Total Consecration 2014: Day 32

Reading:
Mark 15: 25-39

from Pope St. John Paul II:
Salvifici Doloris, 23

Reflection:
The Cross is a difficult thing to contemplate because it tells of suffering unfathomable. But what makes being Catholic awesome is the knowledge that this suffering on the Cross was redeemed. Death overcome. Sin triumphed over. Etc.

I've been dealing with all sorts of suffering lately. Actually, even within the past hour of typing this. But what's been difficult for me to do is uniting that suffering to the Cross where it be redeemed. Where it can have meaning. Where I can not be alone in my suffering.

Whenever I unite my suffering to Christ, suddenly my burdens are not so hard to bear. I can persevere. I can gain a renewed sense of hope. It's so easy for me to lose sight of that, but in my times of suffering, I must remember the Cross.

I guess that's why, in my latest crucifix craze for the Benedictine cross, I have it in key places where I'll notice it. At home. On my neck. At work.

Response:
I need to do a better job of asking Mary, as my mother, to help me in my sufferings. I know she'll console me through her Son.

Totus tuus,
- JD

Benedictine cross // Why Am I Catholic blog

Total Consecration 2014: Day 29

Reading:
Luke 9: 23-25

from Pope St. John Paul II:
Message for World Youth Day XVI, 2001

Reflection:
I've had this problem lately. Like, hardcore. I have issues embracing my cross. I don't know if it's my pride or desire to not suffer, but picking up my cross and embracing it has been such an incredible challenge over the past several months.

Yet our Lord says

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Pretty cut and dry. No sugarcoating here. In order for me to be a disciple of Christ, I need to work on learning how to embrace my cross even though it sucks. I hate it. I don't like it. It's too big for me to carry.

But whenever I gaze upon a crucifix... my suffering begins to take meaning. My cross becomes easier to bear. Why? Because He bore the wounds and hung from that tree. For me. Out of love.

It's so jarring to have a modern understanding of "love" and to look at a crucifix, which is the greatest act of love man has ever known. It goes against our modern sensibilities and logic regarding love because we understand love to be about what feels good and gives us the warm fuzzies. I cannot buy into the idea that the Passion of Christ was all about feeling good. No, He endured that for us. For you. For me. Out of love.

So then, that then becomes my motivation for embracing my cross. As much as I don't like it, as much as it sucks, ...I need to learn how to embrace it as long as I call myself a Christian. Embrace. Out of love.

Response:
I'll ask Mary to help me obtain the graces necessary to embrace my cross because as it has been increasingly evident to me, I cannot handle it on my own. I need Christ to help me carry my cross for His burden is light.

And not just help me obtain the graces necessary to embrace my cross, but to carry a spirit of humility. My ego ever gets inflated so easily.

A Rosary a day keeps Satan at bay. Even if a decade or two is in Spanish.

Totus tuus,
- JD

Total Consecration 2014: Day 23

Reading:
Luke 2: 22-40

from Pope St. John Paul II:
Redemptoris Mater, 16

Reflection:
Because it's Monday, I just got back from a weekly young adult event at my parish that includes a Holy Hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with Lectio Divina. Again, we looked at yesterday's Gospel, which is where Jesus was telling us to be watchful for we do not know when the master will return.

Today's reading for preparation for Total Consecration was about the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. Simeon beheld Jesus exclaiming that he has seen salvation with his own eyes. And to Mary, he said there will be misunderstanding about Jesus as well as her heart being pierced.

I shared in small group discussion following Lectio Divina earlier that I contemplated whether Mary knew or not when her heart would be pierced. Mary did you know? That your baby boy would suffer death, even death on a cross? And that your heart would be so pierced? I don't think she would have known when that would happen, but either way she was watchful. She had to be prepared at any given time for her to endure great suffering out of her love of God and her Son. She had to be vulnerable in order to love. In other words, her love and obedience to God would not be without suffering and sorrow. We see that most especially when she loses him in the temple 12 years later, and most significantly at the foot of the cross.

But, even though her heart is pierced by a sword, her heart is undoubtedly united with the heart of her Son. In this way, she shares in His suffering, motivated by her love for Him.

Response:
I love being Catholic because it doesn't guarantee an easy life unmet with challenges and suffering, but rather, a total embrace of suffering. Not in a masochistic sort of way, but with the realization that out of suffering, good can be borne.

I need to be watchful and to prepare my heart to be able to embrace the suffering in my life. And really, I have two most excellent models for what that looks like in Jesus and Mary. I'll strive to unite my heart to theirs. I'll do my best to respond to the grace God has given me in order to combat the shortcomings of my heart due to pride...due to sin.

And a Rosary a day keeps the devil at bay. ;-)

Totus tuus,
- JD

Currently Reading: Salvifici Doloris by Pope St. John Paul II

In my life right now, I've recently started to really confront some personal struggles. By doing so, I've realized how much I have to work on in order to heal from the sufferings I've endured.

It's scary. It's incredibly liberating.  As I'm overcoming self, my life isn't getting any easier to deal with. The warm fuzzy feelings are not the prize for really wrestling with myself. Actually, I feel like I'm suffering more.

Human suffering is an interesting thing to contemplate. It's inevitable though it may come in different degrees varying from typical first world problems like losing an iPhone charger to matters of life and death or torture. The list goes on.  Looking back at my own life, I can definitely recall moments of great suffering that couldn't be avoided. Do I wish I could go back in time and free myself from such pain? Yes, but at the same time I realized that such moments had to happen in order for me to grow as a person.

In all my recent seemingly magnified suffering, I've learned to acknowledge that these moments are opportunities to grow, but I still inhale at suffering well. I inhale at approaching my suffering. I inhale at embracing my suffering. It's been such a non-Hawaiian roller coaster ride (I recently saw Lilo & Stitch...) of emotions and sufferings lately for me, but my attitude about the inevitable suffering from it all has not been great. That's a personal struggle, too, on how to suffer well and embrace it.

Praise God I have a spiritual director! Again, a spiritual director is someone who can help guide someone through how their spiritual life plays into their life. And again, mine is a local Catholic priest.

I met up with him recently to begin talking about what I'm going through. It was a really good meeting, but as these things often go, I'm confronted with a sense of humility because I've realized that my way isn't necessarily the best way of handling my life. I left that meeting feeling more down simply because  my attitude regarding my sufferings and trials were too self-centered rather than oriented towards God. It's almost as if I am unwilling to part with desiring pity.

Still, it was a really good and necessary meeting. He affirmed my taking steps to really confront my struggles, but he helped me realized that the inevitable suffering as a result of fighting such fights needs to be embraced. He mentioned that according to St. Thomas Aquinas, there are three levels of dealing with suffering: 1) kicking and screaming 2) accepting it but disliking it and 3) embracing it. Really embracing suffering is the only way for me to be free and have a sense of liberty and peace with whatever I'm dealing with.

That is so freakin' hard.

I'm constantly reminded of my inner struggles regarding particular matters. And I'm supposed to embrace them? Psh. But, no. There is wisdom and precedence in that. How can I call myself Christian if I do not embrace my suffering just as Jesus Christ embraced His?

So that's why, as a result of this meeting with my spiritual director, he recommended that I read the apostolic letter, Salvifici Doloris by Pope Saint John Paul II. It's on the meaning of Christian suffering and how suffering has salvific power. Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection gives such a profound and salvific meaning to human suffering. I have a lot of room to grow in this area on how to deal with suffering. I just started this apostolic letter, and it's already given me good nuggets to think about and reflect/pray on. Now, last time I met with my spiritual director, he assigned me to read Man's Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. That book helped me realize the importance of attaching meaning to my suffering because that whole idea is what helped Dr. Frankl and other inmates at a Nazi concentration camp endure all that they had to endure in order to survive.

Suffering. Such a fascinating thing to contemplate and reflect on. I'm spoiled as a Catholic because I have this opportunity to really enter deeply on the meaning of suffering and how that plays into my life. I'm grateful that what I'm dealing with now is mostly internal struggles and not the craziness that Christians in Iraq are having to deal with right now. I'm glad I don't have to worry about getting shot in the back, beheaded, hung, or undergoing atrocious ways to die because I'm Christian...at least for today. Either way, I cannot let their suffering go to waste. Their suffering is not in vain.

In a feeble attempt to unite my suffering to theirs, and ultimately unite our suffering to Christ on the cross, I'll strive to offer those moments of suffering up for Christians in Iraq. They need our prayers.

- JD

To read Salvifici Doloris online, click here. It's free!

Christ embracing His cross // Copiosa.org (image from The Passion)

Currently Reading: Man's Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl

When I was blogging about being frustrated with my Facebook friends posting their baby pictures, I mentioned that I had met with my spiritual director. The reason why I met with him is because it had been nearly half a year since I last met with him, and I felt that it was time to meet with him again.

While sipping on coffee and sitting on the patio of a local grocery store, I told him about my current dealings with my frustrations (which wasn't about baby pictures on Facebook). I won't go into deeper details for now, because that is not what this blog post is about! To help remind me how to deal with my frustrations, we talked about Fulton Sheen's understanding of the ego and I, which I first learned about in the book Lift Up Your Heart. This was the first book my spiritual director had me read to begin entering into a deeper Christian spiritual life.

From this last meeting with my spiritual director, I indicated that my frustrations were causing me suffering that I didn't know how to understand or deal with. He recommended that I read this book, Man's Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl.

I'm nearly done with it, and it's been a pretty cool read so far.

Dr. Frankl was a Jewish man who survived the concentration camps during World War II. He was a psychologist. Now, I know that a lot of ink has been spilled in order to describe the atrocities that the Nazis committed in their extermination of the Jews and other enemies of their regime. Dr. Frankl himself even asserts this, and while he does recount his own personal experiences in this book, he approaches it from a psychological perspective from his own experiences and observations. In the later half of the book, he talks more about the technical aspects of logotherapy, which is the branch of psychology that he started. Logotherapy helps individuals deal with their neurosis by finding meaning in life.

As I've been reading these experiences on sunny days outside during my lunch break, I find it unfathomable to relate to the dire situations that Frankl and friends had to endure while at Auschwitz. They had to do so much work with so little nourishment. If any of them were found to be too weak to work, they would be sent to the gas chambers and crematoriums. If they were sick, they were badly sick. They were treated so poorly. They were lied to. They had to sleep in their own feces and urine. They were beaten. And the list of sufferings go on and on.

Without giving too much of an analytical perspective on the book, I appreciate Frankl pointing out how is it that men could have survived the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual sufferings of being in a Nazi concentration camp. It's because they attached meaning and purpose to their suffering. Those who could not see a purpose to their suffering lost the will to live or deteriorated more quickly. It was beauty, goodness, and truth that kept these men going whether it was experiencing the beauty of nature or thinking about and desiring to survive because of their beloved wives, which are some examples to name a few from Frankl's observations.

So, as I'm about to finish this book, it's helping me to see that my sufferings regarding my current crosses and frustrations have meaning. And because they have meaning, I can endure. While it may totally inhale at times right now, in the end it is worth it.

I cannot let my suffering go to waste.

- JD

So F(reez)ing Cold

It was so f____ing cold!!! A day or two before, Washington D.C. got something like six to eight inches of snow. We were effectively snowed in because A) public transportation was closed, and B) it would be strongly lacking common sense to walk around in that kind of snow in an unsafe neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

PS We stayed in a dangerous ‘hood of D.C--Anacostia 4 life!

Anyway, when it snowed, that’s when the wrath of Canada hit us like a cold-nami. The weather service said that the temperature would be in the single digits with negative wind chill. So f____ing cold! #NativeTexanProblems  The verbiage in the weather report pretty much said to...

…because of frostbite potential. Ew.

I remember looking up the weather on the day of the March. It was in the low 20’s and wind chill in the single digits or something. I had to go full on winter ninja.

On the day of the march, we set out to go to a rally and Mass at the D.C. Armory with hundreds of our friends who were there for the same reason. After that event, we made our way to the March at the Mall.

Because the Mall is a fairly large expanse of field, the wind was definitely not subtle. The mall looked impressive with a fluffy comforter-sized blanket of snow. So f____ing cold! Removing gloves to take pictures was painful. Even as a winter ninja and silently stomping through the snow, the frigid air out-ninja’d me and silently snuck past my multiple layers.

But let me tell ya—despite the incredibly cold temperature, my group was still but a snowflake in the ocean of people that showed up to this year’s March for Life. Last year, it actively snowed during the March, but it didn’t accumulate. This year, it had already snowed, but the unapologizing wind was terrible.Yeah, the snowy weather on the east coast that week in January deterred people from being able to attend the march, but the turn out was still rather impressive. Sure, it was miserable (because it was so f___ing cold!), but everyone was smiling and enthusiastic!

That’s what I find to be pretty awesome about the March for Life. Yes, it is always tempting for our mainstream media to paint such a thing as “anti-choice” or “anti-women” and that we pro-lifers are a hateful bunch of snowballs, but what never seems to be captured or talked about is this resounding joy and enthusiasm for the pro-life cause. The March is so full of joyful people! It begins to make no common, logical sense why would anyone want to stand and march in so f____ing cold weather for a few hours. We march because we celebrate life and abhor that it is okay (and legal) to kill our most vulnerable of human beings. We do not march out of hate, but out of love for the preciousness of life, of love for both mother and child, and to make a stand against the forces that make it okay to take life away from these vulnerable, innocent human beings.

We are joyful! This genuine, authentic joy lets us be impervious to our trivial sufferings in the so f___ing cold weather because the cause is worth it on a deep, human, and universal level. It's worth fighting for.

This was my second March for Life. The consolations for going included awesome reminders to myself that:

• I am far from being the only one who cares (as evidenced by the hundred thousands also marching alongside me)
• The cause worth it, and any suffering endured because of the cause is worth it too
• Seeing that this will continue because for the most part, the general population of those who march are younger than I am, and that is encouraging
• Life is worth guarding and celebrating

Yeah, the March was only a day out of a week that I spent in Washington, D.C. However, the March was the primary motivation to go in the first place. The other days of the week was spent in prayer, and sightseeing. You can get an idea of what I did by looking at my blog posts from last year: here, here, and here. Pretty similar, although we weren't able to make it out to Arlington Cemetery this year.

Because of all that I suffered through that week of the March, which climaxed with a wintry wrath just before it, my sufferings made that experience all the more awesome. It left me begging a certain question of what should I do next, after the March? How should I respond?

Hmm.
- JD

The Cross and Black Coffee

Dude, I keep forgetting about ClipArt! #stockimages

I read an interesting blog post about Catholicism, suffering, and coffee from one of my favorite Catholic bloggers a long while ago. Essentially, to drink coffee black is to enjoy that which is not meant to be enjoyable. By way of analogy (and remember, analogies have limits), he parallels drinking coffee black and our worldview of suffering whereas the Church has a different view on suffering.

You can read the original blog post here:
Coffee When It Is Black by Marc Barnes, Bad Catholic

In life, sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we know we'll suffer and thus bear a cross,. And let me tell ya, I've had my share of crosses to bear throughout my life thus far.

But I suppose I'm at a point in my faith where I can handle some of the crosses I bear like I am able to handle drinking black coffee. I used to be like most other people and add cream and sugar to my coffee. I'm pretty sure the workers at McDonald's know my mantra of "one cream and one sugar" as I stop by some mornings on my way to work. Ever since reading Marc's take on drinking black coffee and suffering, I've switched to drinking coffee black.

Now I'm learning to enjoy taking up my crosses. Beforehand, I think I tried sweetening my bad situations with optimism or adding creamer by distracting myself from its bitter tastes. But I never fully embraced my suffering by willingly taking up my crosses. I think I've always taken them kicking and screaming or tried to making it easier on myself through my own devices. Or really, just not keeping in mind of the One who helps carry my crosses. I'm pretty sure He's a pro.

I got to thinking about all this more given some current circumstances in my life. I don't want to give details, but I'll just say that I know myself well enough now to foresee that I will undergo despair and suffering given my current circumstances or the circumstances that I will find myself in.

I have had my crosses in the past, I have crosses now, and I will have crosses in the future.

My take away from all this is that black coffee, as I drink it nearly every morning, is a physical reminder that I should be prepared to suffer. Life doesn't always feel good. Suffering becomes an acquired taste. I cannot handle my crosses on my own so I look towards the One who showed us what it looks like to embrace suffering. One of the lines towards the end of the movie, The Passion of the Christ, is when one of the other thieves sentenced to crucifixion with Jesus asks Him, "why do you embrace your cross?" to which Jesus doesn't really reply but looks upon the thief with eyes of mercy despite His unfathomable suffering from incredible stress, being scourged, having a crown of thorns hammered into His head, and now carrying and embracing the wood that will be the instrument of execution.

It boggles the mind.

Yet! My suffering is not in vain because I know that, mysteriously, God allows suffering to bring about a greater good, and in the most definitive and exemplary event how He does this through His Passion and Death. Yet, He rises, and Death's sting has no power nor victory. We suffer on this earth in joyful hope that He will come again! O, how rich and deep!

But, in the meantime, as much as I don't want to, I need to embrace my crosses in aspiring imitation of His embrace of His cross that one Good Friday. Because it is worth it...in the end.

No cream, no sugar. Challenge accepted.
- JD

This blog post was originally written over a year ago. And maybe I don't keep good track of my draft blog posts. And thus I've edited this post since then.