In Thanksgiving

Thank You, Lord our God, that we have been blessed with eight years under the guidance of Pope Benedict XVI.

As You lead him now into a truly cloistered life, we ask that you hold him, protect him, and draw him ever more deeply into Your most Sacred Heart.

Jesus, we trust in You.

Amen.

God Has Marked the Path

'Be at peace....and walk faithfully along the path which God has marked out for you.'

St. Francis de Sales

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The Door in the Wall

God continues to surprise me.  As I've taken a deeper look at our "journey into the inner monastery," I have felt as if I'm walking around and around and around a circular building.  A building enclosed inside high walls.

I think immediately of St. Teresa's Interior Castle.  The outer "room" (first mansion) is where people try to stop offending God.  They may perform a few good works. They are free from serious sin and the King does dwell in their castle, writes Father Thomas Dubay, "but they have only a tenuous relationship with Him, and they scarcely see His light, so submerged are they in things of the world."

"What then, is the beginner to do?" asks Father.  "Most people cannot leave the world in a bodily sense, but every follower of Christ who is serious about genuine growth must leave the spirit of the world."

Truly a "cloistered heart" statement if ever I've heard one.

Thankfully, Father Dubay provides direction on how to move forward..... how to, in effect, find the door in the wall:  "The main business of the beginner, therefore, is to make a determined turnabout from preoccupation with this worldly life to a life centered in the Trinity."  (quotes above from Thomas Dubay SM, Fire Within, Ignatius, 1989, pp. 81-82; click this line for a link to the book).

At this point I would like to share, again, something a friend wrote several years ago.  Having once been in the postulancy and novitiate of a Religious Community, Rose brings a perspective I have never personally known.  

"When I left the convent...  I had this idea that prayer, holiness, and the spiritual life were for the religious vocation and hidden behind high, thick brick walls.  I longed to find a crack in that wall so I could have just a tiny taste of the spiritual life I once knew. 

"Then the Holy Spirit brought the Cloistered Heart to me.  The Cloistered Heart allowed me to squeeze through a tiny crack in that big brick wall. 
 
"I long for the fullness of all of God's promises for those who love Him to the heights.  And if that sounds presumptive, then so be it, because I know that it is meant for us all.  Not just the Religious or the saints, but for all......" (Rose)

Can I identify with Rose's words?  Am I ready to leave behind anything that walls me off from total surrender of self to God?  Am I truly serious about my relationship with Christ?

If so, then my journey into the inner cloister has begun.

Painting:  Penfold, By the Garden Door, in US public domain due to age


This post begins a 'mini-series' on walls. To continue, click here

(Ready?) for Surprises

I probably didn't mention what I'd originally thought of (for here) for Lent.  It had occurred to me to venture once again into our interior monastery, looking anew into particular areas and rooms and hallways, exploring what Our Lord seems to be doing in them now... this Lent.... today. 

I was surprised, therefore, by the initial idea of "catacombs." Still, I was ready to move forward.  It was going to be a different sort of adventure from our cloister journeys in the past, and I was ready for surprises.

The first surprise was when my Internet connection went down.  As you know if you followed my whines about it, the trouble was initially intermittent.  Then, for a few days, there was no connection whatsoever. 

Then began the adventure of writing letters to Jesus.   It was (and is) another way of practicing Lectio for me.  Perfect.

Then came an unusual onslaught of busyness.  Unexpected guests that arrived at the same time as expected ones, and a phone ringing at the exact same moment as the doorbell, while children bounced like rubber balls across the floor.  This happening just after a workman had spent all afternoon tracking down the Internet snag. Bedtime after 3:00 a.m that night (yes, for real). Soup that had to be made the next morning, and then two full days with beloved grandchildren who treated me to tea parties and clay-modeling and the playing of almost every board game on the shelf.

It was while chopping celery-for-soup that I sorely missed my letters to Jesus.  I'd barely started the practice, and already I was homesick for it.  A very good sign, I realized.  I was ready for the adventure to begin.

Then it hit me.  Writing to Jesus is not like writing to a friend who lives far away.  Jesus sees what I write, but He also knows my every thought.  Why not "write" Him mentally, even as I chopped?  Why not, as St. Stanislaus Kostka put it, “find a heaven in the midst of saucepans and brooms..”?

Tonight I was able to take some quality time writing (on paper) a letter.  It is heartfelt, and real, and I hope my Lord is pleased.  But I know He's just as pleased to see a stack of games waiting to be shelved, and a mostly eaten pot of soup in the fridge, and a clay "sculpture" of Larry the Cucumber proudly displayed.  

And as far as that adventure into our inner monastery?  Oh, I think even that may be part of God's plan.  

We often begin Lent with everything mapped out, wrote the nuns at Quidnunc; "And then God steps in – He sends us on detours, sometimes through very rough terrain.  We like to take the smoothly paved scenic route; He likes to go off-roading..."  I strongly suggest a reading of this excellent (very brief) article, which you can find by clicking right here. http://blog.texasnuns.com/2013/02/20/lenten-detours/ 

I'm ready (I gulp as I say it) for God's surprises.  Hope you'll be along for the ride.

Painting: Eugen von Blaas, The Eavesdropper, detail

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Letters to Jesus

'God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.'  I am assured of this in Romans 8:28, and over the last few days I've been seeing it (again) for myself.

Because I had no Internet connection for a few days, I began writing by hand.  Somehow that felt more comfortable than doing so in 'Word,' on the computer.  It seemed I was being led into a kind of darkness, a solitude with Jesus, in which the only light whose presence I could imagine was that of a firelit torch.  

My writings turned smoothly into letters.  I began scribbling in a regular notebook (not a journal), and lo and behold.  Before I knew it, I was writing letters to Jesus Himself.

I realized by yesterday morning that my Lenten 'exercise' is to continue writing letters to Our Lord.

Oh, but this is so much more than an exercise.  It is reality.  Jesus can 'read' what I write.  Yes, He's right here and I can talk with Him; there is no reason to write my thoughts on paper.  Except:  my mind wanders all over, at times, during prayer.  Writing helps the thoughts stay on track, or get back when they've drifted.  Writing helps me remain conscious of the One to Whom I write.  Already I'd felt drawn to pray with Scripture during Lent - and Scripture is a letter from God, after all.  How rude I would be not to answer it.

My thought at present is to spend time with the daily scriptures from Mass, reading them as one would read letters from a loved One.  And then:  to genuinely, as prayer, write back.

I'd like to share, here, some of what happens.  I will write to Our Lord by hand, but I have a feeling He won't mind (!) if I share with you, later in the day, snippets of our conversations.

Where will these go?  I have no idea.  I just know this much.  It's still personal.  And apparently getting more so all the time.....

"The Bible is a letter from Almighty God to His creatures,"  (Pope St. Gregory)

Painting:   Florent Willems, The Important Response