Tuesday, February 14, 2012

About Visions That Might Be Related To Valentine's Day

This is a story of when I began to learn this truth--graphically.


There is a comment at the very end of the comments to an article John Allen wrote on the recently concluded Sexual Abuse Conference at the Gregorian in Rome that triggered this post.  John's article concentrated on the estimated financial and personal cost of the crisis in the US.  There are some interesting comments from some people with a particular ax to grind, but readers can read those for themselves.  I'm interested in commenting on this one comment, because well, just because"

"It is interesting how many comments and stories that surround this scandal never seem to address the real problem: the spiritual battle between God and His enemy (or have we forgotten who that is).

As believers, I believe we continue to fail to comprehend that as we have weakened the liturgy so have we weakened our spiritual armor. As we have weakened our belief in the assistance of Heaven, from the Virgin's protection to Angelic intercession, we have allowed the other side to have a field day with us. How often we hear that no one wants to believe in the prophecy given to Leo XIII, or those to St. Faustina as Jesus says to her:

‘I will allow convents and churches to be destroyed.’

St. Faustina answered, ‘Jesus, but there are so many souls praising You in convents.’
The Lord answered, ‘That praise wounds My Heart, because love has been banished from convents. Souls without love and without devotion, souls full of egoism and self-love, souls full of pride and arrogance, souls full of deceit and hypocrisy, lukewarm souls who have just enough warmth to keep them alive: My Heart cannot bear this!

‘All the graces that I pour out upon them flow off them as off the face of a rock. I cannot stand them, because they are neither good or bad. I called convents into being to sanctify the world through them. It is from them that a powerful flame of love and sacrifice should burst forth.

‘And if they do not repent and become enkindled by their first love, I will deliver them over to the fate of this world … .'

Until our bishops and priests and nuns and laity get this, we will not win this battle.
For the Lord has delivered them for their lukewarmness to the "fate of this world." Only He can bring them back, not more rules and regulations or psychiatric nonsense nor money nor endless statistics.

It is almost Lent. The Novena to the Holy Face of Jesus began Sunday. What will we do? What will we sacrifice to Him for Him to act to end this crime and scandal?

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Since I am taking a real risk I will be accused of engaging in 'psychiatric nonsense' I have some thoughts about Sr. Faustina's alleged interaction with Jesus.  First off, I can't help but notice the voice of Jesus sounds suspiciously like he is espousing Faustina's opinion of her own experience and judgments relative to her own spiritual efforts and those of her fellow nuns.  I would call this a self fulfilling visionary state. How wonderful for Faustina that Jesus sees things just as she does, and if you read her diary to any length at all, Jesus is always on the same thought track as Sr Faustina.  I have not been so lucky or so connected to the Jesus wave length.

My first real encounter with other 'non organic sentient beings' was entirely different.  It happened when I was a senior in high school.  Our sociology class was on a three day field trip.  The first night we spent touring the college I eventually attended.  I had applied for admission to this school but had heard nothing from them and so was not expecting what happened.  The Admissions Department arranged a little ceremony at which I was singled out and given a full ride scholarship.  My head barely got in the bus the next morning as we left for the first real stop on our trip.  This was at the State School For The Mentally Retarded.  Back in the day things were not so PC as they are now.

This was also in the days before the warehouse style institutions were emptied.  There were 1200+ inmates housed here.  I use the term inmates because that's what they were.  None of us were remotely prepared for what we saw.  There were concrete rooms with no furniture that held upwards of 75 adult men, some of whom wore hockey helmets as the 'treatment' for their head banging.  We girls had the men all over us, picking at our hair and trying to fondle our breasts.  The boys got the same treatment in women's day areas, which were once again, large concrete rooms with no furniture.  The smell was overwhelming. After touring four or five of these areas, we were taken to Non Ambulatory ward where we saw the results of Mother Nature gone way wrong.  
 
There was the hydrocephalic, Sam,  who ran the institutions' primitive computer system and was a consultant for the State's much larger system.  His head was four times bigger than normal and had to be strapped to his wheel chair because his neck couldn't support the weight.  We talked with him for a good half hour as he couldn't believe that somehow this tour of high school kids from a small ranching community was allowed into the back wards.  It was for him, such an overwhelming gift he would have to stop himself from crying.  We also carried on a conversation with a three year old PKU baby who was as talkative as any three year old, but was 21 inches long and 8.5 pounds.  The ward nurse holding her began to cry as she admitted she had fallen in love with her and well, knew that someday soon she would be mourning that love.  Love is the operative word here.  On those backwards I saw first hand what love for the least of the least really meant.  I saw firsthand what lack of outside community interaction really meant. What being way out on the margins really meant.  I saw how I knew nothing about real life.
 
As we all got back on the bus, our tour guide admitted that she had never been given permission to take any one but the State Board of Visitors on that extensive of a tour.  We had seen everything there was to see.  Most tours lasted an hour, ours had lasted six and a half.  She hoped we got something out of it.
 
I can remember staring out the bus window, wiping off tears and listening to the sobs coming from the other kids.  Suddenly I saw a vision of what I recognized as the statistical drawing of a bell curve. I heard a voice ask me where my IQ fit on the curve.  I said,  "On the edge of the left hand side."  The voice then said that for every one of me, there was another human being in the backwards, non ambulatory, mute and completely dependent on the generosity, mercy, and love of their fellow humans. While I stared at that bell curve, letting this information sink in, the voice continued:  "God doesn't see any difference in the two data points.  Each of you is necessary for the bell curve to be drawn.  Neither is more important than the other.  Don't ever forget this or that God loves you just as God loves that precious PKU baby, or cherishes Sam for making the most he can of his particular situation.  You are not capable of judging, so don't, just learn to love."  End of vision.

The first thing that happened was my head deflated.  I'm sure my classmates found that a relief.  I have spent the rest of my life never forgetting the message of that first vision, continually drawing lessons, learning even more.  God does not condemn, threaten, or judge.  We do.  Our task is not to control others or preen over our particular position on the bell curve, it's to love and to care about the other data points around us because none of us is more important than the other, and all of us are equally necessary for the picture the curve draws--and God loves all of us. Period.  Happy Valentine's Day.


 
 

24 comments:

  1. Good catch here. Paul VI refused to endorse Sr. Faustina Kowalska's visions because of his (in my view accurate) belief that the visions were more about Faustina than Jesus. John Paul II was more credulous and canonized Sr. Faustina.

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  2. The biggest reason I personally find her suspect, is that she was poorly educated and had a clerical 'spiritual advisor' editing her diaries from the beginning. JPII knew what he was doing by espousing her cause---dumbing down the spiritual lung of the Roman Catholic Church.

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  3. Beautiful writing, touching event you have described, as I wipe the tears. I remember at seventeen going to a mental hospital in which my brother was just admitted. There was nothing to prepare me for such an experience. I did not get as close a look as you did for six and half hours in the facility, which I surely do not know if I could have even handled. It must be a special gift to you, to want to reach out and help the most helpless people of all. People in the facility were roaming the halls talking to themselves or lining up for meds. Your story here reminds me of that day with my mother visiting my brother in a mental hospital in 1970. I was so devastated and there was no care back then even for my mother or myself, to help us deal with this family crisis.

    I am ever grateful for the changes that have taken place in psychiatry for those suffering mental illness, as well the changes in the mental institutions as well. As I write, I wonder what our Church did, if anything, to transform the warehouses of the sick or abandoned and/or marginalized?

    Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

    Butterfly

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    1. Happy Valentine's day to you to Butterfly. I had a tough time responding to your post because I didn't write about the next day when our little group visited the State Mental Hospital. I'll only say the State Prison had much better care and in too many respects better accommodations. My sister could have easily wound up in that facility three years later, but she was bi polar and not schizophrenic and responded miraculously to lithium. Our visit there was just as,...I don't know what the word would be to describe it...reality shattering maybe is what I'm looking for. Anyway, my own career path went with adult mental illness rather than developmentally disabled, although the two do cross more than one would expect. I really can identify with what you must have gone through at 17. There was no program for families and no program to speak of for the patients, except some tranquilizing drugs. We have come a very long way and we have NAMI, or the National Alliance on Mental Illness to thank for a lot of the progress. NAMI did more to push for families and their mentally ill family members than any other group by far, including professional groups. I am a big NAMI supporter.

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    2. It was definitely a reality shattering event. It was a shock. I do remember doing a lot of crying back then. Just felt so helpless. It felt like a death, really, to see the condition of my brother and he must have been on some serious meds. It was a living nightmare is the best way to describe it.

      Well, my hat is off to NAMI. My brother is doing really well. I spoke with him tonight on the phone. He's in a really great group home, has a part time job and is continuing to paint. This past evening the entire group home was taken out for their annual dinner. Nice group of people there too at the group home.

      When I recently had a health problem & couldn't walk my brother was on one of his holiday visits and he took care of me. Must have been part of God's plan that he was here at the exact time I needed help for the first time in my life. He made a sandwich for lunch, made coffee in the morning for a few days. He did that for several days until I was well enough to make it down the stairs.

      I never thought he'd ever be looking after me. That was also reality shattering in a positive sense. The table was definitely turned completely around. He's been staying here for holidays and vacations for many years since our parents died, so he knew where everything was and what to do. He even checked up on me every hour to see if I needed anything. That is beyond progress. That is stupendous progress from warehousing people and pumping tranquilizers in them and living in unbearable conditions, to a complete transformation of my brother!

      Large Catholic families have a lot of issues these days and the political right wing Catholics see & react in such a way that they cannot see the whole picture, let alone the whole person, or the whole family, let alone the entire world. Just look at Santorum or Gingrich. They are prepared to not provide real health care for people. They are prepared to get rid of social security, medicare, of which people like my brother and sister depend on. They are of the mindset that the government should not be involved with helping or assisting people. They have the mistaken notion that the Churches and families need to take care of everything. I could go on, or start my own blog page, but I'll stop here for now, because I'm preaching to the choir. Your blog has been very helpful in putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

      Butterfly

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    3. Butterfly,
      Thank you for sharing this story of your brother taking care of you. Talk about about transformation, for both of you, and redemption! It was very moving, very touching, in so many ways. I thank you for sharing something so personal and so profound. "He even checked on me every hour..."! Yes, God sent him to you in your time of need.
      Colkoch,
      I have been so moved by this post- every time I return to it, I think of story after story, not just with my son, but the families I am friends with who also live very challenging lives. I realize that your post came out of addressing the Sr. Faustina thing (which also helped me make some sense of my uneasiness with the Divine Mercy cult) but the nugget for me lies with your sharing your vision and the "Comments" discussion that came out of it. Thank you in particular for writing more about the "intuitive gift of prayer", below, and more of what you said in your reply to me there. Your last few sentences there make me wonder if you are on to me, LOL! You really do have a gift. And I am not surprised that l'Arche had some part in your vocation formation. That you are still doing this work all these years later is a testimony to all the forces that shaped you. Keep writing!

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    4. Thanks Mary Beth.

      Butterfly

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    5. Butterfly, I think your story about your brother is one of the most uplifting things I experienced this entire week. It sounds like your brother's group home works off the Recovery Model. That particular model is the best thing going at the moment, in that it is based in hope, not despair. We are supposed to be using it at the mental health center I work at, but sometimes it feels like we are doing something else entirely--like trying to emulate Walmart. I am ecstatic to know your brother is in a real home, and that the staff cares as much as they must to help your brother reach the point where he could take care of you. That is such an enormous step for clients--to realize they don't always need to be taken care of, they too can take care of others.

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    6. I must admit it was a difficult subject to go back to & revisit the mental hospital, in recalling that time. I'm learning that those early experiences are still teaching me lessons.

      Although I could not walk without crutches and was bed-ridden, when I saw my brother caring for me so much, it truly helped me recover a lot quicker. I was so much more relaxed than I would have been if he had not been there and so concerned about me. His love truly shined.

      Yes, what a blessing that group home is for him & our entire family. I had considered having him live here and truly thought it best for him to remain there.

      He just bought himself a TV for his room. There is a large living room downstairs at the group home and it must be difficult to have the entire house of people agree on what to watch. There's another TV in the corner of the large dining room. This adds another level of freedom for himself to have his own TV in his own space that he has control over. I'm sure there will be house rules for him, as far as how late he can watch, as he does share a room with someone else.

      He has certain things he must do, and the can not do's, or in no uncertain terms he knows he'll get kicked out of there. He knows a good deal when he sees it. They have to make their bed everyday. Keep his room clean. He does his own laundry. Basic stuff. Takes his meds. He is very well liked there and I'm not surprised.

      What was truly wonderful also was that in the last few years at Christmas he would go on the bus to the mall and get Christmas presents for everyone, wrap them, attach a card and sign his name. He could not even write for a long time. That was a real breakthrough to see him confident to do all of that on his own.

      He does this on a meager budget and his hours have been reduced at his job. I've told him to not spend so much money on gifts for me. I must say though that he feels empowered and loving by doing so for Christmas.

      I'm glad that this helped you. I can send you the name of the person who runs the group home if you'd like and other contact information if you would like to talk with her about her group home. Her husband helps her out, as well her daughter and son-in-law. They have made a lot of improvements on the building and painted and decorated really nicely. It's a big old mansion that was built in the late 1800s that he lives in. Perfect for my Prince of a brother.

      Blessings to ya.

      Butterfly

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  4. Jean Vanier began l'Arche in 1968 in Trosly-Breuil, France, and by 1972, the first l'Arche community opened in the USA, The Hearth, in Erie, PA. My dear uncle, mildly impaired but with mental health problems, lived with my family until his lack of social appropriateness placed him in legal jeopardy and he he went to live at a state institution that was 100% overcrowded in the late '50s. I have memories that match Colkoch's in terms of the sights, sounds, and smells of that place. By the early '70s, my uncle was out of the institution and eventually lived at the Erie l'Arche community for many years. I lived at Syracuse l'Arche for 18 months and this experience shaped the rest of my life.
    The hard thing is, there are relatively few l'Arche communities relative to the need. Yes, the Church needs to do a LOT more. But the message of l'Arche is exactly what Colkoch spoke about. THANK YOU for posting this!

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    1. Mary Beth, l'Arche was the inspiration for the group home system currently in place in my little town. The state began removing the population of this hospital in 1970 out into the community and by 'chance' I spent my senior internship working with these group homes to help deinstitutionalize them. It was hard but really rewarding work. I vividly remember how proud my advisor and I were when one of our charges was the first such person hired at the local McDonald's. We've come a long long way and much credit needs to go the L'Arche and the Special Olympics movement.

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  5. Thank you for sharing such a moving personal and private experience. One thing, though....Sr. Faustina (or anyone, for that matter) is on Jesus' wavelength?!

    That made me laugh loud enough to scare the cat. My experiences have rather solidly ended with my understanding of something substantively changed, often turned entirely on its head, but rarely (if ever) affirmed.

    Something about "My ways are not your ways."

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    1. Exactly Tim. Your expression 'turned on it's head' is so true, which I guess my story demonstrates.

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  6. My comment above was a direct reply to Butterfly's query about what the Church is doing- except that l'Arche, so far as I know, is not directly affiliated under the Church's authority.
    I have much, more more in my heart as a direct response to your original post, Colkoch. Your revelation matches the vision of the Eternal Banquet, where "the last shall be first and the first shall be last". The *very* humbling experience of living with my only child who has multiple disabilities keeps your understanding of the bell curve very much a part of my reality as well.

    Wolf Wolfensberger, largely responsible for the impetus behind the deinstitutionalization movement, was convinced that those with developmental disabilities are actually the prophets of our time. Their visible presence in modern times after attempts to keep them out of sight, out of mind for centuries is a rebuke to modern society's worship of intellectual achievement and worldly success. He also warned that a prophet is never heeded in his/her own land, and those who side with the prophets will be persecuted with them. Truth be told, those dear ones I know who have dedicated their lives to living with/working with those with disabilities do suffer along with them.
    But, as Vanier attests, we are all wounded, we are all dependent on God's mercy. We are all utterly dependent on one another.
    My son's faith life consists of saying "Pray Dad! (Or Mom or Peter or Annie or Bob....) and blessing himself, making sure we join in. He then repeats, "Pray Dad!" and makes the Sign of the Cross again. Sometimes he points to the crucifix and says "Sacred Heart! Jesus, cross!" with great excitement. This young man who has barely ever been able to sit through Mass without causing some disruption has an intuitive gift of prayer that he gives freely no matter the person or setting....
    What a gift! And what a gift your post is, for this Valentine's Day. May God bless your work and your words.

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    1. I call that 'intuitive gift of prayer' a hard wired connection with 'all that is'. That's why an individual like your son is capable of generating such love, almost as if they are, in some sense, a divine reality all to themselves. This is especially true if they have been raised without abuse. If one is open to it it's amazing to watch and experience. I've noticed though, that one has to get over their own ego in order to experience the total effect. You are lucky to have your son and he is lucky to have you as his mom. Or....maybe it isn't luck at all. Maybe it was planned. After all God knew us before we were a twinkle in any dad's eye.

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  7. Having worked with a variety of special needs populations, I have learned that you do not work as a minister "to" people but on a ministerial journey "with" people. One such experience of this particularly sticks with me. I was a PCA for a post polio respiratory quadriplegic woman. She was really quite amazing. While most people like her were either long dead or surely institutionalized in long-term ICUs, she lived in her own home, CEOd her own Independent Care Business, traveled extensively and lobbied congress in DC toward successful passage of The American's with Disabilities Act. She was very hard to work for, very exacting and very controlling, tougher than a box of galvanized nails. Four of my sisters as well as I had worked for her. one late evening after settling her into bed, which took several hours, I asked her why she hired so many in my family who had virtually no extensive clinical experience in dealing with a case like hers. She said that she didn't want people who thought they knew what she needed handling her but people she could teach to do it her way and that we (my family had "the right touch") I responded - "Oh, you mean a 'Tabula Rasa'." "What’s that?" she asked. I said that means an "Empty Slate". She just gave me this huge grin and said "I just learned something new! - I Like That." She lived on for 3 more years and died at 76 in her sleep, in her own home; one of the longest living post polio quadriplegics in history. It is the sharing of these stories that constitutes a true Gospel in my experience. Thanks so much for conjuring all this up by sharing your Gospel here. Blessed Be…

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  8. I don't really know what a bell curve is, nor do I care to know where supposedly people fit in to such a concept. All I know is that my brother who is classified as a paranoid schizophrenic is just about the classiest, coolest, most loving brother in the world.

    I also have a younger sister who is mentally challenged and she is being taken care of very well. I do not get to see her that much anymore due to sibling issues of abuse towards me. I know she is in good care. Best I stay away from people who have nothing better to do than judge me, put me down all the time.

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  9. I have never understood the whole, "Jesus loves me so much that he will destroy me for my own good." Frankly I don't even understand it enough to comment on it intellegently." Why would Christ destroy convents? Seriously why? A few bishops' palaces I can see but convents? Frankly it sounds a lot like, "I know he loves me. I just make him mad sometimes. That's why he beat me hard enough I'm in the hospital now. If I don't make him mad he won't act like that."
    And don't get me started on the extra-liturgical novenas that are multiplying their way into the high holy days of the calendar. The Divine Mercy novena that begins in Holy Week?!
    It is HOLY WEEK people. There IS nothing higher than Holy Week.
    Rant over, for now.

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    1. That whole 'Jesus as abuser' attitude is all I've gotten from my attempts to read a number of Catholic sources. And then those sources got worse by trying to make me feel guilty of the sin of hopelessness. Gee, what would make me feel hopeless about an all-loving, perfectly compassionate God wanting to beat me up for my own good? The 'But God loves you anyway' becomes a useless, unheard, throw-away line.

      I get that they are trying to teach some form of humility. It would be nice though if they taught a true humility instead leading so many into false piety as a defense against being told that they are simply are not worth being loved by God. Worse, it makes me feel more cut off from God simply because I begin to doubt as unreal what fractional glimpses of connection to God that I've had.
      Veronica

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    2. Veronica, I think the false humility and piety thing is really necessary if the goal is really to make people dependent on an all knowing priesthood with magical powers. When one begins to touch the reality of God, most of what we've been taught as Catholics becomes patently clear. It's illusion, like magic always is. Love, as God gives, is not illusion. It's as real as sand paper on your inner thy. It never goes away and it doesn't judge. It just is.

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    3. I recognized something as being wrong, before I found and started reading your blog. Just couldn't quite nail it down as well as you have, Colleen. I had been calling it a Catholic caste system and finding that a less than satisfactory method of being human. To some degree I suppose it makes it easier to formulate and enforce public policy whether the realm be civil, religious, criminal, sexual or what have you. That is the allure to those who have the power. So it has its uses so far as governing is concerned. But this also insists that man is made for the law and not the other way around.

      I'm pretty sure that 'to govern' is not one of the first verbs that comes to mind as required when developing healthy spirituality.
      Veronica

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  10. Deo Gratias....and thanks be to you, Colleen.....With Love and Appreciation..........Michael Ferri

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  11. I know little about St. Faustina - but that quotation is not so different from some of what is said in Revelation 2-3. If God is real, He can hardly be unable to speak with those who are on His "wavelength". So visions & apparitions can - on that understanding of reality - hardly be ruled out. Whether a particular apparition is from God, is another matter; but there is no antecedent reason, from that POV, to rule them out on principle.

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  12. Ratbiter, I'm not ruling out that Sr Faustina was really connected with Jesus's wavelength. But any messages received from that dimension of reality can only be expressed by and through the font of knowledge and experience of the 'channel'. Distortion is rampant which makes discernment critical.

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