ELISHEBA BLOGLaura, Ivonne, and Rick
write about their lives in the Eucharist. |
ELISHEBA BLOGLaura, Ivonne, and Rick
write about their lives in the Eucharist. |
By: Ivonne J. Hernandez (This blog was originally published on 11/14/2020, but I needed this message again. I thought perhaps I’m not the only one...) I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately, more than tired… depleted. Dealing with physical tiredness is something I am used to; in learning to manage my CMT (Charcot-Marie-Tooth), I have come to learn my physical limits and how to work around them. I know I need more rest than most people, and I am ok with that. But the mental and spiritual strain I’ve experienced this year is constantly testing my limits, and I’m having to learn, and accept, what those are. I am having to learn to spend more time in silence, more time in prayer. And while it can be tempting for us to try to separate our physical and mental needs from our spiritual needs, we are wholly human; one area will always affect the other. Our worries make us weary; the solution to this is rest. “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary” (Luke 18:1). What happens when we allow ourselves to become weary? We can start to lose hope, and this is a danger we must avoid. A feeling of weariness lets us know that something is off and that balance needs to be restored. This restoration is a passive kind of work. When our bodies need healing, we must give the body what it needs and let it do its work. This is not easy. Ask anyone who has been on an extended bedrest; sometimes, the hardest thing we are asked to do is rest. But our bodies are not meant to work without ceasing. Our need for rest is clearly displayed in the work of Creation when God rested on the seventh day. “Remember the sabbath day—keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). It is interesting to note, however, that what God commands us to do on this day of rest is pray. This is also not easy. While rest from our physical or mental labors means taking a break from work, this is different in our life of prayer, where resting is the actual work. The dictionary defines weary as “feeling or showing tiredness, especially as a result of excessive exertion or lack of sleep.” In our prayer, we experience this “excessive exertion” when we try to do the work of God ourselves. Think about it; God would not ask us to do something beyond our ability. He would not ask us to “pray always” if this depended on our limited human capacities. It is when we are faced with our limits that we can surrender to his infiniteness. It is in our poverty that we realize we need a Savior. “In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” (Romans 8:26). The only way we can pray always, without becoming weary, is when we allow ourselves to enter into His rest. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matthew 11-28-30). A different translation says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Just like the restoration of the body requires us to give the body food and rest, the restoration of our souls requires us to give the soul its food and rest. This food our soul needs is the Eucharist, Jesus Christ Himself; He is also our place of rest. In this rest, His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity mix with our body, mind, and spirit… healing the sick and restoring the broken. In this rest, we become truly whole…we become holy. So when you are feeling weary, do not despair. Lift your eyes to Heaven and enter into His rest.
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“Tell us a bit about yourself.” That moment when a group meets for the first time and they ask everyone this question always gives me pause. Often, whoever answers first creates a pattern the rest of the group follows. Sometimes, they will say their name and where they come from. Other times, they will say their name, what they do for a living, and perhaps why they came to this particular meeting. How we answer that question can give us some insight, not only on how well we know ourselves, but on how secure we feel in our identity. Do we answer with a list of things we do, or do we talk about who we are? Does the answer depend on who is asking? Does it change depending on where we are?
Jesus first asks the disciples to tell Him what others say about Him, for He knows that is what our minds first look for. What is the people’s opinion, and where do we fall within that. But then He asks them as individuals. He asks them to step out of the crowd and seek the answer within their own hearts. “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) Do we know Jesus? Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah, the Bread of Life… Do we know Him? Or do we mainly know about Him? In other words, have we had a personal encounter with Jesus, or do we mainly know what others say about Him? Which is better? I’d like to propose that they are both good, yet one is definitely more important, as it is the goal of our existence. We are made to be in relationship with God. To encounter Him is to know Him. When we hear about Jesus, we will be moved to seek Him; we will thirst to meet Him. When we have an encounter with Jesus, we will be moved to learn everything we can about Him. Can a finite creature ever learn everything about infinite Love? The mind-blowing part of this love equation is that, though we will never know everything about God, He definitely knows everything about each one of us. He knows especially well the parts that are hidden even to our own selves. And, knowing everything about us, the good and the bad, He loves us. INFINITE LOVE loves me. This is who I am. Do I know this? Do I believe it? Do I receive it? What do we know of the story of the Samaritan Woman (John 4:4-42)? We know the woman at the well had an encounter with Jesus that transformed not only her life, but the lives of those around her. “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?” (v.29). When we read between the lines, we realize that it is not just that He knew all she had done that changed her; the devil could do that too. But it was the experience of being fully known and fully loved that transformed her heart.
When she realized who was speaking to her, who was taking time to pay attention to her, to love her, it was then that she realized her worth.
“Body of Christ” As we hear these words and look up at the tiny host, do we realize WHO is asking to come into our flesh and be united with us? “Blood of Christ” As we hear these words and look up at the chalice, do we realize WHO is thirsting for us? When we say Amen, we are assenting that this is indeed the Living God, the Resurrected Jesus, the One Who died for us. Realizing who is speaking to us, who is taking the time to pay attention to and love us… What does that say about who we are? What does it say about who we belong to? If we want to know our truest, deepest identity, we must first seek within our hearts the answer to his question, “But who do you say that I am?”
I looked out the airplane window and saw the most beautiful landscape below. Close to the Grand Canyon, shades of orange and brown edged the earth below. A sigh escaped my lips as the desert beckoned me from below. There is something very appealing about the desert… the vastness, the stillness, the quiet. My heart was quickly moved to praise God. A few minutes later, still looking down from the clouds, I could see a clear demarcation line between the wilderness and civilization. Suddenly there were houses upon houses, neighborhood after neighborhood. Why were they so packed together when there is so much land available? A muffled announcement came over the PA system; we were going to start our descent into Las Vegas. I removed my headphones so I could hear the flight attendant’s instructions, and immediately the noise in the cabin overwhelmed me. My noise-cancelling headphones had done their job. If there is one word I can use to describe my experience of Las Vegas, it is noise. From the moment we landed, my brain has been bombarded with sensory overload. Men found the most secluded place in the desert to create an oasis of noise. There is a difference between going to the desert and going to a deserted place. Las Vegas is in the desert, yet it is most definitely not deserted.
The disciples had just returned from their mission and were depleted. Jesus knew they needed to regain their strength. Mark’s comment on the fact that they had not had an opportunity to eat reminds me of the story of the prophet Elijah, when he was fleeing for his life, afraid of Jezebel:
Lent is coming soon, and it is coming right into the circumstances of our lives. It’s coming into the noise and the chaos of family life, of parish life, of work life. We will be invited to enter into the desert, into the wilderness, the place with vipers and dangers. It is the place where Jesus faced the tempter, and it is there He will face him, in us, again. But before we go to the desert, we are invited to rest in a deserted place, by ourselves. He is calling us to sit under our “solitary broom tree”. It is there where we come face to face with our weakness, our limits and our fears. It is there where we lay it all out and say, “Enough Lord!” The place where we finally come to accept that we can not do this on our own. In humility, in truth, we surrender all and rest. We leave the rest to God. And what does God do? He knows we need nourishment, so He gives Himself to us. In the Eucharist He feeds us, He strengthens us. He then sends us to the desert… not to rest, but to face the temptations in the wilderness. To walk forty days and forty nights with God. Emmanuel, God is with us. When He calls, we know we can trust and go. But, how can we hear Him calling, if our senses are overwhelmed with noise?
Noise-cancelling headphones work by creating opposite sound waves, by creating anti-noise. We can do this in our spiritual lives by constantly singing praise to God. This will cancel the noise of the anti-Christ and allow us to listen to the still small voice of God. We will be able to hear the “cry of the poor”, in the midst of all the noise. We will hear Jesus say to us, “Give them some food yourselves.” (Mark 6:37). So, let us make time each day to pray, to sing the psalms, to cancel all the noise. A very practical way to do this is to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. These prayers mark the day, pausing our activity to sing together in praise as Church, as the family of God. You can find the prayers of the day on this website: https://divineoffice.org
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AuthorsWe are Ivonne J. Hernandez, Rick Hernandez and Laura Worhacz, Lay Associates of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and brothers and sisters in Christ. |