Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing

Take a moment to consider this: Jesus Christ went through every stage of human life and the holy rosary helps you connect with him at every stage of your life.

Think about it. The Annunciation is the moment of his conception. It was a perfect conception; perfect in love, perfect in unity, perfect in power and purity. Our own conception may have been less than the best. Maybe at that very first moment of life we were somehow tainted with lust or drunkenness or inability to love fully or some human flaw in the circumstances or in our parents. It might have left a wound or an empty place in our lives. The mystery of the Annunciation can be the point in the Rosary where we connect with that greater grace which will heal that broken-ness. 

The Visitation is the time when Christ was in the womb of the Blessed Mother. It was a time for him of perfect bliss, perfect love and growth in perfection because he had a perfect Mother. In our own lives those nine months may have been stressful for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we weren't really wanted. Maybe mother was sick. Maybe there was stress in the family. That stress can be communicated and maybe those nine months for us were a time when a foundation of fear or stress or lack of love were established. Praying the second joyful mystery helps to bring God's perfect love into our lives.

The same principle applies to the other mysteries of the rosary. This is the theme and method of my book Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing. This has been by far the most popular of all my books, with people from around the world writing to me to say how it has changed their lives. They tell me how they have got extra copies to give to others, and it has been a surprising and joyful thing to see how it has been used by God.

Bl. John Paul II said that the rosary connects with every stage of human life, and so it is. In a mysterious way we identify and put our imperfect lives into the perfect life of love between Christ and his mother. It is no mistake that we call the events of the rosary 'mysteries' for they work in the world and work on us in a mysterious way--because a mystery is something that can be experienced even if it cannot be explained.

A Secret Language

A Secret Language

We wrestle with the mystery of words,

hammering from the vast inchoate

universe, the pointed spears and sharp swords

with which we marshal the inarticulate

chaos of the soul. With precision

we discuss, dissect and delineate;

then define and decide. Each decision

is set in stone—not open to debate.

But beneath the dogma something rebels.

We sense lost treasure buried in a field,

or secret meanings glimmering like jewels

in the dark caverns of the soul. They yield

their bright reward only to those who mine

with the pick and spade of symbol and sign.

In this underground struggle we soon learn:

only the work and liturgy of art

can unlock the secret language of the heart.

Individualism and Institutions

Do you feel a bit of tension between your "isolationist" instincts and membership in a universal Church, and between your "minimal government" instincts and membership in a hierarchical Church -- that is, assuming that these instincts are general feelings?...asks a reader in the combox.


This is a very interesting question, and one which reminds me what a joy it is to be a Catholic.  I feel sure that it is a universal instinct in the human heart to desire two contradictory things. On the one hand we long to belong. We long to fit in with 'the system' and have our place in the 'inner circle'. There is something in the human heart which wants to be part of the gang, the club, the group, the elite, the 'in' group. 


On the other hand, like Groucho Marx, we wouldn't want to belong to any club who would have us as a member. We want to be subversive. We want to be isolationist and give a digital salute to the 'insiders' and the 'elite'. There is something in us which wants to be a monk, an Amish farmer, an anti-establishment pure sort of soul who 'marches to a different drummer', ploughs our own furrow and wears the white plume of our own noble way in the world--never compromising our values for a place at high table, and never selling our birthright for a mess of pottage.


In spiritual terms we want to be both Benedictines and Franciscans. The Benedictines--who are so part of the establishment--so quiet and balanced and calm and integrated and scholarly and un-radical. But we also want to be wild and crazy and prophetic and do something radical for God like grow a long beard and live in holy poverty and preach to the sultan and the birds and have stigmata and stand barefoot in the snow.


The brilliance, therefore in being a Catholic is that you can have it all. When you join the Catholic Church you belong to the greatest, oldest and most venerable of all establishments. I mean to say, here is a worldwide, organized, institution that has been around since the Roman Empire. Here you belong to the establishment of establishments. You fit into the club. You belong to the gang. You fit into the family. You're part of a hierarchy for goodness sake, and what can be more established and solid and permanent and 'respectable' than that? As a Catholic you belong to the great, big, old one. You're not alone. You're a part of the great army, the kingdom of God.


But at the same time you belong to the most subversive, maddening, crazy and unpredictable group the world has ever seen. If you are a faithful Catholic you belong to the group of radicals who undermine the ways of this world and are always at odds with the power struggles, the greed, the violence, the lust of this world. You stand firm for justice in the face of cruelty and greed. You stand for purity in a world of lust and for weakness in the world of power. You will die a martyr in the face of a cruel tyrant with all his armies of the establishment arrayed against you. You will stand with the prophets and radicals and rebels of the world as a proud Catholic--refusing to submit to the idiocy, violence, and mindless mendacity of the powers of hell which are made manifest in the establishments of this world.


So as a Catholic you belong, but you don't belong. You are in the club, but it is a club of rebels. You belong to the family of subversives and the coterie of prophets. You are one of the elite band of John the Baptists who are a voice crying in the wilderness.


Isolation and Individualism in the Catholic Church are counted by Inclusion and Co-inherence. In the Church all things hold together. There all the opposites unite and complement one another but never contradict. This is where all things are affirmed and nothing good is denied. Here you can be the member of an institution and be a joyful individualist at the same time.


This is something dappled and glory be to God for dappled things.

Call Me Amish

I don't often stray into politics on this blog because, quite frankly, I'm not much interested in it. My ancestry is Mennonite and Amish and their pacifism and isolationism is written pretty deep in my genetic code. That is to say, we want to mind our own business and believe that less government we have the better. We have a deep distrust of 'the system'. If the politicians and wheeler dealers aren't exactly persecuting us at the moment--it's not long before they will be.

We distrust 'the system' and we especially distrust anybody who thinks 'the system'--any system--will be able to really fix what is wrong with the world. This means we distrust any kind of ideology--either to the Right or to the Left. Ideologies are most often false religions. Ideologies are for people with too much pride or too few brains, or too little courage to actually take a religion (any religion) seriously and follow it to it's proper conclusion. Instead they jump on the bandwagon of some shallow ideology (and all  ideologies are shallow) and seek some sort of economic or social or political solution.

History shows it doesn't work, and the reason it doesn't work is because there is a fault at the very heart of every ideology. An ideology has as its basic premise that its main idea is 'right' and everybody else is 'wrong'. At the root of every ideology, therefore, is hubris--pride--the assumption that the idea (and me and all my comrades who ascribe to it) are right and must use these ideas to change the world. What then results is that the ideologues do attempt to change the world, and because they don't have much time to do it (because they will all be in their graves within 60 years) they force their agenda on others, and this inevitably results in the loss of civil and human rights--and often in the slaughter of millions. This from the ideologues who most often standing up for 'the poor' or 'the masses' or 'the people'. When they find that 'the people' don't actually want their brave new world they kill them or lock them up.

The ideologue then (like the Left wing in US and UK) ends up being more corrupt, venal and violent and intolerant than the right--because they never thought they would be and very often are blind to the very corruption they propagate.

So, I'm not right wing or left wing, but I do claim to be a conservative Catholic. This is simply because I want to 'conserve' what is good from the past rather than throw it out in the name of the latest ideology. I realize everything from the past isn't necessarily the best, but I'd rather have the devil I know than the devil I don't. I'm conservative because I can see what is behind me better than I can see what's in front of me. I can learn easily from the past, but I can never learn from the future because it isn't here yet. This is also why I distrust any ideological politician (of either right or left) who promises me some great new future.

I'm also conservative and Catholic because I believe in the doctrine of original sin. That is to say, Man is created in God's image and is good, but that image is wounded by sin. This core truth is often neglected or denied by ideologues--especially when thinking about themselves. The typical ideologue does not believe in original sin--especially he does not believe that he has original sin. Nevertheless, he usually believes in the total depravity of his enemy. Conservatives Catholics believe in original sin, but we also believe in the possibility of redemption. Therefore we are pessimistic about mankind, but optimistic about man.

Finally, I distrust ideologues because they are blind to their own failings and the weaknesses of their ideology. They have to be, or they would not be ideologues. I am therefore, also distrustful of all Catholics or Christians or religious people of any stripe who turn their religion into an ideology. Run from the Christians who demand total, unthinking loyalty. Run from the Christians who see opponents as enemies. Run from Christians who build little fortresses of faith for themselves and their comrades, for the only thing worse than an ideology is a religion that has become an ideology, for then they will kill and persecute not just believing in their good cause, but believing that they are doing God's will.

New Translation - 2

Here is the second letter to my parish about the new translation:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

One of the things that sets us apart from our Protestant brothers and sisters is that we worship God liturgically. This means we use set forms and given words for our worship. When I was a Protestant I heard criticisms of liturgical worship--”Those Catholics just pray in vain repetition. They don’t know what they’re saying. They just parrot the words.” Others would say, “How can you have a heart to heart relationship with Jesus when all you do is read words out of a book and call that prayer?”

Although the comments were often phrased negatively, the folks were asking a good question. Why do we read words out of a book and not pray ‘directly from the heart”?

In fact Catholics are encouraged to have a personal relationship with Jesus and intimate prayer in a personal way is encouraged. The saints talked happily with Jesus and Mary in prayer and it is a good and wonderful thing to take our burdens and prayers and praises directly to Christ in a heartfelt way in our own words. So Catholics don’t prohibit that kind of prayer. It’s just that in public we use our shared words of worship, not our own private petitions.

Using the words that the Church gives us helps our ordinary prayers to transcend our ordinary lives. It’s kind of like writing a love letter to your beloved, but you also include a sonnet by Shakespeare. Shakespeare expresses your feelings in a much more exalted and beautiful way than you are able. So it is with liturgy. We use the words of worship given to us by the Church and this lifts our prayer to a higher level.

In addition to this, the words of worship in the liturgy unite us with all Catholics everywhere. These are not just my words, they are the words I share with all Catholics around the world and down through the ages. Through the liturgy my ordinary life is lifted up and I share in the communion of the saints.

Finally, when I pray using the words of the liturgy my prayer becomes something greater than I was capable of on my own. I am using the words of Scripture I didn’t know myself. I am praying through the doctrines and mysteries that I only partially understand on my own. I am entering into new and deeper dimensions of my faith that, on my own, I was only partially able to glimpse.

The new translation of the liturgy will help all these aspects to come alive for us in a new way, and I hope as we move forward later this year that you will do so with anticipation and an open heart and mind.

Yr Pastor,

Fr Longenecker

Michelle and Maggie

"Let them eat cake..." Nigel Gardiner of the Daily Telegraph reports here on the free flowing spending habits of Michelle Obama. Seems she likes expensive holidays at the tax payers expense. All this while America is in recession, and the African Americans she and her husband pretend to champion are doing the best they can to keep their heads above water.

I like the comment of one of the readers of Gardiner's article, quoting Maggie Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

The Secret Conspiracy at the BBC

Guest blogger, Duane Mandible is a contributing editor to The Truth Hurts, a bi-monthly journal of politics, economics and opinion. He also contributes regularly to Freedom Monthly; Illuminations and The Sojourner. Duane is the author of Guns and Knives will Save Your Children's Lives. He is Vice President of the Sacred Society of St Philibustre, and enjoys hunting rattlesnakes, square dancing and watching re runs of comedy classics. He is unmarried.


I was dismayed, but not surprised to find that the British Broadcasting Company (known to millions as 'the BBC') are involved in a plot to undermine the Christian faith. The Daily Telegraph reports that the BBC are planning to remove the terms 'BC' and 'AD' from their history programs, thus undermining in a secret plan that is now been exposed, their hatred of the Christian faith.

Millions of schoolchildren have understood from time immemorial that the term 'BC' refers to the time 'before Christ' and that the term 'AD' means 'After the Death of Christ'. These terms were established by the scholars in the Middle Ages and only now are they under attack by the forces of darkness who run the BBC and other secular media empires. What the blinded 'scholars' at the BBC do not realize is that when the BBC was established by Lord Fauntleroy in the early part of the century the name was even then chosen as a secret way to eventually undermine the terms 'BC' and 'AD'.

Why else would they choose the term 'BBC" except as an attack on the more ancient term linked to Jesus Christ which was 'BC'? Their subtle plan is obvious. With just one letter's difference they hoped that the population would eventually equate 'BBC' with 'BC'. There was discussion at very high levels of British Society about changing the historical reference to 'BBC' and it would be explained that it meant 'Before the Birth of Christ' thus equating the two names--making in the popular mind the BBC to be a replacement for Christ himself. Unfortunately the copies of these important minutes from meetings at the highest level of British society have been destroyed--showing the extent to which the British 'royal family' will go to cover up their insidious activities.

Those who have read the works of Mr. David Icke will know that the British 'royal family' are actually the last remnants of an ancient race of 'reptilians' and that they are able to transmogrify at will to be transformed into horrifying mutants--half reptile and half human. This reptilian race who have come to earth from another planet and were the same as the ancient 'gods' called the nephilim have always been the sworn enemies of the true faith.

In scrapping the terms 'BC' and 'AD' altogether it would seem that the BBC have abandoned their earlier plan. This would seem, at first sight, to be a positive step forward. Better to have neutral terms than terms which equate the BBC with our Lord himself. However, what seems even more sinister in this whole unsavory affair is that the Vatican has now publicly opposed the move. This causes us to look more closely at what is really going on. Why does the Vatican step in to criticize the BBC? Who are the shadowy personalities behind this move? Do most people know that the 'Controller General' (a sinister title if ever there was one!) of the BBC is himself a 'Catholic'? Is this a move on part of the powerful Vatican Radio to  launch a publicity campaign to undermine and eventually takeover the BBC? During Bishop Ratzinger's 'papal visit' to the UK, did he meet with Her Majesty the Queen to plan a secret submission of the United Kingdom to the rule of the papacy?

In fact, I believe the Vatican 'attack' on the BBC is an old fashioned diversion tactic. It is designed to take our attention away from the fact that the Vatican is actually in favor of the change from 'BC' and 'AD' to 'BCE' and 'CE'. This is a favorite tactic of those involved in  conspiracies: say one thing publicly while privately advocating precisely the change you  are pretending to oppose.

We will soon discover that the Vatican has been behind the changes to 'BC' and 'AD' all along. The attempt to change 'BC' to 'BCE' and 'AD' to 'CE' is really an attempt to change the whole course of history. What does 'BCE' really mean? We are told it means 'Before the Christian Era'. I believe the Vatican, working with secret forces on the international level want it to mean 'Before the Catholic Era.' If this is so, the 'CE' will not stand for 'Common Era' but the ingenious and obviously simple 'Catholic Era'. With a simple change of letters, the BBC and the Vatican and the intelligentsia in our halls of academe will alter the minds and hearts of millions.

Such a plan will help to usher in the New World Order in which the powers of the Vatican will provide the anti-Christ religious leader who will give religious validation.

Happily we of the Sacred Society of St Filibustre are able to rise above such controversies and conspiracies. We are well aware that the Vatican is part of an international secret society made up of the world's leading Catholics politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Arnold Schwarzenneger combined with Freemasons, Bildenbergers, the Bush and Clinton clans, vegetarians and people who wear Birkenstocks.

We will continue our quiet ways of worship using the Western Ambrosianic Rite (non collegian) and watch with quiet satisfaction as the Lord of this World gathers his forces for the coming Apocalypse. Then all those who wear the buttoned maniple will be revealed for what they truly are--wolves in sheep's clothing--secret agents of the forces of darkness right here in our midst.

A New Translation?

Here follows the first of six pastoral letters to my parish. They were published last summer, but many thought they were a clear explanation and asked for wider circulation.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

On the first Sunday of Advent this year we will change over to using the new English translation of the Mass. My pastor’s letters over the next few weeks will help to explain the background and the need for these changes. The letters will be available on the website, and eventually I will collect them and provide a printed copy for all parishioners who would like them.

First I should point out that what we are introducing is not a ‘new Mass’. It is simply a new translation of the Mass that was revised after the second Vatican Council. That Mass was first compiled in Latin—the official language of the church—and the bishops of every different language group are responsible for their own translation of the Mass from Latin. The Mass we have been using for the last forty years or so was the first translation from Latin. On Advent Sunday we will start using a new translation of the same Mass.

Secondly, everyone should understand that this is not Fr Longenecker’s idea! The new translation of the Mass has been worked on for many years by an international committee of linguists, historians, liturgical scholars, writers, theologians and bishops. The translation has gone through many revisions with experts being consulted across the whole English speaking world. Finally the new translation was approved by the Vatican and the Holy Father mandated that all English speaking countries should adopt the new translation on Advent Sunday of this year.

People will naturally have some questions: They will wonder why we need a new translation of the Mass in the first place. Wasn’t what he had good enough? Why do we have to go through all the trouble to learn new words? Why can’t we just go on doing what we’ve always done? What’s the point of the new translation? I will try to answer these questions and more over the next few weeks in my pastor’s letters.

First I would like to explain the process by which we will get used to the new translation: This summer my pastor’s letters will help to explain the background and reasons for the new translation of the Mass. In the Fall we will have a series of homilies that remind us of the reasons and help prepare us for the change. This will lead into a couple of Sundays at which we will look at the changes and practice what to say at Mass. As we move through the next liturgical year we will also learn some new musical settings for the Mass. This sounds a bit daunting, but the changes for the congregation are really very few, I’m also committed to making the process as painless as possible, so I’m confident that everyone will adapt quickly.

Finally, I ask you to keep a positive attitude about the changes. I have had a look at the new translation and it really is very good! I hope the changes will give all of us a chance to deepen our understanding of the liturgy of the church and why we worship as we do as Catholics. Please read my letters with care, discuss them with your family and as we move into the changes go forward with confidence and optimism!

Yrs pastor,

Fr Longenecker

St Francis

Francis' life is so iconic and symbolic. It happens when that somehow or other with Francis connections are made.

On the pilgrimage I made in 1987 hitch hiking to Jerusalem from England I stopped in Assissi. The place was packed with an international conference of Franciscans. They were all there in the streets like Francis clones dancing and playing guitars and being happy and joyful and all that, but consequently I could not find a place to stay, and wound up in a little pensione--paying more than I should have. Then I lost my wallet. I only had enough money to buy a ticket to Rome where I could contact the bank and cancel my traveler's checks and draw more funds. So in Assissi I was impoverished for a few days. When I got to Rome I had to beg for a room--assuring the sisters at the hostel that I could pay once I was able to draw more money.

In Venice I visited the beautiful ancient Franciscan friary on the island of San Francesco del Deserto, and when I got off the boat and walked up to the monastery a huge German Shepherd like dog bounded up. I was scared. A friar laughed and called him. He was named Gubbio. Geddit?

So in many of the Franciscans I have known--something about the founder lives in them, summed up in the words spoken by one of the Franciscan friars of the renewal who were at St Joseph's Catholic School last spring: "We follow Jesus Christ in the Way of St Francis."

Immaculate Mary

The Dark Lord Shea-uman writes well here about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Rich You Shall Have With You Always

Every summer I take a group of high school students out to work with our partners in El Salvador. The families in the school there live at a simple subsistence level. It's easy to romanticize their lives when we're out there for what amounts to a kind of summer vacation, but there is something simple and honest about their poverty. They don't have much financially. They don't have much hope. They don't have much future. They don't have much of anything. Nevertheless, when I am out there I am always very happy. They welcome us with a natural hospitality and enjoy life in a way that we struggle to in the hectic American suburbs.

Last week the Holy Father called on Catholics to re-examine our attitude to wealth. When I'm back in the United States I spend most of my time working not with the poor, but with the rich, and even when I am working with the poor in prison, or in the parish or in our food pantry, I'm aware that being 'poor' in America is very different from being poor anywhere else, and being rich in America is very different from being rich anywhere else.

When working with the rich there are certain pitfalls that are very hard to avoid. The first one is knowing how to be their pastor. They have money and you need money. You need money to build a church, to subsidize your school, to start a ministry to the poor, to establish a new method of evangelization, to start a radio show. You not only need the rich to help you do this, but many of them are often good, sincere and worthy Catholic people. The thing is, they're rich and being rich they are used to getting their own way. They are used to people kow towing to them and being subservient. They are used to being 'benefactors' with all the loaded relationships and expectations that involves. Too often, therefore, we compromise with these people of power in order to get their donations to do the work we feel called to do. Tricky.

This is one of the reasons why a pastor should take seriously his obligation in canon law to live in apostolic simplicity. If I live in apostolic simplicity nobody can buy me. I can't be fired. I can't be hired. I can't be influenced by the wealth and power of the worldly wise. If I have the freedom of a St Francis, then I also have the freedom to love the rich as I would love the poor--seeing them for who they really are--without the glossy coat and charming smile and glittering manners that the wealthy can afford. I can see them exactly for who they are--all their good traits and all their faults, and by God's grace I can love them for who they are, not what they have.

The second pitfall in working with the rich is that it is very difficult not to be influenced by their assumed set of values. People who are rich dwell in wealth. They breathe the air of affluence. They have an attitude of power and privilege and position which is simply part of having wealth. This is not to say that they are all vain, power hungry, greedy and obnoxious people--not at all. It is simply to say that around them is an aura of confidence and power that goes with being able to buy pretty much whatever they want. This feels good, and soon that sense of power translates into a set of values and a way of life which naturally protects and defends the privilege and power. When working with such people it is difficult not to assume that same attitude and set of values. It's hard to be poor in heart when you're rich in pocket.

The third problem with the rich is that it is very difficult for them to know their need of God. Wealth dulls our desire for God. If we can buy everything we need, why call on God? Consequently, when the rich are also religious what results is a warped sense of the Christian faith. For too many of the wealthy the Christian faith is reduced to (at best) a set of moral principles and 'rules for good behavior', and at worst, an act of cultural conformity--a weekend past time for respectable people. The idea of living a radical life of obedience and sacrifice for the kingdom of God is well...(polite smile) rather extremist.

The fourth problem is that wealth skews a person's image, and the way they look at other people. Wealthy people are used to interacting with other people as their 'boss' or their superior. They're used to getting what they want from others. Again, I am not saying they are all bossy, nasty, domineering people. Not at all. Simply saying that they live in a way that is used to being in control. Consequently, it is hard for them not to regard other people as either employees or equals, and to determine if they are equals, they begin to make that assessment according to how much the other person earns, or what position of power they have, or what worldly accomplishments they have. It's hard for the wealthy not to value people according to their wealth, power or prestige (or lack of it)

The fifth problem is a result of the first four: that the wealthy end up with a blind spot regarding the real values and beliefs of the faith. They may live their lives in a beautiful haze of 'goodness' and material blessings and nice friends and lovely things but wind up with a blank in understanding the heart of the gospel.

How do we get over or around it? We can't. The rich, like the poor, we will have with us always.

But in saying all this, I do not wish to be too harsh. Some of the genuinely best, most gentle, loving, kind and genuine Christian souls I have known have been very wealthy. They have been humble, generous, caring and content with little. They have been good stewards of the riches they have either earned or been given and the responsibility has made them wise.

This brings us to the heart of the matter--material wealth, or lack of it--is secondary. What matters is what you do with it, and what you do with it depends on your relationship with the one who was rich, and yet for our sake became poor and took on the status of a slave.

Teepees and Tabernacles

Go here to read my latest piece for Crisis Magazine. The article is about church architecture and mentions the new church we are building at Our Lady of the Rosary parish which has been designed by Andrew Gould. Drawings and plans have been under wraps while in development, but next weekend we launch our capital campaign with fantastic watercolor renderings by Matthew Alderman. Stay tuned for news about this exciting project here.

Greenville Pro Life Chain

It was the annual pro life chain in Greenville this afternoon.

Our Lady of the Rosary Parish and St Joseph's Catholic School had a great turnout

Theo and Elias Longenecker were there

and so was Maddy, who is a senior at St Joseph's Catholic School

Guardian Angel Story

My parents were driving home from the youth club they ran every week. It was late and they were making their way down the country lanes of rural Pennsylvania. I was asleep in the back of the station wagon with my older brother and sister--all of us little children.

My Dad said as they came over the brow of the hill they saw in the distance another car coming at high speed directly in the oncoming direction. The country lane was only wide enough for one car. There were steep banks on either side, and they knew that as they went down into the dip the oncoming driver would not be able to see them.

There was no place to turn. There was no space to get over to let him pass. All of this happened in a split second. Sure enough, the car came over the hill and my mother and father, sitting up front, said later that they braced themselves for the impact. They even saw the shocked and terrified face of the other driver as he prepared to crash into them head on at high speed.

Next thing they knew they were looking out the back window of the car at his fast receding tail lights. There was no way he could have got around them. There was simply no space for two cars. Instead, one car passed through the other, and went on its way. The laws of physics as we understand them were suspended for a moment and we were delivered.

Believe in miracles.

Being Little

Someone referred to me the other day as "larger than life." I'm not quite sure if it was a compliment. I think what they meant was that I charge around on one of my many projects and woe betide anyone who happens to be in my way. Either that or they were saying in a nice way that I'm an arrogant, self centered know it all. I suppose it's true. I've often been accused of being arrogant or aloof, when all I thought I was doing was minding my own business.

Either way, I think it would be better to be "smaller than life" than "larger than life". Being truly little is the way of St Therese and St Benedict. See that little girl? She is showing you the way to Jesus, for he says, "Unless you become as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom." The door is little and low and the sign on the door says, "No grown ups allowed."

However, what does it mean to be "little"? It means to be truly and completely oneself. Humility mustn't be confused with obsequiousness or abject servility. If we have a personality which is naturally a 'behind the scenes' type of person, then when we're in a supporting role we're being humble and seem humble, but if we are naturally a leader, and individualist or creative person it may be false humility to constantly put ourselves in a background role.

The heart of being little is service to others, and we serve others best by being totally ourselves--transformed by grace to become fully ourselves. This is what St Therese did. She became a saint not by becoming someone else, but by becoming fully herself, and we do not become saints by trying to be totally like St Therese, but be being totally who God made us to be.

This is why it is so delightful that St Jerome and St Therese and St Francis are all celebrated within the same week. Three utterly different saints could not be imagined, and yet all three made holy by God.  Each one pursued the path of becoming little through their own set of circumstances, their own path of obedience and their own cross of suffering.

Likewise with us. If we take our faith seriously, then we will have to become little. Notice that the gospel does not say we 'may' become little as if that is just one of the ways to heaven. It says that we 'must' become as little children, and that hurts. We want to be powerful grown ups. It hurts to become little, but it is the pain of the Almighty Sculptor chiseling away at the stone block that is our heart--bit by bit chipping away everything that does not look like a saint. Through the circumstances of our lives, through our joys and sorrows and hopes and fears the work is being done if we allow, the work that will make us into 'Christians--little Christs'--each of us an image of the image of the unseen God.

Meeting Therese

From my book, St Benedict and St Therese--The Little Rule and the Little Way.

At the beginning of my journey to Jerusalem I had stopped in the Northern French town of Lisieux simply because I had heard of Thérèse of Lisieux and the map said, ‘pilgrimage centre’. As an Anglican convert from American fundamentalism I knew next to nothing about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux . I’d read snippets about ‘the little flower’ and concluded that the simpering little girl who said a rosary bead every time she went up the stairs was not really to my taste. The first impressions of Lisieux did little to straighten my wrinkled nose. The road up to the ugly basilica was crammed with souvenir shops clattering with dangling rosaries, holy pictures, and lots of Thérèseian tat and papal paraphernalia. Inside the huge church I was turned off by people lighting candles in front of an arm bone of the saint. There was more to come. In the convent church a figure of Saint Thérèse lies in a glass coffin surrounded with roses like a prop from a Disney film. Near the convent I went into a darkened side room and saw her hair, her habit and her writing desk. It seemed all too much like a visit to a wax museum.

I was beginning to be interested in this little saint, but I was still repulsed by a devotion which seemed both alien and tasteless. As an American I thought the French should know better. Nevertheless, I took a room in the Hermitage—a pilgrim’s hostel next to the Carmel where the saint lived and died. That summer evening I went to bed with the window open. I woke up at about three in the morning. The moon was full and a light breeze was blowing the net curtains at the open window. I was immediately wide awake and aware of a ‘presence’ in my room. The presence seemed to be female and extraordinarily joyful. I am not one for waking dreams and have never had a vision, but I sat up in the bed acutely aware that I was being introduced to something or someone good. I got the impression that the positive presence was that of the saint herself. I sat awake, curious and alert for about a quarter of an hour before the feeling faded and I went back to sleep.

The next morning, remembering my revenant,  I visited the book shop, bought Michael Hollings’ biography of Saint Thérèse and read it on my journey. I was doubtful about my night-time experience and put it down to a vivid imagination. However the experience was disturbing enough to make me remain open minded about the whole business. As I read, my feelings about Thérèse went from sceptically negative to grudgingly positive. I concluded that as usual, if so many people thought she was great it must be me who had got it wrong. By the time I got to the end of the book Thérèse’s brilliant spirit had begun to win me over. When I discovered that she prayed for priests I wondered if I had indeed met her on that summer midnight, and stopped to ask if she might pray for me too, even if I was not a full member of her family.