Category: love/mercy of God

God’s kaleidoscope

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Do you remember the first time you ever picked up a kaleidoscope and looked through it, the sheer delight you experienced?  Here’s St. Thérèse’s thoughts on her experience:

This toy . . . intrigued me, and for a long time I kept wondering just what could produce so delightful a phenomenon.  One day a careful examination revealed that the unusual effect was merely the result of a combination of tiny scraps of paper and wool scattered about inside.  When on further scrutiny I discovered three looking-glasses inside the tube, the puzzle was solved.  And this simple toy became for me the image of a great mystery . . .. So long as our actions, even the most trivial, remain within love’s kaleidoscope, the Blessed Trinity (which the three converging glasses represent) imparts to them a marvelous brightness and beauty . . . .  The eye-piece of the spy-glass symbolizes the good God, who looking from the outside (but through Himself, as it were) into the kaleidoscope finds everything quite beautiful, even our miserable straws of effort and our most insignificant actions.

God, give us the ability to see ourselves–and others–as you see us.

Try this link for fun!  And, if you want to try making your own, go here!

A cheap photo album

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I have a small photo album, one of those cheap ones you can get at the dollar store that hold 4×6 inch pictures.  A cheap photo album, but like any of yours, probably full of treasures.  This particular one doesn’t hold photos of my family (although I do have a few of those).  Instead I have collected art prints and words–poetry and prose–that inspire me.  It does include one real photo–of my brother Tim’s grave.  Otherwise, it’s simply, as I said, art work that inspires me, that speaks to me of the love of God and my love for Him. I use it in prayer regularly, opening it up to this or that page that may strike me at the time.   On a couple of facing pages I have placed side by side two pieces of art that you wouldn’t normally place side by side, but doing so makes a strong spiritual point for me.  I would like to share some of those with you in this blog, and hopefully doing so will pull you into the love of God.  Look at the ones below, for instance.  Can you what is similar in both of them . . . before reading what I’ve written below?

The one on the left is obviously of Jesus rescuing Peter as he sank beneath the waves.  The one on the right may not be as obvious.  This is an icon of Jesus’ descent into hell when He goes to release Adam and Eve.  Did you notice in both how Jesus reaches out His hand in both situations to grasp the hand of the other?  That is a window into His Heart for each of us.  He is always reaching out His hand to each of us in our need, to strongly grasp ours as we reach out for Him.

 

Jesus is sweet

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

Today is the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.  I like to think of it as the triumph of God’s incredible love for us.  Below is a reading by St. Anselm trying to convey how much Christ loved us from the cross:

Jesus is sweet in the bowing of His head and in death, sweet in the stretching out of His arms, sweet in the nailing together of His feet with one nail.

Sweet in the bowing of His head; for bending down His head form the cross He seems to say to His loved one: ‘Oh My beloved, how often hast thou desired to enjoy the kiss of My mouth, declaring to Me through thy comrades, “Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth.” I am ready, I bow My head, I offer My mouth to be kissed as much as thou wilt.  And say not in your heart, “I seek not such a kiss which is without beauty and loveliness, but I seek a glorious kiss which the angelic citizens of heaven seek ever to enjoy.” Be not thus mistaken, for unless you kiss that first mouth you will never reach to that other.  Kiss therefore the mouth that I now offer to you, for though it be without beauty or loveliness it is not without grace.’

Sweet in the stretching out of His arms; for in extending His arms He reveals how He desires our embraces, and seems to say: ‘O all you that labor and are heavy burdened, come and be refreshed within My arms.  See how I am ready to gather you all within My arms; then come all.  Let no one fear to be repulsed, for I desire not the death of the sinner but that he be converted and live.  My delights are to be with the children of men.’

Sweet in the opening of His side; for that opening reveals to us the riches of His goodness and the charity of His Heart towards us.

Sweet in the nailing of His feet with one nail; for by that He says to us: ‘Lo, if you think that I must flee from you, and so are slow to come to Me, knowing that I am swift as the hart, see that My feet are fixed by a nail, so that I can in no wise flee from you, for mercy has me bound fast.  I cannot flee from you as your sins deserve, for My hands are fixed with nails.’

Good Jesus, humble Lord, dear Lord, sweet in mouth, sweet in ear, unknowable and untellably pleasant, kind and merciful, mighty, wise, benign, generous but not rash, exceedingly sweet and gentle!  Thou alone art the highest good, beautiful above the sons of men, fair and comely, the chosen of thousands and all-desirable!  Fair things become the fair.  O my Lord, now my whole desires Thine arms and Thy kiss.  I desire nought but Thee, as though no reward were promised.  If hell and heaven were not, yet would I long for Thee, for Thy sweet good and for Thyself.  Thou art my constant meditation, my word, my work.  Amen.”

– St. Anselm

The fire of Your love

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Eternal Trinity,
Godhead,
mystery deep as the sea,
you could give me no greater gift
then the gift of
yourself.

For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed,
which itself consumes all the selfish love
that fills my being.

Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness,
illuminates the mind with its light,
and causes me to know your
truth.

And I know that
you are beauty and wisdom itself.

The food of angels,
you gave yourself to man
in the fire of your
love.

~St. Catherine of Siena

The measure of a father’s love

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For the last week and a half I have been pondering a piece written by Fr. Peter John Cameron for this month’s Magnificat.  Perhaps you’ve seen it as well?  For those who haven’t, I would like to include a few sections because he brings together two passages that it never would have occurred to me to juxtapose.  The first is the gospel reading for this coming Sunday, the story of the prodigal son.  The second–well, read on. He begins:

What was it that turned the prodigal son against his father (see Lk 15:11-32)?  Maybe the father was like the famous landowner in the parable of the workers hired late (Mt 20.1-16) who goes out five different times in the course of a single day to employ laborers for his vineyard.  At five o’clock in the evening he hires yet more workers.  And even though these men toil barely an hour, the landowner pays them the usual daily wage–the same salary as all the other laborers.  This sparks an outcry among the workers who have labored all day long bearing “the day’s burden and heat.”  Perhaps the prodigal son was among those who bitterly grumbled against the landowner.  Maybe it was the father’s extravagant display of generosity that provoked the son to demand, “Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.”  As if to say: “If you want to be so foolish and wasteful with your money, then give it to me, because I can’t stand being around here anymore if this is the way you want to act.”

And as Fr. Peter goes on to say: “What can the father do?”  What can we do when someone rails against our generosity? What is our Father to do when we rail against His generosity?

What can the father do?  If he refuses his son, the son will grow sullen and resentful, harboring a grudge that would wreak havoc on the household.  But to give his son the sum and let him go would be like setting the boy on the path of his own self-destruction.  Ironically, the prodigal son forces his father to become a kind of Abraham on Mount Moriah, where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac (see Gen 22.1-14).  In order not to sin against heaven, the father had to put his son in peril: “Then [Abraham] reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son” (Gen 22.10).  Commenting on the father of the parable, the Venerable John Paul II wrote, “The love of the son that springs from the very essence of fatherhood in a way obliges the father to be concerned about the son’s dignity.  This concern is the measure of his love.”  Thus the father hands over the inheritance and lets his son go.

We know the ending, a happy one.  It’s always a risk, but a risk the Father is willing to take–because that’s how much He loves us. When our life seems to be going badly, perhaps it is a result of the Lord letting us go our own way . . . because that is the measure of a Father’s love.

His love has no end

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I have been meditating on Ps 136 this past weekend.  The RSV begins: O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever–or as Derek Kidner points out, the better translation is: for his love has no end. This phrase repeats itself after every verse of the psalm–for his love has no end, for his love has no end, for his love has no end. Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, an Orthodox pastor,  has a wonderful commentary on this phrase:

Psalm 136 insists, literally in every verse, that the root of all God’s activity in this world, beginning even with the world’s creation, is mercy–hesed.  This mercy is eternal–le’olam–“forever.”  Mercy is the cause and reason of all that God does. He does nothing, except as an expression of His mercy.  his mercy stretches out to both extremes of infinity.  “For His mercy endures forever” is the palimpsest that lies under each line of Holy Scripture.  Thus, too, from beginning to end of any Orthodox service, the word “mercy” appears more than any other word.  The encounter with God’s mercy is the root of all Christian worship.  Everything else that can be said of God is but an aspect of His mercy.  Mercy is the defining explanation of everything that God has revealed of Himself.  Every Orthodox service of worship, from Nocturnes to Compline, is a polyeleion, a celebration of God’s sustained and abundant mercy.  What we touch, or see, or hear, or taste–from the flames that flicker before the icons and the prayers our voices pour forth, to the billowing incense and the mystic contents of the Chalice–all is mercy.  Mercy is the explanation of every single thought that God has with respect to us.  When we deal with God, everything is mercy; all we will every discover of God will be the deepening levels of His great, abundant, overflowing, rich and endless mercy.  “For His mercy endures forever” is the eternal song of the saints.  (Christ in the Psalms, p. 272)

“I remember Thee”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

I noticed something this morning as I was meditating/studying Psalm 42.  The psalm seems to fluctuate between feelings of desperation and self-encouragement to hope in God for “I shall again praise him.”  The “something” I noticed was a shift from focus in v. 4 to v. 6.  In v. 4, the psalmist attempts to lift up his spirits by remembering things in the past, ways that he had led worshipers in giving thanks to God for things He had done, the remembering of which should surely give him hope.  Not a bad thing to do when you’re discouraged.  Definitely a step in the right direction. But in v. 6, when his “soul is cast down”, he “remembers thee“.  He remembers God, and God alone.  How much better to lift our minds and hearts to God rather than just dwelling on the things of God?  Things and events may change, but God is always immoveable and unchanging, and that implies that His Love is unchanging . . . for He is Love.

God is all for you alone

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Earlier this week, a good friend of mine read out loud to me excerpts from one of my favorite books (and now hers), Impact of God, by Fr. Iain Matthew.  I don’t think I’ve ever shared anything from that book with all of you.  The book’s purpose is to introduce the reader to St. John of the Cross, but even more importantly, I think, to gain a deeper understanding of God’s desire for relationship with us, especially when prayer is dark and dry.  Here’s a little taste from one of the first chapters of the book:

[God] does not give in a general way only, like rays of sunlight shining above a mountain, but leaving me-in-particular shadowed in the valley.  John’s God enters to confront the other person as if there were no other.  It seems to her that God has no other concern, ‘but that he is all for her alone.’  God comes in strength, capable of reconciling opposites, ‘giving life for death’s distress.’  His embrace is as wide as Good Friday to Sunday, and nothing in the person is too much for him.  He finds in the soul, not a burden, or a disappointment, but a cause for ‘glad celebration.’  John dares to place on the lips of his God the words:

‘I am yours, and for you, and I am pleased to be as I am that I may be yours and give myself to you.’

Ponder that.

More to come . . .

Do not argue with Me

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Hot weather and I are not a good mix.   I am thankful that it benefits some–one of the Sisters in our house regularly proclaims: “It’s great tomato weather!”  And I will be thankful when the tomatoes come–although honestly I could wait a few weeks if it meant cooler weather!

All that really has nothing to do with my post today, other than to say I find it hard to think when it’s this hot, so I’m just going to post a quote from St. Faustina about the merciful love of God, trusting in it for myself in the midst of my weakness during hot days. 😉

Be not afraid of your Savior, O sinful soul.  I make the first move to come  to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me.  Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you.  How dear your soul is to Me!  I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart . . .

My mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world.  Who can measure the extent of My goodness?  For you I descended from heaven to earth; for you I allowed Myself to be nailed to the Cross; for you I let My Sacred Heart be pierced with a lance, thus opening wide the source of mercy for you.  Come, then, with trust to draw graces from this fountain.  I never reject a contrite heart.  Your misery has disappeared in the depths of My mercy.  Do not argue with Me about your wretchedness.  You will give Me pleasure if you hand over to Me all your troubles and griefs.  I shall heap upon you the treasures of My grace.  (Diary, 1485)

“But Not Without Wine”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A Sunday-poem from Jessica Powers about our God who is a God of prodigality:

But Not Without Wine

“You are drunk, but not with wine.”  (Isaiah 51.21)

O God of too much giving, whence is this
inebriation that possesses me,
that the staid road now wanders all amiss
and that the wind walks much too giddily,
clutching a bush for balance or a tree?
How then can dignity and pride endure
with such inordinate mirth upon the land,
when steps and speech are somewhat insecure
and the light heart is wholly out of hand?

If there be indecorum in my songs,
fasten the blame where rightly it belongs:
on Him who offered me too many cups
of His most potent goodness–not on me,
a peasant who, because a king was host,
drank out of courtesy.