Monthly Archives: February 2009

Love Works Wonders!

by

Valentine’s Day with cards and roses is fast approaching.  They’ll be proclamations of love: undying love, puppy love, romantic love and”so called” love.  Here’s a charming story of real love from the Dialogue of Pope St. Gregory the Great:

Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict, had been consecrated to God from her earliest years. She was accustomed to visiting her brother once a year. He would come down to meet her at a place on the monastery property, not far outside the gate.
One day she came as usual and her saintly brother went with some of his disciples; they spent the whole day praising God and talking of sacred things. As night fell they had supper together. Their spiritual conversation went on and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother: “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life.” “Sister,” he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my cell.”

When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. Sadly he began to complain: “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” “Well,” she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery.”
Reluctant as he was to stay of his own will, he remained against his will. So it came about that they stayed awake the whole night, engrossed in their conversation about the spiritual life.

You may wonder why I call this “real love.”  I guess it’s because all love worthy of the name is God’s Love.  You may think Scholastica was praying for trifles.  The story, however, is about what God thinks.  Gregory saw it this way:  “It is not surprising that she was more effective than he, since as John says, ‘God is love.’  It was absolutely right that she could do more, as she loved more.”

With Abba Father,  nothing is too small or trivial.  We are His children.  It is as though everything that we refer to our Father He receives as a gift that He happily, lovingly, and joyfully, sticks on His heavenly version of the refrigerator.   A little soul doesn’t differentiate between great and small.  Everything comes from God’s gracious hand.

Blogging for Mental Health

by

If I think I have control of the day, I have only to wake up to dash my delusion.  Even my dreams are out of control.  I lie there thinking, what was that all about?  So often the dreamscape is far away from home and the object of the exercise seems to be figuring out how will I ever get back home.  There are buses without destination markers, trains that I board only to realize they are not going where I thought.  There are people mad at me because I am late or not where they want me to be.  And through it all, I’m trying so hard.  As anxious as these dreams reveal me to be,  they are so much better than those in which I’ve forgotten a #2 pencil with which to take the Regents Exam.  That’s a New Yorker’s nightmare!

What Do You See?

by

Everyday I drive down this street and slow down in amazement.

what-do-you-see4

Do you see what I see?  Tell me what you see!

Who Has Bewitched You?

by

Early this morning,  I read these words in the Office of  Readings:

“But the time came when He who had set me apart before I was born and called me by His favor chose to reveal His Son to me, that I might spread among the Gentiles the good tidings concerning Him.”  Galatians 1:15-16

My thoughts flew to the issue of Life; God creating each one of us purposefully; knowing us as we are, with all our faults and failings and even our misguided “good” intentions.   Paul had just finished describing to the Galatians his background,  including what had been his well meaning ambitions previous to his conversion:

“You know that I went to extremes in persecuting the Church of God and tried to destroy it; I made progress in Jewish observance far beyond most of my contemporaries, in my excess of zeal to live out all the traditions of my ancestors.” Galatians 1:13-15

As I thought about this, it wasn’t much of a leap from there to recalling the arguments and dismissals of those in the pro-abortion camp,  declaring an unborn child as:  no child, no purpose, a blob of tissue, an inconvenience, a mistake (recall President Obama’s words), an economical burden (Nancy Pelosi’s words.)  In addressing the Galatians for their having strayed from the Truth,  Paul says, “O stupid Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?” Galations 3:1.  How much more can these words be spoken to our generation so steeped in secular relativism and materialism.

If God not only had Paul’s personhood in mind before he was conceived,  but also had a plan for Paul, which included His Church, and had a moment in Time set,  in which He would enable Paul to see clearly and become the man He called him to be, then how can we continue to throw away precious life as though God isn’t watching, isn’t caring, and isn’t remembering?  Is Paul’s term, “Stupid,” strong enough to characterize so many so zealous in their war against life in our  present culture of Death?

Lip Sync and Sanctity

by

I’ve been making an effort to say the Divine Office.  It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done.  There’s a lot of page flipping and ignorance on my part.  But I humbly applaud my efforts.  My “cloud of witnesses,” I’m sure, agree.

Recently, an absolute marvel of a website, DivineOffice.org gave my prayer time a boost.  With  iPod and  prayer book,  I now sit before the Blessed Sacrament, lips moving in sync with Morning Prayer.  No sound escapes my lips to disturb the silence of the Adoration Chapel, but heavenly voices do sound in my ears.  My prayer wings its way to the throne of God.  I don’t think I’m pushing a spiritual envelope here, but it proves to me technology can be a friend.  The limits I am pushing are those that limit me to me, myself and I.  As I pray, the accompaniment of gifted voices reminds me that the Divine Office is meant to be a communal prayer.  God, Who is outside Time and Space and yet fills it,  hears all of His children making a joyful noise as He inclines His ear.  Some might feel that it’s somehow holier to read than to listen but the Book of Revelation does bless “those that hear,” so I don’t think I’m breaking new holy ground.

Irked by the Mother of God?

by

It amazes me that the Mother of Jesus has come to be such a contentious figure.  Some time ago, I painted Our Lady with the Child Jesus in her arms.  It showed at the Parker Gallery in CO.   A church met in the same building, so members of the congregation would stop by to see the artwork after services.  One Sunday only a young girl, about 9 years old, wondered  from painting to painting,  until she came to Mother and Child.  She stood before it a moment considering the painting and then to my astonishment made a disdainful sound, “Psst!” motherchild12 Then,  the child tossed her head and left abruptly.  The gesture seemed beyond her years.  Wouldn’t you expect an image of a mother and a child to touch a soft spot in a young and tender heart? Instead,  it struck like a rock bouncing off unyielding ground.   I remembered the lyrics of a song from South Pacific:

You’ve to to be taught before it’s too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

Prejudice can effect, or more accurately,  infect us at any age or stage.  It’s sad when it blinds us to goodness; saddest when it makes us immune to holiness, which, I guess,  it always does.