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 1 ~ Build a Better World

Believe in yourself, learn and never stop wanting to build a better world.   

~  Mary McLeod Bethune, from Distilled Genius by Susan Branch

          I believe that we may not always be able to receive from others but we can certainly always give. For that, I am thankful because from a young age, I found greater joy in giving than in receiving. Of course, there were times too when the giving was a mistake or seemed like a mistake at that time. These were times when people took advantage of me. Times also when my giving opened the door to bullying and abuse. In those seasons of pain, I often wished I had not been so willing to reach out and care.

          However, once those tempests receded, as tempests always will, what has always remained is peace in my heart. Even if I could now see how my giving had sometimes resulted in a hard time for me, it made me wiser, yet never regretful of what I had given from the heart.

          Today, as I write this, I understand why.

          There were lessons I needed to learn about human ways and the only way to learn them was to go out into the deep, sometimes entering bitter waters that swirled unseen. To give even there, without counting the cost – but to give in a human way. And then, to receive pain as God allows it – in order to learn how to give as God gives.

          Today, I am at peace with all I’ve given. I have also learned from it. And with these lessons tucked into my heart, I step out once more, as heaven bids me, to do my bit to make this world a better place.

Let Me Find You

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find You again. Amen.   ~  Henri Nouwen

          Each Lent is special in its own way. Each Lent is the grace we need for the seasons of the year. For some years now, Lent has been the time when I leave the byways of life as best as I can, to enter the hermit’s enclave. As always, it is a time of seeking my Master’s heart.

          This year is no different – and yet it is. A strange lift comes over me as I contemplate Lent 2023. Today, seeking saints’ thoughts on Lent, I come across this line in the prayer, which for me, best explains this odd rise of spirit. Four little words, and tucked into the heart of that entreaty, a single word that sends a rush of power through me,

Let me find You

Lent 36 ~ Close Your Mouth

          It has been a wonderful, delicious two days of being on a break. To have it coincide with Holy Week is a coincidence not lost on me: God wants me silent and attentive. And today, He made sure I got the message.

          On a long evening drive today along country roads with the family, I wondered about God’s silence these past 2 days. The last I heard His voice on my heart was on the Feast of the Annunciation when He told me it was time I rested and let Him take over. I agreed. I was truly spent. But I needed to walk Holy Week right too and for that I needed to hear from my God.

          So, I began to search for Him and to listen out for His voice. So many, many little things came and went, pressing their sweetness upon my heart. Our family spent a lovely day in the sun out in the garden today. At one point, I heard the plaintive cries of an eagle high up in the sky. Its shadow fell fleetingly upon our front lawn as it crossed the sun’s eyes. Looking up, I saw two of them, swooping and soaring in the happy blue skies, watched by fattened white clouds, their calls bringing an immediate quietening to my heart.

          No Word did I hear but peace reigned strong as I cut and gathered gardenias for our Sunday altar. A good lunch and a short but deep rest afterwards filled me with all the energy that had been missing for a time. The kitchen put into order and meal prep complete, we piled into our car for that sunset drive.

          Just a few minutes out of town, a huge gold moon rose in the sky before us. The Passover moon, I thought to myself. The Feast of Freedom from slavery and tyranny, it had begun yesterday and would end on Easter Day. Again, a quiet descended into me.

Will You speak to me, Lord? I asked and released the asking into the purple~orange sunset.

          Once home, in a quick reading before I went to cook dinner, I felt a faint quickening within as an unexpected word came before me,

Pilgrimage

          I understood immediately and jumped to obey. Tell me what to do, Lord, I answered, all quivering-ly eager and ready. But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

You need a spiritual pilgrimage.

Begin by closing your mouth.

   ~  Egyptian Desert Fathers

Lent 23 ~ Going Visiting

The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask spiritual alms of them, with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask alms of us. ~ St. Philip Neri

          I’m going visiting today, first to one saint, then to another, because despite the quiet serenity of the day, nothing spills into the arid gullies of my heart. There’s a dense fog in my head and a sullen spirit rules today. A loving old aunt is seriously ill in New Zealand. My mother-in-law found a bit of her old self – which she is better off not finding. Things are not going well in our country, and not in our workplaces too.

          If there’s a time when prayers are most needed, it is now – when it can least be given.

Ask spiritual alms of them

          So, I’m going to knock on some doors and ask for help. Beggar I may be but that will not stop me from asking big. At each door, I will ask for a miracle, for us and for others, for needs I am aware of and for those hidden and unspoken of.

          So that by eventide, I may return home, knowing that miracles are on the way to all those who need them.

Lent 22 ~ Apples from My heart

Last night I went out, as always to say good night. The night air had a slight touch of coolness. In the sky, I saw the Milky Way. This is rarely visible, so of course I went out to the field to get the best view. There were more than a million stars out and I made a lot of wishes. The familiar scent of apples in various stages filled the air. I stood amongst the fallen apples and under a trail of stars for a good while. . . . and when I was able – I said good night with a grateful heart.   ~ Michele Warren, The Rabbitpatch Diary

 

          In one of her latest comments, Linda Raha mentioned about going over the blessings of the day when we go to bed. If it didn’t stick with me as it should have then, it certainly did now.

          It is a terrible thing to not be grateful. In my life, some of the most trying people have always been the ones who are incredibly ungrateful. They bite and snark more at life than life deserves simply due to diminished gratitude. In an ungrateful heart, there’s little softness to absorb the hard knocks of life, to soften the blows that must fall upon us in its seasons. So, not only is pain felt in all its depth, I suspect it is also exaggerated because it has too much space to grow. Life with an ingrate can be beyond tolerable. You can be worn to the bone of soul trying to make the ingrate happy and keep it that way for some hours of sanity. Life in a home shared with one is to live in perpetual darkness; to be in the light you have to be away from that person.

          But that only makes coming home that much harder. There’s nothing worse than having light touch your soul but then later having to return to a darkness that abhors the light. Some forms of ingratitude is exactly that: a dark that cannot tolerate the light of thankfulness.

          Today is Friday and it is my day of atonement and reparation. Today, I atone for all the times I have been anything less than grateful for every little sweetness God has pressed into the fold and creases of my life – and sadly, there have been too many of those instances. It is always the easier option to call someone out for a failing; looking inside and facing up to the same fault is never pleasant.

          But that is the special grace of Lent.

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
for I am gracious and merciful.   ~  Joel 2: 12 – 13

          Tonight, Michele Warren’s memories of apple~days stir to life one of my own, of a child long ago, nourished by the sweetness of apples gifted from the heart.

          So, to my God I return with a gift I haven’t offered my Lord enough, apples from my own heart.

 

 

Lent 20 ~ Fire Without End

Jealousy has no limit; it is an evil that continually endures and a sin without end. The lies of jealousy burn hotter in proportion to the increasing success of the person who is envied.   ~  St. Cyprian of Carthage

Lent 15 ~ Go Out and Love

          Yesterday, some issues regarding my professional future were weighing on my mind. In my post, Destiny, fellow blogger and my friend, Ann Coleman, commented, “It’s natural to be anxious about something so important. But I do believe we can trust God to be with us through even the worst challenges. And I’ll pray that your work situation works out for the best.” 

          Something about that last line snagged my frazzled and tattered attention.

And I’ll pray that your work situation works out for the best.

          Ann’s touching concern and support lit a spark in me. Of wanting to go out of myself and care for others besieged by work concerns in whatever form. Nonetheless, at that very moment, it was mind over heart, because it was almost night and I was so very worn out from staring at my laptop screen for hours on end.

          Still, when God lights a spark, it is lit, no matter what.

          Today, I had to travel to the city with my husband. We met a salesperson he had dealings with. Within a few short hours, the 60-something man had let down inner his mask with us, and let slip that he had just undergone a heart procedure. I thought to myself that sales wasn’t the best job to be in if you had a heart complaint. Later on, we observed signs that despite his good work ethic, genuinely genial nature and immense popularity with clients, he didn’t seem to be earning very much.

          And yet, he was so giving, even when it would have gotten him nothing back.

          As we waved goodbye, something about him tugged at my heart. Well into his 60s and continuing to work in such a cutthroat business when others would have retired, I just felt that something hadn’t worked out in his life. He had a hunted look in his eyes, as if there were forces he was trying to outrun but couldn’t.

          Driving home, I thought about this man’s worn heart and remembered him before God.

          We were late in leaving the city and so got caught in its after-work traffic snarl. Driving carefully, I watched cars zip in and out, drivers in a great hurry to get home. Deeply exhausted, home seemed so far away. And we had one more similarly draining trip to make the next day.

          Despite my state, in the sharply angled evening sunshine, something else began to take over. I found myself empathising with the commuters’ rush to get home. Oddly, it was almost as if I could cut past the layers of metal and noise, and see right into hearts, here and there encountering happiness and good cheer, but mostly touching weariness, worry, frustration or just plain tiredness from a hard day’s work. All stopped at traffic lights after traffic lights, we were sitting in different vehicles, looking different, living differently. And yet, there was a common thread of happiness, worry, fear and tiredness running through each of our lives. 

However different we were, we are all bound together by our need of God, to be placed in His Flaming Heart.

          Once home some hours later, I contacted our parish priest to make arrangements to attend private Mass with him. To my sadness, I found our priest in great agony from nerve pain. He asked for prayers and so I hastened to do what I could, feeling it was too little against such a great need.

          It was past midnight when I sought the stillness to gather my thoughts. While no great mountain did I move in my Friday hours, Ann’s words reminded me that even in our hardest struggles, our hearts must never close in on ourselves. That no matter how gnarled and rutted our own path is, we must take care to never lose compassion for others who are suffering. And yet, that remains a mountain to be scaled – to remain in the moment of others’ suffering, to help them carry their crosses, even as my own weigh me down.

          Although so many of our questions remain unanswered, and the road stretches on through the uncertain terrain of life, in choosing to open our hearts to the pains of others, I have learned a great many times, our crosses will not vanish, our own pain might not diminish. The lesson God wrote upon my heart today was that,

The more we hurt inside, the more we must go out and love.

          Because it is when we wipe the wounds of others, that we touch the very Wounds of Christ.

Lent 14 ~ Destiny

 

You will free me from the snare they set for me,
for You are my refuge.
Into Your hands I commend my spirit;
You will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
I hear the whispers of the crowd, that frighten me from every side,
as they consult together against me, plotting to take my life.
But my trust is in You, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
In Your hands is my destiny; rescue me
from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors.   ~  Psalm 31: 5 – 6; 14 – 16

 

          For years, Into Your hands I commend my spirit, had been the first offering of my day to God. But somewhere last year, I forgot the prayer of my rising – and didn’t even realize it. This morning, though, it was the first vine of prayer that wove its way from my heart to God’s. I smiled to see my old prayer~friend again.

          After the usual morning chores, I settled down to work from home. Yesterday had been a full day. Apart from work, optional retirement had been weighing very heavily on my mind because I found out yesterday that some changes at work will be coming into effect soon. A safeguard that has protected me so far could be dismantled. If that does happen, I would have no choice but to seek a transfer or quit my job. A transfer would mean a very long daily commute, wearing me down further; with quitting, naturally, my thoughts went to our finances. We still have some way to go and I was concerned about the impact of retiring even a year earlier. While my musings didn’t agitate me nor make me fearful, it did lodge deep within like thick mud.

Into Your hands I commend my spirit

          This morning, when I went to my daily Readings, I was mildly startled to see the same morning prayer appear before me in the Responsorial Psalm. Why was the prayer slipped into my heart today, of all the days? I  suddenly wondered. 

          Then, my eyes fell upon a verse, and it struck my heart like a light bolt.

In Your hands is my destiny