Spiritual Growth

The past two months have been jam-packed with spiritual experiences that have fostered growth both in the breadth of my faith and it’s depth.  Here are three of them.

Penance:

For Lent this year, I prayed the Litany of Humility 3 times a day and slept on the floor instead of in my bed.  The former focused my efforts to possess the quality of humility, and pushed me to see all challenges as gifts sent to help me in my journey.  The latter was my best Lenten sacrifice yet.  As I lay down at night, I actually thought about Christ on the cross.  I was reminded each night that my own slight discomforts in life are (obviously) nothing compared to his suffering, which he did for me, so I have no right to grumble, ever.  Then I read a prayer that put a lot into perspective: “Christ our Redeemer, let us share in your passion by works of penance; let us attain the glory of your resurrection.”  Ooooooh that’s why we do penance: to join Jesus in what he did for us and hopefully grow closer to Heaven through it.  *Mind blown*

There’s Something About Mary:

In March, I did Saint Louis de Montfort’s program of Total Consecration to Mary.  It is the most intense form of Marian devotion there is, and represents a complete dedication or commitment to the Mother of God.  Following de Montfort’s writings, I prayed special prayers for a period of 33 days, and at the end I offered myself to Mary.  The day that I made my consecration (promise) was the Feast of the Annunciation, the day when the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear the Son of God and she answered, “YES!”.  Starting with the day I accepted the invitation to come to South Sudan, this entire year has been a journey of my own Fiat (saying “yes” to the call of Christ).  From that time on, I have increasingly yearned to be more like Our Lady in every way.  Never in my life have I wanted anything so fully and so desperately.  This is not a desire that comes from me; it is too strong and too pure.  It must be God’s wish.  It is a serious struggle because of the vast chasm that exists between my own sinful nature and her perfection.   She is patient, I am not; she is simple, I am needlessly complex; she is pure, I am stained; she is humble, I am proud; she is noble, I am selfish; the list goes on ad infinitum.  I am unable to articulate the gravity of the effect that Consecration has had on me, but in short, I am Changed, and belong now to Mary.  Everything I do and am is through her.  Or at least, it’s supposed to be.  I fail a hundred times a day, a thousand even, to live up to my promise, but I am trying.  Through her immaculate graces, I hope to become closer to Jesus, the ultimate end.  At the end of de Montfort’s program, the consecrated person is supposed to attach a chain to his/her ankle to symbolize that he/she has become a willing slave of Mary.  But there are no chain anklets here in Maridi, so I made one out of blue and while paperclips.  I like it this way – it’s simple, just like her.  The best part about the paperclips?  The kids ask about it, and I get to try to draw them closer to our Mother too.

Taking It to the Next Level:

I found myself on a spiritual plateau for a few weeks, which was a deeply upsetting contrast to the steep upwards slope of my faith life since my first day in Africa.  Then a special night-prayer reinvigorated my life.  What I realized was this: I wasn’t being involved in my faith; I just wanted things.  They were good things I wanted, sure (for Christ to light up my heart, to become like Mary, to help the children foster a relationship with Jesus, humility, humility, humility), but still, I was just kind of sitting around expecting God to come along and hand me spiritual gems to add to my collection like He's been doing for the past seven months.  So now it seems I’ve stepped into the next phase, in which I actively engage Jesus and push for my growth.  I think it will be even more rewarding than before.  It’s like the difference between fishing and hunting.  I’ll get fed either way (and since I was starving for a long time, that’s a pretty good deal), but the meal will taste a lot better if I put some extra effort in (says the carnivore who hates seafood).

The Spirit of the Poor

The following is my account of an event that has profoundly affected both me and Grace (my mission partner).  She blogs about it at http://africaslittleflowers.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-least-of-these.html

                I was sitting on the porch chatting with Grace one afternoon, “wasting” time I “should” have been spending on one of the 879,304 things on my to-do list.  But for some reason,  I was uncharacteristically calm and no more able to pull away from the porch than the Earth can pull away from the Sun, though I was unable to figure out why I was so compelled to remain.  Then an angel walked into my life.

                A young woman waved to us from the path beside our home, then paused and as a second thought, slowly made her way over to the gated entrance.  Grace brought her in and sat her down, which made me curious enough to join them.  I gave the young woman the once-over, and suddenly my whole world stopped and proceeded in slow-motion.  The first thing I noticed was her face.  It was caked in dried mud.  There was forgotten drool on her chin.  Her mouth hung half-open as if she had started to say something but reconsidered.  Her body was contorted to accommodate the paralysis of an arm and leg, and her soiled clothes hung off her emaciated body.  Despite all of this, she was mesmerizingly beautiful.  Then she spoke.  Her voice surprised me – it was young, high-pitched, and angelically sweet.  Like the most beautiful music the world’s ever heard, ringing from a tattered-looking record-player with a broken needle.  Grace was conversing with her in Zande, and the woman informed us that she was “sick”.  She lifted her skirt to reveal an absolutely horrifying wound from what looked like a fire burn, which covered her leg knee-to-heel, and another one on her thigh.

Watching their conversation, I was in awe of my partner.  She spoke softly, delicately touching the woman’s knee, in a tone I’d never before heard anywhere – a gentle tone saturated with compassion, tenderness, patience, mercy, and Love.  Their eyes were locked on one another, and they clearly saw each other.  They were connected in such a way that I almost felt my presence to be intrusive.  It struck me that I was witnessing a sort of human miracle, the kind we are capable of creating ourselves but rarely have the wherewithal to do so.  Then Grace went inside to retrieve the necessary medical supplies to assist the woman – her name was Nazenty – and the two of us were left alone for a moment.

That’s when I noticed her eyes.  Dark brown, but not as black as most of the people’s here, with tiny specks of a lighter color around her pupils.  A thought popped into my head: “her soul is so bright it shines right through her eyes.”  A odd thing to think when meeting a stranger.  But what captured me most wasn’t the color of her eyes, it was the way she looked at me.  Or rather I should say the way she looked into me.  I was completely speechless, even thoughtless, as she took account of my soul.  Then Grace began cleaning her wounds, which included slowly ripping off hardened pieces of charred-black skin.  Nazenty didn’t even blink.  “Does she feel pain?” I wondered.  She was absent-mindedly scanning our surroundings, acknowledging things but not spending any more time than that on them.  It looked (or felt) like a spiritual being was simply taking stock with mild interest of how things are on Earth.  I stared into her face, and time stood still.  She looked through me as I sat next to her.  She seemed to me neither bothered nor grateful, but rather like she was patiently allowing us the privilege of tending to her and being with her.  And what a privilege it truly was.  I came to Africa to serve the poor and destitute, and here was the embodiment of that mission right in front of me.  The whole scene suggested I was standing on holy ground.

Before Nazenty left, Grace instructed her to come to the hospital the next day to continue getting care for her wounds (and some medicine for the awful infection), but somehow I felt that the words were useless.  I knew I would never see Nazenty again.  I felt my heart cry silent tears as I watched her hobble away, from sadness or gratitude or something else, I’m not sure.  All I know is that I was Changed by this, and will never be quite the same again.

---

A few days after this all happened, I think I have at least some clarity:  God had kept me from running off chasing to-do-list tasks so that I could meet Nazenty.  She had come so that we could serve her.  What a profound gift!  A story that comes to mind is that of a modern woman whom Jesus tells in a dream that he will visit the following day.  She is so busy preparing for the arrival of the King of Kings that she rejects and sends away three impoverished men who come knocking at her door looking for a bit of compassion.  When the woman, disappointed that he never showed up, asks Jesus why he mislead her, Jesus says, “But I did come to you.  Three times in fact.  And you sent me away each time.”  I never want to be that woman.  Whether Nazenty was an angel he sent or Christ himself, I will never know.  What I do know is that if I search for the rest of my life for a better experience to humble me, I won’t find one.