Christ speaks: Leave nothing on your table.  Deal with all of your problems.  The grief and pain will last but a moment.  Your peace is forever.  I know that the mountain has grown over the years.  That you feel impossibly distant from yourself.  Please trust me though.  Begin with one memory, one emotion, one idea, one hardship that you carry around in this life.  Hold that thing up to the light.  See it.  Know it.  Name it.  Bury it.  Then move on.  One by one, things will return to right order.  Space will open up within you, and you will begin to breathe again.  Do not be afraid.  I am with you and cannot wait to dine with you.  In your home, at your table.  And all shall be well.  Leave nothing on your table.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Jazz music is a fun way to think about the Christian life.  We begin with a trustworthy baseline, a beat, which functions as a constant point of reference to build off of and to fall back onto throughout the duration of the song.  Like the scene at the beginning of the world, the beat is a supportive backdrop that begs for creativity and guarantees that whatever is composed will, in fact, be “good.”  Then the instruments are introduced.  One by one they speak, weaving their sounds together, striking a balance between personal expression and group harmony.  These collaborations, just as in the biblical narrative, have dramatic climaxes and unexpected twists until they finally effect some feeling in the one who listens.  It is here that Christ emerges, proclaiming the sweet song of salvation, in the depths of our souls, reminding us of the beauty and truth that save.  As we commence a new year, let’s take the time to dig up and dust off the old record player.  Let’s not be afraid to jam out to some quality jazz music.  Let’s sway with and enter into the rhythms of eternal life.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

There is a classic episode of the Twilight Zone in which the main character dies and passes on to the afterlife.  He is initially overjoyed with the instantaneousness by which his wishes come true: money, women, luxuries, fame, etc.  As the episode unfolds, however, he becomes increasingly frustrated with his life which devolves into an endless series of impulses that leave no room for mystery.  In the final scene, as he is lamenting the boredom and predictability of heaven, a gentleman dressed in white turns to him and says, “Who gave you the idea that you were in heaven?  This is the other place!”  In an age of phone screens and one-click-shopping, it can feel impossible to hold space between our impulses and our actions.  The good news is that grace abounds and that, starting today, we can experiment with self-control, patience and trust.  We can envision a version of life where we are not ruled by our desires.  We can let the Word breathe and speak and live in the tender places that, up until now, we have been too afraid to share with any reality beyond ourselves. Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Thomas Aquinas was perhaps the most systematic thinker in the history of the western world.  Beginning with a series of theological propositions – about trinitarian life, the goodness of creation, the nature of salvation, etc. – he constructed gorgeous arguments for the Christian religious tradition that endure up to this day.  Nevertheless, at the peak of his career as a theologian, he had a powerful experience, a mysterious spiritual encounter of some sort, in which he saw the many thousands of pages of his famous tomes blow away like straw in the wind.   He was left speechless, stopped writing altogether, and died several months later as a quiet contemplative and joy-filled mystic.  It appears that all of his mental analysis was not for its own sake but served a greater purpose.  His mind, indeed, had become a well-built container capable of humbly receiving his Lord, which was the point all along.  In this new year, let’s not get stuck on our ideas, or lost in an endless maze of trying to figure things out, but instead, like Thomas, surrender our thinking to the Lord.  Our souls will be nourished only when we have the courage to finally lay down our menus and be fed.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.