What then are its Boundaries

"If ... this sacrificial and self-giving love stands at the center of the Church's life, what then are its boundaries, its limits? In this sense one can speak of the whole of Christianity as of an eternal offering of a Divine Liturgy beyond church walls.   It means that we must offer the bloodless sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-offering love not only in a specific place, on the one altar of only one temple but that the whole world, in this sense, becomes the one altar of the one Temple - and that we must offer our hearts under the species of bread and wine, so that they may be transformed into Christ's love, that he may abide in them, that they may become hearts of Godmanhood, and that he would give these hearts of ours as food for the world, that he would commune the whole world with these sacrificed hearts of ours, in order that we would be one with him, that we not live but Christ would live in us, incarnate in our flesh ... "  - Mother Maria of Ravensbruk


It is clear from the words here that this is a central theme and or a core value of Mother Maria.  If our saint would have written up her own strategic plan, best practices, or even job description this statement would have been echoed all through out.


It is not that it is original.  She surely takes this from the themes of Jesus on caring for the "other" and the self-emptying lowliness of the lovers of God.  But, what is so substantial in this statement of hers is that she embodies it in her life and with her words, feelings and thoughts.  When any of us as individuals begins to wrestle with this notion that we are to be eucharist for the world, as He is Eucharist for the world, then we are on the royal road or the right path.


When we can say: "I must be broken for the life of the world", then we have entered the kingdom.  When we realize that the prize of attaining the kingdom is the marks of the wounds of Jesus, then we get it.


The Temple is everywhere because it is within.  The altar is everywhere because it is within.  "Lift up your hearts....  Let us give thanks to the LORD our God...."  Empty yourself of yourself so that you may be filled with the FULLNESS of Jesus - be broken and poured out.


How will you serve today?


Ciao!


+Tom

Truer than You Suspected

The mindset behind caring for those in prison, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the outcast is all about removing some image or stigma that sees the individual self (ego) as either different, better, or removed from the other.  Perhaps why the mystic communities throughout time have been also hotbeds for social action is because in the falling away of the small self in contemplative prayer there comes an awakening of the knowledge that we are all just ONE.  There is no division between the masses.

In the awakened heart there is room for the OTHER - no matter who it is - because the awakened heart is itself the universe.  The Buddhists have this sense of spirituality that recognizes that the Buddhas cannot seek salvation for themselves alone.  The seeking of salvation must involve the resolution of all humankind, the enlightenment of all.  Wesley tasted the vision and said: "all the world is my parish."

Caring for the "least of these" is not just a simple, bare-bones command of Jesus.  It is an ontological presupposition that the individual is inextricably bound to the corporate.  I cannot be truly fed unless my neighbor is also fed.  I cannot be truly clothed, unless my neighbor is clothed.  I cannot be truly "un-alone" until my neighbor is "un-alone".

The dropping of the single self in contemplative prayer is about the inherent cohesiveness of the universe.  Our simple acts of mercy only uncover what is already true.

"Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer; where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all."  - Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Ciao!

+Tom

Mother Maria - an inspiration to GIVE

I remember stumbling on Mother Maria of Paris back in 1986.  I saw a copy of Pearl of Great Price in the seminary bookstore and picked it up.  I was not prepared for the intensity of her life.

She balanced a spiritual life with a life of art and a life of social action.  This appealed to me as it held all of the components that I valued in my own life.  I loved to write.  I was devout in my spiritual struggle as a sinner, and I felt called to collecting truck loads of food for inner city homeless folks in Philadelphia.

I started a little venture then known as Orthodox Action in memory and honor of Mother Maria - not yet a saint.  I visited the city once a week with food I collected from local bakeries, restaurants, donut shops, churches, and grocery stores.  What I remember was the great eagerness with which people gave.

They really were happy to see these things go to someone who could use them.  All of my stops started collecting clothing, too.  Soon I had to get the help of my step-dad to deliver.  He would also go in town once a week.  Others would help as we needed.

I remember the awkwardness and the fear the first few visits.  But, after becoming known to the men and women of the streets, a community developed around the work.  This actually became an encouragement for me to realize that things build up their own momentum and take care of themselves.

Giving is a part of our lives.  When we stop being able to give we lose a whole portion of our lives and our identities.  Find some folks around you, collect some food and clothing from them, and take it all into a shelter, or children's home.  You'd be surprised how wholesome it feels and how much it clears out the garbage in your heart.

Ciao!

+Tom

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Poverty of SPIRIT

"For many perhaps, the promise of the Beatitude of the Poor in Spirit seems  incomprehensible. It seems incomprehensible, what is to be understood by the expression, -- poverty of spirit. Certain of the fanatical regard it, that this is an impoverishing of spirit, a freeing it from every thought, lest there be asserted the sinfulness from any thought, of any intellectual life. Others, unreceptive to such an explanation, regard the word "spirit" as an added interpolation not included in the original Gospel text." - Mother Maria of Paris


What if it was just as simple as becoming more simple.  What if poverty of spirit just meant to look at everything with a sense of simplicity and an eye toward simplification.  


Not some standard measure of how much is too much, just simply always being about the task of simplifying.  That is goods, emotions, attitude, projects, knowledge, wisdom, the whole shootin' match.


Tis a gift to be simple.


Ciao!


+Tom

Mother of God

"It can be directly asserted, that an authentic and religious attitude towards man in all its extent, with all the particular and personal details, reveals itself only then ultimately, when it is sanctified by the path of the Mother of God, set in accord with Her footsteps. It is in light of Her. 

And herein is the very chief thing -- to have a sympathetic sense, of what the Golgotha of the Son was for His Mother.

He undergoes the voluntary sufferings on the Cross, -- She involuntarily co-suffers with Him. He bears the sins of the world, -- She co-works with Him. She co-participates, She co-feels, co-suffers, His flesh is crucified, -- She is co-crucified."  - Mother Maria of Ravensbruk

There tends to be a division in the Church Universal over the place of Mary.  Mother Maria starts at common ground for all of the Churches within the Universal Church.  We can all agree on this point: As the Mother of Christ our God, Mary bore suffering with Him. If only in attending His life and death, she bore all of the stress and strain any mother bears when her child grows and suffers.

This beginning place is essential.  Another place to land on common ground with the Virgin is in her role as Theotokos.  Theotokos means God-Bearer.  She is the God-Bearer; and as she bore God in her womb, we are to bear God in our hearts/lives.  We are all called to be God-Bearers - Christ-Bearers.

Both of these strains of Mariology have always produce a deep and abiding compassion.  To understand the suffering of a Mother and to bear God in our lives always softens people.  It makes people tender.  These are both great places to begin understanding who Mary is in the life of the Church.

Ciao!

+Tom

Again with the Suffering

"In Christianity, the attitude towards suffering and death is quite basic and definitive.  Suffering is the result of sin. And death likewise is the result of sin. Outside of sin, death would be a transfiguration. Man bears the result of sin, -- and by necessity the result of suffering. It is impossible even to say, that God punishes man by suffering, but rather evil itself punishes through some irreversible law of its inner logic. In an epistle  of the Apostle Paul this is thus expressed: "Just as God Himself is not tempted by evil, so also He tempts no one". And together with this: "Blessed is the man, undergoing  emptation". - Mother Maria of Paris

Mother talks about the basic and generic rip in the fabric; crack in the cosmic egg.  Suffering.  Suffering exists because of sin and evil.  It is not God punishing.  It is EVIL punishing.

This changes a lot of peoples' cosmology.  If God is not pointing His Divine Finger at us and zapping us, how do we then "Divinize our Suffering"?  How do we "redeem" suffering in our lives?

I believe the first step in making our suffering holy is to acknowledge we do suffer.  And, second - much like the Buddha's antidote - the suffering we experience is because of our physicalness.  We suffer because in our physical state we desire.  Our desires cause us to attach.  When the attachments break - as they inevitably will (Death) - we suffer.

Our sin brought death into the equation and it is precisely this feature which is the backdrop of all suffering.  Death.  Evil.  Sin.  Brokenness.  And, these things do not really need to become fearfully black and insidious. They just represent a rip in the fabric; a crack in the cosmic egg.

Part of the antidote of suffering comes from the knowledge layed out above.  With this knowledge we move our understanding of suffering to a new level and it loses its power; loses its sting.

Suffering is inherent in a broken, ripped, and cracked world.  It is not because God selects us and fires away at us.  Recognizing the nature of suffering is part of the antidote.  Detaching from desires that lead to suffering is another part of the antidote.

Ciao!

+Tom

Broken Open

There have been a few BREAKTHROUGH moments in caring for the poor, the sick, and the dying that have changed me.  One of them was caring for my first hospice patient.  I had never experienced the process of dying - up close and over an extended period of time.  This first patient was alert and oriented when I began my pastoral visits with him.  As time went on, he weakened and became a wisp of a man - thin as dandelion stems.

People did not visit him - except his sister.  He had AIDS.  I remember the isolation.  All sorts of signs, precautions, and instructions were taped up outside his hospital door.  The staff would not allow you in unless you suited up.  By the time I had finished garbing, I felt like an Apollo Astronaut on some terrestrial mission.  The distance that this "professional safety suit" put between me and this dying person, this fellow human, was shattering.

It reminded me of the scene in Franco Zeffirelli's BROTHER SON SISTER MOON when Francesco sees himself in the mirror.  He is all clad in his huge and impressive armor.  The sons of Assisi are heading of to the crusades to fight the infidel - the OTHER.  Upon catching a glimpse of himself he whispers, "This mask is my death mask".

The horror and recognition in his voice and on his face was what I felt in my heart.  I could not believe how empty it felt to walk into the room and try to "BE" with this dying soul.  There was so much latex, paper, and plastic covering me, I wondered if my presence was even palpable.

The other moment of revelation and BROKEN-OPENNESS came when I was feeding a crowd of homeless men and women one Easter Sunday morning.  Glinda and I had loaded up our pick up with huge urns of coffee, boxes of donated pastries, bread, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and hardboiled easter eggs.

We drove to several stops in Philadelphia that I knew of from my weekly stops with bread.  There were spots where families lived, women stayed, and men congregated.  On our way to deliver the leftovers to the St. John's Hospice (a friend  worked here - he is an Orthodox Priest and brother in the Order of Saint Basil Major) a huge crowd of homeless saw the white Nissan and shouted: "There is that bread guy".

They all ran at full-speed toward the truck.  Looking at this ocean of people charging the truck - through my rear view mirror - was harrowing.  They were dirty, unkempt, loud, hungry and when they got up close - very smelly.  None of this was new.  What was new was, this mob was out of control.

I recognized a few faces in the crowd.  The sea of people became an ocean of unruly arms and faces pushing and reaching into the trucking, grabbing and pulling at food.  Then it happened.

One of the men - a huge guy - jumped into the bed of the truck and raised a bat over his head.  He said: "you better knock it off and line up, or your gonna get this."  It stopped.  Instantly.  He stayed up on the back of that truck, while we passed out food and drink and offered a simple, "Christ is Risen" to each man and woman there.  I could not thank him enough for showing us the deep compassion he did that day.  He was me, at a different place and time.

These incidents cut me in half.  Both of them.  They reminded me of the connectedness we share.  We are really no different from each other.  There are some veils and costumes we allow ourselves to wear to keep us safe.  Get rid of them and our hearts all cry out for love, community, and safety.  They cry out for God.

Ciao!

+Tom

Feeding the Poor

I remember a number of years ago I read through the debate a group of friends was having about how the poor should spend their welfare checks.  The discussion went on and on and on.  One group of folks believed they should spend money on one thing.  Of course the other group disagreed and felt the money would be put to its best use if they bought something else.

As I recall - it has been a few years - the discussion drilled down into the fine minutia.  There was even a list of items that should be allowed and should not be allowed.  Things like cigarettes, steaks and alcohol made the "not allowed list."

I suppose that there should be some list somewhere - perhaps in the guidelines for welfare recipients - but the group that was discussing all of this was a group of folks who believed in social action.  It was a group of Christians who believed themselves avant-guard activists.  It was a group of people who held the value of feeding the poor, but very few of them had ever stood on the street with a box of lunches in their arms to hand out to the poor.

These days there is a lot of verbal banter about taking care of the poor.  There always has been.  Banter is just that.  Usually the folks steeped in banter are not steeped in practice.

Standing on the streets and handing out meals to the homeless can only open your heart to the fact that there is no simple answer.  The poor will always be here.  The call of Jesus is not to eradicate poverty from the face of the earth.  The call of Jesus to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the imprisoned is meant to change us.

When we meet the hunger of another persons soul, we are changed.  We somehow stare into the hunger of our own soul.  Most often, the response in this situation is SILENCE.  We are moved to an active stillness in these situations.

This active stillness does not judge, cannot judge.  This active stillness does not make rules, or guidelines.  This active stillness opens to the other in a self emptying way.  This active stillness becomes one with the other.  And, for a moment.  No one is hungry.  All are filled.

Ciao!

+Tom

Kenosis - Emptying, Emptying, Empty

"Christ did not know measure in His love for people, -- and in this love He lowered Himself in His Divinity to the point of being incarnated as Man and took upon Himself the sufferings of all. In this sense He teaches us by His example not of a measured limit in love, but rather an absolute and immeasurable surrendering away of oneself, by definition a laying down of one's soul for others." - Mother Maria of Paris

The remarkable nature of this kind of love is that it does not measure others, measure results, measure change, or consider a sense of "better or worse".  It also removes itself from the equation.  It empties itself of any desire to attain, or any need, and it empties itself of any form of acknowledgement.

This is way beyond me.  An immense call from the God-man and from Mother Maria.

Ciao!

+Tom

For the Life of the World

"But if at the center of the Church’s life there is this sacrificial, self-giving Eucharistic love, then where are the Church’s boundaries, where is the periphery of this center? Here it is possible to speak of the whole of Christianity as an eternal offering of the Divine Liturgy beyond church walls. What does this mean?

"It means that we must offer the bloodless sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-surrendering love not only in a specific place, upon the altar of a particular temple; the whole world becomes the single altar of a single temple, and for this universal Liturgy we must offer our hearts, like bread and wine, in order that they may be transubstantiated into Christ’s love, that he may be born in them, that they may become “Godmanhood” hearts, and that he may give these hearts of ours as food for the world, that he may bring the whole world into communion with these hearts of ours that have been offered up, so that in this way we may be one with him, not so that we should live anew but so that Christ should live in us, becoming incarnate in our flesh, offering our flesh upon the Cross of Golgotha, resurrecting our flesh, offering it as a sacrifice of love for the sins of the world, receiving it from us as a sacrifice of love to himself.

"Then truly in all ways Christ will be in all."  - Mother Maria Skobtsova: Essential Writings, p. 185.

The Asceticism of the Open Door

The Asceticism of the Open Door

 by Mother Maria Skobtsova

This is an extract from an essay, “The Second Gospel Commandment,” in Mother Maria Skobtsova: Essential Writings, published by Orbis. The book’s editor is Helene Klepinin Arjakovsky, daughter of Fr. Dmitri Klepinin, co-worker with Mother Maria, who died, as she did, in a concentration camp. The translation is by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

“The sign of those who have reached perfection is this: if ten times a day they are given over to be burned for the love of their neighbor, they will not be satisfied with that, as Moses, and the ardent Paul, and the other disciples showed. God gave His Son over to death on the Cross out of love for His creature. And if He had had something more precious, he would have given it to us, in order thereby to gain humankind. Imitating this, all the saints, in striving for perfection, long to be like God in perfect love for their neighbor.”

“No man dares to say of his love for his neighbor that he succeeds in it in his soul, if he abandons the part that he fulfills bodily, as well as he can, and in conformity with time and place. For only this fulfillment certifies that a man has perfect love in him. And when we are faithful and true in it as far as possible, then the soul is given power, in simple and incomparable notions, to attain to the great region of lofty and divine contemplation.” - S. Isaac the Syrian

These words from St. Isaac the Syrian, both from the Philokalia, justify not only active Christianity, but the possibility of attaining to “lofty and divine contemplation” through the love of one’s neighbor — not merely an abstract, but necessarily the most concrete, practical love. Here is the whole key to the mystery of human relations as a religious path.

For me these are truly fiery words. Unfortunately, in the area of applying these principles to life, in the area of practical and ascetic behavior toward man, we have much less material than in the area of man’s attitude toward God and toward himself. Yet the need to find some precise and correct ways, and not to wander, being guided only by one’s own sentimental moods, the need to know the limits of this area of human relations — all this is very strongly felt. In the end, since we have certain basic instructions, perhaps it will not be so difficult to apply them to various areas of human relations, at first only as a sort of schema, an approximate listing of what is involved.

Let us try to find the main landmarks for this schema in the triune makeup of the human being — body, soul, and spirit. In the area of our serving each of these main principles, ascetic demands and instructions emerge of themselves, the fulfillment of which, on the one hand, is unavoidable in order to reach the goal, and, on the other hand, is beyond one’s strength.

It seems right to me to draw a line here between one’s attitude toward oneself and one’s attitude toward others. The rule of not doing to others what you do not want done to yourself is hardly applicable in asceticism. Asceticism goes much further and sets much stricter demands on oneself than on one’s neighbors.
In the area of the relation to one’s physical world, asceticism demands two things of us: work and abstinence.

Work is not only an unavoidable evil, the curse of Adam; it is also a participation in the work of divine economy; it can be transfigured and sanctified. It is also wrong to understand work only as working with one’s hands, a menial task; it calls for responsibility, inspiration, and love. It should always be work in the fields of the Lord.

Work stands at the center of modern ascetic endeavor in the area of man’s relation to his physical existence. Abstinence is as unavoidable as work. But its significance is to some degree secondary, because it is needed mainly in order to free one’s attention for more valuable things than those from which one abstains. One can introduce some unsuitable passion into abstinence — and that is wrong. A person should abstain and at the same time not notice his abstinence.

A person should have a more attentive attitude toward his brother’s flesh than his own. Christian love teaches us to give our brother not only material but spiritual gifts. We must give him our last shirt and our last crust of bread. Here personal charity is as necessary and justified as the broadest social work. In this sense there is no doubt that the Christian is called to social work. He is called to organize a better life for the workers, to provide for the old, to build hospitals, care for children, fight against exploitation, injustice, want, lawlessness.

In principle the value is completely the same, whether he does it on an individual or a social level; what matters is that his social work be based on love for his neighbor and not have any latent career or material purposes. For the rest it is always justified — from personal aid to working on a national scale, from concrete attention to an individual person to an understanding of abstract systems of the right organization of social life. The love of man demands one thing from us in this area: ascetic ministry to his material needs, attentive and responsible work, a sober and unsentimental awareness of our strength and of its true usefulness.

The ascetic rules here are simple and perhaps do not leave any particular room for mystical inspiration, often being limited merely to everyday work and responsibility. But there is great strength and great truth in them, based on the words of the Gospel about the Last Judgment, when Christ says to those who stand on His right hand that they visited Him in prison, and in the hospital, fed Him when He was hungry, clothed Him when He was naked. He will say this to those who did it either on an individual or on a social level.

Thus, in the dull, laborious, often humdrum ascetic rules concerning our attitude toward the material needs of our neighbor, there already lies the pledge of a possible relation to God, their spirit-bearing nature.

reprinted from: http://incommunion.org/?p=88
see also:  http://incommunion.org/?page_id=868

Free Path to Golgotha

"The free path to Golgotha -- herein is in what consists the genuine imitation of Christ."  - Mother Maria of Paris

Not a lot of folks jump at this wonderful opportunity to emulate Jesus.  But, Mother Maria makes it clear.  The free path to genuine imitation of Jesus is to die.  Die to all that it is that feeds the ego.  Die to all that makes us better than everyone else.  Die to all that divides us from the poor and the downtrodden.

No easy call, but the call of the Savior.

We "must become less and less, He must become more and more." - Saint John the Forerunner

Non-Acquisitiveness of the Spiritual Life

"The vow of non-acquisitiveness can be and ought to be broadened also into the spiritual sphere, and the man giving it, were he to renounce spiritual acquisitiveness, would give him spiritual poverty, for which is promised blessedness. But what is such a spiritual non-acquisitiveness?" - Mother Maria of Paris

I think of the writings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche when I read this.  In particular his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.  It was his attempt to attack the pride of trying to become better than others...the pride of the hungry ego.

This is a wonderful challenge for us to review.  Sometimes we allow the avarice of the human spirit to go unbridled and unchecked if we feel it is for a holy purpose.  But the fathers and mothers of the desert were clear that this sense of spiritual aggressiveness was the ego hiding behind piety.  It was false piety.

Does this mean that all zeal is unholy?  No, it is a wonderful reminder to us that there is no hiding behind spirituality.  We are to abide in God.  There can be no greed in our piety.  If we are greedy to become more spiritual, then we have missed the point.  The energy of greed, the power of avarice is lurking around even spiritual undertakings and the call to sobriety and balance is present all throughout our spiritual journey.  Not just when we are neophytes.

Poverty of spirit is the mark of the saint.  Humility shines forth from a heart that is simple.

Is your spiritual life an avarice conglomeration of acquisitiveness?  Mine often is.

Renounce All to Gain Everything

"If we responsibly and seriously resolve to fulfill the Gospel truth, upon which hangs in balance our human soul, then we ought to be done with doubts, as we go forth in each partial aspect of our life: we ought to renounce everything that we possess, to take up our cross and follow after Him" - Mother Maria of Paris

The title of today's blog is a quote from Evagrios the Solitaire.  It lines up nicely with the quote Mother Maria echoes from Jesus' very lips.

This renouncing all has plagued Christians and Christianity since it fell out of our Savior's mouth.  And, I am pretty sure that it was meant to do just that.

Approaching the Gospels without being stirred up seems to be an oxymoron.  We are meant to be challenged and offended, I believe.  It is meant to rile us up to the point of change.

Saint Jerome - and other desert fathers and mothers - wrestled with this notion of giving up everything to the point of literally giving up everything.  I believe Saint Jerome's line goes something like this, "I gave up everything I owned - even the book that told me to give up everything I own."  A myriad of other Saints throughout the ages have likewise been attributed with uttering these very words.

Central.

It is a central issue of the Gospels.

Wrestle with it forever.

To those who would yell and scream from the opposite shores that "this smells too much like someone who is trying to earn his/her salvation by renunciation", I leave the words of the man who did give up all:

"The only soul who can claim that grace is a FREE gift of God is the soul who has given up everything to follow after Christ."  Dietrich Bonhoffer,  The Cost of Discipleship

Laying Down Our Life for Another

"We know, that Christ taught us to lay down our soul for another,  -- herein this laying down of soul, this surrendering away of it is also that, which makes man poor in spirit." - Mother Maria of Paris

Mother taught us to follow the command of Christ by laying down our life for others.  She told us this would enable us to fulfill yet another command, to be poor of spirit.

Instead, we often find ourselves in the position of passing judgment on others.  It is easier to condemn others than to lay down your own life for them.

Think of the countless souls who lean over to each other and whisper when a beggar enters their church.  Or what about when an African-American, Asian, Indian, or Hispanic person comes to pray.  How many church members have something to say about anyone who is different than them?  And I don't mean something nice to say.

I am saddened that the world is filled with folks who only look at skin.  I am saddened that so many refuse to look into the heart of differences and discover the beauty of dappled diversity.

Many people have scars that keep them from being able to look deeper.  These scars can be healed.  Many do not have scars and are just living on the fuel of mass fear and hysteria.  This is just plain wrong.

I think that church leaders need to really take a firm stand to eradicate prejudice and "isms" from churches. When will a prophetic figure arise and throw people out of churches - people who take this most fundamental "human" principal (namely the equality of ALL God's children) and use it as a device of division?

When will that happen? When will someone stand tall and say things that upset the-old-white-guard in christianity?

We have seen a lot of chaos in our own lives that disturbs me to my core. First, when we cared for babies with AIDs. Next in the mixing of "races" in our family and home. People have said and done things that hurt us - because we opened our lives to others.

Christians should be paving the way for the rest of the world to follow. Instead, old men and women of "faith" continue to sit in the back rows and pews whispering about any form of difference that walks into their congregations. Let's get riled up.

This is not acceptable.  This is not CHURCH.


We are called to lay down our lives for another, not to lay down their lives for us.

Suffering

"God does not only not punish by suffering, He even ameliorates the power of suffering by His mercy. And the utmost manifestation of Divine mercy -- is the voluntary sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world."  - Mother Maria of Paris

The notions of blessing and punishment can tell us a lot about a person.  Many believe that when one is "doing well" and is "successful" that the face of God is shining upon them.  Conversely, when people are "doing poorly" and "failing" that the face of God is not shining upon them.

This belief is so shallow that it fails to make a simple a direct connection to Jesus himself.  Jesus was beaten, ridiculed, and killed by the people of his day - from within his own faith and also by those outside of it.  This would mean that he "clearly was not in God's favor" if we believed that "doing well" was a sign of God's favor.

Mother Maria helps us edge a bit closer to a more integrated understanding of suffering in our lives.  She challenges us to dig deeper into our understanding of suffering.  Look past a simplistic answer.

This is from a woman who saw suffering all around her.  Mother got people out of the ghettos of the Nazi regime by putting them in trashcans.  Smuggled outside of the walls in a trash truck, these children of God were able to escape to freedom.  She herself was put to death in Ravensbruk for her "crimes" against the state.

Nazi Germany and the "final solution" itself should also challenge us to look deeper into the meaning of suffering.  The Jews, the Children of God, were put to death for being the children of God.  Can we look at this and apply some simple formula to why people suffer?  I can't.

The issue of suffering is deep and complex.  A portion of the dilemma seems to be that suffering itself is something that we must come to terms with.  Finding an answer to the question of why we suffer is somehow a very important part of what it means to be human.

What seems to mark people as "integrated individuals", or "actualized", or "saints" is an ability to help people in their suffering (and out of their suffering) while still continuing the struggle to find meaning in suffering.  Wrestling with the notions of suffering, we can still seek to put an end to human suffering.  Mother Maria was all about that.

She saw that sacrifice was wrapped up in the process of putting an end to suffering.  Not only Christ's sacrifice, but her's as well.

Gifts the Dying and the Poor May Give

"These rags -- are the rot-corruptible riches of he kingdom of this world. Giving them away, giving oneself away wholly, laying down one's soul, a man renders himself poor in spirit, which is blessed, since then his is the Kingdom of Heaven, in accord with the promise of the Savior, since that he therein is become a possessor of the incorruptible and eternal riches of this Kingdom, and is become so already here on earth, finding joy beyond measure, the giving away of self with a sacrificial love, with the ease and freedom of non-acquisitiveness."      - Mother Maria of Paris

I began this blog because I had an image cross my heart and mind.  The image was of how bereft the dying feel in the inability to give to others at Christmas.

While getting ready to write a new hospice article, it became apparent to me that one of the things we are robbed of in our weakening state approaching death is getting around and do the things we might normally do.  This being the Christmas/Hanukkah holiday season, my mind naturally bent toward the holidays.  Dying people are often so weak that they cannot go out and do the "shopping" required for giving gifts at the holidays.

This thought and impression ran its course and turned into another thought: "that the poor are also robbed of the ability to give, by virtue of their poverty."  And then, I ran across the quotes in Mother Maria on poverty of spirit.

It is true that a viable component to our religious and christian outlook is the ability to give away.  It is of course the central theme in the Gospels.  We are to give away what we are, have, and desire.  All for the sake of Christ.

Think about it, though.  What immense value you have gained in being able to give.  How have you felt filled in your emptying of your self for others.  You give to the poor, to the homeless, to the imprisoned.  You feel full at fulfilling a critical command.

What happens to you when you become poor and can no longer find the means to give - only survive.  Or are lying on your death bed and can no longer give - only survive.  A vital portion of our soul dies when we cannot give.

Can we not discover ways for the poor and the dying to give?  Can we not stretch ourselves beyond ourselves and find ways for the disenfranchised to connect to a simple core value of human fullness - the ability to give to another.

Find ways for the poor and the dying to give.  Find ways for others to connect to the feeling of fullness in the emptying nature of humility and grace.  Surely, it is easy for us to fulfill these calls to self-emptying for ourselves.  Can we look so far beyond our own reality to seek ways to help others fulfill the call to perfection?

Hoarding

"And it is not Christ, but an ideal external to Christianity, that tells us about the hoarding of inward and outward riches. We know, to what this ideal leads, we know the egoism and egocentrism reigning in the world, we know, how concentrated upon themselves people are, on their own peace of soul, on their own manifold interests. We know only too well. The guarding of one's own spiritual world, the closing shut of our eyes leads to this, that people as it were poison themselves, they begin to rot, they are bereft of joy, they become intolerant, they fall listless. In a most paradoxical way, they beggar themselves from out of the process of watching out for themselves, since they degenerate into an eternal self-loving and self-attention. The beggars, the poor, guard over their rags and they do not know, that the sole means is not only to guard them, but also to transform their rags into riches, -- this means to give them away with joy and love, to whomever has need of them."   - Mother Maria

There is no real romanticizing of the poor in Mother Maria's works.  The human condition is plain to her in the poor as it is in the moderately wealthy and the rich.  The condition is that we lean into and tend toward hoarding things, ideas, and emotions.  We stockpile things against a day when there will be nothing for us to gather.  It is the same old story as the Jews hoarding the manna in the wilderness.

The LORD clearly told them there would be enough for each days own needs.  They should not store the manna from one day to the next.  However, hoarding being so appealing, they did hoard the manna.  It molded and rotted.

The value that she extols - for the rich and poor alike - is GIVING AWAY.