Author: Sr. Dorcee, beloved

I am the one whom Jesus loves.

“Blessing the darkness”?

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We’re always questioning the darkness in our lives.  What good is it?  Why does God allow it?  Here are Ann Spangler’s thoughts:

Larry Crabb says that we find God only when we need him. Simple words, but true. It’s like looking for the light switch in a dark room. No one goes searching for it until the sunlight has gone. Similarly, darkness can impel our search for God.

Several years ago I met the last survivor pulled from the wreckage after the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. During our time together, Genelle Guzman-McMillan told me a story about flirting with faith but choosing to live without it. Then, on September 11, her world fell apart and she found herself in complete darkness, buried alive under a mountain of rubble

You can read the rest here.

Listening to Lent – Have Mercy

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A poem and another song to minister to your soul today.  (Click on “view original” in order to hear the song.)

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Holy God
Holy and Mighty
Holy Immortal One
Have mercy, have mercy on us.

Holy God
Holy and mighty,
Holy Immortal One
Have mercy, have mercy on us.

Holy God
Holy and mighty
Holy Immortal One
Have mercy, have mercy, have mercy,
Have mercy, have mercy on us.
~Fernando Ortego “Trisagion”

On this day,
I begin the dusty journey
into the darkest ash heap
of my soul, confronting
my limitations,
my temptations,
my inability to think of myself second,
my acknowledgement that salvation
comes from no work of my own.

Have mercy on this head bowed low, listening.

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“Open the door”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

See if this article by Dr. Mulholland doesn’t stir your heart to a greater desire to open the door to your Beloved . . .

Get Back to Where You Once Belonged

Open the Door

Atchison, Kansas, March 04, 2014  Dr. Edward Mulholland |

 The Holy Spirit doesn’t fight fair. He hits you when you let your guard down. I was preparing for my Introduction to Hispanic Literature class, minding my own business. And I got triple teamed by the Holy Spirit, Lope de Vega and Longfellow.

One of the most famous sonnets in Spanish literature is ¿Qué tengo yo que mi amistad procuras? By the incomparable Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635). An excellent anthology of Spanish verse online, prepared by Benedictine College alum Fred Jehle, professor emeritus at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, includes a translation by none other than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  A distant memory recalled that Longfellow had learned Spanish and translated Spanish poets. I decided to try my hand at making Lope’s lines ring true for the modern reader.

Lope himself is an amazing figure.  A first class womanizer, Spanish Armada survivor, secretary to the Duke of Alba, he was ordained to the priesthood later in life to try to stave off temptations of the flesh. It only compounded his sin and guilt.  But he was a prolific poet and dramatist, penning a few dozen volumes of verse and more than 400 plays.  He was a tortured soul, and describes better than most the torture of a soul who perceives God’s call but struggles against the undertow of his own sins, original and actual.

Here’s my version of his sonnet:

What have I that You care to be my friend?

    What interest could You possibly pursue,

    That at my doorstep, Jesus, drenched with dew

The dismal nights of wintertime You spend?

My insides must be slabs of pure concrete;

    I opened not for You! A monstrous thing,

    If my ingratitude’s raw, icy sting

Dried out the wounds of your most holy feet!

How many times my angel did proclaim:

    “Look out the window now, oh soul, and see

    How He persists to call with love aflame”!

And, oh, how many, Beauteous Majesty,

   “Tomorrow we will open” I would claim

   To have my words the same tomorrow be!

While reading and re-reading it, it felt like it was my story, too. Perhaps less dramatic, but no less real. How often I screen God’s calls, and replay the voicemail, and leave Him hanging.

I had been postponing confession. After finishing with Lope, I took the hint and promptly got shriven. I may keep Lope’s poem handy to shame myself into answering my Guardian Angel, whose voice has recently gone hoarse.

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday is a clarion call to bust out of the listless lethargy of a mediocre lifestyle.  God has destined us, in his Son, to glory. And to follow Him to glory we must follow Him to the cross. If we have strayed from the path, we must get back. We must, as the Beatles once sang, “get back to where we once belonged.” And there is no other belonging like that belonging, that warm embrace of my Creator, my Father, the One in whom I live and move and have my being.

christ_knockingLent is not about sacrifice for its own sake. It’s about opening doors. It’s about trimming away what separates me from God and makes me deaf to his voice.  His is Beauteous Majesty. And I seek out fleeting fancy that is ugliness and subject myself to rulers unworthy of my rational soul.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Jesus Christ, wounded out of love for you, chilled with ingratitude, shivering at your door.  Don’t stand there saying “Jesus Christ, who?” Open the door.

“His answer changed my life.”

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I’m reposting this because I’m reading this book again and this section had the same impact on me today as it did three years ago: to live trust is by praise and thanksgiving. Still learning . . .

Sr. Dorcee, beloved's avatarWitnesses to Hope

As some of you know, I recently gave a talk at Witnesses to Hope on undoing the sin of Eve by deciding to trust in God’s goodness.  At the end of the talk I shared about what the Lord had been teaching me about the importance of thanking Him in all circumstances.  This morning I was reading from Consoling the Heart of Jesus, a Do-It-Yourself Retreat by Fr. Michael Gaitley.  Fr. Michael was describing a conversation he had had with an older priest about trusting in Jesus.  I was so encouraged to read this conclusion to the conversation:

[The older priest asked:] “And how do you live trust?  What’s its concrete expression in your daily living?”

I was stumped, “I don’t know.”

His answer changed my life: “The way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things.  That’s what the Lord said…

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The musician

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

from the archives . . .

Sr. Dorcee, beloved's avatarWitnesses to Hope

A story from St. Francis de Sales that I call to mind when prayer gets “tough”:

One of the world’s finest musicians, who played the lute to perfection, in a brief time became so extremely deaf that he completely lost the use of his hearing.  However, in spite of that he did not give up singing and playing the lute, doing so with marvelous delicacy by reason of his great skill which his deafness had not taken away.  he had no pleasure either in singing or in the sound of the lute, since after his loss of hearing he could not perceive their sweetness and beauty.  Hence he no longer sang or played except to entertain a prince whose native subject he was and whom he had a great inclination as well as an infinite obligation to please since he had been brought up from his youth in the prince’s…

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Some things I have learned to do

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Reblogged from Mary Ann Morgan:

It was one of those days. I never saw the ledge, but I surely stepped off and fell right into the darkness. I am surprised by these dark days and I am grateful that they are more the exception and not the rule anymore. For a brief period of my life, they were my normal. For a season — an awful season — I found myself swirling, spiraling into the blackness every day.

If this is something you know well, I am so sorry. Here are some things I have learned to do when these days come.

1. Rest. Sometimes I just need to pull back from the stresses of life and rest. Giving myself permission to take a nap or a walk instead of working incessantly can do wonders for me.

2. Remember. This is just a day. This will not last forever. I remember God’s goodness in my life and ask for his perspective. Mine is obviously skewed and I need to know things from his point of view. Counting gifts does wonders for the heart.

3. Reach out. When I am feeling this way, the last thing I want to do is reach out to my friends. I don’t know why we are like this. Maybe pride? Fear? I have to remind myself of the times others have reached out to me in need and how it endeared them to me. We love to help others. Why would I deny someone the joy of being my friend when I need them?

It’s days like this I miss my daddy most. I just want to call him and hear his voice again. “Hey Mary Babe” he would always say. He was always so glad to hear my voice. I loved chatting with him about the flowers. He was a gardener and we shared a love for planting things. He would always tell me what was coming up in his yard. The tulips I planted for him are coming up around my birdhouse now. I just want to tell him about them, “Dad, I planted Tulips for you. They are red, your favorite color.”

I miss my dad, and it’s okay to cry about it. I think I can finally do that.

If you have had a hard day, or a bad week, my heart aches for you. I think we  go through things sometimes just so we can be a better friend to others. Compassion sews threads of kindness into the lives of others. We cannot have it if we have not experienced pain of some sort in our own lives. Know this: God is with you and he loves you dearly. He is present with you and he will give you just what you need. You are not alone. Ever.

Psalm 34:4-7 ~

“I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
    He freed me from all my fears.
 Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
    no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
 In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
    he saved me from all my troubles.
 For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
    he surrounds and defends all who fear him.”

When the thread snaps

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If you feel things are out of control in your life (and even if you don’t), this is for you:

Hanging By A Thread

 A week ago, I thought I had things under control.  My blog post was up on Monday and I’d jotted down thoughts for another two; my upcoming classes with senior executives were planned; my beard was trimmed.
On Tuesday, I ate lunch with a friend I’ve been out of contact with for a while.  He gave me inscribed copies of his two most recent books, which I started reading that day.  Then, it all changed.
We brought our eight year old, Jopa, to the MD’s office that afternoon.  She’d been showing signs of what we thought was an infection.  We were wrong.  It was Type I diabetes.
One day her pancreas was producing insulin.  The next it was not.  Her life, and ours, changed forever with the mysterious shutting down of her relevant cells.
She and my wife went to the hospital, where they remained for three days.  And, that was the least of it.  She’ll be pinpricking her finger and giving herself shots for as long as she lives.
Something similar happened to a parishioner who was healthy and living a normal life on Friday.  Saturday, he slipped on the ubiquitous ice, cracked his skull, and underwent emergency brain surgery.  He is in critical condition, fighting for his life.
Read the rest here.