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To be a mystic is not to have constant extreme experiences in prayer, despite what we have led ourselves to believe. Rather, it is to be someone who experiences God in all things, and receives Him in all things. This will include prayer, of course, but God is not so limited that He can only reach us when we manage to make our way to an adoration chapel. 

Today is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the day we commemorate and celebrate most specifically His love for us, meditating on the blood and water which flowed from His heart when it was pierced on the Cross. Many people, including us here at Konza Catholic, have discussed the Cross as a love letter (for example, Suan’s piece here).

We know that God gives us all good things, that he wants to give us more, and will as soon as we are able to receive it. The question is: what holds us back?

The sign of God’s continued pursuit of us in our sin is our stricken conscience. This is a gift from Him, and as with all gifts, we are meant to return them to Him. The psalms tell us that God will not reject a contrite heart, and we can trust that this is because He gave it to us, just as he sent His Son “while we were yet sinners”. 

We often think of Mary in the domestic sense, caring for us as she cared for and raised our Lord, or we think of her as a regal Queen of Heaven, an image which gives us comfort and strength as we consider our powerful intercessor before the throne of God. We don’t, however, think of Mary as a missionary.

I am known to have the worst memory, and to be honest, I don’t exactly remember who my confirmation saint is. So, a couple of years ago, I decided to adopt St. Teresa of Avila. I heard of her story and I was so impressed with how real she was. She was a person who I can relate a lot to, and somehow, she still achieved sainthood. 

In her teenage years, she became invested in worldly matters. She cared about what she wore and the jewelry she had. She was naturally a people person, so she would gossip and loved the attention it brought to her. She said, “In everything that gave them pleasure, I kept the conversation alive --- listened to the stories of their affections and childish follies, good for nothing.” 

As Father Andrew walked me to the door my eye fell upon it. Stepping back into the door pane’s crystalline, sunny reflections, I was ravished: My mind swelled with the kind of joy that lifts you out of yourself and absorbs you in something else. Words bubbled out that weren’t my own: “Father, I hear the words ‘martyr of love’. Explain them to me.”

After spending twenty-one-ish years of my life reading everything I could get my hands on, I developed a perhaps-too-inflated sense of my own intelligence. In fact, “perhaps” is a cover. I have a pronounced tendency toward pride, especially in the way I think about my, well, thoughts, and the effort I expend in trying to get others to think I am clever. 

The time I have spent developing my skills as a writer didn’t help with this either. I’ve eagerly studied the humanities since high school, learning how to adopt and imitate the voices of some of my favorite authors in my own writing, from P.G. Wodehouse, to Flannery O’Connor, to Alisdair MacIntyre and more, my prose was carefully modelled after the people I thought sounded smart and impressive, because that way maybe I could sound smart and impressive.

There are many obvious areas in which this could be an issue. There have been moments when professors (rightly) wanted me to spend a bit less time flourishing and a bit more time developing my arguments. I am, of course, struggling with it as I write this piece, and this is all disregarding the normal spiritual side-effects of pride! 

The area of my life, though, where I have felt this issue come up most strongly is in my prayer.

It’s a sentiment that we hear time and time again: the Golden Rule as some call it. Treating others as we wish to be treated. Treating others with kindness. Promoting peace. But I have found myself often feeling weighed down by the negativity and seemingly overwhelming sadness in the world. As one of many people who wants to solve the problems I see in the world, it is easy to feel disheartened when I watch the news or read the headlines. As I have been praying with this weight of the world’s issues and pondering ways to solve them, or ways I can do my part; as a Catholic Christian, though, I have noticed that a lot of it comes down to the attitude and outlook I have. I have come to realize that one of the most important things we can do in order to bring about more peace in the world around us is to start with where we are. My hope is that the following ideas will make you feel a little more hopeful and a little less overwhelmed.

Back in May, my dad and I built a pen for our flock of sheep with electric fence netting that could be moved as needed. We had a place for them to graze, and we planned on moving the netting about once a week so that they would always have fresh grass to graze. We provided shelter, grass, water, and TONS of space for them to spread out. They had everything they needed, and they should have been content. Emphasis on the should. After we finished building the pen and got the sheep moved into it, we thought all would be well. Instead, we found the fence knocked down and sheep running free within just a few hours. They went from having everything needed to having absolutely no protection at all. Truly, they had more freedom within the walls of the fence because the fence was built with the sole intent of keeping them protected. When they got out they could roam further away, but there was no way for us to keep them safe.

Before I left for Poland, I thought I knew God.  I was a cradle Catholic. I read theological texts. I had lengthy apologetics discussions. I made it to daily Mass as much as I could. But over the fourteen days in Poland, I encountered Jesus. 

Whether or not we are able to make a physical pilgrimage, we are all called to live as pilgrims. During Mass, the priest’s words remind us that we are “a pilgrim church on earth.” We are journeying to our true home: Heaven. Living as a pilgrim means shifting our perspective toward eternity. Here are five ways to make an everyday pilgrimage. 

The Cross must be laden with the Crucified, then, to show us who we are now. It lays out the ugliness and hate present within us, that we would murder the Bridegroom by our sin. How generous of the Church and her artists to present us with a picture of what our sin truly is: not an abstract violation against an abstract Eternal Legislator, but a splintering, bleeding, piercing rejection of the One who loves us.