Blaspheming

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Be prepared for a “punch to the solar plexus” as you read the quote below.  At least, that’s what I experienced when I read it.  A good punch, though.

You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are.  You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies–thought that never occurs to you.  Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God’s] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.   ~Jeanne-Pierre de Caussade

This quote implies the need to grow in the ability to see through what is going on to the hand of God at work, which of course is something only the Holy Spirit can do in us.  Let’s beg Him again to help us to see with His eyes rather than our own, which are blinded so much of the time.

You are also the God of me

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I post a poem every Sunday mostly for myself.  I love poetry–and always have–and I’m hoping someone out there does as well.  One of the reasons I love poetry is because it forces us more to the edges of heaven, to open our minds to the beauty and goodness and truth of God.

Small Song

God of the sky,
God of the sea,
God of the rock
and bird and tree,
you are also
the God of me.

The pebble fell.
The water stirred
and stilled again.
The hidden bird
made song for you.
His praise is heard.

You heard him sing
from in the tree.
And searching still
I know you’ll see
The love that wings
to you from me.

~Luci Shaw

Spiritual program for a mother

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

If you are a mother, I hope you will take time to read this letter from Dom Marmion, outlining his advice on the appropriate spiritual focuses for a mother:

Your kind letter gave me so much pleasure because I see you are seeking God with sincerity.  I tell you in all simplicity that I believe God loves you dearly and that the little worries of this life form that portion of the cross of Jesus which is to unite you to Him.  God does not ask a married woman of the world for the austerities and mortifications that may be practiced by those living in the cloister.  But He sends them other trials adapted to their state and which render them so agreeable to his Divine Majesty.

Our Lord asks of you:
1. — To accept daily the sufferings, the duties and the joys that He sends you, as Jesus accepted all that came to Him from His Father.  When St. Peter wanted to turn Him away from His Passion, on account of his great affection for Him, Jesus answered him, “The chalice which my Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”  There, my daughter, is the answer you ought to give when you seem to be overwhelmed with suffering.
2. — The perfect fulfillment of your duties:
a) Towards God. –Prayer, Mass, Holy Communion, not too many prayers, but great fidelity in saying those which it is a duty to offer to God, above all family prayers.
b) Towards your neighbor.–Towards your husband.  Marriage, says St. Paul, is the image of Christ’s union with the Church, and the Sacrament of marriage give you a continual participation in the union of Jesus and His Church.  Jesus so loved His Church that He died for her, and she, in return loves Him as her God and her Bridegroom.  Thus you should love your husband as representing Christ for you.
Towards your children.  The grace of motherhood has its origin in the Heart of God and He puts it in the mother’s heart in order that she may love and guide her children according to the Divine good pleasure.
c) Towards yourself.–At present no other mortifications are necessary for you than those which God sends you daily.  But you must sanctify them by uniting them to the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
Be joyful, natural and straightforward as you are, and God will bless you.

The greater the reason we have to trust in God

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

One more from Francis de Sales:

The more miserable we are, the more we ought to trust in God’s goodness and mercy.  Had God not created man, God would always have been good, but he would not have been actually merciful, since he would not have shown mercy to anyone; for to whom can mercy be shown except to the wretched?

You see, then, that the more we recognize ourselves as miserable, the greater the reason we have to trust in God, since there is absolutely nothing in us in which we could put our confidence.

Learn to live in peace

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

More from St. Francis de Sales:

Learn to live in peace and gently bear up with your little miseries.  You belong unreservedly to God.  He will lead you safely to the port.  If, however, he does not deliver you immediately from your imperfections, it means that he has some other plan for you and that could be to give you a longer formation in the practice of humility, so that you may be well rooted in that lovely virtue.

“Sure that he loves you still”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

The next few days I would like to feed you some quotes from St. Francis de Sales, the great writer for lay folks.  This first one addresses those of us who are overly concerned about doing everything right (another word for pride :-):

Take great care not to get overly upset whenever you commit some faults.  Humble yourself immediately before God, but let this humility be a loving humility, which will fill you with fresh confidence to throw yourself immediately into God’s arms, secure in the knowledge that God, in his goodness, will help you to change for the better.  And so, whatever be the faults you commit and whenever you commit them, gentle ask God’s pardon and tell him that you are perfectly sure that he loves you still and that he will forgive you.  Always do this in a simple and gentle manner.

Your hope

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

On Saturday evenings, we take turns preparing and sharing something about the Sunday readings.  It was Sr. Sarah’s turn this past Saturday, and she shared this little nugget from St. Augustine.  I said, “I need that for my blog!  This would transform our lives if we lived it.

Let the Lord be your hope; do not hope to get anything else from the Lord God, but let the Lord God Himself be your hope.  Many people hope to get money from God, many hope to get from Him honors that are transitory and perishable, or they want some other things from God, something other than God Himself.  But you, you must simply ask for your God.  (Augustine on Ps 40)

Let the Lord God Himself be your hope . . .

Praise him

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A well-loved and wonderful poem:

                  Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things--
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough;
      And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.
                       Praise him.

                                 ~Gerard Manley Hopkins

Humility

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Every year around the first of the year, each of us in our community draw an Epiphany gift, a virtue for the year.  (Whether it’s a gift from God or something to work on is up to each to decide. 🙂  I myself drew “Mercy” for the second year in a row.  Hmmm, what is God trying to say to me?

But the virtue I wanted to post about today is “Humility”.  Here’s a great story about the superiority of humility to every other virtue:

Humility is of more value than the greatest asceticism.  One day, as the desert monk St. Macarius (AD 300-391) was returning to his cell, the devil attacked him swinging a scythe, but was unable to wound him.  The devil complained, “Macarius, i suffer a lot of violence from you, for I cannot overcome you.  Whatever you do, I do also.  If you fast, I eat nothing; if you keep watch, I never sleep.  There is only one way in which you surpass me: your humility.  That is why I cannot prevail against you.”  (Frederica Matthewes-Green in The Jesus Prayer)