He was known for many miracles: spiritual ecstasies, reading of souls, bearing the wounds of the stigmata, bilocation, prophetic insights, healings, and many, many others.
These miracles were only possible because he fully denied himself, took up his cross, and followed Jesus. He fully surrendered his entire life and will to God. He lived the sacramental life without reservation.
Many of you have experienced spiritual awakenings this week. Marian awakenings at Mary Major. Eucharistic awakenings at Orvieto. Franciscan awakenings at Assisi.
These are great, but these are just the tiny appetizers for what Jesus truly offers through the feast of the sacramental life.
Earlier in my spiritual journey, I had a wonderful Eucharistic awakening.
I had been reading the Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn to learn more about the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. When Holy Thursday came around, I took the opportunity to attend the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
When the priest held the Eucharist up at the end of the prayers of consecration and said, “This is the Lord…”, I experienced the Real Presence of Jesus in a way that I had never experienced Him before. I knew with my entire mind, heart, and soul that I was looking at God – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. What had been an extremely feeble faith, was instantly transformed into a Divine knowledge that the Lamb’s Supper is a reality. I was given a Divine knowledge that the sacramental life is reality.
In the subsequent months, I came to understand that I had a lot of "buts" in my life. I could go to Mass, but my friends want to do this instead. I could go to confession, but I need to do this around the house instead. I could talk about the Catholic faith, but my family wouldn't understand.
What are the "buts" in your life that prevent you from living out the full Christian experience? What are the "buts" in your life that prevent you from indulging in the feast of the sacramental life?
When I was beginning to struggle with the "buts" in my life, my spiritual director gave me an assignment to reflect on my image of God.
In doing so, a memory from about four years old came to mind (a memory I had not thought about in decades) and I related this memory to my director at the beginning of our next session:
We had just moved into a new house. I had fallen asleep early in the evening and woke up to the sight of an image in the window that appeared to be two white orbs. It may have been a figment of my four-year-old imagination, it may have been a carry-over from a dream, or it could have been some weird reflection of the moon in unfamiliar surroundings. Regardless, my scream brought my mother running into the room wondering what was going on. I told her “I saw the eyes of God”.
I thought I was just sharing a silly story with my spiritual director at the beginning of our meeting, and we certainly did get a good chuckle out of it.
Halfway through that session, he casually mentioned a friend of his had just published a book of his friend’s finger-paintings with reflective poems his friend had written.
When the end of the session came, he decided to use one of the poems from his friend’s book as our closing prayer. He randomly opened the book to a page that contained a finger-painting of an image containing two white orbs. These two white orbs looked very similar to what I had described from my four-year-old memory at the beginning of the session. Both of us had chills running down our spines. It was then that I began to better understand the sacramental life.
Later, when I was praying about the "buts" in my life, I found a program that had been broadcasted on Covenant Network where someone (a youth minister at a parish) was discussing his addiction to pornography. I downloaded the podcast and started to listen to it as I walked up to Incarnate Word for a meeting one winter evening.
He told a story about a time he was talking to a lady at his parish that he did not know. Quite out of the blue, the lady told him, “God has a message for you.” God’s message was, “You have to give up pornography if you want to have true intimacy with Me.”
At that exact moment, I looked down and noticed a couple of paint splotches on a manhole. In the pale moonlight, the splotches appeared very similar to my four-year-old vision and the finger-painting.
My MP3 player immediately died at that exact moment. I was immediately overwhelmed with feelings of fear, love, peace, and so many other emotions at the same time....really quite an indescribable experience.
At that point, I finally saw that the "buts" in my life were like the porn addiction for the gentleman in the podcast. The "buts" in my life were preventing me from have a true personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. The "buts" in my life were preventing me from fully entering into the sacramental life.
Unfortunately, conversion can be a very difficult affair. We have to be willing to lose our material life in order to gain our sacramental life. We are often asked to sever ties with old friends and some of the comforts of our past life. I literally had to drop almost everything in my life. Almost everything that I had built a sense of identity around, had to be purged from my life: friends, hobbies, etc. Really, only Virginia and my job with Edward Jones survived the purge....though both were certainly impacted.
I had to stop drinking alcohol, I had to stop following sports and politics, I had to limit secular news. I had to stop caring what other people thought about my faith life....including family.
I even, eventually, got rid of my Jeep Rubicon, cowboy hat and boots. Sacrificing a Jeep is when you know it is serious.
I am not saying everyone is called to give up all these things. However, all of us have attachments that limit our ability to grow in the sacramental life. Purging these elements of a false identity is often necessary to eventually find out who you truly are in Christ.
So, again, what are the "buts" in your life. What are the things in your material life that prevent you from growing closer to Christ in the sacramental life.
Matthew asks a very important question in today’s Gospel, "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole (material) world and forfeit his (sacramental) life?"
Yet, that's exactly the bet we take when we choose the "buts" in our life...when we choose something worldly over something Catholic.
Blessed are you who fear the LORD, and walk in the way of the sacramental life!
Thanks be to God!
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