A Night in the Forest

I have not posted anything for quite a while, but I wanted to share this precious gift I was given on Sunday night while on a silent retreat.  After checking in, eating dinner, and praying evening prayer with my fellow seminarians, I went out alone for a walk.

A Night in the Forest

It is dark.  I walk through the forest just able to make out the path by the margins set by the yellow leaves that have fallen and blown to the side.  Walking on, I come to a grotto.  I stop to look at the Blessed Virgin, my eyes just now beginning to adjust to the darkness.  The candles placed at the Virgin’s feet have long since burned out, yet there she stands, keeping her vigil…for me?

I continue down the dark path, now becoming a little clearer.  Through the dark canopy of the trees I see a clearing with a barely discernible outline of a cross.  As I walk toward the cross, I realize that this clearing is a cemetery.  Sleeping here in the darkness, so many holy men who have walked through this forest before me.  Did they find what they were looking for…what I am looking for?  I am not even sure why I am here on this dark night.  I walk on.

From the clearing, the forest closes in on me again.  Through the black canopy I make out the almost black sky, lit only by the lights of a distant city bouncing off the clouds.  Walking deeper into the forest, I keep looking up.  A drop of rain hits my face, then another.  Should I turn back? I keep walking.  Soon, another clearing.  This time there is a life-sized Crucifix.  A streetlight shines through the trees with just enough light so that Jesus’ face is clear. I kneel before my Shepherd. I sing Psalm 23 - there is nothing I want.  Jesus keeps giving.  It is raining harder now, the rain is for me. 

I continue my walk. The rain is cold, but feels good on my face, cleansing me, refreshing me. Despite the cool wet night, I am warm on the inside. The sound of the rain on the trees keeps me moving forward to yet another clearing.  A Labyrinth!  I walk past but I am drawn back.  It is really raining now. Maybe I should come back tomorrow and walk the labyrinth in the sunshine. “Did I bring you here tonight so you could turn around?” I find the entrance and follow the stone path back and forth, around and around, but ever closer to the center. Cold and rainy and dark, but I dare not step off the path. I dare not look for the short-cut. The path is clear.  I cannot see all the turns because of the darkness, but I know that it leads to the center.  I walk slowly, carefully, prayerfully to the center.  I stop.  I look up. From the center I can see the whole labyrinth. Even in the dark, even in the rain, the path I had taken was clear.

                        The Lord IS my Shepherd

                        He leads me along the right path

                        He restores my soul

                        His mercy and Kindness will follow me

                        All my life!

 

NOTE: I returned to the same place in the daylight to take a few pictures, and to assure myself that all this really happened.  Here are a few photos:

The Grotto

The Cemetery

The Crucifix

The Labyrinth

 

Peace and Blessings to All

Russ

Got Friends?

February 18, 2012

This week’s Gospel reading is from the First Chapter of Mark.  In a quick summary, a paralytic is taken to Jesus to be healed.  Because of the crowd, they cannot get close to Jesus, so they open the roof and lower their friend down.  Jesus sees the faith of the friends and forgives the sins of the paralytic, who is then able to walk.  (Also, this week, Psalm 41.)  Here is a reflection I did on that reading for this week:

I like Facebook.  I have 279 friends on Facebook…well, 278 friends, not counting my Mom.  I never had 278 friends before.  This is really cool.  The other night, I started going through my list of friends.  I saw a couple of names I really didn’t recognize.  I looked at their pictures and didn’t recognize them either.  One of my friends is from Bozeman, Montana.  I have never been to Bozeman, Montana, and for that matter, I didn’t recognize her name.  Turns out she is a friend of a friend, but that other friend is a person that I don’t really know all that well.  I guess that in some weak moment, some late night, I must have accepted her friend request.  Now I have a dilemma.  I don’t know this friend, but I don’t want to unfriend her because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.  If I am ever in Bozeman, Montana, maybe I should give her a call.  I can almost hear that conversation now: “Hi Joyce. This is your friend Russ.”  “Who?” “Russ, you know, from Facebook, we’re friends.”  “What do you want?” “Well, I was just passing through Bozeman and thought I would stop by to say hi... Hello?...  Hello?...  Joyce?” “Click!”

We throw around the word friend pretty easily.  The paralytic in the Gospel of Mark, he had friends.  These were four guys who must have loved him.  They knew who Jesus was.  They knew Jesus could heal their friend.  They would go to any length to get him healed.  There must have been some interesting and deep discussions amongst these friends.  Perhaps they discussed the Psalm we just heard:

            The LORD will help him on his sickbed,

            He will take away all his ailment when he is ill.

            Once I said, “O LORD, have pity on me;

            Heal me, though I have sinned against you.”

We have to get pretty close to a person to have that kind of discussion.  This is not a discussion about the weather, about a good movie we have seen, a new restaurant we have been to.  This is about looking deeply into someone’s life, looking at their scars, picking up their burdens and making them yours.  It is more than encouragement, more than cheering them on.  It is saying to them, “I know how you can be healed and I will carry you there, if that is what it takes.” 

It is not enough to say that I will be this kind of friend to you.  We need to have these kinds of friends ourselves.  We need to have people in whom we can trust.  We need people who have our permission to say to us whatever it is that they think we need to hear.  It was the in faith of the paralytic’s friends that he found hope.  Jesus does not say to the paralytic “your faith has healed you.”  Jesus sees the faith of his friends and heals him.  Imagine just how much trust the paralytic must have had in his friends to let them lower him through a hole in the roof.  The only way this healing is going to occur is if the man lets his friends carry him.  We have to be ready to bare our souls to our friends and listen carefully to what they tell us.  These need to be men or women of integrity, wisdom and love. 

Lastly, please note that the paralytic was healed when Jesus forgave his sins.  Almost everyone, at some point in their life, is paralyzed by sin.  Some small thing leads to a bigger thing, and then our relationship with family, or with our friends, or with our employers, or with God is impacted.  We become paralyzed.  We see no way out.  It is especially then, that we need the help of our friends to lead us back to Christ, or even to carry us back, so we can be forgiven…so we can start fresh…so we can pick up our mats.  It is especially then, when we see no way back, that we need to let our friends open the roof and lower us down.  We need friends who will help us to pray:

            “Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.”

I said earlier that I have 278 Facebook friends.  What I should be asking myself is if four of them would actually be willing to cut a hole in the roof for me.

Switching gears, I am doing very well.  Spring break is in two weeks.  The notion of going on spring break seems very weird to me, after working for so many years, but what the heck…being a student has to have a few perks.  I will be headed to Florida to visit my Mom.  I should be back in Texas in April to celebrate Easter with family and friends at St. Jude.  I am really looking forward to both trips.  President’s Day is this weekend and we actually get off two days in a row.  I plan on skiing one day in New Hampshire (it’s only a 2 hour drive) and then reading and writing all day on Monday. 

That’s the news from here.  Please continue to pray for me and all seminarians.

In Christ,

Russ

Happy New Year (Belated!)

January 24, 2012

Thought it might be time for another update.  I am well into my second semester at Blessed John Seminary and things are going well.  When I returned from Christmas break, my grades from first semester were waiting in my mailbox.  It seems that my high school guidance counselors were right.  I was capable of getting decent grades.  That was a nice surprise.  This semester I am taking classes in Church History, Fundamental Theology, Medieval Philosophy, Pastoral Theology and Homiletics (Preaching.)  The classes are challenging, but I am truly enjoying them.

It was great visiting with family and friends over the winter break, but I found myself anxious to return to school after the New Year.  I think I was just ready to continue the formation process.  I returned to cold weather and snow, but have managed to go skiing a couple of times for half a day, so that is not so bad. 

This past weekend, a group of us went to Washington D.C. to participate in the March for Life.  On Monday, about 500,000 people marched up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol, then on to the Supreme Court building to protest on the 39^th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision which legalized abortion in this country.  It was an interesting and puzzling paradox that while half a million people could peaceably march on the seat of our government without being arrested, or even hassled, that same government had no problem with the killing of innocent babies.  I am thankful that I live in a country where I have the freedom to live and express myself, and at the same time sorrowful that so many children are denied these same rights.

On Sunday, we attended Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Catholic Church in the country.  We processed in with over 500 other seminarians and a few hundred priests, deacons and bishops.  There were thousands of people in the congregation, all of them singing and thanking us for our service to God as we processed in.  It was very moving.  On Monday, before the march, I was asked to serve as an Acolyte at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the other huge church in D.C.  That was a great experience as well.  This was truly a pilgrimage.

At the Altar at the National Basilica

Looking forward, I will be hitting the books hard until the beginning of March, when I will get a week off.  I am planning on visiting Mom in Florida.  After that, it will be back to school until mid-May.  I will be headed back to Texas in April to spend Easter with my family and my friends at St. Jude’s. 

Please continue to pray for me and I will be lifting you up in my daily prayers as well.  God Bless.

Russ