Author: Sr. Dorcee, beloved

I am the one whom Jesus loves.

As the Lord directed

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The Scripture reading for today’s Office of Readings comes from Exodus 17.  It begins: “From the desert of Sin the whole Israelite community journeyed by stages, as the Lord directed, and encamped at Rephidim.  But there was no water for the people to drink.”   I’m always intrigued by the desert being called Sin. . .but what really struck me today was the fact that the Lord “directed” them to a place where there was no water to drink.  If I was in their shoes, I would be asking Moses to get his GPS out and figure out really where we should be.  And that is, in reality, what the Israelites do: they complain to Moses and grumble about where they are.  How many of us do the same thing–we hit a speed bump or an even more serious obstacle and question whether the Lord is indeed directing us?  This can’t be where He wants me to be.

The Lord directed them to this place of no water for His own purposes.  He knew what He was doing. Perhaps it was merely to come face to face with their sin of grumbling and discontent, to recognize it and repent of it by humbling themselves before the Providence of God.  God does not make mistakes in where He directs us.  Look for Him in whatever unlikely or difficult place you may find yourselves today.  He is surely there.

“When the grind of it all makes it hard to keep going”

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An excerpt from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

I walk in our back door to candlelight still flickering, hang the keys on the hook, and look around at the steep mountain of laundry there in the mudroom, the shoes scattered, a coat dropped. The mudroom sink is grime ringed. Fingerprints smear across the mirror. And I laugh the happiest wonder.

That last sentence is probably not what you expected.  (It certainly was not what I expected.) Read the rest here and see how the Lord gave Ann a great perspective on all that she just walked into.

Don’t miss Him

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This morning I was meditating on Simeon and Anna.  I know it’s Lent and not the Christmas season!  That was part of my meditation.  Simeon and Anna didn’t know, at the time, that it was the Christmas season.  It was just another day of prayer in the Temple.  But if Simeon had not been sensitive to the Holy Spirit, he would have missed the Child he had been waiting for all of his life.  Thinking about this made me pray that I wouldn’t miss Christ’s coming to me today in whatever guise He takes.  Let’s all keep watch for Him today.  Maybe we’ll find that it’s really Christmas during Lent.  🙂

Rescue

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Many times God rescues us in ways different than perhaps we would like.  “My ways are not your ways . . .”

Rescue

I prayed for a lifting out of distress,
A setting down on the shore
With sweet warm sand beneath my feet
And storm-slashed waves no more

Breaking upon me.  A ripe fig tree
For dreaming under perhaps
And over me draped a cloud-fluffed sky
With sunlight around me wrapped.

Sweet Jesu, pray save me from all things dark
And rescue me from distress!

But You only gave me a raft to ride
With You the waves of distress.

Mother Mary Francis

The grace of weakness

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Lent is progressing.  Already some of you are feeling discouraged, like you’re not living up to what you intended to do for Lent. You know, it’s really okay to feel weak and helpless, to feel that you’re never making any progress.  In fact, that may be the best thing that ever happens to you.  Fr. Dajzer writes: “Your weakness, inability, and helplessness will become a crack through which the grace of faith will squeeze into your heart.”  Lent, as I’ve written before, is not really about getting “stronger”. Well, it is about getting stronger, but not in the world’s sense of the word.  Our strength is in our weakness.  “The might of God needs the weakness of man.”  Consider this from Fr. Dajzer:

God, getting closer to man, weakens him.  He does just the opposite of what we would expect.

You may believe that it is you who are approaching Him and that under those conditions you should become increasingly stronger and increasingly able to get along by yourself.  However, it is He who is coming closer to you and His approach makes you weaker, physically, mentally or spiritually.  He does this in order to dwell in you with His might, since it is your weakness that makes room for His might.  When you are weak, you cannot trust in yourself, you cannot believe in yourself and then the opportunity comes for you to turn to Him and to desire to rely on Him.  So often you shield yourself against this greatest grace, the grace of weakness, but St. Paul has already written: “for power is made perfect in weakness.  I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me . . . for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12.9-10).

When “a hundred or a million are suffering”

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Sorry for not posting in awhile.  God’s will was manifest in my life in unexpected events.  . .

In praying for the people in Japan, I was reminded of this pertinent perspective from Caryll Houselander:

It struck me last night that many people are increasing their fear by thinking in crowds, i.e. they think of hundreds and thousands suffering etc., whilst the fact is, God is thinking of each one of us separately, and when–say–a hundred or a million are suffering, it is God who has each one separately in His own hands and is Himself measuring what each one can take, and to each one He is giving His illimitable love.  This thought, though obvious, consoles me a lot . . .

Singing temptations away

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How do you fight temptation?  As we journey through the desert of Lent, we are sure to face temptations.  Try this advice from Hannah Whitehall Smith, a nineteenth century write and evangelist:

Then my enemies will be turned back in the day when I call.  This I know, that God is for me. (Ps 56.9)

Do you know what the psalmist knew?  Do you know that God is for you, and that he will cause your enemies to turn back?  If you do, then go out to meet your temptations, singing a song of triumph as you go.  Meet your very next temptation in this way.  At its first approach, begin to give thanks for the victory.  Claim continually that you are more than conqueror through him who loves you, and refuse to be frightened off by any foe.  Shout the shout of faith with Joshua and Jehoshaphat and David and Paul.  I can assure you that when you shout, all your enemies will fall down dead before you.

Singing is such a splendid way of disarming the devil!  It feeds your soul and drives him away, as Amy Carmichael reminds us:

The reason why singing is such a splendid shield against the fiery darts of the devil is that it greatly helps us to forget him, and he cannot endure being forgotten.  He likes us to be occupied with him, what he is doing (our temptations), with his victories (our falls), with anything but our glorious Lord.  So sing.  Never be afraid of singing too much.  We are much more likely to sing too little.

“Where are you?”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved4 Comments

“See where he stands behind our wall.  He looks in at the window, he peers through the lattice.”  (Song of Songs 2.9)

This is the point of Lent: to open up to our Beloved who is looking in at us through the window.  Fr. Blaise Arminjon writes:  “For if God is love, there can only be in the final analysis a single sin: not to love, to refuse to open oneself to the waiting love.”  After Adam and Eve sinned, the first words of God to them were “Where are you?” (Gen 3.9)  God is all about relationship.  He experienced the loss of relationship with Adam and Eve.  His first words to them were not: “What did you do?” but “Where are you?”  And that is what Lent is supposed to be all about for us: our relationship with Him, not what we have done.  (If we concentrate on relationship, the other will fall in  line.) So listen to Him saying to you: “Where are you?”  Hear His desire to coax you out from wherever you may be hiding from Him.  Take a moment, even now, to gaze at Him gazing at you through the lattice and listen to what He speaks to your heart . . .

The best form of mortification

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

One other wonderful piece of advice to consider as you prepare for Lent:

Blosius, a great Benedictine mystic, says that the best form of mortification is to accept with all our heart, in spite of our repugnance, all that God sends or permits, good and evil, joy and suffering. (Dom Marion)

Worth reading through again, slowly.  This may be the hardest mortification you ever choose.