Dazzled

Painting: Gaspar De Crayer, St Augustine in Ecstasy

God Beneath the Surface

'Many a time, face to face with nature, I come upon the manifestations of His power, His wisdom, His beauty. 

Sunset, and flowers, and the sea, and moonlight, and morning star are so many reminders of God beneath the surface, the Great Reality sustaining all, holding the universe in the hollow of His hand.

Often alone, undistracted by men, untroubled by things, I look into my soul and find Him there, the Hidden God, ever good and patient towards me, ever gentle and loving and divinely merciful and infinitely generous...'

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pelligrini, 1941, pp.149-150)



Painting: Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, Italian Girl with Flowers

God in Our Midst

Painting: Simone Martini, Miraculous Mass (detail)

The Divine Guest of my Soul

"He is with us always, within the depths of our souls always, listening to us and asking us to speak to Him, at least at intervals. 

"Is this quite true? Yes, the Eternal God, my Loving God, is within me, He is the Divine Guest of my soul. I must live my life with Him as much as my weakness, my misery, my meanness, my lukewarmness, my cowardice will allow. 

"This will not deter me in my other occupations nor separate me from others; it will take only a moment of time; only instead of being alone, I will have a Companion in my work and in my duties. 

"Now and again I will lower my eyes to my heart and remain in recollection for a few seconds, thinking 'You are here, my God, and I love You.' Thus I will develop the habit, and I will end by always feeling the sweet Companionship of the God of my heart."

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pelligrini, 1941, pp. 208-209)

Painting at top: Henriette Browne

Painting at bottom: Gifford Beal; Elevated,Columbus Avenue, NY, 1916

Life's Purpose

Our Hearts His Temple

Painting: Eastman Johnson

And May He Set it Aflame

How Long Has God Known Me?

Revisiting The Wondrous Interruption

Sometimes the activities of Advent and Christmas can feel like an intrusion. Day to day life is more or less put on hold by an urgent need to shop and wrap and plan. Chairs and tables are displaced by, of all things, a tree in the middle of our house.  There is no time to do ordinary things, as everyday life is seriously disrupted for weeks on end. It can seem like a major interruption. 

A few years ago, the truth of it hit me. This is what Christmas has been since the instant of the Incarnation: an interruption. Please stay with me here, because our first reaction to the word “interruption” could be negative.  But interruptions are often quite positive, and this Interruption was the most positive of them all.

Think of it.  Mary was living a quiet, hidden life.  She was betrothed. Then one day an angel appeared to her, and with that Holy Interruption Mary’s life was changed forever. As was Joseph’s, as was yours, as was mine.

As we know, there was a Birth.  There were shepherds tending their flocks, and again an angel appeared.  A night of sheep-watching was interrupted.  

While most of the world went on unaware, a few men in the east noticed something out of the ordinary.  A sign in the sky.  Something signaling, to them, a wondrous Interruption – one so marvelous that they must drop any other plans they had and go in haste, and they must bring gifts.  These men were wise enough to know that somehow the world had changed, maybe even that the course of life on earth had been altered.

The change was so shattering that mankind took notice.  Calendars would later mark the divide. 
 

God Himself had split the heavens.  

We now measure time by the before and after of that Grand Interruption, in effect saying that yes, we see. We may not understand, really, but we recognize the wonder and the mystery of it. God interrupted the cycle of sin and death by breaking into our world (John 3:16).  Jesus broke into the flesh of man, shattering hopelessness with His power and mercy.

With Jesus' arrival in the flesh, God interrupted our misery.  He opened to us the path to salvation.   

When I feel stressed by Christmas interruptions, I try to remember what I'm celebrating. Death was interrupted by Life. Despair was interrupted by Hope. 

With His glorious interruption, God tore through the fabric of time.

This is a repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.
  
© N Shuman thecloisteredheart.org 

Who Can Give You Peace?

Painting: Pawel Petrowitsch Tschistjakow

Dwells Your God

Painting: Zygmunt Sokołowski, 1800s

Let Me Realize What This Means

'Let me recall that God within me is ever awaiting a whispered word, a loving glance, an act of service or of adoration. Let me realize what this means.
It means that:
I need not take a single step in order to put myself in His Presence.
I need not even speak aloud in order to be heard by Him.
The very movement of my will is plain to Him.
His one desire is for my worship never to cease.
From my heart, as from the Tabernacle Lamp, a steady little flame of love should always be ascending.
This love should burn by day and night in storm and calm, while I work or while I rest.
It is the uninterrupted adoration of my soul for the God Who dwells within.
It shows that I am looking at Him and loving Him as He wishes to be looked upon and loved by His children.
So be it!'

(from Listening to the Indwelling Presence, compiled by a Religious, Pellegrini, 1940, p. 39)

And To The Next Generation

'What we have heard and know, things our ancestors have recounted to us. 
We do not keep them from our children; we recount them to the next generation, 
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord and His strength...'
Psalm 78:3-4

Revisiting The Step

I have tried all day to write this post, and I'm kind of stuck.

Could that be (I wonder) because I, myself, am kind of stuck? We've often said that a person entering physically cloistered life is either in or out. She does not stick her head in and leave her arms and legs dangling outside the enclosure door, perhaps to be brought in at a later date. I find it a helpful image, for I can so easily bring part of my life into the will of God while leaving some of me outside. I might find myself clutching this little worry, that tiny vice, that long held attachment...

Could it be that I've set up camp right on the edge of the doorway? Am I parked on the threshold of living for God - not totally out, but not totally in?

I'm helped by remembering that, in deciding to live "in God's will," I am not simply stepping away from something. I'm not just saying farewell to complacency and sin and compromise so I can become "a better person." No.

I am moving toward something. Or I should say, toward SomeONE. It is for Him that I step through the door into surrender to His will. And all the steps after - all of those stairs and turns and inner doorways that frighten me now with whispers of "but what if this happens," and "what if you lose that" - I will not have to take those steps alone. I will not be by myself as I live within His will.

As I tell God that I want to say a deeper yes to Him, something happens. Christ is the Bridegroom of the soul - and what traditionally happens when the bride arrives at the threshold?

All I have to do is let Him carry me over it in His arms.

"My Jesus, please accept the offering and the sacrifice that I make to You this day, as I once more sincerely offer to You my entire will. Tell me what You want me to do. Your holy grace will help me to do it." (St. Alphonsus Liguori) 

Painting: Vilhelm Hammershoi; 
bottom copy digitally altered using a painting by James Tissot


Text not in quotes © 2015 Nancy Shuman. 
thecloisteredheart.org    

This is a repost from our archives. It is linked to Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for 'It's Worth Revisiting Wednesday.'

Even in Ordinary Tasks

Painting: Winslow Homer, For to be a Farmer's Boy

So Entirely Employed

'There is a self-forgetfulness which is so complete that it really seems as though the soul no longer existed, because it is such that she has neither knowledge nor remembrance that there is either heaven or life or honor for her, so entirely is she employed in seeking the honor of God. It appears that the words which His Majesty addressed to her have produced their effect - namely, that she must take care of His business and He will take care of hers. And thus, happen what may, she does not mind in the least, but lives in so strange a state of forgetfulness that, as I say, she seems no longer to exist, and has no desire to exist - no, absolutely none save when she realizes that she can do something to advance the glory and honor of God, for which she would gladly lay down her life.'

St. Teresa of Avila
                                                                                                                

Painting: Jose Alcazar Tejedor, Santa Teresa de Jesús, 1884

But Only When We Do

The Reward

The World For Which I Was Born

I was recently reminded of something a friend wrote to me some years ago. 'Sitting in a monastery of nuns,' this woman said in a letter, 'I knew I didn't belong in their life and yet I didn't belong out in the world either. The closer you get to His Heart, the farther you get from everything else, which is really as it should be... I felt that the problem with being in the world is that so often you are distracted from loving Him, which is all I want to do. When you are in the monastery, everything reminds you of Him no matter what chore you are presently doing. But His will is mine, so wherever He wants me is what I really want too. What I fear is taking Him for granted and becoming lukewarm.'

My friend's fear is one I know well. Taking Him for granted. Becoming lukewarm. How I wish I could say these things have never happened to me, but I cannot. Lukewarmness can seem normal, even cozy, and I sometimes find myself settling down in it and feeling right at home. Being distracted from things of God doesn't seem like such a problem then, when the world around feels eternal and entrancing and like it must be the forever-world-for-which-I-was-born.

But the truth is: the world around is not The-Forever-World-For-Which-I-Was-Born. 'God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven.' The Baltimore Catechism said it well.

'When you are in the monastery,' wrote my friend, 'everything reminds you of Him.' While monks or nuns enclosed inside walls are not yet in the Forever-World, they live twenty four hours a day inside a reflection of it. Their time is entirely spent on the pathway to Home. They wash dishes on that path. They do laundry on that path. They eat and sleep and garden and pray and laugh and sing on that path. They live in an entrance foyer to Heaven, and everything around reminds them of where they're headed and for Whom they were made.

As a laywoman in the world, I too am called to the pathway. But mine is not so clearly marked. I have no monastic schedules to keep me on the trail. I don't spend every moment of every day with a community of people all focusing in the same direction. If I listen to friends or co-workers or celebrities who don't know or accept why God made them, I can even lose sight of my own awareness of the truth.

Probably this is why some of us can feel more at home in a monastery than in the world.
Because really - we are.


(When I start to lose sight of my real pathway, I am helped by what several saints have had to say about this kind of thing.  A few of their exhortations can be found by clicking here.)


Painting: Jan van Helmont

Where God Does Not Fit