Candles in the Rain: On Community

A few months ago, in the midst of my whirlwind pilgrimage around France, I had the opportunity to visit Lourdes for the first time. We arrived in the early evening, settled into our hotel, and sat down for dinner. As soon as the dishes were cleared away, we were off again, headed to the main square for a candlelit procession. It had been raining off and on all day but my phone wouldn’t connect to the hotel’s wifi to tell me the forecast and the patch of sky I could see from the door was blue, so I decided to chance it, heading down to the outdoor ceremony with only a denim jacket to protect me from the elements.

Wrong choice.

I’m not usually one for extra ceremony in the best of circumstances, preferring silent time to pray as I like over litanies and processions, so I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit for this rosary parade. But I’m always ready to try to have the full experience (and I wanted to set a good example to the young people) so I bought my 50-cent candle with its very flammable paper bobeche1 and off I went.

The procession started out as expected, with a chanted Latin credo I only knew one word in twenty of2 and hundreds of people walking slowly around the square behind a large statue of the Blessed Mother. Not long into the second decade (led in various different languages) it started to rain. I took a deep breath, offered it up, and kept going, shielding the flame on my taper candle more carefully. The rain got heavier, and my candle was out. So I lit it again off a friend. And once more off a stranger. I shared the light with various people around me, all the while wishing I’d brought my umbrella.

After 3 or 4 times relighting my candle, I gave up. If I’d been there alone, I would long since have gone back to the hotel, but I wasn’t going to leave my friends, so on I trudged, sopping paper dangling from my dripping candle, rain running down my face.

IMG_3902Eventually, someone with an extra umbrella offered it to me, as people around us did for any number of strangers. I invited a friend to share my umbrella, and we kept walking, finally arriving at the front of the square to finish the rosary in lashing rain. The pilgrims around me were cold and bedraggled, each holding an unlit candle.

Then out came the sun, as though she hadn’t abandoned us for nearly the whole ceremony. Tentatively we put away our umbrellas, but the sky promised to remain closed and the whole party seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as we prepared to dry out.

As soon as my umbrella was down, Jared, for whom I’d been holding the umbrella, was gone. I was ticked, thinking only (of course) of myself, of the sacrifices I’d made to hold the umbrella for him and he didn’t even have the courtesy to stand by me when he didn’t need me any more.3

And suddenly he was back, holding out a lit candle to relight mine.

I’d forgotten about candles. It had been impossible to keep mine lit, but evidently somebody, somewhere had managed it. And Jared had remembered why we were there when I’d forgotten anything but self-pity. He handed on the flame and I was off, lighting candles for friends and strangers.

Some sputtered out immediately. “Don’t worry about it,” one young woman said after the third failed attempt. “My wick’s too wet.”

“Then we’ll dry it out,” I said, holding my candle to hers for 2 or 3 minutes until the flame finally burned clean and strong.

“My wick broke off,” another friend said. “It can’t light. But it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. I’ll melt the wax down until you have a wick again.” Another few minutes, holding my flame to her useless wax stick until it became a candle again.

I held my hand to block the wind for some and fished candles out of backpacks. On and on, the flame spreading, until once again we were a candlelit crowd. And the whole time, all I could think was what a parable it all was.

We’re given this light of faith at baptism, and maybe you cherish it. Maybe you protect it, turning to the community to rekindle it when the difficulties of the world extinguish it.

But it gets too hard. Again and again you light the candle. Again and again the flame is snuffed out until you can’t see anyone around you with a flame and it just seems futile. So you put away the candle and keep trudging through the dim light. Eventually you forget that there ever was a candle and you get used to the darkness.

Until someone walks up beside you and offers you a light. You remember again what this is about. Maybe you’re like me, forcing that flame on everyone around you. But maybe you’re too discouraged. “Don’t worry about it, it won’t work.”

Fortunately, you’ve got a friend who won’t settle for that. “You can’t carry this flame right now, but I can carry it for you. I can stand with you and love you and hold my faith up until God burns away the brokenness and rekindles the light of faith in you.”

This is why we need Christian community. Every one of us4 needs people to remind us of the faith that once drove us. We need people to fight our battles for us, people to stand with us to protect our faith, and people who we can encourage and support.

IMG_3910

I tell you what, I felt like a hero that evening. I was saving the day left, right, and center with that flame. But I never would have had it if Jared hadn’t remembered what I’d forgotten. I’m blessed to spend a lot of my life lighting people’s candles, but it’s only possible because of the community that supports me, praying for me, holding an umbrella, offering me a light.

We need each other, you and I. We need friends and strangers to keep these flames lit. We need real community, not just handshakes before Mass starts. We need to know each other and love each other if we’re going to hold each other up.

I hope you’ve got people walking with you, helping you keep your candle lit. If you don’t, don’t settle for that. God wants you to live in community and community is possible. So pray for it and then go out and find it. Start a Bible study, join the Altar guild, meet your evangelical neighbors.

Community might not look like a whole bunch of people the same age, race, and marital status talking about things they already agree on—all the better! Get coffee with the little old ladies who pray the rosary every day before Mass. Offer to babysit for that mom your daughter’s age. Invite Father over for dinner. Serve the Church. Because, with rare exception, real Christian community doesn’t just happen. It’s sought and built and fought for. But it’s worth it.

  1. Apparently that’s the word for the cup thing that they put around candles at church to keep the wax from going everywhere. Who knew? []
  2. Don’t worry, I sang the few passages I knew triumphantly. Et ascendit in caelo!! []
  3. I get double cranky when I’m cold and wet. []
  4. Unless God has called you to be a hermit, which he almost certainly hasn’t. []

Living Lent in Community

If you’ve been around Christian circles for very long, you’ve probably heard some variation of the line, “There’s no such thing as a solitary Christian.” And while St. Simeon the Stylite and other holy hermits might disagree, the maxim stands for most of us. We need others to encourage us, to challenge us, and to correct us, loving us all the while. Those of you who are raising families and living in intentional communities know this–it’s the people around you who help you grow in holiness.

This Lent, why don’t you use that community to help you live Lent more fully? Instead of walking through Lent alone, talk with your family or your community about what you’ll be doing. Ask them if there’s a particular habit of yours that they think you might have an addiction to, a particular way of serving that might push you in just the right ways. Often you’ll find your kids know you better than you know yourself, as they point out your addiction to Netflix or your obsession with your phone. And only your wife would suggest that you offer to do all the midnight sheet changes for your mostly-potty-trained 3-year-old.

It might seem counter-intuitive to discuss your penitential practices–just showing off, some might say–but it also means if you fail there’s someone to call you out on it. And it might just challenge you to do something truly meaningful.

Case in point: the family of St. Basil. The Holy Family of St. Basil: (left to right, first row) St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Basil the Great, St. Basil, St. Gregory, (second row) St. Theosevia, St. Naukratios, St. Emmelia, (top) St. Macrina. (via)
Case in point: the family of St. Basil: (left to right, first row) St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Basil the Great, St. Basil, St. Gregory, (second row) St. Theosevia, St. Naukratios, St. Emmelia, (top) St. Macrina. (via) Be like this family!

Then there’s the fact that your community exists to make saints out of the lot of you. What better way to do that than to work together to grow in holiness? What if you picked something to do together–a family fast or a weekly community prayer time? Maybe Lent could be more than a diet, instead becoming a season where you all grow closer to one another and to the Lord?

So here’s my suggestion: print out this worksheet and go over it together. Give them out to your Sunday School class, your youth group, your high school students, your RCIA candidates, your catechists–anybody you know with a family. Or give it to the other teachers in your department, the people in your Bible study, the volunteers serving alongside you–anything that constitutes a community. Then brainstorm together. Talk through the list, add your own ideas, tweak the ones you find. Discuss what might be best for each individual and for the group as a whole. Take some time to pray–ten minutes or a few days–then come back with a commitment. Write out who’s doing what. Maybe even pray together over it and then sign it. And post it somewhere obvious with the understanding that you’re consenting not only to correct others (gently) when you see them fall short but also to be corrected.

What to Do for Lent

Obviously, people can do more than what they write on this worksheet. And nobody has to do anything. Maybe some people won’t feel comfortable signing on to the group penance. Take what you can get. But I think that when you decide to work toward holiness together you’ll find that your experience of Lent will be much more powerful.You may also be interested in my Lenten Boot Camp, which will help you work from 20 minutes of prayer a day to an hour of prayer a day over the course of Lent, and this fantastic family Lenten practices calendar, which has a different thing for your family to do each day of Lent.

Forgiven and Loved

There are so many things I’ve wanted to tell y’all about since I’ve been in Hawaii but God has been blessing me with such full days that there’s no time for anything. Tonight, though, I have to set aside everything I’ve wanted to say about the grandeur of God and the irony of giving a talk on humility and the inadequacy you feel when you’re working for the Lord. Because tonight, God showed up.

This visit has been incredible for so many reasons, but I think the greatest joy hasn’t been the beaches or the food but the opportunity for ministry. I’ve had at least one talk every day and I’ve seen so many of the same faces. These women, these incredible Army wives who stay behind as single mothers while their husbands are out serving their country—after only a few days, I’m so proud to call them my friends. They are strong and beautiful and holy and desperate to live in God’s will and I’m humbled by their service and their hospitality and their fellowship and honesty and brokenness. Again and again I’m amazed by them.

This morning, I had a room full of these incredible ladies for one of my very favorite talks on knowing that you are beautiful and loved and resting in God’s embrace. Friends, it was powerful. We ended with an Ignatian meditation on the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and women were sharing what the Lord had shown them in prayer. I could really tell that the Holy Spirit had been working.

So I wasn’t totally looking forward to tonight’s meeting. It was all women again and I wanted to give the same talk but I knew it wouldn’t be the same. When it goes so well in the morning, it never feels right in the evening. Besides, some of the ladies had come for round 2 and I didn’t want to bore them. But the Lord is in control, so I started talking, knowing that he would lead.

The talk went pretty well—knowing that God loves you, trusting that he’s working through your pain, accepting that you don’t have to earn his love. I sang “If You Want Me To,” by Ginny Owens, and moved into a meditation on the woman caught in adultery.

Woman caught in adulteryNow, I’ve given this meditation plenty of times. Every time, I get the same reactions. The girls are usually the woman, the boys bystanders. Occasionally I find a Pharisee in there, but it’s pretty clearly a meditation on how God forgives people and that’s how people interpret it.

I knew something was up when I looked up after the meditation and almost everyone was crying. Then we started talking about our experiences.

“I was so angry at the Pharisees. I was so, so mad—I’m still mad. I don’t have any idea what it means, but I’m mad.”

“I stood with Jesus and just looked at the woman. I looked at her and I loved her.”

“At the end, Jesus left, but I didn’t go with him. I knelt down by the woman and just stayed with her.”

“When they brought her in, I went and stood in front of her. I was going to shield her from the stones with my body.”

Almost every woman there shared that her meditation was focused on loving the sinful woman. I thought it was strange until the last woman shared.

“I was her,” she said, in a broken voice. “I was her and I don’t feel any better.”

And she sobbed. And we sobbed. And I looked around the room and realized that these women had all along been sitting in a circle around their heartbroken sister. During this meditation, they were surrounding her. In their hearts, not knowing what her struggle was, they were fighting her enemies, defending her, loving her, consoling her. For these women, in this moment, fellowship looked a little less like coffee hour and a little more like prayer warriors going into battle for each other. The Lord put these reflections on their hearts so that she could hear that not only has God forgiven her, so have they. And as we talked and prayed, they prayed and cried and loved her.

Apparently when Army wives say fellowship, they don’t mean it quite the way civilians do.

This, my friends, is what it means to be a Christian. We fight for each other and bleed for each other and weep and live and die for each other. We’re not called the Church Militant for nothing, and these Army wives know it. It’s so easy for women’s groups to become middle school girls’ groups, to be filled with drama and judgment and competition. Today, the Lord worked a miracle to show his mercy. “Neither do I condemn you,” he said. “Neither does she condemn you. And she won’t abandon you. And that one’s ready to go nuclear on anyone who does. Because you deserve it.”

This woman is beautiful and funny and loving. She is an incredible mother and has a husband who loves her desperately. She’s been forgiven. But her heart can’t hear it. So tonight, the Lord raised up a community to speak truth to her heart.

As she drove me home, this song came on the radio, sending that message of forgiveness once again:

All my life I have been called unworthy
Named by the voice of my shame and regret
But when I hear You whisper, “Child lift up your head”
I remember, oh God, You’re not done with me yet

I am redeemed, You set me free
So I’ll shake off these heavy chains
Wipe away every stain, now I’m not who I used to be

If you’re where my dear friend is right now, hating yourself, feeling worthless, certain that God couldn’t really forgive you, please hear this: When God washed you clean, heaven rejoiced. In that moment, the record of your sins was obliterated. Our God is so consumed by his love of you that who you were never crosses his mind. “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will wash them whiter than snow,” he said to David. To David. Like, send-others-to-risk-their-lives-for-me, use-my-office-to-make-a-married-woman-sleep-with-me, send-her-husband-to-his-death-to-cover-it-up David. White as snow.

He could have redeemed you with one drop of his blood but he wanted you to know what you were worth. And so, stripped and beaten, the God of the universe stretched out his arms between heaven and earth to tell you that he loves you, he forgives you, and he longs for you. Not because he had to–because he wanted to. And he’d do it again.

I would stake my salvation on this fact: no matter what, you are loved. I only hope you have a community around you that shows you.

Today, please stand with me and this community, swords drawn, to surround our sister in prayer. Pray with me for comfort for her broken heart. And praise God with me that she is forgiven, redeemed, and made new in Christ. How great is our God.