Prayer

If our facility in prayer increases we can always extend our program, but it is always better to be too short than too long. We have a long road before us, and the important thing is to persevere to the end.

Let it be always remembered that Christian life is an entering into Christ's life rather than the perfecting of one's own life, that Christian prayer is an entering into Christ's prayer rather than the flowering of one's own prayer, and that in the particular case under discussion, where we have to abandon our own prayer to join in the prayers of the congregation, we are really putting on Christ. Where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of them, as He has promised, and when we join in their prayer, we are really exchanging our own poor prayer for the powerful prayer of Christ.

One thing we insist upon. You must make a grim, ruthless resolve, that never, never, never, on any account whatsoever, will you give up the practice of attempting to pray thus daily, no matter how fruitless your attempt may seem. Until you make that resolve, your progress in the spiritual life will never be anything more than that of a cripple. No matter how often you take up the spiritual life, you will sooner or later be faced with the choice of giving it up, or making such a resolution about daily prayer.

This Tremendous Lover, M. Eugene Boylan, O.Cist.R

Supernatural Faith

There is nothing uncertain and there is nothing unreasonable about Catholic faith. The proper meaning of belief is to accept truth on the testimony of another. Since in ordinary cases, our informant may be in error or may mislead us, there may be room for uncertainty. But in supernatural faith, we accept truth on the testimony of God Himself, so that it leads to absolute certainty.

-- M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R., This Tremendous Lover

The Life of the Soul

In the Blessed Sacrament there are really and truly present the Body, the Blood, the Soul and the Divinity of Christ. If this be the food of the soul, -- what must be its life? Can it be anything less than God Himself, in some way living in the soul?

-- M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R., This Tremendous Lover

This Tremendous Lover

For the heart of the Crucified burned with a more intense love of God than the world has ever known, and the Son's heart was torn by the offenses that men offer to His heavenly Father. And in that same heart there was a fire of love for men, of love for each man and for every man; and the Lover's heart was torn by the thought of the coldness of those whom He loved and the loss they were incurring by their refusal to love Him. On the previous Sunday we heard the lament that wrung tears from the eyes of God: and thou wouldest not; on the cross on Friday the same love wrings every drop of blood from that divine heart. Truly, we must call Him, "This Tremendous Lover."

-- M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R., This Tremendous Lover

With the Impatience of a Lover

When one remembers who our Lord really was, and what infinite power was at His disposal, the whole wonder of His public life is not the marvelous works He actually did, but the many and more wonderful works which He could have done and did not do. And one gets the impression that, throughout all this period, His chief desire was to press on to the final stage of His life -- that the works of His public ministry formed but a small part of His plan, a part perfectly performed, but still something that He seemed to have far less at heart than the final stage, -- the baptism wherewith He was to be baptized (Lk 12:50), -- and to which He hurries on, if one may say so, with the impatience of a lover.

-- M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R., This Tremendous Lover

Like Beads Passing through Devout Hands

Our life is limited in its extent and still more limited in its possession, for it comes to us bit by bit, in succession and not all at once. We have to let go of one moment to take hold of the next; it is like beads passing through devout hands.

--M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R, This Tremendous Lover

Villain, elle?, Daniel Gibbons

I am a burning book, a book of flame:
pale letters glow on skin-thin ash
an instant as your hand crumbles cinders, same.

If a book burns in the forest, without reader or name,
Is it no book, a glob of marks?—In its pages stashed:
“I am a burning book, a book of flame!”

Can I remember Sarajevo, who to blame
for a snow of black pages, a tabernacle hammered into trash,
even for an instant as I crumble cinders, same?

Whether in Caesar’s, Theophilus’, or Omar’s name,
In the slow grace of towers crumbling under some Alexander’s lash,
I am a burning book, a book of flame.

When a human burns in the salt womb (who’s to blame?)
of history, who among us will cast the first penitent ash
from an infant’s hand that has crumbled into cinders—same?

Haunted into sterile rooms, who will sign their names?
In quiet abattoirs, over mute cries with no past—shhh…
“I am a burning book, a book of flame
an instant, until my hand crumbles… cinders…”

Wartime Christmas, Joyce Kilmer

Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
Akneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother's knee
And with her kisses crowned.

Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother's knees.
While there are love and home—and these—
There shall be Christmas Day.

Daylight, J.B. Toner

The sun!  A million bird-hymns split the skies,
    His crimson halo sanctifies the peaks,
    Flings green on grass and blue on babbling creeks,
The violets open dew-bespangled eyes,
The shadows spring away in swift surprise,
    Bright clouds rush outwards, galleons white and sleek,
    A merry day his golden beams bespeak,
And azure oriflammes proclaim his rise.
  The restless specters of the fearful night
    With elvish smiles unmask themselves as trees;
  The beauty of the earth, once hid from sight,
    Stands veilless, to be seen with joyful ease—
  And I who doubted God’s returning light
    Fall penitent and laughing to my knees.

Public Education, Rick Perry

Every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child ~ Texas Governor Rick Perry

The Best for Us, C.S. Lewis

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. ~ C. S. Lewis

Lost, G.K. Chesterton

Man has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Laughter, G.K. Chesterton

Alone among the animals, Man is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Looking Down on Hell, G.K. Chesterton

It is not always wrong to go to the brink of the lowest promontory and look down on hell. It is when you look up at hell that a serious miscalculation has probably been made. ~ G. K. Chesterton

12 Ordinary Men, G.K. Chesterton

Our civilization has decided...that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. ...When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing around. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. ~ G. K. Chesterton

A Mystic Being, G.K. Chesterton

Man is a mystic being who cannot do what is expected of him; but can only do more than is expected of him. He can die in torments in the trenches for a rag on a pole; but he cannot keep his temper for twenty-four hours. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Feminists, G.K. Chesterton

Most feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the tyranny. They want to destroy the womanhood. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Gloriously Surprised, G.K. Chesterton

Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised. ~ G. K. Chesterton

What You Can Handle, Mother Teresa

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. — Mother Teresa

Worries, Mary Crowley

Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway. — Mary C. Crowley

A Right, G.K. Chesterton

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. — G.K. Chesterton

The Christian Ideal, G.K. Chesterton

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. — GK Chesterton

Television, T.S. Eliot

The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely. — T.S. Eliot

Freedom, Dwight Eisenhower

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking . . . is freedom.

— Dwight Eisenhower

The Tale of Two Cities

"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding."
-The Tale of Two Cities, Book the Second: The Golden Thread, Chapter 20: A Plea

"There is nothing more to do," said he, glancing upward at the moon, "until to-morrow. I can't sleep."
It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end.
-The Tale of Two Cities, Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter 9: The Game Made

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
Now, that the streets were quiet and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always.
The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's dominion.
But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.
-The Tale of Two Cities, Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter 9: The Game Made

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
-The Tale of Two Cities, Book the Third: The Track of a Storm, Chapter 15: The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

The Blood of God (from The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton)

Long years and centuries ago our fathers or the founders of our people drank, as they dreamed, of the blood of God. Long years and centuries have passed since the strength of that giant vintage has been anything but a legend of the age of giants. Centuries ago already is the dark time of the second fermentation, when the wine of Catholicism turned into the vinegar of Calvinism. Long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted; rinsed out and washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the world. Never did we think to taste again even that bitter tang of sincerity and the spirit, still less the richer and the sweeter strength of the purple vineyards in
our dreams of the age of gold. Day by day and year by year we have lowered our hopes and lessened our convictions; we have grown more and more used to seeing those vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last savour and suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of purple upon a sea of grey. We have grown used to dilution, to dissolution, to a watering down that went on for ever. But 'Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'

Miracles (Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather)

Where there is great love there are always miracles... One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love... The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

The Veil of the Temple

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

...and Lord Marchmain made the sign of the cross. Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing not of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.

The Mysteries Revealed to Children

In this temporal life we are led along a narrow path, at the end of which is a little door opening onto true life. In order to pass through that door we must first let ourselves be crucified on the cross which stands at the entrance. If suffering and fear turn us away, we will not enter.

It is true that for the most part our advice is not asked -- otherwise how few of the elect would pass through! But with trial comes faith, and with faith, graces, which are not distributed parsimoniously but with profusion. The yoke becomes sweet and the sorrow is turned into joy. What is hidden from the eyes of men becomes luminous for those whom the Lord is drawing. "Do not fear those who can kill the body and who after that can do no more."

Do you know this word of Christ: "I give you thanks, Father, for having revealed these things to little ones and having hidden them from the wise." It is true. All that is despised by the world becomes precious for the Lord's sake. What a troop of lame men, thieves, and assassins must surround him!...

These are great mysteries we are living through. Do not let us struggle against redemption, under the pressure of egotistical thoughts. The ways are numerous and varied, but the end is one. In the same way a mountain nine thousand feet in height, with a base fifty miles in circumference, has only one summit, yet there are hundreds of ways leading to it. Each one follows his own path and sees only what is within his range. If you climb up the northern side you can't see the southern, but once the top is reached the same panorama stretches out before all.

Jacques Fesch (died 1957) was a murderer who experienced a profound conversion before his execution in a French prison.

My heart is moved with pity

To rescue you from your passions, [the Word] took on a body, would you therefore set a yardstick on his great-famed Godhead? Has he sinned, in pitying you? To me, rather, he's the more amazing. For he didn't shave off any bit of Godhead, and still he saved me, stooping as a doctor over my foul-smelling passions. He was a man, but God. David's offspring, but Adam's Maker. A bearer of flesh, but, even so, beyond all body. From a Mother, but she a Virgin. Comprehensible, but immeasurable. And a manger received him, while a star led the Magi, who so came bearing gifts, and fell on bended knee. As a man he entered the arena, but he prevailed, as indomitable, over the tempter in three bouts. Food was set before him, but he fed thousands, and changed the water into wine. He got baptized, but he washed sins clean, but he was proclaimed by the Spirit, in a voice of thunder, to be the Son of the One Uncaused. As a man he took rest, and as God he put to rest the sea. His knees were wearied, but he bolstered the strength and knees of the lame. He prayed, but who was it who heard the petitions of the feeble? He was the sacrifice, but the high priest: making an offering, but himself God. He dedicated his blood to God, and cleansed the entire world. And a cross carried him up, while the bolts nailed fast sin. But what's it for me to say these things? He had company with the dead, but he rose from the dead, and the dead, the bygone, he raised up: there a mortal's poverty, here the incorporeal's wealth. Don't you dishonor, then, his divinity on account of his human things, but, for the divine's sake, hold in renown the earthly form into which, thoughtful towards you, he formed himself, the incorruptible Son.

St. Gregory Nazianzen (died 390) was a monk, a bishop, and a writer of letters, prayers, and poems.

Isaiah 9: 1-2, 5-6

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
a light has shone.
You have brought them abundant joy
and great rejoicing.
As they rejoice before you as at the harvest,
as people make merry when dividing spoils.
For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
His dominion is vast
and forever peaceful,
from David's throne, and over his kingdom,
which he confirms and sustains
By judgment and justice,
both now and forever.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains:
from where shall come my help?
My help shall come from the Lord
who made heaven and earth.

May he never allow you to stumble!
Let him sleep not, your guard.
No, he sleeps not nor slumbers,
Israel's guard.

The Lord is your guard and your shade;
at your right side he stands.
By day the sun shall not smite you
nor the moon in the night.

The Lord will guard you from evil,
he will guard your soul.
The Lord will guard your going and coming
both now and forever.

Psalm 106

O give thanks to the Lord for he is good;
for his love endures for ever.
Who can tell the Lord's mighty deeds?
Who can recount all his praise?

Isaiah 40: 1-5

Comfort, give comfort to my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her service is at an end,
her guilt is expiated;
Indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord
double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
The rugged land shall be made plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all mankind shall see it together;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Psalm 126

When the Lord brought back the captives of Zion
   we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with rejoicing.

Then they said among the nations,
   "The Lord has done great things for them."
The Lord has done great things for us;
   we are glad indeed.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
   like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those who sow in tears
   shall reap rejoicing.

Although they go forth weeping,
   carrying the seed to be sown,
they shall come back rejoicing,
   carrying their sheaves.

Song of Songs 2: 10-12

He says to me,
"Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth."

The Stealthy Raid on Our Nature, Paul Claudel

When God took possession of the human form, when he appropriated it for his own use, when he placed himself withing it in hypostatic union, he committed an  unpardonable offense against justice, good sense, and propriety. Until the end of time, intellectuals will respond with alternating indignation and amusement. There are certain things that are simply not done. Let us therefore plant on the forked gibbet, in the sight of heaven, for the edification of all ages, this transgressor caught in the very act of stealing back a possession we had every reason to regard as exclusively ours.

In procuring from us the means to die, he robbed us of that right to annihilation which, since the original sin, has constituted the most obvious part of our basic capital. He embezzled our funds for his own profit. In one stroke he reclaimed for his Father all that cultivated estate which we considered ours by tenants’ rights, under the terms of a hard-won agreement. This is why he deserved the name of Thief that he himself officially assumed. Is it not written that "He who does not enter... by the door," where the devil mounts guard, "but climbs in by another way is a thief and a robber" (Jn 10: 1)?

Thanks to the complicity of the Virgin, there has been a stealthy raid on our nature. The damage is permanent; henceforth our walls are marred by a crack that for all our industry can never be mended again. "By my God I can leap over a wall," says the Psalmist (18: 30). Our homes are no longer our own.

Paul Claudel (died 1953) was a poet, a playwright, a diplomat, and a member of the French Academy.

Canticle of Zechariah; Luke 1: 68-79

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.

Through his hold prophets he promised of old
   that he would save us from our enemies,
   from the hands of all who hate us.

He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.

This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
   all the days of our life.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet
   of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
   and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Canticle of Mary; Luke 1: 46-55

Magnificat

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

O very God of very God

O very God of very God,
And very Light of Light,
Whose feet this earth's dark valley trod,
That so it might be bright:

Our hopes are weak, our fears are strong,
Thick darkness blinds our eyes;
Cold is the night, and, of, we long
That you, our Sun, would rise!

And even now, though dull and grey,
The east is brightening fast,
And kindling to the perfect day
That never shall be past.

Oh, guide us till our path is done,
And we have reached the shore
Where you, our Everlasting sun,
Are shining evermore!

Isaiah 54: 10

Though the mountains leave their place
     and the hills be shaken,
My love shall never leave you
     nor my covenant of peace be shaken,
     says the Lord, who has mercy on you.

Jeremiah 29: 11-14

I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord, and I will change your lot; I will gather you together from all the nations and all the places to which I have banished you, says the Lord, and bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you.

Prayer for Hope

O God, we dare not place our hope in you
because we have no hope to place.
We have forgotten mercy, like the dew;
we have lost sight of days of grace.
Our heart's bowl brims with hollow emptiness.
Our dreams have vanished like the smoke
of incense burned to gods of faithlessness
upon an altar stone that broke.

O God, you have stirred up the darkened heart
with promises of light to come.
The embers of our cold hearth shift and start
a flicker that may yet become
the fire we fear because we shy from burns
our soul once suffered at the hands
of our own treachery. If life returns
for us, we dread rebirth's demands.

O God, ignore our plea for cold despair,
its ashes undisturbed, its chill
unwarmed by any hint borne on the air
by unseen angels, crying still
that promises are kept. Grant us instead
that small perturbing flick of flame
that wakens even in the living dead
just hope enough to call your name!

Extreme Measures, Fr. John Dominic Corbett, O.P.

It is a curious fact that the earliest Christian moralists were hesitant to embrace growth in "virtue" as the goal or description of the Christian moral life. This is because the term "virtue" suggested to them an inner mastery which bordered on self-sufficiency. This attitude of the pagans was always on the lookout for balance and emotional distance, and any unseemly display of joy or grief would have been despised by them as evidence of moral failure. But the mind of the Church has always been that the proper measure of love of God is to love God without measure. We Christians do not or should not silently reprove ourselves for "indiscretions." We mourn, or ought to mourn, our sins as though they were attending our own funeral. Likewise we Christians do not, or should not, give measured and discrete approval to God. Instead, we dance like fools because, against all the odds, we have been invited to God's own wedding feast. A measured response to a social indiscretion or to a job promotion is virtuous because these things are of only relative importance. But if we would see the life and death implications of our yes or our no to God, we would see that nothing less than a dirge or a dance will do.

Psalm 95

Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
   let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
   let us joyfully sing psalms to him.

Come, let us bow down in worship;
   let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
For he is our God,
   and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
   "Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
   as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
   they tested me though they had seen my works."

Psalm 144

Blessed by the Lord, my rock,
   who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.
My refuge and my fortress,
   my stronghold, my deliverer,
My shield, in whom I trust,
   who subdues my people under me.
O God, I will sing a new song to you;
   with a ten-stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
You who give victory to kings,
   and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.

John 15:16

It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.

Rose Round: The signs of the Four Evangelists

"Is that your eagle, Theo?"
Theo laughed. "No, it's St. John's," he said.
"St. John's?"
"You know the four Evangelists have signs?" Theo said. "St. John has the eagle, which was said to fly unblinded towards the sun, because he is the one who looked longest and deepest at Christ on earth and into the mystery of his being when he went back into his glory."
....
"And what's St. Luke, Theo?"
"St. Luke is a Bull."
"How queer! Why?" Matt asked.
"I'm not sure," said Theo. "Perhaps because the Bull is a sign of life: the zodiac bull comes in the spring, you know. He's the sign of generation and Christ is the regenerator of Man, and his sacrifice of his own life was made in the spring. He said himself that the seed must die to bring up the new corn. The signs are symbols of mystery: they let you look through the doors but they don't tell you everything at once. You can never know everything there is to know, that's why we shall be happy for ever in heaven if we get there."

Rose Round: The fourfold living signs of the soul

Signs of mystery, Theo had said, when he had seen the eagle in the north, before the hard winter and the time he had fallen off the roof. Theo wore an eagle in his ring, on his hand; it was his sign as well as St. John's, the great bird king of the air who flew unblinded towards the sun. But this bull-head was not less his, nor the lion and the man looking west, and Matt felt that they were his own too, and any man's, and in every man they lived.
But bulls are dangerous and wild, Matt thought, and lions too: they were beasts of the forest and the great plains and of desert and mountain, and were they hiding inside people, inside himself? Suppose the bull charged? The lion roared upon its prey? The eagle swooped on its victim? Suppose the man should change his face and become any or all of these, and no longer human? He was suddenly afraid; it was not only dangerous, it was terrifying to be alive, to be someone with all these unknown powers in his heart.
Then he saw Theo come through the western arch on the other side of the fountain, looking at the sun rising, and at him too.
"Theo," he said, holding on to the stone basin with his hands and looking through the falling water. "I was thinking about the bull, and the others, how dangerous they are. Suppose they got loose? I know they're not real animals, but they are sort of real inside, aren't they? Suppose they did?"
"Well, they do sometimes," said Theo, smiling. He came up to the fountain. "They get very wild. Why do you think our world is in such confusion, with nations all quarreling and fighting, and people grabbing everything they can from each other, and making silly excuses to justify themselves? The beasts inside have got loose."
"I don't like them then," said Matt. Yet he had, in fact, felt only wonder and delight when he had seen them, and a kind of awe.
"Yes, you do like them," said Theo. "They are splendid. They are all kings. They are what makes you a king too. You are a man in your mind, an eagle in your spirit, a lion in the courage of your will."
"But the bull?"
"He's in the power of love," said Theo.
Matt said, "But they do go wild, you said so."
"Yes, they go wild," said Theo. "But look at the garden: it's a square, but a square in a circle. It has a center. Don't you remember talking about it on the tower?"
"The sun," said Matt. "The sun is the center."
"The sun is the center outside," said Theo. "It is the image of the one who is inside: Lux umbra Dei."
Matt looked at the golden sun rising. "If he's in the center, all's well with the sacred beasts," said Theo. "The Phoenix is their Lord."
The sun was shining in his nest of clouds, brighter and brighter, like the Phoenix in the rose of fire. Matt looked back at the fountain, the water that sprang up and fell back for ever.
"Then why is it our Lady who is here in the middle of the garden, Theo? Why not him?"
"Because this is our world," said Theo. "He chose to come into it through her. He is too great to fit into the ring of the world, this little pattern of our sun and our hearts, except by becoming her child, and so one of us. And yet if you look at it inside out you will see that all this, the solar circle, the seasons of time, the fountain of life, the fourfold living signs of the soul, and the Lady herself who said yes to the will of love, are all in him, only in him, and we see them clearer when we look at them in him. There are some people who will only see everything in themselves, but don't be one of them. Our selves are only moons to his sun: in his light all things are revealed as they are."

Circles around the Sun

"Look, the children are playing ball on the lawn, with Sam," said Alix.
Their figures, in a wide circle, were tiny far away, like another sundial, Matt thought, only these figures moved. Then Alix said it.
"They're like a sundial too."
"Games played in circles are games of the sun," said Theo.
"Ring of roses," said Matt. "The Rose Round."
He could see the Rose Round from here, away in its corner by the woods, and suddenly remembered looking through the telescope at it.
"We all go round the sun," said Alix.
"And the sun is the shadow of God," said Theo. "Lux Umbra Dei."

Rose Round, pg. 195.

"Some who had been cured of evil spirits" by Fr. de Caussade

The Master always begins by making himself known, loved, and appreciated in a sensible manner. Later he deprives the soul of these consolations in order to withdraw it from the grossness of the senses and to bring it into more excellent, more intimate, and more enduring union with himself in pure faith and pure spirit. To complete this purification, these deprivations must be followed by sufferings (interior if no other), interior rebelliousness, diabolical temptation, distress, helplessness, and distaste for all good, which themselves can sometimes amount to a kind of agony. All these serve admirably to rid the soul of its self-love and to give it certain features of resemblance to its crucified Spouse. All these agonies are so many blows which God levels at us to make us die to ourselves.The more self-love resists this spiritual death, the more savage these blows appear and the more cruel the agonies. The divine love is a double-edged sword that smites self-love until it is completely destroyed. Our pain has its source in that stout resistance offered by this accursed love of ourselves which hates to relinquish the control it has acquired over our heart and to allow the love of God to reign there in peace. If that love of God finds no obstacle to its divine ardors and no foe to resist it, it will make none but sweet and delightful impressions upon the heart.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (died 1751) was a French Jesuit, a writer, and a revered spiritual director.

Protecting the Seed, St. Catherine of Siena

Without light you cannot walk along the straight way of the spotless slain Lamb. This is why my soul longs to see you and the others honest and courageous, not whipped about by any wind that might come along. See that you don't turn back, but always go forward, keeping in mind the teaching you have been given. Return every day to the garden of your soul to root out any brambles that might choke the seed, the teaching you were given, and to till the soil. I mean, every day strip your heart clean. You really have to do it continually. I've seen many people who seemed to have been stripped clean, but I've found--more by their actions than by their words--that they are not. It is their actions that show where their heart is, though their words might show the opposite. So I want you truly to strip your heart clean by following Christ crucified... The pain of being deprived of all creaturely consolation has called me [to look at] my lack of virtue, to recognize how imperfect I am and how utterly perfect is the light of gentle Truth, provider and acceptor of holy desires, who plays no favorites. He has not withheld his kindness from me because of my ingratitude or because of my dearth of light and knowledge. No, he has regarded only his own supreme goodness.

St. Catherine of Siena (died 1380), Doctor of the Church, was a Dominican, stigmatist, and papal counselor.

"She kept all these things in her heart"

His mother kept all these things in her heart. (Lk 2:"51)

Mary "kept" the word of God in two ways: by reflecting on it often and by living it with utmost fidelity.

Matthew 26:41

Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Acts 17: 28

In him we live and move and have our being.

John 19:34

One soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

The Cross: a paradox

The cross, instrument of torture and death, raised aloft as a sign of glory, continues to confound the wisdom of this world. God's work of salvation stands human expectations on their head: humility is exaltation, wounds are healing, death is life.

Galatians 6: 14

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Veneration of the Cross

Behold the wood of the cross,
on which has hung our salvation: come, let us adore!

The Heart of True Wisdom, by Dom Guillerand

There is no need to wait for that knowledge which is the result of study before acting in the region of our relations with God. Religion is belief: but above all, it is practice. It is not knowledge. It is a mutual exchange of love, and it is in this exchange that God reveals himself. He reveals himself in the measure in which we love him, not according to our learning, even in the matter of religion. It is not necessary to know precisely all the perfections of God, nor to be able to expound eloquently all the arguments which prove his existence. How many souls pass the whole of their lives without knowing these things, and yet how profound is their knowledge of him, how warm their fervor, and how intensely real their relations with him. These souls look upon God as a Father, who is unceasingly communicating to them his thoughts and desires, and it is by these thoughts and desires they live. He becomes, as it were, their very soul and their innermost life. His Spirit abides in the depths of their spirit, enlightening, encouraging, and directing all the inner resources that they possess. And they love the Father, and hold converse with him. They share with him their joys and their sorrows, and he is the secret confidant of all their hours. He is there, in the depth of their soul, waiting to receive them into his intimate dwelling-place the moment they turn to him. They recognize him, and they know it is he who is calling them, whenever an interior voice invites them to think of him. Their minds meet inevitably, and thus they enter into a relationship at once living, continuous, and full of delight -- a relationship between the soul and its divine Guest, which grows in intensity.

Dom Augustin Guillerand, O.Cart. (died 1945) was a French Carthusian monk and a revered spiritual author.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
   In verdant pastures he gives me repose.
Beside restful waters he leads me;
   he refreshes my soul.

He guides me in right paths
   for his name's sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
   I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
   that give me courage.

You spread the table before me
   in the sight of my foes;
You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.

Only goodness and kindness follow me
   all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   for years to come.

Luke 7:31-35

Jesus said to the crowds: "To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,
'We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.'
For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, 'He is possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, 'Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is vindicated by all her children."

Jeremiah 5:14

Behold, I make my words
in your mouth, a fire.

Latin quotes from "Rose Round"

Benedicite lux et tenebrae Domino.
Light and shadow bless the Lord.

Lux umbra Dei.
Light is the shadow of God.

Pereant et imputantur.
They perish and are counted up.

"What perish and are counted?"
"The hours," said Theo. "The days, all our time, our times, our journeys round the runs."
Alix said, "I don't like that motto."
"They do perish, though," said Theo. "We can't bring back what has gone."
"Counted," said Matt. "Who counts them?"
"They are counted," said Theo. "Not necessarily against us."