Relaxation

Baxter has a keen ability to help me relax. He crawls on my lap, or he just rolls over for me to pet him, and he begins to purr. Something about that sound and the funny vibration that accompanies it creates a peace and calm that is hard to resist. It is like a psychic massage, a soothing sound and touch that makes me forget the problems or concerns I might be carrying. It says: “Forget about the rest of the world for a moment. Concentrate on our time together. Listen to my peaceful sound and find your center through me. I won’t add to your burdens, but I will help you release them for now.” Add to this message a nose and head rub, and soon the world is all right again. The calm brings clear thinking and settled feelings. I am ready to start over.

Maybe episodes like this are part of the reason so many people prefer their pets to fellow humans. Pets help us decompress by giving us time just to settle down and forget about our troubles. They seem to sense when we need a time out, and they provide the opportunity to take one. At these moments, they don’t ask for anything for themselves except to be close to us. Their closeness gives us perspective on whatever is occupying our attention. It eases our anxiety and provides spaces for us to think again and differently about our issues. A purring cat invites us to pay attention and settle down.

God calls us to the same attitude and frame of mind. In prayer, He comes close to us and invites us to release our burdens, to forget about our troubles for a while, to feel the warmth of His love next to us. Prayer is not a time to solve our problems, but to drop them for a moment. Prayer helps us to recognize that before we have issues with which to deal, we first have appreciation to offer for the gifts what life contains. These come without any strings attached, simply because we are God’s children sharing His life in our living. We hold them in the packaging of our relationships, and we must package them carefully if we are not to damage our sense of gratitude for life.

So our prayer is meant to spill over into the way we deal with each other. Too often we are just problems for each other or functionaries who provide each other things that we need. Prayer shows us we are companions on life’s journey. We are meant to help each other over the rough spots, strengthen each other when we are weak, comfort each other when we are hurting. We do this not by solving anything but by paying attention, feeling close and allowing others to relax in our presence. This is the way we humans purr.

However, we get so wrapped up in our issues, in getting things done, in making demands on each other that we forget to pray that we learn to purr for each other. It’s the greatest service we can offer.

-Monsignor Statnick

Pope Francis and a few other authors have agreed to give Baxter a break for the summer. So this is the last reflection he will inspire until the weather cools and the new school year begins. Baxter hopes his feline frolics and foibles are helpful to his readers, but he has his agent looking for a new ghost writer to convey his wisdom. Baxter feels his present scribe is entering his dotage and might need to be placed out to pasture for his twilight years. If anyone is interested in applying for the position, please call 724-CAT-FOOD, and ask for “More Kibble”. (Baxter will do anything to circumvent his diet.) Happy summer and see you in September!

Graduation

It is graduation season. Pre-school, kindergarten, eighth grade, high school, college and post-graduate programs are celebrating their successful students and wishing them well for the future. A graduation marks a milestone in someone’s life. One phase is finished with the end of the ceremony, and another begins. It is a time to collect our memories from the past few years, and to face our futures, hopefully with confidence. We consciously move on rather than dwindle to an end.

Baxter has never gone through a graduation ceremony. He makes his transitions in life without much thought. He has passed from kitten, to young cat, to senior feline without fanfare or ceremony. It is not that he hasn’t learned some things along the way. He has developed his habits, his likes and dislikes, and his tricks to get what he wants from the repetition of routine and the lessons of trial and error. He just doesn’t look back on these experiences that taught him his life lessons, and he doesn’t seem to anticipate the future and where it might lead. He is a creature of the moment, imprinted with the past but not reflective about it or how it might lead him into the future.

This is what makes us different. As human beings we are meant to reflect and ponder upon our lives. We are not made to live from moment to moment without thought to what we are doing and where it is taking us. Our lives compose a history where what happens holds a certain meaning. However, this meaning is not self-evident most of the time. We have to plumb the experience for its deeper dimension, for the relationships that connect the pieces, for the God who was present quietly but powerfully while we lived through it. We have to become people who reflectively look back on our lives not in nostalgia to relive the past, but in confidence that we will discover a divine providence that will lead us into the future.

Our lives are not just a series of passages from birth to death, marked by the accumulation of years. They are a series of transformations, marked by ever deepening changes in our perspective and the character we bear in the world. As we live on faithfully and thoughtfully, these transformations are marked by grace more than our own talent, power, sin or failure. We see more and more of God’s hand with us, and we become more and more reflections of God’s work and word in our world. Salvation history continues as we understand the history of our lives unfolding in the path of faith.

As disciples, we all have one last graduation to celebrate. The ceremony takes place in a church. It takes a whole lifetime to meet the requirements of its credentials. It is marked with sadness for the good times that are over, but also with hope for the better times that lie ahead. The processional includes our loved ones, as we are led to the light of Christ at the foot of our casket. Marked by the blood of the Lamb from the moment of our baptism, we now join the great company of saints in glory, and we see the point of it all.

Baxter, you don’t know what you are missing. Happy Graduation!

Turf Wars

Baxter loves to look outside at the other critters with whom he shares this world. He is fascinated by birds and rabbits. He follows their movements with charged attention. He sees bugs as toys. He loves to reach for them and try to grab them in his paw. Then he may release them and bat them around. If they don’t get away, they usually get eaten. Baxter is not a vegetarian.

However, there is one of God’s creatures whom Baxter refuses to engage in any way except angrily. Another cat! Baxter will not abide a fellow feline on or near his turf. At best, he will have a stare down contest with the invader until they back away and leave the premises. At worst, he gets into a hissing, clawing, spitting fit, all intended to get the visitor to scoot in as quick and cowardly a fashion as possible. Baxter will have no one of his species sharing his territory. He claims sole proprietorship, and any other cat is not just unwelcomed, but thrown out in no uncertain terms. Baxter is very possessive of his sphere of influence.

Sometimes we are as well. We won’t let anyone else in or near what we consider our area of responsibility and expertise. We see them as a threat to what we do and who we are. We have the knowledge and experience, and therefore, the right to call the shots and do the job. We have been around a long time, and we don’t need any advice or assistance, unless we ask for it specifically. We are the champions of the cause, and we have notched up the successes of the past. We know best. What’s wrong with doing it our way?

It’s not God’s way. God is not an autocrat dishing out directions and marking off boundaries that no one dares to counter or cross. Sure, He has rules to guide our lives, and do’s and don’ts to follow. But they are for our own good, so that we are fair and respectful towards each other and learn how to build a better world, not to make God look good. God looks at us and sees what we can be, and He sets a place for us to live and work with others to become the persons God intended. That means we have to share our space and cooperate with others to do God’s work.

Our personal successes are not what will account for our lives before God, but how others’ lives were made better for our service to them and with them. “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Christ is disguised in others when they cross over into our lives.

Baxter is excused for his possessiveness and territoriality. He can’t help himself. It is built into his instincts. We have no excuse. God made us to be open to His grace by serving one another, by sharing our time, talent and treasure with them, by allowing them to claim a space in our world. It’s not mine or yours but ours. It is not my way or your way but God’s way through us. When we learn these lessons, God’s work begins to become our own.

Sleeping Soundly

At first, I wasn'’t sure of where they were coming from, these strange sounds in the night. They were a mix of moans and groans, whistles and snores, sighs and heavy breathing. I looked everywhere for their source. I listened near the window, thinking they were coming from the outside. They weren'’t. I explored the basement, walked through every room in the house. Nothing. I checked out the refrigerator, then the furnace, even the chiming clock. No luck from any of these. I began to think that one of two things was possible. Either I was becoming delusional, or zombies were for real. Not wanting to believe that I was nuts, I looked for blood droplets on my pillow. No evidence. What was going on? Who could be at the bottom of these strange sounds in the night? I should have known, but sometimes we miss the most obvious explanation. Baxter!

When Baxter is sound asleep, he isn’t quiet. He make all these weird noises; I suppose to add sound effects to his dreams. He is in such a deep sleep that he is unaware of his noise making but any other creature trying to sleep can’t miss it. He releases a cacophony of sounds from the twilight zone while he blissfully floats in la-la Land. I admire his deep slumber and the utter abandon it conveys. However, the sounds of his peaceful rest create restless discomfort for those of us who have to live with it. Baxter doesn'’t realize it, but his deep sleep keeps others awake, alerted to the sounds his peacefulness generates.

We may have a similar situation in our spiritual lives. We are too restless and distracted to go deeply into reflection on our lives and encounter the God who is revealing Himself to us. We may be so frightened by the sounds around us, that we can’t listen to the silence within us. The world is a noisy place, and we get caught up in its shouts and threats. We may be so disturbed by the sound that others make in their habits of living that we can’t rest in ourselves and listen for the Lord. We don’t want to miss something interesting, so we are always attuned to what someone has to say or what we may overhear. We become focused on the external world so completely that we never enter our own interiority to examine what I truly think, feel and believe about myself, others and my God. We ride life like a wave, and we never dive into its depths to see what is living under the surface. We become spiritually shallow.

Deep sleep gives us a metaphor for how we are to rest in the Lord and contemplate His goodness. It’s not about trying to get to sleep and dream. Rather, it is about allowing ourselves to relax in the presence of God as to be taken away by the encounter. We forget where we are, what time it is, what others are doing, and simply fall into the embracing arms of our loving God. We allow God to take the lead, while we rest, while we let go of whatever is disturbing us. We focus on the moment in prayer, and we give no regard either to what happened in the past or what may occur in the future. We are absorbed in the present where God is with us in peace.

Like Baxter, Christians should make strange sounds in our world today. Not snorts and sighs or whistles and moans because we are asleep, but shouts of peace, forgiveness, compassion, justice and respect because we rest in the Lord. We have nothing to fear from those sounds.

Venturing Fourth

When Baxter was a kitten, I had to keep my eye on him all the time. He was so curious and courageous that nothing stopped him from venturing forth into new territory. He would sit on the window sill, and he couldn’t resist the call of the world outside. He would push the screen until it released from the window, and then he would try to take off, exploring the birds and bugs, flora and fauna in the neighborhood. Because he was young and naïve, I never let him venture far. He was too vulnerable to the bigger beasts and sinister forces around. Baxter had spunk and energy and a fascination for the uncharted and unusual in those days. Although at times he was a handful, he was a delight to watch. His adventurous spirit was contagious with a spark for life.

Now Baxter is older and more settled. When he sits on the window sill, I have no worries that he will try to get out. He is so content and satisfied with the comforts of his indoor life that he never tries to escape to greener pastures. In fact, when I open a door to get the mail or newspaper, he looks out for a second and turns and runs to the safe haunts of one of his favorite spots. Baxter has become a settled homebody. He is uninterested in engaging the world beyond his window. He is satisfied with watching it, commenting about it and then lying down for a nap.

Have we become like Baxter in the way we live our faith? We are comfortable with our daily and weekly routines, with the people we see in church, with the practices and understanding we learned as children, and we aren’t concerned for what’s going on beyond our tested boundaries. Many people today are looking for God but don’t know where to turn or how to go about it. Many others used to be part of our Catholic community but no longer practice their faith. Some have been driven away from us by scandals, hurts or mistakes in the past. Others have just drifted away as adult responsibilities and mature understanding of what life entails outgrew an immature notion of God and His ways. They didn’t reject the faith. It just got crowded out by other activitiesand interests which seem more vital and worthwhile.

These people are outside our doors and windows. Can we leave the comfort and security of our Church pews and meet them where they are? Can we ask them what they are looking for from the Church without prejudging them for their answer? Can we invite them to come and see the richness of our liturgy and worship without condemning them for their absence in the past? Can we admit that we all need to grow in our understanding and personal commitment as disciples of the Lord Jesus and abandon our self-righteous attitude of being Good Catholics? Can we go to those who are different from ourselves-- the un-churched, other Christian denominations, our Jewish forebearswith genuine interest to understand their point of view? Can we listen to the poor and learn what they face each day so that we might have true empathy for their situation?

Reaching out to others where they are can be a scary adventure. We step beyond our comfort zone to the stranger with different experiences and different ideas and ways than ours. These encounters cause us to reflect on ourselves, to deepen our understanding of who we are and why we do what we do in God’s name. In the process, we discover a new vitality that can bring energy and commitment to our practice of the faith. We call this the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is revealed in encountering the other and discovering a brother or sister in the Lord. This is the heart of the New Evangelization Pope Francis is calling us to take up.

Once in a while, Baxter still gets excited about what he sees outside. Then the spark of the kitten reappears in him. God wants to ignite the spark of the original Spirit of Jesus in us again, so that new life might come to our faith and our Church formed in the Spirit. But it won’t happen as long as we stay inside ourselves -- comfortable, secure and alone.

Venture forth to those people God is leading us to welcome, invite, meet and understand, and rediscover the spark of the Spirit we received in Baptism. It will revitalize our faith and our Church.

Smell the Flowers, Don't Eat Them

Easter and Spring bring back the flowers. It is so uplifting to have their colors, shapes and aromas to grace our church and gardens. They remind us of God’s gifts of beauty in our world. They soften any environment dressed by their blooms, and they are a concrete sign that the long winter has passed and more new life is to come. We enjoy the sight and smell of blooming plants, and welcome what they add to what can be just ordinary and dull surroundings. Flowers make an occasion special and memorable. Perhaps that is why we often use them to mark a birthday, a wedding or holiday. They dress up the setting—unless you are Baxter.

Baxter likes flowers and plants, but for a different reason. He eats them. I can’t have any living foliage around the house, if I want it to survive. Baxter ignores any “Don’t Touch!” prohibitions, and seems to miss any aesthetic value to natural greenery. To him, it is all salad to be chomped on and add variety to a boring diet of kibble and water. Plants and their blooms don’t have a chance for peaceful coexistence with this herbivore. What we might see as delicate beauty with rich color, Baxter sees as an additional course at dinner. There’s no teaching him otherwise.

We can often limit our perception of people and circumstances in the same way. We see things for what we want them tobe and how they will serve our purposes, and we miss what they might add to our lives. In a sense, we consume them with our selfish motives, and fail to see what they might contribute of their unique beauty. So we have turf wars. No one can do what I do the way I do it. If they try, it is not as good or downright wrong. We get jealous and envious that others are honing in on our territory, so we make them feel uncomfortable. We gossip about others. It is a way of eating up their good reputation so that they won’t be appreciated for sharing their time and talents.

God cultivates our lives in His love so that they will bloom with many gifts to share with others. But we have to welcome these gifts and admire their contribution to our common environment. Not everything is a competition against each other. Among God’s people, we are all on the same team working for the building of the Kingdom in our midst. We may be different varieties of blossoms, but placed correctly in a positive environment, we can all add to the beau

Baxter can’t live with beautiful, living plants around him. They are simply part of the food chain for him. We can be better than that. We can appreciate and cultivate each other’s beautiful goodness, and use it to enhance our celebrations of God’s beauty and goodness in our midst. It’s how Easter happens for those with the eyes to see.

Baby Steps

Guess what? Baxter has lost nearly 2 lbs! I could hardly believe the veterinarian when she announced his weight. Even she was amazed and admitted that it isn’t easy to get cats to reduce. I had not taken Baxter for his regular weigh-in for a while due to the winter weather, my schedule and general laziness on my part. I have kept him on the diet food with the portion size the vet recommended. At times, I thought he might be getting a little lighter, but then I would doubt myself, and think that it was the wish being father to the thought. It all happens so gradually that the effects go unnoticed for a long time. However, now I have evidence, verified by a professional, that the diet is working. Baxter is on the way to a new physique. Arnold Schwarzenegger, move over!

Our spiritual lives often mature in the same way slowly, gradually, without frequent notice. We have the standard practices that we follow. Regular prayer and worship, acts of charity, times of fasting, spiritual reading, maybe a retreat, all make up a regimen of our efforts to open ourselves more and more to God’s grace and its transforming power in our lives. But we usually don’t notice the results. How often do we secretly chide ourselves for being impatient and a little aggravated right after we have celebrated Sunday Eucharist? Who hasn’t wondered to themselves whether our prayer really makes a difference? Who hasn’t doubted whether our charity does any good or is it just giving into con artists using gullible people? All these questions may cause us to hesitate in our spiritual discipline at times and maybe even give up on the practices for a while. Our cynical side gets the best of us.

But then something happens. Maybe somebody thanks us for an act of kindness we didn’t realize we were doing. Maybe we find strength to deal with a family difficulty that we didn’t think we could handle. Maybe we go out of our way to help someone in need, thinking it’s no big deal. Maybe we had just the right words at the right time for someone distraught or depressed. How did these things happen? Where did we get what we did or said?

God is working in us. We most often don’t notice it, but grace is having its effects. It is changing our spiritual metabolism to operate differently with the people, problems and events we face each day. We digest these things not with the burning juices of our acid egos, but with the soothing balm of our spirits made generous through knowing God’s love for us and all. Divine power is changing us, but we don’t recognize it, just like the first disciples didn’t recognize the Risen Lord so often in their midst. But not to worry. The resurrection didn’t depend on the disciples’ reaction for it to happen. It relied upon them to witness to its truth and goodness in the way they handled life differently after encountering the Lord Jesus.

So, Baxter, keep up the good work. We believers, do the same. Neither of us may notice it, but we will walk more lightly through the trials of life and relish the joys more fully. The effects of grace often lack drama, but they never fail to make life better for us all.