Contemplative Haven

I am reading, “By Little and By Little.  The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day”, and just wanted to share a passage about Peter Maurin that brought tears to my eyes:

Peter had been insulted and misunderstood in his life as well as loved.  He had been taken for a plumber and left to sit in the basement when he had been invited for dinner and an evening of conversation.  He had been thrown out of a Knights of Columbus meeting.  One pastor who invited him to speak demanded his money back which he had sent Peter for carfare to his upstate parish because, he said, we had sent him a Bowery bum, and not the speaker he expected.  “This then is perfect joy,” Peter could say, quoting the words of St. Francis to Friar Leo.

He was a man of sincerity and peace, and yet one letter came to us recently, accusing him of having a holier-than-thou attitude.  Yes, Peter pointed out that it was a precept that we should love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and not just a counsel, and he taught us all what it meant to be children of God, and restored to us our sense of responsibility in a chaotic world.  Yes, he was “holier than thou,” holier than anyone we ever knew.

[Excerpt from:  By Little and By Little.  The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, Edited, with an Introduction, by Robert Ellsberg, pg. 127, from a letter entitled "Peter Maurin.  A Poor Man", dated June 1949]

“His mercies are new every morning.”

Martha Williamson: The People We Were

But I say to you: Blessed is he who exposes himself to an existence never brought under mastery, who does not transcend but, rather, abandons himself to my ever-transcending grace. Blessed are not the enlightened whose every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime light, the mature and ripe ones whose one remaining action is to fall from the tree: blessed, rather, are the chased, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Heart of the World, pg. 183

From St. Faustina’s Diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul:

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.

Terry, of Abbey-Roads2, has a post up which answers my recent question regarding the degrees of humility. When we were talking about it in the combox the other day, I didn’t even know what the third degree of humility was, which I jokingly said I was practising. Well, now I know, and I know them all. Once more, and probably not for the last time, it has been brought home to me that I should be careful what I ask for. 

Thank you, Terry.  (I think).

(This painting is “The Virgin of Humility with Angels and Donor”, c. 1360, by an unknown Italian artist.)