This week we are faced with another tragedy of immense sadness for many. This time is not a natural disaster, but one wrought of another nature. As destructive forces rained into a crowd celebrating a night of music together in Las Vegas, we are all left with sadness, grief and the confusion of how events like this can happen at all.

The weeks to follow will be led with stories of courage, remembrance, healing and loving for those affected. Many individuals already are being held up high for physically covering others during the shooting, offering up their lives in a split second to protect another; in some cases, people they did not even know. Others stayed with the dying to offer comfort, again leaving themselves exposed to danger, but rather choosing to remain, and be a friend someone needed during their last moments. We see the worst of humanity causing the divine to emerge from others in all its glory. This is small consolation to those who have lost loved ones, but we can find meaning in these terrifying moments and how many put their fellow man first, placing the love of another in front of their own natural instincts of self-preservation. These are the true colors of the divinity of God bleeding out in these men and women. They prove to us there is a saint awaiting in us all.

Let us hope when we are called, in big and small ways, we can be as selfless as these men and women. They are not just heroes for doing something beyond a common definition of bravery, they are Christ in Action in our world.

SHE CRIES FOR YOU

She cries for your daughter,

Your son,

Your mother,

Your father,

Your friends and their loved ones.

 

She has seen the sorrow,

Felt the pain,

Experienced the helplessness,

And endures it all because of His love.

 

Our Lady of Sorrows,

Pray for us on this sad day for so many.

 

This weekend I will be on retreat at Miramar in Duxbury, MA. The theme of the retreat is Julian of Norwich, a mystical saint from the 1300s England. Julian was an anchoress. So now I may have used three words in the first two sentences we are normally unfamiliar. Mystical, anchoress and retreat.

I think sometimes we are so hungry for explicit, almost scientific information about our faith, we miss the point. By feeding our hunger for facts, we miss the mystical. The part we cannot explain. The feeling we have when we know God is close to us, but we can’t communicate it. When this happens, we need to snuggle up to the mystical, the wonder of God in our lives and those around us. We are all on a spiritual journey, which like any journey has many waypoints and interludes and episodes. Often the only thing we have in common with other’s journeys are their uniqueness. Which is no commonality at all.

Our faith is often described as a mystery but in a way which emphasizes our inability to understand. There is no need to understand. The only thing we are called to is to be close to God. Only to accept His love as presented to us. In the Eucharist, in our actions with others and in an acceptance of the mystery of God’s presence in our lives.

Retreats can help us in this process. Setting some time away from the hurly-burly of everyday life. Some time when we can slow down enough to be present in the Presence. Perhaps you can do the same. To retreat from the “noise of the world” for a short time and just go on a date with Jesus. Perhaps you can take a day, but if not, a short walk might do.

Just embrace the mystical. And see God in the everyday.

THE SACRED GARDEN

Sometimes we don’t need those words,

The advice of others,

Proclamations of a better life,

Just silence and a walk.

 

In a garden. Any garden will do.

To reflect on my journey.