“If no one told me who I was, who would I be? Quietly meditate on this by spending some time in the spaciousness of not knowing. Imagine that your subconscious mind is nonexistent and there is no storage receptacle for excuses during your life. There’s just an open and inviting clear space inside of you – a tabula rasa, or blank slate, with a magical surface that nothing adheres to. You might imagine that your everyday conscious mind simply doesn’t absorb the opinions of the folks you grew up with. In this little fantasy, there’s never been anyone telling you who you are. So who are you?”
“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]
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-
window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms
of one’s hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the
huge roses.
On this feastday, some reflections from Servant of God Catherine Doherty, taken from her book, “Soul of My Soul. Coming to the Heart of Prayer”:
The Jesus prayer might be enough for us: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Why would it be enough? Because it brings Jesus into your life. The repetition of the holy name brings the presence of the person…. When I invoke the name of Jesus, I myself cease to exist. I am drawn into his name, immersed in his name, immersed in him. (pg. 102)
Just say “Jesus”, and whoosh, God is here. You brought him. I brought him. Before the name of Jesus, every knee must bend: When you say “Jesus”, many things begin to happen. (pg. 103)
When you say “Jesus”, the word is already a prayer. You remind yourself, “For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them” (Matthew 18:20). How much truer this is when we say, “Come, Lord Jesus,” as we do in Advent. “Come, Lord Jesus.” And he comes! This is reality, one of those strange mysteries that exist between God and man. Man calls, and God abases himself and takes again the form of a servant. (pg. 103)
Once you begin to pray the Jesus prayer and understand what you’re doing, it will continue without you consciously willing it. Once you’ve called on the name of Jesus, his name will remain with you because you desire it to be there. He desires it to be there, too. The two desires merge into one. (pg. 103)
“Soul of My Soul” can be ordered from Madonna House (please see the link in my sidebar). These quotations were taken from the chapter entitled, “Prayer of the Heart”.
“…I see and am with the fears that hook me into wanting things to be different from the way they are, fears that pull me into the belief that a different location or situation – a more creative job, a home in a more natural setting, more money or time or other resources, a relationship with someone who has the same “spiritual” goals or daily practice – is needed if I am ever to find deep abiding peace, if I am ever to learn how to love well. These beliefs are rooted in deeper if intermittent fears: the fear that I am not now and never will be able to hear the call at the center of my life accurately or fully enough to know how to consistently live who and what I am; the fear that the Beloved, tired of my inability to get it right, will simply stop calling, stop sending out the voice that can guide me home…
This is what I learned on my quest:
There is simply no place, no location or situation, that cannot be used to wake up to and live all of what and who you are, if you are willing to show up, to be present in the only place you ever have access to: here.”
[pgs. 77-78]
“And you can’t trick the universe into giving you what you want by pretending to be at peace with how things are, by imitating what you think it would look like to be fully present where you are, all the while looking over your shoulder to see if some higher power has noticed and is about to deliver you from where you are and put you where you really want to be.” (pg. 82)
As I look around the blogosphere lately, I find infrequent postings and dwindling comments. This is perfectly understandable, since many of us are enjoying summer after a long, hard winter, and entertaining visitors from afar. For those whose winter has arrived, perhaps they are cozying up more frequently near the fireplace, sipping hot drinks and getting to bed earlier every night.
I think this is a good thing. Apart from considerations of our natural seasons, I hope it is a reflection of the fact that we are in the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. Liturgically, Ordinary Time means ordered or numbered time, a period when priests predominantly wear green vestments signifying hope and growth.
Ordinary Time is the season for steady and unhurried nourishment of body and soul, a time when the anticipation of major feasts such as Christmas and Easter are not the focal point of our attention, with their attendant periods of Advent and Lent for which so many of us make specific plans.
As this entry at Catholic Culture tells us, Ordinary Time is a time to “pasture” in “vast verdant meadows”. So let us take this time to enter into Christ’s mystery through the people and the creation around us. From my point of view, since it is summer here and the house is buzzing off and on with visiting family and friends, I just want to relaxintoand sanctify the changing of bed linens, the table-setting, the floor-sweeping, the lawn-mowing, the hedge-clipping and the flower-watering, all the while absorbing the chirping of sparrows and the scurrying of baby chipmunks.
I want to nourish my body with fresh fruits and vegetables – local blueberries and farmers’-market corn. I want to feed my soul daily with contemplative prayer, all else such as Lectio Divina, spiritual audio or video resources and blog-reading being added at my own pace, stopping whenever my spirit draws me to simply sit and gaze at tree limbs, cone flowers or cardinals, allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighten my heart and my mind as He pleases.
Yes, it’s Ordinary Time, and I am tired and hungry.
[Excerpt from "Heart of the World", by Hans Urs von Balthasar]
Or I can postpone guilt until tomorrow. The eye that looks at me fixedly always says “today.” “It is now that I want to be loved.” But I lower my eyes and say: “I will love you tomorrow. Tomorrow you’ll see what I’m capable of doing for you. You’ll see the sacrifices I’ll bring to you. Tomorrow I’ll pay you twice over if you’ll only grant me this one hour today. I must yet pluck the rose before it fades away, but the rosehips I’ll bring you for sure. Give me the spring and I’ll let you have the autumn, maybe even late summer. Just for today turn away your gaze, and starting tomorrow you’ll be able to look at me all you like.” “I’m coming now, I’m coming right away!” the child cries up to his mother when she calls him in, and he finishes playing his game, thinking that surely obedience includes a certain period of grace – a human margin. Who could all at once make a clean break with his life? Why, God, do you want to jump steps in my case? You want the whole thing all at once: one’s whole heart, whole soul, whole mind – all my strength…
We’ll be heading out in a couple of days for our summer vacation (we left it a tad late, didn’t we) and then it will be right back into the school year and those glorious autumn days. So this post will wind things up at the Haven until sometime in early September. Your intentions will be travelling with me, and I’d like to leave you with a heartfelt wish, that you will “let nothing disturb you”. Ah, easier said than done, you say. Absolutely. But let’s all give it our best, with His grace.
The direct link to YouTube is: HERE for a beautiful interpretation of St. Teresa of Avila’s, “Nada te turbe”.
Let nothing disturb you;
Let nothing frighten you;
All things pass away;
God never changes.
Patience attains all
that it strives for;
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
(St. Teresa of Avila)
Excerpt from: Abandonment to Divine Providence (Jean-Pierre de Caussade)
“It is true that a canvas simply and blindly offered to the brush feels at each moment only the stroke of the brush. It is the same with a lump of stone. Each blow from the hammering of the sculptor’s chisel makes it feel – if it could – as if it were being destroyed. As blow after blow descends, the stone knows nothing of how the sculptor is shaping it. All it feels is a chisel chopping away at it, cutting it and mutilating it. For example, let’s take a piece of stone destined to be carved into a crucifix or a statue. We might ask it: What do you think is happening to you? And it might answer: Don’t ask me. All I know is that I must stay immovable in the hands of the sculptor, and I must love him and endure all he inflicts on me to produce the figure he has in mind. He knows how to do it. As for me, I have no idea what he is doing, nor do I know what he will make of me. But what I do know is that his work is the best possible. It is perfect. I welcome each blow of his chisel as the best thing that could happen to me, although, if I’m to be truthful, I feel that every one of these blows is ruining me, destroying me and disfiguring me. But I remain unconcerned. I concentrate on the present moment, think only of my duty, and suffer all that this master sculptor inflicts on me without knowing his purpose or fretting about it.”
This is what I learned on my quest:
I want to feed my soul daily with contemplative prayer, all else such as Lectio Divina, spiritual audio or video resources and blog-reading being added at my own pace, stopping whenever my spirit draws me to simply sit and gaze at tree limbs, cone flowers or cardinals, allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighten my heart and my mind as He pleases.
and then it will be right back into the school year and those glorious autumn days. So this post will wind things up at the Haven until sometime in early September. Your intentions will be travelling with me, and I’d like to leave you with a heartfelt wish, that you will “let nothing disturb you”. Ah, easier said than done, you say. Absolutely. But let’s all give it our best, with His grace.
