I liked Rahner's idea that even when prayer feels awkward, it has a strength to it. And suspect many (me included) need to listen to Evagrius Ponticus' advice - it applies to my teaching as much to my prayer life. Don't slew around the course, pick a style and dig into that.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 19 November 2008.

Now once he was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” — Lk. 11:1

My youngest son Chris has a T-shirt that reads: “Warning: The person wearing this shirt is a roller coaster fanatic. May be prone to random screaming. Contents of head are under extreme pressure.”

For the record, I am not a roller coaster fanatic. One ride is fun. Thirteen in an afternoon might be a bit over the top. Lately my prayer life has felt a lot like the part of the roller coaster rides I enjoy least — the start.

You wait in line, trying not to be discouraged by the sign posts: “Wait time from this point two hours.” At long last you get on board, only to find yourself jerkily dragged upward, the cars clanking and banging, the whole structure seems to groan. You wonder if the ride will be worth the wait and this interminable noisy crawl to the top. And then you look down … where has the ground gone?

As the pace and pressure of the fall semester threaten to make my head explode, I struggle to find stable ground under a prayer life that seems to creak and clank and heave itself up, rather than glide tranquilly along. I find myself returning again and again to this line in Luke: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

In his treatise “On Prayer,” Church father Origen asks if we really think that a follower of Jesus would not know how to pray, at the very least be well versed in the Jewish prayers. What was this disciple seeking? What did the disciple see and hear in Christ’s prayer that begged the question — “How do I pray, O Lord?” Origen wonders if it was an awareness of “human weakness falling short of prayer in the right way.”

I, too, long to know how to pray aright — even when it feels awkward and a bit clumsy, when I cannot find the right words, or place, or time, or rhythm. Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner suggests this rough sort of prayer, that is “well-intended … a little monotonous and naive,” has its own strengths. It is, he says, a prayer that doesn’t look to the experience of the one praying, but to the glory of God. No matter that I cannot muster exalted thoughts, the contrast makes God’s light shine all the brighter.

Still, I am tempted to try to change things up, to see if I can find something new and different that will smooth out the roughness in this patch of my prayer, pull me over the top so I can race delightedly down the track. Digging through a collection of counsels from the desert fathers, looking for a reference for a unrelated project, I happened on some apt advice from Evagrius Ponticus, the fourth century monastic whose writings ground much of St. John Cassian’s advice to his monks.

Evagrius had much to say about prayer — in one treatise devoting a full 153 chapters to it. It was in the 101st that I found what I was looking for. Start where you are, stretch yourself gently, do not attempt to race far ahead of what you can do. And as for my temptation to novelty, forget it. “Do not be perplexed by the many paths walked by our fathers of old, each different from the others. Do not … try to imitate them all — this would only upset your way of life.” Choose a path for prayer and stick to it, success lies in intention and persistence, not in great spiritual insights.

Both Rahner and Evagrius, though separated by nearly two millennia, reach past the practice of prayer, to lay bare the experience of praying. I do not need much, I need nothing I do not already have. In response to the disciple’s desire to grow as close to the Father as Jesus seemed to be, Jesus offered not 153 chapters, but scarcely 50 words. I’ll stick to the track laid out. My prayer is in God’s hands, not my own.

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Father, may Your name be held holy,
Your kingdom come;
give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us.
And do not put us to the test. Amen.

Crash is home sick. Flu? Who knows! He was in the kitchen getting himself a cold drink, so I asked him to refill the ice tray and an extra while he was at it. For my pains, I got a laconic, "You are very needy, Mom." You bet.

My mother also gave me half of her set of heart shaped pans, which I wrote about here.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 12 November 2009.

I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put in more than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.— Mk. 12:43b-44


I pulled the shiny aluminum cupcake tin from the lower shelf. Nearly an anachronism in these super-sized days, it makes only six at a time, and I can no longer find paper liners to fit its modest wells — but I use it every time I make chocolate cupcakes. Even if the cupcakes it makes will be odd-sized.

Thirty years ago, when I left home to go to graduate school, my mother gave me one of her two cupcake tins. Not an extra one, her best one, the one she’d gotten when she was married. There was no reason she couldn’t have bought me a new one, or given me the larger one that was prone to rust. She gave, not of her excess, but of her treasure.

My mother’s gift certainly did not utterly impoverish her, as the widow’s did, but it did leave her wanting in small ways. With three teenaged sons still living at home, “extra cooking pans”’ was as much an oxymoron as “leftover food.” Like the widow, the signifi-cance of the gift was not in its worth to the world, but in its worth to her. But as with the widow’s gift of her last two pieces of silver, which gained her treasure in heaven, my mother’s relinquishing of this prized piece of her culinary armamentarium was not meant to meet the needs of that one moment but would be a continuing treasure in my life.

Her gift teaches me again and again that efficiency is not the prime directive, either in gift giving or in feeding your family. Yes, it takes twice as long to bake a batch of cup-cakes when you have a half-sized pan, but it gives you time to tell the story again to your children and nieces and nephews — and yourself. And each time I put an extra fold into the not-quite-right cupcake papers, I am reminded that there is much to be said for those gifts that do not fit so perfectly into our lives that we forget we were ever given them in the first place.

These gifts turn me gently toward contemplating Christ’s ultimate gift. When we come to receive Him in the Eucharist, the goal is not efficient distribution — we could do the whole thing in 10 minutes if it were — but about taking the time to hear again the stories that brought us the gift. And on occasion, when things don’t go quite the way I wanted, but they still go, I manage to notice the gift of my own redemption.

For 30 years I’ve thought of this pan as my mother’s and not as mine. Like the life I’ve been given by Christ, I cannot think of it as my own — it remains firmly rooted in the Giver. When the moment comes, I hope that I, like my mother and Christ, can graciously hand over what is mine, be it a pan — or my life.

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God our Father, gifts without measure flow from your goodness to bring us your peace. Our life is your gift. Guide our life’s journey, for only your love makes us whole. Keep us strong in your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. — Opening prayer for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

My plate is threatening to overflow again. When I announced at the dinner table the other night that I was going to pitch activities which were solely a source of stress and where my only contribution seemed to be my existence, Crash had some ways to say "no" - pulled from the posters on the walls of his health classroom. So when next I'm asked to....serve on a committee...write a proposal for....evaluate a new....I could say:

"I'd rather just be friends."
"Let's just go see a movie instead!"

My favorites are the non-sequitur: "No thanks, I have asthma." and the cheeky "I'm not that kind of girl." suggested by my brother, The Wookie. Hopefully no one can read my thought bubbles!

If it works for sex, drug and cigarettes -- will it work for my to do list?? I'll keep you posted!

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There is a list here.

I'm still contemplating St. John Cassian's reflection on these two lines of Psalm 70, which he says contain: "an invocation of God in the face of any crisis, the humility of an devout confession, the watchfulness of concern and of constant fear, a conciousness of one's own frailty, the assurance of being heard and confidence in a protection that is always present." (You can read the rest of the conference here, though it's not quite as elegant a translation; scroll down to Chapter X.) And Math Man did chuckle when he got to the end...

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 5 November 2009.

O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. — Ps. 70:2

“The tuna is on sale, so I thought I’d get two.” I was in line at the grocery store in Boston, waiting while the elderly woman in front of me dug for change in the bottom of her purse. The lilt in her voice said she was an immigrant. She looked up at the cashier; the distress showed on her face, “I know I had 20 more cents when I left this morning.”

The line was growing, and growing restive. I could hear the shifting of feet and the not quite stifled sighs as her bent and gnarled fingers felt for the required coins one more time.

“Could I get this for you?” I offered. I wanted to be sure she didn’t go hungry, if that’s what this can of tuna fish meant, but most of all I wanted to spare her the unkind comments that were gathering behind me and threatening to spill over my shoulder. So I paid for the tuna fish, gathered my own things and left, happy I was able to help.

A few weeks later I was out for my walk. Near the end of my two-mile loop I discovered a few dollars wadded up in my pocket. I decided to take a short detour past the convenience store and bring the boys home a treat. Thirsty, I grabbed a cold soda for me. When the young clerk totaled it all up, I was short — 25 cents. I asked him to return the soda, but instead he took a quarter from his pocket and told me not to worry. I felt awkward, accepting help I felt I did not need, but thanked him for his kindness and headed home.

In “Why I Make Sam Go to Church” Anne Lamott describes a similar reaction when the elderly women of her parish — themselves on tight budgets — pressed bags of hoarded change on her when they heard she was expecting a baby, “I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I’d remember that wonderful line of Blake’s — that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love.” It’s not easy to endure such a beam, I would agree.

Psalm 70 is a short but powerful prayer. It begins with the plea, “God come to my assistance.” Early monastic John Cassian reminded his monks of the advice of the desert fathers, that if you are going to use anything from the whole of sacred Scripture to pray — this verse is the one to pick.

Cassian passionately expounds on what flows from this devotion: the assurance of being heard, hope in time of despair, an awareness of the traps set for us by the devil, an antidote to pride in any spiritual consolation. Most of all, Cassian says, it keeps us ever aware that without God, we are too frail to endure. The psalm itself ends not only with another appeal for aid, but with the psalmist’s recognition, “I am lowly and needy … You are my rescuer, my help.”

I need this simple practice of prayer as much as Cassian’s monks. It can be hard for me to admit I need help in anything from anyone (my husband will chuckle knowingly when he reads this), but the truth that my moment in the Wawa drove home was this: even when we don’t think we need help — we do. O Lord, make haste to help me.

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Lord God, strength of those who hope in You, support us in our prayer: because we are weak and can do nothing without You, give us always the help of Your grace so that, in fulfilling your commandments, we may please You in all we desire and do. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. — Opening prayer, 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

...you open your sons' door to say good-night and one says, "Speak of the devil!" and the other pops out with "Look, I can summon demon creatures!"

Was it the lecture on why I have to finish what I started (before someone takes the sorted clothes and puts them willy-nilly into the basket again)? or the comment about the boxer shorts in the middle of the living room floor?

I'm going up this week to see my spiritual director. I made an appointment to see my confessor, too. I think I'm in need of a time out!

I got home late last night from a poetry reading and dinner. No one was stirring, not even a mouse. I sat down to check my email and Fluffy roused just long enough to crawl into my lap. She put her chin onto the laptop and laid a paw on the trackpad. Suddenly my cursor went berserk. My cat was mousing.

When my hand was bothering me a couple of weeks back I set the trackpad up to require no clicking, just taps (thanks, Apple!) and drags. Now Fluffy can mouse, too.

Time to be sure that one-click is disabled on Amazon, before large bags of catnip start arriving on my doorstep!

The photo is of the oldest part of the Jesuit cemetery at Wernersville, just after an ice storm a couple of years ago. Every time I go, I walk the cemetery, and pray for the men who are buried there. One is on the path to canonization - Walter Ciszek SJ - I'm certain there are many more saints there.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 28 October 2009.

In Your hand I commend my spirit; You redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth. — Ps. 31:6

“May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death. Amen.” Some might think it peculiar, that with these closing words of Night Prayer, the last thing I ask of God before I turn out the light each night is a peaceful death. It hardly seems conducive to pleasant dreams or a good night’s sleep.

To tell the truth, I am deeply comforted by that final petition, for I have seen death come shrieking in like a banshee, strewing grief and pain in every direction, leaving desolation in its wake. It is no small grace I seek.

My first husband’s death was not peaceful. It came after a frantic ambulance ride to the ER and a long night in surgery. Tom departed this life without warning, with no time to prepare.

At the twin feasts of All Saints and All Souls, I am particularly mindful to pray for Tom’s soul. But I am also prompted to meditate on my own death. What will it be like when I die, when the Weaver severs that last thread?

The practice of meditating on your own death has a long and respected history in Catholic tradition. In the fourth century, desert Father Evagrius advised monks to “Remember the day of your death…so as to be able to live always in the peace you have in view.”

Sir Thomas More argued passionately to his 17-year-old daughter Margaret that nothing was more efficacious in strengthening a person to live life well than contemplating these last things: death, judgment, pain and joy. Though it sounds macabre, meditating on your own death is not so much about preparing to die, but about preparing to live, now as ever after.

Theologian Karl Rahner’s description of death as a “fall into incomprehensibility” rings true for me. I find it difficult, almost impossible, to conceive of my death, yet in surrendering to that impossibility, I taste of death’s ultimate surrender. I fall into God’s hands, knowing that before Him I cannot stand, for now I see myself, not dimly as in St. Paul’s mirror, but as God sees me. Perhaps that is what make it such an arduous contemplation.

Before this mystery I cannot mask my flaws, though perhaps knowing them, I can yet mend them in life. In “Learning to Fall,” written after he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, singer and songwriter Eric Lowen pithily sums up what I desire in this exercise: “I know where I stand; learning to fall.”

As All Souls day approaches this year, I find that the final days of Jesuit priest Albert Delp shade my meditations. Sentenced to death in mid-January 1945, he expected to be immediately executed. Instead he was returned to prison, where he spent 22 days excruciatingly suspended between life and death. Almost incredibly, Delp remained hopeful through much of his ordeal, wondering, “Is it madness to hope — or conceit, or cowardice, or grace?”

Delp's final writings, smuggled out of prison on bits of torn newspaper, speak poignantly of how difficult he found living in this liminal time, literally on the threshold between life and death. I'm coming to realize that this is where we all live, though it may be a reality I readily choose to ignore. Recognizing that I stand in this doorway is a powerful confession of hope.

I meditate on my own end, learning how to fall so that I might choose to stand. Realizing ever more deeply that at this very moment I am no less in God's hands than I will be at the hour of my death. This is not madness, or conceit, or cowardice, but utter grace.

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Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel. — Nunc Dimittis, Gospel canticle for Night Prayer

I use Cuppa to time my tea. Last night I hacked it so that instead of the nice spoon clinking sound it makes when it's done I hear this instead.

When I realized how many stitches I'd put in, and how many there were to go, I very nearly did despair. The yarn softens my hands as well -- the lanolin in the raw wool rubs off! I love finding the bits of the monastery right there in my yarn -- dried bits of grass still caught in the spun fibers.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 22 October 2009.

Teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart. — Ps. 90:12

I was flipping through one of the dozen catalogs that arrived this week when I saw it — a gorgeous grey wool sweater with an intricately patterned yoke. It would only take a few clicks on the Internet, a credit card and it could be on my front step by week’s end. I have to admit it was tempting.

Actually, I’m already waiting on a sweater — but I don’t have a tracking number because I’m knitting it by hand. The rough spun wool came from a Benedictine monastery in New York, ordered not with a quick click or two, but by scheduling a phone call with Brother Bruno. I worked in earnest on the sweater last January amidst the silence of the Spiritual Exercises. Ten months and 22,000 carefully counted stitches later, I’m only half done.

“Teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart.” I’m counting the days as well as the stitches until I can wear my sweater, but I wonder if I am any wiser for spending my time in this way. What lesson in wisdom are the psalmist and I seeking here?

The sweater’s slow progress certainly fosters patience and as St. Augustine counseled: “Patience is the companion of wisdom.” Even more, it is an invitation to delayed gratification. The waiting is a discipline, one that has much the same flavor for me as fasting. There is a certain freedom that grows from knowing that I can wait, even for what I need, not just merely want. Fasting teaches me to know the difference, so does knitting.

I am learning more than patience. Each stitch in the sweater grows from the previous one; the strength of the whole depends on the integrity of these individual twists of yarn. Perhaps when I learn to see my days from this same perspective, recognizing the spots where the strands I am weaving are weak and in need of repair, and how the ultimate worth of my life depends on the shape of each day, I will have a wiser heart.

Most of all, the sweater fosters persistence. There is nothing to distinguish one row from the next, but despite the lack of signposts, I need to keep working. It can be hard to persist when you see no progress toward an end, particularly when the landscape is dull and clear road signs are lacking. It’s hard to count the days when they are like this. Still, I watch a friend who lost her son a year ago persist in prayer, though she sees no sign that God is near, and the landscape is unbearably barren. Endless rounds of knitting or prayer may not be wise in the eyes of the world, but I suspect she and I both hope a time will come when we can see the shape of what has been wrought by our hearts and hands.

St. John Cassian, whose writings inspired St. Benedict to write his rule for monastic life, points out that we have many tools at our disposal as we grow in our spiritual lives — fasting, vigils, deprivation. No matter what we choose, their purpose is not to merely possess the tools, but “to produce the crafted objective for which these are the efficient means.” The more progress I make on this sweater, the more I realize it’s not about efficiently making a sweater, but about how the sweater efficiently re-makes me.

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God of eternal wisdom, you alone impart the gift of right judgment. Grant us an understanding heart, that we may value wisely the treasure of your kingdom and gladly forgo all lesser gifts to possess that kingdom’s incomparable joy. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.— Opening Prayer for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

On Thursday afternoon, I'm giving a talk online. (The details are here.) It's a reprise of a talk I gave this summer on what a contemplative approach to teaching in the sciences might look like if it draws from the richness of the Western monastic tradition. How do poverty and obedience play out in the classroom? Can you do lectio divina with a graph of a wavefunction?

The experience itself is developing a monastic tone, too. I will have an audience, but we will not be able to see each other. The modern equivalent of the monastic grille?

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A grille separates the nuns' chapel from the public area of the church at the Convent of St. Clare, Talpiot, Jerusalem. Photo by Rahel Jaskow.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 15 October 2009.

Then he said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was upset that he asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” and said, “Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.” — Jn. 21:17a

I had planned on a walk. Instead, as I bent down to put away the groceries I made a dismaying discovery — something sticky was oozing out of the freezer. The freezer door had jammed open, and things were melting apace.

Five minutes later, freezer emptied, I was on my knees with a bucket of hot water and a rag. “I went to college for how many years? So I could do this?” I groaned as I scrubbed at the unappetizing amalgam of vanilla ice cream and melted chicken broth that had accumulated at the bottom of the freezer.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than a vision of Christ on the cross flashed through my mind. The Word that was spoken and the universe came into being, not only humbled himself to dwell in our messy midst, but proceeded to clean up the shambles we had made of things with His own hands, with His own life.

I spent many hours on my knees, contemplating the crucifixion last January while on the Long Retreat. Now here I was, on my knees, once again contemplating the mystery of the all-powerful God, powerless on the cross. Contemplating humility.

In this passage from the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus asks Peter to repeat himself three times. Christ’s demand of a triple affirmation is often read as a one-for-one counterbalancing of Peter’s three-fold denial of Christ in the Passion. I will admit that I have a hard time imagining God, who promises us a full measure, shaken down and flowing over, so carefully balancing the books with Peter.

Rather, I see Jesus asking Peter to slow down, not answer in haste from his head but to engage his heart. It is a powerful antidote to Peter’s rash, albeit rationally self-preserving, rejections.

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius recommends repeatedly returning to the same meditation. The point is not to figure out the mystery in front of you — these are mysteries, after all — or to seek some new insight each time.

It is to slow things down, to return to the points you and God thought most important. To let go of the intellectual and respond interiorly, “wherein the fruit chiefly lies” as an old Jesuit manual for spiritual directors advises.

Ignatian repetition allows the mysteries of Christ’s life to be winnowed down to what is most essential for each of us and to ultimately trace themselves more deeply on our hearts. Ignatius reminds us, “It is not the abundance of knowledge that satisfies the soul, but feeling and savoring things interiorly.”

Kneeling in a puddle on my kitchen floor, surrounded by the contents of my freezer, physically I could not have been further from the spare elegant chapel that was the scene of my winter meditations. Interiorly? I could not have been closer. He humbled Himself, even to death on a cross.

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I have made a free oblation of myself to your Divine Majesty, both of life and of death and I hope that you will give me grace and force to perform. This is all I desire. Amen. — St. Edmund Campion, S.J.

Psalms are on my mind as well as on my lips. In a comment here, Gannet Girl asked if I had any resouces I might recommend for those wanting to start or deepen a practice of praying the psalms -- or is it the doing that does? I'm not sure I can disentangle my practice of praying the psalms on a daily basis from the resources that support it, but here goes!

Praying the Psalms by Thomas Merton. You have to get past his use of "men of prayer" language, but this little book gives a tour of he psalms and Merton's basic advice about learning to appreciate the Pslams likely answers Gannet Girl's question: "acquire the habit of reciting them slowly and well"

The Book of Psalms - Robert Alter's new translation from the Hebrew. Merton says, don't turn to the commentaries, who needs them? You might need this one. The translations feel fresh, the footnotes aren't stuffy, but they are informative - but above all, the language is marvelous.

The Grail Psalter has a marvelous essay on the psalms by Joseph Gelineau, SJ.

Any other thoughts? Please share....

From my earliest days, silence and darkness went together. Growing up in a house with six kids and a dog, the only time everything was quiet was when we were asleep. After years in the classroom and a few more as the mother of sons, I still view midday silence as a rare and wonderful gift from God.

Last Saturday, such a gift of sacred stillness appeared as if from nowhere. First Mike, then Chris, rode off on their bikes to see friends and Victor left to grocery shop — with a stop for 18 holes of golf “since it’s on the way.” Even the cat was asleep.

I grabbed the chance to turn the collection of apples occupying the bottom shelf of my refrigerator into applesauce without losing half my work to grazing guys before it ever reached the stove.

I pulled up the kitchen stool and began to peel and chop. Thin strips of peel dappled green and red twirled onto the wooden table; translucent slices of apple gradually filled the bowl at my side. In the silent, sunlit space I had time to wonder at how uniquely beautiful each apple was — and how ephemeral. In a short while, the whole would be cooked down into a fragrant sauce.

Wringing honey from a comb to sweeten the apples, I realized I was singing a line from Psalm 19 under my breath, “sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.”

Centuries ago, St. Athanasius drew such a connection between psalm prayers and contemplation of the ways the tangible world is entwined into the sacred. He succinctly enjoined the faithful, “As you wonder at the order of creation, the grace of providence and the sacred prescriptions of the Law, sing Psalm 19.” At that moment, it seemed the obvious thing to do.

A few years ago two filmmakers spent a year living in a Carthusian monastery documenting the lives of its monks. “Into Great Silence” has no soundtrack, no voice over, just the ambient sounds of a silent monastic life — and the chanting of the psalms.

The scenes that struck me most deeply were not those of the monks processing into the church to sing the Office, but those of the monks doing ordinary tasks, much like those that occupy my day: a brother wearing an apron chopping celery in a sun-warmed kitchen, a monk chopping wood in the garden to heat his cell. I could almost hear the psalms in their heads as they worked.

Contemplative prayer tends to evoke images of monasteries hidden behind high stone walls and of monks chanting the psalms — not blue-jean clad, second-soprano mothers slicing apples in a suburban kitchen. But contemplation isn’t the sole province of the cloistered monk or nun. As St. Gregory the Great pointed out, “We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of the active life.”

My contemplative afternoon may have been divine providence, but it reminded me to make more silent spaces in my life — to create a temporary monastic enclosure. I can turn off the radio, ignore my email and silence the phone, so that even while my hands are occupied, my heart might have room to contemplate the precepts of the Lord.

The only difference? Here the Great Silence ends not with a bell announcing lauds, but with Chris whooping, “fresh bread!” as he crashes through the front door.

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“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.” —Ps. 19:15. A traditional closing prayer for a time of silent meditation.

As of the end of September, I've submitted about a third of a first draft of the book to my editor and have another third that is written - though in need of much work. The chapter I am currently working on takes off from a favorite quote from George Bernard Shaw: "When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth." Of csuroe, tihs menas you frsit hvae to nitoce stimnhoeg is fnnuy – and taht may be the hredsat prat. This pirtlacuar tset shows how well our minds can overlook something odd.

Five years before Röntgen figured out that the radiation emitted from his Crookes tube could produce an image on a photographic plate, a photographer and a physicist produced the first X-ray image. Mystified by the odd disks that appeared on a plate developed in 1890, they nevertheless filed it away. When Röntgen's work was made public in 1896, the two pulled out their old plate and figured out they had taken X-rays of two coins.

We look, but how often do we really see? And seeing, do we know what to make of the information?

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Do check out the link to the Crookes tube - the short clip of a Crookes flower tube, where copper blooms covered in what seems to be a white coating turns technicolor under the rays produced by the tube. It's the same principle as the glowing minerals in the YouTube video embedded above, but more aesthetically appealing. Imagine having one of these in your Victorian drawing room!

For his work, Röntgen won the first Nobel prize in physics in 1901. The Nobel prize in physics today went for work on detecting light as well - for the CCD.

I sometimes feel as if I have chosen to practice "write and release" - writing without the desire or need to hear the rest of the conversations (if any) that what I had to say might have started. That said, I appreciate the tendrils of comments and questions that do wrap back all the more. Or at least most of the time. Of late, I've been getting distressing emails related to my column in the Archdiocesan paper -- with links to material I wished I had never known existed, urging me to take stances that I would never take. Though never easy to read, these are easy to ignore.

What I could not ignore was a concerned, but not off the wall, comment to the editor about my column the previous week. I responded with the reasons I thought that my choice of closing quote had not been inappropriate -- particularly in the context of a recent homily by the Pope. I closed my response with "I have nothing but the deepest respect for our Holy Father as a theologian and teacher, and feel that in quoting from this particular letter of Fr.Teilhard de Chardin that I have not strayed from his teaching."

My respondent took issue with this last, "P.S. While I did NOT say that you "strayed from his teaching,"[he didn't - he said I was careless] you have used an oddly restrained phrase with regard to the Vicar of Christ…" At which point, I became less charitable, "I do not, however, appreciate your post script …and sincerely hope that in doing so you are not calling my faithfulness to the magisterium into question."

The copy of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises I used on the Long Retreat place this on its own page (No. 22): " …it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good interpretation on another's statement than to condemn it as false. If an orthodox construction cannot be put on a proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it." I remember reading this and thinking it had no bearing on my retreat -- I could not imagine a situation in which my director and I might differ over some point of doctrine! Yawn.

Now I get Ignatius' point. The letter writer and I disagree about what it is prudent to write about in a Catholic paper - but I was not ready to put "a good interpretation" on his statement. Nor on his statement about my oddly restrained statement concerning the Pope. And so things quickly degenerate into snipping at each other…and this helps things how?

Far better to laugh - hence, the Mel Brooks! (Yes, it's imprudent...and probably impudent as well.)

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Let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud. Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly. - From a Prayer for Humility by Daniel Lord, SF, in Prayers to Accompany the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises (in Hearts on Fire, Praying with the Jesuits).

I had my last meeting with Urban Spiritual Director today. My regular director is back from his sabbatical and I've made an appointment to go up and see him in a couple of weeks. It was a bittersweet visit in some ways. I will miss the regular visits to parts of the city that I don't usually visit, the chance to light a candle (yes - this parish church has the real thing burning in the sanctuary, with candles spilling out of the rack onto the shelf next to the altar), the visits to the chocolate shop.

As I walked up the alley to the entrance of the church, I spotted the man who regularly interrogates me on my visits coming in the opposite direction. "Oh, good," I thought, "I get to see him one last time, too." We reached the church door at the same time, and I held it open for him, expecting the usual conversation to begin. His face was slack, his eyes held no sign of recognition. I said hello, but got no response. He came in behind me, wandered around the Church - then left without a word. I found myself ineffably saddened by this.

I left Urban Spiritual Director with a piece of glass from Stratoz.

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me earlier to look to Augustine - given his early life, I imagine he knew quite a bit about what teen-aged boys might be up to! Then again, I'm hoping my sons don't go down that road. The comment that the proper fruit is sincere love - even of an enemy - took on a bit more of an edge earlier this week when a theological disagreement landed in my inbox.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 1 October 2009.

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Of course there will never cease to be poor in the land; I command you therefore: Always be openhanded with your brother, and with anyone in your country who is in need and poor. — Dt. 15:11

Why is that the really hard questions come when I am in the midst of making dinner? I can count on it not being algebra — I can factor a polynomial and chop the carrots at the same time — it’s the metaphysical questions that trip me up.

I was juggling steaming pots, fresh bread and pasta sauce when Chris wandered in and leaned against the counter. “I’ve watched it twice,” he sighed, “and I’m still sad,” he said. What on earth has he been watching, I wondered. My irrepressible son’s tastes generally run to comedy, not weepy dramas.

“I have a refrigerator and a bed to sleep in,” he began. He’d been watching a video that put a real face on poverty for him. Kids without beds. Kids who went to sleep hungry. And it made him sad.

I was at a loss for what to say to him, how to comfort him, or even whether I should comfort him. Platitudes rose and fell in my mind. I wanted him to know that it matters that he cares, even if, on the global scale, what he could do might seem not to matter. That such poverty is something that may not be fixed here and now, in this world.

I have to admit that St. Augustine is not the first place I turn when I’m looking for advice for raising teenaged boys, but perhaps I should consult him in this regard more often.

In his “Exhortation on the Psalms,” I found a lifeline. Augustine suggests how we might respond to what we hear in God’s word and see around us: “The proper fruit is good works, the proper fruit is sincere love, not only of a brother but even of an enemy. Spurn no suppliant: if you can give, give; if you cannot, show yourself affable. God crowns the interior act of will where it finds no means of outward action.”

So I told Chris that even when it seems that there is little he can do, he should do all that he is able, “if you can give, give” — but that it was most important that he not give up either his feelings of distress for others or his desire to help. He grunted — he’s 13 after all — and offered to set the table.

I was left wondering if I said enough, or even too much. Most of all I was astonished at the reach of my son’s heart, and the realization that he was setting an example for me. An example of a love that could not be confined to my kitchen.

Pope Benedict XVI began his recent encyclical, Caritas in veritate, by pointing out “Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace.”

In Chris’ troubled heart I could see such forces at play. It was a powerful sermon, preached all unknowing over the sink by a teenaged boy to his mother.

In the end, dinner got on the table and Chris seemed content with my answer, but a part of me still wished his worries had been about algebra. Not for his comfort or mine, but because I, too, wish there were not children in the world to be worried about.

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O God, what will you do to conquer the fearful hardness of our hearts?…
You must give us your own Heart, Jesus. Come, lovable Heart of Jesus. Place your Heart deep in the center of our hearts and enkindle in each heart a flame of love as strong, as great, as the sum of all the reasons that I have for loving you, my God. Amen. — St. Claude La Colombiere, S.J. (from Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits)

I leapt into the waters, too. What struck me most was that there was time to think on the way down! My profound reflection? "Gee, it's a lot farther to the water than I thought."

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 24 September 2009.

So then, my brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the Lord. — Philippians 4:1a

It was one of the oddest conversations I’ve had as a mother, and as any parent knows, strange conversations are standard parenting fare. Held on a rock ledge jutting out over Crater Lake late on a scorching hot July afternoon, I was trying to help my 13-year-old son, Chris, decide whether or not to jump into the incredibly blue — and deep —waters.

Part of him wanted to cling to the safety of the cliff, another part was willing to take that last step and join his brother frolicking in the cool depths.

“Don’t let anyone push you into going. I love you no matter what,” I assured him. It was a big step, physically and mentally, and he was clearly searching heart and soul to see if he was ready to make it. It would take courage either way — to pass up the chance for adventure and face the inevitable taunts of brother and cousins, or to take that leap of faith. In the end he decided to go, still nervous, but stepping deliberately off into space. Bemusedly, I turned to my husband and said, “Did I just talk my son into jumping off a cliff?”

This last Sunday at my friend Kathy’s celebration of her 50 years as a Sister of St. Joseph, I thought of my conversation on the cliffside and Chris’ great leap.

Maybe that conversation was less about facing a particular jump than practicing for all of the jumps Chris and Mike will face in their lives. What do you choose to hold on to? What will you throw yourself into space for, tumbling, unable to control your path? When? Now?

Fidelity requires the strength both to cling and to let go, to know when to take a huge step and when to wait.

In the lives of Kathy, and in her sisters in Christ, I see clearly that virtue of fidelity. Clearly rooted in God, she has surrendered to His work, which took her in directions she never imagined. She has cared for the poorest of the poor in the slums of the Philippines and taught quantum physics to doctoral students on the Main Line with equal joy and humility.

Between them, the women gathered in celebration had centuries of dyings and risings in Christ. I was, and am, in awe. Like Chris, they leapt into the unknown, having no idea where they might go or what they might become — clinging only to the knowledge that they are beloved of God.

My sons are on the cusp of their lives. I have no idea where they might go, what they might become, what cliffs they might face. I pray only that they might have such fidelity to the Gospel, such certainty in God’s love, that a half-century from now, they’ll know they were right to leap.

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Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

I learned about writing reminders on the mirror from Crash - who started writing his list there when he started high school. On the long retreat, I wrote my schedule on the mirror in my room - principally the graces sought in the exercises of the day.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard and Times on 17 September 2009.

Pray without ceasing. — 1 Th. 5:17


The reminder taped to the kitchen door read “cake.” My lunch? Hung on the doorknob. The phone rings. Can Victor bring Chris his trombone at the bus stop? He forgot. Mike plops onto a chair in my study, “Did you remember to put money in my lunch account?”

With four of us starting back to classes at three different schools, lists and notes are tacked everywhere from the back door to the bathroom mirror. Until it all becomes routine, I need the prompts. Case in point, the bright yellow sticky note on my binder notwithstanding, I arrived at my class today to find I left the problem set for my class behind in my office.

Maybe the unfamiliarity with the routine life of a Christian community is what impelled Paul, Silvanus and Timothy to end their letter to the newly formed Church at Thessalonica with their version of a to-do list for the community: Be at peace. Care for the weak. Be patient with everyone. Pray constantly.

Maybe I should tape this list to the door? Paul’s rapid-fire words of advice — a style scripture scholar Calvin Roetzel colorfully dubbed “shotgun parenesis” — seem to fit my life these days. Short and to the point, I don’t need the details right now, just the reminder. For all things give thanks to God. Hold onto what is good.

As the pace of life picks up, I need to cultivate patience, peace and unceasing prayer more than ever. But what will it take for me to remember to pray, not off and on throughout my day but as Paul advises, incessantly? Somehow I think sticky notes will not do the trick.

Maybe it would just take a small reminder? Benedictine monk Bede Thomas Mudge says of his experience of wearing his prayer beads, “The feeling of having the beads on my wrist is an almost constant reminder to prayer.” Brother Bede also writes about what happens when he forgets to put his beads on one day, realizing that their absence prodded him to pray just as effectively.

Or maybe what I need is the absence of a reminder in a life overflowing with them? Perhaps when I feel most frazzled, when I long the most for patience and peace, conceivably that longing itself, like Brother Bede’s absentee beads, is my prompt for prayer.

The anonymous 14th century English author of a classic guide to the mystical life, “The Cloud of Unknowing,” had this advice about prayer: “Let your longing relentlessly beat upon the cloud of unknowing that lies between you and your God.” So it could be that my relentless longing for peace is an incessant prayer to God. But to be sure, I scribbled a note on my mirror. Prayer, patience, peace.

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Blessed be your name, O Lord, you are the fount and source of every blessing, and you look with delight upon the devout practices of the faithful. Draw near, we pray, to these your servants and, as they use this symbol of their faith and devotion, grant that they may also strive to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you for ever and ever. Amen. — Prayer of Blessing of religious articles