Category: Claudel, Paul

Water from a cistern

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Epiphany has traditionally been the celebration of three mysteries: the coming of the Kings, Jesus’ baptism, and the wedding feast of Cana. Here’s a beautiful little extract from “Hymn for Epiphany” by Paul Claudel, celebrating the wedding feast. I can’t help that what Christ did with the water is the very same he would do for each of us, without hesitation. Changing our impure water into incredible wine.

The third mystery truly is at Galilee’s wedding repast
(For the first time that we see Thee, it is not as Host but as Guest)
When Thou dost change into wine, on Thy Mother’s whispered word,
The secret water there in the ten stone water-jars stored,
The bridegroom lowers his eyes. He is poor and oppressed with love:
For cistern water is hardly drink for a marriage, you know,
Such as it is in August when the reservoirs are low,
All filled with the impurities and with insects, not fit to show.

“Let Him find you everywhere he may look . . .”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

In this Year of Mercy, it is important for you to remember that the Shepherd is looking for you, not just everyone else.  We are all, in some sense of another, lost sheep.  Let Him find you.

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“The Gospel tells us that the Lord went in search of the lost sheep.  How are we to understand this search?  . . . Now if anybody seeks anything earnestly, it is not in one little corner only, but in every corner and place till he finds it.  And so God seeks you–let him find you everywhere he may look, in all circumstances of your life.  Whatever shame comes on you, know that that is the place in which God is looking for a gentle and meek soul; therefore suffer yourself to be constantly trodden underfoot until you have well learned your lesson of meekness.

“God is looking for a poor man; therefore if anyone will take from you your money, your property, or your friends, let him do so, that you may be found poor by God, who is looking for you in just such a state.  . . . Whatever happens to you from friends or from foes, nay from your very mother or sister–no matter how it comes or from whom, all whatsoever that comes to you prepares you for God’s searching and finding.”  (John Tauler)

“I have nothing to offer you.”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

On today, Mary’s day, here are some thoughts from Paul Claudel:

Midday.  I see the open church.
It draws me within.
I did not come, Mother of Jesus Christ,
to pray.
I have nothing to offer you.
Nor to ask of you.
I only come, O my Mother,
To gaze at you,
To see you, to cry simply out of joy.
Because I know that I am your child,
And that you are there.
~ Paul Claudel

A God who cannot see clearly

“You have a Father in heaven who can no longer tell you from His Son!” (Paul Claudel)

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Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Some beautiful passages from Paul Claudel about the love of God for us.  (Take time to meditate on them and drink them in.)

You have a Father in heaven who can no longer tell you from His Son!  (Seigneur apprenez-nous a prier, 72) 

Take courage, then, presumptuous soul, in the thought that you have to do with a God whose mercy prevents him from seeing clearly.  The Bible teems with blind patriarchs, and doubtless it was the news of his father’s dimmed vision that hastened the return of the prodigal son.  For we know too well that when we rush into his arms, his eyes will be good for nothing but weeping. . .  It is not by sight that the Father knows his son, but by touch. ‘The Lord looks on the heart’ (1 Sam 16.7).  It is of the heart alone that he demands the secret of our love.  He inhales us that he may know our scent.  (Presence et Prophetie, 41)

The Wounded Heart of Jesus

Christ’s Heart was wounded that we might know the depths of His love.

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Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Since it’s such a wonderful Feast today, I can’t help but post a bonus.  The hard part is choosing which quote to post–I have too many. . .  I began to discover the profundity of the pierced Heart of Jesus about five years ago . . .  and am still discovering.  Perhaps one of the most powerful things I read at that time was by Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe, the founder of the Community of St. John–I can’t remember which book at the moment.  He was writing about Jesus’ cry on the cross, “I thirst!”, and that that was an expression of Christ’s desire to give more to us  than He was able to do humanly by His death.  We are all limited in our human nature, and so was Christ in His. He went on to say that the piercing of Christ’s Heart after His death was a further expression of this desire to give of Himself, to open wide His Heart to us even after His death.  I’m sure you can all recall that scene from The Passion where the soldier who pierced His Heart with the lance is showered with His blood–a very graphic picture of the very thing Fr. Philippe is speaking about.

There is such a rich, rich tradition of writing in the Catholic Church on this.  Just a smattering:

Thy Heart has been wounded so that the visible wound should make us know the invisible wound of love.(St. Bernard)

Thus he was wrong who said: ‘My sin is greater than may be forgiven,’ unless it be that he was not one of Christ’s members, and had no share in Christ’s merits that he might claim them and call them his own, as a member may use what belongs to the head. But as for me, I shall take to myself what is lacking to me from the Heart of the Lord, for mercy flows from it, nor are there wanting openings through which it may flow. They dug His hands and His feet; they opened His side with a lance. And through these clefts I may suck honey from the rock and oil from the hard stone; that is, I may taste and see that the Lord is sweet. … The iron pierced His soul, and His heart has drawn near to us, that no longer should He not know how to compassionate my woes. The secrets of His Heart lie open to me through the cloven body; that mighty sacrament of love lies open, viscera misericordia Dei nostri, in which the Orient from on high has visited us. Why should not the Heart lie open through the wounds? For what shines out more surely from Thy wounds but the truth that ‘the Lord is sweet and merciful and full of pity’? For greater mercy than this no man hath, that he lay down his life not for his friends but for his foes, men doomed to death….(St. Bernard)

Consider, O man, how much I have suffered for you. My head was crowned with thorns, My feet and hands pierced, My blood shed. I have opened My side to you and given you to drink the precious blood that flows from it! What more can you desire? (St. Augustine)

In his human heart Jesus expresses this thirst–hence his extreme desire–to love the Father (in his human heart) beyond the offering of his life, beyond the work of the Cross. Over and above this work, there is a call of pure love for the Father. In his human heart he thirsts for the Father’s love, and he thirsts to love him always more. (Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P.)

The heart of Jesus is an open heart. Spend your time there. (Bl. Teresa of Calcutta)

The lance in the hand of Longinus went beyond Christ’s heart; it opened God; it pierced the very bosom of the Trinity. This is ‘the Lamb that was slain’ (Rev 13:8). That foundation in the Word is one with eternity. ‘Knock, and it will be opened to you’, Christ said. Very well, we have knocked, and it has been opened to us. It was for this that God became flesh, for this that he procured a heart with the help of the Virgin. We have placed a seal on him, a stigmata. The crucifix has been added to the Trinity–not just a scar, however resplendent, but an open wound. ‘For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness’, says St. Paul (Heb 4:15). Indeed, there is no quality on which Scripture insists more strongly than that of mercy. (Paul Claudel)

In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God’s own heart is opened up–here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up. God has stepped out of his hiddenness. (J. Cardinal Ratzinger)