On Human Nature

Yesterday, worn our with anxieties, away from others
I was in a shady grove, my soul consumed.
For how I do so love this drug for sufferings,
to speak in quiet, me with my own soul...

But privately, my mind in a whirlpool spinning,
I had this sort of battling round of words:
Who was I? Who am I? What shall I be?
     I don't know clearly.
Nor can I find one better stocked with wisdom.
But, as through thick fog, I wander
every which way, with nothing, not a dream,
     of the things I long for...

What's in fact the good of life? God's light?
     But then hateful and jealous darkness
     keeps me from it.
Nothing's of any use to me.
     And what is there of no use to the wicked?
If only they were equally endowed,
     with troubles especially!
I lie helpless. Divine terror has bowed me.
I'm worn out by worries, night and day...

The ache exists for each one of our race...

Stop. Everything is secondary to God.
     Give in to reason.
God didn't make me in vain. I am turning
my back upon this song: this thing was from our feeblemindedness.

Now's a fog, but afterwards the Word,
     and you'll know all,
whether seeing God, or eaten up by fire.
Now, when the beloved mind had sung for me
     these things, it digested its pain.
And late from the shady grove I headed home,
now laughing at this self-estrangement,
     then once again
heart in anguish smoldering, from a mind at war.

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

Psalm 39: 8-13

Set me free from all my sins,
do not make me the taunt of the fool.
I was silent, not opening my lips,
because this was all your doing.

Take away your scourge from me.
I am crushed by the blows of your hand.
You punish man's sins and correct him;
like the moth you devour all he treasures.

Mortal man is no more than a breath;
O Lord, hear my prayer.
O Lord, turn your ear to my cry.
Do not be deaf to my tears.

In your house I am a passing guest,
a pilgrim, like all my fathers.
Look away that I may breathe again
before I depart to be no more.

Deliver us

Deliver us from evil.

Very significant for me, not only from the Our Father, but from Dr. Dooley.

Isaiah 1:18

Come now, let us set things right,
says the Lord:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.

Jeremiah 14: 15, 17

Thus says the Lord: Speak to them this word:
Let my eyes stream with tears
day and night, without rest,
Over the great destruction which overwhelms
the virgin daughter of my people,
over her incurable wound.

Luke 4:18

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,
to let the oppressed go free.

Luke 6:20-26

Raising His eyes toward his disciples Jesus said:
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward
will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets
in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way."

Receiving the Child, by Mother Elvira Petrozzi

A world that does not love or respect little ones, that does not defend those who are weakest in this life is a world of the dead, a world of truly desperate people. A world that rejects life, which does violence to the life of children, cannot even be called a world. Yet God calls us specifically to love this world, to be carriers of hope and sparks of light and kindness that resurrect humanity.

Today we suffer a deadly cancer: the incapacity to love.If you do not love, you remain in death. You are not truly alive. If you do not authentically love, you do not suffer, struggle, or cry, but you also never rejoice. If you do not love, you are indifferent! Often though, the one who does not know how to love has not known the One true Love. He has not known Him who captures your heart and turns you again towards life, who makes you explode with the will to love. Yes, Love generates love, and today there is an immense need of persons able to generate hope in Love . . .

We experience resurrection every day with the lost and dead youth who enter our houses, as well as with their families who have been destroyed by suffering and desperation. We see resurrection in the eyes of the children of our missions, in whom the violence of the streets has left open and bleeding scars. Daily we live an experience of hope that gives life to those from whom life has been stolen. Because of this we believe that in the darkest night it is possible to find light again. Even in the darkest sadness, joy can be rekindled. Even in the bitterest loneliness, a friend's love can pierce a hardened heart. Yes, we want to be witnesses of this hope. We want to announce to this world that the secret of rebirth is to open our hearts to that marvelous Father who waits for each of us as His most precious child.

Mother Elvira Petrozzi is foundress of Comunità Cenàcolo, welcoming the lost and desperate in fifty-six houses in fifteen countries.

What Happens When We Love, by Monsignor Guardini

A person who has been wounded is comforted when someone who loves him awakens the hidden energy within him so that it passes through the wound in a healing stream. A person who is spiritually dried up is comforted when someone who loves him releases the wave of life within and everything is revived. A person who has lost things of great value, who has had his work destroyed, and his hopes dashed, is comforted when someone who loves him allies himself with something that lies at a deeper level, underneath the individual possession and the individual work; allies himself with the fundamental creative will, and rouses it to new activity; allies himself with that innermost soul that is above change and loss and is the eternal strength of the heart; admitting the loss that is lost in time, but winning it anew from the timelessness of faith in God. A person whose heart is sullied is comforted when someone who loves him is able to touch the purity that lives below the sin, and rouse new confidence in his ability to overcome the ugliness of his heart. A person who has sinned and can find no escape from his troubled conscience is comforted when someone who loves him is able, without the slightest presumption, to shed light on the sinner's self-deception, to release and fortify the will and open up new ways and possibilities. There is comfort when the lover is able to soften the hardened, to touch the paralyzed with relaxing warmth, to give a new direction to an erring mind. Human love, really pure and selfless human love, is able to comfort. But it soon attains its limits. Human love is not the love of God. Christ sent us the One who is "the nearness" between the Father and the Son: the Holy Spirit. He is the holy inwardness of God himself; in the secret language of love he is the "tie," the "kiss." In him God has come to us as the Comforter.

Monsignor Romano Guardini (died 1968) was born in Italy and was a renowned theologian and writer.