Do not get discouraged when you see yourself full of defects, but go to Jesus and Mary confidently, and humble yourself without becoming discouraged; then go forward bravely. (St. Mary Mazzarello)
Interruptions
A day or two ago one who was with me prayed like this, “Lord, help me to welcome interruptions, especially when the interruption seems less important than the work I am trying to do.” That prayer has often been mine. I expect many of you have felt the need of the loving grace of the Lord to help you to welcome interruptions, especially when they do not seem to matter nearly so much as what we are doing at the moment. Thinking of this, I found myself this early morning in Lk. 9.11. The people followed our Lord Jesus (He had wanted to be alone with His disciples just then), and He welcomed them.
It is so easy to be too preoccupied to be welcoming. May the love of our Lord Jesus, for whose sake and in whose service we are here, so overflow from us that it will be natural for us to do as He would and be welcoming.
(Amy Carmichael, Thou Givest . . . They Gather, p. 94)
Everything is grace.
“Everything is grace.” A phrase uttered by St. Thérèse when she was not able to receive the Eucharist when she was dying. I can’t say that that’s the first thing that comes to my mind when things go in a direction different than I would like–like they already are today. 🙂 Pray for me, Thérèse. Pray for us. May God’s grace meet us right where we are.
If we love God, we will understand that everything is grace, that Job’s sores were grace, that Job’s abandonment was grace, that even Jesus’ abandonment (‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?) was grace. Even the delay of grace is grace. Suffering is grace. The cross is grace. The grave is grace. . . . (Peter Kreeft, Making Sense Out of Suffering, p. 144)
Paul Thigpen
I would like to introduce you to the poetry of Paul Thigpen. If you’re not familiar with his conversion story to Catholicism, you can read it here. He is a prolific writer in many genres. The poem below is from a number he has written on the Blessed Sacrament which I came across one day during a time of adoration. I was so taken by the slim volume that, I must confess, I ignored the “Do not remove from this chapel” in order to “borrow” it for a couple of days in order to copy a few.
Confession Before the Blessed Sacrament
Grain of God,
I was the stone that ground You.
Holocaust of heaven,
I was the flame that consumed You.
Lamb on the altar,
I was the knife across Your throat.
Crucified One,
I was the nail in your hand.Have mercy, Jesus.
Reshape this guilty soul to make
a stone in Your altar,
a flame in Your lamp,
a knife for Your bread,
a nail in Your table
where the world sits down
to feast.
Revisiting past posts #2
“Our wound is the place where God dwells”
I did a series of posts on Fr. Iain Matthew’s writing back in July. I have been re-reading him again. He’s one of the people I go back to regularly–especially if I’m experiencing some kind of pain. Because pain is precisely where, Fr. Iain says, Christ is waiting to meet us. “The place of poverty within us is the threshold where Christ stands.” He advises us strongly not to avoid our woundedness. Each wound in our lives is the place where Christ wants to meet us. The best thing to do is to make that place of pain a place of prayer,
the place within us where not everything is all right, where the wound that is in you aches. John [of the Cross] says: go there. Go to that place of need, because that is a threshold at which Christ stands; our need is an evidence of God.
It is natural to flee from the place where that hunger throbs. Still, John encourages us to go there. It is what beckons the divine. It is the threshold at which Christ stands. We hunger for him because he has touched us; we want him because he wants us. The wound is the print of the pledge upon us, the pledge of the Spirit who holds us from the abyss. John comments on his poem: we “have our feeling of longing, the sense of God’s absence” precisely there, “within our heart, where we have the pledge.”
And so, we simply stand before God in our pain, with our pain, making our need a prayer. God loves to hear and answer the cry of the poor.
My heart, where have you gone?
A poem for this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows:
Christ and His Mother at the Cross
Christ:
Mother, take my broken heart
For your own to share apart.
John, beloved as you are
Shall be to you a son.
John, my mother here behold;
Take her tenderly and hold
her in your love. For she is cold,
her heart has come undone.Mary:
Son, your spirit has gone forth.
Son of all surpassing worth.
My eyes are in their vision dark
And dying is my heart.Hear me, Son, so innocent,
Son of light magnificent
Spending and now spent,
and only darkness for my part.
Son of whiteness and of rose,
Son unrivaled as the snows,
Son my bosom held so close,
My heart, where have you gone?John, disciple whom he loved,
your brother must be dead,
for I feel the sword through me
as prophesied.Jacopone da Todi
Jesus is sweet
Today is the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. I like to think of it as the triumph of God’s incredible love for us. Below is a reading by St. Anselm trying to convey how much Christ loved us from the cross:
Jesus is sweet in the bowing of His head and in death, sweet in the stretching out of His arms, sweet in the nailing together of His feet with one nail.
Sweet in the bowing of His head; for bending down His head form the cross He seems to say to His loved one: ‘Oh My beloved, how often hast thou desired to enjoy the kiss of My mouth, declaring to Me through thy comrades, “Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth.” I am ready, I bow My head, I offer My mouth to be kissed as much as thou wilt. And say not in your heart, “I seek not such a kiss which is without beauty and loveliness, but I seek a glorious kiss which the angelic citizens of heaven seek ever to enjoy.” Be not thus mistaken, for unless you kiss that first mouth you will never reach to that other. Kiss therefore the mouth that I now offer to you, for though it be without beauty or loveliness it is not without grace.’
Sweet in the stretching out of His arms; for in extending His arms He reveals how He desires our embraces, and seems to say: ‘O all you that labor and are heavy burdened, come and be refreshed within My arms. See how I am ready to gather you all within My arms; then come all. Let no one fear to be repulsed, for I desire not the death of the sinner but that he be converted and live. My delights are to be with the children of men.’
Sweet in the opening of His side; for that opening reveals to us the riches of His goodness and the charity of His Heart towards us.
Sweet in the nailing of His feet with one nail; for by that He says to us: ‘Lo, if you think that I must flee from you, and so are slow to come to Me, knowing that I am swift as the hart, see that My feet are fixed by a nail, so that I can in no wise flee from you, for mercy has me bound fast. I cannot flee from you as your sins deserve, for My hands are fixed with nails.’
Good Jesus, humble Lord, dear Lord, sweet in mouth, sweet in ear, unknowable and untellably pleasant, kind and merciful, mighty, wise, benign, generous but not rash, exceedingly sweet and gentle! Thou alone art the highest good, beautiful above the sons of men, fair and comely, the chosen of thousands and all-desirable! Fair things become the fair. O my Lord, now my whole desires Thine arms and Thy kiss. I desire nought but Thee, as though no reward were promised. If hell and heaven were not, yet would I long for Thee, for Thy sweet good and for Thyself. Thou art my constant meditation, my word, my work. Amen.”
– St. Anselm
All it takes is a picture (3)
In the midst of the darkness . . .
The fire of Your love
Eternal Trinity,
Godhead,
mystery deep as the sea,
you could give me no greater gift
then the gift of
yourself.
For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed,
which itself consumes all the selfish love
that fills my being.Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness,
illuminates the mind with its light,
and causes me to know your
truth.And I know that
you are beauty and wisdom itself.The food of angels,
you gave yourself to man
in the fire of your
love.~St. Catherine of Siena
Witnesses to Hope 