Contemplative Haven

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.  

Direct to YouTube for this video is HERE.

…today is our 18th wedding anniversary!  I will let you know later whether he remembered or not.       

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.

…of having a blog if you can’t sneak in a little surprise once in a while?  Besides, I really love this outfit, and I don’t get enough chances to wear it.

So what’s up, you may ask?  Well, just a little festive occasion for one of our favourite bloggers, Pia (aka: forget-me-not). 

Please join me in wishing Pia (over at her blog!) and her wonderful husband a very happy

25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! 

and many, many more blessed years together! 

…to our friend Laura. 

Many things moved me over the course of Laura’s journey, but two things Abbot Joseph told us in his recent posts on Laura’s blog will stay with me for a long, long time.  They re-enkindled within me a sense of awe, of wonder, at the Lord’s workings.

One is that Laura was forty days on her deathbed without food, forty days of fasting while on this physical and spiritual journey to her Bridegroom.  The other was that she was only able to take a bit of water, placed on her lips, with a sponge. 

I believe it was Julian of Norwich (or was it St. Faustina?) who said, “The Bride must resemble the Bridegroom”.  Lord, please help us all to be as united to You as was Laura, to be as well-prepared to enter Your Kingdom.  Dear Laura, please pray for us.

Getting a handle on this elusive creature called the false self is a tricky business.  So, while putting together some posts for next week, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of a few people who know a thing or two about love.  Six minutes and twenty-seven seconds is too long, you say?  Well, some of us in a certain combox might not think so; in fact, we’d probably spend our lives hanging around these folks, in a heartbeat.

 [Edited to answer Brother Freddie's question in the combox here]:  The YouTube was done in Ireland, but the hymn is actually American, circa 1835.  You can find the lyrics right here!