A mind for the Mystery of God vs. the worldview of “mind over matter.” The Mind of God is in all matter and all that matters, seen and and unseen.

Recovering a mind for the Mystery of God requires that man be set free from a mindset rooted and formed in Sin, with addiction to sin as a way of life. St. Paul tells us that it is no longer “I who live but Christ who lives within me. ” He is able to say this because he has put on the “mind of Christ.” As soon as mankind turned away from the heart of God, by disobeying His command and yielded to the temptation to do his own will instead of God’s Will, he put in place a “mind over matter” approach to life. Ever since then, our minds have been imprisoned to a contaminated and polluted way of thinking that is as much a part of our spiritual make-up as our DNA is a part of our physical cellular structure. Only God can set us free from sin. Only God can save us from this present day “Babylonian captivity.” The myth, that we are to live a “mind over matter” approach to life, keeps us in bondage to repeatedly committing the Original Sin, just like our first parents, Adam and Eve. We set ourselves up as god, live in disobedience to the spiritual laws (doing our own will rather than co-creating life with God in submission to His Will) and perpetuate individual creations of relationship universes with Original Sin at the center rather than God. Wedded to our wills at the deepest level, we seek the wholeness that only God can offer where it will never be found: within our own limited intelligence, within the disillusion of our own broken hearts or within a living projection or an illusion of life that seems to be true but in reality is a counterfeit. Jesus came to show us the the Way back to the Present moment where God lives the Mystery of the Trinity in all that He has created on heaven and on earth.

As man is cleansed of Sin, he begins to recover what he lost: darkened intellects become filled with Light, despair and hopelessness disappears, headstrong willfulness melts into heart-strong joyousness. He recovers what the locusts have eaten: a heart for living the Covenant relationship with his Creator. Man’s core wound (originating with Original Sin) which keeps separating him from himself by dividing and conquering all that lives within him and around him is replaced with what he had at the beginning of Creation:  a soul created in the image and likeness of God and restoration of a heart that beats only for God. Man can now re-enter the Dance of the Trinity and live the fruitful and life-giving rhythm within the universe where God Himself lives.
“As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. “

Glory be to the Father! Glory be to the Son! Glory be to the Holy Spirit!

© Curran & Associates

“Stabat mater dolorosa.” Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, she beheld her tender Child…By the cross with you to stay, there with you to weep and pray, is all I ask of you to give.

9.15.06 Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

From a sermon by St. Bernard, abbot. The Liturgy of the Hours. Office of Readings. Volume IV. p.1401

The martyrdom of the Virgin is set forth both in the prophecy of Simeon and in the actual story of our Lord’s passion. The holy man said of the infant Jesus: He has been established as sign which will be contradicted. He went on to say to Mary: And you own heart will be pierced by a sword.

Today, O Blessed Mother, a sword has pierced your heart. For only by passing through your heart could the sword enter the flesh of your Son. Indeed, after your Jesus–who belongs to everyone, but is especially yours–gave up his life, the cruel spear, which was not witheld from his lifeless body, tore open his side. Clearly it did not touch his soul and could not harm him, but it did pierce your heart. For surely his soul was no longer there, but yours could not be torn away. Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly call you more than martyr, since the effect of compassion in you has gone beyond the endurance of physical suffering.

Or were those words: Woman, behold your son, not more than a sword to you, truly piercing your heart, cutting through to the division between soul and spirit? What an exchange! John is given to you in place of Jesus, the servant in place of the Lord, the disciple in place of the Master, the son of Zebedee replaces the Son of God, a mere man replaces God himself. How could these words not pierce your most loving heart, when the mere remembrance of them breaks ours, hearts of stone and iron though they are.

Do not be surprised, brothers, that Mary is said to be a martyr in spirit. Let him be surprised who does not remember the words of St. Paul, that one of the greatest crimes of the Gentiles was that they were without love. That was far from the heart of Mary, let it be far from her servants.

Perhaps someone will say: “Had she not known before that he would die?” Undoubtedly. “Did she expect him to rise again at once?” Surely. “And still she grieved over her crucified Son?” Intensely. Who are you and what is the source of your wisdom that you are more surprised at the compassion of Mary than at the passion of Mary’s Son? For if he could die in body, could she not die with him in spirit? He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since his.

© Curran & Associates

The “Nada, Nada, Nada” of St. John of the Cross leads us home to Union with God. “With the Cross we are freed from the restraint of the enemy and we clutch on to the strength of salvation.” (St. Theodorus the Estudite.) “The sign of the Cross makes kings of all those reborn in Christ.” (St. Leo the Great)

This post will develop God’s ongoing call on my life (as well as my response at different ages and stages) to being emptied of self so that He could fill me with HIs Presence. Self-emptying in order that I might be filled with God’s Presence required that I first collect the pieces of my fragmented self where I had stored them over time for “safe-keeping.” When I had accumulated enough to form a critical mass, I brought the clay shards of my life to the Potter’s Hand to be remade in the Refiner’s Fire. Only then did I have true self worthy to be offered, to be emptied and to be filled with the Presence of the Lord. I had to climb the Mountain, see the hinds’ feet on high places as part of the journey to self- knoweldge.

9.14.06 Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Jesus came to teach us how to empty ourselves, as he emptied himself of Glory when He took on flesh and became Incarnate. It was not a one-shot deal. In total submission of the Son to the Father and because He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, he took the form of a slave because that’s what the Father asked of him. This is what we need to emulate and follow in order to become one with God.

© Curran & Associates

Children of the Broken Covenant: from Curse to Blessing

© Curran & Associates

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me to finish his work. [...] My Father is at work until now, so I am at work. (John 4: 34; 5:17)

Jesus, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us reminds us in His own words, what His food is and as we “put on Christ” what our food is to be. Holy Scripture, the written Word of God reminds us: Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him, the Father, God, has set his seal.

Doing the will of the God the Father is the source of our spiritual nourishment. Doing our own will feeds our disordered appetites and keeps the structures of Sin in place. Ongoing prayer, repentance, conversion breaks down the pressurized vacuum of sin within us and makes our “stony hearts” more pourous empowering us to receive God’s Grace and activate HIs Presence within us.

© Curran & Associates

“I am the Bread of Life, whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (John 6 :35)

This post will document the saving power of Jesus in the Eucharist. Through drawing me to Him in the Eucharist, He delivered me from feeding on emptiness to feeding me with His own Body and Blood. As I receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, God replaces my appetite for the things of this world with hunger for Him and the things of heaven. I hunger for deeper and deeper faith and I thirst for deeper and deeper intimacy with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

© Curran & Associates