If You're Not Feeling Merry

It's a bad time of year to be hurting.  Not that there is a good time for pain, of course, but the days around Christmas and New Year's can be particularly poignant for some.

Many of us have had such seasons. Times when we can't be with loved ones, or a close friend has died, or we've suffered a miscarriage, or we're sick, or we've lost our job, or there is illness in the family.  Even the time of year can make us feel blue.  Here in the northern hemisphere, night falls early in these months of bleak midwinter. We may be struggling to adjust to the long, long, long dark.

For anyone reading this who is sad, in pain, or maybe just wishing the holidays would be over and gone - know that you're not alone. In fact, you are so 'not alone' that I'm going to ask a favor of everyone reading this.

Could we each take just a minute and offer a little prayer for anyone coming across these words who might be hurting?  If this gets to a number of people, that could amount to quite a few prayers.

May God lift burdens, heal pains, comfort loneliness, and soothe hearts. 

'We beseech You, Lord and Master, be our help and succor, save those among us who are in tribulations, have mercy on the lowly, lift up the fallen, show Yourself to the needy, heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Your people, feed the hungry, release our prisoners, raise up the weak, comfort the fainthearted, let all nations know You are God.'  (St. Clement of Rome)

'Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for You.' (1 Peter 5:7)

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.
  
 thecloisteredheart.org 

Painting: Jules Breton, 1862

Pray Pray Pray

Revisiting My Tiny One

It's time again for Revisiting Wednesday, and I'm taking this opportunity to revisit something that has remained close to me since I first shared it here. That was almost four years ago. Since that time, there's another youngest grandchild (now nine months old) to fill my arms and my heart. 

But I also have "spiritually adopted little ones" to fill my prayer...

As my lectio drew to a close, something happened.

I felt a desire to hold a tiny, tiny newborn.  Being well beyond the age of giving birth myself, I attributed this longing to the fact that my youngest grandchild is now two.  And yes, I think that's part of it.

But it hit me:  this "call to hold" may well be a nudge from God.  I think it is a spiritual call, not a physical one.. and certainly it's in line with the call each of us has (to some degree or other) to pray for and help those in need.

So today I am saying yes, as an act of faith, and I'm "spiritually adopting."  There are so many little ones in imminent danger, ones so tiny that some dismiss them as not human.  There are tiny infants whose parents have been told "there might be something wrong with the fetus.  Our advice is to abort."  There are newborns lying on cold metal tables, their skin burned with saline, ignored because their mothers, after all, did not want to carry them to term.  Leave it alone, a nurse is told, forget it.  It's not a baby.

Not-A-Baby utters a pitiful cry, flails its little arms, reaches out with tiny fingers to grasp its gift of life.  It IS a baby - a tiny, helpless, wounded baby who needs someone to care, to love, to hold. 

Perhaps I am adopting all of them, perhaps there is someone(s) specific, but today I hold out my "arms." I pray for mothers, fathers, grandparents, doctors, government leaders, voters, nurses, abortionists.  I pray for the parents who have just been told the ultrasound indicates an abnormality.  I pray for the unmarried teenager, and her boyfriend, and her frantic parents.  I pray for a change in laws, I pray for a change in hearts.

I swaddle in prayer.  I cuddle with intercession.  I hold a tiny one in my heart, and I say yes.  I will work for you, O tiny one, I'll be your advocate however I can.

And when they come for you to take your life, I will be at your side in prayer...

"The mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo."  Pope John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)

Text not in quotes © 2016 N 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.'
   

Bullied by Pain

I had forgotten the pain of a migraine.  Not having endured this particular trial for a number of years, I was surprised to be blindsided by one on Sunday.  Oh my, thought I, no wonder these miserable things send people crawling to their beds!  When the headache came back the next day, and with more force, I felt helpless and "bullied" by pain.  The prayer and writing and projects I'd planned for myself were all abandoned, and all I could do was sit very, very still and hand myself over to God. 

I didn't like this situation; I would not have chosen it.  But it presented an opportunity.  I could decide to offer the pain itself as prayer.  I thought about the crown of thorns pressing into the head of Jesus.  I thought of babies being torn from wombs, and of what happens to their tiny skulls during such procedures.  I thought of the unspeakable agony now being suffered by people in the Philippines.  I could offer the hammering in my head as prayer of intercession.

"When I began to make the Holy Hour," wrote St. Faustina, "my physical sufferings intensified, so that I was not able to pray... Jesus said to me 'My daughter, know that if I allow you to feel and have a more profound knowledge of My sufferings, that is a grace from Me.  But when your mind is dimmed and your sufferings are great, it is then that you take an active part in my Passion, and I am conforming you more fully to Myself.  It is your task to submit yourself to My will at such times, more than at others.."  (Diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Marians of the Immaculate Conception, Stockbridge, 1996, p. 600)

I write this with a hint of pain again brewing.  I sincerely hope it remains no more than a "hint."  But if things unfold in a different direction, I pray to submit myself fully to the will of God.  I pray to be up to the task. 

Painting:  Richard E. Miller, Reverie, 1915

Spiritual Power

"Work for souls is accomplished, for the most part, in silence.  Its efficiency does not depend upon occupation, position or popularity.  From a humble cell, hidden away in some cloistered nunnery, there radiates spiritual power which influences thousands of souls scattered over the entire world."

from Sheltering the Divine Outcast, compiled by A Religious, Peter Reilly Co., Philadelphia, 1952, p. 56

Painting: Plamondon, Soeur Saint-Alphonse

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O, Tiny One

As my lectio drew to a close this morning, something happened.

I felt a desire to hold a tiny, tiny newborn.  Being well beyond the age of giving birth myself, I attributed this longing to the fact that my youngest grandchild is now two.  And yes, I think that's part of it.

But it hit me:  this "call to hold" may well be a nudge from God.  I think it is a spiritual call, not a physical one.. and certainly it's in line with the call each of us has (to some degree or other) to pray for and help those in need.

So today I am saying yes, as an act of faith, and I'm "spiritually adopting."  There are so many little ones in imminent danger, ones so tiny that some dismiss them as not human.  There are tiny infants whose parents have been told "there might be something wrong with the fetus.  Our advice is to abort."  There are newborns lying on cold metal tables, their skin burned with saline, ignored because their mothers, after all, did not want to carry them to term.  Leave it alone, a nurse is told, forget it.  It's not a baby.

Not-A-Baby utters a pitiful cry, flails its little arms, reaches out with tiny fingers to grasp its gift of life.  It IS a baby - a tiny, helpless, wounded baby who needs someone to care, to love, to hold. 

Perhaps I am adopting all of them, perhaps there is someone(s) specific, but today I hold out my "arms." I pray for mothers, fathers, grandparents, doctors, government leaders, voters, nurses, abortionists.  I pray for the parents who have just been told their unborn child has an abnormality (see footnote below).  I pray for the unmarried teenager, and her boyfriend, and her frantic parents.  I pray for a change in laws, I pray for a change in hearts.

I swaddle in prayer.  I cuddle with intercession.  I hold a tiny one in my heart, and I say yes.  I will work for you, O tiny one, I'll be your advocate however I can.  And when they come for you to take your life, I will be at your side in prayer...

"The mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo."  Pope John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)

This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Monthly Round Up

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Footnote:  " it is no secret that there is a bias among medical professionals to recommend abortion when test results even hint (often mistakenly) of Down Syndrome" (Father Frank Pavone, emphasis mine)