Sometimes things become clearer about the spiritual life through what children say. They can help us to both take life less seriously and more seriously. I’m resurrecting another blog, Catholic Kids Say the Dearest Things, since I recently came across some more material to post. Check it out if you want to smile. 🙂 (You can also access it from the blogroll in the column to the right.)
It’s Sunday and time for me to share a poem. I love this poem by Luci Shaw. I think it’s one of the first I ever read of hers and always comes back to mind this time of year. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I think it’s one that benefits greatly from being read aloud. (There are shades of Hopkins in this poem.)
May 20: Very Early Morning
All the field praises him/all
dandelions are his glory/gold
and silver all trilliums unfold
white flames above their trinities
of leaves all wild strawberries
and massed wood violets reflect his skies–
clean blue and white
all brambles/all oxeyes
all stalks and stems lift to this light
all young windflower bells
tremble on hair
springs for his air’s
carillon touch/last year’s yarrow (raising
brittle star skeletons) tells
age is not past praising
all small low unknown
unnamed weeds show his impossible greens
all grasses sing
tone on clear tone
all mosses spread a spring–
soft velvet for his feet
and by all means
all leaves/buds/all flowers cup
jewels of fire and ice
holding up
to his kind morning heat
a silver sacrifice
now
make of our hearts a field
to raise your praise
I’m on my way out the door early today, so I’m sending you somewhere else to read this morning–to Amy Julia Becker’s blog, Thin Places. I think you’ll enjoy her reflection today on imitating God. You can read it here.
. . . last September Our Lord told me that He wished that I would look at Him much more in people, that He would like to be loved and reverenced more in people and “discovered” and recognized even in very unlikely people. He would like people to be told and shown “their glory”–which of course is Himself. (Caryll Houselander quoted in That Divine Eccentric by Maisie Ward)
That quote of Caryll’s came to mind this morning when we sang this line from a song during morning prayer: “You have illumined our spirit and Your eternal light is reflected everywhere so that in that light man might discover true beauty and all become luminous.” (St. Gregory Nazianzen) How else can we see the true beauty in each other except by His illumining our spirits? There are many gifts that the Holy Spirit gives, but I believe this is the greatest: to love and reverence each other (“even very unlikely people”) for their worth in Christ, to see “true beauty” in each other. And some times–maybe most of the time–that means seeing that “true beauty” in ourselves. Come, Holy Spirit, and enkindle the hearts of Your faithful . . .
Sometimes one sentence can say it all. From Hans urs Von Balthasar:
What is uniquely Christian begins and ends with the revelation that the infinite God loves the individual man infinitely.
Speaking of one sentences, I came across this attempt by a protestant woman to summarize each of the books of the Bible in one sentence, actually by one verse from the book (a little more challenging to do). If you’re interested, you can peruse her attempt here.
Sometimes I just have to repeat myself. I was browsing through my journal last night and came across this quote from Caryll Houselander which I love. I know I posted it awhile ago, but maybe your memory is like mine and you won’t mind reading–and pondering–it again.
I often think that the ideal of our perfection that we set up, and often go through torture to achieve, may not be God’s idea of how He wants us to be at all. That may be something quite different that we never would have thought of, and what seems like a failure to us may really be something bringing us closer to His will for us. (Caryll Houselander, quoted in Caryll Houselander, That Divine Eccentric by Maisie Ward)
Also . . . I just put up a new homily by Fr. Ken McKenna (at “Other Talks” at the “Talks” tab). You can also listen to it here: “Pure Faith, Hope, and Love.” If you haven’t listened to him before, free up ten minutes and give yourself a little treat.
It’s still the time, the season, of remembering Christ’s appearances to those He loved. Let us not move too quickly back into ordinary time. (Is there ever an “ordinary” time with Christ in our lives?) Luci Shaw captures this need to learn to recognized Him in this Sunday-poem. We, too, need to “get beyond the way he looks” in our everyday lives:
He who has seen Me has seen the Father (James Tissot)
“. . . for they shall see God”
Matthew 5.8
Christ risen was rarely
recognized by sight.
They had to get beyond the way he looked.
Evidence strong than his voice and face and footstep
waited to grow in them, to guide
their groping from despair,
their stretching beyond belief.
We are as blind as they
until the opening of our deeper eyes
shows us the hands that bless
and break our bread,
until we finger
wounds that tell our healing,
or witness a miracle of fish
dawn-caught after our long night
of empty nets. Handling
his Word, we feel his flesh,
his bones, and hear his voice
calling our early-morning name.
If you are in danger, she will hasten to free you. If you are troubled, she will console you. If you are sick, she will bring you relief. If you are in need, she will help you. She does not look to see what kind of person you have been. She simply comes to a heart that wants to love her.
I have been meditating on this quote of St. Thérése’s all week: “God is more tender than a mother.” If your mother was/is less than tender, then this is comforting, and if your mother was/is a gracious and comforting woman, this is amazing. Soak it in for all its worth.
Browsing through my journal, I came across a quote from five years ago that is a wonderful reflection on last Sunday’s gospel:
“Feed my sheep,” Jesus said to Peter as the first rays of the sun went fanning out across the sky, but, before that, he said something else. The six other men had beached the boat by then and had come up to the charcoal fire knowing that it was Jesus who was standing there and yet not quite knowing, not quite brave enough to ask him if he was the one they were all but certain he was. He told them to bring him some of the fish they had just hauled in, and then he said something that, if I had to guess, was what brought tears to their eyes if anything did. The Lamb of God. The Prince of Peace. The Dayspring from on High. Instead of all the extraordinary words we might imagine on his lips, what he said was, “Come and have breakfast.”
I believe he says it to all of us: feed my sheep, his lambs, to be sure, but first to let him feed us–to let him feed us with something of himself.
now
I’m on my way out the door early today, so I’m sending you somewhere else to read this morning–to Amy Julia Becker’s blog, Thin Places. I think you’ll enjoy her reflection today on imitating God. You can read it here.
“Feed my sheep,” Jesus said to Peter as the first rays of the sun went fanning out across the sky, but, before that, he said something else. The six other men had beached the boat by then and had come up to the charcoal fire knowing that it was Jesus who was standing there and yet not quite knowing, not quite brave enough to ask him if he was the one they were all but certain he was. He told them to bring him some of the fish they had just hauled in, and then he said something that, if I had to guess, was what brought tears to their eyes if anything did. The Lamb of God. The Prince of Peace. The Dayspring from on High. Instead of all the extraordinary words we might imagine on his lips, what he said was, “Come and have breakfast.”
Witnesses to Hope 