Tag Archives: Our Lady of Sorrows

How To Become a Saint Among Sodomites

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For many today, as homosexuality is being promoted so clearly as a “dogma” of those who sit on proverbial “golden thrones” in entertainment and media, it is becoming more clear that it is harder to say “yes” to God than it was just a few years ago. Persecution is already occurring and we are being called to white martyrdom which is to suffer as a Christian for being Christian, but not to the point of bloodshed. The good news is that Jesus is with us in all of this, and it is through Him that we may become the saints God calls us to be.

Did you know that God wants everyone to be a saint? Only a few among all people who have lived are known by the Church to be saints, but it is God’s will that each and every one of us will become a saint. If you are not seeking to become a saint, you need to begin now, particularly given this time of trial for the Church.

I have entitled this article “How to Become a Saint Among Sodomites” not because I am a saint (not yet), but because I know that I can eventually become one because that is God’s will for me. I want everyone else to know that they not only can become saints, with the help of God and with the (bonus) help of His holy saints, that it is God’s will for you.

The Holy Spirit will teach us how, through the Church. Though there are those who would disagree, I have found that our priests are quite well equipped to instruct us. An example dropped in my lap today as I was listening to a homily at Audio Sancto about fixing our intentions at the offertory. In it, Father spoke at length about something that is of utmost importance for one to become a saint. That is to not be absorbed spiritually in the things of the world. He mentioned the Precautions of St. John of the Cross, who was a Doctor of the Church. More specifically, he mentioned what St. John of the Cross wrote about Lot’s wife.

Take Lot’s wife as an example: Because she was troubled at the destruction of the Sodomites and turned her head to watch what was happening, God punished her by converting her into a pillar of salt [Gn. 19:26]. You are thus to understand God’s will: that even were you to live among devils you should not turn the head of your thoughts to their affairs, but forget these things entirely and strive to keep your soul occupied purely and entirely in God, and not let the thought of this thing or that hinder you from so doing.

If we fret too much over other people and what they may think of us if we do not accept their “dogma” on homosexuality, we will lose sight of God’s will. Not only that, if we are afraid to hurt people’s feelings, then it means that we are afraid to be used by God to pierce people’s hearts. It is through the pierced heart that we become saints, so to avoid hurting feelings is to avoid becoming a saint and also to avoid helping others to find God. Without pierced hearts, there would be no saints.

What St. John of the Cross said about Lot’s wife reminds me very much of St. Perpetua’s ladder.

From the Passion of St. Perpetua:

I saw a golden ladder of marvellous height, reaching up even to heaven, and very narrow, so that persons could only ascend it one by one; and on the sides of the ladder was fixed every kind of iron weapon. There were there swords, lances, hooks, daggers; so that if any one went up carelessly, or not looking upwards, he would be torn to pieces and his flesh would cleave to the iron weapons. And under the ladder itself was crouching a dragon of wonderful size, who lay in wait for those who ascended, and frightened them from the ascent.

I sometimes think that people without Asperger, which I have, are the ones with an impediment to sainthood, for with Asperger, I have very little capability of “seeing” the feelings of others, and so I have very little sense of hurting people’s feelings. I often think about our duty to meet people where they are, and one way that we do this is to accept things within a culture that are okay and reject the things that are not okay because they are not of God. It occurs to me that sometimes people confuse the teaching on culture with the idea that we’re not ever supposed to hurt anyone’s feelings. That is a mistake. If their hearts are not broken, their hearts cannot be healed with His love. If we are not piercing hearts by speaking the truth, then we are not allowing them to come to know God. If we don’t show God to them, they will never know Him, and that would be a tragedy. They need to know that God’s will exists, and what His will is, because otherwise, they will not be able to see that there is a “ladder” — and the ladder is simply keeping our eyes fixed on God and His will for us. If we fail in this, then they will never become saints…and neither will we.

One final note. I hesitated to use the word “Sodomites” but I figure if it’s good enough for St. John of the Cross, it’s good enough for you and me. If your feelings are hurt, then think of our Blessed Mother and consider her Sorrows.

Read here about the Seven Swords…and listen to this homily from her Feast Day. It will help…I hope…because I love you.

Our Lady of Sorrows,
Pray for us.

Study Up On Redemptive Suffering – It Will Change Your Life

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Regular readers know that I am a Passionist. What is that exactly? The article on the Passionists at Wikipedia is brief but generally accurate. You can find out more at the website and blog of the Passionist Nuns of St. Joseph Monastery, to which I am attached as an oblate associate. Essentially, my relationship with them is that I love them and they love me. There really isn’t any more to it than that. I am not under any obedience to them. I just love them…but…it is true love, not because it is my love, but because it is my love with the love of Jesus poured out to us. This is the love which is found when we offer ourselves for others. My relationship with the Passionist Nuns is one of redemptive suffering. I offer all of my sufferings for their intentions, whatever they may be. In return, they pray for me and for my family.

There is no greater gift than love, and there is no greater love than the love of Christ in His Cross. Jesus said:

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. — John 15:13

My first duty is to my family, especially to my children, but my truest friends are the Passionist Nuns even though they are cloistered and I never speak to them unless it is absolutely necessary. (Unfortunately, due to Bipolar Disorder, my brain sometimes tells me it’s absolutely necessary when it really is not.) We are friends to each other only much as we are Christ to each other, and in my relationship with the Passionist Nuns, which is quite different from that of other friends, Christ is there in fullness.

Since I converted to Catholicism, one of the greatest agonies for me, apart from my physical and mental disorders, has been finding out that so many people do not really know the depth of what happened on the Cross. Even among those who are Catholic, there is very little understanding of redemptive suffering, that our sufferings have value when they are offered in union with the sufferings of our Lord on the Cross. All Christians know that redemption is through the Cross and that the Cross is the source of all graces. All Christians know, even protestants who believe in Sola Fide, that if you truly love Jesus, you will do God’s will. All Christians know, too, that we all fail at this every day, but that Jesus is still there for us in His Cross of redemption. How this becomes manifest to us is where we disagree, but that is because of human error, not God’s error.

How sad it is that even though we all believe these things, we are divided, Catholic and protestant. What separates us, I think, has to do mostly with a lack of understanding about the Incarnation….that we are all PHYSICALLY connected to each other, because the world (including our flesh) was created through Jesus. Our flesh exists because of His Flesh. We are created in His image. We all belong to Him completely. This is why it was possible for Him to save us when He Himself suffered death on the Cross. Because God is not bound by time (only we are), we all were hanging with Him on the Cross. His Sacrifice was the Gift of Himself, and the only way we will not be saved is if we deny this gift of salvation by rejecting the will of God in our lives. We do this when we refuse to take up the cross in our own lives and follow Him.

Jesus said:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. — Luke 14:27

Bearing your cross is doing the will of the Father, as Jesus did in His Agony in the Garden, but it is also understanding that we are not God. We are His creation, made to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him. We do not have His power. As Mother Teresa said, we are to be as pencils in His hand. Grace comes from His Sacrifice. We Catholics seek to be like our Blessed Mother, sitting patiently at the Foot of the Cross.

Because my flesh (and yours) was hanging with Jesus on the Cross, my sufferings (and yours) endured in doing the will of God are, thanks to His Sacrifice, redemptive. (Click here for Scripture readings on redemptive suffering.) Graces flow from the Cross of Jesus when we offer our sufferings with Him and in accordance with the will of the Father. When we do God’s will, even though it hurts to do so, graces flow and help us to become the people He has created every human being to be – saints. The more we do this, the more we understand how great is His love for us, and the more we see the Cross as joy…as St. Gemma did.

Personally, I have a major problem with free will, due to my Bipolar Disorder. (I am also on the autism spectrum.) In Proverbs, we read that “a righteous man falls seven times,” and Jesus says to forgive “seventy times seven.” That’s 490 times. I mess up way more than that every day. Thankfully, I don’t have to be concerned about whether the things that I am offering my sufferings for are good things, because I have the Passionist Nuns. I offer my sufferings for their intentions, because mine can be so screwy, in the context of my brain. In this way, the intention of my heart is good, even if my brain might not have all the pistons running well. Sometimes, I do ask things of God — most usually when people ask me for prayers. Because my brain is messed up, my prayers for others are almost always the same, that they may come to a greater understanding of God’s will, and that God’s will, whatever it may be, will be manifest in their lives. In this way, I know that I’m not asking for something pointless or wrong. In the end, no matter what we may face in life, God’s will is all that matters.

I am grateful to Leila Miller, my former spiritual director, for being the first person to tell me about redemptive suffering. I had been catechized upon my conversion by a very faithful (and thorough) priest, but even so, I had already been a Catholic for six years before I heard the term “redemptive suffering” from her. What a shame it is to have gone so long without this understanding, but now, I have my life’s calling, to suffer for the Passionists, which brings graces to them, and to be grateful for the graces I receive through their prayers for me.

I realize that this makes my life much different from the lives of most people these days. I am offering everything for whatever some nuns in a monastery, whom I rarely speak to, think is best…but it is the Gospel, to understand what Jesus has done for all of us on the Cross, and to understand our role in the words “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Jesus desires our love, not just for Himself, but for each other. The love He returns to us is indescribably beautiful.

Please learn about redemptive suffering. It will change your life.

Note: I am just a sheep, and a broken one, at that. Please don’t take my word for any of this. Study, and find out for yourself if it is true.
St. Gemma, Pray for Us.

Jeff Cavins Speaks About Redemptive Suffering

God knows every hair on our heads

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At Attracted to the Light, I found a great lesson on the topic of identity in Christ.

Never underestimate how little people care!

I’m not saying that people won’t help out if someone is having a problem. I’m saying that people aren’t interested in the minutiae of other people’s lives. Talk therapies, introspection and knowing yourself are all very popular these days so it’s easy to think other people might share our own fascination with ourselves. If they did, Dale Carnegie wouldn’t have made a fortune teaching people to fake interest!

It’s only when people are in love that the minutiae of someone else’s life suddenly becomes fascinating. We are told that God knows every hair on our heads. This interest in detail is used to show how much God loves us.

Read the whole thing.

How is that related to identity in Christ? It is rather like Perpetua’s Ladder which I mentioned in my post explaining what “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are. If you don’t keep looking to Jesus because you are too attached to your disorders, to other people, to things, or to issues that are not of Him, you will be pulled away from Him.

This is so very important. So important. If you don’t get this, you don’t get the importance of our identity in Christ and you will be not only the victim of much wasted suffering, but perhaps even the cause of it. Many there are who don’t know about identity in Christ who cause needless suffering.

St. Perpetua’s father came to her in tears to beg her to offer sacrifice to the emperor. He was too attached to St. Perpetua to let her be attached to God. Thankfully, she said no to him.

And as my father stood there to cast me down from the faith, he was ordered by Hilarianus to be thrown down, and was beaten with rods. And my father’s misfortune grieved me as if I myself had been beaten, I so grieved for his wretched old age. The procurator then delivers judgment on all of us, and condemns us to the wild beasts, and we went down cheerfully to the dungeon.

This is how it is in families. Surely, we should at least have the holiness of St. Perpetua when we are dealing with non-family members. People don’t care about every hair on your head, and so it is natural for people to not really care about your trials, even if you are headed to your death, but God cares about every hair on your head. He cares about every aspect of your trials. I share this not just to make you feel better if you are feeling rejected, though making you feel better about it is a bonus. It is mainly so that you will know that there is a purpose in it when you feel that people don’t care about you. Often, it is because people are very naturally absorbed in their own lives. If you feel pain from people “not caring” then you are too attached to the world.

Having said that, it is right and just to sorrow for the souls of people who go beyond simply “not caring” and who blatantly reject you or others close to you. It is healthy and redemptive to sorrow for their souls, even to sorrow greatly for them, because you know Jesus loves them as much as He loves you. Still, it is only in the context of sorrowing for the pain that it causes to Jesus in His Cross, and for the souls who will come into the path of people who walk through life that way. Pray for them all, and offer this sorrow for them, because it is redemptive.

Our Lady of Sorrows is the best model for us in this type of suffering, as human beings, at the Foot of the Cross.

Prayer to Our Lady of Sorrows:

O most holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ: by the overwhelming grief you experienced when you witnessed the martyrdom, the crucifixion, and death of your divine Son, look upon me with eyes of compassion, and awaken in my heart a tender commiseration for those sufferings, as well as a sincere detestation of my sins, in order that being disengaged from all undue affection for the passing joys of this earth, I may sigh after the eternal Jerusalem, and that henceforward all my thoughts and all my actions may be directed towards this one most desirable object. Honor, glory, and love to our divine Lord Jesus, and to the holy and immaculate Mother of God. Amen.

PHOTO: Our Lady of Sorrows, Lawrence, O.P.

Asperger, Patience and Christian Identity

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It is the duty of all Catholics to practice corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Among these is our duty to bear wrongs patiently as we live out our identity in Christ, which is tough for everyone, but particularly if there’s a disorder like Asperger Syndrome in your way.

Fr. Robert McKeon:

The Spiritual Work of Mercy we look at this week is to bear wrongs patiently. The “wrongs” that we can include under this work of mercy are: offenses against our person, persecution, mockery, racism, bigotry, insult, injustice, immorality, maltreatment, discrimination. These and many other evils are the wrongs we have to endure because of the reality of sin in the world perpetrated by other persons with whom we are in relationship or who we encounter in life. As a spiritual work of mercy, we are asked by the Holy Spirit to live our Christian identity by a willingness to bear these wrongs patiently. One of the many ways we reveal our Christian discipleship is the way we react to wrongs done to us or against us. Patience as a fundamental Christian virtue provides us other virtues such as endurance, longsuffering, fortitude, temperance, and strength.

As a Passionist, I understand the importance of patience. The word “patience” comes from the same word as “Passion.” Our Lady of Sorrows gives us a great example of patience at the Foot of the Cross. Having Asperger Syndrome, I have a great deal of tenacity in some things, which is sometimes mistaken for patience. Tenacity is not patience. On those things that I am not tenacious about, I give up very easily. Also, I do not get to pick and choose what I am tenacious about. It is not the choice of someone with Asperger Syndrome to be tenacious about “topic X” or to not be tenacious about “topic X” whatever “topic X” may be. It just happens that I am tenacious about certain things and there is nothing I can do about that but suffer through the reactions of others toward it. It is in that suffering that I learn patience. Our Blessed Mother could not control the Roman soldiers who drove the nails into our Lord. Neither do I have control over my disorder.

The thing that I am tenacious about is my Catholic Faith. I have come to understand within myself that I am tenacious about Catholicism because it is what God wills for me, for His holy purposes. Otherwise, I would have a choice in the matter. I could choose to “shut up” about it whenever a “reasonable” person would think it’s time to shut up about it, if not for this disorder. I don’t have that choice.

This is not to say that I am some kind of “prophet” or that I am always right in the things I say. It could be that I am very often wrong in the things I am saying. For whatever reason, though, God has willed that I be tenacious about the Catholic Faith as I understand it. Somehow, He is using this disorder in me to bring about His purposes in my life and the lives of others, just as He uses any cross in someone’s life to bring about His purposes. Some people with Asperger Syndrome are tenacious about geology or about outer space or about (insert a topic here.) With me, it’s Catholicism. I don’t ever wish it were another topic. I do sometimes wish I didn’t have Asperger’s Syndrome, but at the same time, I know God has His plan in this, and I work on finding peace in it.

It is a suffering to be unable to control your own tenacity. It’s a suffering to not be able to shut up about something, and not being able to let something go. This is especially true when it comes to the topic of religion, which is a topic a great many people are uncomfortable discussing. Even if they are comfortable with discussing it, they may not be Catholic or may even hate the Catholic Church. Whatever the case, I am who I am, and I have to be what God wills for me, regardless of what you may have chosen for yourself.

A lot of people with Asperger Syndrome suffer from depression in the midst of it because people WILL reject you when you manifest that behavior. People will also reject you if you firmly hold to a religious belief, whether or not you have a disorder like Asperger, particularly in America’s culture today, and particularly if that religious belief happens to be Catholic. So be it, I say, but for a lot of people, it really is not good for one’s self-esteem to know that others think of you as a freak show because you can’t let something go and because you cannot give others what they want from you. For me, though, it hurts the most when it is Catholics who are doing the rejecting, considering that I figure they should know better.

Rejection by others is where the Passion often is for anyone with Asperger’s, but it is in knowing that God loves you and has made you for His purposes, even when others see you as a freak, that peace is found. My Christian identity is there, in that. That is where the Passion is for me. It is in understanding that I am tenacious about the things God wants me to be tenacious about — my Catholic Faith — and in understanding that my “freakishness” is being used for His purposes somehow, even if it is not visible to me.

I know that a lot of people who know me would insist that I’m not a freak, at all. I can assure you that for as many of you who would say that, there are at least that many who would disagree with you and say that it is actually very “Catholic” to kick someone like me to the curb. Fortunately, I know that neither praises nor being kicked to the curb are what make me who I am. What makes me who I am is doing what God asks of me, come what may. May I never fail in doing His will….no matter what anyone else may think, whether good or bad. As I understand it, that’s really the way we’re all supposed to walk through life anyway.

Photo: Passionist Sign, Father Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Why God Sent the Great Flood: A Discussion of Culpability, Corruption and Judgment

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In my meanderings on Twitter over the past several months, I have learned that there is a great deal of confusion, even in Christendom, about what it means to “judge” people. I thought a review on culpability, corruption and on the judgment of God, using the Great Flood as an example, might be helpful in clearing up some of this confusion. I beg you to judge my words in this post and whether I am speaking the truth. Judging my heart, on the other hand, is not your job, and that is entirely the point.

In my earlier post saying nice things about Ashley Judd as a sort of self-imposed “penance,” I mentioned that we human beings are not capable of judging hearts. Judging hearts is something that I am frequently accused of, and these accusations are due to a misunderstanding about judgment. We cannot judge hearts. We can judge ideas in that we can determine whether something is a sin or is not a sin, and we can say whether something is a sin or is not a sin. If I say, for example, that abortion is a grave sin, I have not judged anyone.The main reason people don’t understand this, I think, is because they don’t understand what culpability is.

Tonight, Sr. Helena tweeted something important that you need to know about culpability.


That’s important. To those whom much is given, much is required.

Luke 12:48:

But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

Those who are most aware of God’s will are most culpable if they disobey.

culpable – Morally responsible for an evil action. Culpability assumes sufficient awareness and (internal) consent to the evil done. It is identified with formal guilt or sin. (Etym. Latin culpabilis, blameworthy; from culpare, to blame.)

This is not all that complicated to understand, really. Most people understand that if a three-year old kicks a puppy, you do not treat the situation the same as you would if a twenty-year-old kicked a puppy. A child does not have the same level of understanding as an adult, and so the adult is held more responsible for his actions, generally speaking, than a child is. So it will be when God judges our hearts. Those of us who knew better will receive harsher punishment than those of us who did not know any better, even if the sin itself is grave.

Given all of this, what might this tell us about the Great Flood, wherein God destroyed every living being on earth save Noah, Noah’s family, and those animals that were carried on the Ark with them. I actually found an excellent article by a protestant named Loren explaining at least one major aspect about why God sent the Great Flood. It was because there was no good to be found among any of the people on the earth except for Noah and his family.

These people upon whom God poured out the Flood were not merely dabbling in sin here and there, everything that they were doing was an horrific abomination!

Indeed. As it says in Genesis 6: 5-8:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

Mankind had become so wicked that EVERYTHING in their hearts was evil, at all times. All of us are created to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be together with Him in the next world. This is WHY God made us. There was no possibility that they could become what they were created to be because they had become so corrupted that they were incapable of anything good.

Remember that this was before God delivered the Ten Commandments. There was no priesthood to obey and no divine law written down to follow. Man, left completely to himself, with no priesthood and no law, is left to his own devices. Without the laws of God, without humble obedience to them, and without the aid of God’s grace which comes through the Cross of Jesus Christ, mankind is destined to corruption.

God destroyed mankind through the Great Flood because they were without hope to become anything better than what they were. This caused God nothing but sorrow, to see His creation choose evil.

And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

Knowing what we do about God’s grief for them, and also about culpability, we have reason to believe that He had mercy on their souls.

So it is that today, as we look around us and see so much corruption in the world around us, that we are grieved along with God for the souls of those who have embraced the depravity, whether they sit above us in towers of steel or whether they are marching in the streets naked. We grieve for those who are spitting in the face of God by stepping on the weak and mocking what is holy. This does not mean that we are “judging” their hearts, though. We have faith in the mercy of God. We join with Him in His sorrow. We kneel at the Foot of the Cross with our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows, and weep for those who are nailing her Son, Jesus Christ, to the Cross. At the same time, we know that we who know God and understand what He expects of us are going to be held to a higher standard on The Day of Judgment. We trust that those most in danger of hell are those who know God and say no to Him anyway.

In your prayers for the people of the world, don’t forget to pray for us who will be held most accountable because we know God. May God have mercy on us all.

Photo: A Sermon in Nature, by godserv, Flickr