Category: Scripture reflections

“She is burning still.”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

One of the things I love about the Advent season (and Christmas, for that matter) are all the candles and lights.  They are a sign of hope for me–the candles in the windows bringing a light into the darkness of this time of year–like the wise virgins keeping their lamps burning bright for the coming of the Bridegroom. 

I love this reading from Amy Carmichael.  It’s the reading for today, December 17, which also happens to be my birthday.  I share this only because its occurrence on this day reminds me that the Lord, from all time, knew today would be my birthday and that I would be reading this.  It also has significance for me because the passage she refers to from Lk 7.23 is one of those passages that have shaped my spiritual life–a word spoken by Jesus to John the Baptist when he was in prison: “Blessed is he (she) who takes no offense at me.”  But that’s a sharing for another time  . . . 

“She hath neither rusted out, nor burned out.  She is burning still.”  I read that in an Australian magazine and I prayed that it might be true of each one of us.  We want most earnestly not to rust out, we would gladly be burned out, but till that day comes, the Lord keep us “burning still.” 
     Perhaps some of us are sorely tempted to think that just now there is not much that is “burning” about our lives.  Some are ill, some have duties of a very simple sort–where does the burning come in?  Where did it come in when John the Baptist was shut up in prison?  He could not do anything but just endure, and not be offended, and not doubt his Lord’s love.  But when our Lord Jesus spoke of him, He said he was burning and shining–“a burning and a shining light”. [John 5.35]
     It is not the place where we are, or the work that we can or cannot do, that matters, it is something else.  It is the fire within that burns and shines, whatever our circumstances.   (Edges of His Ways, pp. 182-3)

Till that day comes, the Lord keep us all “burning still”.

When Israel went out of Egypt

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The poem for today may not strike you immediately as a poem for Advent, but as you read it, I think you’ll see why I chose it.  It’s a poem I just came across by one of my favorite writers, Anthony Esolen, who just this past week posted it to Touchstone’s blog. Here’s the link, and I do hope that you savor and relish it as much as I did upon reading it.  Let’s never go back to Egypt . . .

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.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

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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.

New every morning

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Some mornings it’s just hard.  It’s hard to get up.  It’s hard to pray.  It’s hard to face another day of living for others rather than yourself.   That’s where my thinking was going this morning.  So I did as I usually do when I wake up early, I reached for my Amy Carmichael devotional, Edges of His Ways.  (One of the main reasons I like to read her is because she always draws me deeper into Scripture.  I don’t end up with reading just some nice words, but I end up reading God’s word.)  Today’s entry is entitled “Ps 22.  Title LXX [in the Septuagint] Concerning the Morning Aid”  Well, that obviously struck home.   I stopped reading and grabbed my RSV.  The RSV reads “According to the Hind of the Dawn.”  So I then pulled out my Kidner commentary, in which he said that indeed the more faithful translation according to the Greek is “On the help at daybreak”.   Psalm 22, as you know–and as Amy reminds us–makes us think of the darkness and suffering of Calvary.  I’ll let you read the rest of what she wrote, and may you experience it as I did this morning, as the prophet writes in the Book of Lamentations: “His mercies are new every morning.” 

When we think of Psalm 22, we think most of the darkness and suffering of Calvary.  We know that it was in our Savior’s mind through those most awful hours; He quoted the first verse, He fulfilled all the verses.  Even though there is a burst of triumphant joy in that psalm of pain, it is chiefly the pain that comes to mind when we think of it.  But its title is not about pain, it is a word of beautiful joy: Concerning the Morning Aid. As I pondered this, my thoughts were led on to a familiar New Testament story: “It was now dark and Jesus was not come to them . . . They see Jesus walking on the sea”.  Looking back on that night the most vivid memory must have been, not the darkness or the weariness, not the great wind and the rough sea, but the blessed Morning Aid that came before the morning.
     So let us not make too much of the storm of the night.  “Even the darkness is not dark to Thee” [Ps 139.12]; “And He saw that they were distressed in rowing” [Mk 6.48].  The wind was contrary unto them then, perhaps it is contrary to us now.  But just when things were hardest in that tiredest of all times (between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.), just then, He came.
      “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” [Jn 14.18], He said, and He does come.  He always will come.  “His coming is as certain as the morning” [Hosea 6.3].  His Morning Aid comes before the morning.  If we do not see Him coming, even so, He is on His way to us.  More truly, He is with us.  “I am with you all the days, and all the day long” [Mt 28.20 Moule].

As I say in my sidebar, I started this blog to share things that have increased my hope during challenging times–those challenging times are not just in the past, but also in my present.  My prayer is that you, especially any of you who are so aware of your need for Him this morning, may know His help at daybreak, and to know that He is coming, and is indeed already with you.

Another “defect” of Jesus

“Jesus always acts out of love.”

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Following up on my November 14 post, another of Jesus’ “defects” that Cardinal van Thuan mentioned in his spiritual exercises to the papal household was: Jesus doesn’t understand finances or economics.  He started his reflection by recalling the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16)–remember? Those who get hired at the last hour get paid the same as those who worked all day.  Cardinal van Thuan continued:

If Jesus were named the administrator of a community or the director of a business, the institution would surely fail and go bankrupt.  How can anyone pay someone who began working at 5:00 PM the very same wage paid to the person who has been working since early morning?  Is this merely an oversight?  Is Jesus’ accounting wrong?  No!  He does it on purpose, as he explains, “Can I not do what I want with what is mine?  Or are you jealous because I am generous?” (Mt 20.15) (Testimony of Hope, p. 18)

And then he goes on to answer an important question.

Perhaps we can ask ourselves why Jesus has these defects.  Because he is love (cf. 1 John 4.16).  Real love does not reason, does not measure, does not create barriers, does not calculate, does not remember offenses, and does not impose conditions.
     Jesus always acts out of love.  From the home of the Trinity he brought us a great love, infinite, divine, a love that reaches–as the Fathers of the Church used to say–even to the point of folly, throwing our human measurements into crisis. (Testimony of Hope, p. 18)

And this is the same Jesus who has to do with you.  “Jesus always acts out of love.”

I start again

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Periodically I feel a need to post something I posted back in June, a quote from St. Andrew of Crete: “Every day I start again.”  What a great grace from God that He gives us a new day every 24 hours.  He gives us a new start every time we go to Confession.  A song I sing frequently is:  “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam 3.22)  Today I start again.  And I feel I should add–the starting again isn’t so much what we do, or what we strive for . . . the starting again should be starting again to abandon ourselves to the mercies of God that never come to an end, starting again to surrender our lives to His love and mercy for us, starting again to lower our hands that would push Him away because we’ve failed once again.  Today I start again to let Him love me.

Another little prayer

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Continuing on from yesterday:

Ps 119.173: Let Your hand help me.

This little prayer has often been mine.  These short Bible prayers are just what we want in days when we are tired or hard-pressed, so I pass this one on for those who need it.  You will find it enough.  It is like the touch on the electric light switch–just a touch, and the power comes flowing from the power-house–the power that turns to light.   (Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, p. 149)

Little prayers

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This is one of those mornings: Oh Lord, what am I going to post today?  The CTK Women’s Weekend was very good–I love being with all those women–but, being the introvert that I am, it takes a toll on me, and so I’m tired today.  Soooo I’m going to pull Amy Carmichael out of my bag, so to speak.  This piece is a great one on “Little prayers”:

Sometimes we are very much disappointed with ourselves because we cannot pray proper prayers, only little ones that hardly seem to be prayers at all.  I have been finding much comfort in the little prayers of the Gospels.   They could not be more little.
     There was Peter’s, “Lord save me” [Mt 14.30], and the poor mother’s [Mt 15.25], “Lord, help me”; and sometimes even less, no prayer at all but only the briefest telling of the trouble, “My servant lies at home sick” [Mt 8.6]; and less than that, a thought, and a touch. “She said within herself if I may but touch . . . ” [Mt 9.21].
     Again we hear of just  feeling. “They were troubled” [Mt 14.26], and a cry, “They cried out in fear”–that was all, but it was enough. 
     Often in the throng of the day’s work and warfare, there will not be time for more than a very little prayer–a thought, a touch, a feeling, a cry–but it is enough; so tender, so near, is the love of our Lord.  (Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, p. 149)