Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
My spirit finds joy in God my Savior,
For He has looked upon His servant in her lowliness;
All ages to come shall call me blessed.

God Who is mighty has done great things for me,
holy is His Name:
His mercy is from age to age on those who fear Him.
 
He has shown might with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has deposed the mighty from their thrones,
and raised the lowly to high places.
The hungry He has given every good thing,
while the rich He has sent away empty. 
He has upheld Israel His servant,
ever mindful of His mercy.
Even as He promised our fathers,
promised Abraham and his descendants forever.
                                     (Mary's Magnificat; Luke 1:46-55)      

What to Take to a Potluck

I absolutely love summer.  I love the long, late hours of daylight.  I love fireflies flickering across a darkening yard.  I love densely leafed trees, the sounds of birdsongs, smells of grilling burgers.  

Most of all, I enjoy the social activities of this casual, spontaneous time of year.  Cookouts and picnics and reunions.  Potlucks where everyone brings Their Very Best...

Recently I realized that I have a Very Best to share.  To read about what I think is just right for (but not limited to) potlucks, follow me over to Suscipio (click on this line to get there).  

“The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity.” (Galatians 5:22)

A Legacy of Letters

July 21, 1897

To Sister Therese, 

     I have your photograph, and henceforth you live in my mind, after having up to the present only lived in my heart.  I am expressing myself poorly.  Try to understand, however, that your letters, your thoughts, take on a body, a form; they are no longer strictly abstract, they are you now.  I had really tried to build up your features in my imagination, and I must tell you I was not too far from the reality, at least regarding the general outline, so that when seeing you for the first time, I recognized you....

     Maurice Barthelemy-Belliare

I sometimes wonder what it will be like to meet the saints face to face.  Amazing thought, isn't it?  Patrons, intercessors, special friends in Heaven that we've grown fond of over the years - we'll be able to see them!   Will we recognize them?  Oh, I think so.  I do not expect formal introductions; I have a feeling we'll be joyfully embraced.

As you know from this blog, I love letters and writings the saints have left us.  To me, these are markers along the path for those of us still climbing toward Home.  They are also a means of getting to know members of our eternal family.  I often feel that a saint is directly addressing me, offering guidance as I face challenges, encouraging me to persevere.  "Come on, you can make it!"  "I faced obstacles too, you know, and this is what I did."  "I wasn't always saintly... let me show you what and how I overcame..."

We indeed have a rich inheritance.  I thank God for those who passed it on to us.  It is they who have left for us the real Breadbox letters.  I pray we will spend eternity praising (with them) the One True Bread of life.

We Dare Not Speak Without Honey

Most people don't realize who they're quoting when they speak of catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.  I was well into adulthood when I learned that this bit of wisdom had come from one of my favorite saints.  

"You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with ten barrels of vinegar." (St. Francis de Sales)

I often think of this in connection with another quote from this Doctor of the Church.   

"It is an act of of charity to cry out against the wolf when he is among the sheep"  (St. Francis de Sales)  

These two thoughts may not appear to have much to do with one another.  But in my mind, they work together.  In fact, I often strive to "navigate between them," as one might drive between two lines painted on a highway to keep vehicles moving safely.  Can I explain what I mean by this?  I have no idea.  But here goes a try...

As one of Our Lord's sheep, I have seen wolves come amongst us, oh - so many times.   In saying this, I'm not thinking of people as much as I am of ideas and ungodly "values" that creep in, usually in sheeps' clothing.  They enter in the name (very often) of freedom, tolerance, rights, happiness, prosperity, pleasure, modernization, peace, fairness, justice for all.  Not wanting to be unkind, we can let them prowl freely among our families and groups and parishes without our uttering so much as a whisper of protest.  We don't want to rock boats, ruffle feathers, stir waters, or cause anyone to be uncomfortable.  Besides, we (I should say "I") don't want to appear, well... you know.  Uncool.  Behind the times.  Uncharitable.

It takes a lot to cry out against wolves.  But if we know the truth and do not speak it, are we acting in genuine charity toward the sheep?  Francis would say no.

However, there are a couple of ways of speaking.  We can lash out in anger, in sharp words that can sting and personally wound our "opponents"... in other words, we can dish out the vinegar.  Or...

we can speak in honeyed tones.  Not fake ones, but in words and actions that carry a gentleness... a genuine kindness that enables our fellow sheep to hear.  After all, ears tend to turn off at the sound of vinegar.  The truth we're trying to communicate can pass by totally unheard if we allow frustration and anger to "vinegar-ize" what we say. 

We all know there are wolves among us.  I don't have to name them; we see them in newspapers, on television, in magazines, on the Internet, in politics, in workplaces and healthcare systems and schools and so many "areas of et cetera" that this page isn't long enough to list them.  They rob children of innocence, families of stability, societies of integrity, preborn babies of life, and individuals of eternity spent with God.  The cost of our silence could be staggering.

But we dare not speak without honey.

We dare not speak without love.

"I take in my hands the two rays that spring from Your merciful Heart; that is, the blood and the water; and I scatter them all over the globe so that each soul may receive Your mercy..."  (St. Faustina)

for though... yet I will...

"For though the fig tree blossom not, nor fruit be on the vines, though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment, though the flocks disappear from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God.  God, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me to go on the heights."  (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Painting by Albert Bierstadt, 1870

Hints of Heavenly Color

I wonder if heaven is filled with colors we have never imagined.  Oh, surely.

It seems we get hints of heavenly hues, and sounds, and scents, even as we go through life here on earth.  Touches of wonder.  Little (and sometimes big) miracles that can't be "explained away."

God can "paint" whatever He wants, of course; however and whenever He wishes.  He can pick up whatever brush He finds most useful.... sometimes you, sometimes me... and dip us into pigments we've never known.  He uses dark hues as well as bright ones.  Shadings and shadows we may never have expected.
 
A brush would make quite a mess if it struggled in the Painter's hands.  Oh, but how often I have I been such a one! How often I've pulled away from the Painter!  Yet even after that - if I just allow Him to dip me in His cleansing love and mercy, He picks me up and uses me again.

God sees the whole picture of creation.. my life, your life, the world..  He is the One Who knows how it's meant to work together.  I pray to be supple and yielding in His hands, allowing Him to make something beautiful of it all.

"God makes all things work together for the good of Those Who love Him, who are called according to His purpose."  (Romans 8:28)

"Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him."  (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Now, about your future...

Letter of August 3, 1851

Dear Eusebius, 

"Well, you are wondering about your future.  Pray simply, humbly, and fervently to know God's will, and your path will be made clear.  Then you must follow the inspiration divine Mercy puts into your heart.....Now I want you to say to yourself: 'I am, above all, a man, a rational being, created to know, love, serve and glorify God.  I come from God.  I go to God.  I belong to God.  My body is His. My mind is His.  My heart is His.  I shall be judged according to my deeds, according to the way I have corresponded with the grace given to me.  Well then, by God's help, I shall use this body, this mind and this heart as much as I possibly can for His greater glory, honor, and love.'  Life well employed consists in this: a faithful correspondence to grace and a good use of the talents we have been given.  This rule of life applies equally to all."  (from St. Theophane Venard)

Painting by Rembrandt

That Secret Martyrdom

'There are in fact two kinds of martyrdom.  
One takes place only in the heart, the other in both heart and body.
We too are capable of being martyrs, even without having anyone slay us.
 To die from someone's enmity is martyrdom out in the open.

To bear insults, to love a person who hates us, is martyrdom in secret.'

                                                                                 

St. Gregory the Great

Painting:  Jean-Leon Gerome, The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, 1883

Melted Away....

"I count up Your graces and Your mercies, because You have melted my sins away as if they were ice.  

"And whatever evils I have not done, that too I reckon as Your grace.  For what might I have done when I loved vice for its own sake?  

"I acknowledge that all things have been forgiven me, both the evils I did of my own free will, and those which, by Your guidance, I did not actually do."  (St. Augustine)




(painting in US public domain)

Be the Good News

Mary Cassatt painting 1893

"If we really want peace for the world, let us start by loving one another within our families.  Sometimes it is hard for us to smile at one another.  It is often difficult for the husband to smile at his wife or for the wife to smile at her husband....

"It is easy to love those who live far away.  It is not always easy to love those who live right next to us.  It is easier to offer a dish of rice to meet the hunger of a needy person than to comfort the loneliness and the anguish of someone in our own home who does not feel loved.

"I want you to go and find the poor in your homes.  Above all, your love has to start there.  I want you to be the good news to those around you.." 

(Mother Teresa of Calcutta, from the book No Greater Love, MJF Books, NY, 1997, pp. 27-28)

Toward the Depths

"The more we pray, the more we wish to pray.  Like a fish which at first swims on the surface of the water and afterwards plunges down, and is always going deeper; the soul plunges, dives, and loses itself in the sweetness of conversing with God."  (St. John Vianney)

I typed this quote with the intention of elaborating on it.  But why should I do any such thing?  For me, this says it all.

It's time to dive.

"You too shall seek the Lord, your God, and you shall indeed find Him when you search after Him with your whole heart and your whole soul."  (Deuteronomy 4:29)

"The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth."  (Psalm 145:18)

No Harmony of Trebles

'There is in this world a continual interchange of pleasing and afflicting accidents, still keeping their succession of times, and overtaking each other in their several courses. 

No picture can be all drawn of the brightest colors, nor a harmony consorted only of trebles; shadows are needful in expressing of proportions, and the bass is a principal part in perfect music:  the condition of our exile here allows no unmingled joy. 

Our whole life is tempered between sweet and sour, and we must all look for a mixture of both.'

St. Robert Southwell, Letter, 1591

"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.." (Romans 8:28)

Painting:  Martin Johnson Heade, Jungle Orchids and Hummingbirds, 1872

May we not fear the Climb

Carmel 1893

Dear Leonie,

"We just listened to a beautiful retreat... the good Father spoke especially about union with Jesus... 'Look at the oaks in our countryside... they spread out their branches to the right and left, nothing hinders them, so they never reach a great height.

"On the contrary, look at the oaks of the forest, hemmed in on all sides; they do not see the light except from on high, so their trunks are without all these deformed branches that draw away the sap necessary to go upward.  The oaks see nothing but the sky above, and all their strength is turned in that direction, so soon they attain a prodigious height....

"The soul has light when it looks upon Heaven, there alone it can rest its gaze, never must it fear climbing too much in this direction.'"  (St. Therese of Lisieux)

The priest quoted here was speaking to the Sisters of their Rule, which hemmed them in and, in effect, pressed them "upward."  God obviously considers all people in need of a Rule, for He has given us Scripture and Church teaching to train us in our growth toward Him. 

Oh, but how often are we cautioned not to "climb too much in that direction?"  Told that religion is okay in its place, fine for nuns and priests (and for us too - on Sundays).  Just don't be a fanatic.  Don't be a goody two-shoes, a spoilsport, a prude. 

"All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.  All are called to holiness: 'Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.' (Matthew 5:48)"  (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2013)

"Christian perfection has but one limit, that of having none."  (St. Gregory of Nyssa, quoted in Catholicism of the Catholic Church #2028)  

Saints, it can be said, have been those without limits.  No limits to their love, no limits to their quest for holiness, no limits as they've allowed God's will and the various circumstances of their lives to press them upward to perfection.

"Follow the saints, because those who follow them will become saints."  (Pope Clement I).  

May we not fear the climb.

To Seal His Oath

"An arch of God's great temple fair thou art,
wrought by some airy builder of the skies;
The sunbeam's secret, wrested from its heart,
and blazed abroad in hues of paradise.
A flaming screed across the heavens flung,
the jeweled autograph of the Most High,
Writ on the sky's wide scroll when earth was young, to seal His oath to centuries gone by."
Sister M. Angeline, "To the Rainbow" 
Albert Beirstadt painting in US public doman                            

Whose Reign is This?

"France 1897; Dear Brother,

I am not at all worried about the future; I am sure God will do His will, it is the only grace I desire.  One must not be more kingly than the King... Jesus has no need of anyone to do His work." (letter from St. Therese of Lisieux)

These words have stopped me in my tracks. They've caused me to take a look around and wonder.  Yes, I've made a choice to let Jesus take His proper position as Lord and King of my life - that is certain.  But in my minute by minute actions, who's really sitting on the throne?

Exactly who is running this life?

I know what I want my answer to be.  But as I sit planning and fretting and occasionally grumbling, I can feel the velvet seat of Command Central beneath me.  It's a position I inherited by birth, being of the line of Adam and Eve.  But King Jesus has offered a better option.

THIS day, THIS moment, in THIS decision - who is on the throne?

Dear Little Lyre of Jesus,

1893 - Dear Celine,
    "There is a passage in the Canticle of Canticles which suits perfectly poor little exiled Celine.  Here it is:  'what do you see in the spouse except choirs of music in an army camp?'  Oh yes, my Celine's life is really a field of battle.... and nevertheless, she must sing.  Her life must be a melody, a choir of music....
    Celine is the little lyre of Jesus.  Is a concert complete when no one sings?  Since Jesus is playing, must not Celine sing?  When the tune is sad, then she will sing the song of the exile, and when the tune is joyful, her voice will make the strains of the homeland heard.  
    All that takes place, all the events of life, will be only distant sounds that will not make the little lyre of Jesus vibrate.  Jesus alone has the right to place His divine fingers on it; creatures are means, instruments, but it is the hand of Jesus that conducts everything.  We must see Him alone in everything...
    Oh, dear Celine, what pleasure Jesus has with His little lyre!  He has so few of them in the world; allow Him to rest near you; do not grow tired of singing since Jesus never grows tired of playing.  One day, up above in the homeland, you will see the fruits of your works...
    After having smiled at Jesus in the midst of tears, you will enjoy the rays of His divine Face, and He will still play on His little lyre..."                
                                                                          St. Therese of the Child Jesus

They Call Across all Boundaries

As I went in search of letters and collections to put "inside the envelopes" on this blog's sidebars, I discovered a particularly interesting book of letters.  A few paragraphs from the Introduction help me remember why I'm so enamored of letters by saints....

"As we read a collection of letters such as this, we make a discovery that opens up new horizons in the Communion of Saints and involves ourselves in a strange and intimate way.  It is that the members of Christ's family recognize and call to one another across all boundaries of space and time; whether they belong to the second century or the nineteenth matters little, for being united by the same love and bound by the same loyalties, they speak the same language.  The saints are not mere memories, over and done with; they are gloriously alive and present..."  (Felicitas Corrigan OSB, The Saints Humanly Speaking, Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, 2000, p.16)

"Follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture the young ones near the shepherds' camps."  (Song of Songs 1:8)

"Since we for our part are surrounded by this cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every encumbrance of sin which clings to us and persevere in running the race which lies ahead."  (Hebrews 12:1)

You've Got Mail!

As part of this blog's new look, I have changed a few pictures on the sidebar:  in particular, the envelopes (and stamps) that I've been using as "decorations." 

I realized, during my recent experiments in Minimal Makeover Blog Edition, that envelopes have a particular function.  They are used to carry messages.  They bring us greetings and surprises and bits of news.

What good is an envelope that will not open?  So now, ours do.  

To open your "mail," just click on any envelope or stamp in the sidebar.  Each will open to take you to an outside link (something other than this blog).  After you check it out, you should be able to get back TO this blog by clicking on the "back arrow" at the upper left of your screen. Each envelope or stamp will take you to a different letter or to a place where you can access writings that may be of interest to you.

But why am I sitting here yammering?  You have mail.

Yep, Same Blog....

There is nothing wrong with your screen.  If you haven't checked in lately, you missed my "let's try this one out shall we.. and then this.. and maybe a shade of that..?" burst of rearranging.  You are indeed one of the lucky ones, who didn't have to endure a seemingly endless string of experimentations with "wallpapers," colors, samplings of different sidebar pictures, furniture shuffling, painting and re-painting of "walls."

Trust me - some of the efforts were pretty not pretty.   

And guess what?  I think I might be done!  I'm back from a Lenten break that wasn't total (I posted a couple of things here after all, because... well.... they were appropriate...).

So here I am, sitting on the floor with splatters of blog-paint in my hair.   So to speak.  Hope you're okay with the new look, which I'll admit that I was personally in need of.  I'm ready to write and read in dark on light, ready for a "fresh new look." It's Spring, after all.  Time to shake off the dust and air out the rooms.  Oh, and the blog content?  That has stayed the same.

Hope you drop back in on Mondayish or Tuesdayish - promptly - when I'll tell you about a few additions (consider them little Easter surprises) you might want to check out. 

In the meantime, may you have a blessed, joyous celebration of Our Lord's Resurrection!

The Nourishment of Prayer

"Prayer places our understanding in the divine brightness and exposes our will to the warmth of heavenly love. There is nothing that so effectually purges our understanding of its ignorance and our will of its depraved affections.

"It is the holy water that makes the plants of our good desires grow green and flourish, that cleanses our souls of their imperfections, and that quenches the thirst of passion in our hearts."  (St. Francis de Sales)

"Rejoice in the Lord always!... Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude.  Then God's Peace, which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:4-7)

(painting in US public domain)