The Point of Taking the Discipline

In the house of St Catherine are displayed things like the stone she used as a pillow and other forms of penances. She used to fast a lot and to make big sacrifices. Those practices were common during her time in the middle ages and seem to us today rather bizarre. But even much striker for us is to know that modern saints like Pope John Paul II also used some forms of discipline, like sleeping on the wooded bare floor.

Those things do not make sense in our modern culture where the satisfaction of comfort is the goal for which we work hard. But even though I had understood the concept of taking the discipline as a way to configure ourselves with the sufferings of Christ, I could hardly explain it to make sense.

Praying vespers on Friday, I finally could figure out the point on taking the discipline. And it is not so different from St Anthony of the Desert in the early church to Blessed John Paul II in the Third millennium. The same passions, the same bodies, the same problem, the same goal. One of the intercessions says: Christ, our frail humanity is prone to fall; strengthen us through your help.  Left to itself, our nature is inclined to sin; let your love always restore it to grace.

Thomas Morton explains that the passions are like children, who left to themselves, will take over the whole house. So they need to be disciplined and corrected. On the same way the passions; otherwise the passions will dominate our lives with sin. We don’t talk about the elimination of the passions, rather of their purification and refocusing. We Christians are not dualists. We honor the body and the material world as we honor the soul and the spiritual. Remember that we are saved both in body and spirit. Look at Mary. This is the point of her Assumption.

Our frail humanity is prone to fall and left to itself, our nature is inclined to sin. We all can say it with certitude, we expert sinners. So the taking the discipline help us to refocus the energy of the passions towards the true worship of God. St Paul urges us to offer our bodies as true and living sacrifice. It helps us to empty ourselves so to have space for God.

Father Barron offers a clear example of this, for us today. Let’s go to a work out center. What we find there is people sweating and “torturing” their bodies for a great benefit: healthy bodies. And often, it is accompanied by strict diets and abstinence of a lot of goodies. What if we use it for an even greater benefit: the health of the soul!

I have been fighting laziness. I am not a morning person at all, lest a sport man. I admire all of you who are. And with this order of thoughts, I have been swimming for, at least, an hour every other day. Primarily for the benefit of my soul, uprooting laziness of my being, I’ve been gaining a healthy body.

Let’s be as prompt and smart with the matters of the spirit as we are with the matters of the world.  “Our enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion is looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5, 8-9).

Mass in St Catherine's house

Image of Blessed Pope John Paul II

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The Restoration of Innocence

A language teacher loves to bring on hot topics for discussion in order to create some controversy in class so students talk with passion using the language being learned. This week there was a discussion about pessimism and optimism. Each one of us had to give our own opinion on the matter. One of them made a comment on these quotes: “a pessimist is just an optimist with experience” and “a pessimist is what an optimist calls a realist.” He expanded his comments bringing up a study that showed that pessimists are realist but optimists are happier in life. I felt my happiness being challenged. To this I replied without hesitation: so, do you mean that optimists live in a fantasy? But it was not my turn to talk yet. I had a little more time to elaborate my opinion. What I said resounded over and over in my head. When it was my turn I said: “if the pessimists are realist, then I am an optimist who lives in fantasy relying on the reality of faith.” Yet, there are some that believe that faith is just wishful thinking.

Fantasy, optimism, faith; what are they but attributes of a child, aren’t they?  And a child is the best version of innocence. Isn’t it holiness the restoration of innocence? That was what Christ accomplished for us in the Paschal mystery. We sing in the Exsultet in the happy night of Easter: 

 The power of this holy night dispels all evil. Washes guilt away, restores lost innocence. Brings mourners joy; it cast out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.

Don’t we have to become like a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Yes, says the Lord (Cf. Lk 18:17). How do I become like one? Well I was one once. How do I go back to it? Riding a Ferrari. Yes, I went back to boyhood yesterday for 2 hours. I met Alex in the language school. We have been together there since the beginning of this experience. He was kind enough to take me with him to Maranello in Emilia Romagna. There are the headquarters and museum of the Ferrari Company. He rented one and invited me to ride with him through the city and country side. Sometimes he reached 140 mph.

What is it with us men about this passion for cars?  I don’t know. I am not writing to answer that question. It is not a problem. What I know is that I felt so nervous of excitement when I started seeing Ferraris everywhere I looked. I couldn’t help myself but going back to the back yard of my house in Colombia where I had a real fantasy world of roads, tracks and model cars. I felt so boyish to the point of buying a little model.

But on our way back to Siena, Saint Paul hit me with what he says in 1 Corinthians 11-13:

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. 

Well this doesn’t fit with what I experienced. Then, how do the restoration of innocence and being like a child again look like? It looks more like what St Paul says. I can’t be like a child in the sense of being immature, but in the sense of fully knowing. It may sound contradictory since we experience the loss of innocence precisely by knowing more and more about things and life. But the loss of innocence knows what is false. The world deceives us by saying that everything is gray and insipid. There are not colors and not flavors. That’s authentic hopeless pessimism. Thanks God there is red for Ferrari and yellow for orange juice. And friends, you know that there is more than that in this beautiful planet, or is it a fantasy? The restoration of innocence is to fully know the true, to know as I am fully known by my Creator.

What I experienced in Maranello, to feel a boy again, is what the Lord invites us to become. But only to the degree of being totally involved and engaged in searching Him, just as a child is engaged playing. Everything else that I really had there was a manifestation of my own vanity and my sometimes concerns with frivolity. I am just a simple, poor, sober man with the power of bringing God down to a host and some wine. What else should I ask for?

Blessed be God forever for letting me share the priesthood of Jesus Christ and for letting man being so creative with his beauty and Ferraris.



No, I am not that monk that sold it

I am the priest who rode one

I had also the privilege of Bishop Rojas visit this week. We celebrated Mass together in the chapel of the Crucifix in Saint Catherine's shrine. Sister Giussepina looks very serious about what she wants to tell the bishop. I am just atentevely "overhearing" the conversation.

Where is Silence?

Silence came up like a vital need for me this week. Learning a language obviously implies a lot of sounds, words and so on. I am listening constantly and attentively to everything around. I am repeating constantly sounds and words like a parrot and try to construct full sentences that make sense. Siena’s background also has like a soundtrack. Tourists go up and down the hilly streets, with words and sounds in all languages. There is a church or chapel almost in every corner and all with bell towers, with bells that ring always on what seems without ceasing.  Things are not quieter in my room, the TV or the radio are almost always on and when they are off, the natural noise of a roommate interrupts the second of calmness. Additionally, there is my own noise, my internal noise, heart and mind and all senses noises.

With my concern for silence in mind, I learned this week two things. First the Italian word chiacchiarare [kja-kkje’-rare] which means to talk or chat about nothing and everything. It is what is known in languages an onomatopoeic word; words associated with the sounds of what is named. For example, cuckoo, to name a bird; or sizzle to refer to what happens when something is frying or roasting. As a matter of fact, animal sounds are representing differently in each language. This is something I had fun with when I started learning English. For instance, an American rooster says cok-a’doodle-doo, while a rooster that “talks” Spanish says kikiriki, or a French kokoriko.  An Italian hen or chicken cacarea; hence, the word chiacchiarare describes a similar sound that we make while talking about nothing and everything.

The second thing that I learned was about the Academy for Silence. In order to train my ear to Italian language, I listen to podcasts about different topics. This time, it was an interview to the director of this academy in Milano. Their point is to rescue silence and train people to practice it in the midst of everyday life. It is a vital need and such an ancestral claim. All religions honor silence as the way we enter into contact with the deep of ourselves and hear God’s voice. There is where Elijah heard God:

Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, Why are you here, Elijah? (1Kings 19, 11-13).

But how can I tell everybody around me to shut up?! How can ask noisy tourists to be quiet in church where I am seeking refuge for at least one second of silence? How can I tell this whole town to ring the bells only once a day? In short, how can I control the sounds around me? Impossible, isn’t it? It seems like that. This is not a new topic or problem I have to deal with. This is an old concern I have had for a long time. However, I think I found a way out of it. An answer if you will. While it is true I cannot control the sounds around, it is definitely true I can control the sounds and noise I make. I start by the easy ones like TV, radio, phone, computer off. Then I move on to a more difficult one, the use of words. How much do I really need to talk? I “budge” myself with words. No in the sense that I will give myself, let’s say, 500 words to speak. It will be annoying and inconvenient. I mean it in the sense of being attentive to the extend and quality of my conversations. One of the roots of our common problems is our degradation and falsification of the word given. I say something today and tomorrow I will deny or correct it. In other terms, the misuse of words leads me to lie. We all need to learn to talk from a profundity. The word in which I explain myself can’t be a word for lying. It has to come from the silence that gives truth to my words.

And finally, I move to the most complicated level of the noise and sounds I produce; the sounds of my mind and senses. It produces the deepest silence because it is in the inner self where we hear God’s voice like the light breeze.  While I know it is impossible to not think of anything even for a second, the mind is always working, it is possible to shut down those thoughts by directing them to our own interiority. Try to train yourself on these three steps. Just spend at least one minute or 90 seconds daily and you will notice significant progress in a short time.  When one archives the last step, any noise around won’t bother you as it used to be. However, this practice will prompt you to seek places and situations where you really will experience external silence as well.