I firmly believe that often those things perceived as “mere coincidences” are really graces, and often the result of prayer. It has been my experience that the grace of God, which is always present and active, occasionally manifests itself in a series of so-called coincidences that invite both our attention and gratitude. As a very saintly lady once remarked, “Things just seem to be more coincidental when I pray.”
Recent “Coincidences”
I first noticed something on Sept. 15, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. What struck me was the prayer for the day: “Father, as your Son was raised on the cross, His mother Mary stood by Him, sharing His sufferings. May your Church be united with Christ in His suffering and death and so come to share in His rising to new life.”
As if for the first time, I noticed what we are praying for: “May your Church be united with Christ in His suffering.” We are asking for, praying for, suffering — a union with the suffering Christ.
It was automatic for me to link this to that which has become for the entire Church a great source of pain and suffering, the clergy abuse scandal. This pain is not only the unjust suffering of thousands who have been the victims of abuse by clergy. The revelation of the depth and extent of the harm done in the Church by abusive priests creates a secondary suffering that is born by all in the Church. “May the Church be united with Christ in His suffering.” Well, we are.
On September 16, the Office of Readings included words of St. Augustine written in the fourth century: “Christians must imitate Christ's sufferings, not set their hearts on pleasures. And you want the Christian to be exempt from these troubles? Precisely because he is a Christian, he is destined to suffer more in this world. Let him be in Christ, if you wish him to be a Christian. Let him turn his thoughts to suffering, however unworthy they may be in comparison to Christ's.”
There is a kind of coincidence also with a writing of St. Bernard in the Office of Readings on Sept. 7: “The whole of the spiritual life consists of these two elements. When we think of ourselves, we are filled with a salutary sadness. And when we think of the Lord, we are revived and find consolation in the joy of the Holy Spirit. From the first we derive fear and humility, from the second hope and love.”
How true this is in the example of the suffering of the Church I noted above. In being forced to look at the evil that was perpetrated in the name of the Church, we are stripped of pride, stripped of our independence of Christ, stripped of worldly self-complacency. In this stripping, we are united to the stripping of Christ on Calvary. If this spiritual connection can be made, then we who experience the fear and humiliation can, in thinking of the Lord and uniting our suffering to His, be revived and find consolation in the joy of the Holy Spirit. We don’t find joy in the evil. That itself would be evil. Rather, it is in the stripping of ourselves that joy is hidden.
Consolation of the Eucharistic Christ in Our Emptiness…
A paragraph from the book titled, Open Wide the Door to Christ by S.C. Biela, put this into clearer focus. The chapter was on hunger for the Eucharist. Biela writes: “God wants to give you so much through the Eucharist. His desire to bestow graces upon you, however, needs the space that is created by your interior hunger for Him. Evangelical poverty creates this space.”
The shame, humiliation, anger, distress, suffering of which we are speaking is precisely that which creates within us a sense of helplessness which can, in response to grace, give rise to a spiritual poverty, an interior hunger, a space for God.
The tragic events surrounding Hurricane Katrina served as an unplanned backdrop for the readings of that week. The suffering resulting from this natural disaster is born by the Church, along with all the others, in the Dioceses of Biloxi and New Orleans. Many churches have been totally destroyed. And without the churches, many of the charitable services which would otherwise be available are also absent. The broader Church, and our diocese as well, has extended a significant package of aid for these affected areas through both Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services. “May your Church be united with Christ in His suffering.”
I am certain that these are not all just coincidences of one week. For me, all of these graced coincidences point to Our Lady of Sorrows. She, better than any other, understands the violence of sorrow that cut through her own heart (as St. Bernard puts it), and that afflicts each of us as well. Recognizing that she too stands with us, we pray that which is impossible to pray by ourselves: “May your Church be united with Christ in His suffering and death and so come to share in His rising to new life.” What wonders unfold in our “coincidences.”
Reprinted, from the Catholic Sentinel, and edited with permission of Bishop Vasa, bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon. For more information on spiritual books by S.C. Biela, go to InTheArmsofMary.org.
