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.'
   

One Sees Very Well From A Tower

The following, written to Poor Clare nuns about their life of enclosure, strikes me as applicable, also, to lives "enclosed in the will of God."

"There have been remarks for centuries past about people who dwell in ivory towers. We know what is meant when it is said in the way it is said. Exasperation. Condemnation. A certain contempt. That they are unaware of other persons.

I always thought that was a very strange figure of speech. For one thing, one sees very well from a tower, much better than when one is in the midst of a crowd. If you really want to see the needs of everyone, a tower would be a very good place to go for perspective.

And then I thought, 'ivory tower?' Well, what could give more joy to the poor who have so little than the sight of an ivory tower? How it would draw them! How it would make them surge toward it to investigate this beautiful thing.

So an ivory palace is a very beautiful place to dwell in - and that is your enclosure. Out of it must always come music, the music of Jesus. Then one is very pre-eminently doing God's work.

So always from your life of prayer, from the ivory palace of your enclosure, may God hear music, for from the heart of true payer comes stringed music to God and to the world. To all the grinding hatreds and frustrations of the world must come the stringed music of our enclosed life of prayer."

(Mother Mary Francis PCC, Walls Around the World, p. 22. Click here for information)

"From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad." (Psalm 45:9)

Pause a Minute and Say

Painting: Jules Breton

The Finest Perfume

Painting: Léon Frédéric, Fragrance

Cloistered Anytime. Even Now.

Among my re-discovered letters from friends, I found the following treasure. It was written by a woman who'd read the original The Cloistered Heart article when it was published in 1993, and now (twenty years later) was reflecting upon her own embrace of its ideals.

    "...I was drawn to the idea of a cloister in my heart. I longed for a place to retreat from the world, to be alone with Jesus. I not only longed for a place where I could escape the noise of life around me, but I also dreamed of providing a place in my heart where Jesus could find respite from this world.
    Visits to church or Eucharistic adoration were not an option for me at that time. The image of a cloister in my heart, a place for me and Jesus, was exactly what I needed. I could enter the cloister of my heart at any time or in any place.  It might sound foolish, even selfish, but at that time I lived such a busy, demanding and crowded life that I needed the hideaway. As time went on, it made perfect sense to me to adopt the image of the 'grille' to enclose my cloister and to protect it from the world.
    Is God 'saying' something to me about this now? I do believe He is. I think God is calling me back to my cloister. God has not abandoned me and I have not abandoned God. I am praying, but it feels so disorganized. I like organization in my home and in my life. I want my spiritual life to be organized too.
    So what am I doing to revitalize my cloistered heart? I am reading a prayer guide for active people, a back-to-basics kind of book. I am re-entering the cloister of my heart through the Eucharist and through prayer.
    I say my life is busy. It is, yet I am home alone quite a bit these days. So what is my excuse? I do this and I do that, but I am also guilty of squandering my time. A whole morning will get away from me before I realize I have done virtually nothing.
    I pray very well before I get out of bed in the morning. It is good prayer. It is spontaneous prayer. The same thing at night. I find it easy to 'talk' to Our Lord when all the world around me is dark and silent. I feel Jesus drawing me into His Sacred Heart. These are my best prayer times...
    When things happen around here, I want to get back to prayer as my FIRST recourse instead of prayer being an afterthought."