Weeding the Garden

"When
 you attack
 the roots
 of sin,
 fix your
 thought on
 the God
 Whom
 you desire
 rather than
 upon the sin
 which you hate."

     - Walter Hilton, The Ladder of Perfection)








(Jules Breton painting, Song of the Lark, in US public domain)

In the Summer Garden

It is summer, and the cloister garden is in full bloom.  This is a season of constant change, when droughts alternate with downpours, when weeds must continually be battled, when pests need to be put to flight lest they harm delicate blossoms.  

Pastel greens of springtime have deepened, now,  into darker shades.  It's a time of heat and heady fragrance, busy bees and fireflies and cicadas, crackles of thunder and balmy nights. 

I ask myself:  how are things in my own "inner garden?"  Do I see a blossoming of prayer?  Fruit grown in suffering?  Weeds of worldliness and distraction?  The sting of aridity and drought?

"Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil.  Fertilize the soil ever so richly; it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains."  (St. John Vianney)

"He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails."  (Isaiah 58:11)

"Our mortifications, humiliations, prayers - in a word, all the exercises we practice - what are they but acts of virtue, which are like so many beautiful flowers, that send up a perfume extremely sweet before the Divine Majesty?"  (St. Francis de Sales)

"I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Vinegrower.  He prunes away every barren branch, but the fruitful ones He He trims clean, to increase their yield.  You are clean already, thanks to the word I have spoken to you.  Live on in Me, as I do in you.  No more than a branch can bear fruit of itself apart from the vine, can you bear fruit apart from Me. "  (John 15:1-4)

"O garden-dweller!  My friends are listening for your voice, let Me hear it!"  (Song of Songs 8:1)

So... what is happening in the garden of your soul?






(flower photos on today's post are © N Shuman.)

Throw Wide the Gate

“Let your door stand open to receive Him, unlock your soul to Him, offer Him a welcome in your mind...

 

Throw wide the gate of your heart,

stand before the sun of the everlasting Light

that shines on every man...

He does not want to force His way in rudely, 

or compel us to admit him against our will….

Our door is faith; if it is strong enough, the whole house is safe.

This is the door by which Christ enters….

It is the soul that has its door, its gates. 

Christ comes to this door and knocks; 
He knocks at these gates. 
Open to him; 
He wants to enter, 
to find His bride waiting and watching…"

                        - St. Ambrose; excerpted from today's Office of Readings

By Degrees

"Accustom yourself
by degrees
to worship Him.
Beg His grace, 
offer Him your heart
from time to time
in the midst of your busyness,
even every moment if you can.
Do not always scrupulously
confine yourself to certain rules,
or particular forms of devotion,
but act with a general confidence
in GOD,
with love and humility."  
                         - Brother Lawrence

By Love

"Lord... let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You."  

                                                                                         - John Henry Cardinal Newman

"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love."  

                                                                                         - St. Therese of Lisieux

"Love has a hem to her garment, that reaches the very dust.  It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must."

                                                                                         - Blessed Mother Teresa

"At the end of our life, we shall be judged by love."  

                                                                                        - St. John of the Cross