Archive for the 'Poverty' Category

Exhausted Holy Fools

gabrielle December 21st, 2007

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.

A New Landscape

gabrielle September 28th, 2007

 I am reminded once again, by prayer requests in my inbox, of the incredibly difficult and often painful lives of our elderly; also, of the enormous amount of strength and dedication required of their caregivers.

And once again, I am profoundly moved by the powerful life, spirituality and writing of Servant of God Catherine Doherty, who, in her book, “Molchanie.  Experiencing the Silence of God”, gives us a whole chapter entitled, The Silence of Old Age.

Catherine speaks of her own experience of aging in this chapter, and I would like to share just a few passages with you here:

  • “Somehow it never occurs to us that tomorrow or the day after, our steps will falter, that we will be too weak to do what we would like.  And yet, I think this ‘unfreedom’ of old age is also an entry into the silence of God.”
  • “…the silence of old age, with its accompanying lack of exterior freedom.  My own heart must learn to accept this lack of freedom….This is good, because now I enter a new depth of silence, and the very essence of poverty, for which I have so longed.  Now I am exceedingly free.”
  • “The earth is becoming a narrow sliver, of no more importance.  Heaven is opening before me.  This is the goal I always wanted to attain.  No wonder earthly landscapes pass out of view. God has given me a new key to the landscape of his heart, and nobody can stop me from entering it.”

A new key, a new landscape, a deeper poverty, silence and union.  Let us pray for our elderly, for their caregivers and for ourselves.  No matter whether we are young or old, able to move or not, speak or not, swallow or not, let us pray that we will enter the landscape of God’s heart, and be as Catherine Doherty - although “bound” exteriorly as she advanced in age, able to shout with joy, “I am lost in the tenderness of God.” 

Distracted

gabrielle May 10th, 2007

My train of thought re detachment has been interrupted once again.  This time, by something I just read.  When asked, “What is poverty?”,  here were the responses of some Grade 4 and 5 children from North Bay, Ontario.  Poverty is:

  • feeling ashamed when my Dad can’t get a job
  • pretending that you forgot your lunch
  • being teased for the way you are dressed
  • being afraid to tell your Mom you need gym shoes
  • hearing Mom and Dad fight over money
  • hiding your feet so the teacher won’t get cross when you don’t have boots

Poverty is.  Poverty is.  Poverty is.

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