Two years ago today, I finally filed my draft for my book A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living. You might consider it if you are looking for Lenten reading or a gift for Easter/Confirmation/Mother’s Day/Father’s Day/birthdays/any day. For some peace of mind and soul and inspiration and spiritual challenge and direction. AND, it’s currently on sale on Amazon — three for the price of one, in fact.

NR is a big part of the reason I put it together, as I explain in the introduction:

The memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes happens to be the day that Pope Benedict resigned. It’s also the day that everything changed for me, in many ways. I remember many things about that day. I had been up late reading for research preparation for an article. I woke up to my sister asking me by text message if a pope can resign and quite a few media requests for comment already.  But that day was pivotal for me because since William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review, had died a few years earlier, I had increasingly had the itch to write more about the enduring things after many years as the editor of the magazine’s website. As it happened, Bill Buckley had set an example for me, writing and speaking frequently about the importance of the Beatitudes and Bethlehem in fostering a healthy political climate as well as a life-affirming culture. Benedict XVI’s resignation further justified such a shift in the focus of my writing as people were curious to know just what on earth was going on. Not long after, I became a senior fellow at our non-profit journalist think tank, focusing more officially on religion, culture, and civil society.

Fast forward to September 2015. I sat on a folding chair on the lawn of my alma mater, the Catholic University of America, and listened to Pope Francis at the canonization Mass for Junipero Serra, a saint who had been an early part of our very country and continent—a continent that should be more united than it is (Our Lady of Guadalupe seemed to want that). I probably experienced just about every emotion that day as I was both pilgrim and pundit. I ran into some of my best friends in the world there and gave thanks for the gifts God has given me in my life.

And I listened as the Holy Father talked about how so many people today seem to be going through life anesthetized. That may have been enough to get me to stop tweeting for a moment and nudge me to examine my conscience, something this pope has inspired me to do often, the controversies surrounding him notwithstanding.

This Mass and his words came after a few months of thinking and praying and writing and traveling around the life of now Saint Serra. He had been—and will doubtless continue to be—a source of debate himself. Like most of humanity—including the saints—he was not perfect and is probably not best judged by present-day conventional standards. There was a harshness to the society to which he came as a missionary, to which he tried to bring the tender love of Jesus as best he could.

As it happens, there’s a harshness to our society that needs the tender love of Jesus too. In some of Serra’s homilies we have, he talked about tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord: “What a difference there is between a temperament that is harsh, stern, and severe and a disposition that is mild, loving, sweet, and gentle. The harsh temperament rides roughshod over everything, causes trouble everywhere, and usually ruins everything. The mild disposition, on the other hand, arranges everything peacefully, softens everything, and attracts everyone with its tenderness.”

Around the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, just before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down, I was at the Vatican for a gathering of Catholic leaders, including bishops, from the Americas. On the first night, the Holy Father, with the image of the Holy Spirit behind him, gently admonished us. The gist of his remarks, which were in a mix of English and Spanish, was: if you are not encountering Jesus Christ in prayer, all your evangelization plans and strategies aren’t worth much. You people who are talking about him, professing to be his followers, do you even know Jesus Christ?

The sacramental life is joyful. It is also rigorous. It’s not about security or certainty other than in the promises of Christ.

I come to this series—A Year with—not as an academic, theologian, or saint, though the latter I not only long to be but know I must be, am called to be. And yet it seems so impossible in the knowledge of the pathetic reality of my sinful unworthiness. I don’t pretend to either be a mystic or an expert in mysticism. But I do pray enough to know that so very few of us have plumbed the depths of what God wants to reveal to us and do in us through prayer.

What is more, I never really knew what to do or say or who to tell when I first encountered things in prayer that I didn’t understand. God reveals himself constantly to us, in his boundless ways, as he pleases. That shouldn’t throw us off our prayer. We can’t let that become our prayer, expecting it, taking pride in it. We need to be comfortable being stretched and knowing his ways are unknown and wise as he makes himself known. Be not afraid, as you’ve heard and will read. Let him bring you to a peace that surpasses all understanding, even as he brings you into a deeper understanding in the heart of the Trinity. I want you to spend some time with some friends of mine who have helped me know our God better and will continue to, I pray.

If you know me [or at least follow me on Facebook], you probably have taken note of—or occasionally joked about or even considered starting a blog or Twitter account about—the “purse” I carry around filled with books. It often means an extra screening at the airport, too thick are the piles for the machines to see through. Frequently found in there are some of these friends and their insights I share with you here. My battered copies of assorted saints’ writings have touched the tombs of saints, been on many an airport restaurant table, and seen the back pew and adoration chapels of more than a few parish churches in the country and around the world. This volume contains some meditations that have helped me, along with a little reflection that we hope might help you as we try to truly live as Christians together. A heavy messy handbag, and a reading, a consideration and a prayer a day aren’t the stuff of heroic virtue, but if they can help set the stage, along with the sacraments, Scripture, and a well-formed conscience (hint: read the Catechism), this book may just be for you or someone you love. I know the exercise of putting it together has stretched my soul, so I think we’re on the right path together here. Be assured of my prayers.

February 11, 2019

The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

New York, NY

And, as I write, A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living is currently 20 percent off, three for the price of one on Amazon. I don’t know that that will last long.