Little prayers

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

This is one of those mornings: Oh Lord, what am I going to post today?  The CTK Women’s Weekend was very good–I love being with all those women–but, being the introvert that I am, it takes a toll on me, and so I’m tired today.  Soooo I’m going to pull Amy Carmichael out of my bag, so to speak.  This piece is a great one on “Little prayers”:

Sometimes we are very much disappointed with ourselves because we cannot pray proper prayers, only little ones that hardly seem to be prayers at all.  I have been finding much comfort in the little prayers of the Gospels.   They could not be more little.
     There was Peter’s, “Lord save me” [Mt 14.30], and the poor mother’s [Mt 15.25], “Lord, help me”; and sometimes even less, no prayer at all but only the briefest telling of the trouble, “My servant lies at home sick” [Mt 8.6]; and less than that, a thought, and a touch. “She said within herself if I may but touch . . . ” [Mt 9.21].
     Again we hear of just  feeling. “They were troubled” [Mt 14.26], and a cry, “They cried out in fear”–that was all, but it was enough. 
     Often in the throng of the day’s work and warfare, there will not be time for more than a very little prayer–a thought, a touch, a feeling, a cry–but it is enough; so tender, so near, is the love of our Lord.  (Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, p. 149)

Praying out of the anguish of your heart

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A number of months ago, my spiritual director gave me this piece of advice (as I was going through a particularly challenging season of prayer): “Pray out of the anguish of your heart.”  It was one of the most helpful things–among many others–he has ever said to me, and it came to mind this morning as I was meditating on Psalm 69, which begins:

Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
    where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
    and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying;
    my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
    with waiting for my God.
More in number than the hairs of my head
    are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
    those who attack me with lies.
O God, thou knowest my folly;
    the wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee.

This is a man praying out of the anguish of his heart.  David is being entirely honest with God about how he experiences life.  He laments: he expresses his grief, his sorrow, his pain. Michael Card, in his book, A Sacred Sorrow, writes about the importance of lamenting in the Bible–and in our own lives.  “From the beginning, David was no stranger to pain.  And in the end, it was the process of lamenting his pain that led him to unheard of intimacy with God.” (p. 63)  Lamenting before God–truly coming before Him and pouring out our anguish–can open the door to a deeper and much more intimate relationship with Him.  Derek Kidner’s comments on these first verses of the psalms also shed light on the fruit of doing so:

This distracted beginning demonstrates the value of putting one’s plight into words before God, for David’s account of his crisis clarifies and grows more reflective as he prays.  The desperate metaphors of inner turmoil and floundering (vv 1-2) give way to more objective (though still agitated) descriptions of his state and situation (vv. 3-4), and finally to a searching of his conscience (v. 5).  Prayer is already doing its work.  (Psalms 1-72, An Introduction and Commentary, pp. 245-6).

So, don’t be afraid to pray out of the anguish of your own heart–as long as it is done in sincerity–and before God.  Let the prayer of lament do its work in your soul.

“He is looking for us”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A meditation from August of last year that I dog-eared in my Magnificat relates to today’s Gospel:

JesusSheepAnother picture that our Lord loves to use is that of the shepherd who goes out to look for the sheep that is lost.  So long as we imagine that it is we who look for God, then we must often lose heart.  But it is the other way about: he is looking for us.  And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him.  And he knows that and has taken it into account.  He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape from him, we run straight into his arms.
     So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us hope of salvation.  Our hope is in his determination to save us.  And he will not give in!
     This should free us from that crippling anxiety which prevents any real growth, giving us room to do whatever we can do, to accept the small but genuine responsibilities that we do have.  Our part is not to shoulder the whole burden of salvation, the initiative and the program are not in our hands: our part is to consent, to learn how to love him in return whose love came to us so freely while we were quite uninterested in him.        (Simon Tugwell, O.P.)

(For a beautiful card of the Good Shepherd, see the one designed by Jeanne Stephenson at her website.)

A time of stripping

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

I feel like I’m in a time of stripping.  (Ever feel that way? 🙂  And I don’t like it.  (Ever feel that way?)  I don’t like feeling weak and unrighteous and incapable and . . . you fill in the blank.  I don’t like not feeling on top of it or in control.  But–what should I expect if I am re-reading God Alone Suffices, the book I kept feeling drawn to pick up again and re-read?  How do I expect to learn that God alone suffices unless I know how much I don’t suffice?  (You think you’ve learned that lesson . . . and then you find out there’s, oh, so much more to learn . . .)  This is not an easy book to read–because God seems to always provide the lab part while reading it. 🙂  Reading Biela’s books are not for the faint of heart–or maybe they are for the faint of heart because those are the poor of spirit . . .  He’s not really writing anything new–he just does not sugarcoat the truth.  The good news, though, is that God only strips in order to bring us into a deeper knowledge of His love.  To be blunt, it’s pretty hard for a husband to be intimate with his wife while she still has her clothes on.  And it’s just as hard for us to know the much more intimate love of God while we’re clinging to other things so tightly.  So it’s a great grace for Him to allow us to be stripped.

By knocking with His light, Jesus tells us: Let us, you and I, look at you, whom I love, together.  Jesus desires that upon seeing the darkness of your soul, you experience His love.  (S.C. Biela, Open Wide the Doors to Christ, p. 56)

Punishing with a kiss

St. Thérèse, as she often does, comes at things from a different perspective than we might . . .

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Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

This morning I was pondering my failings and starting to move to discouragement–as I am too often prone to do–when the Lord in His mercy brought to mind a section of a letter from St. Thérèse to Fr. Bellière in which she describes the ideal way for us to come to our heavenly Father when we realize our faults.  Reading it always brings me great hope–and I hope it does the same for you:

I would like to try to make you understand by means of a very simple comparison how much Jesus loves even imperfect souls who confide in Him:
I picture a father who has two children, mischievous and disobedient, and when he comes to punish them, he sees one of them who trembles and gets away from him in terror, having, however, in the bottom of his heart the feeling that he deserves to be punished; and his brother, on the contrary, throws himself into his father’s arms, saying that he is sorry for having caused him any trouble, that he loves him, and to prove it he will be good from now on, and if this child asked his father to punish him with a kiss, I do not believe that the heart of the happy father could resist the filial confidence of his child, whose sincerity and love he knows.  He realizes, however, that more than once his son will fall into the same faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always, if his son always takes him by the heart . . . . I say nothing to you about the first child, dear little Brother, you must know whether his father can love him as much and treat him with the same indulgence as the other . . .  (LT 258)

I pray that you will have the confidence to take God by His heart today and boldly ask Him to punish you with a kiss.

Above all seek the prayers of the saints

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A “bonus” post today–from today’s Office of Readings.  A selection by St. Bernard, an encouragement to aim high, as did the saints who have gone before us:

Come, brothers [and sisters], let us at length spur ourselves on.  We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven.  Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us. . . . That we may rightly hope and strive for such blessedness, we must above all seek the prayers of the saints.  Thus, what is beyond our own powers to obtain will be granted through their intercession.

We praise thee, Lord, for saints unknown

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A Sunday-poem by Bishop R. Heber for this Feast of All Saints:

We praise thee, Lord, for all the martyred throng,
those who by fire and sword or suffering long
Laid down their lives, but would not yield to wrong:
                                                                Alleluia!

For those who fought to keep the faith secure,
For all those whose hearts were selfless, strong and pure,
For those whose courage taught us to endure:
                                                                 Alleluia!

For fiery spirits, held and God-controlled,
For gentle natures by his power made bold,
For all whose gracious lives God’s love retold:
                                                                 Alleluia!

Thanks be to thee, O Lord, for saints unknown,
Who by obedience to thy word have shown
That thou didst call and mark them for thine own.
                                                                  Alleluia!

The saints choose us

Do we choose our favorite saints–or do they choose us?

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Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I wrote in a blog at the beginning of October about a brief conversation I had with someone a few years ago.  He was a seminarian at the time studying at the North American College in Rome and was giving Sr. Ann and me a little tour of some places in Rome (including the Church of the Bones–but that’s another story).  We were chatting while riding the bus, and he relayed something one of his professors had said: “We don’t choose our favorite saints; they choose us.” That comment struck home with me, and I haven’t forgotten it.  It corroborated my own experience with my “favorite” saints.  It’s as if they initiated the relationship rather than vice versa, drawing me into a friendship with them.  

 That gives me a lot of hope: to know that the saints are actively looking out for us, seeking to befriend us if we’ll just be open to that working of the Holy Spirit. 

May God give us many new “friends” this coming year. A blessed All Saints Day!

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God . . .”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

2 Cor 2.15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God . . .

Literally, “Christ’s fragrance am I, unto God.” (Conybeare)  Paul is speaking of the fragrance of the incense carried in the Triumph of a Roman Emperor, to illustrate God’s triumph over His enemies.  We are as captives following in Christ’s triumphal procession, yet at the same time His incense-bearers, those who are unto God a sweet savour of Christ.
     Whatever we have to offer owes everything to that which causes it to be (without Me you can do nothing); yet God counts it as something.  he even thinks of us as fragrance; ” Christ’s fragrance am I, unto God.”  I think it is very wonderful.

                                                         ~Amy Carmichael (Edges of His Ways, p. 135)

Daily thoughts from Elisabeth Leseur

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I am just discovering Elisabeth Leseur, the French woman whose goodness converted her husband from atheism to priesthood.  He read her journals after her death from cancer at the age of 47.  Some excerpts from her collection of  “Daily Thoughts”:

Not to be understood is a sharp suffering.  To know that God understands is a sharper joy than any suffering.

Little duties, little efforts, the better for being seen by no one, except by Him in whose eyes nothing is little.

We should not scrutinize ourselves too closely while we are living, but try to live simply, bravely, and joyously beneath the gaze of God and for Him.