“One of the reasons I do not write more is that there is always housework, cleaning, scrubbing, sewing, washing (right now it is cleaning fish), etc., to do. Just as she had to do these things, and probably never neglected them. But then, too, I can see her sittings seemingly idle beside a well on just such a day as this, just thanking Him, with each happy breath.” (Dorothy Day)
Friday: from the archives
(First posted February 24, 2010)
If
I have been reading quite a bit of the writings of Isobel Kuhn, a protestant missionary to China right before Communism took over. The excerpt below is from a book about a married couple and child who were trapped in China at the onset of Communism and not allowed to leave for quite awhile. Isobel focuses in on the question that can tempt us all at various times in our lives: “If only . . .” The woman she is writing about is the wife and mother in the family.
“If only that letter had not come, inviting us here.” What about the “if”? She got them [a tract she had on “If”] and read:
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” [Jn 11.32b]” And He could have been there; He was not far away. He knew all about it, and He let him die. I think it was very hard for that woman . . . It is something God could have made different, if He had chosen, because He has all power; and He has allowed that “if” to be there.
I do not discount the “if” in your life. No matter what it is . . . Come to the Lord with your “if” and let Him say to you what He said to Martha. He met her “if” with His “if”! “Did I not tell you that IF you would believe you would see the glory of God” [Jn 11.40]” The glory of God is to come out of the “if” in your life. . .
Do not be thinking of your “if.” Make a power out of your “if” for God. . .
Do you know that light is to fall on your “if” some day? Then take in the possibilities and say, “Nothing has ever come to me, nothing has ever gone from me, that I shall be better for God by it . . .”
Face the “if” in your life and say, For this I have Jesus.
But there is nothing to be ashamed of if you experience those “ifs” plaguing you, as Isobel Kuhn goes on to write:
[O]ur Lord never scolded Martha for her “if”; nor Mary (who accompanied the same “if” with mute worship, prostrating herself at His feet), but with her, He wept. Wept at the sorrow which must accompany spiritual growth in our lives: for by suffering He also learned obedience. (Green Leaf in Drought, p. 36)
Now we know in part
Most of the time we walk around thinking we know what’s going on and forgetting that we only “know in part” (1 Cor 13.12), but every once in awhile God gives us a peek into what is really going on. Here is a delightful story of someone to whom that happened: “When You Get to Turn the Chair Around.” May it strengthen your hope for those days when you do know that you can’t understand and need to hold on in faith.
Throwing ourselves into His arms
I am thinking so much about this quote of St. Thérèse’s that I just have to repost this post from a couple of years ago–in case any of you missed it or if, like me, you need to be reminded of it:
This morning I was pondering my failings and starting to move to discouragement–as I am too often prone to do–when the Lord in His mercy brought to mind a section of a letter from St. Thérèse to Fr. Bellière in which she describes the ideal way for us to come to our heavenly Father when we realize our faults. Reading it always brings me great hope–and I hope it does the same for you:
I would like to try to make you understand by means of a very simple comparison how much Jesus loves even imperfect souls who confide in Him:
I picture a father who has two children, mischievous and disobedient, and when he comes to punish them, he sees one of them who trembles and gets away from him in terror, having, however, in the bottom of his heart the feeling that he deserves to be punished; and his brother, on the contrary, throws himself into his father’s arms, saying that he is sorry for having caused him any trouble, that he loves him, and to prove it he will be good from now on, and if this child asked his father to punish him with a kiss, I do not believe that the heart of the happy father could resist the filial confidence of his child, whose sincerity and love he knows. He realizes, however, that more than once his son will fall into the same faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always, if his son always takes him by the heart . . . . I say nothing to you about the first child, dear little Brother, you must know whether his father can love him as much and treat him with the same indulgence as the other . . . (LT 258)
I pray that you will have the confidence to take God by His heart today and boldly ask Him to punish you with a kiss.
Wise advice
A post from Ann Voskamp for all of you who are having “bad days”: “For the Days that Seem to be Going Bad.”
Friday: from the archives
(First posted October 7, 2009)
The Age Long Minute
The title of this post comes from a meditation by Amy Carmichael on Ps 107.29-30: He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. I have to say that my first thought after reading Then they were glad because they had quiet, was: “This verse must mean a lot to parents of toddlers and teenagers!” Amy’s reflection was other–and deeper–than mine.
“Then they were glad because they had quiet;” the words were music to me. Then in reading the different stories of the Lord calming the sea, I found this: “He came to them . . . and meant to pass by them” [Mk 6.48]. The more literal the translation the more startling it is. As I pondered the matter I saw that this “age-long minute” was part of the spiritual preparation of these men for a life that at that time was unimagined by them–a life of dauntless faith and witness in the absence of any manifestation of the power of the Lord; and it must be the same today. Such minutes must be in our lives, unless our training is to be unlike that of ever saint and warrior who ever lived. Our “minute” may seem endless–”How long wilt Thou forget me,” cried David out of the depths of his–but perhaps looking back we shall in such an experience a great and shining opportunity. Words are spoken then that are spoken at no other time . . . We have a chance to prove our glorious God, to prove that His joy is strength and that His peace passeth all understanding, and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.And the “minute” always ends in one way, there is no other ending recorded anywhere: “But immediately he spoke to them, and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; have no fear” . . . and the wind ceased” [Mk 6.50].
“Then they were glad because they had quiet; and he brought them to their desired haven.”
(Edges of His Ways, pp. 143-44)
If you feel that you are in “an age-long minute”, have hope–He is coming to you and will bring you to your desired haven.
Our travel companion
We are not alone. In the selection below, Pope Benedict encourages us to recognize that the Lord has given us Mary as our travel companion in life. What a gift. When we are needed to go to places that we are uncomfortable going to, when we are called to do things beyond our confidence, or even beyond our competence, remember she is with us, and where she is, so is her Son.
“Mary’s is an authentic missionary journey. It is a journey that takes her far from home, drives her to the world, to places that are foreign to her daily customs, makes her reach, in a certain sense, the limits of what she could reach. Herein lies, also for us, the secret of our life as men and women and as Christians. As had already happened to Abraham, we are asked to come out of ourselves, of the places of our security, to go to others, to different places and realms. It is the lord who asks this of us: ‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses . . . to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1.8).
“And it is always the Lord, who on this journey, places us next to Mary as travel companion and solicitous mother. She gives us security, because she reminds us that her Son Jesus is always with us, according to what he promised: ‘I am with you always, to the close of the age’ (Mt 28.20).”
Our high calling
Luke 6:28 Pray for those who abuse you.
In these days where we find ourselves unliked as Catholics for our stance on so many things, we would do well to heed Amy Carmichael’s advice regarding this Scripture passage–actually this is good advice regarding anyone we may find difficult:
Are there any who are making your burdens heavier than they need be? Sometimes very small things can make our burdens feel heavier. The temptation always is to resent this, and feel ruffled.
The Lord Jesus says to us, “Pray for those who compel you to carry burdens.” Don’t talk about them to others, unless that talk will bear the scrutiny of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t talk about them to yourself. Look up to your Father for them. Pray that their burden may be lightened. (Perhaps they have some of which you know nothing.) Pray, and as you pray, love will flow into your heart for them.
“Tell the story”
Reposting from Interrupting the Silence: “Tell the Story.” (Thanks, Fr. Mike, for another wonderful post.)
The Spirit helps us in our weakness
In his weekly audience last week, Pope Benedict spoke some very encouraging words to those of us who struggle in prayer:
In the Letter to the Romans [Paul] writes: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (8:26). And we know how true the Apostle’s saying is: “We do not know how to pray as we ought”. We want to pray, but God is far off, we do not have the words, the language, to speak with God, nor even the thought to do so. We can only open ourselves, place our time at God’s disposition, wait for Him to help us to enter into true dialogue. The Apostle says: this very lack of words, this absence of words, yet this desire to enter into contact with God, is prayer that the Holy Spirit not only understands, but brings and interprets before God. This very weakness of ours becomes — through the Holy Spirit — true prayer, true contact with God. The Holy Spirit is, as it were, the interpreter who makes us, and God, understand what it is we wish to say.
In prayer we experience — more than in other aspects of life — our weakness, our poverty, our being creatures, for we are placed before the omnipotence and transcendence of God. And the more we advance in listening and in dialogue with God, so that prayer becomes the daily breath of our souls, the more we also perceive the measure of our limitations, not only in the face of the concrete situations of everyday life, but also in our relationship with the Lord. The need to trust, to rely increasingly upon Him then grows in us; we come to understand that “we do not know … how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26).
And it is the Holy Spirit who helps our inability, who enlightens our minds and warms our hearts, guiding us as we turn to God. For St. Paul, prayer is above all the work of the Holy Spirit in our humanity, to take our weakness and to transform us from men bound to material realities into spiritual men. In the First Letter to the Corinthians he says: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual terms” (2:12-13). By means of His abiding in our fragile humanity, the Holy Spirit changes us; He intercedes for us; He leads us toward the heights of God (cf. Romans 8:26).
You can read his whole address here.
Witnesses to Hope 