In Search of Holiness?

Great holiness consists in carrying out the little duties of each moment

St Josemaria Escriva

My Faithful Superiors

A friend shared the following from Servant of God Madeleine Delbrel. It's 'very cloistered heart,' said she. 

I could not agree more.

'We, the ordinary people of the streets, know very well that as long as our own will is alive, we will not be able to love Christ definitively. We know that only obedience can root us into His death. We would envy our religious brothers and sisters if we too could not die to ourselves a little more each day. 

'However, for us the tiny circumstances of life are faithful 'superiors.' They do not leave us alone for a moment, and the yeses we have to say to them follow continuously, one after the other. When we surrender to them without resistance we find ourselves wonderfully liberated from ourselves. We float in Providence like a cork on the ocean waters. 

'From the moment we wake up these circumstances take hold of us. It is the telephone that rings; it is the key that won't work, the bus that doesn't arrive or arrives full, or doesn't wait for us. It is the person sitting next to us who takes up the whole seat, or the vibration of the loose window pane that drives us crazy. It's the daily routine, one chore that leads to another, some job we wouldn't have chosen... It's the people we meet and the conversations they choose to start...

'Life becomes a film in slow motion. It does not make our head spin. It does not take our breath away. Little by little, thread by thread, it eats away at the old man's frame, which cannot be mended and must be made new from the ground up.' 

Servant of God Madeleine Delbrel

Painting: Henri Lebasque

And Not to Count the Cost

Beyond Whims and Fancies

'We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. 

I will be a saint means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; 

I will strip my heart of all created things; 

I will live in poverty and detachment; 

I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, 

and make myself a willing slave to the will of God.'

St. Teresa of Calcutta

Painting: Ferdinand du Puigaudeau, The Wayside Cross at Rochefort-en-Terre

Kindly Listen

In This Moment, I Can Choose

The 'awakening' I wrote of yesterday has been life changing. Not only has it led to moment-by-moment prayer, it is also nudging me toward greater virtue. I find that yielding to God's will is much more manageable on a moment by moment basis. 

I suppose I'm taking baby steps toward holiness. It's such a lofty goal, and the path to it seems an impossible climb for a little soul like me. 

It is not an impossible climb for God, however; not if I ask for His grace, and if I let Him lead me step by step.

In each moment I can choose to trust.

In each moment I can choose another's needs over my own. I can swallow words of irritation and speak words of caring. I can manage to sacrifice my own wants during this tiny chunk of time. 

In each moment I can thank God for something. My back may be in pain, but thank You, Lord, that I can move. If I'm suffering from flu: thank You, God, for a comfortable bed. When I am in absolute misery, thank God I can offer my sufferings for the salvation of souls. 

And thank God there's a change in my outlook as I look for and try to focus on the good.

I can praise God, I can smile, I can offer a prayer of intercession. I can hang on for just this one moment. I can take one simple step, asking God to show me how to serve and glorify Him in whatever has come my way. I can offer prayer of love, adoration, repentance - right here, right now.

In this moment, I can choose.


'The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His goodness.' (St. Gianna Beretta Molla) 

theCloisteredHeart.org


Painting: Édouard Manet

Now is the Time

I have written earlier of an 'awakening' I had several years ago. Feeling sad that I'd given too little time to God over the course of my life, too little time to prayer, too much time to trivialities, I experienced a different reaction than I'd had to such thoughts in the past.

Rather than my usual 'woe is me,' I felt a gentle whisper of hope.  If I could put it into a sentence, it was as if I sensed the words: 'but you have right now.'

I have right now.  I cannot turn back the clock and re-live minutes of years ago, last week, or even yesterday morning. However, I have this moment, this place, right now.

I can pray at this very instant, even in the middle of writing this sentence. And I do so.

I can choose anew to live for Christ, in this moment. And I do so.

I have forgotten to pray more often than I'd like to admit during the course of my life. Sometimes I find prayer a struggle.  But in each moment, I am given a new opportunity.  A fresh chance to at least speak to God when I think of Him.  A moment in which I can connect with Him, offer a word of thanks or praise - a moment in which I can start anew.

'I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation.' (2 Corinthians 6:2)

'Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity, there to remain forever what we have made it.'  (St. Francis de Sales)

I have Right Now. 






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: William McGregor Paxton, Morning Light

Tiny Teasing Crosses

'Teach me silence, dearest Jesus,
when in sorrow and in pain,
For to hide in Thee my suffering
makes me love Thy cross again.

Teach me patience, dearest Jesus, 
when all day my heart is tried
by those tiny teasing crosses,
welcome friends - that crush my pride.'

(from 'Listening to the Indwelling Presence' by a Religious, Pelligrini, 1940, p. 122)






Painting: Frank W Benson, The Open Window, 1917

Faithful in the Moments

Where Love Must Start

Painting: Winslow Homer, Pumpkin Patch, 1878

I Am Your Opportunity

"Everyone who speaks to me 
a harsh or unfriendly word, 
who slights me, or sets me aside, 
who criticizes or injures me,
Such a one delivers a message, 
a reminder, an invitation, 
a challenge to my aspiring soul.
For such a one
seems to be saying:
'You seek to be holy? 
I am your opportunity.'"

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pelligrini, 1941, pp. 183-184)


Painting: Ivan Kramskoy, 1883

God's Invitation

'God's invitation to become saints is for all, not just a few. Sanctity therefore must be accessible to all. In what does it consist? In a lot of activity? No. In doing extraordinary things? No, this could not be for everybody and at all times. Therefore sanctity consists in doing good, and in doing this good in whatever condition and place God has placed us. Nothing more, nothing outside of this.' 

Blessed Louis Tezza

Painting at top: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Maestà
Painting at bottom: Gari Melchers, Young Mother

And This is Our Enclosure

Click here for more about the 'enclosure' of a Cloistered Heart


Painting: Winslow Homer, Gathering Autumn Leaves

No Mirrors

Painting: William Merritt Chase, The Mirror, digitally altered

What Miracles of Grace?

'How do we know what miracles of grace 
we may be the instruments of 
when, full of the love of Christ, 

we strive to foster His life in the 

souls of those committed to our care?'

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pelligrini, 1941, p. 305)

Painting: Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, The Grandmother's Birthday

Am I Living in Denial?

Among my recently uncovered treasures from a friend, I found the following. It was written in 2000 and later edited a bit: 

I believe God is calling us to wake up and stop wasting any of the moments of His precious gift of life. We live in an anesthetized society, a society in deep denial of the fact that each of us was made to live according to the will of God.

All around us are people in a stupor, and we are affected by it - for how could we not be? Yet we are called to be like the saints gone before us: the ones who escaped from their societal denial and used their allotment of time for God.

As we enter a new millenium, we must walk in the footsteps of the saints. There is no more time to waste, no more time to walk with one foot in the world and one in the will of God. We must decide. 

A pretty serious call? You bet. If we're serious about following Christ, we are invited to follow in the footsteps of those who, in their own times, were not popular. Oh, the saints are admired now, when we read about them in books. They're well loved on days when we wear green and celebrate a bit of Irish blood in our veins. But the fact is, and we all know it, that the saints were never very popular in their own times. Why? Because they were those who worked to call their societies out of denial. 

As those who live in the world rather than in actual physical cloisters, we live in an atmosphere of denial. The great lie is that this earth and our time upon it is the only important thing, and that what we get out of life is all that really counts. 

How much of this have I bought into? 

What is the motivation behind the things I do with my minutes and hours?

Am I about loving God, serving others, working to increase the population of heaven?

Am I primarily pursuing my own comforts, interests, gains or status - perhaps telling myself that I'm not doing so even as I do so?

What is the focus of my life? 

If I knew that Our Lord was coming for me for me tomorrow, would this knowledge alter my activities today?

Perhaps it's time for me to talk with Christ about some of these things.

True Pilgrimage

'To live by the day and to watch each step is the true pilgrimage method, 

for there is nothing little if God requires it.'

Fulton J Sheen

Making the Connection

Hold Onto the Map

'There is always hope for the man who knows that he is doing wrong, 

but there is no hope for the man who is doing wrong and calls the wrong right. 

The Catholic gets off the road like anyone else, but he never throws away the map.'

Fulton J. Sheen, from the Wartime Prayer Book

Our map can be found here or here. And here or here.

Revisiting The Hidden Staircase

You and I have the same basic, fundamental, always-and-forever root vocation. We are called to be saints.

To be with God in Heaven is sainthood, and we are called to nothing less. The world will not put the designation 'Saint' before our names, but that's of no importance. God will know. God knows now. He sees every little step we take, every hidden hint of progress toward holiness. 'By holiness we mean the absence of whatever sullies, dims and degrades a rational nature; all that is most opposite to sin and guilt.' (Blessed John Henry Newman).

Did I accept God's grace today to conquer some temptation, perhaps in a tiny, hidden moment?  Did I stop myself from lashing out at someone in anger? Have I accepted what came my way without grumbling? Did I go graciously to a crying baby, or a spouse who wanted attention, or a neighbor in need?

If I haven't made any recent steps upward, I can be sure there are plenty of opportunities ahead. I don't have to look up the staircase and around the bends of it; there will be grace for those steps when I'm there. 

In the meantime, I have this next little step in front of me. And now this next.....

'Little by little we must acquire that dominion over ourselves which cost the saints many decades of years.' (St. Francis de Sales)

What hope this quote from St. Francis gives me!  

'Little by little.' 

Step by step.

'...which cost the saints many decades of years.'
 

Through the profound grace of God, there is much hope. 

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

© Nancy Shuman.
thecloisteredheart.org       

Painting: William McGregor Paxton