort of thing in its right place—obviously psychiatrists and social workers need to be that way—but it is not for us, not at all.

We run soup kitchens… and we live in them. We teach catechism to children, mostly poor and disadvantaged, and live on the same street as they do, where they can run in and out of our house all day (and do). We have houses of prayer and listening—friendship houses, really—but present ourselves not as experts or spiritual directors (priests aside), but as, well, friends.

Running through all the apostolic works of MH is this thread of identification, of just living wherever the people we are serving live, and approaching them without any trappings of office or formalized arrangements. We are just people helping other people, and we’re all poor people trying to love one another, anyway.

Underneath how this line of the Mandate shapes the structure of our apostolate there is a truly profound spirituality, a whole vision of life and what it means to be human, what it means to be blessed and fully alive and in Christ, one with Him. I am always amazed—I suppose because my entire spiritual formation from the age of 19 has been at the feet of Catherine Doherty—at the purchase ‘prosperity Christianity’ has on people’s minds and hearts.

The idea that a really blessed and godly life will be a life where everything is rich, rich, rich—where you have lots of money, radiant good health, perfect emotional stability at all times, and a continually cheery disposition—this is entirely foreign to me. This is not how Jesus lived, and His is the one truly Godly life we know of, isn’t it?

He was a poor man, living and moving among the poor. How on earth do we his disciples expect that our lives should not be as His life was? This has always seemed utterly incomprehensible to me, this ‘prosperity Gospel’ form of Christianity, based on a highly selective reading of a few scriptures and a resolute ignoring of many hundreds of others.

Going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me. It is the experience of our own poverty, whether we are talking economic poverty, psychological poverty, poverty of aptitude, helplessness, whatever, not just experiencing that but knowing that this is the place we are to live as human beings, the place where our human limitations are keenly felt and cause us some degree of discomfort or distress, knowing that this is precisely where we enter the heart of the Gospel and thus the heart of Christ, and it is all tied up with our love and compassion for our neighbour—this is what real Christianity consists of.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ The kingdom of heaven is union with Christ, and the doorway to that union is the willing embrace of our own poverty, our own profound need in whatever form it manifests in our life, and our glad choice to live in that need, that poverty, and get on with the real business of life of loving those poor people the Lord has surrounded us with by his providence, a poor man or woman loving poor men and women, all poor together, and in that, all one with Him in His radiant glorified poverty, the Risen Body of the Crucified Saviour.