...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sweet Desire
Then John began once more. "And yet..." he said, "and yet, Father, I am terribly afraid. I am afraid that the things the Landlord really intends for me may be utterly unlike the things he has taught me to desire."
"They will be very unlike the things you imagine. But you already know that the objects which your desire imagines are always inadequate to that desire. Until you have it, you will not know what you wanted."
"I remember that Wisdom said that too. And I understand that. Perhaps what troubles me is a fear that my desires, after all you have said, do not really come from the Landlord - that there is some older and rival beauty in the world which the Landlord will not allow me to get. How can we prove that the Island comes from Him? Angular would say it did not."
"You have proved it for yourself. You have lived the proof. Has not every object which fancy and sense suggested for the desire proved a failure, confessed itself after trial, not to be what you wanted? Have you not found by elimination that this desire is the perilous siege in which only One can sit?"
"But then," said John, "the very quality of it is so - so unlike what we think of the Landlord. I will confess to you what I had hoped to keep secret. It has been with me almost a bodily desire. There have been times... I have felt the sweetness flow over from the soul into the body... pass through me head to foot. Its quite true, what the Clevers say. It is a thrill - a physical sensation."
"That is an old story. You must fear thrills but you must not fear then too much. It is only a foretaste of that which the real Desirable will be when you found it. I remember well what an old friend of mine in Medium Aevum once said to me - "Out of the soul's bliss, " he said, "there shall be flowing over into the flesh."
..."The visions," (John replied) "ever since the first one, have grown rarer, the desires fainter. I have been talking as if I still craved it, but I do not think I can find craving in my heart now at all.'
The old man sat still, nodding a little as before.
Suddenly John spoke again.
"Why should it wear out if it is from the Landlord? It doesn't last, you know? Isn't that which gives away the whole case?"
"Have you not heard men say, or have you forgotten, that it is like human love?" asked the hermit.
"What has that to do with it?"
"You would not ask if you had been married, or even if you had studied generations among the beasts. Do you not know how it is with love? First comes delight: then pain: then fruit. And then there is joy of the fruit but that is different again from the first delight. And mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step: for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. You must not try to keep the raptures: they have done their work. Manna kept, is worms. But you are full of sleep and we had better talk no more."
...And at the very borders of sleep, John heard him begin to sing and this was the song:
My heart is empty. All the fountain that should run
With longing, are in me
Dried up. In all my countryside there is not one
That drips to find the sea.
I have no care for anything thy love can grant
Except the moment's vain
And hardly noticed filling of the moment's want
And to be free from pain.
Oh, thou that are unwearying, that dost neither sleep
Nor slumber, who didst take
All care for Lazarus in the careless tomb, oh keep
Watch for me till I wake.
If thou think of me what I cannot think, if thou
Desire for me what I
Cannot desire, my soul's interior Form, though now
Deep-buried, will not die
- No more than the insensible dropp'd seed which grows
Through winter ripe for birth
Because, while it forgets, the heaven remembering throws
Sweet influence still on earth,
- Because the heaven, moved moth-like by thy beauty, goes
Still turning round the earth
The Pilgrim's Regress: Archetype and Ectype
"They will be very unlike the things you imagine. But you already know that the objects which your desire imagines are always inadequate to that desire. Until you have it, you will not know what you wanted."
"I remember that Wisdom said that too. And I understand that. Perhaps what troubles me is a fear that my desires, after all you have said, do not really come from the Landlord - that there is some older and rival beauty in the world which the Landlord will not allow me to get. How can we prove that the Island comes from Him? Angular would say it did not."
"You have proved it for yourself. You have lived the proof. Has not every object which fancy and sense suggested for the desire proved a failure, confessed itself after trial, not to be what you wanted? Have you not found by elimination that this desire is the perilous siege in which only One can sit?"
"But then," said John, "the very quality of it is so - so unlike what we think of the Landlord. I will confess to you what I had hoped to keep secret. It has been with me almost a bodily desire. There have been times... I have felt the sweetness flow over from the soul into the body... pass through me head to foot. Its quite true, what the Clevers say. It is a thrill - a physical sensation."
"That is an old story. You must fear thrills but you must not fear then too much. It is only a foretaste of that which the real Desirable will be when you found it. I remember well what an old friend of mine in Medium Aevum once said to me - "Out of the soul's bliss, " he said, "there shall be flowing over into the flesh."
..."The visions," (John replied) "ever since the first one, have grown rarer, the desires fainter. I have been talking as if I still craved it, but I do not think I can find craving in my heart now at all.'
The old man sat still, nodding a little as before.
Suddenly John spoke again.
"Why should it wear out if it is from the Landlord? It doesn't last, you know? Isn't that which gives away the whole case?"
"Have you not heard men say, or have you forgotten, that it is like human love?" asked the hermit.
"What has that to do with it?"
"You would not ask if you had been married, or even if you had studied generations among the beasts. Do you not know how it is with love? First comes delight: then pain: then fruit. And then there is joy of the fruit but that is different again from the first delight. And mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step: for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. You must not try to keep the raptures: they have done their work. Manna kept, is worms. But you are full of sleep and we had better talk no more."
...And at the very borders of sleep, John heard him begin to sing and this was the song:
My heart is empty. All the fountain that should run
With longing, are in me
Dried up. In all my countryside there is not one
That drips to find the sea.
I have no care for anything thy love can grant
Except the moment's vain
And hardly noticed filling of the moment's want
And to be free from pain.
Oh, thou that are unwearying, that dost neither sleep
Nor slumber, who didst take
All care for Lazarus in the careless tomb, oh keep
Watch for me till I wake.
If thou think of me what I cannot think, if thou
Desire for me what I
Cannot desire, my soul's interior Form, though now
Deep-buried, will not die
- No more than the insensible dropp'd seed which grows
Through winter ripe for birth
Because, while it forgets, the heaven remembering throws
Sweet influence still on earth,
- Because the heaven, moved moth-like by thy beauty, goes
Still turning round the earth
The Pilgrim's Regress: Archetype and Ectype
The Great Isolation
"Heaven," he went on, "lies hidden within all of us- here it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me
to-morrow and for all time."
I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.
"And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful
how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality."
"And when," I cried out to him bitterly, "when will that come to pass? and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of
ours?"
"What then, you don't believe it," he said. "You preach it and don't believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it,
will come to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process has its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all.
Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go though the period of isolation."
"What do you mean by isolation?" I asked him.
"Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age- it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, 'How strong I am now and how secure,' and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social
solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will
suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens.... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die."
From "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1879.
to-morrow and for all time."
I looked at him; he was speaking with great emotion and gazing mysteriously at me, as if he were questioning me.
"And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful
how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality."
"And when," I cried out to him bitterly, "when will that come to pass? and will it ever come to pass? Is not it simply a dream of
ours?"
"What then, you don't believe it," he said. "You preach it and don't believe it yourself. Believe me, this dream, as you call it,
will come to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process has its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all.
Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go though the period of isolation."
"What do you mean by isolation?" I asked him.
"Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age- it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, 'How strong I am now and how secure,' and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social
solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will
suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens.... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die."
From "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1879.
Scars
Initially posted Aug 27, 2008
Scars do heal but long after the searing pain, it leaves its perpetual mark.
Wounded once, the wounds heal.
And again.
And again the wounds heal.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Yes, wounds heal.
Yet together, the scars trace the imprint of the kiss of pain.
The cuts are the staves for a bitter song,
the blood, the notes of a dissonant symphony.
One heals.
One moves on.
But one does not remain untouched.
Every scar,
Every blow,
Every scourge,
Every mark left by the pressing of Love's scathing lips
kills a little part of one's self.
the kill is slow.
the march of the execution is paced.
Larghissimo.
Why do you boast your wounds, O Christ?
Why, enthroned in heavenly glory, are your scars the rubies of your victory?
Pain is your kiss.
The Cross is your embrace.
Why is the bitter cup the price of love?
Why is your Way a rendezvous with lady pain?
The winds pick up the silent cry and echo it into eternity
Eternity which emptied itself
lying
crawling on the ground like a worm
crushed under the gibbet
staring at me eye to eye
heart to heart
alone with the alone
emptied with the empty
He who cursed loneliness
has blessed my solitude
with his embrace
All else surround,
peering but not entering
the heart remains a garden enclosed
wrapped by the black of night
watched by the moon awaiting Sabbath rest
wrestling,
praying,
groaning...
anticipating
eagerly hoping
watching
its lamp almost drained of oil...
waiting
waiting
waiting...
unlamented
save his own tears
scarred by a searing emptiness...
In soledad vivia,
y en soldedad ha puesto ya su nido
y en soledad la guia
a solas so querido
tambien en soledad de amore herido
She lived in solitude,
and now in solitude has built her nest;
and in solitude he guides her,
he alone, who also bears
in solitude the wound of love.
(The Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross)
Scars do heal but long after the searing pain, it leaves its perpetual mark.
Wounded once, the wounds heal.
And again.
And again the wounds heal.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Yes, wounds heal.
Yet together, the scars trace the imprint of the kiss of pain.
The cuts are the staves for a bitter song,
the blood, the notes of a dissonant symphony.
One heals.
One moves on.
But one does not remain untouched.
Every scar,
Every blow,
Every scourge,
Every mark left by the pressing of Love's scathing lips
kills a little part of one's self.
the kill is slow.
the march of the execution is paced.
Larghissimo.
Why do you boast your wounds, O Christ?
Why, enthroned in heavenly glory, are your scars the rubies of your victory?
Pain is your kiss.
The Cross is your embrace.
Why is the bitter cup the price of love?
Why is your Way a rendezvous with lady pain?
The winds pick up the silent cry and echo it into eternity
Eternity which emptied itself
lying
crawling on the ground like a worm
crushed under the gibbet
staring at me eye to eye
heart to heart
alone with the alone
emptied with the empty
He who cursed loneliness
has blessed my solitude
with his embrace
All else surround,
peering but not entering
the heart remains a garden enclosed
wrapped by the black of night
watched by the moon awaiting Sabbath rest
wrestling,
praying,
groaning...
anticipating
eagerly hoping
watching
its lamp almost drained of oil...
waiting
waiting
waiting...
unlamented
save his own tears
scarred by a searing emptiness...
In soledad vivia,
y en soldedad ha puesto ya su nido
y en soledad la guia
a solas so querido
tambien en soledad de amore herido
She lived in solitude,
and now in solitude has built her nest;
and in solitude he guides her,
he alone, who also bears
in solitude the wound of love.
(The Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Love and Grief - the lesson of the storm
"Love is a unifying virtue which takes upon itself the torments of its beloved Lord. It is a fire reaching through to the inmost soul. It transforms the lover into the one loved. More deeply, love intermingles with grief, and grief with love, and a certain blending of love and grief occurs. They become so united that we can no longer distinguish love from grief nor grief from love. Thus the loving heart rejoices in its sorrow and exults in its grieving love." (St. Paul of the Cross)
This was the Second Reading for the Office of Readings today on this Feast of St. Paul of the Cross. I thought it was a fitting introduction as I enter into the Consecration Novena. In fact, it was when this 'disease' of the heart, this wound of love, surfaced in my life that it ushered in these dark clouds that hovered over the horizon. I am uncertain as to precisely when or how these threatening clouds formed. All I knew was that I was facing a dilemma too big for me to comprehend, too overwhelming. Thus, it was on Oct 28, 2000 that I consecrated myself to Mary most Holy begging her that these clouds not mar the future that lies ahead, that the darkness it brings not overpower the light that has kindled in my heart since my earliest days.
Nine years have passed since that one October evening and the clouds are still pouring their rain although beyond shines the Eternal Sun. The sun's rays have penetrated the clouds but they are still hovering and now, I walk about looking at its aftermath.
A terrible storm has just passed
with several destructive waves
now it seems to have abated
but even now, I'm not sure if it is fully over
It may never be over,
perhaps more clouds are on the way
But now, enough rain has abated
and enough rays have shone through
to look about and see
see the aftermath of the frightening storm
Everywhere there are ruins
And it becomes too overwhelming in the face of it all
I can't fully make sense of it all
though a part of me can't help but confess
The clouds came under the rule of the Eternal Sun
They came with their evil terror
yet their waters became the cleansing flood of baptism
Where sin abounds, grace does all the more abide.
As I enter these holy days of the Novena
I look around,
I look and am struck with wonder
It is the dynamics of Redemption at play
before my very eyes...
This was the Second Reading for the Office of Readings today on this Feast of St. Paul of the Cross. I thought it was a fitting introduction as I enter into the Consecration Novena. In fact, it was when this 'disease' of the heart, this wound of love, surfaced in my life that it ushered in these dark clouds that hovered over the horizon. I am uncertain as to precisely when or how these threatening clouds formed. All I knew was that I was facing a dilemma too big for me to comprehend, too overwhelming. Thus, it was on Oct 28, 2000 that I consecrated myself to Mary most Holy begging her that these clouds not mar the future that lies ahead, that the darkness it brings not overpower the light that has kindled in my heart since my earliest days.
Nine years have passed since that one October evening and the clouds are still pouring their rain although beyond shines the Eternal Sun. The sun's rays have penetrated the clouds but they are still hovering and now, I walk about looking at its aftermath.
A terrible storm has just passed
with several destructive waves
now it seems to have abated
but even now, I'm not sure if it is fully over
It may never be over,
perhaps more clouds are on the way
But now, enough rain has abated
and enough rays have shone through
to look about and see
see the aftermath of the frightening storm
Everywhere there are ruins
And it becomes too overwhelming in the face of it all
I can't fully make sense of it all
though a part of me can't help but confess
The clouds came under the rule of the Eternal Sun
They came with their evil terror
yet their waters became the cleansing flood of baptism
Where sin abounds, grace does all the more abide.
As I enter these holy days of the Novena
I look around,
I look and am struck with wonder
It is the dynamics of Redemption at play
before my very eyes...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Do You Love Me?
(Composed February 14, 2005 - how fitting...)
Do you truly love me more than these? (John 21:15)
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time:
How deeply penetrating are these words.
The more you ask, the more revealing they become.
Yes, Lord, I love you. You know that I love you.
But do I love you completely?
Do I love you first?
I have other loves.
I love my life.
I love myself.
I love my family, my friends.
What about those loves, Lord?
Do I love you more than them?
Perhaps I don’t.
My heart is conflicted. I want my eyes to stay fixed on you but I can’t help but also fix them on myself, on my wounds, on my burdens, and from there, fix them on to others, to whom my interaction with them is the root is these wounds and struggles.
After these gazes, it is then that my eyes are fixed on you, a cry for help, for salvation, for hope.
Such is the direction of my gaze and hence, the direction of my love.
They begin from within and then look outward and from outward, upward.
Lord, you know all things
This was Peter’s response and I make it my own.
You know all things; you know why I am in this state.
It is perhaps that my gaze finds it final rest in you, since you alone can make sense of my confusion.
But you ask for more.
Not only must you be the end, you must be the beginning.
My love must begin with you and from you, to myself then to others.
From others, then it must return to you.
You know all things, Lord, and I don’t.
Yet I cannot in my own weakness shift my focus from myself to you.
I must begin with myself.
I cannot begin anywhere else.
And in this is rooted my weakness: that I trust myself more than I trust you.
My own actions betray my speaking, for though I don’t know and understand all things and you do, yet I trust myself more than you do.
You are dangerous, Lord.
You are dangerous because you are holy.
You are dangerous in that if I go your way, it would mean abandoning my own will and my own trust and placing myself in the hands of another.
And this is beyond my security.
This places me in the realm of danger.
And I am afraid.
With love comes trust and with trust is love.
So the question becomes, Can I trust you more than I trust myself?
I want to draw near but not too close, because if I do, I might lose myself, I might lose control and if I lose control, I fear that worst, utter chaos and even death itself.
But that is what you ask of me.
You know my own insecurities. Where is your compassion.
Is it here? Perhaps it is rooted in that very word.
Cum-passio: you suffer with me. This is your great claim.
Not only are you with me, not only are you watching me.
You suffer with me.
You sense and feel in the very heart of your being that which burdens and breaks my heart.
So what if you suffer with me?
Then I am not alone.
You have always suffered with me.
You know all things, you know my weaknesses, you see my conflicting heart, you see how I want to draw so near to you and run so far from you.
You are safe yet dangerous.
And yet, through my cascading emotions, you stayed.
You stayed, suffering with me through my fluctuating states.
You have shown yourself faithful and with faithfulness comes love
Faithfulness is the ground for trust.
And so you ask again,
Do you truly love me?
Can you trust me?
To shift my focus from myself to you would thus mean to shift my focus from my weakness to your faithfulness, from my doubt to your love.
Can I love you more than these?
I’m afraid to say I want to.
What will happen with my life?
What will happen to my relationships with others?
When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go
Why would I follow you if you will bring me to where I don’t want to go?
I will go to where I am afraid?
I will go to where I am hurting?
Why?
Because that’s where you went.
That’s where you are.
By your Cross, by you went to where I am hurting, you went to where I am afraid.
Why would I want to follow you there?
Because that is where I am.
I cannot see it, I cannot accept it.
But if my focus begins with my fear and my shames, with my sadness and my hurt, it is because that’s where I am. I cannot be anywhere else.
I can block it out.
I can make myself believe that I’m not there.
I can think I’m running away from it
But if my focus always begins there, then in reality, I have never left.
I am steeped in my fears, in my shames.
And it is there where I am conversing with you?!?!
I have never left even though I thought I did
And you have never left even though I thought you did!
My worst fear is right before my face.
You put me right before my own presence
And it’s an ugly presence.
I’m not afraid because I may be in a living nightmare,
I’m afraid because I already am!
This is where you want me to glorify you?
Where I am afraid and I am ashamed?
This is where your glory dwells.
The ugliness of my fears and shames is drowned in the beauty of your faithfulness
You overcome my own insecurities and find me right where I hide myself afraid of being hurt yet desperately hoping to be found.
True love banishes fear.
Follow me!
From here, you want to lift me up.
But I won’t let you because I trust myself more than you.
Can I follow you?
It will not depend on my weakness but on your strength.
Do you truly love me more than these? (John 21:15)
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time:
How deeply penetrating are these words.
The more you ask, the more revealing they become.
Yes, Lord, I love you. You know that I love you.
But do I love you completely?
Do I love you first?
I have other loves.
I love my life.
I love myself.
I love my family, my friends.
What about those loves, Lord?
Do I love you more than them?
Perhaps I don’t.
My heart is conflicted. I want my eyes to stay fixed on you but I can’t help but also fix them on myself, on my wounds, on my burdens, and from there, fix them on to others, to whom my interaction with them is the root is these wounds and struggles.
After these gazes, it is then that my eyes are fixed on you, a cry for help, for salvation, for hope.
Such is the direction of my gaze and hence, the direction of my love.
They begin from within and then look outward and from outward, upward.
Lord, you know all things
This was Peter’s response and I make it my own.
You know all things; you know why I am in this state.
It is perhaps that my gaze finds it final rest in you, since you alone can make sense of my confusion.
But you ask for more.
Not only must you be the end, you must be the beginning.
My love must begin with you and from you, to myself then to others.
From others, then it must return to you.
You know all things, Lord, and I don’t.
Yet I cannot in my own weakness shift my focus from myself to you.
I must begin with myself.
I cannot begin anywhere else.
And in this is rooted my weakness: that I trust myself more than I trust you.
My own actions betray my speaking, for though I don’t know and understand all things and you do, yet I trust myself more than you do.
You are dangerous, Lord.
You are dangerous because you are holy.
You are dangerous in that if I go your way, it would mean abandoning my own will and my own trust and placing myself in the hands of another.
And this is beyond my security.
This places me in the realm of danger.
And I am afraid.
With love comes trust and with trust is love.
So the question becomes, Can I trust you more than I trust myself?
I want to draw near but not too close, because if I do, I might lose myself, I might lose control and if I lose control, I fear that worst, utter chaos and even death itself.
But that is what you ask of me.
You know my own insecurities. Where is your compassion.
Is it here? Perhaps it is rooted in that very word.
Cum-passio: you suffer with me. This is your great claim.
Not only are you with me, not only are you watching me.
You suffer with me.
You sense and feel in the very heart of your being that which burdens and breaks my heart.
So what if you suffer with me?
Then I am not alone.
You have always suffered with me.
You know all things, you know my weaknesses, you see my conflicting heart, you see how I want to draw so near to you and run so far from you.
You are safe yet dangerous.
And yet, through my cascading emotions, you stayed.
You stayed, suffering with me through my fluctuating states.
You have shown yourself faithful and with faithfulness comes love
Faithfulness is the ground for trust.
And so you ask again,
Do you truly love me?
Can you trust me?
To shift my focus from myself to you would thus mean to shift my focus from my weakness to your faithfulness, from my doubt to your love.
Can I love you more than these?
I’m afraid to say I want to.
What will happen with my life?
What will happen to my relationships with others?
When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go
Why would I follow you if you will bring me to where I don’t want to go?
I will go to where I am afraid?
I will go to where I am hurting?
Why?
Because that’s where you went.
That’s where you are.
By your Cross, by you went to where I am hurting, you went to where I am afraid.
Why would I want to follow you there?
Because that is where I am.
I cannot see it, I cannot accept it.
But if my focus begins with my fear and my shames, with my sadness and my hurt, it is because that’s where I am. I cannot be anywhere else.
I can block it out.
I can make myself believe that I’m not there.
I can think I’m running away from it
But if my focus always begins there, then in reality, I have never left.
I am steeped in my fears, in my shames.
And it is there where I am conversing with you?!?!
I have never left even though I thought I did
And you have never left even though I thought you did!
My worst fear is right before my face.
You put me right before my own presence
And it’s an ugly presence.
I’m not afraid because I may be in a living nightmare,
I’m afraid because I already am!
This is where you want me to glorify you?
Where I am afraid and I am ashamed?
This is where your glory dwells.
The ugliness of my fears and shames is drowned in the beauty of your faithfulness
You overcome my own insecurities and find me right where I hide myself afraid of being hurt yet desperately hoping to be found.
True love banishes fear.
Follow me!
From here, you want to lift me up.
But I won’t let you because I trust myself more than you.
Can I follow you?
It will not depend on my weakness but on your strength.
Crumbs
(Composed Aug 22, 2005)
The beggar dogs eat the crumbs that is left on the master’s table (Mat 15:27)
Solitary soul in exile, wandering the vast desert
the wilderness of the unkown,
of questions and doubtsfears and shames,
hopes and dreamsdreams
THe desert of God’s refinement
Here he wanders,
a deeply seated loneliness penetrating itself to the corecore
Desiring simply this:
Love
To love and to be loved
to be accepted as he is and to be aknowledged
He is reduced to a beggar off to chase the illusions of a false hope
and sitting by suppliant of people’s affection
He owns the leftovers
the dog that eats the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.
no soul has shown him much affection
little endearment
their offered time are the crumbs of the times well spent
among things truly loved and cherished
he recieves no particular attention
cast off to the shadows
until one has pity and offers him what is left of their attention
what is left of their affection
he is not a priority
simply a commodity
this is the life of a beggar
a slave to the images,
bound by the passions
his sole comforter to numb the fatal pain of loneliness
who shall ransom his life
sold to the merchants who care no less for him
the object of pity and derision
of misunderstanding and judgment
when beneath it alllies a heart broken,
seeking to find its place in this world?
the eyes and hearts of those who once cared for him
are now fixed on other matters
and all he receives from them are the leftovers of their time and love
Thank you
THanks for the crumbs,
the leftovers befitting a base beggar
no more than a dog begging off the streets
filling himself with the reremains of the feast
yet never a member of it
It is he that must bow to their will
It is the dog that must lower its head at the masters’ bidding
Turn your wheel, o fate
smile upon this hound or shall he also be the object of your morsels…
The beggar dogs eat the crumbs that is left on the master’s table (Mat 15:27)
Solitary soul in exile, wandering the vast desert
the wilderness of the unkown,
of questions and doubtsfears and shames,
hopes and dreamsdreams
THe desert of God’s refinement
Here he wanders,
a deeply seated loneliness penetrating itself to the corecore
Desiring simply this:
Love
To love and to be loved
to be accepted as he is and to be aknowledged
He is reduced to a beggar off to chase the illusions of a false hope
and sitting by suppliant of people’s affection
He owns the leftovers
the dog that eats the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.
no soul has shown him much affection
little endearment
their offered time are the crumbs of the times well spent
among things truly loved and cherished
he recieves no particular attention
cast off to the shadows
until one has pity and offers him what is left of their attention
what is left of their affection
he is not a priority
simply a commodity
this is the life of a beggar
a slave to the images,
bound by the passions
his sole comforter to numb the fatal pain of loneliness
who shall ransom his life
sold to the merchants who care no less for him
the object of pity and derision
of misunderstanding and judgment
when beneath it alllies a heart broken,
seeking to find its place in this world?
the eyes and hearts of those who once cared for him
are now fixed on other matters
and all he receives from them are the leftovers of their time and love
Thank you
THanks for the crumbs,
the leftovers befitting a base beggar
no more than a dog begging off the streets
filling himself with the reremains of the feast
yet never a member of it
It is he that must bow to their will
It is the dog that must lower its head at the masters’ bidding
Turn your wheel, o fate
smile upon this hound or shall he also be the object of your morsels…
Untitled
(Composed June 27, 2005)
No effort tried
Drained of strength and inspiration
Paralyzed in speaking his voice
Truth cannot escape his crippled tongue
And so he is misunderstood
Self-inflicting pain over pain
Misery over misery
From one burden to another
Drained of strength
So hurt he can but close himself, the walls rise higher and higher
So leave him be
A fast for sorrow
The company of so many friends
Yet still walking in solitude
The perpetual cry, Why?
No faith, no hope, no love
His only cry to heaven,
The archer his missed his mark
He seems to always miss his mark
And frustration builds on frustration
Fuels fear and shame
On what foundation must his life be built?
A simple concept so difficult to understand
What is the choice of honor?
Where is the path to peace?
Strong One, so inspiring, where are you?
For this dying soul, held in the eternal pieta
Longs for your light
For he but circles around the mocking darkness
Whose wings ache to fly
Over the dark clouds on to where the horizons are bright with promise
Tuned to the songs of ancient heroes
And longing to dance in the rhythm of brave hearts
to soar on the bright smiling warmth of the light
this is his hope..
a hope to be raised above the threatening storm
where the light of truth has overcome the darkness of confusion
for now, he cannot see past the tempest
tossed and turned about by the forceful waves
in a frustrating fluctuate of thoughts and moods
Comforter, come with your comfort
Lord over the flood, whose brazen feet run swift over the storm
Save this dying archer
Seek his heart that seeks your truth
You who understand, allow him to be understood
And more so, allow him to understand
Ephphatha
Let his mouth be opened, let his ears be unlocked
And he shall sing your praise
On your strength he stands
That the good fight may be his
To win race and to keep the faith…
And attain that crown and joy so long desired by this edgy heart
And find refuge in the land of rest
Amen
No effort tried
Drained of strength and inspiration
Paralyzed in speaking his voice
Truth cannot escape his crippled tongue
And so he is misunderstood
Self-inflicting pain over pain
Misery over misery
From one burden to another
Drained of strength
So hurt he can but close himself, the walls rise higher and higher
So leave him be
A fast for sorrow
The company of so many friends
Yet still walking in solitude
The perpetual cry, Why?
No faith, no hope, no love
His only cry to heaven,
The archer his missed his mark
He seems to always miss his mark
And frustration builds on frustration
Fuels fear and shame
On what foundation must his life be built?
A simple concept so difficult to understand
What is the choice of honor?
Where is the path to peace?
Strong One, so inspiring, where are you?
For this dying soul, held in the eternal pieta
Longs for your light
For he but circles around the mocking darkness
Whose wings ache to fly
Over the dark clouds on to where the horizons are bright with promise
Tuned to the songs of ancient heroes
And longing to dance in the rhythm of brave hearts
to soar on the bright smiling warmth of the light
this is his hope..
a hope to be raised above the threatening storm
where the light of truth has overcome the darkness of confusion
for now, he cannot see past the tempest
tossed and turned about by the forceful waves
in a frustrating fluctuate of thoughts and moods
Comforter, come with your comfort
Lord over the flood, whose brazen feet run swift over the storm
Save this dying archer
Seek his heart that seeks your truth
You who understand, allow him to be understood
And more so, allow him to understand
Ephphatha
Let his mouth be opened, let his ears be unlocked
And he shall sing your praise
On your strength he stands
That the good fight may be his
To win race and to keep the faith…
And attain that crown and joy so long desired by this edgy heart
And find refuge in the land of rest
Amen
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Ninth Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - NINTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, ardent love is as unrelenting as the grave. Love's flames are fiery flames, the fiercest of all. (Song of Songs 8:6)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE PASSION OF LOVE
My Vocation is Love! I have no other means of proving my love except by strewing flowers, that is to say, letting no little sacrifice pass ... and in strewing my flowers I will sing. I will sing, even if my roses must be gathered from among thorns; and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter shall be my song...”
The source and summit of Therese’s life, this is also her key to suffering: LOVE. Contemplating the God whose love emptied him from the crib to the Cross, Therese learned that the inescapable price of loving selflessly is a willingness to suffer pain. This is the secret of Therese’ outpouring of love and its apostolic fruitfulness: her love is crucified. In offering herself to Jesus, she gave herself up without any reserve to the trials and sufferings which marked her life as with a seal. "Love penetrated and possessed her" and suffering seized her as if she were its prey. The victim offered in holocaust had been accepted, "a better witness of abandonment and love." She wrote, "Under the winepress of suffering, I will prove my love to You."
Therese teaches that some, according to the will of God, suffer nothing more than the miseries that are integral to human life, while others are called to take on greater burdens, sharing more in Christ's salvific action. Whatever the portion of the Cross, she calls us to suffer joyously, patiently, humbly. Our salvation lies not in suffering but in the love with which we bear that suffering, uniting us to the Divine Heart whose outstretched arms transform suffering and death, the fruits of sin, into avenues of grace and life.
In response to her question if God delights in suffering, love answers: "No, our suffering never makes Him happy, but this suffering is necessary for us." Sin having made suffering necessary, God out of love wills it, since it is the means to bring man to love Him. Bitter remedy, but, given man's egoism, necessary remedy for the soul's health and happiness. "It costs God to make us drink at the fountain of tears," she wrote "but He knows that it is the only way to prepare us to know Him as He knows Himself and to share his life!”
To love God completely and love others out of selfless love for God: this is the fulfillment of the human heart.
With this in mind, Thérèse prays that God would raise a legion of souls who offer themselves as victims of holocaust to Jesus' merciful love, loving actively and making whatever comes an expression of that love. Victimhood is the ultimate destiny of her little way: Our littleness must be consumed by the infinite fire of divine charity. Like gold in a refiner's fire, once love is purified of its impurities, it becomes weak and malleable.
Her song, 'The Withered Rose,’ composed shortly before her death, articulate her own self-oblation, the passion of her self-squandering love: Like a rose that has just reached perfection, her petals are deliberately, lovingly, and tenderly shed under Jesus' feet as he takes his first steps on ‘our sad earth’, and as he treads his last to Calvary. This is her life's meaning — to be all for Jesus, for his easing, for his joy. This is Thérèse----Of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face--purified by the crucible of suffering, possessed by Love and has herself become love.
For Thee I die, for Thee, Jesus, Thou Fairest Fair! —
Joy beyond telling! —
Thus, fading, would I prove my love beyond compare,
All bliss excelling.
Beneath Thy feet, Thy way to smooth, through life’s long night,
My heart would lie;
And softening Thy hard path up Calvary’s awful height,
I thus would die.
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - NINTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, ardent love is as unrelenting as the grave. Love's flames are fiery flames, the fiercest of all. (Song of Songs 8:6)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE PASSION OF LOVE
My Vocation is Love! I have no other means of proving my love except by strewing flowers, that is to say, letting no little sacrifice pass ... and in strewing my flowers I will sing. I will sing, even if my roses must be gathered from among thorns; and the longer and sharper the thorns, the sweeter shall be my song...”
The source and summit of Therese’s life, this is also her key to suffering: LOVE. Contemplating the God whose love emptied him from the crib to the Cross, Therese learned that the inescapable price of loving selflessly is a willingness to suffer pain. This is the secret of Therese’ outpouring of love and its apostolic fruitfulness: her love is crucified. In offering herself to Jesus, she gave herself up without any reserve to the trials and sufferings which marked her life as with a seal. "Love penetrated and possessed her" and suffering seized her as if she were its prey. The victim offered in holocaust had been accepted, "a better witness of abandonment and love." She wrote, "Under the winepress of suffering, I will prove my love to You."
Therese teaches that some, according to the will of God, suffer nothing more than the miseries that are integral to human life, while others are called to take on greater burdens, sharing more in Christ's salvific action. Whatever the portion of the Cross, she calls us to suffer joyously, patiently, humbly. Our salvation lies not in suffering but in the love with which we bear that suffering, uniting us to the Divine Heart whose outstretched arms transform suffering and death, the fruits of sin, into avenues of grace and life.
In response to her question if God delights in suffering, love answers: "No, our suffering never makes Him happy, but this suffering is necessary for us." Sin having made suffering necessary, God out of love wills it, since it is the means to bring man to love Him. Bitter remedy, but, given man's egoism, necessary remedy for the soul's health and happiness. "It costs God to make us drink at the fountain of tears," she wrote "but He knows that it is the only way to prepare us to know Him as He knows Himself and to share his life!”
To love God completely and love others out of selfless love for God: this is the fulfillment of the human heart.
With this in mind, Thérèse prays that God would raise a legion of souls who offer themselves as victims of holocaust to Jesus' merciful love, loving actively and making whatever comes an expression of that love. Victimhood is the ultimate destiny of her little way: Our littleness must be consumed by the infinite fire of divine charity. Like gold in a refiner's fire, once love is purified of its impurities, it becomes weak and malleable.
Her song, 'The Withered Rose,’ composed shortly before her death, articulate her own self-oblation, the passion of her self-squandering love: Like a rose that has just reached perfection, her petals are deliberately, lovingly, and tenderly shed under Jesus' feet as he takes his first steps on ‘our sad earth’, and as he treads his last to Calvary. This is her life's meaning — to be all for Jesus, for his easing, for his joy. This is Thérèse----Of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face--purified by the crucible of suffering, possessed by Love and has herself become love.
For Thee I die, for Thee, Jesus, Thou Fairest Fair! —
Joy beyond telling! —
Thus, fading, would I prove my love beyond compare,
All bliss excelling.
Beneath Thy feet, Thy way to smooth, through life’s long night,
My heart would lie;
And softening Thy hard path up Calvary’s awful height,
I thus would die.
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Eighth Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - EIGHTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.(1 Peter 1:6-7)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- SEAL OF HOLINESS, COMPASS TO ETERNITY
The consequence of sin, suffering has been sanctified by the Passion of Christ. God's plan became clear to Thérèse: to make the consequences of sin serve not only humanity's salvation, but also its perfection unto holiness. In the Crucified, the merciful love of God meets the misery of humanity, making suffering the ladder to sanctity and salvation. The events of Thérèse’s life allowed her to recognize this connection between suffering and God’s will: By suffering, love orients one to God. "When we are brought to misery we have no desire to gaze at ourselves, and we turn our gaze towards the One beloved." ”
Herein therefore lies the secret of holiness: United with the Crucified, suffering enables one to go out of oneself to be united with God. In other words, it becomes a means of love. Great love, great holiness, go hand in hand with great suffering. The more one focuses on Jesus, the more sympathetic that person becomes: "Love much and you will suffer much.” It is the greatness of love which matters, not the suffering itself. It is only because suffering and love are intertwined that Thérèse speaks of welcoming suffering. Therefore, she emphasizes that little acts of kindness or little slights ignored with great love gain infinite value in Jesus' hands. “Holiness does not consist in saying beautiful things, it does not even consist in thinking them, in feeling them! It consists in suffering and in suffering everything. Let us see life in the true light... It is a moment between two eternities...” It is because it detaches us from material things, reminding us of our destiny, that suffering becomes the prerequisite for salvation: “Trials help us detach ourselves from the earth; they make us look higher than this world. Here below nothing can satisfy us."
“"Sanctity does not consist in this or that practice; it consists in a disposition of heart which makes us humble and little in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the point of audacity in the goodness of our Father." (St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - EIGHTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.(1 Peter 1:6-7)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- SEAL OF HOLINESS, COMPASS TO ETERNITY
The consequence of sin, suffering has been sanctified by the Passion of Christ. God's plan became clear to Thérèse: to make the consequences of sin serve not only humanity's salvation, but also its perfection unto holiness. In the Crucified, the merciful love of God meets the misery of humanity, making suffering the ladder to sanctity and salvation. The events of Thérèse’s life allowed her to recognize this connection between suffering and God’s will: By suffering, love orients one to God. "When we are brought to misery we have no desire to gaze at ourselves, and we turn our gaze towards the One beloved." ”
Herein therefore lies the secret of holiness: United with the Crucified, suffering enables one to go out of oneself to be united with God. In other words, it becomes a means of love. Great love, great holiness, go hand in hand with great suffering. The more one focuses on Jesus, the more sympathetic that person becomes: "Love much and you will suffer much.” It is the greatness of love which matters, not the suffering itself. It is only because suffering and love are intertwined that Thérèse speaks of welcoming suffering. Therefore, she emphasizes that little acts of kindness or little slights ignored with great love gain infinite value in Jesus' hands. “Holiness does not consist in saying beautiful things, it does not even consist in thinking them, in feeling them! It consists in suffering and in suffering everything. Let us see life in the true light... It is a moment between two eternities...” It is because it detaches us from material things, reminding us of our destiny, that suffering becomes the prerequisite for salvation: “Trials help us detach ourselves from the earth; they make us look higher than this world. Here below nothing can satisfy us."
“"Sanctity does not consist in this or that practice; it consists in a disposition of heart which makes us humble and little in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the point of audacity in the goodness of our Father." (St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A song to St. Michael
Michael, prince of all the angels,
While your legions fill the sky,
All victorious over Satan,
Lift your flaming sword on high;
Shout to all the seas and heavens:
Now the morning is begun;
Now is rescued from the dragon
She whose garment is the sun!
Mighty champion of the woman,
Mighty servant of her Lord,
Come with all your myriad warriors,
Come and save us with your sword;
Enemies of God surround us:
Share with us your burning love;
Let the incense of our worship
Rise before His throne above!
Gabriel, messenger to Mary,
Raphael, healer, friend and guide,
All you hosts of guardian angels
Ever standing by our side,
Virtues, Thrones and Dominations,
Raise on high your joyful hymn,
Principalities and Powers,
Cherubim and Seraphim!
M.Owen Lee, C.S.B. / William J. Marsh
While your legions fill the sky,
All victorious over Satan,
Lift your flaming sword on high;
Shout to all the seas and heavens:
Now the morning is begun;
Now is rescued from the dragon
She whose garment is the sun!
Mighty champion of the woman,
Mighty servant of her Lord,
Come with all your myriad warriors,
Come and save us with your sword;
Enemies of God surround us:
Share with us your burning love;
Let the incense of our worship
Rise before His throne above!
Gabriel, messenger to Mary,
Raphael, healer, friend and guide,
All you hosts of guardian angels
Ever standing by our side,
Virtues, Thrones and Dominations,
Raise on high your joyful hymn,
Principalities and Powers,
Cherubim and Seraphim!
M.Owen Lee, C.S.B. / William J. Marsh
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Seventh Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - SEVENTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "Even when we are weighed down with sufferings, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer." (2 Corinthians 1:6)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE ROOT OF COMPASSION
“I myself was consumed with a thirst for souls… not with the souls of priests, but with those of great sinners...” Love prompted Thérèse to make Jesus' concern for the salvation of individuals her own, being given the grace of identifying with those who had lost their sensibilities for God, in whom the tension between hope and despair was an all consuming battle, a fight to the death. “Jesus made me feel that there were really souls who have no faith, and who, through the abuse of grace, lost this precious treasure, the source of the only real and pure joys. He permitted my soul to be invaded by the thickest darkness, and that the thought of heaven…be no longer anything but the cause of struggle and torment.” In those final months, Thérèse battled the temptation of atheism, feeling the full import of that "dark tunnel.”
Absorbing in her heart the misery of sinners, she placed it with naked, daring faith before God’s merciful embrace, present even in the darkest hours, though one cannot ‘feel’ it. She knew that, without confidence in an ever-loving God, to keep going day after day, year after year, would be a life of folly difficult to endure. Totally abandoned to God with such childlike simplicity, she embodies that house built on rock unshaken though ‘the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house.’ (Matt 5:25) This saint addresses all who sense futility in their lives, feeling hopeless, wasted, ineffectual and powerless. This is the essence of compassion. Cum-Passio-- To suffer with. Thérèse’s compassion, beyond empty sentiments and theatrical well-wishes, comes not from one unfamiliar with misery but from a comrade who endured the same arena of pain, and who, by the grace of the Crucified, emerged victorious.
I cannot conceive of a greater immensity of love than the one which it has pleased you[, Lord,] to give me freely, without any merit on my part… O Jesus, since this sweet flame consumes my heart, I run with joy in the way of Your New Commandment. It is no longer a question of loving one’s neighbor as oneself but of loving him as he – Jesus – has loved him, and will love him to the consummation of the ages. The more I am united to Him, the more also do I love all my sisters. " (St. Thérèse, Story of a Soul)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - SEVENTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "Even when we are weighed down with sufferings, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer." (2 Corinthians 1:6)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE ROOT OF COMPASSION
“I myself was consumed with a thirst for souls… not with the souls of priests, but with those of great sinners...” Love prompted Thérèse to make Jesus' concern for the salvation of individuals her own, being given the grace of identifying with those who had lost their sensibilities for God, in whom the tension between hope and despair was an all consuming battle, a fight to the death. “Jesus made me feel that there were really souls who have no faith, and who, through the abuse of grace, lost this precious treasure, the source of the only real and pure joys. He permitted my soul to be invaded by the thickest darkness, and that the thought of heaven…be no longer anything but the cause of struggle and torment.” In those final months, Thérèse battled the temptation of atheism, feeling the full import of that "dark tunnel.”
Absorbing in her heart the misery of sinners, she placed it with naked, daring faith before God’s merciful embrace, present even in the darkest hours, though one cannot ‘feel’ it. She knew that, without confidence in an ever-loving God, to keep going day after day, year after year, would be a life of folly difficult to endure. Totally abandoned to God with such childlike simplicity, she embodies that house built on rock unshaken though ‘the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house.’ (Matt 5:25) This saint addresses all who sense futility in their lives, feeling hopeless, wasted, ineffectual and powerless. This is the essence of compassion. Cum-Passio-- To suffer with. Thérèse’s compassion, beyond empty sentiments and theatrical well-wishes, comes not from one unfamiliar with misery but from a comrade who endured the same arena of pain, and who, by the grace of the Crucified, emerged victorious.
I cannot conceive of a greater immensity of love than the one which it has pleased you[, Lord,] to give me freely, without any merit on my part… O Jesus, since this sweet flame consumes my heart, I run with joy in the way of Your New Commandment. It is no longer a question of loving one’s neighbor as oneself but of loving him as he – Jesus – has loved him, and will love him to the consummation of the ages. The more I am united to Him, the more also do I love all my sisters. " (St. Thérèse, Story of a Soul)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Sixth Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - SIXTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me." (1 Cor 12:9)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE GLORY OF WEAKNESS
Everything in Thérèse's life, particularly her limitations, became a context for relationship with God and thus integral to her 'Little Way': The years of struggle with her own fragility offered Thérèse a graced conclusion: in one’s weaknesses is God’s strength manifested: "It is enough to realize one's nothingness, and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God. …I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet'." Like a mere grain of sand on the beach of a loving God or the little ball that Jesus plays with as he likes, Thérèse’s littleness was made all-the-more acute during her illness. Finite and fragile, she became marvelously free from herself and marvelously free for God, her soul wide open to the invasions of divine love. “The weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more ready one is for the operations of this consuming and transforming love....”
In the Crucified, Thérèse’s weakness was absorbed in the strength of the Passion of Love. She suffered in union with Jesus, but not in any proud, superhuman manner. She accepts her moments of irritation, her tears and complaints as reflections of her smallness. She has no intention of storming heaven with her heroic credentials clutched tightly in her hand. On the contrary, her hope is to be borne up, with no merit on her part, on the eagle wings of Jesus. She glories in her “complete helplessness,” not for the pain it brings, but because it is a salvific word through which God sanctified her making her a participant in the redemptive work of Christ Crucified. Suffering is a word which spoke God's love to her and through which she speaks her love for God and for souls.
"And suppose God wishes to have you as feeble and powerless as a child? Do you think that would be less worthy in God's eyes? Consent to stumble, or even to fall at every step, to bear your cross feebly; love your weakness. Your soul will draw more profit from that than if, sustained by grace, you vigorously performed heroic deeds which would fill your soul with self-satisfaction and pride." (St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - SIXTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me." (1 Cor 12:9)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE GLORY OF WEAKNESS
Everything in Thérèse's life, particularly her limitations, became a context for relationship with God and thus integral to her 'Little Way': The years of struggle with her own fragility offered Thérèse a graced conclusion: in one’s weaknesses is God’s strength manifested: "It is enough to realize one's nothingness, and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God. …I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet'." Like a mere grain of sand on the beach of a loving God or the little ball that Jesus plays with as he likes, Thérèse’s littleness was made all-the-more acute during her illness. Finite and fragile, she became marvelously free from herself and marvelously free for God, her soul wide open to the invasions of divine love. “The weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more ready one is for the operations of this consuming and transforming love....”
In the Crucified, Thérèse’s weakness was absorbed in the strength of the Passion of Love. She suffered in union with Jesus, but not in any proud, superhuman manner. She accepts her moments of irritation, her tears and complaints as reflections of her smallness. She has no intention of storming heaven with her heroic credentials clutched tightly in her hand. On the contrary, her hope is to be borne up, with no merit on her part, on the eagle wings of Jesus. She glories in her “complete helplessness,” not for the pain it brings, but because it is a salvific word through which God sanctified her making her a participant in the redemptive work of Christ Crucified. Suffering is a word which spoke God's love to her and through which she speaks her love for God and for souls.
"And suppose God wishes to have you as feeble and powerless as a child? Do you think that would be less worthy in God's eyes? Consent to stumble, or even to fall at every step, to bear your cross feebly; love your weakness. Your soul will draw more profit from that than if, sustained by grace, you vigorously performed heroic deeds which would fill your soul with self-satisfaction and pride." (St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Fifth Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - FIFTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Mark 15:34-35)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE MYSTERY OF GOD'S ABSENCE
Eighteen months before dying from tuberculosis, suddenly there fell upon Thérèse a hitherto unimaginable suffering: the complete obscuration of her faith, what she called 'the night of nothingness.'
"[Jesus] allowed pitch-black darkness to sweep over my soul and let the thought of heaven, so sweet to me since infancy, destroy all my peace and torture me. This trial was not something lasting a few days or weeks. I suffered it for months and I am still waiting for it to end. I wish I could express what I feel, but it is impossible. One must have travelled through the same sunless tunnel to understand how dark it is…."
For the first time, Thérèse confronted in herself the possibility of stark unbelief, the essence of atheism: no heaven, no God — nothing; Everything that gave her life meaning and joy-- gone. Concealed beneath her childlike, charming ‘lightness’ lie her profound anguish, raw and exhausting, lacerating her within and without to an unbearable degree. "I was sorely tried, almost to sadness. So great was the darkness that I no longer knew if God loved me."
In her physical and spiritual despoliation, Thérèse recognized suffering's gift to faith: Total Freedom. She learned that Jesus' presence is not measured by her sense of it. The spiritual darkness and desolation during her illness was not a moment of failure. Without dependence on pleasant or unpleasant 'feelings' about God, she is to be led solely by faith and by love. Jesus remained her Beloved, Faithful and True, in the hour of pain as in the hour of pleasure. Stubbornly clinging to God's unfailing love, she reached faith's deepest core: Through the horrible darkness that echoed with mocking, blasphemous voices, Thérèse focused her entire being towards Jesus, full of trust and love, in a complete and daring abandonment.
"Nothing will frighten me…. If thick clouds hide the Sun and if it seems that nothing exists beyond the night of this life – well, then, that will be a moment of perfect joy, a moment to feel complete trust and stay very still, secure in the knowledge that my adorable Sun still shines behind the clouds." (St. Thérèse, Story of A Soul)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - FIFTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Mark 15:34-35)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE MYSTERY OF GOD'S ABSENCE
Eighteen months before dying from tuberculosis, suddenly there fell upon Thérèse a hitherto unimaginable suffering: the complete obscuration of her faith, what she called 'the night of nothingness.'
"[Jesus] allowed pitch-black darkness to sweep over my soul and let the thought of heaven, so sweet to me since infancy, destroy all my peace and torture me. This trial was not something lasting a few days or weeks. I suffered it for months and I am still waiting for it to end. I wish I could express what I feel, but it is impossible. One must have travelled through the same sunless tunnel to understand how dark it is…."
For the first time, Thérèse confronted in herself the possibility of stark unbelief, the essence of atheism: no heaven, no God — nothing; Everything that gave her life meaning and joy-- gone. Concealed beneath her childlike, charming ‘lightness’ lie her profound anguish, raw and exhausting, lacerating her within and without to an unbearable degree. "I was sorely tried, almost to sadness. So great was the darkness that I no longer knew if God loved me."
In her physical and spiritual despoliation, Thérèse recognized suffering's gift to faith: Total Freedom. She learned that Jesus' presence is not measured by her sense of it. The spiritual darkness and desolation during her illness was not a moment of failure. Without dependence on pleasant or unpleasant 'feelings' about God, she is to be led solely by faith and by love. Jesus remained her Beloved, Faithful and True, in the hour of pain as in the hour of pleasure. Stubbornly clinging to God's unfailing love, she reached faith's deepest core: Through the horrible darkness that echoed with mocking, blasphemous voices, Thérèse focused her entire being towards Jesus, full of trust and love, in a complete and daring abandonment.
"Nothing will frighten me…. If thick clouds hide the Sun and if it seems that nothing exists beyond the night of this life – well, then, that will be a moment of perfect joy, a moment to feel complete trust and stay very still, secure in the knowledge that my adorable Sun still shines behind the clouds." (St. Thérèse, Story of A Soul)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
St. THERESE NOVENA - Fourth Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - FOURTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "I find joy amid my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my own person whatever is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the salvation of His Body, the Church." (Col 1:24)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE PRICE OF SOULS
Caught up in the extravagant love of Jesus, Thérèse realized that this love sought to give itself totally to souls yet so many refuse it. One Sunday after Mass, seeing a picture of Jesus Crucified, she was "struck by the blood flowing from one of the divine hands. I felt a great pang of sorrow when thinking this blood was falling to the ground without anyone’s hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive the divine dew."
At that moment, Jesus wounded her heart with the same love with which he gave up his life. Scarred with this love, Thérèse burned with an intense longing for the salvation of souls: "I understood I was then to pour it out upon souls. The cry of Jesus on the Cross sounded continually in my heart : 'I thirst!' These words ignited within me an unknown and very living fire. I wanted to give my beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls."
When Thérèse heard of Pranzini, a murderer caught after his last assault, she felt the urge to pray for his soul. Though he never went to Confession or received Absolution, Thérèse prayed that Our Lord give her a sign that he was saved. Before his execution, Pranzini asked for a Crucifix, three times kising the Sacred Wounds. Upon hearing this, Thérèse cried with joy at the thought that Jesus had saved yet another soul for Heaven. After this, she had the thirst to pray for more souls, learning that the salvation of others depends on our willingness to be so joined with Jesus-so taken over by him-that our sufferings serve his salvific purpose. "I would never have believed that it was possible to suffer to such an extent; I can only understand it through my intense desire to save souls."
Remember Thou that amorous complaint,
Escaping from Thy lips on Calvary's tree:
"I thirst!" Oh, how my heart like Thine doth faint.
Yes, yes! I share Thy burning thirst with Thee.
The more my heart burns bright with Thy great Heart's chaste fires,
The more I thirst for souls, to quench Thy Heart's desires.
(St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - FOURTH DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "I find joy amid my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my own person whatever is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the salvation of His Body, the Church." (Col 1:24)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- THE PRICE OF SOULS
Caught up in the extravagant love of Jesus, Thérèse realized that this love sought to give itself totally to souls yet so many refuse it. One Sunday after Mass, seeing a picture of Jesus Crucified, she was "struck by the blood flowing from one of the divine hands. I felt a great pang of sorrow when thinking this blood was falling to the ground without anyone’s hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive the divine dew."
At that moment, Jesus wounded her heart with the same love with which he gave up his life. Scarred with this love, Thérèse burned with an intense longing for the salvation of souls: "I understood I was then to pour it out upon souls. The cry of Jesus on the Cross sounded continually in my heart : 'I thirst!' These words ignited within me an unknown and very living fire. I wanted to give my beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls."
When Thérèse heard of Pranzini, a murderer caught after his last assault, she felt the urge to pray for his soul. Though he never went to Confession or received Absolution, Thérèse prayed that Our Lord give her a sign that he was saved. Before his execution, Pranzini asked for a Crucifix, three times kising the Sacred Wounds. Upon hearing this, Thérèse cried with joy at the thought that Jesus had saved yet another soul for Heaven. After this, she had the thirst to pray for more souls, learning that the salvation of others depends on our willingness to be so joined with Jesus-so taken over by him-that our sufferings serve his salvific purpose. "I would never have believed that it was possible to suffer to such an extent; I can only understand it through my intense desire to save souls."
Remember Thou that amorous complaint,
Escaping from Thy lips on Calvary's tree:
"I thirst!" Oh, how my heart like Thine doth faint.
Yes, yes! I share Thy burning thirst with Thee.
The more my heart burns bright with Thy great Heart's chaste fires,
The more I thirst for souls, to quench Thy Heart's desires.
(St. Thérèse)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Third Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - THIRD DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- UNION WITH THE CRUCIFIED
In the Crucified, Thérèse encountered a burning furnace of love so stubbornly strong it sweetens even that which is most bitter. Here lies her secret: her Love is Crucified and suffering is his kiss. To follow him, to be united with him, is to shoulder, with selfless love, the Cross and the suffering it entails. Love for Jesus plunged Thérèse into mental, physical and spiritual desolation. Love drove her to become a "prisoner," as she calls it, within Carmel’s cold, brick walls, to volunteer to help a crotchety old sister make her way to the refectory and to silently put up with the inconveniences and annoyances of community life. Love allowed her to welcomed her father's humiliating illness and her own slow death all as a share in Christ's cross. Three months before her death, Thérèse stated, "suffering has become my heaven here below."
In offering herself to merciful Love, she gave herself up without any reserve to trial and suffering which marked her life as with a seal. Since "Love penetrated and possessed her," suffering seized her as if she were its prey. The victim offered in holocaust had been accepted. Love was to consume her body, by a most painful illness, and her soul, by a terrible trial: "A wall rose up to heaven and hid God from me". "O Mother, I did not believe that it was possible to suffer so much...” The magnitude of her suffering matched the intensity of her love. In the spiritual darkness and physical misery that marked her illness, she firmly believed that suffering united her to her Beloved.
Yet Thérèse had no interest in pain for its own sake. She rejected the deliberate infliction of pain through the wearing of ascetical devices, suspecting that it could become a source of pride. Pain was not her goal as there is more than that for Thérèse. Ultimately, suffering united her with Jesus Crucified whose love saves and sanctifies, inviting all who draw near to share in his work of redemption.
“Lead me, then, by the paths which He loves to travel. I shall be at the height of my joy, provided that He is pleased. Then Jesus took me by the hand, and made me enter an underground passage where it is neither hot nor cold, where I see nothing but a half-veiled light, the light which was diffused by the lowered eyes of my Fiancé's Face! My Fiancé says nothing to me, and I say nothing to Him except THAT I LOVE HIM MORE THAN MYSELF, and I feel at the bottom of my heart that it is true, for I AM MORE HIS THAN MY OWN! . (St. Thérèse, Letters)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary, 1 Glory be in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - THIRD DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
Reflection: SUFFERING-- UNION WITH THE CRUCIFIED
In the Crucified, Thérèse encountered a burning furnace of love so stubbornly strong it sweetens even that which is most bitter. Here lies her secret: her Love is Crucified and suffering is his kiss. To follow him, to be united with him, is to shoulder, with selfless love, the Cross and the suffering it entails. Love for Jesus plunged Thérèse into mental, physical and spiritual desolation. Love drove her to become a "prisoner," as she calls it, within Carmel’s cold, brick walls, to volunteer to help a crotchety old sister make her way to the refectory and to silently put up with the inconveniences and annoyances of community life. Love allowed her to welcomed her father's humiliating illness and her own slow death all as a share in Christ's cross. Three months before her death, Thérèse stated, "suffering has become my heaven here below."
In offering herself to merciful Love, she gave herself up without any reserve to trial and suffering which marked her life as with a seal. Since "Love penetrated and possessed her," suffering seized her as if she were its prey. The victim offered in holocaust had been accepted. Love was to consume her body, by a most painful illness, and her soul, by a terrible trial: "A wall rose up to heaven and hid God from me". "O Mother, I did not believe that it was possible to suffer so much...” The magnitude of her suffering matched the intensity of her love. In the spiritual darkness and physical misery that marked her illness, she firmly believed that suffering united her to her Beloved.
Yet Thérèse had no interest in pain for its own sake. She rejected the deliberate infliction of pain through the wearing of ascetical devices, suspecting that it could become a source of pride. Pain was not her goal as there is more than that for Thérèse. Ultimately, suffering united her with Jesus Crucified whose love saves and sanctifies, inviting all who draw near to share in his work of redemption.
“Lead me, then, by the paths which He loves to travel. I shall be at the height of my joy, provided that He is pleased. Then Jesus took me by the hand, and made me enter an underground passage where it is neither hot nor cold, where I see nothing but a half-veiled light, the light which was diffused by the lowered eyes of my Fiancé's Face! My Fiancé says nothing to me, and I say nothing to Him except THAT I LOVE HIM MORE THAN MYSELF, and I feel at the bottom of my heart that it is true, for I AM MORE HIS THAN MY OWN! . (St. Thérèse, Letters)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary, 1 Glory be in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
ST. THERESE NOVENA - Second Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
NOVENA - SECOND DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
Reflection: SUFFERING--THE WAY OF JESUS
When she received the habit of Carmel, Thérèse chose the suffix: --"Of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face," a title which fully encapsulates her vision of God. For Thérèse, love has driven God to empty himself so that he can draw near to us and consequently draw us to himself.
Since God became a Child, how could anyone be afraid of him? This weakness, innocence and vulnerability of Christ's childhood culminates in his Passion where weakness, innocence, and vulnerability become His sacrifice of redemptive love. The Childhood of Jesus and His Holy Face encapsulate one singular mystery: Jesus empties himself as the Child of the Crib and the Victim of the Cross in order to draw souls into the very intimacy of the Trinity.
In Jesus, the mystery of suffering is thus caught up in the mystery of divine love. In his emptiness, Jesus meets us in the crucible of suffering where we are most vulnerable. Jesus goes to the heart of the human struggle and that is where we find Him. In our darkest and most painful moments--physically, mentally, spiritually--our God has been there and he walks with us. With the tenderness of a little Child and the compassion of a Man of Sorrows, he embraces us with his love, a love which ushers us and our own sorrows into the very heart of the Divine Trinity.
But when man, too, had trifled with God's grace,
Pity and comfort were to him displayed.
The Eternal Word, the Father's Equal Son,
Clothing Himself with poor humanity,
Back to His Father's heart the exiles won
By His profound humility.
(St. Thérèse, Poem in Honour of St. Joan of Arc)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
NOVENA - SECOND DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
Reflection: SUFFERING--THE WAY OF JESUS
When she received the habit of Carmel, Thérèse chose the suffix: --"Of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face," a title which fully encapsulates her vision of God. For Thérèse, love has driven God to empty himself so that he can draw near to us and consequently draw us to himself.
Since God became a Child, how could anyone be afraid of him? This weakness, innocence and vulnerability of Christ's childhood culminates in his Passion where weakness, innocence, and vulnerability become His sacrifice of redemptive love. The Childhood of Jesus and His Holy Face encapsulate one singular mystery: Jesus empties himself as the Child of the Crib and the Victim of the Cross in order to draw souls into the very intimacy of the Trinity.
In Jesus, the mystery of suffering is thus caught up in the mystery of divine love. In his emptiness, Jesus meets us in the crucible of suffering where we are most vulnerable. Jesus goes to the heart of the human struggle and that is where we find Him. In our darkest and most painful moments--physically, mentally, spiritually--our God has been there and he walks with us. With the tenderness of a little Child and the compassion of a Man of Sorrows, he embraces us with his love, a love which ushers us and our own sorrows into the very heart of the Divine Trinity.
But when man, too, had trifled with God's grace,
Pity and comfort were to him displayed.
The Eternal Word, the Father's Equal Son,
Clothing Himself with poor humanity,
Back to His Father's heart the exiles won
By His profound humility.
(St. Thérèse, Poem in Honour of St. Joan of Arc)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
ST. THERESE NOVENA - First Day
THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "This is the Cup the Father has given me. Shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11)
Reflection: SUFFERING--GIFT OF GOD'S LOVE
Therese lived with the simplicity of a child, poor in spirit, full of unshakable confidence in the merciful love of God. She understood that in the fire of God's love, one is transformed. The heart is stretched to infinity, the impurities are burned away and one is emptied in order to be filled with God. Because of this transformation, suffering is inevitable: Once the complete surrender to merciful love has been made, "...love surrounds and penetrates me; at every moment this merciful love renews and purifies me, leaving no trace of sin in my heart."
Therese's faith in the goodness of God convinced her that we suffer because God loves us. Actually, she expresses this in a more intimate way by saying that it is Jesus' "gentle hand which strikes" us. He is the source of our pain. He may not enjoy making us uncomfortable, but he knows-Therese boldly proclaims-that only in this way can we enter His life. Nothing else can transform us. Jesus therefore smiles and sends more bitterness.
Without trust in God's love, the mystery of suffering would make no sense. This is Therese's 'little way,' the way of spiritual childhood. Though a child may not fully grasp her mother's ways, the child trusts, confident in her Mother's love. This way of spiritual childhood is open to all, especially those who are experiencing suffering and temptations that they cannot understand or remove.
"Oh! no, I will not fear his blows for, even in the most bitter sufferings, one always feels that it is his gentle hand that strikes" (St. Therese)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Therese, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering you promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Therese, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and to the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.
WORD: "This is the Cup the Father has given me. Shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11)
Reflection: SUFFERING--GIFT OF GOD'S LOVE
Therese lived with the simplicity of a child, poor in spirit, full of unshakable confidence in the merciful love of God. She understood that in the fire of God's love, one is transformed. The heart is stretched to infinity, the impurities are burned away and one is emptied in order to be filled with God. Because of this transformation, suffering is inevitable: Once the complete surrender to merciful love has been made, "...love surrounds and penetrates me; at every moment this merciful love renews and purifies me, leaving no trace of sin in my heart."
Therese's faith in the goodness of God convinced her that we suffer because God loves us. Actually, she expresses this in a more intimate way by saying that it is Jesus' "gentle hand which strikes" us. He is the source of our pain. He may not enjoy making us uncomfortable, but he knows-Therese boldly proclaims-that only in this way can we enter His life. Nothing else can transform us. Jesus therefore smiles and sends more bitterness.
Without trust in God's love, the mystery of suffering would make no sense. This is Therese's 'little way,' the way of spiritual childhood. Though a child may not fully grasp her mother's ways, the child trusts, confident in her Mother's love. This way of spiritual childhood is open to all, especially those who are experiencing suffering and temptations that they cannot understand or remove.
"Oh! no, I will not fear his blows for, even in the most bitter sufferings, one always feels that it is his gentle hand that strikes" (St. Therese)
DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
St. Therese, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering you promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,
O St. Therese, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and to the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.
1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Manna in the Desert
If ever I have come to a conviction in my life, it would be the very reality of the sweet and gentle force of the love of Jesus. Looking back at my life, I am amazed at how, even outside of my choosing, Christ my Lord has made himself known to me. Little by little, he drew me with his love and regardless of the many times that I fall, somehow, I find myself running so desperately into his arms... He has not made life better for me, he has not made it clearer nor easier... but in his presence, suffering, pain, confusion and emptiness are so caught up in his extravagant grace that one is but left with deep sentiments of grateful and adoring awe.
For 9 years now, my thorn in the flesh has been ssa. The very reality of it first surfaced on Aug 15, 2000, in the jubilee year, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin and the eve of my birthday. From then on, it was an attraction to one man after another, with each of them not reciprocating my sentiments. I can't describe how much that broke my heart, how much it intensified the deep seated loneliness in the depths of my being, how often, out of desperation, I turned to other substances and means for relief, among them, the unholy trinity of smoking, drinking and porn. I hated myself for feeling that way, I hated them for not feeling the same way, I hated the world who could not seem to understand, I hated the Church for seemingly failing to come to my help and I hated this God who made me like this because I knew this was not my choosing. I did not choose to be gay and the mystery of that often left my heart feeling paralyzed and imprisoned, enslaved by my own passions.
Yet the journey has been bittersweet because it was precisely in the midst of that the Lord Jesus, risen and alive, revealed himself to me and made his voice known to me. I was raised within a context of deep piety and by God's grace I never wandered too far from Mother Church. But it wasn't until the midnight of my struggle that I can say I met the Lord Jesus in a very real and intimate way. It was truly a mystagogical experience.
On Easter Vigil, we sing, O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem," "O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer!" It was not until the midst of this that I recognized in a profound and real way my need, my personal need, for a Redeemer. "What would life have been for us had Christ not come as our Savior? O Father! Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave, you gave away your Son!" This was definitely a grace and I have strong confidence that it was obtained by the solicitous intercession of the all-holy Virgin to whom I entrusted myself 9 years ago.
Christ did not remove the pain, did not lessen the struggle, did not even diminish the passion... rather he intensified it leading me, not by light, but by darkness... he spoke to me with his silence, he loved me in the night, he led me by darkness. Countless times, I would indulge myself into my passions only to emerge more empty and find myself running to Christ. I can't fully articulate in words the internal struggle and pain that these last 9 years have been. For a long time, I kept it to myself without speaking of it to anyone. It became my private Cross known only to Jesus.
Along the way, through several falls, Christ has placed people along my path who offered love and compassion and he gave me grace to open my heart to them: Several very good and holy priests, one bishop, good and holy friends both men and women. Along with them, I found strength in the lives and works heroes who have run the race before us; among them, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. Henri Nouwen, Pope John Paul II, Catherine Doherty, C.S. Lewis, St. Faustina, Msgr. Giussani and Dame Julian of Norwich. The two most important saints who have shaped my faith and spirituality are St. Augustine and St. John of the Cross.
In terms of the Church, I have found my home among the discalced Carmelites being an aspirant to their third Order. The thorn remains strong as ever and the struggles are still there, both internally and externally. But they are bearable with the strength of Christ's grace. I try not to turn too far back into the past or squint too forward into the future as thinking about them often overwhelms me. I leave it to the hands of Christ. He calls me to be faithful to the task of the hour, to love him there and to unite whatever form my Cross may take at the moment to his blessed Passion in reparation and for the salvation of souls.
So far, my journey was not about making me happy in this life nor was it even about satisfying now the restlessness of my soul. Pain is the kiss of love and to follow Him is to be drawn nearer and nearer into the circle of His Passion. Therefore, "Omne gaudium existimate..." Consider it all as joy - the trials, the sorrows, the darkness, the Cross. To lose and to die is the royal way traced out by our Redeemer. We cannot invent another route. Along this sorrowful path, all impurity is burned in the furnace of divine love and we are left with nothing to be filled with the all: Christ empties so He can fill the heart with himself. This seems to be the continual dynamic of my life and so it continues. More emptying... more filling. Less and less of me and more and more of Him.
I have nothing in me to count as good, I have done no good to merit praise. All the good that has has come to me and through me I attribute completely to the gratuitous grace of God who refuses to give up on me. My choices have often veiled his face but the irony of that is that out of that choice, he made his face clearer to me: Merciful Love. He has captured my heart and I am nothing without him.
"I have nothing in my works with which I can glorify myself,
I have nothing to boast about and, consequently, I WILL GLORY IN CHRIST.
I will not glorify myself because I am just, but I will glory because I am redeemed.
I will not glorify myself because I am exempt from sins, but I will glory because my sins have been remitted.
I will not glorify myself because I have helped or been helped, but because Christ has been my advocate with the Father, because the blood of Christ was poured out for me.
For me, Christ tasted death.
Guilt is more profitable than innocence.
Innocence made me arrogant, guilt has made me humble."
(St. Ambrose of Milan)
For 9 years now, my thorn in the flesh has been ssa. The very reality of it first surfaced on Aug 15, 2000, in the jubilee year, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin and the eve of my birthday. From then on, it was an attraction to one man after another, with each of them not reciprocating my sentiments. I can't describe how much that broke my heart, how much it intensified the deep seated loneliness in the depths of my being, how often, out of desperation, I turned to other substances and means for relief, among them, the unholy trinity of smoking, drinking and porn. I hated myself for feeling that way, I hated them for not feeling the same way, I hated the world who could not seem to understand, I hated the Church for seemingly failing to come to my help and I hated this God who made me like this because I knew this was not my choosing. I did not choose to be gay and the mystery of that often left my heart feeling paralyzed and imprisoned, enslaved by my own passions.
Yet the journey has been bittersweet because it was precisely in the midst of that the Lord Jesus, risen and alive, revealed himself to me and made his voice known to me. I was raised within a context of deep piety and by God's grace I never wandered too far from Mother Church. But it wasn't until the midnight of my struggle that I can say I met the Lord Jesus in a very real and intimate way. It was truly a mystagogical experience.
On Easter Vigil, we sing, O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem," "O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer!" It was not until the midst of this that I recognized in a profound and real way my need, my personal need, for a Redeemer. "What would life have been for us had Christ not come as our Savior? O Father! Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave, you gave away your Son!" This was definitely a grace and I have strong confidence that it was obtained by the solicitous intercession of the all-holy Virgin to whom I entrusted myself 9 years ago.
Christ did not remove the pain, did not lessen the struggle, did not even diminish the passion... rather he intensified it leading me, not by light, but by darkness... he spoke to me with his silence, he loved me in the night, he led me by darkness. Countless times, I would indulge myself into my passions only to emerge more empty and find myself running to Christ. I can't fully articulate in words the internal struggle and pain that these last 9 years have been. For a long time, I kept it to myself without speaking of it to anyone. It became my private Cross known only to Jesus.
Along the way, through several falls, Christ has placed people along my path who offered love and compassion and he gave me grace to open my heart to them: Several very good and holy priests, one bishop, good and holy friends both men and women. Along with them, I found strength in the lives and works heroes who have run the race before us; among them, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. Henri Nouwen, Pope John Paul II, Catherine Doherty, C.S. Lewis, St. Faustina, Msgr. Giussani and Dame Julian of Norwich. The two most important saints who have shaped my faith and spirituality are St. Augustine and St. John of the Cross.
In terms of the Church, I have found my home among the discalced Carmelites being an aspirant to their third Order. The thorn remains strong as ever and the struggles are still there, both internally and externally. But they are bearable with the strength of Christ's grace. I try not to turn too far back into the past or squint too forward into the future as thinking about them often overwhelms me. I leave it to the hands of Christ. He calls me to be faithful to the task of the hour, to love him there and to unite whatever form my Cross may take at the moment to his blessed Passion in reparation and for the salvation of souls.
So far, my journey was not about making me happy in this life nor was it even about satisfying now the restlessness of my soul. Pain is the kiss of love and to follow Him is to be drawn nearer and nearer into the circle of His Passion. Therefore, "Omne gaudium existimate..." Consider it all as joy - the trials, the sorrows, the darkness, the Cross. To lose and to die is the royal way traced out by our Redeemer. We cannot invent another route. Along this sorrowful path, all impurity is burned in the furnace of divine love and we are left with nothing to be filled with the all: Christ empties so He can fill the heart with himself. This seems to be the continual dynamic of my life and so it continues. More emptying... more filling. Less and less of me and more and more of Him.
I have nothing in me to count as good, I have done no good to merit praise. All the good that has has come to me and through me I attribute completely to the gratuitous grace of God who refuses to give up on me. My choices have often veiled his face but the irony of that is that out of that choice, he made his face clearer to me: Merciful Love. He has captured my heart and I am nothing without him.
"I have nothing in my works with which I can glorify myself,
I have nothing to boast about and, consequently, I WILL GLORY IN CHRIST.
I will not glorify myself because I am just, but I will glory because I am redeemed.
I will not glorify myself because I am exempt from sins, but I will glory because my sins have been remitted.
I will not glorify myself because I have helped or been helped, but because Christ has been my advocate with the Father, because the blood of Christ was poured out for me.
For me, Christ tasted death.
Guilt is more profitable than innocence.
Innocence made me arrogant, guilt has made me humble."
(St. Ambrose of Milan)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
COMPASS TO DISCERNMENT
As we today celebrate the testimonies Sts. Peter and Paul, I offer three questions posed by the Lord to St. Peter as points of entry for reflection as we each discern God's call for our lives. Invite you to ponder and chew over these questions.
1. What are you looking for? (John 1:38)
What is it that your heart is seeking?
Where is it seeking it?
What is the cry of my heart?
Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." (Matt 6:21)
2. Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15)
Who is Jesus to you?
What aspects of his mystery have you encountered in your life?
Jesus said, "Whoever knows and obeys my commandments is the person who loves me. Those who love me will have my Father's love, and I, too, will love them and show myself to them." (John 14:21)
3. Do you love me more than these? (John 21:15)
What would 'these' be for you?
Would you be able to renounce them for the sake of Jesus?
Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?" (Luke 9:23-25)
I believe these three questions are key to our discernment because a) it gets us in touch with the dynamics of our own hearts and b) it allows us to see where that heart stands in relation to the Lord.
As these questions are posed to us again in light of our discernment, it is important that we remember two things:
1) IT IS GRACE THAT SAVES US
Jesus builds his Church on the weak rock that is Peter. What I most appreciate about him is precisely his weakness. Every time Peter opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it. "He walks on the water – but then panics and starts to sink. He makes the first profession of faith – and moments later blunders into error and is called Satan by the Lord. He refuses to be washed, and then, when the purpose is explained to him, demands to be washed all over. And, of course, he betrays his master soon after having been warned that he will and having sworn not to. If Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, what a fissured and friable rock it is!...
In the end, it was grace that gave the coward the courage to bear witness when it counted, grace that gave the fool the wisdom he needed to set the infant Church on her way, grace that taught the impetuous man patience and forbearance."
No practice of virtue, however hard we may try, will ever give us that strength to overcome this humanity so deeply held by sin, evil and death. If ever we accomplish anything, it is the grace of the Lord at work precisely in our weakness.
Peter and Paul well understood this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. (2 Cor 12:10-11) I hope in our journey of discernment that we too learn well this lesson.
2) PRAY PRAY PRAY
Discernment begins on our knees, in silent prayer before the Lord, because like Peter, our vocation emerges from our encounter with Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Prayer reminds us that this is not our work, that we are but servants in the Lord's vineyard. In the white heat of Archbishop Romero words,
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
Sts. Peter and Paul nourished the early Church with their blood. Through their intercession, may our own lives be poured out as a libation to the Lord so we can say with St. Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6-8)
Oremus pro invicem.
Let us also pray for one another as we each discern God's call for our lives.
1. What are you looking for? (John 1:38)
What is it that your heart is seeking?
Where is it seeking it?
What is the cry of my heart?
Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." (Matt 6:21)
2. Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15)
Who is Jesus to you?
What aspects of his mystery have you encountered in your life?
Jesus said, "Whoever knows and obeys my commandments is the person who loves me. Those who love me will have my Father's love, and I, too, will love them and show myself to them." (John 14:21)
3. Do you love me more than these? (John 21:15)
What would 'these' be for you?
Would you be able to renounce them for the sake of Jesus?
Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?" (Luke 9:23-25)
I believe these three questions are key to our discernment because a) it gets us in touch with the dynamics of our own hearts and b) it allows us to see where that heart stands in relation to the Lord.
As these questions are posed to us again in light of our discernment, it is important that we remember two things:
1) IT IS GRACE THAT SAVES US
Jesus builds his Church on the weak rock that is Peter. What I most appreciate about him is precisely his weakness. Every time Peter opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it. "He walks on the water – but then panics and starts to sink. He makes the first profession of faith – and moments later blunders into error and is called Satan by the Lord. He refuses to be washed, and then, when the purpose is explained to him, demands to be washed all over. And, of course, he betrays his master soon after having been warned that he will and having sworn not to. If Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, what a fissured and friable rock it is!...
In the end, it was grace that gave the coward the courage to bear witness when it counted, grace that gave the fool the wisdom he needed to set the infant Church on her way, grace that taught the impetuous man patience and forbearance."
No practice of virtue, however hard we may try, will ever give us that strength to overcome this humanity so deeply held by sin, evil and death. If ever we accomplish anything, it is the grace of the Lord at work precisely in our weakness.
Peter and Paul well understood this: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. (2 Cor 12:10-11) I hope in our journey of discernment that we too learn well this lesson.
2) PRAY PRAY PRAY
Discernment begins on our knees, in silent prayer before the Lord, because like Peter, our vocation emerges from our encounter with Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Prayer reminds us that this is not our work, that we are but servants in the Lord's vineyard. In the white heat of Archbishop Romero words,
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
Sts. Peter and Paul nourished the early Church with their blood. Through their intercession, may our own lives be poured out as a libation to the Lord so we can say with St. Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6-8)
Oremus pro invicem.
Let us also pray for one another as we each discern God's call for our lives.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
DARK NIGHT
One of my favourite poems translated with captivating force by Roy Campbell
UPON a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.
In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
(O happy enterprise)
concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.
Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.
It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.
Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning’s pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.
Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.
Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.
Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.
-- Saint John of the Cross
UPON a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.
In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
(O happy enterprise)
concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.
Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.
It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.
Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning’s pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.
Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.
Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.
Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.
-- Saint John of the Cross
Thursday, June 4, 2009
VERTIGO
A Reflection on U2's Song, Vertigo
You can listen to the song here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWZ7bpfQag
Ver·ti·go \ˈvər-ti-ˌgō\
a dizzy confused state of mind
Lights go down, it's dark, the jungle is your head, it can't rule your heart
A feeling so much stronger than a thought...
I can't stand the beats...The girl with crimson nails has Jesus 'round her neck
As a homosexual man, my contingent reality is Love as a dark jungle overwhelming emotion and logic.
And as a deeply religious man, my homosexuality often chocked my faith in frustration, struggling to make sense of two seemingly incongruous entities. In an effort to help, voices attempted to eliminate one in favour of the other dismissing dialogue as compromise: Personal experiences are used as weapons against faith and faith is often used as an escape from genuine experiences.
...I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
But you give me something I can feel
In my own meandering journey, I recognized value in a dissonant, no-holds-barred dialogue between the two, mutually questioning each other. My contingent reality must question faith's reasons for the parameters that it sets and why it cannot simply rubber-stamp the current trend. Yet experience must also be open to faith's scrutiny: What ultimately do I want? Who defines me and why?
Faith without experience is an ideological fantasy and experience without faith is an impotent hope.
With these two wings, one is assumed into that Love who is the source and summit of our innate restlessness.
Your love is teaching me how to kneel, kneel...
You can listen to the song here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWZ7bpfQag
Ver·ti·go \ˈvər-ti-ˌgō\
a dizzy confused state of mind
Lights go down, it's dark, the jungle is your head, it can't rule your heart
A feeling so much stronger than a thought...
I can't stand the beats...The girl with crimson nails has Jesus 'round her neck
As a homosexual man, my contingent reality is Love as a dark jungle overwhelming emotion and logic.
And as a deeply religious man, my homosexuality often chocked my faith in frustration, struggling to make sense of two seemingly incongruous entities. In an effort to help, voices attempted to eliminate one in favour of the other dismissing dialogue as compromise: Personal experiences are used as weapons against faith and faith is often used as an escape from genuine experiences.
...I'm at a place called Vertigo
It's everything I wish I didn't know
But you give me something I can feel
In my own meandering journey, I recognized value in a dissonant, no-holds-barred dialogue between the two, mutually questioning each other. My contingent reality must question faith's reasons for the parameters that it sets and why it cannot simply rubber-stamp the current trend. Yet experience must also be open to faith's scrutiny: What ultimately do I want? Who defines me and why?
Faith without experience is an ideological fantasy and experience without faith is an impotent hope.
With these two wings, one is assumed into that Love who is the source and summit of our innate restlessness.
Your love is teaching me how to kneel, kneel...
CONTINGENT GRACE
Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word,
Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being;
Bestial as always before, carnal, self seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,
Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;
Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.
(T.S. Elliot, Choruses from the Rock)
Pain is the kiss of love.
Love offers the highest ideal yet also lacerates the deepest wound. Thus, Yeats diagnosed love as "the crooked thing. There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it." (Brown Penny) Enraptured, the heart follows its own rhythm, at times overwhelming emotion and logic. Its ultimate goal: fulfillment. Restless by nature, the heart looks beyond itself to the other as the locus of its fullness in the affirmation of its existence, in the revelation of its meaning and reason for living. Pope John Paul II identified this restlessness as the lifeblood of that which is most deeply human: “the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience.” (Redemptor Hominis, 18) This pilgrimage to meaning is deeply rooted, inflamed by an innate affection for this 'other' to which I long to offer my life, time, treasures and talents. Some can choose to understand this as humans being innately selfish, desiring only their own self-realization. There is accuracy in this because humans begin with themselves. Where else can I begin other than myself, introspectively delving into my being, questioning my life and the meaning of my existence? In fact, isn't the best gift that which comes from the depths of the heart?
Love is more than a happy, romantic feeling. Its voice speaks to the deepest self, offering it the drive to look for purpose and beauty. As a man attracted to the same sex within a context where most of my male peers are attracted to the opposite, I felt the searing sting of unsatisfied desire. I went through times when I was caught up in love's dangerous embrace, simply to be teased by unfulfilled affection. I was so drawn that I preoccupied myself with everything that this collective 'he' did. I treasured every part of the little insignificant things that made our relationship, got raptured into pure bliss at every attention received from him and sank into deep despair when felt ignored or rejected. I recklessly delved into conjugal acts that only left me more empty and yearning.
The Song of Songs well worded the condition of my heart: "I sought him but I did not find him; I called to him but he did not answer me" (5:6). I was ushered into the dark side of love, to its night. Love has its nights as much as it has its days, its winter as much as it has summers and both have much to teach. The midnight of love, beyond infatuation and lust, is a refining fire burning away the impurities to have only pure gold, a pure, real and most authentic self. It is easy to run away from this, it is easy to fill the hole, to run to someone else just to avoid feeling lonely, feeling alone, feeling rejected and unwanted.
Then a voice within, with a forceful tenderness of a mother, asked, "What would happen if you allowed the pain to speak to you, if you stayed with the loneliness, the rejection and the abandonment?" It would be like Alice falling into the rabbit hole and continually being asked, "Who are you?" with the only answer being apophatic: "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid... because I'm not myself, you see. I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly... for I can't understand it myself to begin with." It is ultimately, in the words of Luigi Giussani, "the thirst for change in one's life and the desire for one's life to be coherent, that it may be changed on the strength of what it is at its root, that it may be more worthy of the Reality that "clothes" it." (From Utopia to Presence)
Passing through this valley of tears, what I thought made me ME was scrutinized. It returned me again to the beginning, to the question of existence and meaning, down a vertiginous quest that drove me to the limits of my understanding of myself and the world, almost to a point of sheer madness. Love pushed me to the peripheries of my world of comfort and plunged me into a realm beyond myself. Love transcended my humanity, my world, even humanity itself. The affection for love, in its very nature, carried me beyond the human and into the arms of this total 'Other' who dares to call himself LOVE, to this 'Other' whose face is one yet three: Love given, received and shared. It is the journey of the soul to its meaning, to its destiny. So why did I stay? Why take the red pill and dare jump into the rabbit hole of love? What was at stake was my very life.
In the words of Morpheus,
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.
Did not Dante pen a similar experience?
MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say,
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
The forest of the dark night is deep. In this ascent, I am confronted with my own finitude, humbled by my own littleness in the face of Mystery in its totality. I cannot reach it unless it reveals itself to me, unless it makes itself accessible to my embodied existence. Is this not what makes love authentic? That it is seen, touched, heard, even tasted? Regardless of its infinite nature, Love desires to be made known through the body. Can love really be expressed outside of the body when this is our sole means of communication, or to better articulate it, that the body is the sole medium for our gift and reception of love?
Trinity and Incarnation. In my own meandering experience, this is the face of love revealed to me: Love whose nature is a unity of Persons who reaches out to me in embodied form.
The journey is far from over. It has just begun. Along this road, two lamps are my guide: The reality of my experience and the conviction of my faith. Experience and faith continually question each other, often in a dissonant dialogue. Experience prevents faith from becoming an ideology and faith prevents experience from superficiality. In the words of Tennyson: "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! (Ulysses)
In this invitation to depth and height, searching leads to surrender: "This passion is the opposite of moralism because it is not a law to which we must conform but a love to be ever more adhered to, it is a presence for us to follow ever more with our whole selves, it is a fact within which we can really abandon ourselves." (Giussani, From Utopia to Presence)
It is the sign of contradiction: My Redemption came through suffering, light travelled through night, chastity has dignified my sexuality. The end is the beginning, eternity has embraced time, grace has built on nature, deep has called on deep and the Beloved rests its head on the bossom of his Lover.
The fire of the wild white sun has eaten up the distance between hope and despair. Dance in this sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction.
You fool, it is life that makes you dance: Have you forgotten? Come out of the smoke, the world is tossing in its sleep, the sun is up, the land is bursting in the silence of dawn.
You fool, the prisons are open!
(Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable)
Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being;
Bestial as always before, carnal, self seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before,
Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light;
Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way.
(T.S. Elliot, Choruses from the Rock)
Pain is the kiss of love.
Love offers the highest ideal yet also lacerates the deepest wound. Thus, Yeats diagnosed love as "the crooked thing. There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it." (Brown Penny) Enraptured, the heart follows its own rhythm, at times overwhelming emotion and logic. Its ultimate goal: fulfillment. Restless by nature, the heart looks beyond itself to the other as the locus of its fullness in the affirmation of its existence, in the revelation of its meaning and reason for living. Pope John Paul II identified this restlessness as the lifeblood of that which is most deeply human: “the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience.” (Redemptor Hominis, 18) This pilgrimage to meaning is deeply rooted, inflamed by an innate affection for this 'other' to which I long to offer my life, time, treasures and talents. Some can choose to understand this as humans being innately selfish, desiring only their own self-realization. There is accuracy in this because humans begin with themselves. Where else can I begin other than myself, introspectively delving into my being, questioning my life and the meaning of my existence? In fact, isn't the best gift that which comes from the depths of the heart?
Love is more than a happy, romantic feeling. Its voice speaks to the deepest self, offering it the drive to look for purpose and beauty. As a man attracted to the same sex within a context where most of my male peers are attracted to the opposite, I felt the searing sting of unsatisfied desire. I went through times when I was caught up in love's dangerous embrace, simply to be teased by unfulfilled affection. I was so drawn that I preoccupied myself with everything that this collective 'he' did. I treasured every part of the little insignificant things that made our relationship, got raptured into pure bliss at every attention received from him and sank into deep despair when felt ignored or rejected. I recklessly delved into conjugal acts that only left me more empty and yearning.
The Song of Songs well worded the condition of my heart: "I sought him but I did not find him; I called to him but he did not answer me" (5:6). I was ushered into the dark side of love, to its night. Love has its nights as much as it has its days, its winter as much as it has summers and both have much to teach. The midnight of love, beyond infatuation and lust, is a refining fire burning away the impurities to have only pure gold, a pure, real and most authentic self. It is easy to run away from this, it is easy to fill the hole, to run to someone else just to avoid feeling lonely, feeling alone, feeling rejected and unwanted.
Then a voice within, with a forceful tenderness of a mother, asked, "What would happen if you allowed the pain to speak to you, if you stayed with the loneliness, the rejection and the abandonment?" It would be like Alice falling into the rabbit hole and continually being asked, "Who are you?" with the only answer being apophatic: "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid... because I'm not myself, you see. I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly... for I can't understand it myself to begin with." It is ultimately, in the words of Luigi Giussani, "the thirst for change in one's life and the desire for one's life to be coherent, that it may be changed on the strength of what it is at its root, that it may be more worthy of the Reality that "clothes" it." (From Utopia to Presence)
Passing through this valley of tears, what I thought made me ME was scrutinized. It returned me again to the beginning, to the question of existence and meaning, down a vertiginous quest that drove me to the limits of my understanding of myself and the world, almost to a point of sheer madness. Love pushed me to the peripheries of my world of comfort and plunged me into a realm beyond myself. Love transcended my humanity, my world, even humanity itself. The affection for love, in its very nature, carried me beyond the human and into the arms of this total 'Other' who dares to call himself LOVE, to this 'Other' whose face is one yet three: Love given, received and shared. It is the journey of the soul to its meaning, to its destiny. So why did I stay? Why take the red pill and dare jump into the rabbit hole of love? What was at stake was my very life.
In the words of Morpheus,
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.
Did not Dante pen a similar experience?
MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say,
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
The forest of the dark night is deep. In this ascent, I am confronted with my own finitude, humbled by my own littleness in the face of Mystery in its totality. I cannot reach it unless it reveals itself to me, unless it makes itself accessible to my embodied existence. Is this not what makes love authentic? That it is seen, touched, heard, even tasted? Regardless of its infinite nature, Love desires to be made known through the body. Can love really be expressed outside of the body when this is our sole means of communication, or to better articulate it, that the body is the sole medium for our gift and reception of love?
Trinity and Incarnation. In my own meandering experience, this is the face of love revealed to me: Love whose nature is a unity of Persons who reaches out to me in embodied form.
The journey is far from over. It has just begun. Along this road, two lamps are my guide: The reality of my experience and the conviction of my faith. Experience and faith continually question each other, often in a dissonant dialogue. Experience prevents faith from becoming an ideology and faith prevents experience from superficiality. In the words of Tennyson: "All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! (Ulysses)
In this invitation to depth and height, searching leads to surrender: "This passion is the opposite of moralism because it is not a law to which we must conform but a love to be ever more adhered to, it is a presence for us to follow ever more with our whole selves, it is a fact within which we can really abandon ourselves." (Giussani, From Utopia to Presence)
It is the sign of contradiction: My Redemption came through suffering, light travelled through night, chastity has dignified my sexuality. The end is the beginning, eternity has embraced time, grace has built on nature, deep has called on deep and the Beloved rests its head on the bossom of his Lover.
The fire of the wild white sun has eaten up the distance between hope and despair. Dance in this sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction.
You fool, it is life that makes you dance: Have you forgotten? Come out of the smoke, the world is tossing in its sleep, the sun is up, the land is bursting in the silence of dawn.
You fool, the prisons are open!
(Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Ecce Homo
For the Way of the Cross in Rome in 2005, the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, reflected in the Third Station: (Note - We used his prayers and reflections for our Way of the Cross in 2006)
Man has fallen, and he continues to fall: often he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but a mockery of the Creator... In Jesus’ fall beneath the weight of the Cross, the meaning of his whole life is seen: his voluntary abasement, which lifts us up from the depths of our pride. The nature of our pride is also revealed: it is that arrogance which makes us want to be liberated from God and left alone to ourselves, the arrogance which makes us think that we do not need his eternal love, but can be the masters of our own lives. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, creator and judge, we fall headlong and plunge into self-destruction. The humility of Jesus is the surmounting of our pride; by his abasement he lifts us up. Let us allow him to lift us up. Let us strip away our sense of self-sufficiency, our false illusions of independence, and learn from him, the One who humbled himself, to discover our true greatness by bending low before God and before our downtrodden brothers and sisters.
It is this profound mystery of man's abasement and Christ's self-emptying that SPYG sharply intuited for this year's Way of the Cross. As the Sorrowful Way progresses, there runs parallel to Christ's journey, the journey of another man who, desirous of becoming the 'perfect' man, makes himself the measure of his actions. In this disordered affection, he, lured by evil, is gradually blinded from truth, love and genuine beauty. In a certain sense, the journey of the Son of God to the place of the skull is a passionate run towards humanity who lie fallen, profaned in it's own self-absorbed pride. Christ 'empties himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7) in order to meet humanity who, having turned from God, has became a slave to sin and its daughter, death.
In a moving scene in the Third Fall, the man, fully clothed in sin, is emptied from within, is hollowed. The attempt to free himself of his own slavery is of no avail, reducing him to a helpless and pathetic caricature. It is this same posture that the Son of God takes upon himself-- in the words of the prophet, Christ has become less than a man, more like a worm crawling its way through dirt. (Psalm 22:6) In this way, the Divine Condemned One shows the true meaning of compassion: Cum Passio - To suffer with. Christ takes himself the sin of the world, the sin of humanity in the burden of the Cross and in so doing, places himself in that same state of slavery where humanity lie fallen. He meets humanity face to face and with his strength as God, he lifts humanity up again.
Raised up, the man kneels before the suffering Christ. What other posture can we have other than humble adoration before this God who empties himself to save us? Meditating on the Greek word for adoration, which is proskynesis, the Holy Father teaches us, "It refers to the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, supplying the norm that we choose to follow. It means that freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness, so that we ourselves can become true and good. This gesture is necessary even if initially our yearning for freedom makes us inclined to resist it. (Homily, WYD 2005) It is to Jesus to whom we render our worship. We must be careful that we do not use the Way of the Cross to glorify only ourselves and our talents without reference to Him who graced us with such gifts. We must be careful, in the end, not to celebrate only ourselves. All those called to 'watch and pray' must leave with praise only for what the Lord has done with his blessed Cross. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give the glory!" (Psalm 115:1) We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You for by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world!
As we enter the Octave of Easter, having contemplated the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord, we would do well to ask ourselves: By what do I measure my humanity? By what do I measure my worth as a human being?
The eyes of others?
How I look?
Who I'm with?
What I wear?
What I own?
How much I have?
What I can do?
All of these feed us with the lie, the terrible lie, that our deepest core is of no value, no worth, and therefore must be clothed with value, the void must be filled and silenced. Voices, many voices, will come offering only illusion and delusion, and in the end, we become as empty and shallow as these passing things to which we rendered our worship. In the Gospel of John, Pilate, when presenting Jesus to the crowd cries out: ECCE HOMO! Behold the Man! (John 19:5)
Behold the Man, emptied, naked and bleeding.
Behold the Man, whose words once moved hearts and is now silent.
Behold the Man whose hands, once working wonders, now bound.
Behold the Man, acclaimed as King, now crowned with thors.
Behold the Man, who can summon legions of angels, standing powerless before the powers of this world.
Ecce Homo! Behold Him who spoke to us at the ninth station: Behold, Beloved, the poorest king who ever lived. Before my creatures I stand stripped.... Yet who has ever been so rich? Possessing nothing, I own all –my Father’s love.
This, THIS is the measure of our humanity. This is what it means to be human. This is THE difference between the Way of the Cross of Christ which is the Way of the world: "One who chooses to follow Christ, on the other hand, avoids being wrapped up in himself and does not evaluate things according to self interest. He looks on life in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not in terms of conquest and possession. Life in its fullness is only lived in self-giving, and that is the fruit of the grace of Christ: an existence that is free and in communion with God and neighbour (cf. Gaudium et spes, 24)....Therefore, the choice is between being and having, between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and falsehood. (John Paul II, WYD 2001) THe Lord reminded us at the beginning of the Stations that this meditation on his Way of the Cross will only be complete when we have crowned it with our lives. "True joy is a victory, something which cannot be attained without a long and difficult struggle" (John Paul II, WYD 2002) You know that it is at difficult moments and trying times that the quality of our choices is measured. There are no short cuts to happiness and light! Only Jesus can supply answers which are neither illusion nor delusion! (John Paul II, Address to the Bulgarian Youth, 2002)
ECCE HOMO! Look to Him who is the God-Man who alone can lift us up from our falls. Look to Him whose promise is trustworthy. Look to Him who reveals to us our genuine worth: It is not in what we do, it is not in what we have. In the prophetic words of the late Pope, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." (John Paul II, Homily, WYD 2002) Not because of who I am, But because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, But because of who you are. ...You've told me who I am. I am yours.
Man has fallen, and he continues to fall: often he becomes a caricature of himself, no longer the image of God, but a mockery of the Creator... In Jesus’ fall beneath the weight of the Cross, the meaning of his whole life is seen: his voluntary abasement, which lifts us up from the depths of our pride. The nature of our pride is also revealed: it is that arrogance which makes us want to be liberated from God and left alone to ourselves, the arrogance which makes us think that we do not need his eternal love, but can be the masters of our own lives. In this rebellion against truth, in this attempt to be our own god, creator and judge, we fall headlong and plunge into self-destruction. The humility of Jesus is the surmounting of our pride; by his abasement he lifts us up. Let us allow him to lift us up. Let us strip away our sense of self-sufficiency, our false illusions of independence, and learn from him, the One who humbled himself, to discover our true greatness by bending low before God and before our downtrodden brothers and sisters.
It is this profound mystery of man's abasement and Christ's self-emptying that SPYG sharply intuited for this year's Way of the Cross. As the Sorrowful Way progresses, there runs parallel to Christ's journey, the journey of another man who, desirous of becoming the 'perfect' man, makes himself the measure of his actions. In this disordered affection, he, lured by evil, is gradually blinded from truth, love and genuine beauty. In a certain sense, the journey of the Son of God to the place of the skull is a passionate run towards humanity who lie fallen, profaned in it's own self-absorbed pride. Christ 'empties himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7) in order to meet humanity who, having turned from God, has became a slave to sin and its daughter, death.
In a moving scene in the Third Fall, the man, fully clothed in sin, is emptied from within, is hollowed. The attempt to free himself of his own slavery is of no avail, reducing him to a helpless and pathetic caricature. It is this same posture that the Son of God takes upon himself-- in the words of the prophet, Christ has become less than a man, more like a worm crawling its way through dirt. (Psalm 22:6) In this way, the Divine Condemned One shows the true meaning of compassion: Cum Passio - To suffer with. Christ takes himself the sin of the world, the sin of humanity in the burden of the Cross and in so doing, places himself in that same state of slavery where humanity lie fallen. He meets humanity face to face and with his strength as God, he lifts humanity up again.
Raised up, the man kneels before the suffering Christ. What other posture can we have other than humble adoration before this God who empties himself to save us? Meditating on the Greek word for adoration, which is proskynesis, the Holy Father teaches us, "It refers to the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, supplying the norm that we choose to follow. It means that freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness, so that we ourselves can become true and good. This gesture is necessary even if initially our yearning for freedom makes us inclined to resist it. (Homily, WYD 2005) It is to Jesus to whom we render our worship. We must be careful that we do not use the Way of the Cross to glorify only ourselves and our talents without reference to Him who graced us with such gifts. We must be careful, in the end, not to celebrate only ourselves. All those called to 'watch and pray' must leave with praise only for what the Lord has done with his blessed Cross. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give the glory!" (Psalm 115:1) We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You for by Your holy Cross, You have redeemed the world!
As we enter the Octave of Easter, having contemplated the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord, we would do well to ask ourselves: By what do I measure my humanity? By what do I measure my worth as a human being?
The eyes of others?
How I look?
Who I'm with?
What I wear?
What I own?
How much I have?
What I can do?
All of these feed us with the lie, the terrible lie, that our deepest core is of no value, no worth, and therefore must be clothed with value, the void must be filled and silenced. Voices, many voices, will come offering only illusion and delusion, and in the end, we become as empty and shallow as these passing things to which we rendered our worship. In the Gospel of John, Pilate, when presenting Jesus to the crowd cries out: ECCE HOMO! Behold the Man! (John 19:5)
Behold the Man, emptied, naked and bleeding.
Behold the Man, whose words once moved hearts and is now silent.
Behold the Man whose hands, once working wonders, now bound.
Behold the Man, acclaimed as King, now crowned with thors.
Behold the Man, who can summon legions of angels, standing powerless before the powers of this world.
Ecce Homo! Behold Him who spoke to us at the ninth station: Behold, Beloved, the poorest king who ever lived. Before my creatures I stand stripped.... Yet who has ever been so rich? Possessing nothing, I own all –my Father’s love.
This, THIS is the measure of our humanity. This is what it means to be human. This is THE difference between the Way of the Cross of Christ which is the Way of the world: "One who chooses to follow Christ, on the other hand, avoids being wrapped up in himself and does not evaluate things according to self interest. He looks on life in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not in terms of conquest and possession. Life in its fullness is only lived in self-giving, and that is the fruit of the grace of Christ: an existence that is free and in communion with God and neighbour (cf. Gaudium et spes, 24)....Therefore, the choice is between being and having, between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and falsehood. (John Paul II, WYD 2001) THe Lord reminded us at the beginning of the Stations that this meditation on his Way of the Cross will only be complete when we have crowned it with our lives. "True joy is a victory, something which cannot be attained without a long and difficult struggle" (John Paul II, WYD 2002) You know that it is at difficult moments and trying times that the quality of our choices is measured. There are no short cuts to happiness and light! Only Jesus can supply answers which are neither illusion nor delusion! (John Paul II, Address to the Bulgarian Youth, 2002)
ECCE HOMO! Look to Him who is the God-Man who alone can lift us up from our falls. Look to Him whose promise is trustworthy. Look to Him who reveals to us our genuine worth: It is not in what we do, it is not in what we have. In the prophetic words of the late Pope, "We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." (John Paul II, Homily, WYD 2002) Not because of who I am, But because of what you've done. Not because of what I've done, But because of who you are. ...You've told me who I am. I am yours.
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