Contemplative Haven

“When can I see the face of my God?”  “Why are you downcast, my soul?”  “Why do you groan within me?”

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This is a soulful rendition of Psalm 42 sung by John Michael Talbot, and a very beautiful video as well.  For everyone whose soul is groaning. Towards the last minute, candles are lit, the flame passing from each to the other, and in my mind those hands belong to all of us here.  

Direct to YouTube for this video is HERE.

“To love God so much that you are sad to be anywhere but in a church, or on your knees, or, at least, quiet.

All day the thought of Him, or of the Blessed Virgin, comes to you in the midst of the things you are doing, and flies like an arrow through you!

Where is it gone?  Have I lost it already by talking about it?”

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(From:  Run to the Mountain.  The Journals of Thomas Merton.  Volume One 1939-1941) (This quotation: September 4, 1941)

Excerpt from “Awakenings” (Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O.)

“The crucifixion of Jesus is the ultimate reversal of values. Jesus in the parables puts a tremor under the values of the people of his time. He continues to do the same for us as we hear the gospel today. He creates earthquakes under our self satisfied and prepackaged value systems.

Here we see Jesus dying on the cross, crucified, rejected, obliterated, his life’s work reduced to zero.  In what does this reversal of values consist? It consists in divine love manifesting itself in the promise of Christ to the good thief.  As soon as he opened to divine love, the thief ceased to be a thief.  Jesus instantly acknowledged him as a member of the kingdom: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

The Pharisees and the Roman authorities were unrepentant.  The good thief, by acknowledging his crime, ascended to heaven.  This is the ultimate reversal of values.  It is the confrontation of divine love and human pride.

John’s Gospel perceives Jesus reigning from the cross.  Divine love is triumphing over the apparent victory of worldliness, violence, and sin.  Anyone who accepts that vision is reigning with Christ in the kingdom right now.  To paraphrase Jesus’ words to the good thief, “You are in paradise right now even amidst your sufferings.”  Thus, as soon as we open ourselves to divine love, our sins are forgiven and forgotten.  We are instantly placed, like the good thief, in the reign of divine love.  Thus, as the value systems of this world are reversed and selfishness is crucified in the body of Christ, divine love is poured out over the human family and made available to everyone who consents.

The reign of Christ the King is not a reign of power but of compassion.  He invites us to participate.”

Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation)

Excerpt from ”The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great”:

[I am posting a longer-than-usual excerpt here for those of you who may not have the book, as it is such a beautiful passage concerning St. Gertrude's death, and also gives us two insights into the Blessed Virgin Mary that I haven't come across elsewhere in my reading.]

When the happy day of release came, which the Saint had so long and so ardently desired, Our Lord appeared to her with His Divine countenance radiant with joy.  On His right hand stood His ever-blessed Mother, and on His left the beloved disciple John.  An immense multitude of Saints attended the King of Saints, and among their glorious ranks were seen a band of virgins, who appeared to the religious of the monastery and joined themselves with them.  Our Divine Lord approached the bed of the dying Saint, showing such marks of tenderness and affection as were more than sufficient to sweeten the bitterness of death.  When the Passion was read, at the words, “Et inclinato capite emisit spiritum,” [and bowing His head, He gave up the ghost] Our Lord inclined toward His faithful spouse and opened wide His adorable Heart, as if transported with love, pouring forth all its tenderness on her.  It might have seemed enough; but even on earth there was yet more consolation reserved for her who had been faithful usque ad mortem – even until death.

As the sisters prayed and wept around her bed, the religious so favored by Our Lord ventured to address Him thus:  “O most sweet Jesus!  We beseech Thee, by the goodness which prompted Thee to give us so dear a mother, that, as Thou art about to take her from this world, Thou wouldst condescend to our prayers, and receive her with the same affection as Thou didst Thy Blessed Mother, when she went forth from the body.”  Then Our Lord, with exceeding clemency, turned to His Blessed Mother and said to her:  “Tell Me, My Mother, what I did most pleasing to you when you were leaving the world, for they ask Me to bestow a similar favor on their mother.”  “My Son,” replied the Holy Virgin sweetly, “my greatest joy was the grace which You showed me of receiving me in the secure asylum of Your holy arms.”  Our Lord replied:  “I granted this because My Mother, when on earth, ever remembered My Passion with such intense anguish.”  Then He added [speaking to His Mother, Mary]:  “I granted this favor to [you] My chosen one in recompense for the care which you had, while yet on earth, to meditate often in your mind, and to revere by your grief and your tears, the mystery of My Passion.  Gertrude must therefore render herself in some sort worthy of this favor, by the pain and difficulty which she will suffer today in breathing.  The patience which she will thus be called to exercise will place her in a state somewhat similar to that to which you were often reduced by the recollection of My sufferings.“ 

St. Gertrude accordingly continued in her agony the entire day, but our Lord did not leave her to suffer alone.  His Heart had already been opened to her, and from thence she drew the help and consolation she needed.  Celestial spirits also surrounded her bed, and she beheld them inviting her to Paradise, and heard their celestial harmony as they sung continually:  “Come, come, come, O lady!  The joys of Heaven await thee!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!”

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I am thinking now of Mary having great pain and difficulty breathing during her prayer and meditation, so united was she to her Son’s asphyxiation on the Cross, as Jesus made known in this revelation from the year 1302.  Jesus still desires to reveal the depth of unity between His Mother and Himself. 

I would like to honour all of our veterans today with the prayer that Jesus Himself gave us.  The website of St. Luke Greek Orthodox Church in Broomall, Pennsylvania has a wonderful page where you can find The Lord’s Prayer (in both written and spoken formats) in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, Ethiopian, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Polish, Spanish and Thai.
                                               
And here are the Irish Mystics, with “Pater Noster” in English, Latin and Gaelic: 

Direct to YouTube for this video is HERE.

Oh, when will I see Jesus
  and reign with Him above,
and from the flowing fountain
  drink everlasting love.

Oh, had I wings I would fly away and be at rest,
  and I’d praise God in His bright abode.

Direct to YouTube for the above video is HERE.

Be Thou My Vision
Direct to YouTube for the above video is HERE.

Wishing you all a very peaceful weekend.

When Elizabeth Catez entered the Carmel in Dijon, France in 1901 at the age of twenty-one, she was required to complete the “Postulant’s Questionnaire”.  Her responses are striking:

What is your ideal for sanctity?
To live from love.

What is the quickest way to attain it?
To make oneself as small as possible, to surrender oneself without reserve.

Which saint do you love most?
The disciple Jesus loved, who rested his head on Jesus’ breast.

Which part of the Rule speaks most directly to you?
Silence.

What is the dominant trait of your character?
Sensitiveness.

Your favorite virtue?
Purity. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

The fault you most abhor?
Egoism in general.

Give a basic definition of prayer.
The union of one who is not with the One who Is.

What is your favorite book?
The soul of Christ – it reveals to me all the secrets of the heavenly Father.

Do you have a powerful yearning for heaven?
I often long for that, but, apart from the beatific vision, I already possess heaven in my innermost soul.

In what disposition would you like to die?
I would like to die loving and thus collapse into the arms of the one I love.

What form of martyrdom would you desire most?
I love them all, especially the martyrdom of love.

What name would you like to bear in heaven?
The Will of God.

What is your motto?
God in me and I in Him.

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I have found a beautiful site called Le Jour du Seigneur (The Day of the Lord), where you can watch an excellent video about Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity.  Even if you do not understand French, you may enjoy seeing Elizabeth’s bedroom at the Carmel in Dijon, her handwritten letters and listening to the Carmelite nuns reading excerpts from her books.  (Once the video starts playing, you can click on the lower right-hand side to enlarge the screen). 

“She desires, not theology, but adoration; yet adoration of the word in its revealed character.  This requires contemplation of the word, contemplation born of “the mind of God” as it is implanted in the believer.  Her mission is not narrowly doctrinal, rather, corresponding to her Carmelite existence, it is a mission of life, a mission realized in silence, prayer and suffering.  This part of her mission remains invisible, as is true of all missions in the Church, especially the contemplative ones, whose real fruit remains hidden under God’s guidance and can never be described even in outline here on earth.  Still, in some missions, especially in the active ones, a portion (which can never be sharply distinguished from the other, invisible, part) is outwardly visible.   In some instances this occurs even with contemplative callings:  when testimony of hidden life in God must be given.  Elizabeth belongs to those missions that lie precisely on the line between visible and invisible.  Her calling is found in an invisibility of contemplation that points to a visible activity.  A certain visibility of thought can point to this invisibility of life, to thought’s origin, possibility and end.  Thus Elizabeth’s mission is located in the invisibility of the transcendent world toward which the vapor trail of existence directs all eyes even as it visibly disappears in the dusk.” 

[Excerpt from "Two Sisters in the Spirit.  Thérèse of Lisieux & Elizabeth of the Trinity", by Hans Urs von Balthasar] 

The Falling Leaves (Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Canadian Poet, 1860-1943)

Lightly He blows, and at His breath they fall,
The perishing kindreds of the leaves; they drift,
Spent flames of scarlet, gold aerial,
Across the hollow year, noiseless and swift.
Lightly He blows, and countless as the falling
Of snow by night upon a solemn sea,
The ages circle down beyond recalling
To strew the hollows of Eternity.
He sees them drifting through the spaces dim.
And leaves and ages are as one to Him.

Why do Ye Call the Poet Lonely (Archibald Lampman, Canadian Poet, 1861-1899)

Why do ye call the poet lonely,
Because he dreams in lonely places?
He is not desolate, but only
Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.