She replied, "That's true, Lord,
but even the dogs under the table are
allowed to eat the scraps from the children's
plates …
I dig after any information in regards to Jesus Christ,
like a dog that has smelled a bone in the dirt, and most of the time, I come up
with nothing but a dirty nose … Yet still I dig and search the yard for bones …
(Here I will insert a comment made of me, by Fr. Paul (a
past spiritual director of mine) … “Jesus treats you like a cat, Mary Jo and he
has a feather on a string, and he places it in front of you and you try to
pounce on it, only to find that Jesus has pulled it out of your reach. Yet you
still play the game with him and him with you”) … true … very true
My “yard” is Scripture, not just canon, also legends and
ancient customs… Culture and tribes per Jesus’ appearance in time, to
understand the mind frame of those around him and how they would have perceived
him … important for they are the ones who perpetuated his mission …
I do pray to God, and ask him to send beams of light into
my mind and heart to understand what I am reading and not apply any ego to it …
Yet being human I am sure I do just that many times …
To be
or not to be … that is the question … for Shakespeare that is … for the Mystic
is it is … am I crazy or is this true … and that question is never answered …
Hands
down Fr. Martin … was for me the greatest spiritual adviser
given me in my lifetime … He had a spiritual connection to me like no
other… I remember most of the
things he told me … such as “Mary Jo, you will think you are crazy, you will
act like you are crazy and the world will think you are crazy. Your mind will
haunt you and will never be able to reconcile your thinking, with your
spirituality and for you that will be a great Cross”….
(Fr. Martin was so right and over the last 20
years his prediction as to my mind haunting me … he was correct … I live in the
world, which for the most part rejects a concept of a God still functioning in
the world … even those who are very religious tend to think stories of the
miraculous are only true in the past … no such stuff happens now …
unfortunately this is never more true than with in the hierarchy and with many
clergy and religious … and that does not seem logical to me …I think hey, dude
didn’t you say “you got a call from God” and this is why you are a Priest??? … Yet when these same men hear of a
“mystic”... First they will think ok here comes a Whack job… if that proves to
be wrong they usually avoid the mystic like the plague … I have seen this time
and time again … on some level they are afraid of me … like oh shit … here she
comes and if what she is saying is true…I might have to change my behavior and
act and think differently … I am not a magical unicorn with magical powers …
for whatever reason I have been elevated out of “faith” into truth … I do not
have “faith” that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist I have
interior truth he is there … that is my grace … )
Fr. Paul said this … “Mary Jo, Jesus taps into your Native
intellect and gives you brilliance in thought, metaphor; your spiritual life is
so rich, than he moves that feather out of your reach and it stuns you”…
(True statements from Fr. Paul as well … Jesus
reaches out to everyone and he does so on their level of awareness and
personality … My “personality” is I like fast wit, I like humor and I like to
be challenged intellectually on all levels … I like knowledge and learning,
with a special fondness for science, hey it was the way I was raised … so Jesus makes me think about things (not
just religious things not at all) but things of creation… things of science …
things of philosophy … Get Jesus Christ out of the mental box you may have him
… he is so much more than a “Savior” … case in point when Jesus was 12 and in
the Temple “debating the scholars” … many think of He was just discussing
religion … no he was not… the Temple during that time in history was the center
for “thought” like a high end university would be now … What wowed the
Pharisees and scribes … was the breath / scope of knowledge this 12 year named
Jesus had in all academic disciplines as
well as the Torah … for lack of better words this is “my sweet spot” with Jesus
… I will ask “how was the world made, where is the kingdom of God, is there a
mathematical formula to calculate
creation, are there other life forms on other planets, was there a real Adam
and Eve, was their fall calculated into you creating them … and surprise …
surprise many times I got an answer and I would take this to whomever was my
spiritual director at the time and tell them .. They were floored and many
times touched by the fact someone so simple and of no significance in the world
(meaning me) could have such a relationship with Jesus Christ … my thinking was
… hey everyone can if they just asked and really believed in Him and spent time
with Him in the here and now in front of the Tabernacle )
Fr. Charlie
(the Jesuit) said … “You are pushy,
aggravating, hot headed, all the things I hate in a person Mary Jo, yet as a
priest, I feel the same way, about St. Peter and Mary Magdalene, and I never
understood why, Jesus worked with those two. “upon saying that Fr. Charlie told
me that he would not have even opened his door to Peter and Mary M, nor would
he open his door to me … for there was something about me that made him
uncomfortable … So he referred me to
his Jesuit brother … yet as I was leaving his office … Fr. Charlie said this …
“If this is true about you, there will be nothing, but suffering in your future
and the church will hate you. I hope they do… for I see the presence of God
upon you, and the church needs to be disturbed, and you have disturbed me” … and this is what Christ did when he walked
on earth “disturbed the religion of his time”… Jesus never took on the politicians,
only the religious leaders of his time
(Fr. Charlie was right I piss off a lot of
people in the church… Jesus did too they just never used the word “pissed off”
back then)
Being
disturbing or disturbed … ah… that saying ties into my greatest
fear … Yet this is God’s greatest asset
to disturb people … out of their mediocrity, their lukewarm behavior … to make them think, to make them change
…
