Author: Sr. Dorcee, beloved

I am the one whom Jesus loves.

The search for God

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

One of the books I’m reading, actually re-reading, this Advent, is a book of a nondescript name with an unattractive cover: The Roots of Christian Mysticism,  by Olivier Clement, one of the foremost Orthodox theologians of our day.  What I love about the book is the way Clement brings together quote after quote from ancient authors with his brilliant commentary interspersed.  This past week I have been re-reading the first three chapters.  The second is entitled “God, Hidden and Universal”.  Clement is trying to communicate how utterly inaccessible God in His essence is to us.  Of course, this concept–which, of course, we cannot fully grasp–is essential to understanding the inexpressible love of God for us in becoming man.  However, instead of quoting from his book :-), I am going to quote the late Fr. Richard John  Neuhaus (from First Things)  from another book, God With Us, an Advent-Christmas book put out by Paraclete Press.

We are all searching, and ultimately–whether we know it or not–we are searching for God.  Ultimately, we are searching for the Ultimate, and the Ultimate is God.  It is not easy, searching for God . . .  The fact is that we do not really know what we’re looking for or who we’re looking for.  Almost a thousand years ago, St. Anselm of Canterbury said, “God is that greater than which cannot be thought.”
      Think about it.  We can stretch our minds as high and deep and far as our minds can stretch, and at the point of the highest, deepest, farthest stretch of our minds, we have not “thought” God.  There is always a thought beyond which we cannot think.  “God is that greater than which cannot be thought.
      God is, literally, inconceivable.  And that is why God was conceived as a human being in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  Because we cannot, even in thought, rise up to God, God stooped down to us in Jesus, who is “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”

I will continue with this tomorrow.

Waiting

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

This Advent morning I have been pondering the idea, the posture of “waiting.”  What does it mean to wait for the Lord’s coming?  To wait in hope?  I haven’t formulated all my thoughts yet, but one thing that rings true to me about waiting is something that Pope Benedict talked about in his general audience yesterday.  In the context of speaking about St. William of Saint-Thierry (a good friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux), he wrote: “Human nature, in its most profound essence, consists in loving.  In a word, only one task is entrusted to every human being: to learn to will the good, to love, sincerely, authentically, freely.  However, only at the school of God can this task be accomplished and man can attain the end for which he was created.” 

What struck me was that there is a link between loving and waiting.  If I put all my energy into loving–loving God, receiving His love, loving others as I am loved–then I will indeed be “actively” waiting, actively preparing for His coming.  What better thing could I do than that to prepare for Him who is Love itself?

“An interior diary”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Perhaps many of you have already read Pope Benedict’s homily from First Vespers this past Sunday, but I wanted to draw your attention particularly to this part and encourage you to try to do what he suggests for Advent:

Advent, this intense liturgical time that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to grasp a presence. It is an invitation to understand that every event of the day is a gesture that God directs to us, sign of the care he has for each one of us. How many times God makes us perceive something of his love! To have, so to speak, an “interior diary” of this love would be a beautiful and salutary task for our life! Advent invites and stimulates us to contemplate the Lord who is present. Should not the certainty of his presence help us to see the world with different eyes? Should it not help us to see our whole existence as a “visit,” as a way in which he can come to us and be close to us, in each situation?

You can read the entire address here.  (It is worth reading.)  Do try to take some time daily to take note in your “interior diary” of how God has loved you.  (This will remind some of you of Fr. Gallagher’s talks on the examen.) And know that we all wouldn’t mind your sharing an entry or two here as a comment.

In time of need

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Yesterday was the funeral for my aunt and the reason for my not posting.  Today, of course, I am a bit weary.  The funeral went well, but now, in addition to what I call the “mother-wound” I carry in my heart because of the loss of my own mother, I now have an “aunt-wound” because of the loss of my “other mother”.   This morning when I prayed, I picked up a collection of Amy Carmichael’s writings called Thou Givest . . . They Gather and read this:

“I cannot get the way of Christ’s love.  Had I known what He was keeping for me, I should never have been so faint-hearted”, Samuel Rutherford wrote long ago.  Have we not often had cause to say so too?  But if for a season we are in heaviness, if the morning after a night of pain, or prayer, or fierce fight of temptation, or any other weariness, finds us arid as a burnt-up bit of land, there is a perfect word waiting to hearten us: Grace to help in time of need–in time of need–that is the word.  Often and often I have drunk of that living water very thirstily.  Blessed be God for this brook in the way.  “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but One that has been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb 4.15-16)

Now, I must honestly confess that I sometimes have mixed reactions to reading something like this.  This is what I begin to think: “But will I really feel refreshed after I pray?  Many a time I have continued on arid after coming to Him.”  (I call to mind that time I spoke of earlier when I cried out, “Lord, have you forgotten me?”)  But even as I thought that this morning, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me: “But can you not trust that if that is the case, that the Father, in His love, has a greater purpose in allowing it?”  And, you know, I cannot but answer yes to that because I know “in my knower”–as they say–that all that the Father does, He does in love.  If I continue on in weariness and grief and aridity, He must have a greater purpose in it all.  And I thank Him for reminding me of that.

“Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

This Sunday’s poem is one by Jessica Powers, written in 1948:

Advent

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.

I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.

               ~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 81.

A pure transparent pool

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about how I would answer my own query at the end of yesterday’s post, and one thing that immediately came to mind that brings beauty into my own life is a little photo album of art prints and such that I have collected.  For many of them I have an accompanying quote on the facing page.  Often I use it as an accompaniment in prayer, a source of meditation.  One example of this can be found here.  And here is another example:

I find this image of Mary quite beautiful.  Its title is Mary, the Mother and Consolation of the Grieving.   The following is the poem I have placed opposite it:

THE POOL OF GOD

There was nothing in the Virgin’s soul
that belonged to the Virgin–
no word, no thought, no image, no intent.
She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting
God, only God.
She held His burnished day; she held His night
of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.
God was her sky and she who mirrored Him
became His firmament.

When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her
my spirit is enisled in her repose.
And when I gaze into her selfless depths
an anguish in me grows
to hold such blueness and to hold such fire.
I pray to hollow out my earth and be
filled with these waters of transparency.
I think that one could die of this desire,
seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.
Oh, to become a pure soul like the Virgin,
water that lost the semblances of water
and was a sky like God.
~Jessica Powers

“You are the Custodians of Beauty”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A couple of months ago, I began a series of posts on beauty.  Pope Benedict XVI just last week addressed a group of some 250 artists gathered in the Sistine chapel on this very theme. What particularly struck me in his address was the link he made between beauty and hope.

Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair.  . .  . What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream a life worthy of its vocation–if not beauty? . . . the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it form darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful. [You can read the rest of the address here.]

Though this was addressed particularly to artists, I am convinced of the importance of all of us having this mind in the living of our daily lives.  We can all be “custodians of beauty” (Paul VI) wherever we are.  Even if all we do–and by no means of little importance–if all we do is constantly invite the Holy Spirit to make of our souls a thing of beauty, we will be a worthy custodian of beauty.  We each need contact with beauty ourselves, true beauty, that is–art, music, poetry, literature, nature, people–and we each need to be purveyors of beauty to those around us.  And, as we do this, I think we will discover that link that Pope Benedict spoke of between beauty and hope.

Need I say that most of all we need to long for the beauty of God, a longing that will not be fulfilled until we see Him face to face.    “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing . . .to find the place where all the beauty came from.” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces)And isn’t that what Advent is all about?

I would be interested in where you find beauty: what books you’ve read, how you bring beauty into your homes, etc.  Please feel free to comment.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live . . .    (Ps 103.2-5a)

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!  (Ps 106.1b)

Bless the Lord, all our souls!   A blessed Thanksgiving to each of you.

The Homecoming

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Still thinking a lot about our Homeland, and, of course, about my aunt’s journey there.  I was thumbing through my collection of Jessica Power’s poetry and found this most apt poem.  (Poetry is one of the solaces in my life.)

Return of the prodigal son (Tissot)

The Homecoming

The spirit, newly freed from earth,
is all amazed at the surprise
of her belonging: suddenly
as native to eternity
to see herself, to realize
the heritage that lets her be
at home where all this glory lies.

By naught foretold could she have guessed
such welcome home: the robe, the ring,
music and endless banqueting,
these people hers; this place of rest
known, as of long remembering
herself a child of God and pressed
with warm endearments to His breast.

            ~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 53

The same will be true for us: the robe, the ring, the banqueting, and best of all, the warm endearments as we are pressed to His breast.

Carry your homeland in your heart

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

For obvious reasons (my aunt’s death and it being the end of the liturgical year), I’ve been thinking about our Homeland.  As Christians, it can be all too easy to forget that we are citizens of heaven first and of our country second.  This quote from what looks like will be a great novel, emphasizes this point.  (Read “Christian” instead of “Jew”.)  The conversation is between a young German and his teacher, a Jew, in the early 1900’s.

    “Does it make any difference, being a Jew?”
     Dr. Mendel looked down at the tablecloth, the plush tablecloth that had been there all of Max’s life, and smoothed it with his familiar hand.  He did not answer for some time.  
     “Ah”, he said.  “At last we come to it.  Yes, Max, it does.  It makes a great deal of difference.  A Jew does not ever quite belong to the country in which he lives.  I have been a French Jew, and I have been a German Jew, but I have never been a Frenchman or a German.  The Jews are a people who carry their homeland with them wherever they go because it is in their souls and not in the streets of cities or in the villages and fields and woods where other people allow them to live.”
     “Is their homeland where God lives?”
     Dr. Mendel raised his head and looked searchingly at Max.
     “It should be, Max, it should always be, perhaps for everyone.  But it is not always so, even with Jews.  They also, as other people do, often make another homeland for their souls.  Perhaps it is France, or Germany, or science, or music, or the making of much money.  Then, because they have lost God, they have lost the distance that should be precious to them, the distance from which it should be easier to look calmly at all these passions, the loves and hatreds and fears, which drive wars and draw frontiers and arm people to fight over them.”   (Lucy Beckett, A Postcard from the Volcano, p. 57)