CAPACITAS DEI: My growth in awareness of what it means to be human at my deepest level.

Catholicism, for me, is not something I fit into or must conform my behaviors to, as much as a marvelous set of tools and hints coming down from age to age from Christ as interpreted by those choosing to wear the sign of the cross tattooed on their spirit.

I alone am the nexus where reality meets the accumulated experiences of a lifetime, trying to find satisfactory answers to three questions that plague the macabre dance between my conscious and unconscious awareness of where I find myself.

1. What does it mean to delve into the deepest part of my humanity? (KNOWLEDGE)
2. Once penetrated, that “place where no one wants to look” seems to be love. What does it mean to love fiercely to fulfill that most profound part of my humanity? The incessant call for resonance at war with the dissonance of my human nature? (LOVE)
3. Lastly, how do I know this is valid, given the corruption of truth that is normal to human individualism and rationality? (TRUTH)

Having flailed around mightily my whole life with various “isms” and “mindsets of thinking,” one thing is clear: Life is a daily process of meeting whatever comes with a view of reality uniquely my own (or yours). I am not you; you are not me; God is not me; and, most importantly, I am not God. All of us are leaves on that great tree of life, each one unique,

Having said that, my approach to Catholicism is that of a guide, a refuge in times of moral relativism (the only source of morality is me). If I want to be transgender, who is to say I can’t? If I want to be trans race (changing races from white to black to brown or yellow), who is to stop me? Logic does have its limits, and so does Mother Nature.

Through consciously putting myself in Christ’s presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, I have come to realize that two cosmic portals help me understand the three longings of my human heart. 1. CAPACITAS DEI — Trying each day to be aware of the ontic possibility of the manifest ability of all reality in terms of the Christ Principle (as I understand it), and 2. CONVERSIO MORAE— I am aware of my vulnerability and limitations as a human being, and I know, love, and seek what is true. I use Lay Cistercian spiritual principles (silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community) as my spectacles to help me focus on converting my humanity from animality to rationality and from animality and rationality to the ultimate evolution of my humanness, i.e., spirituality, with the awareness that only by dying to my humanity (abandonment) can I take that next step in human evolution to a place where my nature is informed (knowledge), fulfilled by love, and present to what is actually true about all reality.

This does not come without help from something outside myself, in my case, from utilizing Cistercian charisms and practices to guide me in knowing, loving, and serving a higher reality, a Divine Nature. In the next step of my human evolution, I must be aware that I am aware that it is my personal choice to abandon old wineskins each day (conversio morae) so that the new wine of Christ’s presence can reside in me (capacitas dei). It also fractures conventional thinking about what it means to be human. It is not without significance and irony that we are signed with the mark of the cross, the tattoo on our being that indicates we have not only been selected by God as adopted sons and/or daughters (Baptism) but also given the unique ability to respond to the Sacred with a “YES” or “NO”, as was the case with Adam and Eve.

Here are some of the intended consequences of my awareness when I am in the presence of Christ and simply waiting for my humanity to become still enough to listen to the whispers of Christ as we sit together on the couch of my inner room.

These attributes are more evident and substantial than when I began my Lay Cistercian journey, due to the Holy Spirit’s energy and my capacity to receive it.

PROFOUND SILENCE — This silence is not the absence of noise but the awareness that true silence comes from just waiting in the presence of Christ…just waiting.

PROFOUND SOLITUDE — This solitude comes from focusing on Christ in the upper room of my inner self.

PROFOUND PRAYER — This profound prayer is my awareness that all I have to do to pray is place myself in the presence of God and be open to the possibility that I can grow (capacitas dei) if I but convert my will to the resonance of God’s will. (conversio morae) I use this community prayer in union with all Lay Cistercians, all Cistercian monks and nuns, all Lay Dominicans, Carmelites, Franciscans, and the Holy Father with all clergy and laity as my community reparation for the sins of all the church, and particularly my own.

PROFOUND WORK — There is work and there is PROFOUND WORK. The latter meaning work done in the name of Christ, or anything attempted (prayer) in Lection Divina or Liturgy of the Hours.

My approach to the Sacred is that only through Christ can I reach the deepest level of my humanity. It is a process of growing deeper through capacitas dei and conversio morae, each moment. I have but to wait in profound silence, profound solitude, profound work, and profound prayer, and just be there next to Christ and trust whatever comes.

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