532     After Holy Communion, I saw the Lord Jesus, who said these words to me:  Today, penetrate into the spirit of My poverty and arrange everything in such a way that the most destitute will have no reason to envy you.  I find pleasure, not in large buildings and magnificent structures, but in a pure and humble heart.

533     When I was by myself, I began to reflect on the spirit of poverty.  I clearly saw that Jesus, although He is Lord of all things, possessed nothing.  From a borrowed manger He went through life doing good to all, but Himself having no place to lay His head.  And on the Cross, I see the summit of His poverty, for He does not even have a garment on Himself.

Child of the Poor / What Child is This?

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

“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]

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.

Direct to YouTube is Here.

Direct to YouTube for this video is HERE.

[Edited to add:  The creator of this video, Bob Carlton, posted it on his blog about a year ago, with the lyrics by Paul Simon.  You can see the lyrics here.  Bob Carlton's YouTube Channel is here, and he has made some really lovely videos for reflections on special liturgical days/seasons].

“The child prophesied by Isaiah was to be born in circumstances that were not at all promising.  The child prophesied by Isaiah was to be born of poor and illiterate parents, in a country oppressed by an occupying army, into a race that was discriminated against and unjustly persecuted.  Yet, despite this reality, Isaiah prophesied that in the birth of Emmanuel, the people would find hope.  He prophesied that, despite the appearance of things, something else was possible, indeed probable, in the divine plan for God’s people.  Here is a message that has meaning for us today.“ 

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Something else is possible, indeed probable, despite the none-too-promising realities into which we may have been born, or in which we may find ourselves at the moment.  Waiting.  Journeying.  Advent-ing.  Possibilities.  Probabilities.  Certainties?  And so we begin.  May your season be a blessed one. 

I would like to pass this on to the very dedicated people of the Madonna House apostolate.  You will also find a link to their field houses in my sidebar.

To begin the Advent season, I share with you the words of Catherine Doherty:

“Advent is a time of standing still and yet making a pilgrimage.  It is an inner pilgrimage, a pilgrimage in which we don’t use our feet.  We stand still; yet in a manner of speaking, we walk a thousand miles across the world – just because we choose to stand still.  So, then, let us enter, you and I, into the pilgrimage that doesn’t take us from home.  For ours is a pilgrimage of the spirit, which is a thousand times harder than a journey of the feet.  Let us arise and go.”

[Taken from:  Donkey Bells]