Outermost Limits of Kindness

 Luke tells us that when Jesus was carrying his cross:

Large numbers of people followed him, and of women too, who mourned and lamented for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep rather for yourselves and for your children.” Luke 23:27-28

This scripture is also captured for us in the Eighth Station of the Cross:

Leader: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.

All: Because by your holy cross You have redeemed the world.

Jesus, as you carry your cross you see a group of women along the road. As you pass by you see they are sad. You stop to spend a moment with them, to offer them some encouragement. Although you have been abandoned by your friends and are in pain, you stop and try to help them.

Father John Bartunek in The Better Part wrote, “Amazingly, even in a furious hurricane of personal suffering, his mind is not on himself, but on those whom he loves. . . . This conversation teaches us how to carry our crosses – and Jesus promised that his followers will have crosses to carry, every day."

“Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23

Fr. Bartunek wrote further, “. . . Our acceptance of God's will when it's costly is the only way to exercise the virtues of faith, hope, and love that will restore our souls to health and holiness. . . . When God sends us crosses they too can be redemptive—just as Christ won grace by carrying and dying on his cross. We can win graces” for those in our lives, those who need them the most “through carrying and dying on our crosses with Christ, uniting our imperfect fidelity and trust to his perfect surrender.” Jesus taught us “salvation comes not in spite of or instead of suffering, but through suffering”

Fr. Bartunek wrote to the reader that Jesus knows we love him and that he knows we want to show him our love. Jesus knows that the more we show him our love, the happier we will be.

That rings true for you doesn't it?

Then he has these words for us in meditation, from Jesus,

“Here is a vast arena where you can love. Every time I permit a small suffering to come your way, if you accept it the way I accepted mine, you can offer it to the Father in reparation to the Father in reparation for the sin of someone who is still imprisoned in sin, and if you do this in my name, you will help set that person free.”

Meditating on this and building upon the prayer in the book, I offer this prayer:

Jesus, I see you carrying your cross, thinking about the mission the Father has given you. You remain sensitive to the needs of others. O Jesus, give me a heart like that! Make me love as you love! I tend to turn in on myself when I am given crosses of sadness or suffering. Help me, Lord. I want to accept what God wills for my cross, to unite it with your suffering, your perfect surrender as the Lamb of God to redeem us, to win graces for those who need them most, including those among my own family and friends. I want so much to show you my love.

Mary, Mother of Jesus, and due to his generosity and love, Our Spiritual Mother too, gave her whole self including her heart to her God, as the handmaid of the Lord. Mary's Immaculate Heart never left Jesus.

God has everything he wants but he only has our hearts if we care to offer them to Him.

In the book He and I, he tells us he is our “incomparable Friend . . . . So don't be upset by anything. Once and for all place your heart in Mine, in joy as in distress. . . . Begin right from this very moment. . . . Ask the Immaculate one for this grace. Her heart never left Me.”

“Step outside of your self-center. This will be a new way of coming to Me. Try to see Me more clearly in those around you and your entire association with others will be transformed.” Instead of feeling sorry that you were not alive when I was on earth so that you could be with me, be fully aware of Me in those around you. Serve Me in them."

To me this is Jesus's pep talk to help us, ok me, follow his teaching in the Gospels:

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Matthew 22:39b

“And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethern, you did it to me.'” Matthew 25:40

Jesus knows it is our joy to please God, that the more we show God our love, the happier we will be.

Jesus used He and I, to tell me the Father has given me (us) many opportunities of pleasing Him. Jesus says, “Go to everyone without partiality. And since it's Me, give them your whole self. Go to the very outermost limit of your kindness. . . . Scatter kindness on everyone alike. . . . Don't I scatter My sunshine and rain on the just and the unjust? Widen your smile as you did yesterday. It glorified Me. My very dear little child, I'm counting on you.”

“If I have fulfilled you, it is for the sake of others too. Be ready to pass on to them with love all that you have received. You owe Me this; you also owe it to them. Believe with all your heart that in sharing this overflow of graces you will help many others. A river gives everything to the sea, yet it always swells anew. My little girl, don't you see, one can never give too much.”

“I'm waiting for you – already giving you all the grace you need, the grace I want you to make use of so that those who meet you will meet Me.”

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

Thank you to the Holy Spirit for orchestrating these meditations and scriptures together with the advice I received from the priest today, “Ask Mary to help you to give your whole heart to others, as she gave her whole heart to Jesus.” It was miraculous and true working of the Holy Spirit that what came out of his mouth was in perfect alignment with the Holy Spirit's teaching of me through my daily meditation books.

A couple parting quotes from Abba Pimen (sometimes spelled Poemen), a desert Father:

“If one overhears hurtful words and instead of replying with similar spite, restrains himself and remains silent, or, having been deceived bears it and doesn’t retaliate — through this he has laid down his soul for his friend.”

“There is no greater love than that a man lays down his life for his neighbor. When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor.”

Those are hard, right. I found this that tells the secret – the secret is Humility:

“Humility has no problem believing that God loves us and will not reject us, damaged by sin and weakness though we are. In light of this love we can give up the need to be above reproach. We do not have to be perfect to perform the small acts of loving service that are right in front of us. Since the person with true humility has no self-image to maintain they can be free to do whatever God asks of them, nothing is beneath them.” from Cal Wiebe.

Impossible to Overstate the Love God has for Us

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." Jesus in Matthew 6:3

Scott Hahn in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible commentary writes, "Those who recognize their need for God and his grace . . . find their security in the Lord and rely on his mercy rather than their merits."

I don't think this is merely a promise for the end of time, after the last judgement or after our own personal judgement and meeting with Jesus after our death, I think we find the Kingdom of God within ourselves when we realize our powerlessness, our inadequacy, our ineffectiveness, our inability to bear fruit despite what others might say about our natural gifts and talents, unless we are rooted in the confidence, trust, and awareness of the magnitude of God's love for us.

The Holy Spirit has been teaching me this for the past several weeks.  What patience the Counselor has with me!  One of our priest's in the homily on August 12, 2012 on Matthew 18:23-35 explained how ridiculous the servant was to the master saying that he would pay back everything.  The NIV says the debt was ten thousand bags of gold.  The NRSV says ten thousand talents, and in the Oremus online reader there is a mouseover footnote that reads, "A talent was worth more than fifteen years’ wages of a labourer."  Our priest explained that there was no way that the servant could repay his master.  It was ridiculous for him to make this promise as he fell prostrate before him begging for patience.  He could never repay the debt. 

The priest also explained that many times in Scripture the word debt is used in place of the word sin.  And this is why in one version of the Our Father  we pray or sing, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  Still the real debt is the inability we have to repay the great love God has for us.  This is our poverty, our wretchedness, our nothingness that we read about in the writings of our beloved saints.

The priest explained that the worst thing to happen in this world is not losing your job.  It is not getting diagnosed with cancer (and he knows what that is like).  It is sin.  And what is sin?  Sin comes from the prideful, self-absorption that moves us from the natural gratefulness and returning love for love that should be so natural to us if we consider the tender love and mercy God has for us.  Sin is choosing and seeking our own will and desires apart from God.  It is losing the humility and trust that should come so natural to the state of being the mere children we are, and instead following the example of our first parents, Adam and Eve, that lost that humility and trust when tempted to vanity and pride with Satan's promise, "to be like God." (Genesis 3:5)  That was the lie the serpent told, that we mere children could be like God, deciding good and evil based on what suits us.

I read once, in one woman's infertility blog, that it is an often repeated, but fallacious saying that God only gives us what we can handle.  (It is a variation on the actual scripture verse that we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear and without a means of escaping the temptation. 1 Corinthians 10:13) Instead he gives us more than we can handle because this drives us to Him.  God does this with me in my worklife, in my marriage, with my children, with the mental health of my parents.  No doubt he does this with you too.

Without this overburdening, how rarely do I come out of my habitual self-absorption, and mental preoccupiedness (is that a word?), and come to him as David, his anointed prophet and King did so readily?  Instead, sadly, how often do I rely on my own thinking, or even consultation with those around me rather than simply acknowledging my own poverty and need for Him.  King Saul was also anointed and blessed by God, but instead of asking God when he should attack he consulted soothsayers angering God.

I've learned a few things this morning that you are probably aware of, but might appreciate the reminders:

1. We are all poor in spirit, the question is whether we realize it or not
2. Jesus is drawn to the weakest and poorest, to those who realize they are weak and poor, and to those who don't realize the truth that they are weak and poor (that covers most all of us, doesn't it?)
3. I need to contemplate regularly what God has done for us
4. I need to remember Jesus is everywhere present and longs for me to make the effort of will to come to him directly, relying on Him with all the trust he always expects from me
5. Jesus wants me to realize that just as he is filled with compassion and love for me, he expects me to follow in his footsteps, certain of the power of his love, opening my eyes and heart to the people around me---seeing their needs and reaching out to them as he has reached out to me.  He tells me, "Let your heart overflow to those who come near you."

Here's a scripture to help you through the rest of this post.  When I need several weeks to learn something the Holy Spirit is teaching me, the result is not a quick read!

"Better gain wisdom than gold,

choose understanding in preference to silver.

Pride goes before destruction,

a haughty spirit before a fall.

Those who listen to instruction find happiness;

whoever trusts Yahweh is blessed." Proverbs 16:16,18,20

From He and I:

Gabrielle:  I should so much like to do something for You!  Even in giving all of myself, I give you nothing.  What can I do?"

Jesus:  Come to me.  Rely on me with all the trust I always expect from you.  Come to me directly; I'm waiting for you.

Since I am yours, you are rich.  You are only poor when you count on yourselves and expect to act in your own unaided strength.  How destitute you are then!

But if you lay hold of My merits with humility and hope, what a priceless fortune is yours?

Who is anything beside the infinitely great God?  And you, particularly chosen to be showered with blessings, you are nothing but wretchedness.  I feed this wretchedness every morning with my Eucharist because I want to keep you in My friendship, for I am drawn to the weakest and the poorest.  Give me everything that you blame in yourself, since I am the One who transforms even the ugliest, the lowest into the gold of My Glory.  How?  By love. (from May 9, 1946 and April 26, 1946)

From The Better Part:

"The secret to perseverance in friendship with Christ is to draw our satisfaction not primarily from what we do, but from what God has done for us, and that requires the daily mental discipline of directing our thoughts again and again to God's goodness, cultivating an attitude of gratitude." (#186, meditation on Luke 10:13-24)

Again from He and I:

Jesus:  Follow me everywhere . . . . Let your heart overflow to those who come near you . . . . My poor little girl, enriched by my riches alone, may you be careful not to think that you are worth anything by yourself.  May you be conscious of your power through my power.

Tell Me that you are beginning to be more certain of the power of My love, although you know you are unworthy.

Tell Me this to comfort Me for the ones who do not believe. . . . Let us make an alliance between your poverty and my riches.  Never fail to lean on Me.

Have no confidence in yourself for even a moment.  Where would it lead you?

You don't think often enough that I am everywhere, that nothing exists where I am not present.  Think of this.  It will help you reach me.  One thing only I ask of you:  oneness with Me.  We are united in the morning in my Eucharist, let us not be separated by your indifference; it leads to constant mind-wandering.  When people are in love they never stop thinking of the beloved, do they?  Then what should I conclude if you don't think of Me?

Say to Me, "Have pity on me.  I am nothing but a poor sinner."  Believe it and I'll be moved to pity.  

Consider your nothingness.  If you could see it, you would be terrified if you didn't know My tender mercy.  Try to grasp the poverty of your soul, its destitution.  The you in you is nothing.  The vision of yourself as you are would be terrible for you if you couldn't count on my merits.  Make this your consolation in the meditation on my passion.  Look upon Me and discover My obedient death, accepted with the sweetness of My entire Being. (April 26, 1946; Holy Thursday - April, 1946, March 22, 1945)

8 He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. 9 For which cause, God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names: 10 That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: 11 And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. 12 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but much more now in my absence) with fear and trembling work out your salvation.13 For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. 14And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations: 15 That you may be blameless and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation: among whom you shine as lights in the world. (Philippians 2:8-15)

And still more from He and I:

Jesus:  Will you ever comprehend My sensitivity and how your every tender and compassionate thought thrills My heart?  But even if you don't understand very well, even if your love never gets beyond the stage of trial, I always take into consideration the earnest effort of your will, and this is My delight . . . .

My poor little girl, I love the nothing that you are so much that if you give me permission, I take up all the room in you.

Lose yourself in Me.  Surrender yourself.  Fade out of your own thoughts.  Enter into my eternal being and move and have your being in me. (April 10, 1947)

Finally in the midst of the homily on August 12, and the readings and learnings that concluded this morning, I received some helpful spiritual insights from our friend Patricia, between her comments on my comments on her blog and an email she sent me.  I don't think she'll mind me sharing these since much of the reason she blogs is to share these same insights with whomever might find them.

"Some people pass their whole lives without realizing how great God's love for them is.  How blessed are we, Colleen, to know and to believe in His Love for us!  I heard a priest mention in his homily once that 'a Saint is not so much one who loves God, as one who is absolutely convinced that God loves him.'  To feel safe and confident in God's Love, to know that He longs for us, will never reject us, sets us free to just run to Him and hold on, and be hugged and want to love Him back with all our might."

He (the lawyer) answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he (Jesus) said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’  Luke 10:27-28

To sum up:  I can only love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my strength, and with all my mind, and my neighbor as myself if I regularly contemplate the great Love that God has for me, and if I remain in that Love, follow his commands -- to see and love others as he has loved me and as he exemplified during his time on earth.  The more my job or anything else augments my vanity and pride, the more I have to run back to him, declaring my poverty of spirit, and my absolute need for him.

Again as Patricia wrote in a comment:  "We should gaze on Jesus lovingly in the midst of whatever else we are doing, as St. Teresa of Avila (and Brother Lawrence too) wrote, 'finding God among the pots and pans.'  As I am so small and helpless, I beg for his power to fill me with that grace of recollection, of turning to Him with a gaze or sigh, as we do with those we so love."

Glory to you Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Glory!

Involuntarily Admitted

Thank you for all your prayers and support.  Some of you reached out beyond your comments on my last post with both prayers and emails.
  
I did find refuge in attending Divine Liturgy on Holy Thursday and following it with adoration, as well as reading from He and I and Searching for and Maintaining Peace.  I did feel the presence of God within me very much especially while reading He and I which was primarily on the flights down and back.  It was impossible for me to read 2 sentences without praying with full confidence of the presence of the Trinity within my soul.  I was so happy to experience this.

It was hard to not be able to "fix" everything in my 2 day whirlwind trip.  It was a tense time there.  I prayed for God's will and guidance, out loud in the car with my sister and brother on the way to my parents' house, for all of us involved, immediately before the intervention occurred.  During it, i did not feel his presence, nor was I, regrettably, praying during it.  

It was quite hard on my Dad.  My Dad was uncontrollably shaking alternating from his hands to his foot during the intervention.  We had two ladies from a mobile mental health intervention team. They were doing the evaluation.  Not sure what exactly convinced them that my Mom's behavior warranted the involuntary admittance but I was relieved when one of them let me know the Crisis Intervention Team from the Sheriff's Office was on its way.

My younger sister has some issues too, she says she is Bipolar and ADD and her doctor has her on meds.  She stayed up all night before the intervention and she would not stop talking even after one of the intervention ladies said the objective had been achieved.  It is gross to talk about some of my Mom's behavior out loud so I really wanted her to shut-up.  I guess I have control issues and in her words, "don't respect her enough."  My Dad said I need to realize she doesn't have a husband or children giving her regular affirmation and affection.
In a way I think it is disrespectful to replay all the, how do you say, "crap", over and over.  I caught a brief scene, I think from Gray's Anatomy, at the Fitness Center the week before I went to Florida. It was a woman telling her brother, the doctor, that she was sorry for the guilt he felt, but essentially she is the one that has had to live the hell of being Bipolar.

I convinced her to get dressed and brush her teeth before going to the hospital.  My Dad told me to go in the room with her in case she tried to crawl out the window.  I don't think she could do that, but it did give me time to tell her to please not lean on her understanding like it says in Proverbs 3:5-6, but consider the nurses and psychiatrist as there by the will of God and to please put some trust in their advice, diagnosis and the medicine they want her to take.
My Mom was taken to the hospital on Friday. Due to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) we have no idea if she has received medication or not.  Not a big fan of that Act right now.  Every once in a while I get a nurse that seems to throw caution to the wind and slips me some helpful information.  As I realized during my first baby's labor and delivery, I must remember to Thank God for nurses!  I don't think the act causes as much frustration for non-mental health patients' families.

I don't like to take away my Mom's freedom, nor talk about all the sins, and sheer grossness of her manic behavior.  Inside her is the redeemed daughter of our Heavenly Father that was a very good and loving mother to me and my sisters and brother, and the Christian woman that I knew to notice and help others when I was growing up.
When I was 9 or 10, Mom met a lady named Rose.  I don't know where, but this elderly lady had terrible arthritis and no close family to take her shopping or to the doctor.  I remember many times going with my Mom to take her shopping, or bringing her groceries.  Other times I remember us buying Christmas gifts for a family of 5 kids whose Dad had not worked in a long time and who otherwise would not be getting any toys for Christmas . . . just socks and underwear.  I am pretty sure this is before churches had Adopt a Family programs.

I also remember a Mom that was so proud of me.  I never had a lack of love or support at home, from either parent, despite what my siblings and parents tell me was a persistent illness during our whole lives.

After my Mom left, I went with my Dad to protect the money that he earned, after paying back the 2nd mortgage she took out during her last mania to fund two different investment scams.  That and other activities that I can't stomach to write about here, resulted in their bankruptcy.  My Dad was injured during her last mania and the last few years his money has been especially hard earned, with him taking Aleve to get through work as a carpenter each day.  He only retired in November, 2011, shortly after his 70th birthday.

Part of me is very much worried this is not going to be a cheap hospital stay and even with Medicare and insurance covering something there is going to be a deductible as high as a deductible can get.  My Dad is not good with financial matters, which is why my Mom has handled the bills, and "investments" and caused so much damage in the past.  He seems to not realize how quickly his savings could be gone.  He talks about the inheritance he is going to leave and I really think it will just be the house, unless the hospital bills generate liens on that too.

Unfortunate for my mother is that she is either manic and casing their street for an audience and someone to help, taking any and all curbside junk home for creative reuse ideas, or depressed to the point of not leaving the house but once a week for Mass.  She hasn't been at a level state since before I went away to college some 27 years ago.  Part of the problem is Lithium is probably most effective at "leveling" and she is most intolerant to that.

On Saturday morning I flew home.  When I landed there was a text message from my sister and a voicemail from my Dad saying that Mom was released.  This turned out to be a lie my Mom told one of her friends to tell my Dad.  A nurse at the hospital explained that she would not be released without my father being called by a a case worker.

Saturday and Sunday my Dad and younger sister visited Mom in the hospital's psychiatric ward.  My Dad said she was vicious toward him both days, but especially Sunday.  Monday she called and said she had taken some medicine.  He said she sounded different, like she had been taking medicine.  I don't believe it, but I do hope it is true.  My Dad has history of being manipulated by her so there is no reason to believe this isn't happening again.

My younger sister wants my Dad to pay a lawyer somewhere between $5,000 and 10,000 to get medical guardianship and also make a way around the frustrating HIPAA regulations.  This would give him, they think, the grounds to have medicine administered by injection.  My mom has kept oral medication in her mouth and then spit it out in the past.  Her most recent psychiatrist advised injection as the only way to be assured the medicine was in her system working to bring her out of the mania.

I don't think either of my parents will make it to 2022.  They have lived in the valley of tears.  They live in a gorgeous part of Florida, but the emotional turmoil that they have had would be similar to what many experience in combat.  I think it has been harder on my father, because he has been abused during her mania in so many ways.  After they took her to the hospital, he said inside he felt like he had died.  I hope he was being dramatic, but he is definitely broken inside, and in need of emotional healing.

I was glad to see my kids and celebrate Easter with them.  Not that I recommend finding a reason to be away from your kids, but they really seemed more appreciative and affectionate toward me when I got back.  You would think I had been away much longer than 2 nights.

My father wishes I would have stayed longer, but I have duties here too.  I am relieved to be away . . . . I am still talking to him and my sister 3-4 times a day.  This sickness still has its grip on my parents lives and we are doing our mutual best to deal with it.  Again, thank your for your prayers and concern for me and my family.  God Bless you for caring!