2003 CONFESSIONS
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January

Little Notes
Letters

Talk About Movies
Roamin' Catholic
Follow Me




Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
December 2003

---

PERSONAL MIRACLES

What is my experience of God? Not much. I pray (somewhat) daily. I attend Mass on Sunday and Holy Days. I pay some attention to the life of the Church. I try to teach the Faith to my children and to deepen my own understanding. I struggle to improve my moral and spiritual life, to become, in the most unsappy way, a more loving person -- a better imitation of Christ. I am following Paul's counsel, working out my salvation in fear and trembling. I hope for consolations; in my foolish pride, I even expect them. But I have never regarded them as an essential part of the religious life. And at this point in my life, I think an experience of God -- some sign, some revelation, some inward immanence - would seem just that: a consolation. A bonus, a sneak peak at what lies in store for those who persevere.

When I was a teenager, my parents got involved with the charismatic movement within the Catholic Church. The great focus of the movement, it seemed to me, was the Holy Spirit and its power to enflame the hearts of the faithful, making them burn with zeal and love. At some services, charismatic priests would lay hands on those who wished it, praying for the Holy Spirit to descend upon them. Some of these people would drop to the ground as if stricken, then lie ramrod straight, their eyes fluttering about under closed lids, their mouths mumbling at lightning speed. We called it being "slain in the Spirit." My father and I both went under the hands; we were neither of us slain. "That sort of thing just doesn't happen to Barkers," I concluded.

I missed out again when I visited Medjugorje -- site of an alleged Marian apparition -- with my mother during Christmas 1990. Mine was the only rosary in the family that didn't see its chain turn golden. Even the folks back home were affected -- my brother, my grandfather. My Dad's rosary turned on his birthday, four months later. It wasn't exactly an experience of God, but whatever it was, I was not a part of it.

Our Medjugorje party included two Dominican nuns, Sister Angela and Sister Catherine Marie. Sister Angela was obviously older, but both women seemed to have fulfilled Christ's command that we become like little children. They did not strike me as naïve or innocent about the world and its wisdom, but they seemed to have successfully put all that aside for something simpler and better. Except for one occasion, they were happy and serene, no matter what the circumstances.

That one occasion was a fifteen-decade rosary walk up the side of a steep, rocky hill adorned with bronze reliefs of the Stations of the Cross. To my memory, it was just the three of us. At one point, Sister Angela looked up at the sun, which some people said had behaved strangely in the sky, perhaps dancing as it did at Fatima. Her serene countenance cracked, and out slipped a bit of genuine childish desire. She called to the sun, "Come on, dance!" She had come all this way; so many things had been reported. She had given God her life. I did not think she was asking for a reward, but a consolation. The sun stayed put. Sister Angela smiled and gently chided herself. "I do see miracles," she said to me. "Every day at Mass."

I didn't get any signs at Medjugorje either. But I was happy. I was happy because I was reading G.K. Chesterton's little book on St. Francis, where religion was presented as "a thing like a love affair." The saint was my consolation. Reading about his insanely happy life amid hardship and poverty and suffering was my vicarious experience of God, only it didn't feel vicarious. My faith was bolstered by Francis' faith. I have never experienced God the way Chesterton said Francis did -- His being and love illuminated by all creation. The closest I get to that is when I actually get close to Him: when I witness the miracle of transubstantiation Sister Angela mentioned and then receive His body into mine. And there are times after confession that are similar. I am conscious that He has intervened in my life, and I am capable of genuine gratitude. Out of that gratitude comes love. Sometimes, that love is a hunger, the pang of the heart's true desire. I don't know if I have had the experience of God, but I know I have felt the lack where that experience should be, and that is a real start.

TOP