Tag: Holy Spirit

The Long Road to Emmaus

Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. (Luke 24:13-16)
   It’s actually only a seven-mile walk, but sometimes I feel like I’ve been walking a road like this one for seven years or seventy years! In spite of knowing better, in spite of having heard all the facts and all the news, the good news, I still manage to walk along the long road of life at times deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid!
   I should know better, I really should, but feelings and distractions can sneak up on us and distract and even overwhelm us from time to time. Crazy, isn’t it? He’s ever walking with us, but we can be so caught up in our so many distractions and preoccupations that we barely notice, we forget what we should know better, and we wonder where He is.
   He’s with you, Dummy! Open your eyes and ears and heart—and really see!
   I remember a popular romantic song of Dinah Shore in 1944, “I’ll Walk Alone”, especially the verse, “…to tell you the truth, I’ll be lonely…”
   Walking along the road of life, we are never walking alone, although we may feel like we are. The Lord is always with us whether we remember it or not!
   How can that be? Never mind, you don’t have to know how or why; you just have to remember and know that it’s true!
   Faith isn’t fantasy or make believe—it’s truth, even though it may seem hard to believe and can be hard to keep in mind and follow. It’s trusting what has been handed down and entrusted to us—even though it may seem to be naiveté to some others.

   “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” is the title of 1964 book and a 1977 movie based on it. That would make good title for a story about each us as we travel along the long road of our lives.
   A rose garden sounds like a very promising destination, even though the beautiful flowers are surrounded by thorns! In a way that’s what makes the simile so accurate—there are obstacles and thorns along the way of everyone’s life.
   Each of our roads has its challenges and difficulties, and the way is often hard, even painful. But, it’s worth it, even worth dying for it.
   Remember, Jesus taught the crowd and his disciples:
   Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mark 8:34-37)
   To succeed in anything requires dedication, practice, and hard work. Think of making the team in school, getting a degree from college, winning a medal in the Olympics, making a lot of money in a job, being elected to high office—whatever the achievement, it has its costs and its sacrifices.
   No wonder that eternal life has its demands and costs, or that they may exceed any and every other price you have ever paid before.
   Remember, the Lord also said:
   This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12-14)




23 April 2023

Fool of a Tool

   “When did you arrive?”
   “I flew in yesterday.”
   No, you didn’t exactly fly in yesterday. You traveled on an airplane that arrived yesterday.
   If a bird could talk, it might well say, and exactly say, “I flew in yesterday.”
   If an elevator cab could talk, it might well say, “I carried five people up six floors.” But it didn’t actually. The elevator cab itself was lifted up six floors along with the five people in it.
   A pen in a museum might boast that “I signed the Declaration of Independence.” No, dear pen, you were but the tool in the hand of the person signing.
   A nail might claim credit for holding up the picture on the wall. But, actually it was driven into place with someone with a hammer. It has a function, but it needs to be empowered to function by the one hammering—and, of course, sustained by the wall, too.
   What right does the projector have to boast that “I entertained. I showed the movie”?
   Can the stove claim credit for cooking the dinner? Should the piano pride itself on the music you played on it?
   Is the family doctor the reason for the health of the family? Is the pastor the reason for the saint in his congregation? Should a president claim credit for the well-being of the country?
   One could go on and on with similar examples. The point is that having a role to play, large or small, is not the same as being responsible for the success or failure of the entire enterprise or construction.
   But, to be perfectly honest, that’s not what usually happens. Whether it’s delusion, vanity, outright deceit, or naïve ignorance, usually the leader claims credit for the victories and successes and attributes the failures to other people or things.

   It’s odd, we’re much more likely to say “The devil made me do it!” then “God made me do it”. Which, implicitly, is sort of attributing more power and influence over the course of our lives to the devil!
   Hell, no! That’s not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.
   Should the screw be claiming credit when it was the screwdriver that drove it in—or the screwdriver be claiming credit when it was worker who was wielding it? (Or the worker be claiming credit who really was empowered by God!)
   Shakespeare has Macbeth give a bleak sort of answer to this type of questions, more or less giving credit to none:
   Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
   That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
   And then is heard no more. It is a tale,
   Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
   Signifying nothing.”
   David, in Psalm 138, has a better, more true response:
   I thank you, Lord, with all my heart;
      in the presence of the angels to you I sing….
   Though I walk in the midst of dangers,
      you guard my life when my enemies rage.
   You stretch out your hand;
      your right hand saves me.
   The Lord is with me to the end.
      Lord, your mercy endures forever.
      Never forsake the work of your hands!
   Tools can’t claim all credit for what a higher power achieves, using them.
   Don’t be fool and forget that you’re a tool in the hands of God!


19 March 2023

Vatican II Pandemic

A key factor in the development of my life was Vatican Council II—not because of studying about it, but because I was there!
   No, I wasn’t a member of the council (that was for bishops only), and I wasn’t an appointed theological expert. But I did attend half the council—the second and third of the four annual sessions (1962-1965)—as an “assignator loci” (“usher” you could say; actually, a sort of staff attendant).
   It was held in St. Peter’s Basilica. Each tiered section of bishops had one priest assigned to assist them and do whatever needed to be done: distribute documents to the bishops; distribute blank voting cards (IBM punched cards) and collect them and bring to a central processing office in the basilica; deliver messages during the council sessions to the presiding officers of the council, even to the pope in his quarters.
   I also heard all the speeches during these working sessions of the Council, had copies of and studied all the working documents, and was fortunate to learn from the so many distinguished bishops and priests that shared their views in talks to us U.S. priest-students at our residence in Rome.
   Happily, I had arrived in Rome a week before the start of the Council to begin my studies for a doctorate in Canon Law.
   I was in Assisi when Pope John XXIII made an unprecedented trip there to pray at the tomb of St. Francis for the success of the Council just before it started.
   I was in St. Peter’s Basilica for the opening of the Council, a pontifical Mass, fortunately standing very near the main altar.
   An unforgettable and moving thing for me that day was to see Pope John, the celebrant of the Mass, kneeling down over the burial place of St. Peter to recite the Nicene Creed before the bishops of the world, professing his and their and the whole Church’s common faith: Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentum . . .

   Some commentators describe the Council as contentious, but this was not my experience. Overwhelmingly the Council was a spiritual event for all concerned.
   Every morning I saw bishops kneeling on the cold marble floor of the transept of the basilica in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in preparation for the day’s work.
   Every daily session began with a Liturgy at a modest altar table in the central aisle of the basilica between the banks of seats on both sides; all the rites of the Church had their turn and some were surprising—for example, the Geez rite used drums and dance!
   During my three years in Rome, although the Council was in session only for a few months each Fall, it dominated church life.
   My assigned personal duty was to develop some expertise in the law of the Church, but the vitality and excitement of my life in Rome was the amazing and wonderful experience of the Council.
   What a sad surprise it was, back in New York during the final session of the Council, to discover that most people there didn’t realize what an astounding event in the life of the Church was taking place.
   In some small way I brought some of the Council spirit to my work in the Chancery Office. Many evenings and weekends I would visit convents in the diocese to talk to women religious who were eager to learn about the Council and the new perspectives it was bringing to their lives.
   Priests in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where I lived, were also glad to know more of the Council and its teachings.
   I was severely infected by Vatican II. For the past 60 years I keep trying to remain contagious!


23 October 2022

Preaching the Gospel

What is it, exactly, that a priest or deacon does or should be doing at Mass after the reading of the Gospel?
   Traditionally, we call it “preaching”, meaning  1. the act or practice of a person who preaches.  2. the art of delivering sermons.  3. a sermon.
   But this is kind of circular, since “sermon” is defined as  1. a discourse for the purpose of religious instruction or exhortation, especially one based on a text of Scripture and delivered by a member of the clergy as part of a religious service.  2. Any serious speech, discourse, or exhortation, especially on a moral issue.  3. a long, tedious speech.
   Religious instruction implies “teaching”, usually defined as 1. to impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in.  2. To impart knowledge or skill to; give instruction to.
   I suppose that there often is an element of teaching in what is communicated after the Gospel, but Mass shouldn’t be the main place and time  for teaching religion or scripture. However, stimulating reflection about the meaning and implications of well-known religious teachings may be useful or appropriate.
   Exhortation is  1. the act or process of exhorting.  2. An utterance, discourse, or address conveying urgent advice or recommendations. Advising or recommending a course of action to someone makes sense and may be helpful, so long as it avoids becoming doctrinaire, partisan, or divisive.
   Years ago, in seminary days, we had a minor course in public speaking and homiletics. It had some excellent advice about how to communicate effectively and to organize a sermon or address.
   I still remember what one of our (lay) professors called “The Magic Formula”. It consisted of four key components: Ho Hum, Why Bring That Up, For Instance, and So What.

   Ho Hum: you need to capture the attention of your listeners, usually by something unexpected but interesting.
   Why Bring That Up: you need to establish a personal connection between your listeners and the topic at hand, illustrating why it is important for them.
   For Instance: practical examples, appropriate to the situation of your listeners, are needed to stimulate remembrance of what they already may know and/or critical thinking about it.
   So What: the reason for having a sermon or homily is motivation—to motivate the listeners to choose and implement a course of action, to do something, or to change their behavior.
   I must confess, after all these years, that this simple plan is still a personal checklist for me. Each of these four elements seems vital to a successful and effective sermon.
   But, there’s more to preaching than a formula at play; the real “magic” is the Holy Spirit influencing the life, action, and words of both the speaker and the listeners.
   There’s an odd word you could use to describe this: “ventriloquism”. Usually that’s defined as the art or practice of speaking with little or no lip movement, in such a manner that the voice does not appear to come from the speaker but from another source, as from a wooden dummy.
   In preaching, a sort of ventriloquism happens. But, it’s not the preacher who is the ventriloquist—the preacher is the wooden dummy! The words that come from the preacher’s mouth often are inspired by God and touch the mind and hearts of all those who listen—including the mind and heart of the preacher himself/herself!


5 December 2021

Listen to the Voice of the Lord

“I’m not Moses. I’m not Jesus. I’m not Mohammad. I’m not some special person who can hear the voice of God.”
Wrong! You know why? Did you notice you didn’t say “listen”, you said “hear”? Hear involves ear. Listen means more than that.
– You can listen with your whole body or some part of it. That’s probably the first thing you did when you were born. You felt things—being handled, pain, cold, warmth, contact, security—much later on you learned a word for the experience: “love”.
Love is still something that best communicates through one’s whole body even though we tend to use words to signal that we’re communicating it. (And, sometimes we only “say” it.)
– You can listen with your eyes. Often a component of a vacation is to spend time “seeing” things of great beauty. Whether a work of human artistry or divine, it needs no words to communicate, even to overwhelm us.
The challenge of our too busy lives is to make time to truly “see”, to contemplate, celebrate, wonder, delight, and give thanks for the beauty of the works of creation that ever surround us. (That includes people, of course.)
– You can listen with your nose. It’s part of the richness of our response to fragrance and bouquet, whether food or drink, flowers or fields, or the perfume of another.
– You can listen with your palate, so to speak: the contentment and delight of a taste of something directly a work of the creator or a further embellishment of it through human ingenuity.
It’s curious that when we really want to celebrate something good or great, when we have something that prompts our gratitude and gladness, we usually listen with all our faculties—and usually it involves a celebration with food and drink!
Thanksgiving day is a great example!

Does the Lord give voice in the usual sense of the term? Does he talk to us directly? Do we hear words? Does he speak?
Possibly, but not frequently or usually.
As we were just reflecting, there are myriad ways to “listen” to the voice of the Lord besides using our ears. But he can and does sometimes use words as well.
In the Bible, there are many incidents of encounters with a mysterious someone which turn out to be direct communications from the Lord. The one encountered is often described as an “angel” (from the Greek word for a “messenger”.)
They’re often considered to be, in effect, apparitions of God.
Usually we associate listening to the voice of the Lord with listening to the voice of others—prophets, apostles, evangelists, preachers, and others whom we consider reliable, god-fearing, and honest.
What is their experience like? How do they listen to the voice of the Lord? We can only presume that it’s something like ours. How do we
listen to the voice of the Lord?
The Lord does communicate with us, and at times in a more direct way then through the created world and other human beings. That’s what we mean by the action of the holy Spirit.
Often in ways hard to explain, there is a growing insight or conviction about something in our minds and hearts that we suspect is of God. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where our responses to others even surprise us. We may even speak words that we listen to ourselves.
We don’t always get it right, but at times we do hear the voice of the Lord. Ah, but, when we do, do we listen?


15 November 2020

Facing God

According to the book of Exodus, when Moses on Mt. Sinai asked to see the glory of God, he was told, “I will make all my goodness pass before you . . . But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)
Yet in the beautiful vision of the New Jerusalem described in the last chapter of the book of Revelation, it says, “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”(Revelation 22:3b-4)
In the sacred scriptures there are stories about encounters with messengers (angels) of God which are understood as communicating directly with God himself. For example:
– “The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre . . . he [Abraham] saw three men standing near him.” (Genesis 18:1-2)
– “Then a man wrestled with him [Jacob] until the break of dawn . . . Jacob named the place Peniel, ‘because I have seen God face to face’ . . .” (Genesis 32:25-31)
– “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him [Moses] as fire flaming out of a bush . . . God called out to him from the bush.” (Exodus 3:2-4)
– “While Joshua was near Jericho, he raised his eyes and saw one who stood facing him, drawn sword in hand . . . ‘I am the commander of the army of the Lord . . . Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy.’” (Joshua 5:13-15)
– “Philip said to him, ‘Master, show us the Father’ . . . Jesus said to him, . . . ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the father.’” (John 14:8-9)
The paradox is that there are many ways of our seeing God and yet the total vision, the total understanding of God is necessarily beyond our seeing.

When we see something of the cosmos, the whole universe, and all it contains—the sun, the moon, and the stars—we’re overwhelmed by the vastness, the power, the complexity, and the splendor of it all.
When we see the earth, the astounding diversity of all the living things that populate it—in the sea, on the land, and in the air—we’re overwhelmed also by the wonder, the variety, and the awful beauty of life.
In seeing creation, we’re seeing and learning a little of the creator—the source, the maker, the begetter of all that is.
For Jesus’ disciples, his life, his deeds, his teachings, his incredible display of love, his passion, his death, and his resurrection are a particular revelation of God and a pattern, a way of life, an icon of all that we human creatures are called to be.
In Christ Jesus, we’re seeing and learning much more of God who is revealed to us in a special way through him.
Through the outpouring of the divine power, vital force, and spirit into each of our lives we’re experiencing within ourselves—and in others—something more of what is necessarily always beyond our total understanding.
The one God, as actor in the drama of life, so to speak, plays many roles and has many guises (that’s the root sense of the word “person”). You could even say, shows many faces and self-reveals in myriad ways.
We celebrate three main ways especially: creation, Jesus, and the power within—God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Hey! Don’t forget this includes another way God self-reveals—others may be able to see something of God in you!

   7 June 2019

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Cor ad Cor Loquitur

St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, describes the coming of the Spirit primarily as a miracle of communication:
“And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” (Acts 2:4).
That would be astounding, since the apostles, the blessed Mother, and the others there were not linguists, Their native language was Aramaic, their ancient religious language was Hebrew, and perhaps they had a smattering of Greek since that was the “lingua franca” of their world.
But, as St. Luke adds, even more astounding was the fact that everybody who heard them speak heard them speak in their own particular language—and all this simultaneously!
It’s physically impossible to speak several languages simultaneously. But, the miracle was that each listener understood them as though they were speaking each one’s native language. They communicated effectively with everyone.
Communication is not merely a matter of the words themselves. It involves gestures, expressions, tone of voice, emotions. a kind of total projection of one person to another.
We can communicate without words at all! How often a hand movement, a smile, a tear, a touch, or an embrace speaks more than any word.
In case your Latin is not too good (or non-existent), the title above, an oft quoted expression, means, “Heart Speaks to Heart.”
The heart, of course, is the symbol of love, of the place where the fullness of love abides. And, love is the most powerful force in the world, the very essence of God.
With words or without words, but with love, we can powerfully communicate. Words may help, of course, but we can manage without them.

Often we tend to rely more on the head than on the heart, with verbal more than non-verbal communication.
We’re inundated with torrents of words most of the time. We’re constantly wrestling with their rightness or their wrongness, their truthfulness or falsity, and weighing their nuances.
But, the most powerful and effective communication is love—not speaking about love, not saying “love”, but loving!
It’s astounding—miraculous!—how powerfully you communicate when you really and truly love.
Love can involve wonder, thanksgiving, pleasure, satisfaction, and joy—it also can involve acceptance, endurance, patience, forgiveness, and even pain and sacrifice.
It takes courage and strength to love well. It can require sometime almost more than we’re capable of, almost superhuman strength! And Jesus is commanding us, his followers, to do it, to “Love one another as I have loved you!”
We can’t do it, it demands too much. True, sometimes it does, usually it does. To totally and completely love means to give of yourself and yours until there’s nothing left to give, including your life itself.
But, with the coming of the Spirit, with the infusion of divine presence, life, and love into our lives, with the help and grace of God empowering us, all things are possible.
The Pentecost experience wasn’t just for that small band of believers. It is repeated daily in your life and mine. The Spirit, the force, the strength of God’s love empowers you, too.
May your life always communicate love!


31 May 2020

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Metaphor  a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.

Without the salt of metaphors, speech and writing can be pretty bland. (This very phrase uses a metaphor.) What would great literature, poetry, Shakespeare be like without vivid and elegant metaphors? The very stuff of the Bible requires metaphors, for to speak of God is almost impossible without them.
And, here’s the rub: many of the biblical metaphors, and the religious discourse that uses them, no longer have the dynamism and clarity they had originally in their (different) culture and time.
Once they were striking to their hearers and stimulated a new way of thinking; for many of the hearers or readers of today they are archaic and have to be learned to be fully understood.
For example, the beautiful Letter to the Hebrews, so deeply rooted in Old Testament thought and practice, utilizes a fundamental and unusual metaphor: Jesus as the high priest of the new dispensation, forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
The letter overwhelmingly uses the notion of temple sacrifice—a familiar and important part of Jewish religious observance until the destruction of the Second Temple—to explain and give meaning to the horrible death of Jesus on the cross—Jesus as the priest-offeror and at the same time Jesus as the sacrificial victim.
It was a meaningful and evocative metaphor for the early Jewish disciples of Jesus as they wrestled with the scandalous death of the Messiah, but for other Jews and Gentiles, without the insight of the metaphor, Christ crucified defied belief.

The inscription-charge on the cross said, “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews”. Jesus’ followers saw profound meaning in the title (construing it metaphorically); his enemies were outraged by it (taking it literally).
Kings and queens still exist, and we’re used to history books and imaginative stories about them, but they’re no longer governing and ruling hereditary monarchs with great powers. So, even though the metaphor of king for Jesus is somewhat familiar, it still is of another era and needs interpretation to redeem its original force.
In Jewish and Christian tradition God is described with diverse other metaphors and images: e.g. warrior-leader, shepherd, cuckolded husband, maker, rock, father, redeemer, savior, judge, destroyer, eagle, vital force—as well as mighty fortress.
Some of our religious metaphors are transcultural and enduring, but many are dated and no longer so self-evident nor meaningful as they once were.
It’s like speaking with esoteric, technical, or archaic words—either the speaker explains them as part of the discourse or else fails to communicate effectively.
One of the challenges of contemporary evangelization is to find additional, new metaphors to communicate perennial truths more dynamically and effectively.
Regarding this, the first Star Wars movie is provocative: Luke Skywalker is taught about the Force by Obi-Wan Kenobi: “It is an energy field . . . It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” Luke has to learn not to use the Force but to allow the Force to use him.
A modern metaphor for the Holy Spirit?


7 April 2019

Surviving Vatican II

I don’t belong to any survivors’ network. In fact, I don’t even know if there is one that I can join. But, I am a survivor — a survivor of the Second Vatican Council.
By now, most of the people who attended the Second Vatican Council have gone on to their eternal reward. The council met annually from 1962 through 1965. Any bishop who attended the council would have to be now about 80 or older; any priests or lay experts would have to be now around 70 or older.
I had a very minor role in the council, as a kind of administrative assistant during the second (1963) and third (1964) sessions. It was a great privilege to be able to attend the daily plenary meetings in St. Peter’s Basilica, listen to all the speeches and study all of the working documents.
Above all else, it was an almost tangible experience of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit.
The real survivors of the council are the great ideas, concepts and understandings that were born of the Spirit during those rich and fruitful years and that still perdure and revitalize the church today.
One of the most powerful of them has to do with understanding the very nature of the church itself.
The first draft of what was to become the dogmatic constitution on the church, prepared by experts of the Roman curia in preparation for the opening of the council in October 1962, was among the documents rejected by the council fathers.
A new draft was studied, debated and amended by the council fathers during the fall 1963 council session, and a final text was overwhelmingly approved by the council and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 21 November 1964.
There was one modest but incredibly significant change made in the text as a result of the 1963 deliberations.

The working draft presented to the council fathers in 1963, referred to the church of Jesus Christ and identified it with the Catholic Church, headed by the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.
The draft was amended to introduce an important new concept, “subsists.” It stated that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him.
This one little word unlocked a great door in Catholic theological understanding of the church. It implied a difference, albeit modest, between the church of Christ and the Catholic Church.
This seed notion, regarded as dangerous and almost heretical by many, has born fruit in the great ecumenical advances of the past decades. It has provided a foundation for the many declarations and actions of reconciliation that have blessed the entire church of Christ.
A new chapter of Christian history has opened. The tales of narrowly individual churches — Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical — denouncing the others and denying salvation to all but their own members have begun to fade into the past.
The process still continues. As the council also reminded us, the church of Christ is a pilgrim church, filled with imperfections. Yet it wends its way to the fulfillment of the divine plan, guided by the Spirit.
In spite of the misgivings, setbacks, misunderstandings, prejudices and apprehensions, the new understanding of the church is growing.
It’s a survivor.


(Published as “Survivors” in
one, 35:3, May 2009 )

Awful New Year

Here are my resolves for this new year: To do my very best to be an awful person and to behave as awfully as I can.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t plan to be awful in the colloquial sense of the word — that is, to be exceedingly bad or unpleasant, ugly, or the like.
To be awful means, literally, to be full of awe. Here’s the primary meaning my dictionary gives to the words:

awe [from the Middle English age, aghe, awe] A mixed feeling of reverence, fear and wonder, caused by something majestic, sublime, sacred, etc. 

awful [from the Middle English awful and agheful] Inspiring awe; highly impressive.

I don’t know about you, but my life is usually too busy — and not always about things of great importance. As soon as my average workday starts, it becomes an unending litany of doing:
Thank God for the new day. Exercise. Wash, dress, take out the dog. Feed the dog, have breakfast, wash the dishes, put out garbage. Say formal morning prayers. Mass.
Go to the office, read e-mails, process correspondence, answer the phone. Meet with staff and visitors. Plan more to do.
After work, go home, open mail, pay bills, read the paper, eat supper, feed the dog. Perhaps, watch news or a video, make a few phone calls.
Finally, read some Scripture and maybe something serious from the great unread pile in my room. Take out the dog, pray evening prayers, get ready for bed.

My typical day is all about doing things. Except for tiny glimmers of grace that, thanks be to God, tickle my awareness in the midst of all this busyness and doing, there is little awe in my day. How awful not to be awful!
What to do to have a more awful life? First, stop doing! Awe isn’t something I do, it’s something that can happen to me when I stop doing and concentrate on being.
Awe may occur if I can halt my planning, implementing, controlling, managing — if I can sit back and allow awareness of what the Lord has done and is doing to impinge upon my self-centered preoccupations.
What’s the starting point for awe? It’s anything that is of God. It could be my very self — the mystery that I ever came to be, that I live this very day, that I have the gifts, abilities, and opportunities that I do.
The mystery of any created, existing thing can be a trigger for awe — a flower blooming, a baby growing, a landscape of beauty, starry skies, the complexity of DNA, an inexplicable new idea, you.
O.K., O.K.! I know what you’re talking about. It’s meditation; it’s contemplation. It refers to the classical distinction between the active and the passive. It’s about the action of the Spirit.
Whatever you call it doesn’t matter. The point is, I just want to have a really awful new year, and I hope and pray from the bottom of my heart that you do, too.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 29:1, January 2003)