Giving thanks in all circumstances

The following reflection comes from Jennifer Hubbard, a contributing writer for The Magnificat

I tilt my chin to the sky, allowing the sun’s warmth to reach the depths of my soul grateful for God’s light. I cherish the sounds and absorb the beauty that surrounds me grateful for God’s creation. There was a time when I thought this was the ultimate expression of gratitude, and thankfulness came easily. I could not understand how one could sing praises of gratitude when life choked and weighed heavy on one’s shoulders. And then the unthinkable happened, and all I could do was sit in the pew and absorb the words. Only then, when my world was crushed, did I really listen to the words I had prayed my whole life. When I truly heard the words, everything changed.

I bow my head as the priest says, “Giving you thanks, he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples.” The magnitude of what is happening convicts me Jesus is preparing to be beaten and bruised and nailed to a cross, and still he gives thanks. In his giving thanks Jesus shows me why it is truly “our duty and our salvation”. In this moment I see it is not about for what I give thanks, but in all circumstances give thanks (1 Thes 5:18).

In everything give thanks, confident in his faithfulness and love, desiring only that his will be done. In everything give thanks, walking with certainty that the messy, scary, and lonely will serve his purpose. In everything give thanks, acting with assurance that he will make beauty from the ashes. When I am deflated, exhausted, and frail, I reach for his hand and I am carried. When I stray he redirects me. It is in these moments that I am left with a deep sense of gratitude, and sing his praises that my suffering is not in vain. I bow deeply in thanksgiving and confidence that the cross I bear makes way for his will to be done.

- Jennifer Hubbard, who resides in Newtown, CT, writes this reflection entitled: Thanksgiving Day. The younger of her two children, Catherine Violet, was a victim of the Sandy River Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

René Girard tribute from Gil Bailie

Link here to read my friend, Gil Bailie's tribute to René Girard in it's entirety. 

I have simply pulled out a couple rich comments from the tribute.

"Beginning with discoveries and insights gained from the careful reading of first literature and then anthropology, Girard turned to the scriptures, only to find there an anthropological perspicacity that completely distinguished this tradition, and in light of which the continuity between the Old and New Testaments came more clearly into focus. Girard saw the mounting chorus of anti-sacrificial admonitions issued by the prophets and the sympathy for the victim found in the psalms and wisdom literature as evidence of the Bible’s religious and moral movement toward the culminating, history-altering revelation of the Cross. Those who might regard Girard’s work as the reduction of the mystery of Christian redemption to a moral repudiation of an odious example of human sinfulness are mistaken. Not only has Girard shown how profoundly and unavoidably humans are implicated in the sacrificial paradigm, but his discovery of these things was accompanied by the deepening of his Catholic faith, sacramental participation, and personal piety – indicative of both his humility and of the gravity of the anthropological conclusions to which his researches led him."


"René understood that the unavoidably mimetic feature of our makeup makes us in some way spiritually permeable to each other and therefore in some way spiritually responsible for one another. Humble and self-effacing though he was, he conducted himself as a spiritual aristocrat. It is difficult to estimate, wrote Blessed John Henry Newman, “the moral power which a single individual, trained to practice what he teaches, may acquire in his own circle, in the course of years.” It was my privilege to be among those who not only to appreciated the importance of his intellectual contribution but who felt the subtle power of his spiritual integrity and the warmth and wisdom that emanated from it."

René Girard shares his view on Peter's denial

From friend, Erik Buys' blog, Mimetic Margins:

René Girard explains how this realization in forgiveness, that people are more like 'sinners' than they would acknowledge, is at the core of the conversion experience of Peter, Paul and the other disciples of Jesus. What enables Peter, Paul and others to become “saints” thus precisely and paradoxically is their realization that they are not “saints” (i.e. that they are far from ever being “perfect”). This truly spiritual experience, which enables people to face reality, is also the experience that guided René Girard himself throughout his life. René Girard gets to the essence of what a conversion to Christ should be all about in his explanation of the denial of Peter. (click to watch):

Henri Nouwen - Praying is not only listening to but listening with

From Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith, by Henri Nouwen.

Praying is not only listening to but listening with. The discipline of the heart makes us stand in the presence of God with all we have and are: our fears and anxieties, our guilt and shame, our sexual fantasies, our greed and anger, our joys, successes, aspirations and hopes, our reflections, dreams and mental wandering, and most of all our people, family, friends and enemies, in short all that makes us who we are…. We tend to present to God only those parts of ourselves with which we feel relatively comfortable and which we think will evoke a positive response. Thus our prayer becomes very selective and narrow. And not just our prayer but also our self-knowledge because by behaving as strangers before God we become strangers to ourselves.

Casting Out the Demons - Caryll Houselander

Caryll Houselander

'But when it comes to someone who has arrived at some measure of strongly conscious spirituality, who has proved a willingness to suffer for God and his truth, the devil must find subtler ways:  he must find something which resembles God in this -- that it is always present.  What could be better than self? -- and what more certain to imprison and ultimately obsess a sensitive soul than awareness of something wrong with self?

Somehow or other the soul must be made to strive to attain a certain level of holiness, a certain peace or at least untroubledness, before abandoning itself to God.  It will be held back by this, prevented from seeing more and more the beauty of God.  The devil knows that the soul whose heart is fixed on God is lost to hell, so he must drag the gaze back from God to self.  He whispers, through a clergyman or a friend, or just your own prompting:  "You are doing wrong.  Of course you have no peace; you are putting your peace of soul before the happiness of better souls, anyway" -- and so on and so on.  If you listen, you half agree; you begin again to examine your motives; you let conflict and anxiety rage in you -- which is in itself exhausting.  A vicious circle begins:  you are too tired to pray; you think all consolation has been taken from you, aridity sets in....

I feel sure that the treatment is to ignore the suggestions.  Even ignore your own soul:  keep your mind on God, on his love....

Do not wait until you feel not uneasy; do not wait to be doing a more prayerful act; do not wait to feel more unity and completeness:  offer yourself, your will to do right, your anxiety about not doing it, your being interrupted just now, the act of taking So-and-so's temperature -- all, just as it is, to God.  Leave it to God to transform all this into himself.  It's all you've got, and he gave it to you.'

-- Caryll Houselander (+ A.D. 1954) was a British mystic, poet & spiritual teacher. (Magnificat 9/1/15)

Gazing requires a space within the heart - St Clare spirituality

The gaze on the crucified Christ is like an embrace, a desire to allow the otherness of God's love into our lives. Therefore it can never be an immediate vision; rather, it is a daily encounter with a God of humble love who is hidden in fragile humanity. Gazing is not simply physical sight like other physical senses that help situate oneself in an environment. Rather, gazing is of the heart by which the heart "opens its arms" so to speak to allow the Spirit of God's love to enter. 

Gazing requires a space within the heart to receive what we see and to embrace what we see. Poverty helps create this space because when we are free of things that possess us or that we possess we are able to see more clearly and to receive what we see within us. 

The type of prayer that Clare directs us to - this prayer of gazing - requires openness to grace. To gaze is to be open to the Spirit of the Lord, for it is the Spirit within us who really gazes or, we might say, who "embraces" the God of humble love. - Ilia Delio, chapter from Franciscan at Prayer, p 46.

Living into Holiness

Is holiness more than we can strive for?

I think most of us dismiss any connection to being holy, usually saying something like; 'well you don't see a halo over my head' or 'Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Francis and any of the other saints are examples of what it is to be holy, and there is no way I am in a league like that'.  Reflecting on these and other excuses I think they all miss the mark of what we are all called to, a life of holiness (1 Peter 1:15).  So what is holiness?

In our world of the ‘autonomous self’ it is hard to realized that holiness is not 'something' we do, rather holiness is a gift that is offered to all.  

Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness… Consequently, it is not the fact that we have never erred but our capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness which makes us saints. And we can all learn this way of holiness”

So the first exercise is to discern our capacity or receptivity for receiving a gift.

The next lesson is humility with a sense of accountability: being open to the unfathomableness of the Gift-bearer and not being afraid to say yes.  Thomas Merton reflected after being at Gethsemani for less than two weeks: “Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. The darkness is enough.”

Merton’s quote touches on the abyss between what we can imagine and the incomprehensibility of God and though he ends saying that the darkness is enough, in actuality, it is so often not enough for us and we will, if not kept accountable, makeover Christ in our own image.

As we take our first steps into the labyrinth of holiness we somehow find ourselves being expanded, seeing the world and everyone in it through new eyes. The landscape has changed and the effect is illuminating - creating a new sense of abundance and excess with an invitation to become an active participant, accentuating the gifts we were open to receive and playing it forward.  

At this point we are approaching the center of the labyrinth discovering how our gifts received help others - revealing a way of living into holiness - when holiness bounces off of you to reflect on others.

So, what is holiness?  It is a gift received; and by saying yes to God we enter into God’s realm of love and service helping others to recognize the gift that all are called to receive.