Respect for the Poor

"Assistance to the unfortunate honors when it treats the poor man with respect, not only as an equal, but as a superior--since he is suffering what perhaps we are incapable of suffering; since he is a messenger of God to us, sent to prove our justice and charity, and to save us by our works."

--Frederick Ozanam, quoted by James Patrick Derum in Apostle in a Top Hat

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

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.'

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.

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.

John 19:34

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

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.

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."

Psalm 137

By the streams of Babylon
   we sat and wept
   when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
   we hung our harps.

Though there our captors asked of us
   the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
   “Sing for us the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing a song of the LORD
   in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
   may my right hand be forgotten!

May my tongue cleave to my palate
   if I remember you not,
If I place not Jerusalem
   ahead of my joy.

Work and Love, by Monsignor Giussani

We must always remind ourselves that our first work does not arise from the capacity to create new structures, but rather it is... a sensibility to the common and singular needs that exist: the use of your intelligence and energy to assist in the creation of a more human environment in the situation where you are. Only if the imagination is awakened can new forms of work be invented. This can only spring forth from an amazement, a devotion, a love for what man is. The factory remains a factory, but it's not like it was before. Wherever a presence -- determined by this passion for man -- expresses a generosity, steadfastness, and imagination, and meets with a certain openness, the work environment is not like it was before. I have heard you tell me a hundred times, "Now I go to work with a passion that I never expected, that before I never even dreamed possible," which means that you don't go to the job you used to go to, but you perform a "new work," a more human work that doesn't leave out any aspect, any particular. Nothing is more concrete than love. Outside of love, concreteness is established by developing a preconceived idea into a program, a program into a preconceived idea. That is, by an ideology that is determined to find its own way and exploits everyone it encounters in the process. Instead, a group of people gathered together who try to keep in mind the true sense of man as a creature of God becomes capable of inventing the truly new. Beyond any scheme, it doesn't remain prisoner of the ordinary programs and always finds a space in which a new flower or new leaf may come to life. In those places where people get together in this way they become truly creative, they become real protagonists in the world. This is why we want to become protagonists in the working world, not as the representatives of categories or roles or interest groups, but representatives of man.

Monsignor Luigi Giussani (died 2005) was a priest from Milan, Italy, who was the founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation.

Those who love and those who labor

Lo, the bread of heaven is broken
In the sacrament of life.

Matthew 13:17

Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Matthew 10:27

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.