Category: Lent

A footnote

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I was grabbed by a footnote in a book I’m reading.  The author was commenting on the blessing it is for us that the book of Job has survived through the years.  It is a blessing that “God has willed that this great cry of scandal before the ways of Providence should survive until our days.”  He footnotes this statement with:

God has also willed that the only words gathered by the two oldest evangelists from the lips of the dying Jesus were, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27.46; Mk 15.34, so that believers in a state of confusion should never feel that they were intruding, but always find a place to lay down their head in the paradise of Scripture.  (Fr. Dominique Barthélemy)

weep and wait

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

As we approach Holy Week, here is a Sunday-poem by Luci Shaw that will, hopefully, prod us all to never let anything we do keep us from running to Him for mercy–and she is full aware that this often seems the harder path to take:

Judas, Peter

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves
but if we find grace
to weep and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me

Royalty

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Royalty

He was a plain man
and learned no latin.

Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild ones
and the weather.

He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God’s will.

Dust sandaled his feet.

He wore purple only once
and that was an irony.

~Luci Shaw

The power of an apron

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

A good goal for Lent–a realizable one–could be to “Come away for awhile” with the Lord.  The space of time might be only 3 minutes.  Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley and 17 others, used to throw her apron up over her head in the middle of the kitchen as a sign to her children that she was praying.  Remember that children pattern themselves on what they see their parents do.  (Actions speak louder than words . . .)  I read this post from Ann Voskamp this morning and thought it was not only a brilliant idea for children, but also for us who are called to be like a little child: “How to make and take a peace retreat”. Praying that you find a corner or a chair and three minutes today to come away with your Beloved.

It’s really all about you

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I was going to start out this post by reminding you–and me, of course–that Lent is not all about you; it’s all about Christ.  It’s so easy to get focused on what we’re doing for Lent, etc. But then I got to thinking and realized again that actually it is all about us.  The love of the Father is always about us, about drawing us to Himself, about manifesting His love to us through His Son.  These 40 days of retreat are meant to draw us into a deeper knowledge of that love.

The Bridegroom

“Whatever he did, whatever he said on earth, even the insults, even the spitting, the buffeting, even the Cross and the tomb, were nothing but yourself [Father] speaking in the Son, appealing to us by your love, stirring up our love for you.”

~William of St. Thierry

Don’t miss Him

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

This morning I was meditating on Simeon and Anna.  I know it’s Lent and not the Christmas season!  That was part of my meditation.  Simeon and Anna didn’t know, at the time, that it was the Christmas season.  It was just another day of prayer in the Temple.  But if Simeon had not been sensitive to the Holy Spirit, he would have missed the Child he had been waiting for all of his life.  Thinking about this made me pray that I wouldn’t miss Christ’s coming to me today in whatever guise He takes.  Let’s all keep watch for Him today.  Maybe we’ll find that it’s really Christmas during Lent.  🙂

Singing temptations away

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

How do you fight temptation?  As we journey through the desert of Lent, we are sure to face temptations.  Try this advice from Hannah Whitehall Smith, a nineteenth century write and evangelist:

Then my enemies will be turned back in the day when I call.  This I know, that God is for me. (Ps 56.9)

Do you know what the psalmist knew?  Do you know that God is for you, and that he will cause your enemies to turn back?  If you do, then go out to meet your temptations, singing a song of triumph as you go.  Meet your very next temptation in this way.  At its first approach, begin to give thanks for the victory.  Claim continually that you are more than conqueror through him who loves you, and refuse to be frightened off by any foe.  Shout the shout of faith with Joshua and Jehoshaphat and David and Paul.  I can assure you that when you shout, all your enemies will fall down dead before you.

Singing is such a splendid way of disarming the devil!  It feeds your soul and drives him away, as Amy Carmichael reminds us:

The reason why singing is such a splendid shield against the fiery darts of the devil is that it greatly helps us to forget him, and he cannot endure being forgotten.  He likes us to be occupied with him, what he is doing (our temptations), with his victories (our falls), with anything but our glorious Lord.  So sing.  Never be afraid of singing too much.  We are much more likely to sing too little.

“Where are you?”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved4 Comments

“See where he stands behind our wall.  He looks in at the window, he peers through the lattice.”  (Song of Songs 2.9)

This is the point of Lent: to open up to our Beloved who is looking in at us through the window.  Fr. Blaise Arminjon writes:  “For if God is love, there can only be in the final analysis a single sin: not to love, to refuse to open oneself to the waiting love.”  After Adam and Eve sinned, the first words of God to them were “Where are you?” (Gen 3.9)  God is all about relationship.  He experienced the loss of relationship with Adam and Eve.  His first words to them were not: “What did you do?” but “Where are you?”  And that is what Lent is supposed to be all about for us: our relationship with Him, not what we have done.  (If we concentrate on relationship, the other will fall in  line.) So listen to Him saying to you: “Where are you?”  Hear His desire to coax you out from wherever you may be hiding from Him.  Take a moment, even now, to gaze at Him gazing at you through the lattice and listen to what He speaks to your heart . . .