Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of God.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Author: caitlynnegrace
Lent 33 ~ Come and Be Still
It just occurred to me that with nine days more to Holy Thursday, I have before me the perfect opportunity to make a special novena for this final stage of my Lenten Emmaus. As my mind casts about for a special devotion to mark this journey, something comes to me.
In the past week, there have been a couple of signposts calling me to rise earlier each day. Already not the happiest of risers at 5:30am, I’m not particularly enthusiastic to wake up any earlier, more so since I often retire to bed well past midnight. Still, there’s something about this Lent that makes me loath to farewell it without marking it in some way. And so, for this last of nine, my novena will be to make a tryst with the hours between the old night and the unfurling dawn. The moment, I decide, a succession of ideas on how to spend that time arrives like boxcars, each appealing in its own way.
But slowly, each plan melts away, save one,
Be still and know that I am God ~ Psalm 46: 11
Lent 32 ~ Emmaus Ending
We are ten days away from Holy Week. Just like that, Lent is almost at its end. My heart curls in a soft sadness at the thought of this ending. It’s as if I am to part with a friend who has grown so dear to me.
Lent this year began with a prayer,
O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones.
Let me find You again. Amen.
~ Henri Nouwen
Thus, from Ash Wednesday, I have been on a journey to find the Lord of my heart. So, so much has happened since that day, more than a month ago. Against all odds, I somehow managed to live in both the outside world of work and studies and in the hidden cloister of my soul, the winds of this life singing their many varying notes through the hours of the days, through each sunrise to sunset, each week, accompanying me from point to point in this special journey of seeking.
Lent has turned out to be my road to Emmaus because Lent this year was not just an endeavour to seek out the voice of my Lord but a journey to actually finding Jesus. Although I know that this journey ends not with Easter but that it’s a journey of a lifetime, I feel as if this particular Emmaus of mine will inevitably come to a close when Lent ends.
That is perhaps why the mists of light sorrow have begun wreathing the edges of my walk. They have sighted what I can only perceive in my spirit for now.
That the lights of the world are nearing once more.
Lent 31 ~ When We Trust
Those whose hearts are enlarged by confidence in God run swiftly on the path of perfection. They not only run, they fly; because, having placed all their hope in the Lord, they are no longer weak as they once were. They become strong with the strength of God, which is given to all who put their trust in Him.
~ St Alphonsus Liguori
Lent 30 ~ Little Buds
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and Your law is within my heart!
~ Psalm 40: 9
Would that day ever come, when like the saints, joy floods me as I go to my Lord’s bidding? As long as God’s will aligns with mine, I am pliant to His call. But when the roads diverge, the struggle begins. The whining, the pleading, the bargaining.
Still, there must be a starting point somewhere for everything. Therefore, on this beautiful blue~gold day where the lightest winds tryst among tree friends and little birds tuck their chirps and whistles into the many blessed nooks of this earth, I ask for God’s grace to love His law and to love His will. The prayer comes easily enough for it has truly been a lovely day of rest and of a little work too, a day when happiness sings in the heart. Nonetheless, even if I should totter or fall when the inevitable storms reach my shores, this starting point will count for something because one of the things God has been teaching me this Lent is that He loves our starting efforts as much as He loves our long-haul faithfulness. Nothing is too small or too little for our Father.
Because what we often forget is that all that’s needed are the little buds of our first Yes, for God will supply the rest.
Lent 29 ~ Something From Above
The LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” ~ Isaiah 7: 10 – 12
My heart skips a beat when I see the first lines of the First Reading of the Feast of the Annunciation today. There have been many times when I have asked for a sign from God for the journeys ahead of us but they have always been in anxiety and with a touch of fear.
Not so today. Today, I kneel at my Lord’s heart with joy and hope, putting forth that timeless entreaty,
Will You give me a sign, O Lord?
One from You and only You, my LORD and my God;
Let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
It’s true that I ask for a sign in joy and hope that has been freshened by the dew of an early dawn. But despite our Thursday miracle, I’m still seeking the sign of morning come, glorious in its burst of gold and tangerine and rose. It is the morning foretold years ago for every one of us, of a time of enduring peace and joy. In mid January, seconds after awakening came an early morning word,
Something from above is coming.
In May.
Will this mystical morning begin its ascent in May? Will this May coming be positive or otherwise? I have no answers. What I do know is that when God calls us to obedience, it is a call that must be answered. And no longer a slave to fear, I seek to answer God’s call in hope and in joyful anticipation.
And so, I ask for a sign.
As deep as the nether world,
or as high as the sky,
From the Lord my God.
Lent 28 ~ Even If
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you. ~ Isaiah 49: 15
Lent 27 ~ I Say, Rejoice!
Rejoice, the Lord is King:
Your Lord and King adore!
Rejoice, give thanks and sing,
And triumph evermore.
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice! ~ Rejoice, the Lord is King, hymn by Charles Wesley
Over and over, in a never-ending loop throughout the day, unseen voices sang this hymn in my inner ear. My heart had settled once more into a strange peace. Strange because it felt as if my heart was beyond any more troubling related to the issue we were facing as a family.
As if we had passed over something.
Sure enough, the miracle we sought through St Joseph’s intercession came to fulfilment. Against all human hope, God worked a miracle.
During the Hour of Grace today, the dawn broke, for our child and for us.
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
Lent 26 ~ From A Distance
God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn. ~ Psalm 46: 5 – 6
Glimpses of a rising dawn today.
After yesterday’s troubling phone conversation, I felt St Joseph whose feast day it was, was telling me to fight fear by hoping against hope. And so, I did just that, literally. Every time, I sensed anxiety curl into the edges of my awareness, I affirmed, I hope against hope. I will trust in, Jesus.
This morning, my heart skipped a little to see the verse, God will help it at the break of dawn in the Responsorial Psalm. I knew it was a sign to keep the faith.
Hours later, to my utter surprise, an unexpected opening comes to be.
From a distance, the skies catch the first golds of dawn.
Lent 25 ~ Hoping Against Hope
There are many saints to whom God has given the power to assist us in the necessities of life, but the power given to St. Joseph is unlimited: It extends to all our needs, and all those who invoke him with confidence are sure to be heard. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
My novena to St Joseph ended yesterday. His feast day, the 19th of March, falling on a Sunday this year, is celebrated today. As I write this, dark clouds have been gathering in my heart since a phone call this afternoon. Although I know that no word from my heart escapes St Joseph, fear finds me today.
My faith in St Joseph is an odd one. Not borne out by many quickly answered prayers, it’s a faith built upon something deeper and less understood, even by me. Perhaps, this is best expressed by St Joseph himself. Some years ago, I was journeying with a cousin who was facing marriage difficulties. The situation was desperate and there was little hope. I strongly encouraged my cousin to seek St Joseph’s help because I had a feeling it had come to the end of the road for me, that there was nothing more I could do to help her. To my chagrin, she resisted.
And then I heard St Joseph’s voice, clearly, in my spirit,
I am your journey, not hers.
St Joseph was telling me then, as he is even now, that I need to keep the eyes of my heart on the journey. That it is not as much the final answer to prayer as much as it is the walk.
I don’t know what lies in store in the days and weeks to come. I do know that after failing to get some much needed hope today, I am deeply troubled, fearful that things will not work out the way we are desperately hoping for. Yet, in a way I cannot explain, I also suspect it is St Joseph who never feared to do the impossible, who has come this Lent to tell me I should no longer be a slave to fear. That is he who brought the words of the song for me ahead of time knowing that my hopes in man will be thwarted today and that I will fall into worry once more.
How do I do this, St Joseph? I ask. How do I break this new manacle of fear?
In immediate reply comes the lines from today’s Reading,
He believed, hoping against hope…
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness. ~ Romans 4: 18, 22
Hope is the antidote to fear.
writingonmyheart 