I just began reading this wonderful book, The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones & illustrated by Jago. Those of you with kids are probably familiar with it. I learned a long time ago that a lot of kids’ books aren’t just for kids–and this is one of them. Here are a favorite couple of pages:
(Pssst. If you click on the picture, you can view it enlarged.)
This is such a profound insight, one that is applicable to all of us in various ways:
” . . . the way Mother Teresa learned to deal with her trial of faith: by converting her feeling of abandonment by God into an act of abandonment to God.” (Carol Zaleski)
One of the wonders of the Lord’s Baptism, which we celebrate today, is that for the first time Christ heard His Father’s voice as a man. This has incredible meaning for us, this unveiling of the heart of the Father for us:
“It is as man that he now hears his Father and sees the Spirit, and he rejoices that, because he now dwells humbly among the sons of men, the Father can no longer speak to him without his fellow-man feeling something of the vibration of that resounding Voice. Christ brings man not so much a teaching as a dazzling proximity to the inner life of God. And the very essence of the divine life, the very life-breath of the Son, is the good pleasure, the gracious favor and delight of the Father.” (Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis)
Through His baptism by John, Jesus shows us the way to attaining this inner…
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“Through the Incarnation of the Word the all-holy Virgin has been given to us as an all-powerful intercessor, who protects us from sins, misfortunes and disasters, praying for us day and night, our queen whose power no enemy–visible or invisible–can withstand, truly our mother by grace in accordance with the words uttered by Christ on the cross to the beloved disciple: Behold thy mother! and to her: Behold thy son!” (Father John of Krondstadt)
A beautiful excerpt from Michael O’Brien’s A Cry of Stone which illustrates well my last post.
In the drowsy sun of an autumn afternoon, she sat sketching the brightly colored trees in a little park not far from the house. The walkways were temporarily deserted and at the moment when she felt most grateful for this haven of peace, a noise of galloping hoofs thundered around a curve in the path. A rushing shape approached through piles of red leaves, scattering them left and right . . . .
Rose tore her eyes from her drawing to see two gasping little girls running hand in hand. They went past at a tremendous clip, leaving in their wake a whir of whipped air, spiraling leaves, and a stream of sound like a long, pure note, as if they were humming together.
One child was blind. Her eyes were gouged and scarred, her head nodding in a sightless headlong plunge, her face intent on nothing save the grip of her companion’s hand the unsuspected thickness of air, and the taste of utter exhilaration. On the face of her seeing friend were other ecstasies–large, open, race-horse eyes, the panting thoroughbred power of giving the impossible thing. The seeing girl had bestowed upon her blind friend a different form of sight, the feeling of wind on skin, of small unused muscles pumping at catastrophic speed, the awesome pitch through treacherous air that always contained within it the threat of collision, and the promise of soaring.
There is my soul, thought Rose. O, O, ay, ay, that I might trust what you are doing with me in this rushing darkness.
If you are that blind child, put your full trust in the One holding your hand.
I have been going through my fairly hefty journal filled with mostly quotes. I came across one that I blogged about nearly five years ago, so I thought I would share it again. I love his analogy.
I ran across this piece by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange when I was going through a very dark time of prayer. What he has to say applies also, of course, to any times of darkness in our lives–times when we can’t see the ending, wondering if it will be good or bad. (Of course, God works everything for the good, but sometimes it’s hard to even see that, isn’t it?) Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “If we are saddened at the approach of twilight, God could well answer us by saying: How can I otherwise reveal to you all those thousands of stars which can only be seen at night?” Isn’t that the truth–we can only see stars if there is darkness–and a deep darkness at that. And we can only see certain spiritual things (of just as much beauty as the stars on a clear, clear night) if we walk through certain darknesses that God allows. “To You I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!” (Ps 123.1) Lift up your eyes!
Thank you, Pope Francis, for underscoring my hopes for this blog:
Pope Francis on Saturday met with the participants of the 26th Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, meeting under the theme “Proclaiming Christ in the digital age.”
Pope Francis said the rise and development of the internet raises the question of the relationship between faith and culture.
Looking back to the first centuries of Christianity, the Pope pointed out Christians encountered the “extraordinary legacy” of Greek culture.
“Faced with philosophies of great profundity and educational methods of great value – although steeped in pagan elements, the Fathers did not shut them out, nor on the other hand, did they compromise with ideas contrary to the Faith,” Pope Francis said. “Instead, they learned to recognize and assimilate these higher concepts and transform them in the light of God’s Word, actually implementing what Saint Paul asks: Test all things and hold fast to that which is good.”
He said this also applies to the internet.
“You must test everything, knowing that you will surely find counterfeits, illusions and dangerous traps to avoid,” Pope Francis said. “But, guided by the Holy Spirit, we will discover valuable opportunities to lead people to the luminous face of the Lord. Among the possibilities offered by digital communication, the most important is the proclamation of the Gospel.”
He said it is not enough to acquire technological skills, however important. He said the internet must be used to meet “often hurting or lost” real people and offer them “real reasons for hope.”
“The announcement [of the Gospel] requires authentic human relationships and leads along the path to a personal encounter with the Lord,” he said.
“Therefore, the internet is not enough; technology is not enough,” Pope Francis continued. “This, however, does not mean that the Church’s presence online is useless; on the contrary, it is essential to be present, always in an evangelical way, in what, for many, especially young people, has become a sort of living environment; to awaken the irrepressible questions of the heart about the meaning of existence; and to show the way that leads to Him who is the answer, the Divine Mercy made flesh, the Lord Jesus.”
A blessed Epiphany!
Immortal brilliance of presage
In any dark day’s iron age
May come to lift the hair and bless
Even our tired earthliness,
And sundown bring an age of gold,
Forged in faerie, far and old,
An elsewhere, and an elfin light,
And kings rise eastward in the night.
~Robert Fitzgerald “For Epiphany”
The night sky was still dim and pale.
There, peeping among the cloud wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains,
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.
The beauty of it smote his heart,
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.
For like a shaft, clear and cold,
the thought pierced him that in the end
the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:
there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
~J.R.R. Tolikien, The Return of the King
The star represented a hope
too long…
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I can imagine even the angels smiling at this:
Witnesses to Hope 