Love Him With Deeds

This Lent, I Have Decided

Where Is My Heart?

'God will love you, of course, even though you do not love Him, but remember if you give Him only half your heart, He can make you only fifty percent happy. You have freedom only to give your heart away. To whom do you give yours? You give it either

to the moods of the hour, 
to your egotism, 
to creatures, 
or to God.'

Archbishop Fulton Sheen 




Painting: Guy Rose, in US public domain due to age

Always Springtime

'It is always springtime in the heart that loves God.'

St. John Vianney

Painting: Iosif Evstafievich Krachkovsky

To Nourish This Love

                          'Everything leads us to the love of our Lord.
                          All things nourish and feed this love...
                          It lives on our sorrows and consoles them; 
                          It lives on our sufferings and rewards them;
                          It lives on our sacrifices and makes them precious;
                          It lives on our pleasures and adds to them;
                          It lives on our hopes and fulfills them;
                          And in a word it will create our happiness,
                          Now and for ever.'


                                          from 'Listening to the Indwelling Presence" by a Religious, Pellegrini, , 1940, p. 5





                                 Painting: Henri Fantin-Latour, Still Life with a Carafe, Flowers and Fruit
                   

We Can Make it a Day of Loving God

"To make an act of love requires but a few seconds.

 




 








"We can make these acts at any hour, we can multiply them, and how wonderful is their effect!...

"Who would 
not, during the day, 
multiply acts of love?  

 













"You who are reading this, pause a minute and say 'My God, I love You!  My God, I love You!'" (Father William Doyle)

My Little Omelet

'I flip 
my little omelet 
in the frying pan 
for the love of God.'

Brother Lawrence













Painting: Anker Die kleine Kartoffelschälerin 1886

Bonds of Love's Union

'Sacrifices 
made in secret,
trifles performed 
with none but God 
for witness -
these are 
the bonds 
of Love's union.'

(from Fervorinos From Galilee's Hills, compiled by a Religious, Pelligrini, 1936, p.287)








 









Painting: jules Breton, Harvester

Forever Spring

'It is always springtime in the heart that loves God.'

St. John Vianney

Painting:  Charles Courtney Curran, Lotus Lilies

Why Wait?

'With what procrastination do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?'

St. John of the Cross

Painting:  Czachórski; Pensive

God is an Embrace

   

                                  'To most, even good people, God is a belief.

                                   To the saints, He is an embrace.'

   Francis Thompson


Painting:  Wilhelm Bernatzik, Vision of St Bernard, detail

This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz

Evangelization 101

'Who has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?'

St. John of the Cross

Painting of Elisabeth of Hungary 

God is the Cause of Loving God

'God is the cause of loving God....

He Himself creates the longing.

He Himself fulfills the desire....

Kindly, He leads the way.

He repays us justly.

He is our sweet hope.

He is riches to all who call upon Him.  

There is nothing better than Himself.  

He gave Himself in merit.  

He keeps Himself to be our reward.'

St. Bernard of Clairvaux


Painting:  El Greco, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata

No Matter What it Costs

We must 

love Him

with all

our might

and strength,

no matter

what it costs.

    

 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

             






Painting: Stilke Hermann Anton 
Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake


This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Monthly Roundup

The Treasure in the Old Bookshop

The shop was long and narrow, dimly lit by naked bulbs dangling from the ceiling. It was a shadowed, solemn, wondrous place, tucked away in a dusty corner of the city where shops didn't sparkle like the department stores over on Main. Mysterious and musty it was; filled with rows and racks and piles of volumes.  Used hardbacks, yellowing paperbacks, comics... all stacked haphazardly and ready for a rummager's quest.

I'd step out of the light of day and onto the squeaky wood floor in search of buried treasure.  It was my own personal library, and the best part was: I could read the books and then - I could keep them!  No need to keep close tabs on them, no stamps inside warning that this was a "14 day book," no falling in love with a whole fictional family only to have to dump them on a counter at the end of the month.

I was allowed to buy all of the books I could carry, pretty much.. and this because of the kind man who took me to the bookstore: my father, who (okay, I'll admit it) spoiled me.  Rather than leaving me home on a Saturday so he could go rummage for his own treasures at "our bookshop," he patiently took his bubbly little buddy and shelled out who-knows-how-much for mystery stories I would stay up much too late reading.  I think back now and imagine the one sided "conversations" he had to endure on the drives home, as I cradled newfound treasures in my arms (no putting them in a bag for me, no sir) and rattled on about this being the EXACT Nancy Drew I've been looking for and oh LOOK at the green cover on this book it looks JUST like leather and omigosh I once got this one from the library and then couldn't find it ever again and oh Daddy isn't this just the best BEST day?

Today I live surrounded with shadows of our bookshop.  Shadows of a good kind, as I savor the comfort of books lining almost every wall of my home.   Shadows of a better kind, as I thank God for a father who was generous with his attention and his time.  These shadows of the better kind are ones I hope I've passed along to my own children, and now to my grandchildren as we share games and books and make-believe.  I pray to be generous with my attention and my time, helping them make memory-shadows of their own.

And I live with shadows of the best kind, because the generosity and attention of my earthly father was, itself, a dim shadow of the attention of my Heavenly Father.  

I can only imagine how HE looks upon me when I accept with joy His outpouring of gifts.  Think of how it must please Him when we bubble over with thanks and praise!

There are treasures all around, if I just look for them.  I might spend today doing some counting, and some thanking.   And who knows?  I might even bubble just a bit.... 

and the bird sings

"The other day, the little birds were singing in the woods.  I began to weep... I thought within myself, the good God has made you to sing, and you sing.  Yet man, who was created that he might love God, loves Him not!"... from St. John Vianney 

I have always loved birds. Back when I was penciling the first "breadbox letters," I had a parakeet in a cage in my room.  I especially loved to watch him sleep.  He would turn his head backwards and tuck beak into feathers, turn into a ball of fluff, and look like soft green velvet.  Every maternal instinct I had came bursting forth at such moments, and I tried to reach into the cage to stroke this wondrous grass-green creature.  But no.  He would not allow it.  He was always rather afraid of me, running to the other side of the cage when I approached.

When it comes to allowing God to love me completely, I wonder if I'm just a bit like that bird.  Oh, I don't mean to be.  I intend to love God with all my heart.  I was created to love Him, and that is what I want more than anything to do.  But sometimes, as I feel Him approaching more closely - could it be that I feel just a wee twinge of fear?

My Father's "Paternal Heart" ...  the Heart of the One Who MADE me ... longs to hold my heart close.  He wants me to experience the peace that comes from loving Him.  And so, at this very moment, I make again the decision to do so.  I will love Him.  By His grace, I will trust Him.

And who knows?  I might even sing.... 

"...how much more important you are than the birds..!"  (Luke 12: 24)

(painting on this post, by Henriette Browne, is in public domain)

Pressed Ice

A recent breadbox expedition yielded the following treasure from "Jane"..... 

"I was feeling very discouraged with myself for not feeling a greater love for Jesus.  Theoretically I knew that the 'feeling' is a gift from Him and not an indication of our actual love.  But still I was concerned that I just didn't love Him enough.  Then I came across something St. Gertrude had written about experiencing the same fear.  She complained to Him that her heart was just a block of ice.  I couldn't get that idea out of my mind.  I implored Him to pick me up since I was just a block of ice and press me to His lips.  In that way, I would be able to refresh Him and quench His thirst.  That thought filled me with such joy, I went around all day rejoicing that I was indeed a block of ice, for as long as I am totally at His disposal, I can refresh Him.  Now when I recognize that He is keeping consolations from me, I just smile to myself - knowing that as long as I trust Him patiently, my piece of ice will bring Him greater joy by my submission to His will..."  (Jane)