Day 98. The Length, Height, Breadth, and Depth
Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret…
Saito, Inception
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010
We conclude our reflections on the Call, the Cost, the Road and the Reward. Each of the four we have considered in four facets or ways. Four by four: the length, the height, the breadth and the depth. In this proportion we have modeled our meditations on the divine dimensions of the inner sanctuary of the temple. “In the innermost part of the temple was located the sanctuary to house the ark of the Lord’s covenant, twenty cubits long, twenty wide, and twenty high” (1 Kings 6:19f). This proportion is significant. To the Jews the equal dimensions of the debir was a sign of perfection – perfect balance and perfect order. Where the Law was, there was order in perfect balance. We, too, seek a balance and order as we follow the path by which God leads us. We seek to walk in the way of perfection.
The Way of Perfection. The way of celibacy – the closer following of Christ – is a lifelong journey. It is a commitment to daily fidelity and total interior conversion. I hope you don’t conclude that you’ll be expected to have your whole life in perfect order before you can make vows. If this were the case, there would be no celibate vocations at all. Personally, I had no idea how really mixed up and immature I was until I entered my vocation and began the journey. I wish I could say I’m a lot better now.
God isn’t looking for perfect people (thank heavens!), but people who are willing to be perfected. “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt. 548) Jesus invites us to walk with him, at whatever pace we are able, a way that leads to perfection. This perfection isn’t a life without flaws – in fact, you’ll come to appreciate just how flawed you and the rest of the members of the Church really are!
“Perfect” comes from the Latin, per facere, which means, literally, “done to completion.” The way of perfection is the willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to do in you – gradually, over much time – all that he pleases, so that you may become completely the person you were made to be. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to live life to the full? Every time you yearn for wholeness and healing and real freedom and lasting joy you are seeking perfection.
The Perfection of Charity. Love is the outward expression of perfection. We love others when we make a gift of ourselves to them. So many people are lonely, hungry, oppressed, frightened and lacking in basic knowledge. Who will go to them and share the love of Jesus? Who will listen to them – the first act of love? Who will walk with them and treat them as persons, not as objects or projects or problems? When a person is loved, they change. They open up, relax, smile and become capable of generous response. You have seen God’s love opening up your generosity. What a great joy it is to love someone else so that they, too, experience a love that invites their response. To witness this transformation is to have front row seats to the most remarkable miracle in all creation. The perfection of charity can open the way to many experiences like this.
All are called to perfection. No one finds a shortcut. The way of sacrificial discipleship – in a priestly or consecrated vocation – is a uniquely effective way to participate in the process that leads to perfection. Whatever perfection we don’t attain by cooperating with God’s grace in this life, he will accomplish in us by passive purification in purgatory. I understand that the first route is greatly to be preferred. Personally, I’m trying to make the most of the opportunity.
Like every journey, the challenge to walk the way of perfection is right in front of me. It begins with a single step. So much of my life and growth and maturity are about simply taking the next step. I tend to make it much more complicated than it needs to be. I need not be ready to preach, or offer wise counsel, or pray long hours, or eat plain food right now. I need only be ready to take the next step.
My Prayer for You.
One of my favorite passages in scripture is St. Paul’s prayer for his church at Ephesus. It is also my prayer for you.
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:14-19)
This prayer expresses eloquently much of what I have tried to present to you in these 99 days:
“…to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self…” By your on-going pursuit of the self-knowledge, you will, I pray, continue to ground the pillars of your Table – your Sense of Self, Source of Love and Hope of Happiness – on the Cornerstone of Christ and live in the unshakable awareness that you are a beloved, wanted child of God the Father. By his grace may this Table become an Altar of Self-Gift.
“…and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” I pray that the Triune God will occupy the primary place in the inner sanctuary of your body-temple – the Temple of Relationships. May all your other relationships be continually evaluated and ordered around God reigning from his throne in the holy of holies.
“…that you, rooted and grounded in love…” You have become more fully aware of the treasure that you are by reflecting on the treasure that has been offered for you. May you grow in your desire to offer your own treasures in a generous, free and whole-hearted response.
“…have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” The Call, the Cost, the Road, and the Reward are aspects of the mystery of vowed self-offering made exclusively to God. May the Lord reward you most especially with the knowledge of Christ’s surpassing love and may you be filled, in whatever vocational path you are led, with the satisfying fullness of God.
Dear young men and women! Trust Christ; listen attentively to his teachings, fix your eyes on his face, persevere in listening to his Word. Allow Him to focus your search and your aspirations, all your ideals and the desires of your heart.
St. John Paul II, World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 2005
Novena Prayer
Jesus says: Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
Pier Giorgio responds: We who by the grace of God are Catholics must steel ourselves for the battle we shall certainly have to fight to fulfill our program and to give our country, in the not too distant future, happier days and a morally healthy society. But to achieve this we need constant prayer to obtain from God that grace without which all our powers are useless.
Let us Pray: Blessed Pier Giorgio, show me how to bear all wrongs patiently. Help me to accept the sufferings which others inflict on me because of my desire to be faithful to Jesus.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, I ask for your intercession in obtaining from God, Who protects the innocent, all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare. I confidently turn to you for help in my present need:
(in your own words, ask for the Lord to grant you the grace of a priestly vocation. Also, pray for priestly vocations to increase in the Church).
A Book of Prayers in Honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, by Rev. Timothy E. Deeter
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
THIS IS MY HOUR
1. My Hour: An Overview of the Spiritual Life Continued…
Our Survey of the Spiritual Life moves now to the fourth phase which is “O.”
Most who are in discernment have not yet reached this phase.
Spiritual Life Survey Phase: O
PROCESS: Ownership. In “O” the Process is Ownership. Having resolved to live my whole life dedicated to God, I make every part of my life devoted to His service. If I am married, I instruct my children in the faith and commit myself to helping my spouse get to heaven. If I am a priest or consecrated religious, then I make my whole life a gift of worship in and through Christ and serve his body the Church. This phase is strongly “flavored” by my particular calling. It is also, chronologically speaking, the longest. As you may have guessed, the phases of the spiritual life do not fall into neat, equal segments. So the process of
Ownership is gradual – as the Holy Spirit transforms my interior life completely.
RESULT: Order. The fruit of this phase is a peaceful life Ordered around the things of God. Peaceful does not mean “without conflict.” Peaceful means that we are directed in every decision and action by the love of Christ and the good of souls – especially those entrusted to our care. Gone are the aching inner conflicts of youth.
We become seasoned, settled and focused in the priorities that flow from our daily duties. While there are purifications and tests yet to be endured, the most troublesome questions about my direction and purpose are, for the most part, resolved.
OBSTACLE: Outcomes. The struggles we face at this stage are connected not with our uncertainties but with our false certainties. Without realizing it, we trade faith and hope for their limited, human counterparts: expectations and outcomes. We presume upon God’s plan or suppose that we will somehow avoid the struggles others face. We expect, for example, that our children will all be successful, or faithful, or find excellent spouses to marry. We expect to find satisfaction, advancement and meaning in our work. We think our wife/husband will meet our needs. In all this we will encounter purification. God is not opposed to our expectations and outcomes, but he calls us to set our hearts on heaven and not on the good things of this life. As we’ve said before, it is not wrong to have dreams. But as our dreams are purified and, in many cases, go unfulfilled, we must turn more deeply to the fulfillment of all desire who is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why is it still necessary, essential really, to have hopes, dreams and a vision for the way my life should be even if that picture will change greatly over the course of my adult life? I answer as if I were advising someone who posed this question to me.
Night of the Spirit
There is a transformation unfolding in my Hour that the ancients called “divinization.” Without losing my own distinct identity I am being drawn up into the mystery of God. At the root of this is the economy of exchange: God, in Christ, became man so that man, in Christ, may become God. This is not the individualistic deification of self we’ve already considered and rejected (a.k.a. “following my heart”). We are now encountering the mysterious plan of God in its majestic fullness. God calls us into himself. We “become participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4 NRSV). In order to do this, all previous modes of relating to God have to be left behind. A new way of being in God; of praying; of serving and of living emerge. The previous night took away my feelings of God so that I would ‘see’ with the eyes of faith. This night takes away even the comfort that faith brings. I feel for some time as though God has disappeared altogether. In fact, I am encountering God in the mystery of his divinity. While I gain the means of relating to what is inaccessible to human nature alone, I find myself in profound darkness yet I am immersed in God as never before. St. John Cassian described the process of My Hour in terms of three renunciations. First, I renounce my former way of life through repentance and discipleship. Second, I renounce my thoughts – my own ways of thinking – in order to take on the mind of Christ. Finally, I renounce my ideas of God. I accept God in his full mystery and not as I suppose him to be. This last renunciation coincides with the Night of the Spirit.
Why does God permit times of dryness throughout the course of our lives? What good comes from feeling abandoned by God?
Spiritual Life Survey Phase: U
PROCESS: Unknowing. In the final phase of the Spiritual Life the Process is Unknowing. Though this may sound disturbing, the last stage is not so much an end as a beginning. At last the Christian is living a transformed existence. The Holy Spirit has done much of the work of transformation and we are living, at this stage, a life of extraordinary grace and spiritual power. God no longer relates to us mediated through mere human feelings, or images or even powerful, miraculous experiences (though we may witness some of these). At this stage we set aside all filters and encounter God directly –as He is – in the most profound ways possible this side of heaven.
RESULT: Union. The lives of the saints give us some idea of what this stage looks like. There is great joy, abiding peace and transformative satisfaction. We feel, at last, as if we are living the life we have always desired to live. Though we are not free from suffering – in fact, we may suffer more at this stage than any other – it does not cause the same inner distress of past times. Now suffering, joy, sorrow and happiness are all drawn together into a deep, living (sometimes ecstatic) unity with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
OBSTACLE: Understanding. The human impulse is to describe what we don’t know. But we are now encountering something that exceeds our powers of knowledge. So every attempt to understand becomes futile in this final stage. It doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t speak of the mystery of God. It only means that our grasp is pitifully small. As St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in the Church, observed of his own work, “All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.”
If we are all called to total transformation in Christ – to the Union described above – how does a life dedicated to prayer, sacrifice and the service of God through a priestly or religious vocation make this aim more attainable?
PROCEED TO FINAL CONSECRATION BELOW
The Final Consecration requires a trip to a cemetery, so have the rite with you (on your phone or printed) and follow the directions provided.
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
FINAL CONSECRATION
This consecration is entirely different from the previous rites. You’ll be going to a cemetery and then to a chapel. The whole rite will take a minimum of an hour. You’ll spend 30 minutes at the cemetery and another 30 minutes in meditation at the chapel. You may take more time at either place, as the Spirit moves you, but no less time. You must go directly from the cemetery to the chapel without making any side trips or stopping anywhere along the way.
You’ll need: your Ebenezer, a copy of this rite (on your phone or printed), and your journal (no oil or candles are necessary).
KOKKOS: THE SEVENTH CONSECRATION RITE
When you arrive at the cemetery, offer this prayer:
Father, I come to this place to offer you the stone on which was inscribed my name. For the days of this novena I have carried it with me and turned it over many times in my hand. I have prayed away my name from the surface of this stone. I have prayed for strength, for protection, for access, for boundaries and for breakthroughs. I have sought your transforming grace and have ardently asked to know your will for my life.
All this you have blessed, Father, in guiding me and speaking to me. I pray for the grace to rightly discern your voice and to hear, in your own time, the call and the direction you would have me choose for my life.
This I ask through Christ our Lord,
Amen.
As the prayer indicates, my objective in this visit is to leave my Ebenezer in the cemetery so that I cannot retrieve it. The manner of doing this is entirely up to me.
Before I do so, I’ll read the final consecration prayer below – out loud if possible.
FINAL CONSECRATION PRAYER
Jesus, I consecrate this stone to you one last time and ascribe to it the seventh name: Kokkos. With the surrender of this stone I surrender my self, Jesus. Into your hands I commend all that I have and all that I am. Do with me as you will, for I am now completely yours.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Now, I carry out my chosen way of leaving the Ebenezer in the cemetery.
Some suggestions for the manner of leaving my Ebenezer:
Throw it in a pond or lake on the grounds of the cemetery.
Don’t bury it – you don’t want to be able to go back and find it later. And you might run afoul of the groundskeeper(!)
Find a secluded part of the cemetery. Close your eyes, turn around slowly for the time it takes you to say the first half of a Hail Mary, stop and with your eyes still closed throw the Ebenezer over your shoulder as hard as you can. Keeping your eyes closed, resume turning until you’ve prayed the second part of the Hail Mary. When you open your eyes, walk away in the direction you are facing. If by some chance you come across your Ebenezer, repeat the procedure.
Once I have done this in a way that I cannot come back later and get the stone,
I find a quiet place – a bench or a grassy area – sit down and read the following poem and meditate on it.
A Garden of Names
Names in graveyard garden grow,
Etched on stones in fertile row,
Waiting under winter’s night
‘Til light their rising glory show.
Histories abide beneath;
Tales untold hide underneath.
We who live cannot suppose
What grows below this grassy heath.
Markers here but signify
Legacies that never die.
Who deserves a title great?
I wait and wonder: Will I?
Plant my own here in the earth
Mustard seed waits second birth
Jesus calls; my name is heard
What word he speaks of my true worth?
My meditation need not be long. I try to understand something of what this poem is saying. If I don’t get it, that’s okay, but anyway, I try. Does it apply to me or to my dreams at all? I ask the Lord to shed light on my reflections?
Part 2: Proceed to the Chapel
When a half hour has passed at the cemetery I depart for the chapel (I can stay longer if I like, but I don’t cut short my time at the chapel).
Upon arrival at the chapel, read and reflect on this scripture passage:
Jesus said: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.’ John 12:24 - 26
I write my responses to the questions below in my journal.
How can this passage be applied to what I just did in the cemetery?
What do I think was the meaning of this Ebenezer that I wrote my name on, carried with me for almost 100 days, anointed with oil, renamed seven times and then left behind, never to be seen again, in the cemetery only moments ago?
If you still don’t know, consider the following two statements:
Lord Jesus, I will make a name for myself, and I’ll accomplish great things, and all this will be for your glory.
Lord Jesus, I give you my name, my reputation, my accomplishments, my fame, my legacy – my whole past and my whole future in this very moment. Do with it what you choose. If I should be unknown in this life, so be it. If I should be forgotten when I pass from this life, so be it. I ask only, Lord Jesus, that you remember me, and speak my name to the Father in heaven.
What is the difference between these two statements? Which do I imagine is more pleasing to God? Why?
Speak to Jesus honestly and openly about what you are thinking. Relax and be yourself.
The Lord Jesus says, “Give me your name, and I will give you mine.”
For the remainder of my time, I quiet my soul and repeat the following phrase. I need not say it continually, but repeat it whenever my mind wanders.
“How then, Jesus, would you have me live?”
Write any thoughts
In my journal, I write my thoughts. I should not be expecting a “voice from heaven,” but should simply be open. I need not experience anything. Remember, we’re on His timeline, not ours.
End with a Hail Mary…
[0] lead quote - Saito, Inception Warner Bros. Pictures 2010