beyond the sweet thoughts

As a cloistered heart, I spend a lot of time at the grille.  There is a good reason for this.  As one desiring to see and respond to every person and every situation through the "grillwork of the will of God," I am called to face life through the grille at every moment.  The grille is a place of separation and of connection.  If I were not called to encounter the world, there would be no reason for grillwork; I may as well (in that case) be enclosed only in walls. 

Ah, but responding to life as God asks me to in Scripture and Church teaching - that is far from easy.  In 1991, I wrote to a cloistered nun about my struggle.  "God's will is my 'cloister grille,'" I said then.  "Such a sweet, charming thought!  You and I both know that if my will and God's will are always the same, then that statement remains nothing BUT a sweet, charming thought.  God's will in its varied manifestations is not always so attractive to me, and my feelings just love to rebel and send me beating my unsurrendered fists against the grillwork with pleas to let me out..."

© 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org

in the attic

It is chilly here today; the sky's an ominous sheet of gray.  It strikes me as just the sort of afternoon for a climb up creaky stairs to rummage around in the monastery attic.

A friend compares the Church's storehouse of spiritual treasures to an attic filled with family heirlooms, ones discovered anew as each generation comes and goes.  Our Church is blessed with devotions, traditions, revelations, stories, truths, and precious gems of faith.  Some of these are emphasized at particular times, while others slide into the background only to resurface a few decades later.  Thus we may find it helpful to “climb up into the attic” from time to time to see if perhaps there might be some treasures we're overlooking.

There are a few people who try to caution us about the attic.  There's nothing but old stuff up there, we're sometimes warned.  Just bundles of old junk not relevant to the world today.  "We don't really have books about saints," I was once told by someone running a Church library.  "Mostly we have modern self-help books and some fiction." I came away feeling like someone whose spiritual ancestors had been forgotten; maybe even erased from the family tree. 

One of my favorite books was sent to me by a friend in another country.  She'd rescued it when people running a retreat were throwing it into the trash.  It's just an old volume, very "out of date," she was told.  Funny.  I quote this (out of print) book here from time to time, and am often told how much help it has been.

What do we find when we look around in the attic?  Anything we might have forgotten about, but that could really help us in our lives of prayer today?  Letters from ancestors in the Faith?  Devotions carefully folded away for us to discover?  Eucharistic adoration.... ancient prayers... teachings of the fathers... diaries... approved apparitions and revelations... rosaries.... inspired artwork... pearls of great price? 

“The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly...” (Documents of Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy).

“Ordinaries must be very careful to see that sacred furnishings and works of value are not disposed of or dispersed; for they are the ornaments of the house of God.” (Documents of Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, #126).

“Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2502) 

(painting on this post is in United States public domain)   

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

Carved in His Heart

The photo on today's post is of my favorite tree.  When I found the heart-shaped hole in it not too long ago, I was touched to see where it happened to be located.  The "heart" is directly above a spot where I often sat, some years ago, scribbling my first journal notations about what it might mean to live in this world as a cloistered heart. 

Coming across this photo in my files today, I immediately thought of hearts carved in trees.  Hearts made by young men and women intending to signify that their love is permanent.  Names carved inside a heart... linked together by a + . Initials not just scribbled on a piece of paper, but put onto a more permanent object; something expected to last.  "I will love you forever," the hearts imply. "I shall carve your name inside this heart, for I do not intend to let you go."

"What will we do," asks St. Francis de Sales, "when, in eternal glory, we see the most adorable heart of Jesus through the holy wound in His side.. a heart in which, written in characters of fire, all of us will be inscribed?  Ah!  We will then say to the Savior, 'is it possible that You have loved me so much that You have even written my name in Your heart?'"

"See, I have carved your name on the palms of My hands," says the Lord to us. (Isaiah 49:16). 

 He never intends to let us go. +

(photo copyright © 2011 N Shuman)

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org      

warmed by the Son

"Do not be surprised at having distractions or at being cold and weary at prayer, as these are the effects of the sensitive and emotional part of our being and of the heart, over which we have little control.  For these we should not give up going to Holy Communion, because no one can better recollect our spirit than its King; nothing can better warm it than the Sun, nothing can better sweeten it than such balm."  (St. Francis de Sales, letter)

our eyes on Home

Finding the "view through the grille" is a bit like putting on a pair of glasses.  Viewing situations through the lens of Scripture and Church teaching, we begin to see life as it IS.  Not merely as we'd like it to be, not as the world around us and the media present it, but as it truly IS. 

The view through the grille is a long one, perhaps more akin to one seen by a telescope than through a pair of spectacles.  The telescope, after all, brings into view sights that are light years away; things actually in the past.  Scripture brings into view not only what is before our eyes today, but also realities awaiting us in eternity: truths revealed by God to help us keep our eyes on the vision of Home. 

"Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

"Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.  To live in heaven is 'to be with Christ.' " (Cathechism of the Catholic Church # 1024-1025)

"We will see face to face and very clearly the Divine Majesty, the essence of God, and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity."  (St. Francis de Sales) 

"The pleasant companionship of all the blessed in heaven will be a companionship replete with delight.... the joy and gladness of one will be as great as the joy of all."  (St Thomas Aquinas)

"When you awake in that world, you will find that nothing could tempt you to return to this! (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton)

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org