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

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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 . . .”

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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.

 

“When he was in the cave”

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I have just recently been paying more attention to the subtitles of the psalm, and this one caught my eye today regarding Psalm 142: “A Maskil of David, when he was in the cave.  A prayer.”  When he was in the cave.  I feel that way often–do any of you as well?  That you’re in some kind of cave?  So I took some time to read Derek Kidner’s commentary on this psalm.  I can’t go into all of what he had to say in this brief post, but there are a few things I’d like to pass on.  But, first, the psalm:

Psalm 142 [141]

A Maskil of David, when he was in the cave. A Prayer. 1 I cry with my voice to the LORD, with my voice I make supplication to the LORD, 2 I pour out my complaint before him, I tell my trouble before him. 3 When my spirit is faint, thou knowest my way! In the path where I walk they have hidden a trap for me. 4 I look to the right and watch, * but there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me, no man cares for me. 5 I cry to thee, O LORD; I say, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. 6 Give heed to my cry; for I am brought very low! Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are too strong for me! 7 Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to thy name! The righteous will surround me; for thou wilt deal bountifully with me.

What I gleaned from Kidner’s comments:

  • Ps 57 is also a psalm David wrote while in a cave.  That one is more “bold and animated, almost enjoying the situation for the certainty of its triumphant outcome.  In the present psalm the strain of being hated and hunted is almost too much, and faith is at full stretch.  But this faith is undefeated, and in the final words it is at last joined by hope.”
  • v. 1: with my voice has the sense of “aloud”.  Made me consider the importance–and “okay-ness”–of calling out loud to the Lord in our distress.  “David, Like Bartimaeus in the gospels, knows the value of refusing to lapse into silence.  That way lies despair.”  That way, lies despair.  Even if all we can do is cry out loud to the Lord, that will save us from despair . . . 
  • v. 2: my complaint can be translated “my troubled thoughts”   Kidner also points out about this verse David’s frankness, indicated by the words pour out and tell. 
  • One last comment on v. 3: The TEV translates When my spirit is faint as “When I am ready to give up.”  But Kidner also points out, there is almost a double emphasis on the word Thou–and, here we find the first of three “modest summits” in the psalm: “Thou knowest my way.”  And doesn’t that–the fact that God knows your way–make all the difference?  Can you find the other two summits in the psalm?

I am the one Jesus loves

What if we could each come to the place where we saw our primary identity–as John did–as “the one Jesus loves”?

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Yesterday I was looking through some quotes I had gathered for some small booklets that I have in the past put together to sell at our bazaar.  As I read them, I thought to myself: “I’ve got some good quotes here!”  Here’s a favorite from Philip Yancey:

Not long ago I received in the mail a postcard from a friend that had on it only six words, “I am the one Jesus loves.” . . . When I called him, he told me the slogan came from the author and speaker Brennan Manning.  At a seminar, Manning referred to Jesus’ closest friend on earth, the disciple named John, identified in the Gospels as “the one Jesus loved.”  Manning said, “If John were to be asked, ‘What is your primary identity in life?’ he would not reply, ‘I am a disciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,’ but rather, ‘I am the one Jesus loves.’”  What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as “the one Jesus loves”?   (Philip Yancey)

The Doorkeeper

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To keep God’s door—
I am not fit.
I would not ask more
Than this–
    To stand or sit
Upon the threshold of God’s House
Out of the reach of sin,
To open wide His door
To those who come,
To welcome Home
His children and His poor:
To wait and watch
The gladness on the face of those
That are within:
Sometimes to catch
A glimpse or trace of those
That are within
That all I failed to be,
And all I failed to do,
Has not sufficed
To bar them from the Tree
Of Life, the Paradise of God,
The Face of Christ.

                        John W. Taylor

When the doors were shut

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Have you ever been in a funk–one of those times when you’ve been walking along fine, experiencing great hope in the Lord about something, but all of a sudden that hope just disappears?  (Rhetorical question) Your thoughts just swirl around you.  You’re not able to concentrate on the truth.  Your thinking at the moment is not helpful, to say the least?

  

Christ Appears to the Apostles Behind Closed Doors (Duccio)
Christ Appears to the Apostles Behind Closed Doors (Duccio)

   Often our thoughts are like a crowd of people talking together in a room whose doors are shut, and because of the setting of some hope that had a bright sunrise, it is a sorrowful time.
     There may be love, understanding love, all around us, and yet we may be needing some word of life in our own soul, something that would do what only the Divine can do.  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6.68).
     One day lately, when feeling like this, I took my New Testament, and it opened of itself at John 20, and the first words I read were these: “The same day at evening . . . when the doors were shut . . . Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said . . . Peace be with you.  And when He had said this, he showed them His hands and His side.”  It is all there–the shut doors (for we cannot say aloud all that fills our mind), the dreary evening, then the risen Lord, and peace.   (Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, pp. 131-2)

My prayer for you today is that the Lord may enter through any of your shut doors . . .