They shall sing for love

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A Sunday-poem from Christina Rossetti (1830-1894):

If Only

If I might only love my God and die!
But now he bids me love him and live on,
Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high;
And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
While autumn grips me with its fingers wan,
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
And winter may not pass a weary while,
But when it passes spring shall flower again:
And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,
Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane,
Yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.

“Regardless of the Homily

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Wonderful advice from Fr. Pat McNulty on how to listen to any homily:

Regardless of the Homily

by Fr. Pat McNulty.

September. School. Yuk! I hated going to school and I had to go for 25 years—from age 5 to 30. But I loved learning, and it was a blessing whenever I had a teacher who could connect the two.

After I was ordained, when I thought that I had at last finished going to school, I was immediately assigned to teach in one of our diocesan high schools! And I didn’t know the first thing about teaching.

So that September, feeling like a five-year-old going to school for the first time, I was on the lookout for teachers with a reputation for making learning come alive—hoping I might learn to do the same. One such was Sister Mary Eileen, who taught science.

In those days teachers did a little bit of everything, and one of Sister Mary Eileen’s other jobs was bookkeeping, a job she probably got because she had the gift for making every penny count.

Some of those “pennies” were being wasted by students who left lights burning in empty classrooms at the end of the day. So knowing she would never find out who had left them on, she devised a technique to help everyone learn the cost of electricity.

Whenever the lights were left on, Sister Eileen would go to that classroom. Then, in front of the whole class, she would take the class list, pull a long hatpin out of her sleeve, close her eyes, and take a stab at the list.

To read the rest, go here.

“An unparalyzed faith”

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This is such an astounding story–a great one for the Year of Faith:

On July 3, Robert Shelby wanted to show one of his children how to avoid belly-flops when diving. When Shelby demonstrated at a neighbor’s pool, he slammed his head on the bottom.

He tried to swim. He couldn’t.

“None of my body is moving,” he said. “So, I go through my feet, my toes, my legs and knees, go through my arms. I’m trying every single part of my body that I thought might get me there, tried dog paddling, but I’m absolutely paralyzed. There’s nothing moving.”

He could hear his children playing, apparently oblivious to his plight. Holding his breath, he realized they might not notice until it was too late, and he would drown.

About 10 years earlier, Shelby had become a Christian. In addition to his full-time job in industrial sales, Shelby is a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. Suspended between the surface and the bottom of the pool, Shelby pondered how to handle his last moments on Earth.

“I prayed just a moment about it, and what came to me was that (since) I praised God for the last 10 years of my life, I should praise him now,” Shelby said. “So, I began praising him for his grace, for saving me, sending his son, those type things, praising him for the privilege of raising up a family and ministering to people. I prayed that he would watch over my family and provide for them.”

As he prayed, Shelby blacked out. When he regained consciousness, his life was radically altered.

You can read the rest here: “An Unparalyzed Faith”

In the eyes of God

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“In the eyes of God, we are not, first of all, sinners, who can approach him only with fear and contrite hearts.  The basic reality about me is not that I am a sinner, who will be loved only if I fulfill certain requirements.  The basic reality of my life is that I am precious in the eyes of God.  I am loved by God as though I were an only child.  God’s love is not one of his attributes.  It is his very essence.  Thus, it is unchanging, whether we accept it or not; whether we open our minds and our hearts to it, or not.”

That paragraph is an excerpt from God’s Love: Reason for Hope, a somewhat lengthy article by Fr. William P. Clark, O.M.I.  And, if you don’t get a chance to read the entire thing, here are a couple other paragraphs:

“God’s love is unchanging.  There is nothing I can do either to reduce, or increase, God’s love.  I can only graciously accept it, and find in it the fulfillment of my life.  Christ did not wait to offer his love until we changed.  It is because he loved us first, that we have the ability to change.  In his first letter, John stated that very clearly: “It is not we who have loved God, but God loved us, and sent his Son to expiate our sins” (I John 4: 10).

“God’s love is unconditional.  Otherwise, it would not be true love.  True love is always unconditional.  If I attach conditions to my love, it is not true love. It is, rather, an offering, an exchange, not a gift.   In our human relationships, we tend to attach conditions to the love we give.  In telling someone we love them, we may be implicitly saying things like this: “I will love you as long as you return my love.  I will love you if you meet my expectations of you.”  Because that is the way our human condition leads us to act, it is not easy to accept the fact that God’s love is unconditional.  Being aware—often, only too painfully—of our brokenness, our failings, and our guilt, we feel unworthy of such unconditional love.”

Sharon’s story

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Wow.  That’s all I can say about Sharon Doran’s story which she shared at Witnesses to Hope Monday night.  She is so clearly a “witness to hope,” and I hope you can make time to listen to her sharing.  You can find it here.  She’ll make you laugh and cry, encourage you and inspire you.  You can find out more about the Bible Study she leads here: Seeking Truth.  You can e-mail Sharon at contact@seekingtruth.net  (Sr. Ann gave her an excellent and inspiring introduction which you can find here–the quality of Sr. Ann’s recording is not as high quality as Sharon’s but still worth the listen.)

Be it understood

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“Be it understood and remembered that the darkness of trials is not evil, that dryness of spirit is not sin, and that confusion of mind is not malice. They are invitations to patience, calls to resignation, beckonings to the healing Cross, and admonitions to be humble and obedient to the will of God.”

William Ullathorne from Patience and Humility, Sophia Institute Press

Faith’s beginning

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A Sunday-poem by Fr. David May from Madonna House for the beginning of this Year of Faith:

Faith’s Beginning

by Fr. David May.

It was (and is) like this:
That tortuous, tortured place,
Fleeing, like a tremulous little bird,
Flitting between hiding places,
Creature of shadows
Never in full light,
Yet giving away its presence
In fluttering wings and piercing
Song of evening…

That closed and stone-hard place,
Impenetrable, hard as hawk’s eyes,
Gleaming, piercing summer’s noon
With cold, unyielding stare,
Hunter driven by hunger…

Cauldron of bitter schemes,
Witch’s brew angry and troubled,
Seething even in quiet,
Secretly boiling, overflowing
Pain of nothingness and loving it…

That place—my heart—embraced by You.
No word, no admonition,
No judgment, no mountain storm
Of lightning, wind, thunder,
Slide of rocks, mud, trees,
Not even a gentle breeze or whisper of air,
But only strength of stillness
Laying irrevocable claim,
As if mining for gold
Buried in black-night earth,
Seeing treasure where none is,
Digging with bloodied hands
Till the mask is cast off—

Awakening love, reaching out
Like a reed crushed then mended,
Believing in the One believing in me,
Creature from his hands.

And a note from Madonna House: If you enjoy our articles, we ask you to please consider subscribing to the print edition of Restoration; it’s only $10 a year, and will help us stay in print. Thanks, and God bless you!

Friday: from the archives

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Friday: from the archives

Sr. Dorcee, beloved's avatarWitnesses to Hope

A day or two ago one who was with me prayed like this, “Lord, help me to welcome interruptions, especially when the interruption seems less important than the work I am trying to do.”  That prayer has often been mine.  I expect many of you have felt the need of the loving grace of the Lord to help you to welcome interruptions, especially when they do not seem to matter nearly so much as what we are doing at the moment.  Thinking of this, I found myself this early morning in Lk. 9.11.  The people followed our Lord Jesus (He had wanted to be alone with His disciples just then), and He welcomed them.

It is so easy to be too preoccupied to be welcoming.  May the love of our Lord Jesus, for whose sake and in whose service we are here, so overflow from us that it will…

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The Year of Faith

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An article by Catherine Doherty from Madonna House on faith–faith in the God who loves us no matter what.  Be encouraged!

Getting Ready for the Year of Faith

by Catherine Doherty.

When I was a young wife in Petrograd, the city was in chaos when the communists took over. My husband Boris and I were sleeping on the floor after everything was taken away from us.

I said to him, “Boris, I am afraid.” He yawned and said, “Why? You are a Christian.”

That was a pretty good answer, and I never forgot it. If I am a Christian, can I give way to hopelessness? No. The resurrected Christ is in our midst.

What we have to battle in this day and age is our own hopelessness. Many people are depressed. They are depressed by their image of themselves.

Well, the picture they see in the mirror is false. Then, on top of this depression and in it and over it comes a terrible loneliness.

The answer to it is so utterly simple. The answer is faith. A very small word, but one of such immense power that it can lift you to the very feet of God. Faith in who you are as a child of God, faith in what you stand for, faith in where you are going.

These days, who of us doesn’t need faith, love, peace, compassion, understanding? So many of us cannot escape the fears that bay at us like a pack of wolves at our heels.

And so many of these fears are nonsensical. Let us stop listening to them.

We don’t have to worry about our sinfulness. We just need to go to confession. And forget all that nonsense about being ugly and unlovable. Throw yourself into the arms of God who incarnated himself to become like you and me.

You can read the rest here.