Moses and Peter

The Biblical Reading for the Office of Readings this morning (which DivineOffice.org designates Friday of the 0th Week of Lent) tells the story of Moses. As I was reading along it struck me that Moses was very much like Peter. I'm sure that someone must have noticed the parallels before and done a much better job writing about them than I'm about to do, but I've never seen anything about them.

The first thing that I noticed was that at heart they were both cowards. Moses kills the Egyptian that had struck one of the Hebrew men, and when he learns that people know about it, he runs away. I found it a bit amusing that the Responsory, which is a short prayer after the reading, was, "When he grew up, Moses, guided by faith, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to suffer with the people of God rather than have the fleeting pleasures of sin." Really? Well, that's putting a nice face on it, but I don't think so. He ran away because he was afraid of the consequences of his actions; however as so often happens, what he intended for evil, God used for good. Peter, of course, denies Christ and runs away during the Crucifixion.

Another likeness is their impetuousness. Moses kills that Egyptian in the heat of the moment and shatters the tablets of the Law in anger. And he makes a mistake when he strikes the rock at Meribah that I don't quite understand, but which keeps him from entering the Promised Land. He does these things in a sort of righteousness indignation, but he would have done well to stop and think for bit. Peter's impetuousness  isn't always so misguided. He strikes off the ear of the soldier in the Garden of Olives, which is a mistake, but he also jumps out of the boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Moses encounters God in a burning bush and is called to lead his people to the Promised Land; Peter receives his call to feed the flock by the side of a fire where Jesus is cooking a meal. Moses is given the tablets of the Law; Peter is given the Keys of the Kingdom. God told Moses that His name was "I Am"; Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say that I am?"

When Peter and Moses got together. Moses knows what's what,
but Peter is still fairly clueless.

AMDG

Valentine

Someone posted a cartoon on Facebook this week. It pictured a man dressed in 3rd century garb and carrying his own head standing in front of a couple who were obviously enjoying a romantic dinner at a restaurant. The caption read, "Hi, I'm St. Valentine. I was brutally beaten and beheaded in the year 269 A.D. I just wanted to thank you for remembering me on this day of romantic love. Enjoy your dinner!

I've often wondered what St. Valentine must think about the way we celebrate his feastday. Candy hearts and sexy underwear don't seem to have been a large part of his life and ministry. Of all the strange transmogrifications of Christian feasts into secular holidays, this has to be among the strangest. Today's Google homepage is a nice, weird example. If you haven't seen it, there are two Ferris wheels (today is the birthday of the inventor of the Ferris wheel) at a carnival. By clicking on a heart, you can match up an animal from each Ferris wheel and then see their little love story. Well, I guess you have to see it for yourself.

I don't really have much to say about this. I'm just observing. If you want to read more about St. Valentine or both St. Valentines, maybe, I'm sure there is abundant information, both true and weird, elsewhere on the internet.

I'll just say, "St. Valentine, and Sts. Cyril and Methodius, pray for us all."

AMDG

Ash Wednesday

Sally posted this one on her blog last year, but I thought this time I'd save it for myself.

ASH WEDNESDAY

Shuffling forward to be marked anew,
Dry as dust, I do not have to wait
Or feel the ash to know my ashen state.
I know full well the earth that is my due.
Forty days and more a cross to hew
To follow after Him and imitate
That sacrifice that saves me from my fate.
O, give me patience to await the dew.

Here within the hush that fills this place
Along with hundreds more all marked the same
A thousand faces smudged with black design,
A thousand souls now resting in this grace,
And now a greater grace calls forth the lame
To stumble forward once more, now to dine.

JTC

Getting Serious

Several years ago, I listened to some tapes by Fr. Thomas Dubay. He talked about three stages of spiritual growth and the second, the second was getting rid of all venial sins. This threw me for a loop because I had pretty much figured that if I got rid of all sin, I would have it made--not that I thought I would ever make it. It was daunting to me to hear that there is progress to be made even after we are sinless. 

Well, I figured that, having such a long way to go, I had better get started. I tried--really I did. I prayed that God would help me not to commit this one particular sin, and I confessed it when I went to Confession, which wasn't all that often, but I didn't see much progress. Not only that, but it seemed that I didn't even have the ability to quit because I would do this thing without even thinking about it. By the time I thought about restraining myself, it was done. It didn't seem that I had any conscious choice.

At some point, though, I decided to get serious. I made some mental step that made a difference. I can't even tell you what I was thinking, but there was a difference. I decided that I was going to go to Confession and confess that sin week after week forever if I had to and I didn't care how embarrassing it was to go in to the same priest, who was a friend, and say the same stupid thing over and over. And I did. And at some point I noticed that I had a choice. Before I opened my mouth and said what I shouldn't have said (It was that kind of sin.) it was as if a little space in time opened up for just a split second, and I could make a choice. 

As I said this was years ago, and I would like to be able to tell you that I have been to Confession every week since then or that I always make the right choice when the time arises. But barring a couple of years when I got lax, I have been to Confession at least a couple of times a month and usually more. And though I'm still confessing that sin, I'm not confessing that I do it endlessly, day in and day out, but much less. I can usually even put a pretty small number to it.

I'm not writing this to let you all know how wonderful I am, but to say that when God sees that we are serious, He gets serious with us. He doesn't let us get away with the little excuses that we hid behind before. I would even go so far as to say He nags us to death--or, I guess, life. If I wake up on Saturday and decide to go back to sleep instead of getting up and going to Mass, it's like I can sense Him standing there just looking at me--laughing at me probably--until I get up and get in the car. I know that I can resist that, and that if I do it often enough He will leave me alone for a while. I resisted to that point in the lax period I told you about, but I was never really peaceful.

So, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Lent is the perfect time to get serious. The time when the grace to get serious abounds. 

One of the things I plan to do during Lent is write something every day. It might not be much but there should be something. Pray for me that I might be able to be faithful to that. 

I see that I wrote a bit about this last year, but just a paragraph, so hopefully you will forgive me for being repetitive.

AMDG

Fragrance

Driving down the road to Mass at 5:30 this morning, I was thinking about how the road is a different place in the light than it is in the dark. In the daytime, a good part of the road runs through fields and it feels wide and open; in the early morning darkness, it's an intimate little circle of light in the middle of a mystery. As I was engaged in all these lofty thoughts, there began to seep into my awareness the lovely, ineffable fragrance of a dead skunk. Actually, it might have still been alive. It was too dark to see if there was a corpse. There's nothing like that funky, musty signature perfume to bring you down to earth.

A bit later I was thinking about how this odiferous experience reminds me of what you might call the adolescence of my spiritual journey. I was about 30, I think, and I was wonderful. I was so holy. I was holier than you, I'm sure. And after I had been roaming around the earth seeking to do what damage I might, one day I noticed a kind of  funny smell. I would have liked to have ignored it, but, you know, that skunky aroma tends to stick around for a while. 

After that, I spent some years in what I think of as my Robbie Burns period, you know, O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us. I actually prayed that one time. It was an answered prayer and it was truly dreadful, but salutory. It would probably make a good examination of conscience now and then. 

Over the years, I thought that as I grew older the skunkish visitations would grow fewer and further apart. Well, that was a sad misconception. It seems that they have multiplied exponentially, but I think I might just have a more finely-tuned skunk sensitivity. More than likely, this is good. Sometimes I actually am able to avoid them. I hear something scraping, scrabbling, and scrooging around the metaphysical corners of my mind and I back quietly away before the worst happens.

AMDG

Goodness

Today my boss has granted me a boon in the form of day off in return for my month of grueling service. The best part is that it's not a vacation day or a personnel day, it's just an extra day off to rest and catch my breath. So far, it's been a great day.

I went to 6 a.m. Mass this morning so I could come home and have the whole long morning uninterrupted. On the drive home, I was looking around the fields and thinking, "Well, there's nothing really special this morning. It's just it's usual pretty self, but then, you never know when something will turn up."

When I pulled in my driveway, there were birds swooping all over the place. After I stopped the car, I looked out at the yard and noticed that all the leaves seemed to be moving. (Yes, I still have leaves in my yard. I like them.) The yards was full of birds. Most of them were sparrows and were pretty well camouflaged in the leaves. Then there was a cardinal, showing up to add some color to a pretty drab landscape--well, except for the brave little stand of daffodils that had been trying to cheer us up, but who were bowing their heads before the cold. They'll probably perk up later this afternoon. Then there were a couple more cardinals and I discerned a couple of their wives among the sparrows, and there were blue jays and a pair of robins. The little birds kept bobbing around in the leaves and the big birds kept swooping around in the trees, and the robins sat up on a branch and looked like they might be discussing where they would like to set up housekeeping.

Some of them look happier already.

I sat in the car for about 10 or 15 minutes watching them bob, and swoop, and perch, and then they slowly started migrating to the south. A few would go, and then a few more. Pretty soon all of them were gone except a woodpecker, knocking away at the top of the pecan tree, and a fat cardinal perched in the bare branches of an oak with the waxing moon sinking behind him. 

I wonder if they do this every morning. Do they all show up for an early-bird worm-catching party after we've left for work in the dark? I'll have to check tomorrow.

A few days ago, a Facebook friend, a seminary student, posted this, "Is sin the bending of goodness upon oneself? Rather than giving good to others, sin becomes making sure I get good." I know there is a context to this comment that I am ignorant of, and that probably he wasn't using the word "goodness" in the way it might sound, but it got me thinking about goodness. Because it sounds like he's implying that there is some limited amount of goodness and that if I hold on to some myself, I might be depriving someone else of his share. And, of course, that can't be right. Goodness is an attribute of God, and is, therefore, infinite. We were made for God and we yearn for Goodness, and there is plenty out there for everyone. If we have; Goodness, we can be good to others; if we don't, we'll probably just do harm.

One way I know that God wants us to have good is that He sends us these good moments. Sitting there watching the birds, I realize that the moment is a gift, and the gift is for me. No one else saw it, and no one else ever will. I could try to take pictures; I could sit here and try to describe it all day long; but I'll never be able to convey a tenth of what I experienced. I can remember other moments, for example, Tuesday night when I was driving home and four deer ran across the road in front in me--thankfully far enough in front of me--or another night when I came home late and caught a little vision in the headlights, a fat black and white cat perched in front of that same little stand of daffodils. And I saw that it was very good.

AMDG