“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
The measure of a father’s love
For the last week and a half I have been pondering a piece written by Fr. Peter John Cameron for this month’s Magnificat. Perhaps you’ve seen it as well? For those who haven’t, I would like to include a few sections because he brings together two passages that it never would have occurred to me to juxtapose. The first is the gospel reading for this coming Sunday, the story of the prodigal son. The second–well, read on. He begins:
What was it that turned the prodigal son against his father (see Lk 15:11-32)? Maybe the father was like the famous landowner in the parable of the workers hired late (Mt 20.1-16) who goes out five different times in the course of a single day to employ laborers for his vineyard. At five o’clock in the evening he hires yet more workers. And even though these men toil barely an hour, the landowner pays them the usual daily wage–the same salary as all the other laborers. This sparks an outcry among the workers who have labored all day long bearing “the day’s burden and heat.” Perhaps the prodigal son was among those who bitterly grumbled against the landowner. Maybe it was the father’s extravagant display of generosity that provoked the son to demand, “Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.” As if to say: “If you want to be so foolish and wasteful with your money, then give it to me, because I can’t stand being around here anymore if this is the way you want to act.”
And as Fr. Peter goes on to say: “What can the father do?” What can we do when someone rails against our generosity? What is our Father to do when we rail against His generosity?
What can the father do? If he refuses his son, the son will grow sullen and resentful, harboring a grudge that would wreak havoc on the household. But to give his son the sum and let him go would be like setting the boy on the path of his own self-destruction. Ironically, the prodigal son forces his father to become a kind of Abraham on Mount Moriah, where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac (see Gen 22.1-14). In order not to sin against heaven, the father had to put his son in peril: “Then [Abraham] reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son” (Gen 22.10). Commenting on the father of the parable, the Venerable John Paul II wrote, “The love of the son that springs from the very essence of fatherhood in a way obliges the father to be concerned about the son’s dignity. This concern is the measure of his love.” Thus the father hands over the inheritance and lets his son go.
We know the ending, a happy one. It’s always a risk, but a risk the Father is willing to take–because that’s how much He loves us. When our life seems to be going badly, perhaps it is a result of the Lord letting us go our own way . . . because that is the measure of a Father’s love.
“She is Black, but She is Beautiful”
I don’t believe I’ve recently shared anything written by Anthony Esolen. Here’s a piece he wrote about the Church, “black but beautiful,” that is well worth reading. Tony is a gifted writer as well as a lover of the Church. You’ll get a little insight into the heart of God by reading this. Click here.
“O what it must have cost the angels”
Today we celebrate the birth of Mary. I have to say that this morning when I woke up, I felt like breaking into a little song to her, at least “Happy birthday to you . . .”–which sounds so trite–but I knew in my heart that that would be dear to her . . . because she is that kind of Mother.
I want to share the first verse of a poem by Rilke because I think it conveys the sense of joy in the heavens at the birth of this great gift of God to us.
Birth of Mary
O what must it have cost the angels
not suddenly to burst into song, as one bursts into tears,
since indeed they knew: on this night the mother is being
born to the boy, the One, who shall soon appear.(Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by M.D. Herter Norton)
All it takes is a picture (2)
Here’s a photo taken by Sr. Kelly from inside a friend’s barn looking out. It makes me think of Lewis’ Last Battle. Looking out from earth to the heaven that is waiting for us.
Witnesses to Hope 