Contemplative Haven

“It is beautiful to see God’s grace working in people.  The most beautiful thing about it is to see how the desires of the soul, inspired by God, so fit in and harmonize with grace that holy things seem natural to the soul, seem to be part of its very self.  That is what God wants to create in us – that marvelous spontaneity in which His life becomes perfectly ours and our life His, and it seems inborn in us to act as His children, and to have His light shining out of our eyes.”  [From:  The Sign of Jonas, 1953]

Wishing you all a very

full of grace!

“In Nazareth the concrete relationship between the Christian and God is created.  From there all Christians, particularly all the saints, draw the measure of their relationship to God.  The Son as God, Mary as the Immaculate Conception, and Joseph as Saint, participate as much in the grace of heaven as they do in earthly realities.  They could, if they wanted to, live as if in heaven while still here below.  But their mission puts them on earth, and only with great discretion do they make use of their heavenly life.  They themselves give earth the preponderance.  For the mission wills it so.  Therefore they do not live in Nazareth simply a life of pleasure and joy in one another.  They live there already for the Christians to come, for us.  The house at Nazareth is no closed house, nor a closed paradise; it has doors and windows that open out into the Church.  From this we ourselves learn first to order our lives behind closed doors and windows, until we, too, open them and place ourselves at the Church’s disposal.” 

[Excerpt from:  "Handmaid of the Lord", by Adrienne von Speyr]  

Mary and Joseph must have been very tired after the birth of Jesus. The long journey to Bethlehem from Nazareth was no doubt exhausting.  All the commotion surrounding the census must have been nerve-wracking, and the anxiety of finding a place to stay and birth the baby would have been very stressful.

After the birth, Mary and Joseph had to open their temporary shelter to visitors of all kinds – shepherds, the Magi, curious passersby - and very likely at all hours of the day and night. 

During this week between Christmas and New Year’s, many of us will be visiting others or receiving visitors.  The pre-Christmas preparations and the activities of Christmas Eve/Christmas Day may have left us exhausted.  Although we dearly wish to spend time with people we love, some of whom  we only see at this time of year, we wonder sometimes how we will manage - how will we get through the afternoon or the evening without our fatigue showing?  And on a deeper level, how will we get beyond the conversation of “catch-up and chit-chat” and be really present to our hosts/guests, in a way that will allow the light of the Christ-child to shine?

In “Fresh Bread and Other Gifts of Spiritual Nourishment“, author Joyce Rupp gives us the following prayer, inspired by the Blessed Virgin’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth after the Annunciation.  I hope it will be a source of strength and inspiration to any readers who may be battling fatigue, yet dearly wish to make themselves available to friends/family/strangers during this Christmas season: 

A Prayer for Hospitality to the Mother of Jesus  

“Mary, the quality of your visit to Elizabeth draws me to prayer.  You teach me so much about welcoming others and of being other-centered.  You hurried quickly to where the need was.  You thought of Elizabeth.  You gave her joy, hope and promise, or rather, you allowed the Lord to do all of that through you.  You believed in the promise made to you by your God.  Is that why you could give and share, and visit the way you did?  You touched Elizabeth’s spirit and she felt the goodness of God in her life.  Mary, you understood so well God’s great love for you.  You trusted him so totally.  Your welcoming presence met Elizabeth and she cried out in recognition of the fulness of God within you.

Mary, dear woman of God pray for us, that we can be spiritual people of quality, of promise, of welcoming presence.  Help us to be full of hospitality, welcoming the Christ in all and allowing the Christ within us to be met and visited.  Amen.”   

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on’ry people like you and like I
I wonder as I wander out under the sky

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God’s Angels in heaven for to sing
He surely could have it, ’cause he was the King

A Performance of this Christmas Hymn provided by the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity:

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

All around the world, Christians have been waiting for the birth of the Christ-child.  Although Christmas is a universal Christian celebration, unique cultural/historical experiences are brought to it from each country.  Emmanuel, God-with-us, is always true in a very intimate way, touching the lives and souls of peoples of all nations and cultures in ways closest to their hearts. 

William Kurelek [1927 - 1977] was a Canadian artist and writer of Ukranian descent.  He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1957.  The Niagara Falls Art Gallery houses Kurelek’s The Passion of Christ, a series of 160 paintings based on the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The following video presents many of William Kurelek’s beautiful nativity paintings, which portray a uniquely Canadian perspective.  The accompanying music is Chris de Burgh’s haunting, “When Winter Comes”.

From Canada, ” M E R R Y     C H R I S T M A S     E V E R Y O N E ! ! ! “

” J O Y E U X     N O E L ! ! ! “ 

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

“…the best reason for loving peace is not that war is horrible.  A nation that loves peace because war is degrading, disgusting, unpleasant, brutalizing, filthy, etc. will get in plenty of trouble.  No matter how horrible anything is there has to be a better reason, than its horribleness, for our hating it.”

[Sept. 5, 1941. "Run to the Mountain. The Journals of Thomas Merton. Volume I, 1939-1941]

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Dedicated to our Canadian troops in Afghanistan, and those who are serving elsewhere in the world.  May the Lord protect you:

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

An excerpt from Caryll Houselander’s, “Lift Up Your Hearts”:

“The condition of peace is courage, but the moments in which we most long for it are those when courage seems most difficult.  When all that we want is to loosen our hold, to throw off responsibility, to rest.  We want not a sword, but a lap big enough to bury our head on.  It is comfort then to realise that the courage peace demands is in fact to relax, to throw all our care into the lap of God.  It means that we must take the risk of trusting God’s love, believing Christ’s word, loving one another…

So it is that peace on earth can be restored through the hearts of the unknown, humble people in all the countries of the world who open their hearts to the Lamb of God that in them the whole world’s peace may begin.

Advent is closing and the longing of the church for light and for the spring, the budding forth of the saviour, is culminating in the mystery of Christmas, and we can put aside our cares to make the house of our soul ready for the child, with prayer as simple as a folk song, rocking the cradle of peace to the beating of the human heart.”

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[Artwork is "A Little Girl Rocking a Cradle", by Nicolaes Maes, circa 1655]

A friend, who returns home time and time again exhausted in spirit and body from her work in the soup kitchen, writes:  “I’m happy.  In a very sad kind of way.  I am happy with the poor-exhausted.  It makes no sense.  Like all of His paradoxes, it only makes love, not sense.”

Who are they who choose love over what makes sense?  To whom does this kind of sacrifice, to the point of complete spiritual, emotional and physical exhaustion, bring profound joy?  To the Holy Fools.  We all know them in our own lives.  We know them also from history – St. Francis, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, and our beloved Catherine Doherty, to name but a few.  My friend would deny being in the same category as these, yet even if the scope of the work is not as broad, the calling is the same; the kenosis is the same; the exhaustion is the same.  Catherine Doherty writes:

Sitting at the very edge of the pine forest in the eventide, I look down.  Suddenly I am not there at all!  I am where my heart has always been; I am with the poor.  A love, a joy, a simple, childlike joy fills my heart and I tell myself, “I am descending the holy mountain to go to the poor.”

I was tired beyond my own understanding, and, I think, beyond the understanding of many.  I knew that the people chosen by God to bring his message to the world were always tired.  But I did not know how tired.  Did you ever feel this numbing, crushing tiredness that takes hold of you and seems to crush you into powder?  There you are, lying on the road, a little handful of powder.

Don’t you understand, don’t we all understand, that we must begin to share?  We must!  It is not a question of tithing.  It is a question of sharing, because unless we share, we will become atomic dust.

And from the winds came the familiar voice, “Now you know how tired I was when I hung on the Cross.  But love overcomes tiredness.  Mine did.”

From:  “Urodivoi.  Holy Fools.  The Prophetic Call of a Modern Fool for Christ”, by Catherine Doherty.

Yes, you guys are pretty cool. 

Not only can we talk about spiritual things and bare our souls to each other, but I am surrounded by co-creators – writers, poets, visual/performing artists.

And now a hidden talent has emerged.  After seeing my Snowbound post, JohnT (Cubeland Mystic), formerly of the blog “The Immaculate Direction”, donned his sandals and sunglasses, sauntered into his garden, and created a living sculpture of me:

JT, I will treasure this forever, and thought it was just too funny not to share. I guess I only have two questions: 1)  in a region where sandals and sunglasses are the norm in December, how come JohnT has a toque and scarf so handy?  2)  How does he get romaine lettuce to grow in that moon-crater soil? 

He also sent a picture of his orange-tree, just to make us jealous…

It worked, JT. It worked.