Aligning with Grace

The Triduum - the Christian "High Holy Days" - has been ushered in with Thursday night's celebration of the Lord's Supper... I attend a service that is exquisite in every way - a blend of the old and new - replete with familiar aspects - the procession of the Holy Oils, the washing of feet, the singing of ancient chants and hymns in Latin - the Pange Lingua and Tantum Ergo, which take me back decades in my life, to a time more than a half century ago. Am I really that old? Who would have thought life could go by so quickly? I have always loved all things ancient - history and artifacts, books and places - always drawn to visit places of antiquity, impregnated with the energy of the legions who lived and died there before me... And while I feel called to enter deeply into the Sacred Mysteries of my own tradition, I am no less drawn to the ancient traditions of others, having yearned for participation in a true Passover  and Seder this week. Yes, I would have love...

I enter softly into a sacred week - a Holy Week... This is a week sacred to many - with Passover and Holy Week intertwined... Holy Week is ushered in with Palm Sunday, on a magnificent weekend coinciding with the peaking of cherry blossoms, resplendent in every way, all over the city... I walk under an exquisite canopy of blossoms, enveloped in their beauty, as they "rain" their petals on my head, anointing me... In these moments, I feel a sense of oneness and presence that borders on pure ecstasy.  For over a year I have prayed and made the request - "Create a clean heart in me," (Psalm 51) seeking to embody the way and path of the heart... And this sacred season, I have sought to reflect its essence even more deeply... "The converted person does not say that nothing matters anymore, but that everything that is, happens in God and that God is the dwelling place where we come to know the true order of things... The converted person says: 'All ...

Sometimes, the paths we take converge... Recently I wrote about the ways of the heart and reconciliation... I believe, the more we commit to one path, the more we express the other - regardless of which one we start with. It does not matter... All roads lead to the same place... If you live from the heart, you strive to live from a place of integrity and in time you see beauty in everything. Nothing is accidental. Everything you do or say or try to be, comes from a place of harmony... It comes from a place of love and seeks self-expression... If you follow the way of reconciliation, you strive for greater harmony and balance - seeking atonement - or to have all things be one: "At-one-ment." This path too, leads to the heart, and it is fueled by love... "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things..." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:7 We begin with a choice. We follow one path. Then it leads to another. But it does not matt...

Awakenings comes in so many ways... Sometimes awakenings are subtle, and other times, not so much... Sometimes they hit us over the head with a brick, while other times it happens softly with just a mere glance... Sometimes we awaken with a word, or a touch, or a song... Sometimes we are led back on a path we had left behind, in mysterious ways... Sometimes we are led to journey back home after a long sojourn in many foreign lands... Sometimes we are led back very deeply into our hearts... During Holy Week I heard "Servant Song" by David Haas, and it moved me profoundly. I had not heard it for a very long time time, but it called to me and spoke to me, and awakened a deep longing I could not understand - presaging consequences I could not have foreseen... So many places I have walked, but I never imagined retracing certain steps... Many biblical passages arise in my heart and mind unbidden - tumbling out of me with such force and determination and such insis...

A magnificent Holy Saturday begins with a Cardinal singing on my dogwood tree, even though it is still bare and without any buds yet. Cardinals remind us of our lives' true purpose... Then, I meet the morning with a brace of rich images dancing within the kaleidoscope of my mind; they are simply beautiful memories from yesterday... Where to begin? And where to end? Different scenes from the tableaux of my own spiritual journey, gently come into focus, and so, I share them in a stream of consciousness... My spirit is touched profoundly in ways I can hardly describe... I am blessed to spend the day in silence, and am called to prayer, meditation, and contemplation... I reach out for my oldest rosary, blessed by Padre Pio, the Franciscan priest bearing the stigmata, who died in the late sixties and was sainted about a decade ago. I think of his faith, his simplicity, and how there was a time I prayed this rosary often, choosing to do so today, to commemorate the Passion of the...

Last night I attended Holy Thursday services, often referred to as the Celebration of the Lord's Supper, at St John Neumann, in Reston, Virginia. The Sacred Triduum, constitute the "High Holy Days" of Christians, and it begins at sundown on Thursday, and continues through the wee hours of Sunday morning, ushering in Easter. It was a long service, which included washing of the feet and a final procession of the Blessed Sacrament out of the Church to its resting place in the chapel until Easter. This was followed by adoration for those who wished to remain until midnight, in a quiet and breathtakingly beautiful candle lit chapel. There was plenty of incense and ritual and traditional Latin chants, but with a more post Vatican II flavor. I marveled at the woman next to me, gifted with a beautiful voice whose pronunciation of Latin put mine to shame. But it was the sermon that was most moving for me, and I believe I was led here, to this church that is not one to which I ...

Yesterday, on the day of the first full moon in spring, that was also Wednesday of Holy Week, and is often referred to as Tenebrae - on the eve of the Triduum, and the culmination of a personal year of penitence and reflection - I am moved and led to seek the sacrament of Reconciliation, and absolution - not so much for the reasons others might seek it or expect - but because it is fitting and just, and in the natural order of things for my spirit... There can be no other worthy or acceptable conclusion for an Examen of Conscience that has spanned more than a year, validating the lonely journey towards atonement in which my soul has sought refuge, within the context of years of Loving-Kindness practice... I think of this, as I go down to the river after my morning meditation, on a windy and blustery day that is overcast, and seems more reminiscent of winter than of spring. The river is bursting with activity, waves following closely behind other waves in tight formation, and I instin...

We have begun our journey into Holy Week with its sacred themes of surrender and unconditional love among so many others - and the commemoration of another sacred journey - that of Passover, which begins this evening... Spiritual traditions converge once again, dancing into each other, as they have for centuries, offering us an opportunity to reflect on all that unites us - rather than that which may separate us... I surround myself with meditations and reflections from various sources, and have spent Lent reviewing and immersing myself in entries posted during this sacred season in recent years, finding gems and kernels of wisdom interspersed here and there, that once more touch my heart profoundly and manage to speak again so deeply... Perhaps nothing is truly ever new under the sun... The same struggles surface again and again in my own seemingly small and insignificant life. But once more I re-learn and am reminded - that there is nothing truly small and insignificant in any li...