This morning I was digging through one of my old journals of quotes and found this gem. I hope it strikes a chord of hope in the heart that needs it . . . as it did in mine this morning when I re-read it.
God seems to confound our prayers, by putting off deliverance to such a point that it seems removed to a distance from which it cannot reach us. He does not often deal with us thus, because He is merciful, but He does it sometimes, for the very same reasons. (Adolphe Monod)
A Sunday-poem for you:
And That Will Be Heaven
and that will be heaven
and that will be heaven
at last the first unclouded
seeingto stand like the sunflower
turned full face to the sun drenched
in light in the still centre
held while the circling planets
hum with an utter joy
seeing and knowing
at last in every particle
seen and known and not turning
away
never turning away
again~Evangeline Patterson
I am sorry that I have not posted for awhile. I have had to deal with a “family situation” that has taken most of my time and energy. I hope to reconnect with all of you soon. In the meantime, dip into some old posts. There’s good stuff there! God bless.
For those of you who seem to be suffering fruitless pain, a word from Amy Carmichael:
But to what end is pain? I do not clearly know. But I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain there is rarely much power to help; there is not the understanding that leaves the suffering thing comforted, though perhaps not a word was spoken; and I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer. Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer? Does it create that sympathy which can lay itself alongside the need, feeling it as though it were personal, so that it is possible to do just what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body“?
. . . What if every stroke of pain, or hour of weariness, or ay other trial of flesh or spirit, could carry us a pulse-beat nearer some other life, some life for which the ministry of prayer is needed, would it not be worth while to suffer? Ten thousand times yes. And surely it must be so, for the further we are drawn into the fellowship of Calvary with our dear Lord, the tenderer are we toward others, the closer alongside do our spirits lie with them that are in bonds; as being ourselves also in the body. God never wastes His children’s pain. (Rose from Brier, p. 124)
From one of my best friends:
When I am incapable of praying, I want to keep telling Jesus that I love him. It’s not difficult, and it keeps the fire going. (Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)
Another delightful reflection by Fr. Pat McNulty of Madonna House, this time on the story of the rich man and Lazarus from yesterday’s Gospel. You can click here to read it.
A beautiful poem for this Sunday from a fellow blogger: “Not all gold”
I’ve been thinking about why I am so drawn to poetry and art, and I think my best answer is that they draw me to the borders of God. God is so un-understandable by us in our lowly humanity. John of the Cross points out that the intellect “reaches God more by not understanding than by understanding.” God has placed an insatiable desire in each of us for union with Him: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Yet, we are limited in this life as to the satisfaction of that union. And so for myself, I find myself coming back again and again to true poetry, art, and music–true in the sense that it is directed towards God and not towards itself. It lifts my heart, it draws my spirit, towards the ineffable God who, as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing says so well: ”
Now you say, “How shall I proceed to think of God as he is in himself?” To this I can only reply, “I do not know.”
With this question you bring me into the very darkness and cloud of unknowing that I want you to enter. A man may know completely and ponder thoroughly every created thing and its works, yes, and God’s works, too, but not God himself. Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I know, choosing rather to love him whom I cannot know. Though we cannot know him we can love him. By love he may be touched and embraced, never by thought. Of course, we do well at times to ponder God’s majesty or kindness for the insight these meditations may bring. But in the real contemplative work you must set all this aside and cover it with a cloud of forgetting. Then let your loving desire, gracious and devout, step bravely and joyfully beyond it and reach out to pierce the darkness above. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what may.
Of course, God means for us to be able to move past all of the unknowns in our lives–the sufferings, the pains, the mysteries–or maybe I should say through all of them–to Him by pure love. Yet, at the same time, He gives us beauty–found in art, poetry, music, our children, nature, wherever–as a wonderful means of drawing to His borders. And sometimes we have to decide to make time for those things as well as all the other things in our lives.
Here are some 4-5 minute opportunities (although I’m well aware that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”). May at least one of them draw you to the borders of God.
For starters:
More to come . . .
The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise. (Jerry Sittser, quoted in Mary Beth Chapman, Choosing to See)
Witnesses to Hope 