“The way of loving him is so very simple: the diapers, the baking, the laundry; sitting quietly, telling stories to the children, holding the hand of one’s spouse. All are little acts of love, directed not only to one’s family but to God. This is what he wants.
The farmer plowing his field, the plumber doing repairs, the husband spending time with his wife and children, all realize this is what God asks. The stenographer who is in love with God knows that documents done perfectly are acts of love. The nurse, the taxidriver – everyone, everywhere! – can absorb this fourth paragraph of the Little Mandate. [note: Catherine Doherty, The Little Mandate, paragraph four is: "Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me."] It’s so simple. It’s a song of love.
Listen to the dishes. Listen to the laundry. Listen to the work of the gardener or the farmer. A great and beautiful chorus is rising up from the hearts of men and women who believe. And the love of Jesus Christ responds to that chorus of love, because that is the way he worked for many years, writing us love letters.”
[Catherine Doherty: Sobornost. Experiencing Unity of Mind, Heart and Soul, pgs. 84-85]
Our love should be a repentant love, a love that expiates infidelities past and present; a grateful love that renders thanks to our great Benefactor, the devoted Co-worker who labors without stint and without rest…
Such love will lead us to imitate the Most Adorable Trinity in the measure in which this is compatible with human weakness…
Temples wherein the thrice Holy One resides can never be too rich in beauty, too glorious in sanctity. It is remarkable that when our Lord wished to propose to us an ideal, a model of perfection, He pointed to God Himself: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” At first sight this ideal does seem too high. But when we recall that we are the adopted children of God and that He lives in us in order to impress upon us His image and to collaborate in our salvation, then we realize that a high rank imposes obligations, noblesse oblige, and that it is no more than our plain duty to approach ever nearer the divine perfections. It is chiefly in view of the fulfilment of the precept of fraternal charity, the love of our fellows, that Jesus Christ demands of us to keep before our eyes this perfect model, the indivisible oneness of the Three Divine Persons: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father in me and I in thee; that they also be one in us.” What a tender prayer! St. Paul echoes it later on begging his dear disciples not to forget that since they are but one body and but one spirit, and since they have but one Father who lives in all just souls, they should preserve the unity of spirit in the bond of peace.
[Excerpt from: The Spiritual Life. A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, by the Very Reverend Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., pgs. 53-54]
Here is something that I think you will find helpful in terms of our understanding of degrees or stages along the path of holiness. Father Thomas Dubay is the guest on a half-hour program called, “The Choices We Face” (a production of Renewal Ministries), with an excellent interviewer, Peter Herbeck. The video is on Tangle (formerly Godtube). Here is the link: Father Thomas Dubay on “Deep Conversion”. As always, Father Dubay is very down-to-earth and straightforward about all of us growing in holiness.
Some highlights:
conversion in this sense is referring to moral conversion, from bad to good, from good to better, from better to best
degrees or stages of conversion: 1) coming out of alienation from God (i.e., coming out of mortal sin into a state of grace); 2) giving up venial sin; 3) heroic virtue (i.e., perfection as far as it is possible on earth – no limit to one’s love)
everyone is called to heroic virtue
growing in holiness means becoming perfected in Christ, with a discussion of how this is not a legalistic perfectionism
our intention should be to “go all the way with God”, i.e., to desire to become a saint
refers to a locution from God to Angela of Foligno, concerning her desire to be holy: “Make yourself a capacity, and I will make Myself a torrent”.
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.
Sometimes just being there is enough
When words would be an encumbrance upon sacred silence
That lends itself so well to contemplation.
Sometimes just being there is enough
Presenting oneself, body, mind and spirit
In an act of trust
When Love pours itself out of a ruby-rimmed cup
And all of me fills with longing.
[Taken from: The Blueness Above, by Ann Murray]
Please visit Ann at her Poetry, Prayer, and Praise blog for some excellent news.
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.
“When can I see the face of my God?”“Why are you downcast, my soul?” “Why do you groan within me?”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
In case anyone was scandalized or confused by the choice of love songs in the previous post, let’s take a brief look at the mystical language of love, a language I’m sure was very familiar to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s soul.
In, “Fire Within”, Father Thomas Dubay tells us that, “the divine invasion leading to the consummation of the summit is indeed a fusion of unimaginable light and unspeakable love. Hence, John [St. John of the Cross] speaks of the frequent experience of an intimate spiritual embrace. This divine clasp or hug…can be so wonderfully overwhelming, notes John along with other mystics, that the soul needs an infusion of special strength to endure it….He remarks, for example, that the praises and endearing expressions of love which frequently pass between the two are indescribable….It is in this spiritual marriage of the summit that ‘the soul kisses God’…”
Even if the summit of love has not yet been reached, the soul’s longing and desiring for a complete love-union with God has always been expressed with the language of passion. Fr. Dubay writes, “The saints know what it is like to be in love, a love immeasurably beyond what worldlings label as love. The delight is intense because the love is intense. Teresa [of Avila] is a woman so keenly in love with her Lord that she must proclaim: My King, I beseech You, that all to whom I speak become mad from Your love….This soul would now want to see itself free – eating kills it; sleeping distresses it…nothing other than You can give it pleasure any longer…and I would desire to see no other persons than those who are sick with this sickness I now have.”
Sufi poet, Rumi, knew this love language well. We will hear much in this video that is also at the heart of our own Catholic mystical tradition - Divine Love expressed in passionate poetry – the love that St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and so many other saints have described: the love that annihilates the ego, and brings the soul to Divine Union.
We will be with you in spirit this morning, Laura. Carol is saving us a pew, and it stretches around the blogosphere. But surely you knew that. Surely you knew that we would sing for you.
[Laura desired that her funeral be a teaching moment. Perhaps we could begin here.]
For those of you who cannot see the embedded video, you may go here to see it at YouTube.
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.
