O GOD OF LOVELINESS

O Loveliness Supreme, and Beauty Infinite;

O ever flowing Stream. And Ocean of Delight;
O Life by which I live, my truest life above,
To Thee alone I give my undivided love.   Hymn by St Alphonsus

During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea.  When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear.  At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”   ^{MT 14 25-33}

The Rio Olympics have come to a close.  Over the past two weeks we were inspired by the dedication, courage and graciousness of the Olympians who mesmerized us with their skill. And on the nightly news we were also stirred by the sight of the majestic statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking the bay below.

During the summer, or when on retreat, people often like to go to the seashore.  There is something majestic, mesmerizing, mysterious about the vast expanse of water that makes us feel insignificant, yet full of a wonder that is akin to our relationship to God.  We want to dive in but we hesitate.  It is too big for us.  Yet we are drawn to it.  We only have to summon our faith and have courage to become one with the Mystery.    

Peter is a good example of how this is done because actually, Peter jumped into the sea twice to be closer to Jesus.  The first time, as we just read, was when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water during a stormy night and Jesus bade Peter come to him. Peter moved timidly and was chided for his lack of faith when he sank in the water.   The other occasion was at dawn a few days after the resurrection and Jesus was on the seashore preparing breakfast. That time, Peter did not wait for an invitation - he jumped right in.  Neither time did Peter walk on water.   But the second time he felt no fear or limitation, just a longing for union with Jesus.

      

That describes what Bl. Celeste wrote of her experience of union with Jesus:  “You have shown me how you are that most vast sea of perfect and infinite Good and how I am like a drop of water which falls into you and is changed in that vast sea, where, losing my own being, I see myself become an ocean of every kind of good. Consequently, losing any sense of my own limited being and of my littleness, I now feel myself to be a new being, vast and divine, in which I feel no more fear or the limitation of time. Indeed, in this new state I am like a force, a power, an infinite greatness and an unlimited goodness.”

Like Peter, like Celeste, like Alphonsus, like the Olympians, let us dive into the Ocean of Delight by letting go of our fears and be transformed into a new being in union with Christ: a fearless force of unlimited goodness that is as vast as the sea.        

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…’ so the song goes, but is it?  The other day, while I was surfing the TV channels, I came across a Christmas movie on Hallmark.  In July?  With all this heat?  There is another Christmas song, ‘Why can’t we have Christmas the whole year around, why can’t we have Christmas the whole year around.’ 

When we think of Christmas we tend to think of the baby Jesus and gifts.  Not Blessed Celeste.  She speaks of Jesus’ incarnation as how Jesus crossed  “…an abyss in which the angels still get lost, that humiliation he underwent as God when, in the first instant of his incarnation, he lowered himself to take human flesh, and, though God, became a man.”  Most times Celeste speaks of the God-Man, Man-God, and his “…admirable excess of Divine Love,” that led him to the cross. 

That is what Jesus’ incarnation, his living, dying and rising was all about: an excess of Divine Love.  The reason why Celeste speaks of Christ in the present tense: living, rising, dying, is to call us to participation in the Intent of the Father, through our joyful participation in and union with the Life of Jesus  as the on-going carrying out of God’s loving plan of redemption.  

How can we have Christmas, live the incarnation, the whole year around? 

News flash:  we are human.  Invariably, as people living together, we grate on each other with our failings and foibles.  As Redemptoristines, we open the gift of excessive Divine Love given to us by God to lift us beyond our imperfections and eccentricities and humanly, humbly give the gift of love and understanding to one another.

To help us keep Christmas in our hearts all year around we would do well to receive the gift excessive Divine Love at the beginning of the day by invoking, in Jesus words to Celeste, “the Holy Spirit as a memorial of the hour of my Incarnation, because at that hour the sunrise of the divine Sun rose upon the world and warmed on the earth the Dew of the Grace of the Holy Spirit on all my creatures.”  

So, I wish you a Merry Christmas, in July.  Let us renew the gift of our vows to live the incarnation the whole year around.

CELESTE AND LOVE OF THE CROSS

We gather today a week before Palm Sunday and Holy Week, the pinnacle of the church year, to see what Celeste says about Love of the Cross.  How could I not reflect on {our soon to be Blessed} M. Celeste Crostarosa’s Love of the Cross since it is so fundamental to her spirituality.

          Celeste begins the section of the Rule on the Love of the Cross with the scripture quote: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, take up your cross every day and follow me."  ^{Lk. 9:23}

       

   Love of the Cross is essentially love and imitation of Jesus Christ who freed the world by embracing our painful death to transform it into His redemptive death.  In contemplating Christ crucified we find the grace to accept, in communion with Him, the difficulties inherent in all aspects of our life, and the sadness and suffering of all of humanity.  Uniting ourselves to the sufferings of Christ we participate in the building up of His Church and world.   There is no comparison between the sufferings of the present time and the glory of heaven.  Hence we journey with complete confidence towards a new world where there will be no more tears, nor weeping, nor sorrows.

          Celeste was a mystic and over the length of her life she was in continual heart-to-heart dialogue with her Redeemer.  He said, “Listen to me on the Cathedral of the Cross which I have placed in your heart so that I may live My life in you.  Make your will the echo of Mine: if I should say to you ‘Cross,’ reply willingly, ‘Yes, cross,’ or if I say, ‘Kiss,’ reply, “Yes, kiss.’ ” Jesus continued, “You are my friend and my delight; therefore, I will keep you in my Kingdom of the Cross.  I shall bring this about in such a way that it will be for you both My cross and My peace.”

          My response is, “Gee, thanks, Lord, more crosses.” We don’t go looking for crosses; they are a part of life.  It is how we handle these crosses that come our way that make them redemptive. This reminded me of an animated movie some of us saw recently,  Inside Out, which explored in a very clever way how we need all our emotions, especially  ‘Joy’ and ‘Sadness’ in our lives.  They balance our lives so that we can cope with the realities of our life experiences.  The cross helps to balance our lives.

          We know this world with its crosses is not heaven.  However, we are not alone in our suffering.  In heaven God/Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all those who have gone before us to the heavenly realm weep to see the pain and struggles we endure. They understand.  They are one with us.  That is why we ask them to intercede for us to God, the Father of mercy.  And we intercede to heaven for each other.  Even Jesus prayed for his disciples that “they may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”   ^{Jn 17:21-22}

          How is it possible that we are one with God?  Jesus “emptied himself  (to become) human like one of us, obeying to the death, death on a cross.” ^{Phil 2: 7-8}   As a human being he shared all our joys and sadnesses.  Everything.  And we are called to share in His life.

          The bigger question is why?  Why would God become Incarnate?  Celeste has the answer, “Jesus passed from the fragility of the flesh to the supreme glory of the resurrection” and by the means of “His most precious death has brought me (us) back to life!”

          Celeste often speaks of self-abnegation, another one of those phrases that does not sit well with modern thinking, but abnegation is a participation in the self-emptying of Christ. The other side of Celeste’s coin of abnegation is purity of heart which is a loving fixed gaze on Jesus who, from the beginning, has gazed on us with such love.  Love of the cross is a totally positive virtue where we fix our gaze on the Crucified and he gazes at us with such mercy.  Thus, Celeste’s spirituality is not a mere acceptance of the cross, but a positive love of it.  

          Recently, I heard a sister give a reflection that described to me the fixed gaze.  She said the word intimacy can mean ‘Into-Me-See:’ Jesus into–me-sees and Jesus invites me to into-me-see Him. 

          Celeste also has a unique viewpoint which she calls image-theology.  The Crostarosan Love of the Cross is a bringing to life the Redeemer who is present within us by our participation-union.  She says from the beginning there was a “first-creation” where she saw in all of natural creation an “impress” of the Divine.  “Let us create humankind in our own image and likeness.” ^{Gen. 1:26}   St. Paul says, “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to do the good things God created us to do from the beginning.” ^{Eph 2:10}  We are that work of art, impressed with the Divine to be a living image of the Redeemer.  This is the origin of the Viva Memoria we so often speak of in our charism: We are created in God’s image and we accomplish the work of the Redeemer in our lives by our participation in the Paschal Mystery through the Love of the Cross.                   

References are from the Associates Constitutions, The Mystic Who Remembered by Fr. Oppitz, and the Florilegium

LIKE ONE OF US

Though in the form of God, Jesus did not claim equality with God but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, human like one of us.  Flesh and blood, he humbled himself, obeying to the death, death on a cross.  For this very reason God lifted him high and gave him the name above all names. So at the name of Jesus every knee will bend in heaven, on earth, and in the world below and every tongue exclaim to the glory of God the Father, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”  ^{Phil 2:6-11}

          Here we are in the Second Week of Lent celebrating the Incarnation of Jesus.  At Christmas we pondered his wondrous birth.  We remembered his adolescent self-assured remark of “being about my Father’s business,” and then having to go home to be obedient to his parents and learning a trade.  We gather he lost his father Joseph and worked to support his mother before striking out on his own.  A pretty ordinary life until he starts doing miracles (his first at his mother’s instigation) and speaking out in the synagogues and lakesides about the Kingdom.  But when the crowds become crushing his family thinks he has lost his mind, he’s gone too far.   

Too far? Blessed Celeste tells us the God-Man lives in me and you!  Christ comes to live in us “for the precise purpose of letting Jesus be again a Wayfarer-Redeemer in us by our ever deepening participation-union with God by letting Christ live again in us as a viva memoria.” ¹   Celeste uses words such as humiliations, abnegation, annihilation, modifications to describe what the God-Man endured for our sake to become human like one of us.  How is that for lowering God’s-self? And we are called to do the same.

That doesn’t sound like something we would want to assume for ourselves.   But for Celeste these are positive terms because they mean a purity of intention, our opportunity to become transformed by “seeing ourselves for what we really are in the light of the divine within us.” ²   That is our call: to join in Jesus’ kenosis, self-emptying, to “strip ourselves of our humanity in order to take on a share in the divine being of Christ and His Father through the Spirit.” ³ To be filled with the transforming power of the Spirit: to become deified.  

Celeste said, “How can I ever thank you for these marvelous humiliations while you invite me to keep you company and in your mercy you deign to gaze on me with your divine light.” ⁴   For our part, we are to fix our gaze on the Redeemer not only for own salvation but so as to be a light for the Church and the world.  
^{1-4 Opptiz ~ Mystic who Remembered}    

UNITY OF HEARTS

‘All I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified.  I am not in the world any longer, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they be one like us’   ^{Jn 17, 10-11}

The news of Celeste’s beatification calls us to a renewed enthusiasm to share her message of God’s love and mercy for the world.   Our community has an opportunity to ‘share Jesus’ joy through our participation in God’s love.’  ^{Florilegium 51. Colloquies V, 31}     ‘By the union of hearts (charity) we come to possess by participation that divine perfection which is found in its essence in our heavenly Father. There the unity of charity makes God’s infinite perfections to be ours to the extent that our virtuous acts are performed by God in us and by us in God.’ ^{Exercise of love for every day, 26 February}

By the way we participate, handle the everyday highs and lows of life we strive to be ‘a visible witness and a living memorial of the Paschal Mystery of Redemption in which the Father has accomplished His plan of love through Christ and in the spirit.’ ^{C&S 1}

‘The more we strive to live the love of Christ, the more the thoughts and feelings of Christ will fill our spirit and our heart, the more we will become His faithful images.’  ^{C&S 6}

This is the way we glorify Jesus, and give thanks and praise to the Father and stay true to God’s name and incarnate God’s love to the world.

Let us use this new interest in Celeste as an opportunity to raise our voices in harmony in unity of hearts, helping each other, surrendering to the mystery and trusting in the future that we may become one voice, one community, one spirit of Christ in our world today.

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF JESUS

Mother Maria Celeste, our foundress, was fascinated with the Incarnate life of the Word of God among us.  Part of my training as a young Sister involved the “Intentions of the Hours”.  As  postulants and novices, at set times throughout the day, we ‘remembered’ the events of Jesus’ life, from His conception at the dawning  of the day, as we made our morning meditation,  to his burial at the evening hour of Compline.  It was like the Rosary of Our Lady in action, but it focused on the whole of Jesus’ life. 

Sometime after our Pope St. John Paul wrote and published the Illumination Mysteries of the Rosary to honor the Public Life of Christ I began to think about the Rosary Mysteries in a new way.  For so many hundreds of year we had prayed the Joyful Mysteries of His life but they only covered the very early childhood of the Incarnate Word from His Conception to the Presentation in the Temple when He was 40 days old, and then skipped to his Bar Mitzvah when he was 12 years old.  There were 18 more years after that

I began to think a lot about the Hidden Life of Jesus, 30 years of His Life.  Precious years but we know so little of them.  Have you ever thought about that?  Thirty years before Jesus Christ began his public ministry, which was after he was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan, “being about 30 years of age “as St. Luke tells us.    

And in God’s plan for his whole life why was so much time given to those years?  And so few years by comparison given to his public ministry of  2 ½ to 3 years, and 3 days to his Passion and Death?  Let’s think for a moment about what we know of that time:  from the moment of the Incarnation in Mary’s womb, through his birth and infancy, his childhood, his youth, young manhood, mature manhood.  As St. Luke tells the story it seems that Jesus was ready to begin his work for the Father and for us at age 12, but at his parents urging “he went back to Nazareth and was subject to them”.  “And Jesus grew in wisdom, age and grace before God and men.” I would like to suggest that all these years, perhaps especially the last 18 of them, were a long Advent time for Jesus. 

What do you think? What did he, the Word and Wisdom of God incarnate among us, need to learn?  Or simply, why this long awaiting before He could give himself wholeheartedly to the ministry for which He came? 

(Take time here to hear the thoughts and reflections of the group. )

In an important writing of Ven. Maria Celeste, The Interior Garden, our Mother Celeste reflects on each one of those years of the Hidden Life and sees how in them Jesus entered already into the plan of Redemption which he would consummate on the Cross.  I brought with me a copy of a study of this section by Fr. Domenico Capone, CSSR.  In her reflections he says Celeste is seeking to know and understand the interior journey of Jesus so that she may learn to do likewise. 

Mother Celeste uses the words ‘annihilations’ and ‘humiliations’ that Jesus had to pass through during all of those 30+ years.  She has a reflection for each year of his life, and what patience, acceptance and humility were asked of him, the Word of God now suffering all the limitations of human life on earth.  In what He endured with great good-will she learns many lessons for herself—that is the focus of her prayer and considerations.  That is how she will become a living memorial of her beloved God-among-us.  That will be her Advent Journey to the fullness of God’s life within her. 

Here are a few examples from the Little Garden, Pages 321 -357. 

At the end Father Domenico Capone summarizes “This {hidden life of Christ} had its beginning with Christ’s conception, and then for more than thirty years His annihilation consisted in living an uneventful life in the small village of Nazareth, in the house of a carpenter and being a laborer in the service of others. This uneventful life, so different from the life of John the Baptist, was nonetheless for Him the greatest annihilation; it was a daily life that contained eternity and the life of God, but jealously veiled it. St. Celeste sought to intuit this annihilation mystically and she understood and described the immense condescension of Christ: He accepts as the virtue of annihilation, in His own annihilation, what in us is simply our own truth: truth as limited creatures; but worse, as creatures who are sinners. And so, while in Christ annihilation was an “emptying”, a “kenosis” of the “glory” that was connatural to Him as the Son of God, in us it means an “emptying out of an egoism” which prevents us from knowing our limits, and even worse, our sins.

Annihilation in us is therefore not dehumanizing…but instead is the truth, the true humanism; it is a question of a true intelligence in which true reasoning is “wisdom”. For this reason Sr. Celeste, in her thirst for both truth and intelligence,…has celebrated the magisterium of the “sapiential intelligence of Christ, as a book of truth and as the sole Teacher who can make us understand the double reading of Himself as a book with an evangelical message: a reading of Himself as the Son of Man, and a reading of Himself as the Son of God. Spiritual life consists of being enclosed with Christ in the humble little house of Nazareth and being open there to this double reading, but always in the “reflection of the light and power that emanates from His humanity in great humility.

And it seems to us that at Nazareth, the Man Jesus, the Word of God, in His humility and in the silence of his work – which had a social dimension and utility beyond the salvific value of annihilation, as meditated on by Sr. Celeste -   would have shown the politicians who ruled the city, where the secret was for making the earth and the terrestrial realities, even the most humble, a truly civilized place. We believe that the world must return to Nazareth and there observe how Jesus works in silence for others, without fanfare, and thus reveals the true political wisdom needed for civilized life.”

May we all learn those lessons so that we too can be a blessing wherever we live our own simple, hidden and humble lives.  Amen!

PONDERING

After three days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, sitting among the elders, listening to them and asking them questions.   And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.  When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son. Why have you treated us like this?  Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”   Jesus said to them, “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  But they did not understand….And his mother

Henry O. Tanner 1898

pondered all these things in her heart.  ^{Lk 2: 46-50}

“And she pondered all this in her heart.”  In Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s Dangerous Memories she says in Greek, symballein, ‘to ponder’ means to puzzle out their meaning, to toss things together until they make sense.  Now, we’ve been doing a lot of collective pondering this last month.  What is God trying to tell us?  Advent is fast approaching and that is a time of waiting, preparing and pondering the great mystery of God-with-us.    And, like it or not, that is what our entire life is like:  waiting, preparing, pondering what God’s plan is for us.   We can puzzle all we want, but in the end, the best we can do is step out in faith and trust in God’s loving mercy.  Not blind faith, which asks no questions, but true faith which comes with lots of doubts and questions yet filled with hope and trust that God-is-with-us. 

Ven. M. Celeste went through many difficulties in her life; nevertheless, she pondered the Plan of the Father, fixed her gaze on her Beloved and proceeded live as a constant reminder of all that the Father accomplished in Christ for our salvation.  We are called to do the same.  With Celeste, with Mary, we ponder the very heart of the mystery of Redemptive love and, with thankful hearts, live God’s plan of love in the Church and for the world.