About to Change

We are on the edge of new beginnings. 

~  Joy, from Scraps of Joy

       Over the past weeks, there have been little nudges to pause and to take in life. Unlike times past where things like this were calls to slow down and to savour life, this time it seemed somewhat different. It now seemed like a call to pause and to take note of changes. Changes in people, in life. In ourselves. Joy said it so well when she wrote, We are on the edge of new beginnings. It is so every springtide, when life is renewed and reborn. No two seasons are completely alike. There’s always something different about seeming sameness.

But this time, it’s as if an unseen finger is tapping out the words, Watch, Watch, Watch upon hearts.

       Years ago, this was placed upon my spirit: that a time of change will come, heralded by the sign of trees and of… something beginning with the alphabet ‘A’. Regarding the latter, there were many guesses about what ‘A’ could mean and although I leaned in to listen to the chorus of voices in discussions, my heart seemed to settle upon something at the periphery of my thoughts back then,

Auroras

Aeroplanes

       This May, it feels like all 3 are coming together. There’s been a madness of cutting down trees and massive forest clearings. There have also been a number of unusually ferocious storms in my country in the past week with massive old trees being uprooted and falling upon vehicles. It’s pretty normal in a serious weather event except that this time, it feels as if I’m being told to take it all in, a cry going out from post to post, Take heed, Take heed, Take heed. Lately too, events involving aircraft have increased. Whistleblower alerts. Malfunction after malfunction. Accidents.

As if the skies are being cleared for something.

       Then, the stunning auroras of recent days as a result of geomagnetic storms which we were told would cause severe satellite disruptions. But for such a massive show of mighty colour in the skies of so many countries, the expected disruptions were oddly minimal.

Auroras. Aeroplanes. Trees.

       On this Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the anniversary of the first of six great apparitions, I suddenly look up from life’s toils and wonder,

Are we close to turning a page?

Only For You

… incline the ear of your heart to My voice, which speaks to souls inwardly and gives light and understanding to those who seek it. I am present to you when you open the Scriptures and I want to enlighten you and instruct you. When you read My word, seek My Heart. When you read the Scriptures, seek My Face. You will find My Heart hidden in My word like the treasure hidden in the field, and you will discover My Face shining through the text and illuminating the eyes of your soul.   ~  In Sinu Jesu, pages 30 – 31

       A few days ago, I learned that some things should not be spoken about. In a conversation with a relative, I had mentioned hearing Jesus’ words, Let Me wash your feet, and I relayed to him the overwhelming joy I had felt as an immediate reaction, even as I did not understand the words at that point in time.

       I then wished I hadn’t said anything. Because my relative took it upon himself to darkly hint that those words had multiple meanings. I felt that he was referring to “necessary purification” due to my long ago actions of cutting ties with the immediate family members on my side due to past abuse. He has always disapproved of what I did although I have briefly explained why such a severe response was necessary – and after almost 40 years of trying to make things work. Instead, on multiple occasions, being a church prayer leader, he has tactfully and lovingly offered to pray over me so that I would return to the family fold.

       Hearing my relative’s words, the sense of relief from Let Me wash your feet, that Jesus would take care of me – evaporated. At the edges of my spirit, a dark foreboding instead gathered the folds of its cloak to seal the doors and windows to my heart.

How I wished I had just shut up.

       Family means the world to me. It means just as much to my otherwise loving relative too. He is a doting husband, father and grandfather who would do anything for his loved ones, including me. Yet, sometimes, the lives we live and the experiences we encounter do not help us perceive more clearly the decisions other people are driven to. Sometimes, despite noble intentions, we make the mistake of holding ourselves and our views up as a model of what should be. We make of ourselves a standard and bid others do as we do without considering that there might be distinct circumstances which set them apart from us, making their journey different.

       In the days following this encounter, I forced myself to face the possibility that another round of difficulties awaited me because I needed to be purified again. Although I know well that being cleansed and made whole is an ongoing process with everyone, it still devastated me that God might have announced it to prepare me for more suffering – and not because He felt that I needed to let go and learn to allow myself to be taken care of.

How could I have gotten it so wrong?

       Yet, even as darkness gathered closer, another truth shone insistently: even as it pierces, God’s Word is always edifying and strengthening. Even as He comes to prepare us for difficulties and purification, the Word that is truly from God always gives hope. It never fills you with despair.

It never breaks the crushed reed.

This is not about being disappointed at having to face a truth. It’s never easy for anyone to accept a truth we are not prepared for, much less not anticipating. No, this was different because my well-intentioned relative’s words had dimmed the sun and brought cold – to my spirit. A chill that didn’t leave despite prayerful attempts to seek courage for whatever may be ahead. When the spirit recoils from a word, that is always the sign for me that something is not from God.

       Then, at Mass yesterday, Jesus stepped forward once more,

My voice, which speaks to souls inwardly and gives light and understanding to those who seek it.

You will find My Heart hidden in My word like the treasure hidden in the field…

Could that have been the reason why my spirit had rejoiced over Let Me wash your feet the first time although my mind was casting about for meaning – because my spirit had perceived hidden treasure in those words spoken inwardly to me?

       As Jesus’ words washed over me yesterday in that bright, sunny church, the troubling caused by my kindly and well-meaning relative curled away from me. I knew then that my spirit had perceived God’s Word right the first time. It had seen hope and light and promise – which my relative had not.

Let Me wash your feet

       They were my Shepherd’s words, their light and understanding meant for me alone, because not too long ago, He had promised,

I will whisper in your ear,

Just loud enough for you to hear.

Lent 11 ~ Light for Me

Cause the light of Thy countenance to shine upon Thy servant; grant me that interior peace after which I have so long sighed; show me the way in which Thou wishest me to walk and go to Thee…

~   St. John of God

Journey of a Soul

          Sometimes, the most obvious things don’t come to us till they’re taken to God.

          With Lent approaching, I wondered what God had in store for me, what He wanted of me this year. Pretty soon something became clear: on the personal front, it was to be a time of care. To sleep more, move more, rest more, read more. And to watch what I ate and when I ate. Basically, all the parts of my life that had been neglected for so long. As I pondered His will for me, it struck me that this seemed a rather different Lent because of this focus on the care of the physical self, rather than of deprivation.

          But a few days later, one night after Rosary, Our Lady made it very clear to me. Lent was about bringing sin into the Light. It was a time of taking to Jesus our falls and our wounds so that He may touch them and heal each one. All the bits of me that God had tapped – the sleep, the withdrawing from the world to rest, the eating, the exercise, the books waiting to be read – were all the ways in which I had fallen away from Him over the past years. While I had begun to reclaim some back for the Lord, I still had a ways to go before I crested the hill.

          Something so obvious and known, yet as usual, lost to me till now.

          But my heart was still searching for a final piece. At Mass this week, in a quiet church after a joyful wind~merry day, I traced the Sign of the Cross over both my ears and asked God to lay His voice and His Lenten will upon my ears. I knew by now what I needed to do but I sensed something was still missing from my understanding.

          Thus, imagine my surprise to hear the Gospel reading for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time,

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,

“If you wish, you can make me clean.”

~  Mark 1: 40

         The leper did not sit waiting for Jesus to come to him. The leper went to Jesus.

          The leper did not stand in pride, all knowing. He knelt down, at last parted from the ways of the world, facing his sin squarely, no excuses he made for it.

          The leper did not wait to see if God would heal him. He asked – begged – to be healed.

From the depths of his soul, the leper had cried out to be freed.

          With that, I suddenly understood anew,

Lent is a journey of a soul back to God.

Mark This Moment Well

          On the final Saturday of old October, before I went to bed at night, I traced the Sign of the Cross over both my ears and asked God to lay His word in me. Hours later, on Sunday, I awakened to a distinctly female voice. She said to me,

Mark This Moment Well.

          Knowing well that the voice and more so the words had not come from me, I hurried outside to the last vestiges of dawn’s silence, to ponder the unexpected words and the author. Was it Mother Mary? I wondered but couldn’t be sure. Turning the words over in my mind, I began to fear that they were a warning. Did the words mean to remember this time for all time, before it passed, and darkness descended? The Israel War was shaping up to be something beyond deadly. Living and working among muslims who were Palestinian sympathisers and who also assumed all Christians were Jews, I was naturally on edge for persecution against me and my family. Sitting out there beneath the heavenly arbour of a brightening morn, after a while, I sensed the sharp edge of alarm lodge itself in my spirit. Was it a warning? I wondered again. What if it was only satan’s ruse?

          I flew to Adoration in response, placing my spirit before the Blessed Sacrament in the Divine Mercy Shrine in Poland. And the unease vanished.

Jesus had removed the fear. That indicated to me that the words were possibly not a caution.

          All through Sunday, I gnawed and prodded at the 4 words. Yet, my searching brought no answers – and no peace, too – which signaled that my path of seeking was not right. Remembering the words my angel brought me a few days prior, Humility is the Key, I decided it was time to let this go to someone else.

          And so, I went to St Joseph, the Discerner of Dreams. Please tell me what they mean, St Joseph.

          On the 30th, a jasmine plant of ours put forth a single, massive bloom. Always struggling to give even small blooms, the sight of that chubby white beauty caught my heart. Immediately, I knew who had brought the 4 words to me.

Mother Mary

It was indeed my heavenly Mother for Her personal sign to me had always been jasmines!

          A busy work week soon began. On All Saints Day, the first Wednesday of the month, as always, I honored St Joseph. We had a busy day ahead as there was traveling back to my husband’s hometown to tend to the graves of our loved ones there, something we did on All Saints, rather than on All Souls Day.

          Then, somewhere in the hours of that Wednesday, when my mind was on other things, the words, Mark This Moment Well, appeared once more before me.

          But there was a difference this time. As my spirit gazed at the words, the word “well” pulsed. Somehow, I knew instantly that it was not a warning but an exhortation to thanksgiving. Interiorly, I understood that God was calling me to live November in deep and utter thankfulness for all He has blessed me with. To express this in prayer and through action, certainly, but to also be deliberate about making time to rest my heart in and to savour all the blooms God has placed everywhere in my life.

         It was three days later, joyful thanksgiving roses blooming pink in my heart, that it struck me that the meaning of the 4 words Our Lady had brought me had been made clear by St Joseph, in the month of His Blessed Spouse, Mary. And just like that, despite the many dark clouds above, the light and dew of heaven pooled into my heart. No matter how close to edge of the precipice the world is now, God is telling us that there is no better time for thanksgiving.

          More so now than ever before.

The Sign is Humility

When God, through His kindness, deigned to visit her mind, suddenly He drew near with this ineffable and trustworthy sign: that is, before Him there proceeded the holy aura of humility…

~  St. Catherine of Bologna

          Yesterday, it occurred to me that it had been some time since I had knocked on God’s door with this asking:

Give me a sign

And so, I asked Him, simply and directly.

And then, I promptly forgot about it.

          But God didn’t. In recent days, I had witnessed the sad unmasking of someone I had known for a time. The person became rude and condescending when I voiced my disagreement over a spiritual matter. Curiously, I wasn’t rattled or hurt by the revelation. Instead, a soft blanket of serenity stole over me during the testy exchange with this person.

          I’ve known a similar experience before. Some years ago, Someone decided that I needed to know the truth about a family matter. During that period of revelation, I sensed a hand gently and sorrowfully turn page after page of painful illumination. Sad at the pain it was causing me, yet, proceeding undeterred because it had come time for me to know a necessary truth.

Revelations by Someone who didn’t wish to break a bruised reed.

Someone cloaked with the holy aura of humility.

          Now, years later, I had to face another reality. That there are people in this world who will turn upon you in a thrice if you so much as dared to challenge their perceived authority. It’s hardly a new lesson for me; nonetheless, to have a friend do this to you gets some getting used to.

          Today, pondering arrogance in people who claim to possess spiritual knowledge and wisdom, I happened to read an article on discernment that had been written so gently, thoughtfully and respectfully. It’s not often that I come across truth laid out so clearly yet so… quietly.

Truth always bears the mark of humility, I thought to myself.

          And just to confirm my perspective as well as answer my prayer for a sign, came St Catherine of Bologna, after whom I’m named. To tell me that when I’m uncertain of the truth and authenticity of something, I need only seek the sign of humility.

For where there is humility, there God is.

A Higher Call

          These past months from April’s end till now have been days and days of seas. Days of choppy waters and sudden squalls threading their wild and thunderous songs into serene hymns of quiet joys. At long last, winter took its leave on the 1st of September. Endure the season though I did, through heaven’s grace and the heartfelt prayers of my many friends here, I was fervently glad when life returned to my spirit once more.

          But even as I stepped into September’s loving and cheery embrace and with a skip returned to my step, I could not turn away from the parting words winter wrote on my soul before it left on the day of the great moon,

Time of the 4th watch

          Even if September soothes the pains of the past months and is gentle on the spirit, it is not a time to forget and to be distracted. It told me in so many words unspoken, that to the preoccupied heart and careless eye, the seas will seemingly continue their ebb and flow unaltered and undisturbed.

          Yet, in reality, their songs are never same. Only the watchful spirit will perceive the shift that comes in obedience to God.

          For the all the waters of this Earth answer to a higher call.

          As must we all.

Receive the Season

For those who are in winter (perhaps even a prolonged winter), there are some reminders that might help sustain our roots: (first), receive your season. Rather than giving your energies towards wishing for another. The surrender, although painful, positions us to receive all that God intends for that particular season much better than if we fight against it. God is always oriented towards our growth, even in our winter.   ~  Sara Hegarty in How to Survive a Spiritual Winter

          There have been two of me for a pretty long while now. One hurrying about and hard at work. Happy for the most part, finding things to get fiery over and also to laugh over. Discovering different ways to pray. Living a full life as wife, mother and worker.

And the other, inside an unstirred stillness of a deep, deep winter.

          Save for stray birdcalls from across whitened meadows, all else is still, oh, so silent.

          Even in my happiest and busiest moments, something about this time puzzles me even as it doesn’t trouble me. I have traversed spiritual deserts many times before and agonised through each one. But this one this time is different. It is prolonged, incrementally deepening from the time it began. Unrelenting, it is a winter where my spirit seems to be held away well away from stirrings. Hardly anything quickens me, yet my heart still rests gratefully against the warm rose skies of sunrise and sunset, the call of birds and sweetened notes the winds sing. I am far from being frantic and wild as I almost always am in the desert. Instead, even as I tug at God’s hem every single day for some word from Him, my inner seas have fallen to an unfamiliar watchfulness. No anxiety, no fear. Questioning, yet still in relative peace.

What winter is this?

Silent but not cold,

Stilled but not frozen

          Over and over have I returned this question to the skies above me, Why, why, why? Why am I dead yet so very alive?

          A door slightly opened last night, and a soft light fell upon the journey covered so far.

Amare nesciri

Winter pruning

And now,

Receive the season

          As the words, Receive the season, find their mark on my heart, I acquiesce to the truth they bear and testify to. A winter in the spirit serves to only bring good. It is the time in the cave, waiting as Elijah did on Mount Horeb for God to walk by, waiting for the winds, the earthquakes and the fires of life to be over, till the small, silent sound comes. It is a time when patience is learned through the myriad lessons of enduring. A time of illumination, when God gently brings us face-to-face with all which ails our souls. And now, through the present experience, I’m learning that a spiritual winter also protects the soul from untruths and distortions which serve only to distract as the soul journeys forwards.

          Yet, more pertinent to the present hour, Mother Mary is teaching me that winter’s cold is also screening from me some lighted lamps along the way – because they illuminate paths meant for others but not for me. And I understand now why even as I rejoice over certain truths and insights, my spirit does not quicken over them.

Their lights do not fall into my mind.

          It is an uncomfortable time, of that there is no doubt. Yet, with every truth we face in tremulous courage and simple humility, and each time we renew our vow to endure and to remain steadfast upon the path God has specially set apart for us, this spiritual winter is urged closer to its end.

          The more we receive of this season, the stronger will the sun shine upon the cold.

Knocking At the Door

          Yesterday, I found myself narrating to one of my children my experience of setting up a prayer altar in my rented room during my varsity days. At that simple altar years before, I had pasted a picture of Jesus, shepherd’s staff in hand, knocking at a door. Growing up, in most of the Catholic homes I knew, the most familiar image of Jesus displayed back then was always that of Jesus and His Sacred Heart.

          However, at a Life in the Spirit Seminar I attended in my early 20s, I saw something so very different – a picture of Jesus knocking at a door. That picture was at once unfamiliar yet captivating. Where every other picture of Jesus I had hitherto known called for us to come to Him, this one was of Jesus knocking and asking permission to enter our homes. It touched a place deep, deep within me. The humility and gentleness depicted was so foreign to me who had been raised with a very different perception of my Lord.

          Another striking aspect of the old picture that had adorned my altar was that the background was dark and sombre. It spoke to my own heart, often clouded up in fear, doubt and so many why’s as I struggled to make sense of the poison of narcissism. To have Christ come to my door when darkness threatened to overwhelm, that was another reason why the picture had snagged my heart.

          Today, at two different moments in the day, the words, What do You ask of me, came. The first was from an old 2017 post, Fatima 2 ~ June 13, the second apparition of Fatima where Sr Lucia dos Santos had asked Our Lady that very question. The second time happened later at night when I chanced upon an old National Catholic Register article about an exorcist who encountered the power of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There, yet again, were the words, not exactly the same perhaps, but nonetheless, the very same cry, What do You want, Lord? 

          It was then that it occurred to me that someone was knocking at the door of my heart, gently trying to get me to tilt my heart towards heaven and of my own free will, to ask once more, 

What do You ask of me?

          So, I do.

          And then, I wait.

Lent 34 ~ Listen for the Whispers

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of God.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson