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
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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
--M. Eugene Boylan, O. Cist. R, This Tremendous Lover
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
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…”
Saturday, February 18, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
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."
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."
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Revelations 12:10-12
"Now have salvation and power come,
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed.
For the accuser of our brothers is cast out,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
They conquered him by the Blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
love for live did not deter them from death.
Therefore, rejoice, you heavens,
and you who dwell in them."
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed.
For the accuser of our brothers is cast out,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
They conquered him by the Blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
love for live did not deter them from death.
Therefore, rejoice, you heavens,
and you who dwell in them."
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.
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.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Where is your victory?
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Cor 15:55)
Easter
Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Cor 15:55)
Easter
Complete your work
Complete your work, O Lord, and as you have loved me from the beginning, so make me to love you unto the end.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
What He Feels So Bitterly, by Mother Teresa
Hear Jesus your coworker speak to you: "I want you to be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying, and the little children; the poor I want you to bring to me." Learn this sentence by heart and when you are wanting in generosity, repeat it. We can refuse Christ just as we refuse others: "I will not give you my hands to work with, my feet to walk with, my mind to study with, my heart to love with. You knock at the door, but I will not give you the key of my heart." This is what he feels so bitterly: not being able to live his life in a soul...
What Makes Us Loyal to Christ, by Dom Vonier
We are dealing with the deepest and most incomprehensible of things when we are dealing with the human spirit, with the human mind. How can the human mind be won to truth, to faith, to loyalty to God? How is it possible for us to come to God, to surrender to him our whole intellect, our whole will? We do not even ourselves know why we are loyal to one person and alienated from another, in sympathy with one person and opposed to another. God alone knows the working of the human soul; and God, who knows, who has made us, has thought out his plan, the supreme plan, the good testimony of Christ before Pilate. In the words of Saint Peter: "Christ died for our sins, the just for the unjust." And by his death he achieved for truth its highest ascendency, an ascendency not otherwise to be obtained. Here again we see the genius of Christianity, a wonderful understanding, we might almost say, on the part of God himself, of man's real needs, man's real hunger, and thirst... The folly of the cross is a great psychological power, a great instrument of truth, which wins us and makes us loyal to Christ himself; nothing else can achieve that... We know what a Christian man ought to be. Your life, such as it is, is a pre-ordained thing, and it is for you to drink your cup even as Christ drank his. His life and his death, if they apparently were failures, were not so in reality. We also are children of that divine Father who held to the lips of his Son a beverage to drink, and so our lives have a wonderful mysterious significance. And it is in this light that we ought to look at human things and be superior to them; never letting them overpower us, as if they were some dark arrangement, as if they were the result of some malign power. No, human things are the will of the Father for us as they were the will of the Father for his divine Son.
Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. (died 1906) was the abbot of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England.
Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. (died 1906) was the abbot of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England.
Suffering
When Peter objected to Jesus' prediction of his passion, he did not yet know the end of the story. Our faith, illuminated by the resurrection, is challenged to see the cross not as death but life, not as defeat but victory, not as tragedy but triumph. We can see that transformation in Jesus' story. Can we trust that it lies at the heart of our own?
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Psalm 49
Why should I fear in evil days
the malice of the foes who surround me,
men who trust in their wealth,
and boast of the vastness of their riches?
For no man can buy his own ransom,
or pay a price to God for his life.
The ransom of his soul is beyond him.
He cannot buy life without end,
nor avoid coming to the grave.
He knows that wise men and fools must both perish
and leave their wealth to others.
Their graves are their homes for ever,
their dwelling place from age to age,
though their names spread wide through the land.
In his riches, man lacks wisdom:
he is like the beasts that are destroyed.
Then do not fear when a man grows rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
He takes nothing with him when he dies,
his glory does not follow him below.
In his riches, man lacks wisdom:
he is like the beasts that are destroyed.
the malice of the foes who surround me,
men who trust in their wealth,
and boast of the vastness of their riches?
For no man can buy his own ransom,
or pay a price to God for his life.
The ransom of his soul is beyond him.
He cannot buy life without end,
nor avoid coming to the grave.
He knows that wise men and fools must both perish
and leave their wealth to others.
Their graves are their homes for ever,
their dwelling place from age to age,
though their names spread wide through the land.
In his riches, man lacks wisdom:
he is like the beasts that are destroyed.
Then do not fear when a man grows rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
He takes nothing with him when he dies,
his glory does not follow him below.
In his riches, man lacks wisdom:
he is like the beasts that are destroyed.
2 Corinthians 4:8-10
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
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 Cenà colo, welcoming the lost and desperate in fifty-six houses in fifteen countries.
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 Cenà colo, welcoming the lost and desperate in fifty-six houses in fifteen countries.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Humility
Humility begins in the awareness of what is most "down to earth" ("humility" from the Latin humus meaning "ground or earth") -- namely, that life is given.
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