“James writes, ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’ (2.13). He is probably talking about the mercy practiced by human beings, but the statement is true to a much greater extent if it is applied to God’s mercy. It will be God’s mercy in the end that will triumph over all injustices and the lack of human mercy. The author of the life of Silvanus of Mount Athos narrates a rather significant episode about a holy monk. This monk, a great man of God, had attained such a compassion for humanity that he was always weeping and imploring God’s mercy for himself and everyone else. One day when he was close to despair, the Lord appeared to him and asked, ‘Why are you weeping like this? Do you not know that I am the one who will judge the world? I will have mercy on every person who called on God even once in his life.'” (Fr. Raneiro Cantalamessa, The Gaze of Mercy)
My only hope
The still small voice
Some of you may remember Colleen’s post a couple months ago. She’s the sister of one of our Sisters who broke her leg severely. She is now on the mend and can walk with a walker. Here she shares the tough time she went through after Christmas and the beautiful work God is doing in her life:
Along with my outward healing the real renovation is happening on the inside. A peace has come over me that has never resided in me before… it is profoundly stripping away the exterior noise. When I gave my life to the Lord in a new way 3 years ago I jumped into everything I could to “soak up” the Lord – I sought Him in programs, retreats, charismatic renewal events, the crazier the better – and all of those things were good, I think they served a very necessary purpose at the time… I was leaving an entertainment rich lifestyle but entering into something rich and busy and the transformation wasn’t horrible – it was livable – God filled the gap of missing friendships with new friendships in Christ, our social calendar was just as packed and God was always a topic at social gatherings. I thought “this is it Lord, this is what conversion is all about! it isn’t so bad, you have filled my plate – and it is good.”
I began going to daily Mass, weekly confession and thought “oh, oh, okay God, THIS is what you meant by conversion, the crowds are smaller a lot older more quieter… but this is what you are putting on my plate – and it is good”.
When my fall first happened I was filled with God’s grace, seeing a blessing in every day. I knew that people’s prayers were sustaining me, I felt full of hope, I had many visitors, things were a bit quieter than daily Mass as I relied on others to drop by – but God often brought people at my doorstep and my days were filled with lovely visits and tea and prayer. I had finished my first course at Sacred Heart Seminary, I felt like “wow this isn’t so bad – even in physical difficulty God filled my plate – and it is good”
After Christmas the change was different, I had to go out of the house for doctors appointments and weekly Mass bringing a fear that wasn’t there before. Day’s were much lonelier as life resumed, kids went back to school and less apt to help with my day to day needs, I no longer had personal support workers in, My husband was taken away for several days at a time with work presenting new challenges and fears about being alone, I began a new course in Sacred Scripture – which was totally of God, but much more challenging and I didn’t see His reasoning in that right away… my plate felt empty, abandon. Weekly confession (in my home, Father would drop by) wasn’t possible anymore as Father’s schedule had changed, the people who were bringing me communion during the week stopped for valid reasons too. I was confused, I thought “Lord you know I need to receive you in the Sacraments, why are you not providing this for me?” I felt like the Lord had somehow dropped the ball, did He not see that I needed Him more than ever??? For weeks I was agitated and I couldn’t focus on prayer or school or anything. Many church related social things were happening and I thought “Lord I am supposed to be doing all these things, learning about You, growing in faith – why am I shut in? why am I being removed from all of these GOOD things??” No answer. No answer. No answer.
I was looking for the fire and the earthquake, the action so to speak. Feeling empty and useless, I picked up scripture… and I heard a small voice. The next day I picked up scripture, and I felt the Lord speaking to me. I had read scripture and certainly felt the Lord before – but this was different – this was very very different. Each day I poured over scripture and something inside of me changed. I would go to mass on Sunday and cry through the readings and then the liturgy of the Eucharist came alive like it never had before.
The other day a friend came to visit and confided in me about things that were happening on a social level, which I would normally jump into and try to problem solve and I felt the Lord tell me it was no longer my place – the Lord was clear, I clearly heard His voice and I knew my life as I had known it would be changed again. Who I thought I was, was fading away… my old habits, even one’s I thought were good – were not inline with what God’s plan for me is. I have no idea what His plan is, yet I am being told clearly to abandon the ideas I had for my life. Open you schedule, clear your calendar, listen to My voice. I remember my mum emptying her purse twice a year, and then transfer everything from her “winter purse” to her “summer purse”…. the Lord is telling me to empty my purse and there is no indication of picking up anything from the old and putting it in the new – like scripture talks about the wine skin…
At the beginning of lent I received a scripture that I know is God’s living word for me right now ““Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2:14 And God is, and in this the pace for my life has changed. Whatever happens around me, is going to happen around me, but God is fastening me to His Word – He is setting up an eternal desert for me to return to – not a desert of tumble weeds and desolation – this desert is a quiet place to hear His voice, where an oasis of living water stands and when the world claims to have the answers, or life is difficult on the outside, or busy in a good way with the Lords’s work….I will be drawn back. It is our place, where He allures me and speaks to my heart.
Eudokia
A very insightful comment from Fr. Cantalamessa on the real meaning of the will of God:
“People unconsciously link God’s will to everything that is unpleasant and painful, to what in one way or another is seen as destroying individual freedom and development. It is as though God were the enemy of every celebration, joy, and pleasure. People do not take into account that in the New Testament, the will of God is called ‘eudokia‘ (see Ephesians 1:9; Luke 2:14), meaning ‘goodwill, kindness.’ When we pray, ‘May your will be done,’ it is like saying, ‘Fulfill in me, Father, your plan of love.'”
Put yourself in this woman’s place
Friday: from the archives
Jesus does not want our sins, our weaknesses and faults, to keep us from coming to Him, to keep us from intimacy with Him. I post again this painting by James Tissot. Put yourself in this woman’s place, a great sinner. Touch His feet, kiss His feet. And see the Lord reaching out to you in His tender love.
He said to Simon the Pharisee, “You gave me no kiss . . . ” (Lk 7.45). The Lord of Love will miss your kiss if you don’t draw near to Him . . .
There’s light even in the darkest places.
What really matters
Is Lent about reaching a greater level of perfection? Read on.
It does not matter what level of perfection you reach. What others think or don’t think of how much you does not matter, not does your judgment of yourself. All that matters if that mercy has taken you for ever, for the very origin of your existence. Mercy called you to love, because mercy loved you.
Holiness means always affirming–before everything else, in everything else–the embrace of the Father, the merciful, pitying movement of Christ, his gesture, that is he himself, independent of everything that stirs and has the appearance of life in us. . . .
We must become more and more aware of God’s covenant with us, of life as God’s involvement with us, and therefore of the absolute and unmistakable importance of the irrational influence of our outbursts, of our projects.
Nothingness, destruction, exile is the life proper to the world, especially our life, without this covenant, which remains in me even in the destruction and in the desolation caused by my wicked heart. Grace holds fast because God leads me to discover what he is and to understand that from my destruction he makes something new bud forth–an identification with him and the Father.
(Servant of God Luigi Giussani)
The Garments of God
A Sunday poem about the Lord’s great mercy . . .
The poem I have to share with you this Sunday is another by Jessica Powers:
The Garments of God
God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to nest on the thought that His face is turned from me.
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments–
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch,
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am but dust.
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I need not go abroad
to the hills of speech or…
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“You are saved when the Lord looks for you.”
“Some believe that faith and salvation come with our effort to look for, to seek the Lord. Whereas, it’s the opposite: you are saved when the Lord looks for you, when He looks at you and you let yourself be looked at and sought for. The Lord will look for you first. And when you find him, you understand that he was waiting there looking at you. He was expecting you from beforehand.
“This is salvation. And you let yourself be loved. Salvation is precisely this meeting where he works first. If this meeting does not take place, we are not saved.”
Pope Francis
The first goal of spiritual combat?
If you’re like me, one of the things that you battle–especially during a season like Lent–is discouragement. You just keep failing at whatever. Fr. Jacques Philippe, as always, has something encouraging to say, something doable.
The real spiritual battle, rather than the pursuit of invincibility or some other absolute infallibility beyond our capacity, consists principally in learning, without becoming too discouraged, to accept falling occasionally and not to lose our peace of heart if we should happen to do so lamentably, not to become excessively sad regarding our defeats and to know how to rebound from our falls to an even higher level. This is always possible, but on the condition that we not panic and that we continue to maintain our peace.
One could, then, with reason, enunciate this principle: The first goal of spiritual combat, that toward which our efforts must above all else be directed, is not to always obtain a victory (over our temptations, our weaknesses, etc.), rather it is to learn to maintain peace of heart under all circumstances, even in the case of defeat. It is only in this way that we can pursue the other goal, which is the elimination of our failures, our faults, our imperfections and sins. This is ultimately the victory that we must want and desire, knowing, however, that it is not by our own strength that we will obtain it and, therefore, not pretending that we can obtain it immediately. It is uniquely the grace of God that will obtain the victory for us, whose grace will be the more efficacious and rapid, the more we place maintaining our interior peace and sense of confident abandonment in the hands of our Father in heaven.
Witnesses to Hope 