Then face to face

Love
These are incoherent thoughts, but they seem appropriate for this cloudy Sunday in early spring.

I spend a lot of time thinking and writing and praying about love, all of which runs the risk of becoming trite and sentimental if I am not grounded in the truth of what love really is. Love is not a feeling, but rather a movement of the will...It is a laying down of one's preferences, one's desires, one's personal comfort - the whole of one's life  - for the good of another person. In the communion of the Trinity, that act of pure self gift is perfectly received and perfectly returned - so what is good for the other is always good for the one who gives. In this life it is not always so...but the more we give wholly of ourselves without concern for the cost, the closer we conform ourselves to Christ and the closer we are drawn into the life of God, Who is a communion of love.

I'm finally starting to understand that I don't get to choose my vocation. God chooses the manner in which He wills me to be consecrated to Him. I don't get to choose the way in which it is best for me to love God, because He planted the seeds of that way deep within my soul in baptism. And it is good - because those seeds are the seeds of eternal life, and they will germinate and grow as I give myself away in the manner He has chosen for me. That way is never what is seems at first...but I desire to keep running towards Him - and to run with the people He puts beside me.

I have always wanted the fullness of eternity now - not accepting that eternity cannot be known fully in time. I have always wanted the perfect, often at the expense of the good. But in the imperfections of this life, and in the incompleteness of human love, I am reminded of my own limitations - I am humbled and drawn back to sit at the feet of the One Who is perfect in every way.

I desire to exclaim - or perhaps whisper - with St. Therese: "...My vocation is love..."

Love never fails. If there are prophesies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away...At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. (1 Corinth 13:8-12, NAB)


All the way to Heaven

Lent
My blog has a new name - All the Way to Heaven. It's a quote from St. Catherine of Sienna that Dorothy Day was fond of - "All the way to Heaven is heaven, because He said: "I am the way".

Dorothy Day

I like knowing that those words unite two women who, though they lived centuries apart and in very different circumstances, both dedicated themselves wholly to Christ. I tend to get lost in the big questions - What is my vocation? Am I making the right decisions? What is the meaning of my life?!? - so this quote is a reminder to me that the whole of the Christian life is about starting to live eternity here on Earth.


St. Catherine of Sienna
via 

When I used to sit zazen in college, we would say "everything is a teacher". We meant that everything, from the creaking pipes to the rain on the roof to the fidgeting of the person next to you, was an opportunity to return to the present moment, to notice distractions without letting them actually distract from your practice. So now I say, "everything is a teacher", and mean that everything - from the traffic that appears on the drive to school at 7:59 am, to the seemingly endless stream of anatomy labs and case discussions, to the feelings of insecurity that come from having too much to learn in too little time - is an opportunity to surrender myself to the Lord, to keep Him at the center of my life. Without Him, I am lost in 'To Do' lists and the rote fulfillment of "professional responsibilities". Without Him, I start to define myself by the things I do and the things people think about me.

Lately I've been feeling like time is moving in fast-forward, which I suppose is a natural consequence of being an over-committed medical student. I'm grateful that Lent falls when it does this year, because I'm in need of some desert time with God. Last night I was reflecting on this week's Gospel reading (Mk 1:12-15) with some other students at the Newman Center. We were talking about fasting and sacrifices during Lent, and someone mentioned that at the end of our lives, everything is going to be taken away from us. It's not that the pleasures of this life aren't good, it's that they are transient, and have to pass away in order to make room for the greatest joy any of us will ever know - eternity with our God, Whose entire being is Love.

Fasting and sacrifices, however small, give us the chance to empty ourselves to make room for that Love. So this Lent, I'm trying to give up some of the things that I use for recreation (like watching hours of sitcoms on Netflix) that actually serve less to "re-create" me after a long day than to just dull my mind and senses. I'm trying to spend more time with Scripture, devotions, and prayer, to let God re-create me in His image.

Here's the Gospel for this Sunday - it's a good one to start off these 40 days.
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:12-15) 

The Long View

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

~Archbishop Oscar Romero

The Credo Project

Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach me to be generous
Teach me to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labor and not to ask for reward
Save that of knowing that I am doing your will

~St. Igantius of Loyola