Mercy Is Searching

But in a world of huge atomic stockpiles, a Christian mercy that confines itself to interior feelings of benevolence and “good intentions” in the use of appalling destructive power can manifestly not meet the demands of eschatological love. The only event that can be ushered in by this kind of sentimentality is too grim to be contemplated, and it belongs more to Antichrist than to the Kingdom of the risen Kyrios.

Christian mercy must discover, in faith, in the Spirit, a power strong enough to initiate the transformation of the world into a realm of understanding, unity, and relative peace, where men, nations, and societies are willing to make the enormous sacrifices required if they are to communicate intelligibly with one another, understand one another, cooperate with one another in feeding the hungry millions and in building a world of peace.

Thomas Merton, Love and Living, pg. 197

Too Much, But I'll Take It

Much can happen in the space of a couple of hours.  I was walking to the five-o’clock Mass today, cutting through a fieldy-park listening to/singing along with the Liturgy Podcast, when suddenly my guardian angel made me aware that he was right there beside me, walking to church with me.

At Mass, during the Eucharistic Prayer, the words, “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ”, gave me a sudden jolt – it was as if I had never heard them before in my life, or understood how intricate a role the Holy Spirit has in the transubstantiation – and I started to cry.

I am sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop, preparing tomorrow’s post for Consecrated to Mary, and crying all through Bishop Bello’s Chapter 26 of Mary, Human and Holy, where she is “Woman of the Upper Room”.  As I gaze out the window my heart is breaking for the birch tree we had to cut down, but the Spirit is trying to soothe my soul by showing me the expanse of sky that has now opened up to my view.  Water Blessing, by Annette Cantor, which I found at Gratefulness.org, is playing and my spirit soars upwards with it, despite the volume of the neighbour’s lawnmower. 

Sometimes it is all too much.  Too gloriously much.

Pentecost Sunday

On the importance of docility:

Two excerpts from Christian Perfection and Contemplation by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.:

The contemplative life, which by its intimacy with the interior Master and its perfect docility to His inspirations merits the name of mystical life, or life hidden with Christ in God, is therefore truly the normal prelude to that of heaven.  [pg. 366]

The gifts of the Holy Ghost, as habitual dispositions connected with charity, grow with it.  The Holy Ghost ordinarily moves us according to the degree of our habitual docility, and with greater frequency as we become more docile.  Consequently, as a rule, there is no sanctity unless the soul is often moved by the Holy Ghost according to the superior degrees of the gifts.  This constitutes the mystical life in the broad sense and also in the strict sense, the passive state in which the human mode of our activity no longer dominates, but rather the activity of the Holy Ghost, and our completely docile passivity.  [pg. 355]

Many thanks to my friend JT for sending me the link to this one:

One Thing Leads To Another…

When we look up joy in the Catholic Catechism it says “see also: Happiness”, and the two combined give us seven entries. As I was reading through them, I reflected once more on how intertwined and inter-related everything is.

One of the entries listed for joy (Paragraph 1829) says:

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy;

In actuality, the first three of the twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit are charity, joy and peace, so, if joy and peace are not only Fruits of the Holy Spirit but fruit of the first fruit of charity (which is a Fruit of the Holy Spirit) [ have I lost you yet?] we can see how one things builds on another, or leads to another, or blossoms out of another.

One of the entries for happiness (Paragraph 1818) says:

The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man;

Now, the entry I quoted for joy is actually found under the larger heading of the Theological Virtue of Charity, and the entry I quoted for happiness is actually found under the larger heading of the Theological Virtue of Hope. So while I am not referring in this post specifically to the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, we can see that everything is a gift – the theological virtues, the gifts and the fruits – and how we respond to these gifts or nurture the seeds of these gifts will be the telling factor in whether or not our garden grows – whether or not cross-pollination will take place and one blossom will produce another, then another, then another…

To me, pollination is a metaphor for practice, for acting upon the gifts received.  The Holy Spirit distributes virtues, gifts and fruits as He will, but it is our practice that will lead to growth and to His pouring out of more and more as He witnesses our receptivity and actions.  The theological virtues must be practiced; the fruits of the Holy Spirit must be used. 

There are so many practices we can put into place to pollinate our garden, but one that I would like to mention here is the practice of gratitude.  Expressing our gratitude to God every day is a powerful means of bringing joy and other fruits into our lives, despite whatever obstacles and challenges we may be facing physically, financially, emotionally, etc.  If we wake up and give thanks to God every morning and throughout the day, mentally review five things we are grateful for every night before we fall asleep, or list five to ten things every day in a Gratitude Journal, we will see a remarkable flowering take place.

Not too long ago my friend JT sent me a link to this video in which Brother David Steindl-Rast gives a beautiful reflection on gratitude as a spiritual practice and its relationship to joy.  Thank you, JT!  I had not seen this particular video before, but I had been introduced to Brother David a few years ago at the site Gratefulness.org. It’s a wonderful site, and if you take a peek in its left sidebar, you’ll also see a link to something I think many of you may love – the Hours with “angelic company” and beautiful Gregorian chants.

This Is The Year…

… that I feel we will be bursting with creativity.  It’s behind the scenes with so many of my blogger-friends.  It’s been building up for years (sometimes decades) in the heart area to such a degree that if it isn’t released the heart will surely implode.  This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what is desirable.  The world doesn’t need imploding hearts, crippled spirits or any more people “living lives of quiet desperation”.  The world needs joy, beauty, healing and love…

Our friend Carol has a beautiful post calling out to all of us to co-create, appealing to us to flood the world with the beauty of the talents the Lord has bestowed.  She links to and quotes from Venerable Pope John Paul II’s “Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists” (April 4, 1999), whose words are upheld and reinforced by Pope Benedict XVI on the tenth anniversary of this letter. (This clip from the Vatican’s YouTube Channel is only 1 minute and 42 seconds long):

“Art in all of its expressions has the ability to broaden the horizons of human consciousness and it becomes an avenue to the transcendent, to God.”  So let us journey on, to “grasp the profound meaning of our existence”, and help others to do so as well.

[Note:  Since Carol had closed the comments for this particular post on her site, I would just like to thank her here for the links she put in for my two blogs, for anyone who may be starting, in the midst of, or considering his/her Consecration to Mary.]

Pentecost

The following excerpt from Adrienne von Speyr’s, “Handmaid of the Lord” [pgs. 137-138] really gave me a new perspective on what exactly the coming of the Holy Spirit did for the Apostles; she has given me a fuller understanding of the freedom and authority they received, and why. She speaks of them as they wait and pray in the upper room:

They are not the whole of Christianity; there are many who are not among them. But they were set apart by the Lord during his lifetime and selected for service. They now know that they are to continue this service and, praying, they await God’s further instructions. For the moment they are still as if constrained. Each of them holds to what the Lord had shown and given him while still among them. Each one’s whole Christian existence is determined by the earthly words and deeds of the Lord, by an all-too-human — albeit grace-given — bond between him and the Lord.

And now, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon them: the Spirit which had spoken to them before through the mouth of the Lord is now bestowed on them as the Spirit of the Lord, which speaks to them of him and reveals him. Thus every merely earthly bond, every merely literal understanding of his words, is transformed into a spiritual freedom and a spiritual understanding from within. Henceforth none of them is limited to recalling what he personally had experienced with the Lord in order to possess a standard, a canon of the truth that he is to proclaim at the Lord’s command. Through the Holy Spirit each one receives a total image of the Lord, an understanding of the fullness of God. That makes them free and gives them the rights of maturity in dealing with the truth of the gospel. They are no longer held to a meticulously exact repetition of words handed down. They can themselves give shape to the message without fear of deviating from their mission. They may interpret the words without distancing themselves from their kernel. By the power of the Spirit who guides them they can also act with authority and independence in the priestly functions that the Lord, through his suffering, had acquired for them and given them. But this expansion of all personal powers, this coming of age of the individual Christian, goes hand in hand with a much profounder bond to the community of the Catholic Church; and the Church is embodied by the Mother of the Lord in its midst.

May you all have a beautiful and blessed Pentecost this year.

Novena for the Coming of the Holy Spirit: Ninth Day

On the faithful who in You,
Trust with childlike piety,
Deign Your sevenfold gift to send.
Give them virtue’s rich increase,
Saving grace to die in peace,
Give them joys that never end. Amen. Alleluia.

Send down upon me, I beseech You, O Lord, the Holy Spirit, that, inspired and encouraged by Him, I may comply with the duties of my state, carry my crosses patiently, and grow daily in Christian perfection. Grant me, through the same Divine Spirit, the intentions of this Novena or what is most conducive to my eternal salvation and Your glory. Amen.

[From: Favorite Novenas to the Holy Spirit, by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.]

Novena Music:

Spiritus Domini [14] – Gregorian Chant

Novena for the Coming of the Holy Spirit: Eighth Day

Bend the stubborn heart and will,
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray.

Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, come into my heart. Give to all peoples the brightness of Your light, that they may be well pleasing to You in unity of faith. Amen.

[From: Favorite Novenas to the Holy Spirit, by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.]

Novena Music:

Holy Spirit