“And if everyone lit just one little candle . . .” A photo from a recent cancer walk in Canada. A luminary for each family member or friend who had died from cancer, one of our Sister’s mother was represented. She aptly described this photo: “Hope in the midst of darkness.” Her niece, a brave young cancer survivor, walked.
May we each become a luminary, shining with Christ’s presence within us, to this dark world in which we live.
A guest post from Ann Voskamp: “What an Easter Monday Faith looks like”
We all have personal feast days, days that we celebrate for different reasons, usually because of a saint we’re named after or one to whom we have great devotion. Over the last few years I have come to look at Holy Saturday as a personal feast day. Ever since my brother, Tim, died, it has taken on great meaning: this day during which it looks like nothing is happening, when, in fact, great and “terrible” things are happening. Jesus is setting the captives free. Christ has descended into our loneliness, into our grief, into those spaces in our lives–and of those we love–where darkness seems to reign. And that is Good News. We are no longer alone. He is, indeed, God-with-us. That is the wonder and consolation of this day. That was so true for me as I walked through those dark days after Tim took his life. Christ gave me such an assurance of His being with my brother during those dark, dark moments in his life. . . and an assurance of the same for myself. “Though I walk through the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Ps 23.4)
Christ is there with us, whether we perceive Him or not.
Holy Saturday is the day of the ‘death of God,’ the day which expresses the unparalleled experience of our age, anticipating the fact that God is simply absent, that the grave hides him, that he no longer awakes, no longer speaks, so that one no longer needs to gainsay him but can simply overlook him . . . Christ strode through the gate of our final lonelienss; in his passion he went down into the abyss of our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there is he. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love dwells in it.
Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. Suffering and torment is still terrible and well-nigh unbearable. Yet the star of hope has risen–the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering–without ceasing to be suffering–becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise. (Benedict XVI, Spes Salvi)
For further reading on the significance of this day, see these posts: “Where is Christ today?” and “Why Saturday is Mary’s Day”
A word for those of you who are in very challenging or distressing situations, situations that you hope are a dream you will wake up from. Last year I found myself in just one of those situations, and a very wise priest said to me, “Don’t miss God’s visitation in the midst of this.” Don’t miss God’s visitation to you in the midst of whatever you are facing. He is surely there, and He will be found by you.
On Saturday evenings, we take turns preparing and sharing something about the Sunday readings. It was Sr. Sarah’s turn this past Saturday, and she shared this little nugget from St. Augustine. I said, “I need that for my blog! This would transform our lives if we lived it.
Let the Lord be your hope; do not hope to get anything else from the Lord God, but let the Lord God Himself be your hope. Many people hope to get money from God, many hope to get from Him honors that are transitory and perishable, or they want some other things from God, something other than God Himself. But you, you must simply ask for your God. (Augustine on Ps 40)
Let the Lord God Himself be your hope . . .
This season always seems to bring the unexpected. Obviously that was the case for Mary: to have to travel to Bethlehem so late in her pregnancy. This excerpt from a meditation by Mother Mary Francis underscores the truth that nothing is unexpected to God. May we continue to travel with Mary through the rest of our Advents. (This is a bit lengthy, but well worth reading the whole of it.)
God has a great plan also in what we call the unexpected. It isn’t unexpected to God. He planned it from all eternity. There is no happenstance in life, certainly not in the spiritual life. So often we say, “Oh, I didn’t expect that to happen!” Well, God did. We could think, “Oh, that is what caused everything to go wrong”, but actually that is what is supposed to make everything go right. There is nothing unexpected in all of creation. There is a plan in what we would call the unexpected. Wasn’t the Incarnation the most unpredictable thing that could ever have happened? God has his whole master plan for each of our lives. . . for the whole Church, and we should delight to remember that nothing should ever take us by surprise, except the wonder of God’s plan.
Our Lady was certainly not expecting the Annunciation, and the whole plan of redemption was most unexpected to humanity–the whole idea of it, that the Father’s Divine Son, himself God, should become man, should be incarnated through the agency of this young, unknown girl in a city of which someone was to say, “Can any good come out of that little place?” What was more unexpected? This was the whole plan.
God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, says, “I know well the plans I have in mind for you” (Jeremiah 29:11). We don’t, but that’s wonderful. If we trust a human being very deeply, we would accept that. If you were to say to me, “I just don’t get this at all”, I would say, “I can’t explain it to you now, but take my word for it: it’s going to turn out right if you will just do what I’m asking you.” And I would venture to say you would believe me. Can we do less for God, who is saying exactly this to us? “I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope. I don’t reveal all the details of those plans because I cannot deprive you of faith. I cannot deprive you of hope. I cannot deprive you of the glory of trusting in me. I cannot deprive you of the wonder of seeing my plan as it unfolds. I don’t want you to read the whole story and the last page, I want you to keep reading and to enjoy the wonder of what’s coming next in the way that children say, ‘And then what? And then what?'” God knows the next page, the next chapter, and even the last page. It is a plan, and all we have to do is place our lives at the service of that plan so that without presumption we can say, “Yes, the Word will be made a little less unutterable through the word of each of our lives, a little more manifest because we have placed our lives at the service of his plan.”
It is sufficient that God knows this plan. When it is hard to accept things, we should make that part of our prayer. We want to become very intimate with him as the great mystics were in very simple, humble ways, saying, “Dear God, I don’t get this at all, but I’m so glad that you do. And I know that you have a plan and I only want to be at the service of your plan.” And who of us, in her own life, has not had experience of htat? The very things that sometimes seemed so hard, so suffering, so puzzling and bewildering, were the very things out of which would come a wonder that we could never have dreamed of.
In our personal lives there is a wonderful unfolding. It is wonderful to keep going forward. Even our Lady did not know the last page. The morning of the Resurrection was not the last page. She still had much work to do with the infant Church, which held together around her, her life still being placed at the service of his plan. Why didn’t the Lord take her with him right away? Nor was her life at the service of his plan completed at her own Assumption, because she still is the Mother of the Church. The Church is still living and it will go on until the end of time. And even then her work will not be done, because then it becomes the Church triumphant of which she is still the Queen. And so, let us determine in all the events of each day to place our lives at the service of his plan. This is the Happiest way that a person can live. (from Come, Lord Jesus, pp. 198-200)
Today’s post comes from The Magnificat Advent Companion for this year. I think it is a good meditation for all of us who are aspiring to be Witnesses to Hope:
There is a story of two priests who were speaking about their respective blood brothers, both of whom had strayed from the Catholic faith. One remarked, “I have been praying for my brother for fifteen years and I’m beginning to lose hope.” The other responded, not without wisdom, “I’ve been praying for my brother for twenty-five years, and I am beginning to hope.” The message of the parable is important: when our hearts are tested by the secularism around us (or within us), prayer for others is related to our hope in the power and presence of God’s grace. Our hope can be tried, but such trials are also related to our own progressive conversion, and therefore serve to our spiritual benefit. . . . Advent is a season of hope in the promises of God, hope for the conversion of ourselves and of others. We should pray ardently for this great good, and allow hope in Christ to change us. For who are we to underestimate the power of the grace of God? (Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP)
Some more excerpts from Deb Herbeck’s book, Safely Through the Storm:
I will not mistrust [God], thought I feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome by fear . . . .I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning. (St. Thomas More)
Go and find him when your patience and strength give out and you feel alone and helpless. Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel. Say to him, “Jesus, you know exactly what is going on. You are all that I have, and you know all. Come to my help.” And then go, and don’t worry about how you are going to manage. That you have told God about it is enough. He has a good memory. (St. Jeanne Jugan)
All things fail, but You, O Lord of them all, never fail. . . . You seem, O Lord, to give extreme tests to those who love You, but only that, in the extremity of their trials, they may learn the greater extremity of Your love. (St. Teresa of Avila)
This morning I was digging through one of my old journals of quotes and found this gem. I hope it strikes a chord of hope in the heart that needs it . . . as it did in mine this morning when I re-read it.
God seems to confound our prayers, by putting off deliverance to such a point that it seems removed to a distance from which it cannot reach us. He does not often deal with us thus, because He is merciful, but He does it sometimes, for the very same reasons. (Adolphe Monod)
Life is busy; it’s still too hot for me; I’m not sleeping well; my internet connection is spotty; I’m “leaving town” for a week and a half and have a lot to do before and afterwards; and I have no inspiration. I don’t mean to complain, just to explain. This meditation from Amy Carmichael is for me–but you can read it as well.
I want to give you a word that helped me all yesterday and will help me today. It is the ‘through’ of Psalm 84.6 [“Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs”] and of Isaiah 43.2 [“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overcome you”] taken with Song of Songs 8.5 [“Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?”].
We are never staying in the valley or the rough waters; we are always only passing through them, just as the bride in the Song of Songs is seen coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved.
So whatever the valley is, or however rough the waters are, we won’t fear. Leaning upon our Beloved we shall come up from the wilderness and, as Psalm 84.6 says, even use the valley as a well, make it a well. We shall find the living waters there and drink of them. (Candles in the Dark, p. 78)
As I said, I’m “out of town” for the next while. Dip into some old posts. There is still some good stuff there! (Just click on “Amy Carmichael” under “Categories”–that will keep you going for awhile!)
Witnesses to Hope 