Into the Sacred Hills of Jade

DISPATCHES FROM FR. CHARITAS

Saturday, April 21, 2018

The Existentialists speak of a leap of faith. And I think I know what they mean. Yet this soul who pens these words never needed a leap of faith, rather, I experienced the discovery of faith. My faith is not a trust that if I leap a net will appear; for me, it was far more a trust in what I now know will lead me to what I have yet know. My faith is but an extension of what of what I behold, what I touch, what I hear in the breathing and pulse of Creation, a breathing and a pulse that is in rhythm of the soul of the Creator.

My faith in Christ is by way of listening to Him, by way of watching Him, by way of experiencing Him. My faith is not through closing my eyes and daring to trust Him, neither by way of gritting my teeth and believing what I do not yet truly believe nor by closing my eyes and making that leap of existential faith. Rather my faith came by way of opening my eyes, opening my heart, opening my mind … with that first assurance I journeyed further on.

My faith is not a consequence of my coming to grips with how small I am in a vast universe or how brief my lifetime in a vast eternity … No, my faith is in allowing myself to experience the wonder of my being a part of a vast universe and of being a ripple in the flow of an eternal river. My faith was not born out of despair, though I have known despair. My faith was born out of wonder and my quest to know of the One who creates such wonders.

My salvation was not for the purpose of fleeing hell or overcoming the fear of death … but for the purpose of coming fully alive in the heavenly realms, this Life in the fields of Forever.

Always in His Service,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Saturday, April 21, 2018

What is contemplative prayerfulness?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? – Matthew 6:28-30

A beautifully poetic metaphor, yet within it the stark reality of mortality. So exquisite are the lilies … yet, in time, they will come to their end. If the lilies are so beautiful in their natural innocence, how much more the human life in its state of innocence. And such is the outcome of sincere confession and bountiful mercy … we can be returned to the state of innocence.

But today, I focus on that word of direction given by Christ … that word … consider.

Consider the lilies … behold them, pause at each detail, count the colors and the shades of the colors, count the petals and the pollen they offer. Consider the lilies … relive their beginning and relive how they has grown. Consider the lilies … the shape as if crafted by the sensitive hand of a sculptor, the fragrance like no other fragrance on earth. Consider the lilies how they are so much the same and yet how each is somehow distinctive.

Spend time with the lilies, far more time than most people do. Converse with the lilies though their words may be few. This a time of contemplative prayerfulness … to long consider the lilies … or the people … or the moment … or the thought … or the feeling … or even the quality of spirit found in the Lord.

Take time to consider the lilies … or the sparrow … or a loved one … or your inner life … or a few words spoken by the Lord.

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

Dispatches from Fr. Charitas

Friday, April 20, 2018

What is my mission as a Christian? To find ways to make God’s Love tangible.
Not merely thoughts, not merely intentions, not even merely words unless those words turn Love into a sensory experience. This tangible Love, this Christ-manner of Love is one that touches with healing touches, comforting touches, liberating touches, touches that experience the Love of the Lover.

Most Sundays I tried to tell my congregation that I and the Lord both loved them. Sometimes those words had more “touch” than on weaker, self-concerned, harried and hurried Sundays. But one gentleman in one of my congregations, his name was Roger. Because of a car accident, he lived with certain limitations to his mobility and his fine motor skills. But every Sunday, Roger did what I tried to do … he made the Love of Christ quite tangible. You see Roger give wrapped pieces of candy to everyone he met. And that giving of candy by way of his shaky hands … I found to be an artistry of Christian Love.

My Loved Ones, for we who have Christ living within our living, Love is more than a thought, more than a doctrine, more than a lip service, more than an intention, even more than the limits of words. For we who live in Christ and in whom Christ does live … we are the ones who makes the Love Divine something wondrously tangible.

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DISPATCHES FROM FR. CHARITAS

Thursday, April 19, 2018

When both sides of an issue disagree with me, I sense I may be on to something true. Not always, not every time, but more times than not.

We live in a prejudiced world, and I suspect we all are prejudice in certain ways. Even those of us who desperately want to be without prejudice, we still have prejudice we fail to see in ourselves. The quest to be objective, impartial and fair is a daunting quest indeed. Our political perspective, our religious experience, our familiar subculture, our personal history and our social context, all can distort the truth of the matter unless we seriously and continually tend to the glasses through we look at the world.

I came from a working-class family, and for years we lived as domestic servants in Palm Beach. I recall how the wealthy viewed us as invisible people, workers of a lower caste, a servant caste. That experience prejudiced me against people of wealth … when in all fairness, the wealthy are individuals themselves. All my life I have asked the Lord to cleanse me of this bitterness that prejudices me.

As a teenager my closest friends happened to be Cuban immigrants and their families were so open and welcoming to me. My experience of these Cuban families was of warm-hearted embraces and celebratory joy … even with the reasons why they had to flee Cuba. I know, as is among all people no matter their ancestry, that individuals can saints and sinners, individuals that commit crimes and individuals that are law-abiding … still when I am around Cuban-Americans … I presume the best of them for that is how my personal experience prejudiced me.

Political conservatives can be prejudiced to anything that seems liberal. And political liberals can be prejudiced to anything that seems conservative. Republicans have their prejudice; Democrats have their own. Evangelical Christians see the Progressive Christians as “being that way” and Progressive Christians see the Evangelical Christians as “being that way”. Chances are everyone is wrong in certain ways and everyone is right in certain ways. The only hope is to humble oneself and examine thoroughly one’s inner thoughts and feelings … and pray for an objective discernment.

Too many warriors whose crusades have clouded their vision; too many warriors blind to what is true in the eyes of another.

I am a peacemaker, but not one who surrenders to either side. I am peacemaker whose vow is to set aside the prejudice, the delusions, and the hasty conclusions so that I might have a closer look and a clearer view that eludes most mortal souls.

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL
Thursday, April 19, 2018

Where exactly is Heaven?

Jesus answered, “My Realm is not from this world. If my Realm were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the governing authorities. But as it is, my Realm is not from here.” – John 18:36

I used to think that Heaven and earth were geographically distant from each other. In ancient times, they pictured Heaven just above the sky. And then among the stars. And even later by a few, mystically far away. We tend to think about life spatially and temporally. Something is either here in this or there in another place. Something is either in this point in Time or in some earlier or later point of Time. Our brains think this way. But with my reading about the scientific exploration of dimensions beyond height, width, depth, and duration … I began thinking of Christ’s words about His Realm in a certain possibility.

To explain, let me paraphrase those words of Christ as He spoke to Pilate, the Roman governor …

“My Realm, Governor Pilate, is not of this world of politics, either yours or the Sanhedrin’s. If my Realm used the worldly understandings of power, why those crowds out there would have risen up and defended me by wielding swords and political dissension. But, Governor Pilate, my Realm is not one of political power or military might … but my Realm is where spiritual integrity and the power of Merciful Love are the norm.”

I believe that this worldly realm and Christ’s Heavenly Realm are mingled together yet still separated into their own set of values and their own ways of accomplishment. Yes, I believe that Heaven is not that far away at all … but is rather a spiritual dimension within our midst.

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DISPATCHES FROM FR. CHARITAS

THOSE OLD, HEAVY CHAINS!
April 18, 2018

As I make my missionary journey through this Realm of Dreams and Possibilities, I exult to the Lord for I am refreshed and renewed. As I break free of the prison of past reluctance, that reluctance to begin once again, I can feel the weight of those chains fall away. I can hear the clanking of the old chains now rusted, the chains of the way-things-have-always been and the chains of that which-must-be.

I find we travel through Time carrying old, heavy chains: the guilt, the regrets, the fears, the anxieties, past successes, past glories, past failures, memories now gilt with foggy delusions. I find we grow weary as Time goes by … for the weight of the chains we have collected.

But in the Lord’s calling to risk the judgment of the orthodoxy and the settled and venture forth into these distant hills, I find the power of God flowing into me. It is the creative power that the Rule-Makers fear; it is the creative power that the Inquisition finds evil; it is the creative power that is confined by the fearful Fence-Makers.

“Come, my son, my servant … dare to create with Me!”

And I answered… and thus the joy of the Lord embraces me!

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

April 18, 2018

How does the Christian deal with their fears?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. – I John 4:16b-18

Perfect Love casts out fear from the person but also from the interaction of fearful people. And so much of our human behavior and even our attitudes are creations of the anxious emotion we know as fear.

Yet … so many expressions of the Christian faith have used and are using fear as a motivating force. We see it in the early development of the Hebrew faith … but as the centuries rolled on, the anxious fear of God turned more and more into the reverential awe of God. And if one listens carefully to the words of Christ … He counters the fear-provoking ways of the Pharisees with cautionary fear, but those living in fear, He uses the courage of Love, a More Perfect Love than the love they thought they knew.

Fear is a primal instinct … a survival tool in a savage world. But as the human creature and the human experience became more complicated and controlled, the fear-response became more and more a vague, free-floating anxiety. We began to fear, not the threat but the possibility of threat.

As a father, I often served as a comforter. My wife was a comforter of a more capable kind. The boys would have nightmare or later be forced to face a bully … and it was the application of the Love that the Lord had given my wife and me … that would overwhelm the fears and replace them with the experience of being deeply and intimately loved.

The More Perfect Love may not do away with threat, but the More Perfect Love drives out the fear within.

Always in His Service,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

Dispatches from Fr. Charitas

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Today, a hawk snatched one of my sparrows. It is nature’s way. My mind tells me that is an amoral aspect of life, the working of the food chain. But my heart … well, my heart felt sorrow and that sorrow gave way to rage before the rage flew away in the manner of that hawk. I can’t bring the sparrow back … nor should I. That sparrow had no impact on providing for my family. That sparrow was but part of the economy of God’s Providence. Yet still … I felt sorrow. Why?

I think it was because I knew that sparrow. I did not know the bug the sparrow might have eaten. But that sparrow was within my circle of love … and that hawk, with intent to hurt this human soul, took that beloved sparrow away.
I find that my soul is sensitive to when “hawks” snatch away those whom I love. And in Christ … I love souls who live in whatever nation and I love souls no matter their station. When I see a child in tears in Appalachia, I cry; but then again, when I see a child in tears in Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Pakistan, wherever, I cry then as well.

I suppose my circle of Love goes beyond all borders.

In His Service always,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

What is our intrinsic worth?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care …So, don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. – Matthew 10:29, 31

Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns–and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? – Matthew 6:31

I have two feathered friends who are in conversation with me daily. One is a crow who perches in my mulberry tree; the other, an Orange Weaver finch that sings to me from her perch. The crow was given to me as a gift from the woods; the Orange Weaver finch cost me forty dollars at a local pet shop. The crow was free and remains free; the Orange Weaver finch was costly and now caged.

Christ pointed to sparrows in the field and spoke about the matter of human worth. “Do not think that you, the poor, powerless, disenfranchised, are of no worth. No matter what the rich and the powerful say, “You are of great intrinsic worth in the eyes of God. No matter what the values of some may think … You are of great worth. They try to cage you in their manner of worldly sorting of souls, but in the eyes of the Lord you are of great worth.”

Once we begin to think in terms who is more worthy and who is less worthy … we are living not with godly thought but with worldly thought, not with godly values but with worldly values. And this way of thinking of people in terms of relative worth is a subtle sinfulness which we practice.

That crow … he is a worthy companion in my heart. That Orange Weaver finch … his song is filled with worth. And my sparrows who come and share lunch with me … I am not sure I could flourish without them.

Always in His Service,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz