Contemplative Haven

“The high roofs of Strasbourg, Tauler’s city.  Streets known to Eckhart….

(Eckhart, in a sermon on the divine birth, says that, when a person is about to be struck by a thunderbolt, he turns unconsciously toward it.  When a tree is about to be struck, all the leaves turn toward the blow.  And one in whom the divine birth is to take place turns, without realizing, completely toward it.)”

[Thomas Merton:  Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pg. 187]

 [From:  The Call, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer]

“…I see and am with the fears that hook me into wanting things to be different from the way they are, fears that pull me into the belief that a different location or situation - a more creative job, a home in a more natural setting, more money or time or other resources, a relationship with someone who has the same “spiritual” goals or daily practice - is needed if I am ever to find deep abiding peace, if I am ever to learn how to love well.  These beliefs are rooted in deeper if intermittent fears:  the fear that I am not now and never will be able to hear the call at the center of my life accurately or fully enough to know how to consistently live who and what I am; the fear that the Beloved, tired of my inability to get it right, will simply stop calling, stop sending out the voice that can guide me home…

This is what I learned on my quest:
There is simply no place, no location or situation, that cannot be used to wake up to and live all of what and who you are, if you are willing to show up, to be present in the only place you ever have access to:  here.”
[pgs. 77-78]

“And you can’t trick the universe into giving you what you want by pretending to be at peace with how things are, by imitating what you think it would look like to be fully present where you are, all the while looking over your shoulder to see if some higher power has noticed and is about to deliver you from where you are and put you where you really want to be.”  (pg. 82)

[From: St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, Seventh Mansions, Ch. 4]

“I assure you, sisters, that that better part came to her only after sore trials and great mortification - even to see her Master so much hated must have been an intolerable trial to her.  And how many such trials did she not endure later, after the Lord’s death!

 
I think myself that the reason she was not granted martyrdom was that she had already undergone it through witnessing the Lord’s death.  The later years of her life, too, during which she was absent from Him, would have been years of terrible torment; so she was not always enjoying the delights of contemplation at the Lord’s feet.” 

The life of St. Mary Magdalene portrays two very different contemplative experiences of being “at the Lord’s feet”.  We desire one, and accept it with joy and gratitude.  But the other? 

“Yesterday at the solemn profession of Fathers Felician and Meinrad a priest from Louisville preached to us about Adam…. It was a delightful sermon.  All about what a great contemplative Adam was, before the fall:  a subject that has always appealed to me.  The preacher cried out so melodiously and his sentences got so much higher and higher that I thought he would start rising and fly away obliquely into the vaulting of the transept…. 

At all these pontifical functions they have been playing some weird music on the organ.  It reminds me of the stuff you used to hear at the movies before the silent movies went out and the talkies came in.  Now I discover that it is the hymn that the faithful sing at Fatima.  Mother of God, why do you let these things happen?”

[Thomas Merton: The Sign of Jonas, pgs. 53-54, June 14, 1947]

As I look around the blogosphere lately, I find infrequent postings and dwindling comments.  This is perfectly understandable, since many of us are enjoying summer after a long, hard winter, and entertaining visitors from afar.  For those whose winter has arrived, perhaps they are cozying up more frequently near the fireplace, sipping hot drinks and getting to bed earlier every night.
 
I think this is a good thing.  Apart from considerations of our natural seasons, I hope it is a reflection of the fact that we are in the liturgical season of Ordinary Time.  Liturgically, Ordinary Time means ordered or numbered time, a period when priests predominantly wear green vestments signifying hope and growth.

Ordinary Time is the season for steady and unhurried nourishment of body and soul, a time when the anticipation of major feasts such as Christmas and Easter are not the focal point of our attention, with their attendant periods of Advent and Lent for which so many of us make specific plans.

As this entry at Catholic Culture tells us, Ordinary Time is a time to “pasture” in “vast verdant meadows”.  So let us take this time to enter into Christ’s mystery through the people and the creation around us.  From my point of view, since it is summer here and the house is buzzing off and on with visiting family and friends, I just want to relax into and sanctify the changing of bed linens, the table-setting, the floor-sweeping, the lawn-mowing, the hedge-clipping and the flower-watering, all the while absorbing the chirping of sparrows and the scurrying of baby chipmunks.

I want to nourish my body with fresh fruits and vegetables - local blueberries and farmers’-market corn. I want to feed my soul daily with contemplative prayer, all else such as Lectio Divina, spiritual audio or video resources and blog-reading being added at my own pace, stopping whenever my spirit draws me to simply sit and gaze at tree limbs, cone flowers or cardinals, allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighten my heart and my mind as He pleases.

Yes, it’s Ordinary Time, and I am tired and hungry.

Excerpt from The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott [pg. 337]:

“A little more than a year later, on December 26, 1960, through a series of circumstances he could not have foreseen, Thomas Merton had his high place at Gethsemani and his hermitage:

Lit candles in the dusk. Haec regina mea in saeculum saeculi [This queen of mine to the end of the ages] - the sense of a journey ended, of wandering at an end. The first time in my life I ever really felt that I had come home and that my roaming and looking were ended.

A burst of sun through the window. Wind in the pines. Fire in the grate. Silence over the whole valley.

He was less than a mile from the monastery, still within the sound of its bells, writing by candlelight and the last sunlight of the short winter’s day in a small building constructed of cement blocks set on the crest of a low knob called Mount Olivet, a view of the valley in front, woods and a spinney at the back.

When he wrote to Catherine de Hueck Doherty, he called it his dacha.” [a Russian country cottage]

Thomas Merton’s Hermitage

With thanks to YouTube Channel: Gethsemani3

I cannot dance, O Lord,
Unless You lead me,
If You wish me to leap joyfully,
Let me see You dance and sing -

Then I will leap into Love -
And from Love into Knowledge,
And from Knowledge into the Harvest,
That sweetest Fruit beyond human sense.

There I will stay with You, whirling.

[Mechthild of Magdeburg] 

Congratulations to the members of the Madonna House Apostolate (see links in my sidebar) for their decision to return Catherine Doherty’s “Order of Canada”, in protest against its having also been recently awarded to abortionist/abortion rights crusader Henry Morgentaler (as I outlined in this post). 

The media is covering the story today. The CBC has an article here, and CTV News has an article as well as an excellent video interview with Susanne Stubbs of Madonna House at Rideau Hall.

Catherine Doherty, whose writings I have often quoted here at the Haven and also at my other blog, “Consecrated to Mary”, received the Order of Canada in 1976, for “a lifetime of devoted services to the underprivileged of many nationalities, both in Canada and abroad”.  There is no doubt in my mind that if Catherine were alive today, she would have walked from Combermere to Ottawa to return the award, if there had been no other way.

Let us be done with human respect that bites so deep in our human hearts.  Let us cease to be bothered about what people think and worry only about what God thinks.  That is all that matters.

[Catherine Doherty: Bogoroditza, pg. 118]

Not long ago, over at Beyond the Horizon 3, Pia spoke of the somewhat mysterious effect of the sound of bells, and there was a little more chatting about it in the combox….

It reminded me of something I had read recently by Merton, from “Thoughts in Solitude“, Chapter XVI:

“Bells are meant to remind us that God alone is good, that we belong to Him, that we are not living for this world. 

They break in upon our cares in order to remind us that all things pass away and that our preoccupations are not important.

They speak to us of our freedom, which responsibilities and transient cares make us forget.

They are the voice of our alliance with the God of heaven.

They tell us that we are His true temple. They call us to peace with Him within ourselves.

The Gospel of Mary and Martha is read at the end of the Blessing of a Church Bell in order to remind us of all these things. 

The bells say: business does not matter. Rest in God and rejoice, for this world is only the figure and the promise of a world to come, and only those who are detached from transient things can possess the substance of an eternal promise.

The bells say: we have spoken for centuries from the towers of great Churches. We have spoken to the saints your fathers, in their land. We called them, as we call you, to sanctity. What is the word with which we called them?

We did not merely say, “Be good, come to Church.” We did not merely say, “Keep the commandments” but above all, “Christ is risen, Christ is risen!” And we said: “Come with us, God is good, salvation is not hard, His love has made it easy!” And this, our message, has always been for everyone, for those who came and for those who did not come, for our song is perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect and we pour our charity out upon all.”

NATIONAL CONSECRATION OF CANADA
TO THE SACRED HEART

The prayer I am posting here is taken from a little yellow booklet entitled, “Prayers and Hymns in Honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Crusade of Prayer for Victory and Peace”, published in 1943 by an Ottawa newspaper, Le Droit.  On the inside of the front page we see: 

Nihil obstat:
R. Limoges, ptre., censor liborum, Ottavae, die 24 Aprilis 1943.

Imprimatur:
J.H. Chartrand, Vic. Gen., Ottavae, die 26 Aprilis 1943.

The booklet itself is actually dated July 4, 1943 (which I did not verify, but am presuming was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that year).  This is all the information I have.  I googled the title, as well as the specific prayer I’m using in this post, but to no avail. The booklet came into my possession through either my mother or father, both of whom are deceased; I have many of their old Catholic missals, prayer books, holy cards, booklets, pamphlets, etc. 

It is entirely possible that I am the only person in Canada who still has a copy of this booklet.  For all I know, I may also be the only person in Canada who has even seen this prayer since World War II.  But since the Morgentaler debacle which I outlined in my previous post, I want to ensure I will not be lying on my deathbed still being the only one who knows of its existence and its importance.

So any Canadians reading here, please take this prayer.  Pray it.  Blog it.  Distribute it.  Get it into your parishes; give it to your priests; mail it to your bishops and archbishops.  Do you see that word “crusade” in the booklet’s title?  Let’s begin one, together.

National Consecration of Canada to the Sacred Heart:

“O Divine Saviour, Who, to console the sorrows of Thy Church and to heal the ills of society, hast deigned to reveal with radiant clearness the immense goodness of Thy Sacred Heart; O glorious Leader of the army of Thine elect, Thou Who hast made of Thy Heart the symbol and channel of Thy Love, the banner and pledge of our victory; O Christ, Who lovest Canada and Who hast chosen it to be the centre from which this devotion has spread throughout the New World, deign to accept the prayers of Thy servants who desire to respond to Thy invitation and to merit for our country the fulfilment of Thy merciful promises.

We consecrate ourselves entirely to Thy divine Heart; we offer Thee the homage of our souls and bodies, all that we are and all that we possess. We know that we are already Thine, O Jesus, because we have nothing for which we are not indebted to Thy Love. But we wish henceforth to belong to Thee in a special manner, to submit ourselves unreservedly to Thy reign, to keep our eyes constantly fixed on Thy Heart that we may imitate Its virtues, make Its wishes the rule of our private and public life, and use all our influence for the triumph of Its divine interests. May the blame be not ours, O Jesus, if in the future Thou shalt not reign by Thy love in our families, our cities, and throughout the whole nation.

O Mary, sweet Mother of Jesus, O Queen of Canada, thou who alone dost perfectly and worthily know and honour the Heart of thy Son, help us to put into practise with a boundless and unshakeable constancy this consecration which we now make. Do thou offer us to Him; dedicate to Him this country which has been thine since its discovery, and make of it, under the influence of the Heart of Jesus, the right arm of the Church and the instrument of His great works of love. Amen.”