May We Not Forget

My preference for realistic religious art, I realized some years ago, goes beyond just personal taste.  In 1993, I wrote the following meditation in my journal… 

It is easy to accept shining, sterile depictions of Jesus’s passion.  It’s easy to prefer silvered crosses with a victorious Christ upon them, for these do not ask much of us.  ‘Take up your cross and follow Me’ can be distant words then, words from which we are insulated by a safe coating of bronze.

His body did not shine that day, so long ago.  He hung from a very real wood cross, He hung bruised and sweating and blood-stained.  His knees were scraped, His face contorted with pain.  Smells were of blood and dust and just-hammered metal.  There was no upbeat music that day; there were no songbooks, no guitars.  There were just the moans of people dying and friends watching them die.  There were crowd-sounds, possibly a joke or two, the occasional slap of a whip striking the ground.  Soldiers held back mourners and yelled out commands and probably thought about what they would do after work.

Overhead, a few clouds gathered.  Rain came then, soaking onlookers and washing rivulets of blood into the ground.  Three men hung dying that day, on crosses not made of silver.  They were pierced through with nails not coated with gold.  Three men writhed in pain that day, they sweated and bled; two of them were heard praying, and all of them died.  

And how grateful we can be that the scene has been removed from us, safely tucked away in time, safely burnished, safely incensed.  How safe it is to hear the words ‘take up your cross and follow Me’ when looking at a cross made of silver, when meditating on a resurrected, stylized and sterile Jesus.  Yes, He was resurrected and yes He is crowned.  Yes, He lives today; He is not dead any longer.  Yes, it is appropriate to celebrate His rising, for risen is how He lives now among us. 

But no, it is not appropriate to totally forget the price He paid for our redemption.  No, it is not appropriate to ignore the love poured out on us at Calvary, nor to ignore at what cost we answer the call to ‘come, follow Me…' 

It is easy to count the cost when that cost is only Mass on Sunday and no meat on Good Friday.  It’s easy to embrace crosses of silver.  It is easy to forget to repent, to forget the love of so great a Lover, to forget to reform my life and allow my own selfish will to be crucified today... 

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

Her Guarded Sorrow

"Various lovers were present at the death of the Savior.  Among them, those having the greatest love had the greatest sorrow..... But His sweet Mother, who loved him more than all others, was more than all others pierced through and through by the sword of sorrow.  Her Son's sorrow at that time was a piercing sword that passed through the Mother's heart, for that Mother's heart was fastened, joined, and united to her Son in so perfect a union that nothing could wound the one without inflicting the keenest torture upon the other.  When her maternal bosom was thus wounded with love, Mary not only sought no cure for its wound but loved that wound more than any cure and deeply guarded the shafts of sorrow she had received because of the love that had sped them into her heart.  Continually she desired to die of them, because her Son died of them.

"For, as all the Holy Scriptures and all the learned say, He died amid the flames of charity, a perfect holocaust for all the sins of the world."  (St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God VII)

(This post is linked to Pay it Forward.  I regret that I haven't learned how to put buttons in a blog post, but you can click here for the link.. and the button is in my sidebar)

A Seamless Gift

Our friend Rose once wrote "I remember reading, I think from St. Teresa of Avila, that obedience to one's superior is more meritorious than all the self-imposed mortifications, fastings and prayers.  Then I realized my superior is really my vocation as a wife and mother.  Therefore, my duties and responsibilities of motherhood must come first.  And, done with the right intentions (as St. Francis de Sales says, 'for the greater glory of God'), all my actions are lifted up in prayer." 

Rose has been blessed with many children, and now children-in-law and grandchildren.  She lives "cloister of the heart" quietly, generously - and I would say "seamlessly" - as her cloistered life blends smoothly with her life of service to and enjoyment of her family.  Family and living as a cloistered heart do not in any way conflict for Rose; they are entirely complimentary.

My experience has been the same.  In weeks to come, I hope to look into some areas of complementarity - in my own life and in the lives of  others who want to live totally for Christ in the midst of a busy, scrambled, charming, distracting, demanding, at times exquisitely beautiful - and at times unnerving - world.

With this already in my heart, I find it a kind of confirmation that our recent "Listening for the Bells" post has been re-posted (with my permission) on the beautiful blog THE FEMININE GIFT.  The ladies there share from the perspective of young women living for Christ in the world, whether they be single or married.  This is very much in line with my own perspective (except that in my case you can, ahem, leave out the "young" part).  I encourage you to visit them at http://www.thefemininegift.org/ (click on a picture or title in their blog to open an entire post).

In the meantime, we will continue over the next few days with our Lenten meditations.  May Our Lord lead His Church into a holy Triduum. 

For prayer and meditation:

"We must try to converse with God in little ways while we do our work... we should purely and simply reveal our hearts as the words come to us."  (Brother Lawrence)

"Your adornment is... the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the unfading beauty of a calm and gentle disposition.  This is precious in God's eyes."  (1 Peter 3:4)


(Henriette Browne painting in US public domain)

Ourselves the Branches

"Let us run to accompany Him as He hastens toward His passion, and imitate those who met Him then, not by covering His path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before Him by being humble and by trying to live as He would wish.  Then we shall be able to receive the Word at His coming and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us....

"Let us spread before His feet, not garments of soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves clothed in His grace, or rather, clothed completely in Him.  We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him.  Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the Conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of His victory.

"Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children's holy song:  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.  Blessed is the king of Israel"  

(St. Andrew of Crete, from Liturgy of the Hours for Palm Sunday, Catholic Book Publishing Co. NY, 1976, pp.419-420)

(painting from unknown source)

For Love of the Sheep

picture attribution

"My solemn word is this:  I am the sheepgate.  All who came before Me were thieves and marauders whom the sheep did not heed."

"I am the gate.  Whoever enters through Me will be safe.  He will go in and out, and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.  I came that they might have life and have it to the full." 

"I am the good shepherd." 

 "The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."

                                                        (John 10:7-11)