Feeling a need for something from Amy Carmichael, so I browsed through my posts of hers, and I thought I would “re-share” this one with you: New every morning. Have a blessed day!
If only you knew . . .
I got behind in reading my Magnificat Lenten Companion, so you can imagine my surprise when I read the devotional for Sunday only to find it mapping on so well with what I wrote yesterday. (Honest, I had not read it before posting.) From Frances Hogan, commenting on the Gospel about the Samaritan woman:
God, who is every-present to his creation, is hidden in our daily encounters. If we open our eyes we will meet him in a visit from a friend, or a “chance” encounter in our everyday lives. He waits patiently for us to awaken to his presence and begin the life-changing dialogue with him, like the Samaritan woman at the well does. He whispers to our souls, “If only you knew who is here.” . . .
The Samaritan woman, at the beginning of the conversation, had no clue who she was talking to . . . and how true is that for us as well? As I wrote yesterday: “Don’t miss God’s visitation to you in the midst of whatever you are facing. He is surely there, and He will be found by you.”
God’s visitation
A word for those of you who are in very challenging or distressing situations, situations that you hope are a dream you will wake up from. Last year I found myself in just one of those situations, and a very wise priest said to me, “Don’t miss God’s visitation in the midst of this.” Don’t miss God’s visitation to you in the midst of whatever you are facing. He is surely there, and He will be found by you.
“Night is not dark where she shines bright”
That line, taken from the line of a song about Mary, reminds me of a poem by Jessica Powers that Iwould like to share with you this Sunday:
And in her morning
The Virgin Mary cannot enter into
my soul for an indwelling. God alone
has sealed this land as secretly His own;
but being mother and implored, she comes
to stand along my eastern sky and be
a drift of sunrise over God and me.
God is a light and genitor of light.
Yet for our weakness and our punishment
He hides Himself in midnights that prevent
all save the least awarenesses of Him.
We strain with dimmed eyes inward and perceive
no stir of what we clamored to believe.
Yet I say: God (if one may jest with God),
Your hiding has not reckoned with our Lady
who holds my east horizon and whose glow
lights up my inner landscape, high and low.
All my soul’s acres shine and shine with her!
You are discovered, God; awake, rise
out of the dark of Your Divine surprise!
You own reflection has revealed Your place,
for she is utter light by Your own grace.
And in her light I find You hid within me,
and in her morning I can see Your Face.
“And he who had only a Father now had a Mother too”
I would like to share with you today an excerpt from St. John of the Cross’s “Romances”. In this poem, John reveals the Heart of God behind the Annunciation and the Incarnation:
7. The Incarnation
Now that the time had come
when it would be good
to ransom the bride
serving under the hard yoke
of that law
which Moses had given her,
the Father, with tender love,
spoke in this way:
“Now you see, Son, that your bride
was made in your image,
and so far as she is like you
she will suit you well;
yet she is different, in her flesh,
which your simple being does not have.
In perfect love
this law holds:
that the lover become
like the one he loves;
for the greater their likeness
the greater their delight.
Surely your bride’s delight
would greatly increase
were she to see you like her,
in her own flesh.”
“My will is yours,”
the Son replied,
“and my glory is
that your will be mine.
This is fitting, Father,
what you, the Most High say;
for in this way
your goodness will be more evident,
your great power will be seen
and your justice and wisdom.
I will go and tell the world,
spreading the word
of your beauty and sweetness
and of your sovereignty.
I will go seek my bride
and take upon myself
her weariness and labors
in which she suffers so;
and that she may have life,
I will die for her,
and lifting her out of that deep,
I will restore her to you.”
8. Continues
Then he called
the archangel Gabriel
and sent him to
the virgin Mary,
at whose consent
the mystery was wrought,
in whom the Trinity
clothed the Word with flesh
and through Three work this,
it is wrought in the One;
and the Word lived incarnate
in the womb of Mary.
And he would had only a Father
now had a Mother too,
but she was not like others
who conceive by man.
From her own flesh
he received the flesh,
so he is called
Son of God and of man.
105 pages worth reading
I have just begun a new book from Ignatius Press: Into Your Hands, Father. Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us by Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen. I think the title tells all. I’ll tease you with the first paragraph:
A problem many people have today is that they no longer recognize God’s will in everything that happens. They no longer believe in a Providence that allows all that takes place to work for the good of those who love God (Rom 8.28). They say all too easily and superficially: “But it is not God’s will that there are wars or that people starve or are persecuted . . . .” No, it is not God’s will that human beings fight with each other. He wills that we love one another. But when evil people who are opposed to his will hate and murder others, he allows this to become part of his plan for them. We must distinguish between the actual deed of someone who, for example, slanders us and the situation that comes to us as a result of the deed, which was not God’s will. God did not will the sinful act, but from all eternity he has taken into account the consequences of it in our lives. He wills that we grow through those very things that others do to us that are difficult and painful.
I think this will be 105 pages that will be well worth reading.
As the Lord directed
The Scripture reading for today’s Office of Readings comes from Exodus 17. It begins: “From the desert of Sin the whole Israelite community journeyed by stages, as the Lord directed, and encamped at Rephidim. But there was no water for the people to drink.” I’m always intrigued by the desert being called Sin. . .but what really struck me today was the fact that the Lord “directed” them to a place where there was no water to drink. If I was in their shoes, I would be asking Moses to get his GPS out and figure out really where we should be. And that is, in reality, what the Israelites do: they complain to Moses and grumble about where they are. How many of us do the same thing–we hit a speed bump or an even more serious obstacle and question whether the Lord is indeed directing us? This can’t be where He wants me to be.
The Lord directed them to this place of no water for His own purposes. He knew what He was doing. Perhaps it was merely to come face to face with their sin of grumbling and discontent, to recognize it and repent of it by humbling themselves before the Providence of God. God does not make mistakes in where He directs us. Look for Him in whatever unlikely or difficult place you may find yourselves today. He is surely there.
“When the grind of it all makes it hard to keep going”
An excerpt from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:
I walk in our back door to candlelight still flickering, hang the keys on the hook, and look around at the steep mountain of laundry there in the mudroom, the shoes scattered, a coat dropped. The mudroom sink is grime ringed. Fingerprints smear across the mirror. And I laugh the happiest wonder.
That last sentence is probably not what you expected. (It certainly was not what I expected.) Read the rest here and see how the Lord gave Ann a great perspective on all that she just walked into.
Don’t miss Him
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. 🙂
Rescue
Many times God rescues us in ways different than perhaps we would like. “My ways are not your ways . . .”
Rescue
I prayed for a lifting out of distress,
A setting down on the shore
With sweet warm sand beneath my feet
And storm-slashed waves no moreBreaking upon me. A ripe fig tree
For dreaming under perhaps
And over me draped a cloud-fluffed sky
With sunlight around me wrapped.Sweet Jesu, pray save me from all things dark
And rescue me from distress!But You only gave me a raft to ride
With You the waves of distress.Mother Mary Francis
Witnesses to Hope 