Earlier today, I spoke of preparation for Lent. The Anchoress is giving us a head-start. It’s never too early to prepare, so give a listen to her experimental-podcast as she podcasts her way to Heaven.
Tag Archives: Reflections
St. Gertrude the Great – God’s Promise
You may find the language of St. Gertrude the Great difficult. The arcane style is cumbersome in these days of expediency. If I simplified it, you would lose the sense of the Saint, herself. Slogging your way through is well worth the effort to get to the treasure . God made promises to St. Gertrude the Great, recorded by the Saint, herself, contained in The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great. When you consider Who it is who condescends to make the promise, how likely is it that we in our day have outgrown the promise in favor of modernity?
Your liberality, O Lord, has bestowed on me this gift, more necessary than all – certifying to me that whoever, in their charity, will either pray for me – the vilest of God’s creatures – or perform any good works, either for the amendment of my life, or the forgiveness of the sins of my youth, or the correction of my iniquity and malice, shall receive this reward from thy abundant liberality – namely, that they shall not die until, by Your grace, their lives have been pleasing to You; and that You will dwell in their souls by a special friendship and intimacy………
You have added to all these favors, my kind God, by an abundant liberality – that if anyone, after my death, considering with how much familiarity You did communicate with my unworthiness while in this life, should recommend themselves humbly to my prayers, You would hear them as willingly as if they invoked the intercession of any other person, provided that they had the intention of repairing their faults and negligence, and that they humbly and devoutly thanked You for five special benefits which You granted me.
First. For the love by which You freely chose me from all eternity, and which I declare to be the greatest of all the benefits which You have bestowed on me: for as You were not ignorant of, or rather did foresee, the corrupt life which I should lead, the excess of my ingratitude, and how I should abuse Your gifts, so that I deserve to have been born a pagan, and not an enlightened human being – Your mercy, which infinitely exceeds our crimes, has chosen me, in preference to many other Christians, to bear the holy character of a religious.
Secondly. Because You have drawn me blessedly to You; and I acknowledged it to be an effect of the clemency and charity which is natural to You, Who have won, by the attractions of Your caresses, this rebellious and stubborn heart, which deserves to be loaded with fetters and chains; and it has seemed as if You hadst found in me the faithful companion of yYour love, and that Your greatest pleasure was to be united to me.
Thirdly. Because You have united me so intimately to You; and I declare, as I am bound, that I am indebted for this only to Your signal liberality, as if the number of the just was not great enough to receive the immense abundance of Your mercies, not that I had better dispositions than others, but, on the contrary, that Your charity might be the more signalized in me thereby.
Fourthly. That You have taken pleasure and delight in dwelling in my soul; and this, if I may so speak, proceeds from the ardor of Your love, which has deigned to testify, even by words, that it is the joy of Your all – powerful wisdom to stoop to one so dissimilar to You, and so utterly ungrateful.
Fifthly. That it has pleased You to accomplish Your work happily in me; and, it is a favor which I have hoped with humble confidence from the tenderness of Your most benign charity, and for which I adore You with gratitude, declaring, O sovereign, true, and only treasure of my soul, that I have in no way contributed to it by my merits, but that it is a true gift of Your liberality.
All these benefits coming from Your immense charity, and being so far above my nothingness, I am unable to give thanks for them worthily; but You has further assisted my misery, in exciting others, by the most condescending promises, to render thanksgivings to You, the merit of which may supply my deficiencies. For which may all creatures in Heaven, on earth and under the earth, glorify You and thank You continually!
What hope we have, when we consider the lengths to which our Lord goes, reaching through the centuries, to supply for our lack of merit.
Searching with Mary
Paraphrased from The Holy Rosary Narrated, distributed by Keepthefaith.org and narrated by Fr. Hugh Thwaites:
A reflection on the Fifth Joyful Mystery – The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
“The whole human race are either Mary’s children or potentially her children because when we’re baptized, we are baptized into Jesus and become her children. For the rest, her motherly heart searches, and cannot rest until she sees her children safe in Heaven.”
If you look closely at an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, you will notice the small sandal hanging from the foot of the Infant Jesus, who is safe in His Mother’s arms. This represents those who Mary also holds if only by a thread.
You Are My Hiding Place
The Anchoress reminded me of a verse from the Evening Prayer of the Divine Office for Thursday Week I.
So let every good man pray to You
in the time of need.
The floods of water may reach high
they shall not reach him.
You are my hiding place, O Lord;
you save me from distress.
You surround me with cries of deliverance. (Psalm 32: 6-7)
When I read the words, “You are my hiding place,” Corrie ten Boom’s story,”The Hiding Place” came to mind. I was also reading Immaculee Ilibagiza’s book, “Left To Tell, Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.” Both Corrie’s story and Immaculee’s book leave vivid images of the faithfulness of God not only in the mind, but in the heart, . Neither tells the story of the proverbial rose garden that we all want. Corrie and Immaculee lose the people they love. Their homelands become unrecognizable.
Corrie introduces us to her sister, Betsie, who dies in the concentration camp. What I loved about Betsie was how she made a home in the midst of the horrific circumstances of the camp; cheery dish towels hung at the window. Betsie’s actual home was the hiding place she made in the heart of God. Betsie was prepared to die.
Immaculee’s book describes an actual hiding place, a bathroom that became a haven for her and seven other women for ninety-one days. It was here they hid, and silently prayed, while hundreds of crazed, “machete-wielding” neighbors sought to butcher them. Again, God proved to be the real hiding place.
The triumph of their stories is told by the transformed hearts of these women of faith. Their books are a witness to God’s faithfulness in times of desperation.
Be Holy! 