When we can’t understand

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Often we find ourselves in situations where it is so difficult to understand what God is doing, why He is allowing some particular thing to happen, why it appears that Satan has the upper hand.  Her is a bit of sage wisdom from Amy Carmichael which I trust will provide encouragement for any of you in those types of situations:

Some find it hard to believe that Satan (a conquered foe) can interfere in the affairs of a child of God.  Yet we read of St. Paul earnestly endeavoring to do something and Satan hindering him [1 Thess 2.18].  The reason for Satan’s power was not prayerlessness.  ‘Night and day am I praying with passionate earnestness that I may see your faces’ [1 Thess 3.10 Way].  Satan could not touch his spirit, his heart’s affections, or any other vital thing in him, but he could so order events that the apostle could not do for these children of his love all that he longed to do.  He could only write letters.  He could not be with them

And in the familiar 2 Cor 12.7, we have a still stranger thing, a messenger from Satan allowed to do bodily hurt, and allowed to continue to hurt, we are not told for how long.

So it is clear that there are activities in the Unseen which are not explained to us.  Every now and then the curtain between is drawn aside for a moment, and we see.  But it is soon drawn back again.

Only this we know: ‘On the day I called, thou didst answer me, my strength of soul thou didst increase’ [v. 3].  If that be so what does anything matter? Oh, to use all disappointments, delays and trials of faith and patience as St. Paul used his.  What golden gain came to our glorious Lord because of these experiences.  And see how he closes this letter to the Thessalonians which is so full of human longing: ‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is He that calls you, Who also shall do it’ [1 Thess 5.23,24].  Faithful is He: He will do it.” (AC, Edges, pp. 141-142)

I will be able

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

“Purgatory: perhaps the deepest but also the most blissful kind of suffering.  The terrible torture of having to settle now all the things we have dreaded a whole life long.  The doors we have frantically held shut are now torn open.  But all the while this knowledge: now for the first time I will be able to do it–that ultimate thing in me, that total thing.  Now I can feel my wings growing; now I am fully becoming myself.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

May all the souls of our beloved dead quickly come to the place of becoming fully themselves in God . . .

No obstacles for the Beloved

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

The love of our Beloved for us:

One morning during the daily Bible reading on our mission compound in Palestine, our little Arab nurse read from Daily Light a quotation from the Song of Songs, “The voice of my Beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills” (Song of Songs 2.8).  When asked what the verse meant, she looked up with a happy smile of understanding and said, “It means there are no obstacles which our Savior’s love cannot overcome, and that to him, mountains of difficulty are as easy as an asphalt road!” (from the preface to Hinds feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard)

“His answer changed my life.”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved7 Comments

As some of you know, I recently gave a talk at Witnesses to Hope on undoing the sin of Eve by deciding to trust in God’s goodness.  At the end of the talk I shared about what the Lord had been teaching me about the importance of thanking Him in all circumstances.  This morning I was reading from Consoling the Heart of Jesus, a Do-It-Yourself Retreat by Fr. Michael Gaitley.  Fr. Michael was describing a conversation he had had with an older priest about trusting in Jesus.  I was so encouraged to read this conclusion to the conversation:

[The older priest asked:] “And how do you live trust?  What’s its concrete expression in your daily living?”

I was stumped, “I don’t know.”

His answer changed my life: “The way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things.  That’s what the Lord said to St. Faustina.”

“The way you live trust is by praise and thanksgiving, to praise and thank God in all things.”  May we allow that answer to change our lives as well.  I thank God for each of you . . . .

Lift up your eyes

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

One of our Sisters is celebrating her birthday today.  We have a strange custom of decorating the bathroom the night before the person’s birthday, so she is greeted first thing in the morning with birthday wishes.  This Sister did not expect this, however, because she was staying at one of our other houses overnight.  That’s the background.

She got up this morning, went to the bathroom, looked in the toilet and saw something red floating there.  She started asking herself: “What is that?!  Is it a bug?!”  A few moments later, she looked up to see all the decorations she had missed when she first walked in.  Including a note about  how beautifully and wonderfully made she was. The “floater” was confetti that one of the Sisters had tossed into the toilet water.  (Like I said . . . strange custom.)  By only looking in the toilet, she had missed the other decorations.

Spiritual lesson to be learned here: Don’t spend your life looking in the toilet and missing the eternal realities.  Lift up your eyes and heart!  😉

Contemplations

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A couple of poems from Anne Bradstreet about the beauty of autumn:

Contemplations (I and II)

I.
Some time now past in the autumnal tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o’er by his rich golden head;
Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true,
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixèd hue;
Rapt were my senses at this delectable view.

II.
I wist not what to wish.  Yet sure, thought I,
If so much excellence abide below,
How excellent is He that dwells on high?
Whose power and beauty by His works we know!
Sure He is goodness, wisdom, glory, light,
That hath this under-world so richly dight.
More heaven than earth was here, no winter and no night.

Note: Phoebus–another name for the Greek god Helios, or the sun.
dight–adorned or dressed.

A star of hope

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“Just as the presence of the memory of God’s goodness helps us and becomes a star of hope for us in our common, collective history, so also each of us has his own personal history of salvation, and we must truly treasure this history, keeping always in mind the great things He has also done in my life, so that we might trust: His mercy is eternal. And if today I am in the dark night, tomorrow He will free me, for His mercy is eternal.”  (Pope Benedict XVI, Wednesday audience, October 19, 2011)

Take a moment today to remember, to remember God’s goodness, to look to that star of hope in your own life.

The strength of hope

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Just to underline what Pope Benedict said in his meditation on Ps 136 this past Wednesday: “Remembering becomes the strength of hope.  Remembering tells us: God is; God is good, and His mercy is eternal.”  This is so important for us to cultivate, this art, this habit of remembering.  Life can move too fast, and we fail to remember all that God has done, especially the little things: laughing at the table, the winter sun on the river, bluebirds, St. Therese’s eyes looking at me, my dentist’s generosity, my middle name that means “full of grace.”  I would easily have forgotten all of those things except for my list–the list I started 8 months ago–my list of things to be thankful for each day.  I’m now on #476.  (I really should be farther along than that!)  And when I look back over this list, I remember the good things the Lord has done and I have hope for tomorrow.  “Remembering becomes the strength of hope.  Remembering tells us: God is; God is good, and His mercy is eternal.”

(If you want to learn more about making a list, go here.)

Remembering

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From Benedict XVI’s reflection on Psalm 136:

[W]e can say: The liberation from Egypt, the time in the desert, the entrance into the Promised Land and then the other problems are very distant from us; they are not part of our history. But we must be attentive to the fundamental structure of this prayer [of this psalm]. The fundamental structure is that Israel remembers the Lord’s goodness. In its history, there are so many dark valleys, so many passages through difficulty and death, but Israel remembers that God is good, and they can overcome in the dark valley — in the valley of death — because they remember. Israel remembers the Lord’s goodness and His power; that His mercy endures forever.

And this is also important for us: remembering the Lord’s goodness. Remembering becomes the strength of hope. Remembering tells us: God is; God is good, and His mercy is eternal. And thus, remembering opens the road to the future — even in the darkness of a day, of a moment in time, it is the light and star that guides us. Let us, too, remember the good; let us remember God’s eternal, merciful love. Israel’s history is already part of our memory as well, of how God revealed Himself, of how He created for Himself a people to be His own. Then God became man, one of us: he lived with us, suffered with us, died for us. He remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament and in the Word. It is a history, a remembrance of God’s goodness that assures us of His goodness: His love is eternal.

You can read his entire meditation here.