A great price

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While the King rests in his own room, my nard yields its perfume.
(Song of Songs 1:12)

Simon Dewey

“In the gospels, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, poured out a costly nard ointment that symbolized both her complete devotion to Christ and the anointing of Christ for his death and burial (Jn 12:3; Mk 14:3; Mt 26:6-13). Here is accentuated the costliness of the nard, which is poured out and fills the entire house with its perfume. Such a perfume brings a great price. To anoint Christ as your king will demand from you a constant sacrifice of everything in order that you can become a precious perfume to him.”

(George A. Maloney, Singers of the New Song.)

The Hardest Blessing

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Jan’s book, Circle of Grace, must be one of my favorite books of poetry. This Sunday poem is from another of her books, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.

THE HARDEST BLESSING
 
If we cannot
lay aside the wound,
then let us say
it will not always
bind us.
 
Let us say
the damage
will not eternally
determine our path.
 
Let us say
the line of our life
will not always travel
along the places
we are torn.
 
Let us say
that forgiveness
can take some practice,
can take some patience,
can take a long
and struggling time.
 
Let us say
that to offer
the hardest blessing,
we will need
the deepest grace;
that to forgive
the sharpest pain,
we will need
the fiercest love;
that to release
the ancient ache,
we will need
new strength
for every day.
 
Let us say
the wound
will not be
our final home—
 
that through it
runs a road,
a way we would not
have chosen
but on which
we will finally see
forgiveness,
so long practiced,
coming toward us,
shining with the joy
so well deserved.
 
—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

“Oh my God, I am really unhappy!”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved7 Comments

It’s been a bit of a rough week for me. This week is bookended by the anniversaries of two of my brothers’ passings, one who died just a year ago and the other many years ago from suicide. Also, another brother (closest to me in age) is currently homeless.

Not too long ago, after having read so much about him at Benjamin Embley’s blog, Contemplative in the Mud, I read Marcel Văn’s Autobiography. Văn had an incredible relationship with St. Thérèse who appeared to him and spoke with him often. I’ve been going back again and again to something she first said to him:

“If on the other hand, you are invaded by sadness, say to him again with an open heart: ‘O my God, I am really unhappy!’ And ask him to help you to accept this sadness with patience. Really believe this: nothing gives as much pleasure to the good God than to see on this earth a heart which loves him, who is sincere with him with each step, with each smile, as well with tears as with little momentary pleasures.”

“So when you speak to the good God, do so quite naturally as if you were talking to those around you.  You can speak to him of anything you wish: of your game of marbles . . . God takes pleasure in listening to you; in fact, he thirsts to hear these little stories which people are too sparing with him.” 

This has been the form of my prayer this week, a little child bringing all to her Father because that is the kind of Father that he is.

Photo from Contemplative in the Mud

And, if I may, could you say a prayer for all of my brothers? Thank you.

Obliged to Sing

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I was introduced to Scott Cairns through reading his book, Short Trip to the Edge, a Pilgrimage to Prayer. I put that book in the category of books that not only are about beautiful things but are also beautiful to read.  One I have reread and certainly will again.  Here is a poem of his on poetry and how it serves us.

They Open Us

Scott Cairns

—After Pappas [ΝΙΚΟΣ ΠΑΠΠΑΣ]

Because of this poetry, which, like the Gospel
opens us to waves of unexpected dangers
and elations, which bids the condemned to loosen
his tie as he ambles to the wall to be shot,
and woos meandering millions yet to notice
the brother or sister teetering on the cliff,
compelling that we reach out a hand, deliver
those wretched, belovéd ones to safety, at least,
to momentary safety and, in that moment,
a passing sense that they are not alone; because
of poetry’s vertiginous capacity
to center one’s attention on what might make us
whole, and what might break us, spanning the desolate
hours as well as the blessed, and laving with honey
both corpses and the morning toast, even as it
raps upon the door, unrelenting in its claims;
because of this poetry, rising from the souls,
the ancients of every land, the generations
thereafter, all the radiant host, both famous
and obscure, offering their breath to the flowing
chorus circling the spheres, giving voice to every
exultation, every desolation, ever,
we raise our heads, and do not shirk, obliged to sing.

The beloved disciple

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I am looking over some notes I took on a book I read quite awhile ago that struck me as very profound, Only Love Creates, by Father Fabio Rosini. (I believe it’s the only book of his that is translated into English.) I had it checked out from our library for so, so long but finally returned it so someone else might have the opportunity to read it. As I said, today I was looking over the notes that I had taken while reading it. Here is just a snippet from the introduction.

“Why does Jesus know how to love?  Because he’s loved.  He is, and he lives in, a gift—namely, that the Father begot him, gave him being, gave him all of himself.”

“In John 13:23-25 there is a person called ‘the beloved disciple’ who at the Last Supper makes a gesture and reclines his head on Jesus’s chest.  At that moment he has an intimate dialogue with Jesus concerning Judas’s betrayal:

One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.  So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’

“In that moment he feels Jesus’s heart beat with love for Judas.  It’s from that moment that he’s called the ‘beloved disciple,’ not before, because he encountered love. ‘He reclined his head on the chest’ of Jesus: that expression has already appeared at the end of the prologue at the beginning of John’s Gospel, where there is an extraordinary hymn that, toward the end, says, ‘No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’ (John 1:18).  This is the same image, that of a little boy curled up against his daddy.  Jesus is always attached to, turned toward, and aimed at the Father, and the beloved disciple does the same thing with Jesus, listening to his heart.”

Eucharisteo

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I began this gratitude journal in 2010 after reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I have let it lapse way too many times–otherwise, I would be way past 1800 items by this point–but I am always glad when I pick it back up. It helps keep my mind focused during the day on what I might be thankful for, to record later in the day in this little book. Lately, I have been keeping an art card at the side just to bring some more beauty into my day. (This one is John William Waterhouse’s, “The Flower Picker”.)

“An act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.” (St. John of Avila)

“Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted–a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding the good in every situation you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” (Rabbi Harold Kushner)

The Icon

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Sharing another poem this Sunday by Anne Porter. I think this was one of the first I ever read by her and made me fall in love with her poetry.

Cretan School; Madonna and Child (Icon of Panagia Glykofilousa): Virgin of Tenderness; Government Art Collection; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/madonna-and-child-icon-of-panagia-glykofilousa-virgin-of-tenderness-28000

The Icon

Here in this icon out of ancient Russia
Brown as amber the little Mother of God
Holding her infant to her cheek
Is present to us
In all her wise
And peaceful sorrow

A forest hermit painted this
They say at night his face
Lit up the snow

He befriended robbers
And often gave
The bears his bread. 

Anne Porter

Saint Silouan

The Heart of Virtue

Sr. Dorcee, beloved4 Comments

I have been plagued by Jansenism most of my life, and Lent can be an especially difficult challenge in that regard. But over the past couple of years, God has been freeing me of this heresy by his sovereign intervention in my life and by writings like this by Joshua Elzner (building on my years of reading Thérèse). You can see that I have read and reread these pages a few times now. I share them with hope that your eyes may also be opened to the true heart of virtue.

When you feel that you are sinking

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Another poem from Malcolm Guite, speaking especially to those who feel like they are sinking.

The Christian Plummet

Down into the icy depths you plunge,
The cold dark undertow of your depression,
Even your memories of light made strange,
As you fall further from all comprehension.
You feel as though they’ve thrown you overboard,
Your fellow Christians on the sunlit deck,
A stone-cold Jonah on whom scorn is poured,
A sacrifice to save them from the wreck.

But someone has their hands on your long line,
You sound for them the depths they sail above,
One who takes Jonah as his only sign
Sinks lower still to hold you in his love,
And though, you cannot see, or speak, or breathe,
The everlasting arms are underneath.

Malcolm Guite