Author: Sr. Dorcee, beloved

I am the one whom Jesus loves.

Omnipresence

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Today’s Sunday-poem by Luci Shaw is a reminder that we can be drawn to God through everything–even unlikely places.  The poem ends with something very though provoking.

Omnipresence

Reminders flicker at us from
odd angles, nor will He be ignored
We sight Him in unlikely places
oaths and dates and empty tombs
God.  His print is everywhere
stamped on the macro and the microcosm
feathers, shells, berries, birds’ bright eyes
Stars, cells speak his diversity
The multiplicity of leaf and light
says God.  Wind sensed
but unseen breathes the old
metaphor again.  Seasons are his
signature.  The double helix
spells his spiral name
Faith summons Him, and doubt
blows only the sheerest skein
of mist across His face.

~Luci Shaw

I trust

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A thought from Amy Carmichael on trusting that God loves us:

1 John 4.16 (Rotherham) We have come to understand and to trust the love which God hath in us.

I have been thinking much of this translation.  We can never fully understand that love, but we can begin to understand it even here and now, and as we understand, we trust.  This means that we trust all that the love of God does; all He gives, and all He does not give; all He says, and all He does not say.  To it all we say, by His loving enabling, I trust.  Let us be content with the Lord’s will, and tell Him so, and not disappoint Him by wishing for anything He does not give.  The more we understand His love, the more we trust.  (Edges of His Ways, p. 145)

God’s need

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A few years ago I read something to this effect: if God had a need–which He doesn’t because He is God–but if He did have a need, it would be to love.  That statement made me stop to consider how much–or how little–I let Him actually love me.  How often did I consider myself unworthy of His love and consequently not open myself to His love?  How often did I put limits on how much He could possibly love me?  How often did I turn away from Him because I was dissatisfied/distressed/upset with the events He was allowing in my life?  How often did I just want to give up on my relationship with Him?  Sounds like an examination of conscience, doesn’t it?  In fact, it is, and it’s worth doing.

The Catechism, when describing the effects of original sin, lists “lack of trust in his goodness” as one of the primary effects (cf. CCC 396).  God went after Adam and Eve when they sinned.  The first thing God says to them after they sinned was “Where are you?”, the words of a God who desires to love, who wants relationship with us, who doesn’t want us hiding from Him.  The Father thirsts and hungers to love us, to love you.  He “needs” to love you.

The excessive love of God

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I haven’t posted in the past two days because life has been full of more important things.  As many of you know, we run two Emmanuel Houses: homes for older adults who are no longer capable of living alone and have limited support and no resources.  This week three of the residents have been in the hospital and one at home passed on to be with the Lord.  Two of our Sisters who work there are on vacation.  It’s times like these when life can feel like it’s a bit too much.  Yet we know that all is in God’s Providence.  I meditate often on these words from Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity: “Everything that happens is for me a message of the excessive love of God for my soul.”  And as Amy Carmichael would say: “Everything means everything.”

Patient waiting

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The sisters in my house had an exercise in patient waiting this weekend.  We lost power on Thursday night due to a strong thunderstorm.  The projected time for restoration of power was this Tuesday night.  When we lose power, we lose everything including water.  We do have a generator–thanks to a very generous donor last year, but, of course, we can’t plug everything into it . . . and the water pump is one of those things.  This means a lot of water hauling, manual flushing of toilets, heating water on the stove.  (Like the good old days, heh?)  The good news is that everyone pitched in and maintained a good attitude.  The other good news is that the power came on last night at midnight–two days before the estimated time!!!

“Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. . . . You also must be patient.  Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.  Do not grumble . . . .” (James 5.7a, 8-9a)

Bowing down before the Lord

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The whole story of the Canaanite woman who implored Jesus to heal her daughter (cf. Mt. 15.21 ff) is absolutely fascinating to me.  Jesus seems to rebuff her more than once, yet she tenaciously perseveres in her request.  What particularly moves me is her response after 1) he first seemingly ignores her and 2) says that His mission is to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (of which she is not a part).  She responds by coming to Him, kneeling at His feet and worshiping (15.25).

Worship is an act of bowing before the Lordship of God and completely surrendering to His will.  How often is our response one of worship when we experience silence and non-answers from the Lord?  May the Spirit of the Lord prompt us to turn our disappointments into occasions of worship of our God who is only and always Love.

The end of the year for priests

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Tomorrow is the last day of this year that has been dedicated to praying for priests.  This morning we asked the priest who said Mass for us to stay for breakfast and then took some time to pray over him before he left.   He said, “I’m a bit afraid now that this year is ending that people will stop praying for us.  Please pray for priests.”  I pass on his appeal.

Here’s an inspiring excerpt from He Leadeth Me, by Fr. Walter Ciszek about his time of imprisonment in Russia during the communist era:

The moment a priest appeared on the camp grounds by himself or with a fellow priest, he would be joined by passing prisoners.  The moment it became known in a new brigade or new barracks or a new camp that a man was a priest, he would be sought out.  He didn’t have to make friends; they came to him instead.  It was a very humbling experience, because you quickly came to appreciate that it was God’s grace at work and had little to do with your own efforts.  People came to you because you were a priest, not because of what you were personally.  They didn’t always come, either, expecting wise counsel or spiritual wisdom or an answer to their every difficulty; they came expecting absolution form their sins, the power of the sacrament.  To realize this was a matter of joy and of humility.  You realized that they came to you as a man of God, a representative of God, a man chosen from among men and ordained for men in the things that are of God; you realized, too, that this imposed upon you an obligation of service, of ministry, with no thought of personal inconvenience, no matter how tired you might be physically or what risks you might be running in the face of official threats.  For my part, I could not help but see in every encounter with every prisoner the will of God for me, now, at this time and in this place, and the hand of providence that had brought me here by strange and tortuous paths . . . The things that are of God are all the joys and works and sufferings of each day, however burdensome and boring, routine and insignificant they may seem.  It is the priest’s function to offer these things back to God for his fellow men and to serve as an example, a witness, a martyr, a testimony before the men around him of God’s providence and purpose.

Don’t stop praying for priests.

All for the good

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Here’s a story I just read about one way God worked all things for the good:

In the devotional book Voices of the Faithful, a missionary couple in South America tells of a local pastor in Uberaba who bought a van to transport people to church.  To help make payments on the van, he removed the backseats and did delivery work through the week.  But the van needed four new tires, and the pastor had no way of paying for them.

One night the van was stolen from the church property.  Some of the church members tried to console their pastor by saying that perhaps it wasn’t God’s will for him to have the van.  But he knew he needed the vehicle for God’s work, so he trusted the Lord to work it all for the good.

A few days later, police officers from a nearby town called on him, saying the van had been located and the thief caught.  Arriving at the police station, the pastor was surprised to find his vehicle sporting a new set of tires, new backseats, and a radio!  He claimed the van, but told the police that the tires, seats, and radio were not his.  They must have been installed by the thief.

“Well, I guess that is the thief’s loss and your gain,” replied the police officer.  The pastor now has a good van, fully equipped and freshly shod.

(from Robert J. Morgan, The Promise, pp. 95-6)

Red Sea Rule 8

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Jumping ahead in the book I referred to yesterday, Rule #8 is “Trust God to deliver in His own unique way.”

God will deliver His children from every evil work, from every peril and problem, from tribulation, even from death itself.  But there are no cookie cutters in heaven.  God doesn’t have standardized, same-size-fits-all solutions to our various problems.  He treats every situation as singular and special, and He designs a unique, tailor-made deliverance to every trial and trouble.

He goes on to write about how God can indeed deliver in miraculous ways and does, but other times, in His providence, He works in mysterious ways that we cannot always understand.

When God does not deliver overtly (through a miracle) or covertly (through providence), He will deliver mysteriously, with a deeper level of intervention than we can discern; in the end it will be better for us, though for a time we may be perplexed.

When Vance Havner, the wry North Carolina evangelist, lost his wife to disease, he was disconsolate.  But out of the experience he later wrote:

When before the throne we stand in Him complete, all the riddles that puzzle us here will fall into place and we shall know in fulfillment what we now believe in faith–that all things work together for good in His eternal purpose.  No longer will we cry “My God, why?”  Instead, “alas” will become “Alleluia,” all question marks will be straightened into exclamation points, sorrow will change to singing, and pain will be lost in praise.

“What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” (Jn 13.7)