Opus of Saints

This is Part 7 in the series, My Summer Vacation 2010.

We laughed and sang; we danced and ate sublimely delicious foods. We even swam in the lake and played volleyball. Merriment must have received its meaning from the first party for Mary. Hundreds of people dressed in white congregated from the four corners of heaven to celebrate August 15^th, the 2,000th anniversary of Mary’s arrival. Of course I didn’t know who any of these people were, or rather had been in their old lives. Frankly, I didn’t have the nerve to ask. I was just so grateful to be among them, the happiest group of people human eyes has ever seen. Yes, there was wine at the party, plenty of wine but no one appeared drunk. It was also strange that night never fell. After a while, one by one the guests approached Mary to thank her with a kiss and a hug and then disappeared.

Juan Diego tugged at my shirt and told me that we had better head out too. I hated to leave but I was glad to have a reason to speak with Mary again. Of course she knew instinctively that I was about to depart so she first came over to me, and after a big mother hug, she looked me right in the eyes and said, “I will be listening for you. Go back and make me proud.”

I thought I would melt; a puddle of Evangeline, like a scoop of ice cream that fell off its cone and flattened into a little gooey raw pancake. Instead I hugged her back a few seconds too long to let her know how much I didn’t want to leave. Juan Diego yanked me away and waved good-bye while shouting to be heard over the cacophony of merrymaking. “I had better get her out of here before she makes a scene. “

Only this time Juan Diego and I were not walking alone. A lovely lady and a young gentleman were behind us. Juan Diego turned to see them and then stopped to let them catch up.

“Thank-you,” said the gent when they finally met-up with us. “I know you have somewhere to go; we don’t want to hold you up, so we’ll join you. We like to walk. My name is Paul and this is my sister Juliana. “

“Juliana! Oh, I am so happy to meet you,” I said with a hug. “Can you tell me how you did that?!”

“Yes, but we must keep walking. I was strictly ordered not to hold you up.” She replied.

“Good” said Juan Diego and recommenced his march on the path through a vast meadow of sun flowers that reminded me of Italy.

Paul walked silently beside Juan Diego. Juliana and I followed close behind.

It is here in my report that we should jump back to earth momentarily so I can fill you in on you why I was so thrilled to see Saint Juliana in heaven. It was August 17 and my little grandbaby Lilly Juliana was still not yet Christened, but we knew that she would be named after saint Juliana who was a very brave and faithful young lady of the third century when Christendom was united as one petal of faith in a whole weedy world of mean power grabbers and ignorance.

A girl would have to stretch very big inside to live up to the namesake of Juliana, a most stubborn and tough young lady if ever there was one. When the emperor Aurelian came to visit Juliana’s town of Ptolemais, her brother Paul, to show that his king was Jesus and no other, made the sign of the cross right smack in front of Aurelian. Aurelian had him arrested. The next day at Paul’s trial he openly confessed Christ which was a crime punishable by torture. Seeing the suffering of her brother Juliana denounced the emperor for his cruelty, so she was also taken into custody and tortured. More strong willed teens the town of Ptolemais had never known. Juliana and Paul refused to deny Christ as God and their Lord no matter how much they were beaten or burned. The emperor tried another tactic on her by offering to take her as his own wife; when she refused he sent her to a brothel. Juliana’s faith grew even stronger when every man who tried to have her was blinded. The enraged emperor then had her and her brother tortured some more and when the townspeople started to murmur against him for overreacting with these young people, Aurelian decided to end the debacle once and for all by having Juliana and Paul beheaded. That tragic episode was relatively short albeit intense; besides, their valor won them a place at King Jesus table every Thanksgiving Day.

Last August 17^th, the feast day of Juliana, during my prayers, I had introduced to her myself and the baby. I asked her to please watch over little Juliana her whole life, to keep her safe and faithful too so that someday she and I could live together in heaven forever and ever as friends. I added that I would fast on that, her feast day, as Father Max instructed me, to invoke her help. Well, even to my surprise, Saint Juliana indeed heard me and got right to work choosing Andrea and George to be Lilly Juliana’s godparents.

“Juliana, please tell me how prayer works? Or was it a coincidence that Lilly Juliana’s godparents were chosen on your feast day?”

I used the energy of your prayer and fasting coupled with my feast day to catapult my efforts and make obvious the power of the Lord. Even as you prayed, I ran a search of all godparent possibilities, and frankly the options were few, probably because this match was perfect, no one could compete. I was rather pleased myself. Gabrielle is a tough cookie, just like me, that’s why I like her so much. It would have to be striking.”

Juliana replied, “Don’t be silly. You know how fast a computer works; when we are admitted here our original God-given powers are restored so we can respond with equal precision and reliability. That is, when circumstances warrant. In your case I knew that the key to little Lilly’s salvation was giving her good godparents and convincing her bio-parents of the power and reality of Christ.

The criteria for the selection was this:

• Special relationship: Andrea was Gabrielle’s little sorority sister - check.

• Orthodox: Andrea and George were Orthodox and married in the Church – check.

• Additional secular and/or ecclesiastical bonds: George and Gabrielle were born the same week in the same hospital and after 40 days or so were presented to the Church on the same Sunday morning one infant in each of Father John’s arms- bonus check.

• Additional family relationship: George’s grandfather had been a priest at their church when Gabrielle was a child- bonus check.

• Post life relationship: Priest George and his wife are buried across from the grandmother and great grandparents of Gabrielle, Taki, Evangelia and your own mother, Maria. They know each other as they prepare for the bodily resurrection together. These family members also participated in the selection – double bonus check.

“Once Andrea was chosen the rest was easy. We planted the urge for Facebook in both ladies’ minds. They did the rest. Rest assured; this was not all my doing. The Lord Jesus approved every phase of the operation. He who said, ‘Go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, that your fruit may be lasting; so whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give it to you.’ He has seen your fruit and heard your prayers for your children. You did not mobilize me as much as He did. The angels and saints serve Him. We form a network of life and light to bring holy achievers, you call them aspiring immortals, into the real and lasting world of His kingdom.”

“Juliana,” I said, “After all these centuries in heaven, do you ever cease to be amazed at how the Lord operates?”

“No my dear, never, Paul and I must go now; I am afraid we are holding you up. When you go back to earth, remember that reading minds and hearts is the key to the functionality of prayer and is how we communicate here. If you want to be able to live here with us, prepare. Remember when He said through Matthew, ‘Be pure in heart.’ He meant not to allow or accept anything in your mind which is not in alliance with perfection in Christ. I hope to see you and little Juliana and all of her parents here someday! Yes, I will personally be watching over them all. That little Nicholas is a pistol isn’t he?”

With that, Juliana and Paul disappeared leaving me with Juan Diego in a meadow of sunflowers feeling awe struck.

Death for Dinner

As should be expected during Lent or any other time of a special push toward holiness, the Divider has appeared to challenge me. You know him, the Diabolo, the spirit-guy who assigned himself, or was assigned, to mislead and trip those on the path to the land of immortality, lest riffraff be allowed into Kingdom Come.

As my beloved mom would say, “you know it’s not always happy-happy.” Well it sure ain’t happy now. I have been pushed away by someone I want most to be united with because I unintentionally offended her. I have been caste into outer darkness. I am dumbfounded because what I saw as small, she sees as huge. What I would laugh off, she is using as a hot twirling sword to cut me off. So now I am in hell during Lent.

If the Orthodox theologians have it right, there are no parties in hell. All the faithless people who like to imagine physical death to be either an eternal dreamless sleep or a big party in a hot place, all those people should make some room in their equations for the saintly prophesized probability that a non-stop severe loneliness is behind the curtain they have chosen. Hell is being cut off from others, especially those we love, and now I get to feel what that is like. Sometimes I want to weep and sometimes gnash my teeth but mostly I weep!

One thing I should know is to stop eating what el Diabolo is feeding me for dinner. This is Lent; I am supposed to be fasting, so why do I gorge myself on thoughts of the pain of separation. Worse yet, why do I chew and chew, taking these thoughts to fantastic hellish conclusions or relating them to past tumultuous nightmares like a kid picks at an old scab until it starts bleeding again, a fresh new wound to inflict upon myself as if the enemy wasn’t bad enough. With fervor, I join el Diabolo to pierce the heart of Evangeline and watch her slowly bleed to death.

Silly child, it is time to stop wolfing down the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil and cling to God for life.

The film Forrest Gump was rich in symbolism. My favorite scene was when legless Lieutenant Dan shimmied up the pole in Forrest’s shrimp boat and was yelling at God in the storm. He clung to that pole for dear life. Poor Dan had confused life with death and death with life, clinging to a dead pole yelling at Life to be damned. It’s a normal mistake.

Life is union with God because he is the Creator of Life! In or out of this fleshiness, death is nothing more than separation from God. Love is union with others made in His image and likeness which is why most everyone wants love so much and why we pursue it in any old form. Life = love = union. God unites, the devil separates.

Ah math and philosophy help me feel better!

The pain of rejection is a dinner of death and as if I was starving I am eating it.

The only way to fight the divider, el Diabolo and fight I must, wimp that I am, is to cling to God like Lt. Dan clung to the pole in the storm.

The only way to cling to God is to think and behave like Him. Go the second mile, love my enemies, unite whenever possible rather than divide further.

Oh geez, I am having such a craving for an ice cream cone right now. That was a bad joke. It means to fast from food, especially during this volatile period of the Great and Holy Lent, is effective if it can make me strong enough to fast from death in all of its familiar diabolical forms.

It is not in my power to bring my beloved back. I can’t control her heart. There must be something about this separation that comforts her. So instead I should reject that death sandwich and focus on loving God, then perhaps He will grant my wish and bring my beloved back to me, because He can control her heart. This is a difficult challenge but our God won’t have wimps in Kingdom Come.

Living in a Mustard Seed

I didn’t have any special adventures to tell you about this week so instead, I’d like to give you a teaspoon of honey-thought to suck on until next Sunday.

The kingdom of God is where we aspire to live forever. It is the planet we will fly to when Jesus comes back for us, and it is the place deep within our heart where He lives and steers us. But there’s even more to it than that!

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."Matthew 13:31.

We aspiring immortals live in two worlds. The fleshy world morphs ever so subtly till one day the young child becomes elderly, gaunt and wrinkly. In the fleshy world it matters a whole lot who is king or president, what he does with all that power, and what armies are doing with their time. This is the soil, sun, water and air.

The other world is life inside the mustard seed where God is our very best friend and counselor, and Boss. Where we sometimes have to fight with ourselves to think His way and to love His way while no one on earth is making us do it, and so many people make it harder to love, and so many circumstances try to blind us. This is the plant.

We aspiring immortals, whether Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, inasmuch as we reflect Christ, who reflects God, we form the one holy universal life of a growing Mustard Seed. Let’s live in unity, blind to our differences, blind as the leaf is blind to the difference of the flower or to the difference of the branch or the trunk. Together we form the kingdom of heaven Tree on earth. Welcome the birds.

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35

Assignment: Go to a very different kind of church next Sunday and worship the same God there. Tell me about it.