On A Mission From God

During a From Ashes to Glory Lenten Retreat, I tried to discern how to keep the spirit of the Risen Christ alive in my life. Associations such as the Christian Life Community often are dedicated to social justice missions which is laudable but does not seem like my raison d’etre. I believe that my contribution comes in spreading the Word through social media. Via the internet, I hope to echo the Blues Brothers’ mantra, “I’m on a mission from God”.

While we live in an increasingly secular society which seems to scorn the practice of Christianity, there still is a great hunger for spirituality. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta observed: "Everywhere today, hunger is not only for a piece of bread, but hunger for God, hunger for love."  The Ignatian charism is to find God in all things. Thus,  one need not subject oneself to long-winded altar calls from the Reverend Lovejoy to contemplate eternal truths. I believe that even in our super stimulated existence, there are ways to touch the soul and enrich our daily lives.

Something that I previously had been doing seemed to be touching some hearts. I have always loved pithy quotations which I would often write down and sometimes commit to memory. To my chagrin, such thoughtful phrase would rarely resonates without another hook to illustrate the idea or associate the wisdom. So I started to augment these aphorisms with illustrations. I thought this might make for meaningful computer screen savers, but I recognized these handiworks ought to be shared.

In my blogging, I sometimes struggled with developing enough original material which met my standards to “feed the beast” on a daily basis. So I capitalized on my love of notable quotables by supplementing original posts with my Aphorism project. In retrospect, I realized that a good deal of the quotes had spiritual elements.

So I hope create a spiritual scrapbook for with these pearls of wisdom, along with articles of interest and my own pieces. The public nature of the forum does not make it conducive for sharing confessional quality introspection, but to borrow anther Ignatian idea, it could serve as an ideal vehicle for contemplation in action.

I trust that my surreal musings will be baroque in nature, combining the contemporary with the classics, the erudite with that which shrinking violets would label obscene. Contemplating my prospective imprint on postings, I think of the clever conceit of one of the retreat leaders who mantra was : “How would Jesus act if he had the privilege of being me?”  The phrase seems counter-intuitive, it emphasizes the esteem that our loving God has for us and seeks to be in an intimate relationship with us, as imperfect as we are.  Yet by humbly being united with Him, God's transforming love can be brought into the world through us.  To frame it slightly differently, St. Teresa of Ávila mystically mused:

Teresa of Ávila by Peter Paul Rubens

Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world.

As satisfying as creating a blog can be, I hope that it can spread the Good News for the Greater Glory of God. Laus Deo