In the Desert

“I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. The house was full of His glory. Around Him stood seraphim; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory’” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

The first two-thirds of the Book of Isaiah are about woe and doom. God pours out His sorrow for the brokenness in the world. Reading through it is a bit like picking up a newspaper nowadays, and you cannot help but feel weighed down by it all. But right when things seem most unbearable, Isaiah is lifted up out of the darkness and into heaven. It feels like the sun bursting out through the clouds after a rainy day. Christ the King sits in his throne, splendor and power radiate around him, six-winged seraphims, larger than life, and all the hosts of heaven, are caught up in worship, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” This is a message to us about where to fix our hearts. In the midst of our sadness, anger, and chaos, heaven looms above, totally undisturbed, totally at peace, beautiful, and radiant.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

Deep in the hill country of Country Clare, Ireland, beneath trees and damp moss, is the sacred well of St. Colman Mac Duagh. The contemplative fled the noise of worldly life to live in a cave, where he remained constant in prayer and adoration, all in the quiet bubbling noise of a spring. Hundreds of such holy wells and hermitages are scattered across Ireland, where generations of men and women have retreated for quiet and contemplation. The Irish have been known to travel ten to twenty miles barefoot in order to crawl on their knees around these sacred sites, for penance, healing, safe childbirth, or at times, to appease the mischief of woodland fairies.

This old piety is not unique to Ireland, nor is it superstitious or vain. An earthy reverence has been at the heart of Orthodox Christianity in every part of the world. St. Dionysius of Olympus, Greece, also wandered the mountains, always stopping to pray by springs and streams. He believed that the sound of water is the best music for prayer. To the very day, villagers at the base of Mt. Olympus hike up the mountain to dip their fingers in the blessed well and ask a favor.

Why have Christians always found such value in the quiet of nature? Why have so many saints gone out into caves and burrows to pray?

Christ gives us two commandments.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-38).

Love God. Love your neighbor.

But we are so distracted. We have a thousand tugs and pulls from every direction, and a buzzing noise underlies everything man touches. Wars, natural disasters, political wrestling matches, everything down here is so bombastic and consuming. How can we love God and neighbor? So the scriptures invite us to step back.

“Come away by yourselves to a desolate place,” Jesus Christ tells us, “and a rest a while” (Mark 6:31).

“Come out from [the world] and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

The desert fathers were emphatic: retreat and look up.

Here is a word by St. Evagrius.

“Do not let your eyes be distracted during prayer, but detach yourself from concern with body and soul, and give all your attention to the [heart] . . . Detach yourself from concern for the body when you pray: do not let the sting of a flea or a fly, the bite of a louse or a mosquito, deprive you of the fruits of your prayer . . . Do you have a longing for prayer? Then leave the things of this world and live your life in heaven . . . If you seek prayer attentively you will find it.”

The saints in the wilderness are not mere escapists. They are pursuing something. They found a pearl so bright and beautiful that they were willing to give up everything to admire it. They have discovered what Prophet Isaiah discovered, when caught up to heaven — away, above, always there in the midst of all our noise and frustration, is the peace and beauty of God.

How can we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind?

Love is a kind of holy madness. When you fall in love, you are willing to give up everything just to be in the presence of your beloved. Climbing out windows, breaking curfew, risky behavior, the young lover gives it all up. Is that not true? All you see is her face. The way she talks. The clothes she wears. The path she walks on. Everything becomes enchanted with your mad adoration.

Now imagine if your beloved were an artist. You would savor every work of art. Even the paintbrushes the artist uses become sacred relics. Imagine if your beloved painted the sunrise. Every sunrise would move you in the bones. Imagine if your beloved put the stars in the sky. You would stay up late to watch them twinkle. Imagine if your beloved inspired the melody of bubbling streams and roaring oceans, you would long to listen to the streams and swim in the oceans, just to touch your beloved.

“I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. The house was full of His glory. Around Him stood seraphim; each one had six wings . . . and one cried to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory’” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

Truly, the whole earth is full of God’s glory. It buzzes with the joy and splendor of our heavenly Artist.

The life Christ calls us to is a life of wonder and worship. All our frustrations and accomplishments, what do they matter, in comparison to God’s grandeur, His words, desires, and will. Man’s troubles are a just a shadow beneath the greater reality. We are called to live away from the noise, and to join the seraphim in that neverending delight in God.

“Who is she that riseth up as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

1789, the French Revolution broke out, that great demonic force and forerunner of the Antichrist. The rebellion stirred up hatred against everything sacred. Cathedrals, altars, priests, icons, men, women, and children were desecrated. But the French people did not give in passively. In the Vendée region of Western France, an uprising surged. Poorly clad peasants, armed with prayer beads and a sacred heart pinned to their breast, marched forward against the revolutionists. Knowing the odds all too well, they anchored their hope on heaven. Three times a day, the battalions prayed the rosary. Three times a day they called to their general above, the Blessed Virgin Mary, marching to their death.

At a grave point in the battle, the Vendée loyalists retreated. They had no chance for victory, and ran back. Who do you think they met behind them? Their wives and daughters, waving frying pans and buckets, urging them back to battle: “Turn around! Fight!” The war roared on. Half a million Christians were massacred that day, half a million martyred, for God and country, willing to give up their lives, rather than settle for the idolatry of secularism.

“Who is she that riseth up as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

This is a prayer from the Divine Office on the Feast of the Assumption. “Clear as the sun.” “Terrible as an army.” Who indeed? The Blessed Queen, our Lady and Mother.

St. John was taken up into heaven and foreshown the end of the world. Who does he find combatting the dragon? Our Queen.

“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars . . . And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems” (Revelation 12:1-3).

The devil hates the Blessed Virgin. He was warned at the start that she would be his demise: “I will put enmities between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Genesis 3:15).

“Clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

Who is this great woman, Queen and Warrior?

She is the young, humble maiden who said, “Thy will be done.”

Picture this little girl. She did not have any lofty degrees. It never crossed her mind to be successful or accomplished. She did not wear flashy dresses or demand rights and recognition. She lived at the temple, wore simple clothes and a head covering, was quiet, submissive, and prayerful. The angel’s “Ave Maria” did not mean any earthly honor for the maiden. Her pregnancy would be a scandal to the world. She would be a disgrace, a shame, despised and probably stoned. How did she respond, in her quiet, little heart: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.”

The irony of Christianity: everything is flipped upside down in Jesus Christ. The grand and magnificent become petty and insignificant. The poor and humble become mighty and powerful. What the world celebrates, God casts to the ground. What the world considers weak and puny, God lifts up and honors.

Who does God use to defeat the devil? Not a celebrity, nor a politician, not an Oprah Winfrey, or Margaret Sanger, or even someone like A.O.C. You would not see a picture of the Blessed Virgin in a feminist promotion, flexing her arm, saying, “We Can Do It!” No. God chooses someone smaller and less noticeable. Indeed, he chooses a girl that would not even be noticed in today’s pop culture — the handmaid of the Lord.

 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.”

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14. 8-11).

This is our path.

What is great in the eyes of the world, is nothing in God’s eyes. What is petty to the world, is everything to God.

“The cross is folly to those who are perishing,” St. Paul preaches. “But to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5).

“[He] emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7).

The world we live in is going to hate us.

There is an underlying hatred towards God and the Church brewing in our culture todayand . We need to prepare ourselves.

Do you remember the churches in Canada? 83 homes of God vandalized, burned down, or desecrated just a couple years ago, on the premise of unmarked graves. It is like something out of the French Revolution. It was all fake, and that is thoroughly documented and testified now. There were never unmarked graves, but you do not hear that do you, and it does not matter. This is just the beginning. There is a movement in our times which has always marked the end of a Christian world. Lies about our faith are festering everywhere, lies about our beliefs, morality, and lives, lies about the past and Christianity’s profound impact on the world, lies about the present and the unparalleled morality and charity of Christians all around us. Good people have swallowed up these lies. Friends, peers, children have been fed them.

We need to buckle down and get serious. Expect to be hated. Expect to be the shame of the world, among your peers, and your community. Expect to hear scandals said about your priest and your bishops. Expect to be laughed at. Expect to suffer. Expect that it will be very, very easy, to betray Christ and give in to the pressure — just a little insence, burn a little insence to the emperor. What will it hurt?

Do you remember our Corpus Christi procession last year. We took the Blessed Sacrament downtown and did an exorcism and dedication over our community. Did you know protestors went to the police station beforehand? They wanted permission to riot and mock us? The police intervened this time. They refused and sent out patrols to guard us while praying.

This is how you know we are doing God’s work. The world will hate us. It will not be so easy in the future. Things are getting worse, and quickly.

How does this make us feel? Is it unsettling? Is it our greatest joy? There is no better life than to share the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

How do we prepare?

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14. 8-11).

We need to become smaller.

Start fasting. Starve yourself a little. Let the muscles in your arms atrophy. That is how you become a soldier of Christ. Pray more fervently. Sacrifice your time and strength on your knees. That is the best kind of prepping. Arm yourself with the rosary. The Blessed Mother has the final victory. She holds the weapons that sleigh the dragon. If we want to be soldiers in the 21st century, it is time to pay attention to our general.

This is our war, our joy! We were born for it. Fight it well!

“Who is she that riseth up as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

“Fear seized them all, and they glorified God” (Luke 7:16).

I doubt there is a biblical concept harder for modern men to grasp than “fear of God.” It is often glossed over as simply meaning ‘awe,’ but that is not satisfying. What does awe mean in the first place, or to be seized by awe? Does the word ‘fear’ imply something not found in awe? I believe so.

A funeral procession was leaving the city when they encountered Christ. It was a dark moment. Christ heals a lot of wounded people, but this miracle is unique. It is so piercingly bleak, heart rending. A young boy lies dead in an open coffin. He was in the flower of his youth, young, sprightly, promising, and hopeful. Now he is pale and lifeless. His mother is weeping, a widow, alone, and abandoned.

This procession parallels closely with our modern, nihilistic culture — a society of death. You can always evaluate the amount of despair in a culture by its degree of hedonism. The catch phrase, sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll is not a sign of jubilation. It is an indication of depression, a culture so hurt and empty that its youth are desperate to escape reality. But it is an antiquated phrase now — so “1960’s.” We have moved farther down the rabbit hole.

I heard recently that there is hardly any punk scene anymore. This is a tragedy. The punks, with their mohawks and screamo, represented the psyche of our culture, which recognized that something was wrong. With their drums and guitars, they were crying out for life, for meaningfulness, in a world that had become plastic. But there are no more punks today, or very few. The punk scene is phasing out. What happened? Younger generations are too successfully distracted now to make good punks; they are too buried in their iPhones and social media. We have our drugs. We do not need to feel anymore.

This is the scene into which Jesus Christ walks — despair.

Then what happens?

“He came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them” (Luke 7:14-16).

“Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you . . . and put breath in you, you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:5-6).

Christ touched death and breathed into death life. The boy rose from the dead. The mother woke from her stupor, her grief became joy, her despair became wonder.

“Fear seized them all, and they glorified God” (Luke 7:16).

What is this fear? We have seen what despair looks like? That funeral procession embodied it. But all that changed. They were seized with fear and overwhelmed with worship? This is the new life Christ brought to the world.

Ἔλαβεν δὲ φόβος πάντας καὶ ἐδόξαζον τὸν Θεὸν

They were seized with φόβος.

The Ancient Greeks believed φόβος (fear) to be a deity, and the son of Ares, god of war. They associated φόβος with aversion, the desire to run away when faced with death. The same word took on a new meaning with time, similar, but totally different — awe, reverence, and wonder. We like to say these words, but we may understand them less than the word ‘fear.’

Our world today is obsessed with comfort. We do not like mystery so much. We want everything spelled out, with a warning label, and easily accessible. We want to feel in control. But φόβος, fear of God, has nothing of this. Awe is closer to fear than we might like, because it implies recognizing a presence, infinitely bigger than us, infinitely more powerful and overwhelming, good, beautiful, but also terrifying, as an enormous wave about to crash down.

Imagine standing in a dark room. You are told that somewhere in that room there is a tiger. You would be afraid. Now imagine standing in that same room, and being told that there is a ghost. If you believed it, you would also be afraid, but in a different kind of way. A tiger is one thing. A ghost is another. The tiger implies sharp claws. The ghost implies another world, a world beneath a veil, eternity, soul, mystery. Now imagine being told that you are in a room with a mighty Spirit. C. S. Lewis suggests: “You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of a prostration before it.” This is what fear of God means.

The German theologian, Rudolf Otto, used the word ‘numinous’ to describe fear of God. The word comes from the Latin ‘numen,’ meaning a “deity” or “spirit,” and implies being caught up in a mystery both terrifying and fascinating.

“The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude . . . It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of — whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all” — Otto writes.

In that wonderful book, The Wind and the Willow, Rat and Mole were drifting along the stream when they encountered the forest spirit. “‘Rat,’ [Mole] found breath to whisper, shaking, ‘Are you afraid?’ ‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. ‘Afraid? Of Him? O, never, never! And yet – and yet – O, Mole, I am afraid.’”

Fear means being shaken up by the numinous, being overwhelmed by the colossal gravity of something Other. Part of you wants to flee; another part to cling and adore.

Fear of God implies dread with hope, humility and boldness, wonder and love.

“Fear seized them all, and they glorified God” (Luke 7:16).

Jesus Christ walked into a scene of darkness outside the gates of Nain. Our Gospel begins in dread, and ends in awe.

This is the Christian life, to be awake, no longer like the funeral procession, but overwhelmed with adoration.

“Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11)

“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up . . . walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:31).

Christianity remains paper thin until touched with the numinous — joy with trembling.

But we are modernists, are we not? We look at the universe through secular lenses, all atoms, or chemistry, or politics. The wonder we lived in as children was beaten out of us in grade school, and then starved by our television shows. Was it not?

Or is there a hope that we can wake up, a chance that we can live seized in a beautiful fear of God?

Everything depends on this.

Look up!

Bring back the hairshirts. The knights barged into the cloister where Thomas Becket prayed, Archbishop and Martyr of Canterbury. “Traitor to king and country,” they cried. “I am no traitor and I am ready to die,” he humbly replied. The knights grabbed him and shaved off his hair with sword in hand. Becket knelt, “For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death,” and gave up the ghost. As the high bishops of the time, Thomas Becket lived in a mansion and wore priceless robes. Yet, laid out on his coffin, beneath the silk and gold, the holy man wore a simple, well-worn and scratchy hairshirt.

Continue reading “Bring Back the Hairshirts”

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).

If you walk along the banks of a stream you will see plants that are lush and abundant. When you step away from the stream, the plants become sparse and dry. It is the same in our soul. When resting in the presence of the Holy Spirit, our soul produces joy and patience. When closed off to the Holy Spirit, our soul fills up with bitterness and impatience. 

Continue reading “Fruit of the Heart”

“Purify yourself and you will see heaven in yourself…The sun that shines there is the light of the Trinity. The air breathed by the entering thoughts is the Holy Spirit…That is the kingdom of God hidden within us” (St. Isaac of Nineveh).

“Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. And God spoke” (Exodus 20:21).

There are two ways to change a lump of iron. You can hit it with a hammer, chisel and polish. Or you can set it in a fire. Let the flames bake it, and the iron becomes refined and malleable. The soul is the same. The purpose of Christianity is not to make us moral or ethical. It is to plunge us into God, and in God’s presence, change something raw and ugly into something holy and beautiful.

Continue reading “Moral Law and Holiness”

“The woman saw the tree was good for food, was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree beautiful to contemplate, she took its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6).

We become what we contemplate. Eve fixed her eyes on the fruit of the forbidden tree and contemplated its beauty. The way a painting or sunset can mesmerize a person, or a beautiful woman dumbfound a man, Eve was caught up in a worshipful spell when she contemplated the apple. From the eyes, to the heart, to the soul. What do we spend our time looking at, listening to, touching, or tasting — God, nature, art, television, video games, pictures? We become what we contemplate. What we contemplate becomes our worship. What we worship, determines our eternity.

Continue reading “Screens, Pictures, Fun: We Are What We Contemplate”

“When the Shepherd found the sheep, He did not punish him, nor did He drag him to the fold. He rather put him on His shoulders, and carried him gently and included him in the fold” (St. Gregory Nyssa).

What compassion and joy there is in our God. We spend a good deal of time talking about how we ought to live. We should give as much time, if not more, contemplating how He lives, how He exists, the kind of exuberant joy and love that is God.

Continue reading “Contemplating God’s Joy”

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17).

A pure heart — unstained, undisturbed, unbroken calm and rest in God. Purity is the goal of our Christian life. It is the banquet — where all the guilt stuffed inside is gone, all anxieties and noise in the head silenced, and a peace that runs so deep, nothing stands between you and God. What keeps us from this peace? One thing: our excuses.

Continue reading “Entrapment of Excuses”

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Yehi ohr vayehi ohr’ —‘Let there be light; and there was light’.”

The universe appeared, empty, abysmal, a shadow lacking harmony and beauty. Then light permeated creation. Ohr Ein Sof – ‘Light of Infinitude’ — an emanation and movement, as the light of an incubator awakening seeds, or the light of an artist’s brushstrokes transforming a sketch into a masterpiece. The light stirred up the cosmos, like the colors of a sunrise, filling atoms with spirit, calling life towards one cosmic act of worship. This same light burned in the bush before Moses. It overshadowed the Blessed Virgin, making a womb a vessel for God. It burns now in the Church, in our hearts and homes, calling us out of a life of meaninglessness into a life of adoration.

Continue reading “The Wildfire of God”