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Behold Your Mother Newsletter of the Brothers of the Beloved Disciple 1701 Alametos, San Antonio, TX 78201 How the Spirituality of Blessed Chaminade Helped Me
Encounter with the Holy Spirit In 1968, when I was 15 years old, I had a dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit. It happened one Friday night at, of all places, St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle where there was an Episcopal priest named Dennis Bennett who was teaching his parish about something called "baptism with the Holy Spirit!" That night, several people prayed over me to experience this encounter with the Holy Spirit. No one was more surprised than I when I suddenly began speaking in tongues. It seemed as if the Holy Spirit had suddenly flooded me with himself. I was electrified. Lost at Sea I remained a fervent young Charismatic Christian all throughout high school and into my first two years of college. But in my third year of college, I became distracted by many things and gradually over a period of time my faith darkened. By the time I finished college and started graduate school, I was no longer sure that I even believed in God. I entered a decades-long period of being a nominal Christian at best and often not even that. I was in a spiritual sense lost at sea. God works in amazing and wondrous ways, though. Although I may have abandoned him, he never abandoned me. By God’s grace, it was during this period of my life that I became a Catholic. (How that happened is another story!) It was also during this period that I met and married my wife, Espee. When we met, I already had two children, Chris and Julie; and Espee had two children as well, Marlo and Maeliz. By God’s grace (again!), we were able to be married in the Church, and before long we had two more children, Marty and Monica. Back to the Lord In the summer of 2002, for our vacation we went to visit one of Espee’s sisters in Albany, New York. She invited us to go with her to the Friday night Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting with the Filipino community there. That night, as I listened to these Charismatic Catholics praising and worshiping God, for the first time in decades I remembered that joy I had felt on that other Friday night back in 1968 at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. But although I felt the Holy Spirit calling me back to him, I resisted because I was not sure that I was really ready for this. Yet one afternoon later that same summer, in August 2002, sometime around 6:00 pm, I was in a hotel room in Denver, Colorado, where I was working on a project. I was getting ready to go out to dinner when suddenly I felt like praying. I lifted my eyes and my hands to God, and I let go of all my doubts and hesitations and said, "Lord, I give myself to you." An amazing thing happened then. Something warm and electric rushed to fill my whole body. I was immersed in this warmth. I raised my hands as high as they would go, and for the first time in 30 years, I began speaking in tongues. I cried for joy. The Beloved Disciple After I got home, I told Espee that I wanted to find a Catholic religious community that we could be a part of, something like the Franciscans or the Benedictines. We looked around and eventually, again by God’s grace, discovered the Companions of the Beloved Disciple and the Marianist tradition. As you know, a key part of Marianist spirituality is to become more like Jesus by growing in his virtues. Four of these virtues are "Silence of the Mind", "Imagination", "Obedience", and "Detachment from the World". I am going to come back to these virtues in a moment, but first I have to tell you what happened to Espee and me that made them so important. Marlo and Monica On Thursday, March 25, 2004, Espee’s oldest daughter, Marlo, died in a car crash at about 2:30 in the morning, both she and her boyfriend, and their unborn child. Then, last summer on June 16, 2006, a little over two years after Marlo died, our ten-year-old daughter Monica was suddenly unable to breathe. We tried to save her, but she became unresponsive and died. Monica was a happy and selfless child who would give away her lunch at school to another child who needed it. The doctors were unable to find the cause of Monica’s death. There are no words that can convey to you how hard it was (and is) to bear both Marlo’s and Monica’s deaths. In the early weeks after Monica died, I wanted to die too, and I know that Espee felt the same way. But little by little God has brought us through. And those four Marianist virtues that I mentioned earlier – Silence of the Mind, Imagination, Obedience, and Detachment from the World – played a big part. Silence of the Mind I will begin with Silence of the Mind. Losing Monica left me not only with grief at having lost her, but also with anguish over questions that can never be answered: "What if I had done this?" or "If only I had done that." "Silence of the Mind" is the virtue of letting go of these regrets and of all the other things in the past that can torment us. It is giving the past to Jesus. When we trust Jesus, when we lay everything including the past at his feet, those mental daggers that cut and torment us fall away in silence. In the quiet, we can begin to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us. Imagination When our minds achieve this silence, we face yet another challenge: our imagination. Right after Monica’s death, the future seemed unbearable. Although God knows the future, for us it exists only in our imaginations. So fear of the future is really fear of what we imagine the future holds. But just as the past belongs to Jesus, so does the future. In the Gospels, Jesus called us not to worry about the future but rather to trust in him (Matthew 6:33-34). Of course this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for the future! Rather, it means only that we shouldn’t let fear of the future guide us. James wrote that we should plan, but that in so doing we should give our futures to the Lord. He wrote:
This realization has helped me to put things into perspective, to realize that Jesus transforms the future just as he transforms the past. He transforms even death. Jesus in his earthly life faced the Crucifixion and conquered death! So we can relax and leave the future to Jesus, knowing that he will be with us always, come what may, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20) In the weeks after Monica died, I wanted to die too, and I know that Espee felt the same way. But little by little God brought us through Obedience Once we know that Jesus transforms our future, it is easy for us to trust and obey him. This realization was important for me because, in the aftermath of Monica’s death, I wanted to make some big changes in my life. For example, I didn’t want to travel in my job any more. My boss told me that I could transfer to another department where I could work from home, if that is what I wanted to do. But as I was able to get beyond the shock of Monica’s death and start to think about this and other choices, I realized that I really didn’t know what God wanted me to do. How could I know what God’s will was? Have you ever had the experience of looking for something such as your keys, only to find that you had them in your pocket all the time? Well, in a way, God’s will is like that. We have the means to know God’s will already, but sometimes we just don’t realize it! You see God reveals his will to us in many ways, but especially through those people with whom we are united in a covenant community. Perhaps the most important covenant in my life (besides the New Covenant of Jesus Christ!), is my marriage relationship with Espee, my wife. Of course you remember Jesus’ words: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh" (Matthew 19:5-6). Now think about it. If Espee and I are one flesh, then whatever God’s will is for me must also be his will for Espee. So if I think that God has revealed something to be his will for me but Espee disagrees, then either I am wrong, or God just hasn’t gotten around to telling Espee yet! So obedience, in part, means being open to God’s will as he reveals it to us through our Christian wives or husbands. But God speaks to us through other covenant communities as well. Saint Peter wrote, "All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility" (1 Peter 5:5, King James Version). I have learned that God speaks to me through the various Catholic communities to which Espee and I belong: the Companions of the Beloved Disciple, the ACTS community at Saint Monica’s Church, the Knights of Columbus, and the Catholic Filipino community at Santo Niño Church. But community is not the only way that God reveals his will to us. Proverbs 3:5 and 6, the passage that I quoted at the beginning of my talk, shows us that if we trust God, he will direct our paths! Things will happen. Doors will open, and other doors will close. It was meditating upon this Scripture that allowed me to discover God’s will about whether I should keep traveling or transfer to a work-from-home position. I realized that God had given me my job, and that he had made me in such a way that I am good at it. The Lord showed me that he sends me on the road for a purpose. In each place I go, he brings me to people whom I would otherwise have never met. But remember that Espee and I are one flesh: if God is showing this to me, then he must be showing it to Espee too. So I talked to her about it, and she confirmed that the Lord had been showing her the same thing. Detachment from the World So God gave me my job. It is part of my vocation, and he expects me to do it to the best of my ability. The danger of success in our work, though, is that we may begin to become attached to the things that success can bring, such as career advancement, more money, a beautiful home, the latest electronic gadgets, or luxurious furniture. These are simply temptations that the world throws at us hoping that we will forget about God. That is why Jesus called us to detach ourselves from the world when he said: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store up treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be/ (Mt. 6:19-20)Obviously, detachment from the world does not mean that God wants all of us to make ourselves poor. If he did, then who would feed the poor? What he does ask is that if we have wealth, we should not use it for ourselves but rather use it to help others. Espee and I have realized that the things we used to think are so important really are not. So we have begun to simplify our lives, to let go of some of our possessions, and to give more to the Church and to those in need. Recently, for example, it seemed that we needed to replace our family room sofa. So we went shopping and found some beautiful furniture that we could have bought. But as we stood there in the furniture store thinking about it, we realized that it was all wrong. We didn’t really need this new furniture. We could live with the old. Conclusion There is a wonderful meditation written by John Henry Cardinal Newman that sums up much of what I have learned during these last few years.
Life in the Spirit for Confirmandi Youth preparing to receive Confirmation made a week-end retreat at Camp Tecaboca plus a one-day Life in the Spirit Seminar with their sponsors at the Parish. And they learn to pray together.
For Information Contact
Fr. George Montague, S.M.
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