The lowest place is mine. God has given it to me. It's where I belong, I who am but dust and ashes. No high throne or places of honor for me. Much better to stay in low places like the crib, the carpenter's shop, the upper room, the cross, the grave and the cenacle. I flourish in low places, like the seed buried in the dark earth. In God's mysterious plan, obscurity becomes me, hiddenness protects me.
Oh, I must and do let my little light shine before others so that they may give glory to my Father. Not to do so would be an insult to and an offense against Him, who has lovingly created me in His image and likeness and has graciously gifted me in many beautiful ways. But the lowest place is the safest for me, and the loveliest by His design. Here I learn His ways, I discover His peace and freedom. Best of all, I find Him whom my heart seeks, and my joy is now complete.
How can I keep from singing?
There can be no true friendship unless those who cling to each other are welded together by you in that love which is spread throughout our hearts by the holy spirit which is given to us. ~The Confessions of St. Augustine, 4:4St. Augustine uses the image of welding to explain true friendship. I know practically nothing about welding, but I think I understand the basic process. For two metals to be welded together, heat must be applied. Using an energy source to melt these materials and sometimes applying pressure causes them to liquefy. The liquid coalesces, then solidifies. At the end of this process, the two pieces of metal have become one continuous solid.
In true friendship, it is not enough for two persons to cling to each other. They must be welded together by God's love which, St. Paul tells us, is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). The flame of the Spirit is an all-consuming one. If I submit to God's welding process for the sake of true friendship with another individual, I will no longer be the same. And what a joy that will be, for then my friend and I will become a new creation! Transfigured by Love Himself, we will live no longer for ourselves but for Him, our best and greatest Friend.Oh my God, make me worthy of true friendship, for the praise of Your glory!
Cove Sunrise by Ann L. Krumrein
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God...we proclaim Christ crucified...Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ~1 Cor 1:18, 23-24My dear Jesus, I hear You calling me by name. I am afraid, but I cannot resist You. "Within Thy wounds, hide me!" Only there will I fully know the power and the wisdom of the Father's Eternal Love. Only there will I truly live no longer for myself but for You, crucified yet risen and alive for ever more. Amen! Alleluia!
An even, unvaried life is the lot of most men, in spite of occasional troubles or other accidents; and we are apt to despise it, and to get tired of it, and to long to see the world, -- or, at all events, we think such a life affords no great opportunity for religious obedience. To rise up, and go through the same duties, and then to rest again, day after day, -- to pass week after week, beginning with God’s service on Sunday, and then to our worldly tasks, -- so to continue till year follows year, and we gradually get old, -- an unvaried life like this is apt to seem unprofitable to us when we dwell upon the thought of it. Many indeed there are, who do not think at all; -- but live in their round of employments, without care about God and religion, driven on by the natural course of things in a dull irrational way like the beasts that perish.
But when a man begins to feel he has a soul, and a work to do, and a reward to be gained, greater or less, according as he improves the talents committed to him, then he is naturally tempted to be anxious from his very wish to be saved, and he says, “What must I do to please God?” And sometimes he is led to think he ought to be useful on a large scale, and goes out of his line of life, that he may be doing something worth doing, as he considers it. Here we have the history of St. Bartholomew and the other Apostles to recall us to ourselves, and to assure us that we need not give up our usual manner of life, in order to serve God; that the most humble and quietest station is acceptable to Him, if improved duly, -- nay, affords means for maturing the highest Christian character, even that of an Apostle. Bartholomew read the Scriptures and prayed to God; and thus was trained at length to give up his life for Christ, when He demanded it.
From Sermon XXVII on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle by John Henry Newman, in Parochial and Plain Sermons, volume 2 (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1891).
Yesterday I posted one of Daddy's favorite hymns. Today I post one of his favorite prayers, which I also pray often. It was written by Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman and always restores peace to my soul.
More about George Matheson and this hymn can be found here, here, here and here. A few of his devotionals can be found here.
Good Shepherd, 
Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~Albert Schweitzer
Let us make a rosary of our life, placing every incident in it, and offering up our daily cares with a quick Ave Maria.What a lovely thing to do! To make a rosary of my life, offering every little piece of it as Our Lady offered herself to God -- gratefully, freely and happily, and confident of the Father's goodness and love. Jesus-living-in-Mary lives in me, too, and the mysteries of His life and hers are mine as well. In union with them, all the Paters and Aves of my life become a splendid Gloria in praise of the Holy Trinity.
Hail Mary, our life, our sweetness and our hope!
Sunday Sunrise by Ann L. Krumrein
The feast of the Assumption is a day of joy. God has won. Love has won. It has won life. Love has shown that it is stronger than death, that God possesses the true strength and that his strength is goodness and love. Dearest Mary, Mother of Our Lord, we rejoice that you now share the fullness of God's life and glory in heaven. We rejoice, too, that you are our mother, always so very close to us, always aiding us with your motherly kindness, always leading us to your Beloved Son. You are the bright Gate of Heaven, our happy and everlasting home. As we travel through this valley of tears, help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and to be vibrant witnesses of His glorious resurrection. Hail Mary, radiant splendor of God and beautiful among all women, your praises we sing! Amen! Alleluia!
When small children are with their father, they do not keep asking questions, nor do they constantly ask for something else; they may be a little better behaved than usual in their playing; they tell him what they are doing, and the4y have the feeling, which is probably never completely expressed, that the tower they are building will turn out taller with a grown-up nearby than if they were alone. Then they ask their father to tell them how things were before, and they never tire of finding out everything they can grasp; they want to become like him; they look for points of contact, make comparisons; they try in their very modest way to imitate their father a little.
Father, give us the grace to become like these little children. Do not let us constantly disturb the gift of Your presence with our demands. Let us lean instead to come closer and closer to You in the silence of prayer and to let You work, so that through You the task You give us may come into being and flourish.
~Adrienne von Speyr in Lumina and New Lumina
"The contemplative life becomes awfully thin and drab if you go for several days at a time without thinking explicitly of the Passion of Christ. I do not mean, necessarily, meditating, but at least attending with love and humility to Christ on the Cross. For His Cross is the source of all our life and without it prayers dries up and everything goes dead."Perhaps this is one reason why, in the past, so many religious communities of both men and women incorporated the Stations of the Cross into their daily devotions. Some communities still do encourage this devotion, and it's interesting to note that their lives of radiant joy attract many vocations. I don't do all the Stations of the Cross every day, but I often take one station and strive to simply be there with my crucified Lord, "attending with love and humility" to Him whose Cross is my life and salvation. In my beloved parish of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Houston, TX, we're blessed to have a life-size crucifix in the sanctuary of our church. Sitting or kneeling there in the shadow of His wings each morning "makes fresh my heart, / A fountain ever springing: / All things are mine since I am His -- / How can I keep from singing?"
I have always enjoyed the company of women. Their way of talking, the often – to me – apparently illogical style of reasoning, coupled with their physical appearance, have provided fascinating objects of wonder and interest. So you will understand how great was the step I took when I was 28 to freely take a life-long vow to God that I would never marry. It was a vow that I am still keeping in this year of Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain. I am still keeping this vow that I took under the example and inspiration of St Francis of Assisi because by it I am more closely linked to Jesus Christ, son of Mary of Nazareth and Son of God. Now as I celebrate my 87th birthday I reflect upon celibacy as I have experienced it and how this gift of God has placed me at the service of the Catholic Church and the people of God.
The choice of life-long celibacy is made by many hundreds of thousands of individuals in the life of the Catholic Church. Some do so, men and women, by electing to take a vow of perpetual celibacy as a member of a religious Order or Congregation. Other men seek ordination to the Catholic priesthood and thereby accept the discipline of perpetual celibacy which has been the rule in the western or Latin rite part of the Catholic Church for many centuries. While each individual will have personal and individual motives for undertaking what is by usual human standards a considerable sacrifice, yet all combine in a common conviction that they are seeking to place themselves at the side of Christ Our Saviour. We seek thereby to present in a distinctive way to the human race through the ages the Good News about Jesus Christ. I am convinced from my own experience that the gift of life-long celibacy has given me a great advantage in presenting Jesus and His teaching to mankind
I was ordained to the priesthood in Liverpool in July 1952. I have spent my life since then serving in parishes, preaching parish missions, lecturing to church students and as an auxiliary bishop of Southwark with responsibility for the area of Kent. During this time I served for 38 years in the Tribunal for dealing with claims for nullity of marriage. In all these varied duties and activities, it became increasingly clear to me that the gift of celibacy has been an essential element in my response to the intellectual and emotional challenges arising from the needs of the people seeking my help.
I hold that each and every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. While each of us is responsible for our own decisions that will determine our individual eternal destiny, there is under God a shared solidarity between us, so that we are called to aid each other in achieving our fulfilment with God. Thus while each of us has our distinctive personhood, yet all human beings are in need of other human beings to form a web of relations in which we live and develop. Sadly, sometimes in developing our relations with our fellow human beings we do so solely under the impulse of self-gratification. In such a cases, a major opportunity to develop according to the mind of God is lost. For me, the commitment to life-long celibacy has proved a constant reminder to me of Jesus Christ who came to our world to give of Himself even to suffering death as an act of loving service of me and fellow sinners in ensuring the achieving of eternal salvation for all.
In addition to these rather abstract theological considerations, there are the day-to-day practical elements in my life as a celibate that have shaped the way I live for over fifty years. For the majority of the fifty years I lived in community with my brother Franciscans, immersed in a daily round of prayer, housekeeping and constant reflection on how to meet the needs of the people we served. When I became a bishop thirty years ago I entered upon a much more solitary existence, but with a similar duty of encouragement and reflection with the priests in my area of the Southwark diocese who, like me, were committed to celibacy and unrelenting priestly service of the people in their care.
It is suggested by some people that the life of a priest must be lonely. This has not been my experience. I have been blessed with an awareness of the presence in my life of Jesus Christ at my side. When in community life human relations have become a burden, when my efforts to serve the people have been rejected or ineffectual, Jesus has helped by reminding me of the rejection He had to sustain. When I have seen the good news of the Gospel spurned I have turned to Jesus. He has never deserted me. He has led me out of the sorrow of failure to remind me that He has sustained me in my celibacy. So I trust in the mercy and generosity of God, embodied in Jesus Son of God and Son of Mary, that has enabled me to live a celibate life of joy for the 87 years of my dwelling in this creation.
You are my Father and my God
from whom I expect all my happiness.
I am Your child, all Yours;
good children think only
of pleasing their father;
I don't want to have any worries
and I leave in Your care
everything that concerns me,
for You love me, my God.
Father, you are my good.
My soul rests and trusts
in Your love and eternal providence.
~ St. Jane de ChantalP.S. Learn more about St. Jane here, here, here, here and here.
"Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance
and transform your entire being into the image
of the Godhead Itself through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
that God Himself has reserved from the beginning
for those who love Him."
God of mercy, you inspired Saint Clare with the love of poverty. By the help of her prayers may we follow Christ in poverty of spirit and come to the joyful vision of your glory in the kingdom of heaven. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ~Opening Prayer, Feast of St. Clare
St. Lawrence, help us to follow our Lord wherever He leads us. Whether ours be the martyrdom of the Cross or the martyrdom of everyday life, may we rejoice to share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet 4:13). Just as He laid down his life for us, so may we lay down our lives for each other (1 Jn 3:16). With you, may we always praise Jesus Christ, the King of martyrs! Amen.
Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that, from God's point of view, there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes.Today's saint is so dear to my heart! I hope to write more about her today -- as if I could possibly add anything to the wide variety of material already available on the Web! The good stuff includes the Vatican's biography of St. Edith Stein here. Laura Garcia of Crisis magazine focuses on St. Edith Stein's contributions to the understanding of the soul and the vocation of the woman here. St. Anthony Messenger, as always, provides a good bio, available here. Marianne Sawicki, Ph.D., writes of the phenomenolgy of St. Edith Stein here. Best of all are some of the writings of St. Edith Stein here, "The hidden life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts." Today I sure would like to stay home and do nothing but read and meditate upon this wise and holy woman and her life and thought, but since God's will is otherwise for me, I'm happily heading out shortly to do my part in the building the kingdom for which St. Edith Stein so gladly gave her life. Blessed be God in all His saints!
The angel told Mary: "The power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow" (Luke 1:35). Now this shadow is whatever duty, temptation, or trial that every moment presents to us. It is exactly like those natural shadows which veil and hide objects from our sight. These ever-present duties conceal the fact that they are expressions of the divine will. That is how Mary always saw them; so, far from being deceived by them, she had her faith strengthened in him who never changes. The archangel departs, for he is one of these shadows. He has had his moment. Mary has gone ahead of him and henceforth a great distance will separate them, but the Holy Spirit, who came upon her under the shadow of the archangel, will never leave her. ~from Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
And then there was Light,Yesterday Duquesne University Newsroom issued a press release about "a secret agent of sorts" who works in the University's history department. The announcement says, in part, that Laura Miller, a double alumna of Duquesne, "takes Duquesne’s principle of serving others seriously enough to start a 'secret mission' of her own. She literally became an agent for change as Secret Agent L, All-Around Swell Chick. Last July, she was planning to send a friend a birthday present, but the friend declined. 'Go do a random act of kindness in my name.' So began Miller’s mantra: Be kind. No exceptions."
More details about this chick and her mission can be found in the news release on the newsroom's Web site. Additionally, Miller has been keeping a blog on her random acts of kindness, which I look forward to exploring at my leisure. Miller is encouraging visitors to her blog to become "affiliated agents." Wouldn't it be grand and glorious if we all were secret agents of kindness? What a welcome revolution that would be!
Now I have a confession to make. I'm a secret agent, too. I've been one for so long that I can't even remember how it all began. I just recall that at some point in the early 70s, my dear and good friend Alice Spelman and I realized that we had both been called to be UABVMs -- Undercover Agents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our mission was to spread the joy of being in love with Mary's beloved Son Jesus and to do it in our ordinary, everyday lives more by how we lived than by what we did or said. We would be like Our Lady, whose entire life magnified the Lord. Commissioned by the Mother of God, we set out, hearts full of her Son's love, to evangelize the evangelized, those people with whom we lived and worked day and night. It was so exhilarating and gratifying to be a UABVM -- and it still is! Details to follow in a future post. Duty is calling me now and I must get busy with another exciting day!Be the living expression of God's kindness kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile. ~Blessed Mother Teresa
The summer I graduated from high school, I worked in small company as a Girl Friday. A classmate and dear friend of mine, Marianne, was also hired by the same company, which was much fun for both of us. Our assignment was catching up on a huge backlog of filing, which looked like than enough to keep us busy way beyond the summer months. In other words, what awaited us each morning was, on the surface, sheer drudgery and utter boredom. Yet I went at it with gusto, in no small part thanks to the president of the company. Every Friday morning, he gathered his staff together for a brief meeting. All of us were required to attend, from the lowest on the totem pole (that was Marianne and me!) to the top brass. I don't recall exactly what the president would say, but I do remember that he would sum up the week's accomplishments and thank us for our hard work, praising us for our loyalty and dedication. He would encourage us to carry on in the week ahead, to labor together in pursuit of the company's goals, and to continue to do the best we could. I would walk away from those meetings feeling like the luckiest girl in the world to work for such a good man and a great company -- and I would happily attack that filing more vigorously than ever. Reading the above quote that appeared in my email this morning from Gratefulness.org brought to mind those Friday morning pep talks from the summer of 1966. The president of this company was an effective leader. He was teaching us "to long for the endless immensity of the sea" within the narrow confines of our offices and duties. We weren't just shuffling papers and crunching numbers. We were bound together in the exciting job of serving the public and our clients with integrity, excellence and enthusiasm.
P.S. Marianne and I found ourselves unemployed at the end of three weeks. By then, we had completed the filing along with all the other little tasks we were given to do!
St. Peter Julian Eymard, 1811-1868, is known as the Apostle of the Eucharist. His zeal and love for our Eucharistic Lord led him to proclaim that “The Eucharist is everything; we need nothing more.” His one burning desire was to “bring everybody to love Our Lord, and to preach only Christ, and Christ in the Eucharist”. To this end, he founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Its rule of life states that its mission is "to respond to the hungers of the human family with the riches of God's love manifested in the Eucharist."If we reflected on the love of Jesus Christ for us in the Blessed Sacrament, our whole life would be but one contninuous act of love and gratitude.
The absolute remedy, the ever new and ever effective remedy which sadness cannot withstand, is Communion. Our Lord has made Himself the Eucharist and enters into us to give direct combat to our sadness. And I state as a principle that no soul that truly desires and hungers to receive Jesus will remain sorrowful in Communion.Jesus is sufficient for me; I am faithful to Him; His love is my whole life.
All our works must converge toward Communion as toward their end and flow from it as from their source.
What a joy, that you can receive Holy Communion often! It's our life and support in this life.
Live on the divine Eucharist, like the Hebrews did on the Manna. Your soul can be entirely dedicated to the divine Eucharist and very holy in the midst of your work and contacts with the world.
Be the apostle of the divine Eucharist, like a flame which enlightens and warms, like the Angel of his heart who will go to proclaim him to those who don’t know him and will encourage those who love him and are suffering.
O Mary, teach us the life of adoration. Teach us to see, as you did, every mystery and every grace in the Eucharist, to relive the gospel story of Jesus. Amen.
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
Leo Marks
