LENT 1 ~ VOICE FROM LOURDES
From a few weeks back I’ve been praying about Lent this year. For some sign, for direction. A prayer maybe, or better still, a book. But nothing came. I went to bed the night before Ash Wednesday with a mound of prayers left by God’s door. Well, not really prayers, but just one, said over and over:
Give me a Word at least.
And just before sleep claimed me, Our Lady of Lourdes, let me hear Your voice.
No book, no discourse. No soft, sweet voice either. So, one single word for Lent, it wasn’t much that I was asking for.
A busy day came and went. I received no Word from God on this 1st of Lent – although I did have a far quieter heart and strength not mine for a long and difficult day.
Then, late in the evening, despite prayers and attempts at hope, we received news of a setback. I tried to bravely accept this setback involving my son, and live out my faith as I should, but I faltered after a few hours of make-believe.
Rather than hide my tottering column of faith and compound matters further, I took my disappointment, the whole cart of it, and dumped it before God.
Why, I demanded angrily, why did You not answer our prayers in the way we wanted? What was so wrong with our prayer that You chose to answer it in the negative? I thought of my boy, his long struggle, and now, trying so hard to be strong in the face of defeat.
How do I mend his broken heart? I hurled my anger and sorrow at God.
Heaven did what it does best – it remained silent.
Some hours later, still hurting and confused but trying to surrender and accept, I told God through gritted teeth,
Let my hurt be, but hold my son close to You. Do not forsake him. Bind his heart to Yours.
I had some minutes to myself. Wanting to take my mind off things, I reached for the book I am reading now. But my gaze strayed to another – Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina Kowalska. I had no intention whatsoever of choosing Divine Mercy in My Soul – I wanted cheering up and that was sure not the book to get the lark singing in my heart.
However, something began to pull and tug at my conscience. It’s Lent, you know, hissed an exasperated voice from within me. Choose the Diary – for the sake of Lent.
Still at war with God, I thought of my Ash Wednesday. It had been a day like any other, filled to the brim with endless work and another round of hurt. I didn’t have anything for my Lord, not even on this day when He asks to be consoled. No Lent prayer. No Lent meditation. Now, the day was drawing to its close. Clouds clustered together in the purple night skies, softly weeping. What was a few last minutes given to Jesus?
I dropped my book and picked up Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul. Give me a Word, Lord. You speak so much to the saints, why won’t You say just one Word to me? I threw one last dart of a grumble in God’s direction.
Opening the book to a folded page, a bookmark fell out from elsewhere. It was a prayer card someone had left in our pew after the blessing of the sick on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes back in February.
A Message to the Sick
Cheer up,
God is with you
You suffer
it is true,
But He is near you.
Trust in Him.
If He has let you suffer,
It is because He sees something good in it,
which today you do not know.
Your peace of mind is in your
“Trust in God”
Who can never let you down.
I went still reading those words. Not a prayer, but a message to the sick. Message – as if fully expecting that I’d likely dismiss it if it said ‘prayer’.
Message – as in words sent by someone.
For Ash Wednesday, I had asked for a Word from God. He gave me Words.
I asked to hear Our Lady’s voice. She answered me through the healing message of Lourdes.
The moment I heard Her voice, my spirit ceased its struggle. I saw what I could not accept in the earlier hours when the dry branches of winter tore at our hearts. I saw that the setback we experienced today was God’s answer to our prayers – as well as His answer to my son’s toil and struggle. Strange and unfair as it appears to our earthly sight on this side of heaven, while I cannot yet see how this disappointment is good for us, God certainly can and He knows the hidden value of a great and good gift.
Trust in God.
I lay down my sword. And with it, my heart.
LENT 2 ~ A COMING LAND
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
loving Him, and walking in His ways,
and keeping His commandments, statutes and decrees,
the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. ~ Deuteronomy 30: 16
There’s something about the times we are in. Susan Skinner of Veil of Veronica wrote about the widely held belief that we are in the end times. She explains simply and clearly why we have not yet arrived. We have a long way to go yet.
I too believe that the end of the world is not upon us, but that we are coming to the end of something. The violence of the hours so many of us encounter each day speaks to this belief. However bad it was before, these recent years have been far worse. The pain, the frenzy, the struggles.
The confusion.
But there’s been something else too, alongside the darkness and drought: wellsprings of hidden graces, surprise oases in the interminable stretches of deserts.
This year, someone has leading me more often and more quickly to these oases. Now, no matter how much I get torn up, I come upon these hidden healing springs quicker than ever.
The pessimistic coward in me fears that this too will some day come to an end, that one day I’ll go looking and not find another spring such as this because good times never seem to last for me, why should now be any different?
Yet, every time fear tries to flavor my time by these springs of hope and healing, I find myself resisting its old claws. Bible verses and parables come to mind, words spoken by prophets and soldiers of this earth gird my faltering steps in strength. And so, I resist fear.
If you obey
the Lord your God
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
I’ve lived for too long in the shadow of fear. It’s time to find another address.
LENT 3 ~ THE FAST OF CONSOLING
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own. ~ Isaiah 58: 6 – 7
I must have read these verses many times before but not seen them – until today. Today, still clueless on how to order my Lent this year, my answer comes:
Fast
Not in the way I envisioned it but to fast as the Lord wills it for me.
Yet, something in Isaiah’s verses puzzle me. Why are they set that way?
Releasing those bound unjustly comes before untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed, comes before breaking every yoke;
How do you release those bound? You untie the thongs of the yoke. How do you set free the oppressed? Break the yoke that imprisons them. To my mind, it would have made more sense to reverse the order:
Untie the thongs of the yoke to release those bound unjustly.
Break every yoke to set free the oppressed
The call to action, followed by the objective, the effect.
And yet, it isn’t ordered that way.
But why does the order even matter to me? Something niggles at me and refuses to go away.
Slowly and quietly, a tiny vine uncurls its tendril in my mind.
That is the order of consoling.
My Lent this year is to battle hidden in the Heart of Jesus, each day, answering the call to console Him – for His sorrow over those bound unjustly, freeing the oppressed, sheltering them, the homeless, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, despising not my own even as I busy myself with these calls. To console Him each and every day as He calls me to. To console Him in prayer, in willful silence carved out of my busy days, in uniting my small sufferings to His. Even as each one of those consolations becomes increasingly difficult for me as the winds make wild their feral tempests, trying to drag me into the confusion that encircles our days now, nothing must withhold me from the hidden offering.
For this is the fast my Jesus asks of me this year. Console Me for the suffering of this world. On a Friday, when I’ve set aside my Fridays of this year for consoling Jesus, I receive the understanding of why Isaiah’s verses are ordered in the way they are.
I must focus on the consoling,
not on the fighting and slaying.
For it is only when I console my wounded Saviour, that thongs are untied, and yokes broken.
LENT 4 ~ OPPRESSOR HEARTS
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord,
but rather in his conversion, that he may live. ~ Ezekiel 33: 11
After Jesus called me to the Lenten fast of consoling, I happened upon an account by a cancer survivor, detailing not just her struggles with the disease, but also the hurt and unnecessary pain caused by medical professionals through their lack of empathy, lack of compassion and absence of professional thoroughness in helping this woman navigate the debilitating darkness that is cancer.
It reminded me of something I had experienced in the past with regards to cancer (I did not have cancer; it was something else). Reading that poor woman’s story this morning brought back the memory of that sudden, piercing aloneness when you’ve just received the diagnosis – made worse upon realizing that no one really cared. No one cared much about your emotions, your shock, about your fears of what lay ahead. They didn’t care that you were sitting there, blank, yet scrambling for questions… and answers. It mattered nothing to them that you were in shock, that your life had ground to a halt – and that it was simple charity to be sensitive to the patient’s place at that point in time – by refraining from joking with colleagues, talking about plans after work – until I got some grip on what I had just heard.
I didn’t care if it was the kind of news that they delivered to patients hundreds of times before; it was my first time hearing it and I deserved much better than what I got from the doctor leaning away to crack a joke with another doctor. I deserved way much more than a condescending look and a careless answer when I asked my first question about treatment options.
I had every right to concern and compassion that I didn’t get from those medical specialists. In that moment of my suffering, they were not healers. Their attitude was oppressive because it further compounded a Cross I barely even knew how to lift.
My experience only lasted a few excruciating hours. But how many men, women and children, face this sentence in reality each day, alone and isolated in their fears because hostile onlookers want no part in their pain?
So, today, I begin my fast for the oppressed as well as for the oppressors. Both are found everywhere, not just in hospitals and in doctors’ rooms. Some are in our places of work. Some are in our own homes. Not all are obvious, out in the open. Although it is far easier on me to cast those callous hearts aside and focus only on those in pain, I sense God is calling me to fast for the conversion of oppressors as well.
Knowing that I might just choose to focus my consoling on those suffering oppression, God gave me a sign right in front of my eyes. Returning from Mass, for close to 30 minutes on dark roads, God placed my superior’s car in front of us. Due to the heavy traffic, we had no choice but to trail this man cruel to so many for so long. 30 minutes was enough time to pretend not to see, make excuses and then to concede defeat to God and say, Ok, yes, I will console You for this man too.
Because just as I seek life, God wants oppressor hearts to be converted – that they too may live.
LENT 5 ~ HONOUR OF THE SABBATH
On keeping the Sabbath holy:
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice… ~ Isaiah 58: 13
The instruction continues. I feel as if I am seeing things for the first time. I feel as if I am new to the faith, not the cradle Catholic I thought I was. Before this, my eyes were opened to a new way of fasting.
Now, it is how the Lord wants me to celebrate and live His Sabbath.
LENT 6 ~ REPLACE WITH YOURS
Just before sunset Mass last week, God called me to console Him for victims of oppression as well as for oppressors. Then, He placed in my heart a light longing for a Blood of Christ prayer. Later that night, He showed me a specific oppressor to focus on, one of my bosses at work.
The next morning, the yearning for a Blood of Christ prayer deepened and going in search of one, I was returned to an old blog post from 3 years back, Heeding the Confessor. I had forgotten all about it, so I was slightly surprised to see that the post was about that specific boss. Reading it, I recalled that the tug of spirit at that time, 3 years ago, was to pray the Blood of Christ upon that man.
More chilling was the bible reference given to me about him. It was the parable of the Rich Fool.
Then the Lord Jesus spoke this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” ~ Luke 12:16 – 21
Every line that described the fool described my boss.
At the time of the post, I had just been severely torn down by him. I was fighting anger. I didn’t want to pray for him. But St. Maximos Confessor had come and urgently told me I had to channel my anger into prayer for the man; I couldn’t allow my anger and hatred for him to steer me away from the prayer he needed so much.
To the extent that you pray with all your soul for the person who slanders you, God will make the truth known to those who have been scandalized by the slander. ~ St. Maximos Confessor
And so, I fought myself and prayed for him with the simple Blood of Christ prayer Jesus had slipped into my heart.
Blood of Christ upon me, Blood of Christ upon him.
That was 3 years ago. Now, yet again, this man was brought before my eyes so firmly that I knew God was not about to tolerate any excuses from me not to pray for him. So, once more, I tried to pray that same prayer, Blood of Christ upon me, Blood of Christ upon him.
I didn’t feel a hand stop that prayer. Neither was it lifted away from me. Yet, it felt different this time. It didn’t quite… fit. I spent the rest of that day and today gently seeking the prayer for this man and every superior that he represented. Nothing came. Instead, today was tough. The sullen weather. Work that progressed slowly. A technical breakdown. Long, long work hours. Signs of a bad flu attack. Left without a prayer yet knowing I had to pray, I offered up this arid, angry day and all its knots and gnarls for the conversion of this man.
I finally drove home tiredly, nothing much left in me. I put my heart out once more, wanly searching for the prayer.
A small hand pushed a memory across my heart. A memory of the post that was written just before Heeding the Confessor.
It was Replace my blood with Yours – ‘Yours’ as in the Precious Blood of my Christ. The second my heart uttered the line, I knew I had found the prayer of conversion for my superior.
Replace his blood with Yours
LENT 7 ~ IN ORDER TO RESTORE
In order to restore in the world the reign of Jesus Christ, nothing is as necessary as the holiness of the clergy. ~ Pope St. Pius X
I offer up my today, everything in it, to God, for priests. May the Precious Blood of Jesus course through them, washing away stones of sin.
LENT 8 ~ IN PLACE OF PRIESTS
I want you to call priests to the experience of My friendship…to remain before My Eucharistic Face …adoration and reparation. Draw near to My Open Side in the Sacrament of My Love for them and in their place, and they will begin to follow you there.
Reach out to My priests, not so much by speaking to them, but rather by reaching out to Me for their sake. ~ In Sinu Jesu
I haven’t prayed much this week. Work has been heavy. I’m falling behind, the cold I’m nursing diminishes any hope of catching up on work. I’m too worn out to even feel frustrated.
I wonder how Jesus feels. The church is shaking and groaning from its pain and here I am, locked in my world of endless work and a cold determined to stay.
Nonetheless, today, He deepens this second Lent call to me: come to Me in place of priests, for My priests.
Speak to My priests by coming to me.
Reach out to them by coming to me.
The cold has turned into a racking cough. More work has been added on. I cannot even remember to enter my inner cloister to pray.
So, I do the only thing I can: Before I leave for work, I seal my heart to His Tabernacle. I leave it there and go to my day. I hope it is enough. I hope it compensates.
Yet, I feel nothing at all. No rejection, but no deepening recollection, no heightened spiritual alertness either. Nothing to indicate my heart is where it should be. I try the prayers He has given me. They pass through my heart listlessly, like dry leaves going to their death.
I think of the dream of the red blouse and dried flowers. In the dream, I am going up to the tabernacle, bearing winter blooms. My wan prayers, the heart I am trying to seal to His – they’re the winter blooms which I must fight myself and the world to continue to offer to my Lord.
Because He wants me to draw near to His Open Side in the Sacrament of His Love for priests and in their place, so that they too will come to Him.
LENT 9 – GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are You. Turn our mourning into gladness
and our sorrows into wholeness. ~ Esther 4: 14, 30
Not the easiest of days, yet a Hand is over my heart today, no permission granted to ache or hurt for myself. Today, twice, a commenter has reminded me, Spring is on its way! How beautiful! How especially beautiful on this day of my friends’ soft tears and trembling smiles. Today, I tread carefully among the wounded, touching sorrowing hearts, willing them to believe that spring is coming even as it seems winter won’t let go, in the hiddenness of my own heart, praying,
God of Abraham,
God of Isaac,
God of Jacob,
turn our mourning into gladness,
and our sorrows into joy,
Blessed be God,
Blessed be God,
Blessed be God.
LENT 10 ~ PRECIOUS BLOOD
Consoling Jesus today with,
Invocations to the Precious Blood of Jesus
Precious Blood of Jesus, shed in the Circumcision,
make me chaste of mind, heart and body.
Precious Blood, oozing from every pore in the Agony of Jesus,
grant me to love only the holy Will of God.
Precious Blood, flowing abundantly in the Scourging at the Pillar,
pierce me with a keen sorrow for my sins and a love of suffering.
Precious Blood, falling in profusion from the Crown of Thorns,
grant me a love of humiliations.
Precious Blood, furrowing the way to Calvary,
fill me with courage to walk unfalteringly in the bloody footsteps of Jesus.
Precious Blood, shed so profusely in the Crucifixion of my Jesus,
make me die entirely to self-love.
Precious Blood, shed to the very last drop by the opening of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
give me that generous love that sacrifices all for God.
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Precious Blood in atonement for my sins and for the sins of the world.
Precious Blood, heal me.
LENT 11 ~ GO TO THE SPRING
During the ninth apparition, the Lady asked Bernadette to scrape the soil, saying to her: “Go to the spring, drink of it and wash yourself there”. ~ Apparition of Our Lady to Bernadette Soubirous
LENT 12 ~ WOULD YOU COME HERE?
“Would you be so kind as to come here?”
An entire night of endless coughing, each bout sending me scurrying to, Go to the spring, drink of it and wash yourself there.
Then, I was put to the test and I failed.
Yet, this morning, only the kind heart of a Mother awaited me.
“Would you be so kind as to come here?”
These were the words of Our Lady to Bernadette at the third apparition. These strikingly courteous and homely words are not a command but an invitation to leave everything else aside and come spend time with Mary. ~ Father John Lochran, chaplain to the English-speaking pilgrims to Lourdes between 1985 and 1995, 150 Years of God’s Healing Care, Franciscan Media
I’ve been unwell for close to a week, yet unable to take sick leave due to work responsibilities. I cleared some of that work last Friday and now, I suddenly suspect why I don’t seem to be improving fast enough despite medication: it’s time to take the leave from work. Time to be still.
To leave everything else aside and come spend time with Mary.
LENT 13 ~ RETURNING OF HOPES
I read about the Holy Spirit Rosary on Susan Skinner’s blog, Veil of Veronica, and like her, I too was immediately drawn to it. The drawback was that it needed to be prayed as a group – to ensure we do not attribute to the Holy Spirit what is actually something out of our own heads. I didn’t have a group I could meet with to pray the Rosary together. Even with friends, no common time to come together as well.
This afternoon, with the weather the way it was, sullen and sulking, I decided to go it alone. I prayed with all my heart that my mind, my will and my emotions be bound to the Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. That nothing of me pierce through. It was incredibly difficult, to be honest. I viewed with suspicion everything that moved past the window of my consciousness. I felt as if I was all tightly bound up, stiff and rigid. Not the best way to pray, for sure, but there didn’t seem to be any other way.
I decided to pray all 5 decades on the meditation of the Agony in Gethsemane. I imagined myself beside Jesus in the garden. Then, I wished I had done some research on this so as to better imagine the place. While I was dragging my scattered thoughts back to the garden, I somehow ended up in the desert with Jesus during His 40 days fast. I’m not sure how that happened. Nonetheless, somehow, that worked out a lot better than trying to imagine the Garden of Gethsemane.
I believe I imagined Jesus sitting on a wide smooth slab of rock, facing straight ahead. And I settled myself beside Him. He didn’t seem to be aware of my presence. I likely imagined that too. I must have seen the time in the desert to be an intense time, of deep, penetrating silence. That would explain why I imagined or pictured Jesus in that still, unmoving, undistracted manner. I remember telling myself not to be a distraction to Him, not to squirm and wriggle trying to get comfortable on hard stone.
Again, that was just probably my way of quelling my own distractedness.
As I whispered my Hail Marys and tried to be as still and as unyielding towards travelling thoughts, I sank into a slight weary sadness. I saw hopes that were so long in coming true. I saw dreams that didn’t seem possible any more. Expectations being raised and then, dashed.
As I struggled and struggled to meditate on His Agony all alone in Gethsemane/Desert, I felt a gentl-ing of my tightness. As I felt the ropes I had bound myself with earlier begin to loosen, I came face-to-face with an old shadow inside me:
The hopes within me were my own, not God’s.
While He had given me signs and shown me glimpses into the future, I had taken them and embellished them with my own visons and expectations. I had sewed on my own buttons of desires, embroidering the garment with my ideas of how life should work out for me.
And when what I had conjured in my head collided with God’s reality, hurt swelled and soared like churning seas.
Sitting by His side looking out at the expanse of sand and rock, I slowly returned to Him my tattered garments of hope, rent and stained by earthly wiles and wishes, by my own undoing of selfishness, pride and vanity. I gave back to Jesus,all the hope that was of me, born of my passions.
He’d know what to do with it, I reasoned.
I cannot be sure how I ended up here, at this point of returning. Was it the Holy Spirit Rosary? Was it just the way my thoughts were weaving through the haze of hours and events?
I suspect it’s not me. Because despite the dulled spirit, when the Rosary ended, I rose and went to my chores with a lightness in my step.
You don’t confront sadness and disappointment, and yet, leave in light – unless it was the Spirit’s doing.
LENT 14 ~ I’VE MOVED ON
I’m not sure if it’s due to being unwell or if it’s the effect of yesterday’s returning – but I’m not easily provoked today. An inner quietness graces my hours. I’m fretting far less. Today, it matters more to me that I give of myself, than seeking to be filled.
Today too, I’m not catching myself scanning the skies, the air, the winds, for a sign of something to come. Today, when I think of what lies ahead, I’m content to let things work out their own course. No meddling in God’s affairs for me today. A friend wrote about the terrible floods in Nebraska, wondering if the floods were connected to a sign we had both received some years back – a sign of water, water in the month of March. I remembered that sign but as I sought to recall it more clearly, I sensed a veil gently slip over my mind and heart.
And I released my hold over the seeking.
God had promised me that spring would come to me, that winter would not stretch its frigid, barren arms across my life forever. That promise evoked in me a deep yearning for spring, each and every day since I heard Him last year.
Yet, while I had waited for spring to emerge triumphant from cold hollows of snow and ice, after yesterday, I’m sensing a gentle pressure to let that be too. Because I have no way of knowing if spring for me would come this year or later. To expect it at a specific time – and to not have that wish bloom in joy – would mean yet another wounding for me. It is wiser to keep the hope of spring – but without desecrating it with a date.
Has hope dried up in me? I hold my heart up to scrutiny. If it has, I would have known it by the dirge a broken spirit sings in mourning for lost hope. No, this is not loss of hope, not when it’s accompanied by this strange, mellow softness of heart.
The hours at work bring me an understanding: this is what it feels like when a long time occupant of a room has left to seek life elsewhere. The occupant who has ruled me strong for long, by whom I’ve defined so much of my life. By returning to Jesus the lines I’ve written and maps I’ve plotted to chart my course, I’ve been emptied of myself.
I’ve felt emptiness before, in the Lent of old years gone by, hence, I would recognize the clean pain that comes from giving up everything of value to my heart.
This is different now. What I’ve held on to is gone. But there is no pain, no anguished calling back of what was returned to Jesus.
It’s as if I’ve… moved on.
LENT 15 ~ CHANGE
On the second day of my Holy Spirit Rosary, I had intended to pray and meditate on the Second Sorrowful mystery – Jesus’ Scourging at the Pillar. But try as I might, I just couldn’t anchor my heart in it. Instead, I felt strongly drawn to the first and second Glorious Mysteries – The Resurrection and The Ascension. As I prayed those mysteries instead, I felt myself sink into them. There I stayed, waiting for the Holy Spirit to speak.
All was still.
After some minutes of forcing myself to be still, I began what I always do – digging. I scratched and dug into the earth of those Mysteries, seeking a reply that obstinately clung to secrecy.
Of course, one doesn’t order the Holy Spirit around. So, I got nothing for my efforts.
After waiting some more and not hearing anything, I rose to go to my day. That was when I felt a slight prick.
Change.
Death to life in the Resurrection. Earth to heaven in the Ascension. Yes, that was change. But what did it mean for me? I was impatient to know.
When no answer was forthcoming, I became suspicious. I doubted that it was the Holy Spirit. ‘Change’ was rather obvious. I expected to be hit on the head, caught by the heart, that sort of thing. Not though by something as unsurprising and as mundane as… change. It must have been me. Again. Just me.
But change was like a dog that had just found its beloved master – it followed me everywhere, all through the rush and inert heat of the next day. I dismissed it as being akin to an irritating, inane lyric of a song that plays on and on in your mind.
Yet, from time to time, I sneaked glances at the 2 Mysteries, wondering if they held a secret not yet divined to me. Change. What change? Was I being asked to change? If so, what was the connection between this and the 2 Glorious Mysteries?
Then, I recalled reading somewhere, Christian faith is to believe in the Resurrection.
Resurrection. Ascension. The afterlife. That hope doesn’t end with death.
I still couldn’t connect it to change, not in a deeper way that would point to it being from the Spirit for me.
A long and draining day came to an end and I drove home in relief. Some of my children had been away with my husband for much of the week. I had missed them. They would be returning later in the night and the other kids and I were looking forwards to having our beloveds close to us again.
In the midst of that anticipation, came a sharp sting, shot straight out of a selfish heart. It caught me square in the middle. Someone wanted me to choose between my family and her demands. I chose my family and of course, there was a price to pay. In a flash, she fired two darts at me. With the snap of a winter twig, flames shot out of my own heart at this unfairness.
So much for the peace and gentleness that had come into me heart; I hadn’t moved on from anything. I was just who I’ve always been and always will be, dry kindling just waiting for the lick of the tiniest flame.
Suddenly, a mist rose up inside me. Something within me began to fight back to hold on to the peace in me. As I battled my anger and myself, I suddenly understood what change of the Resurrection and the Ascension meant:
If I truly believed in the Resurrection and in the Ascension, then I had to live that belief by changing. Change had to come before anything else.
I made my next choice easily. I chose change. I chose to move from anger to forgiveness. From anger to mercy. From revenge to leaving it in Jesus’ heart.
But it was incredibly hard to remain in this change. Old habits don’t go easily into the night. I fought and fought the whole length of night. Even when I awakened in the hush of a new morn blessed by the embrace of rain, remnants of anger still mottled my heart.
I battled on. Over and over, I went to the edge, then drew back. I searched my memory for a battle prayer and found one,
Blood and Water,
Heart of Jesus,
Have mercy on me,
Have mercy on her.
Have mercy on her because this was a woman caught by the lure of money. What she said to me was all due this blindness in her mind and heart, caused by the enticement of easy money.
It was so much easier to dislike her, to remember what she had previously done to me and to fight a battle from the angle of a victim. But something had taken over me now; it was as if God was directing my heart, No, this has to be fought differently.
Although she had hurt me, I had to change tactics and fight for us both.
Blood and Water,
Heart of Jesus,
Have mercy on me,
Have mercy on her.
I said that prayer all the way to work. Many times, I caught myself planning what to say to her if she confronted me. Each time, I ran and placed my plans in Jesus’ heart, Not my will but Thine be done. All I did ask of God was that He gift me with silence because my tongue was always my greatest undoing.
It was late morning when she came to me, with tears in her eyes and a gentle hand on my arm, admitting her selfishness in what she had asked of me, in her unspoken words, an apology of sorts.
Just like that, everything was over.
I learned the lesson so many have learned long before. That in a hurting, there are always two victims – the wounded and the wound-er. In my life, I’ve mostly battled as a victim.
It’s now time to change, to accept and conquer my Everest of struggles – that from now on, I fight myself by fighting for my wound-er.
LENT 16 ~ WINTER’S SECRET
Winter’s secret…
Wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness, working no violence on yourself lest you disturb the soul’s peace and tranquility. God will feed your soul with heavenly food since you put no obstacle in His way. The soul in this state must remember that if it is not conscious of making progress, it is making much more than when it was walking on foot, because God Himself is bearing it in His arms. Although outwardly it is doing nothing, it is in reality doing more than if it were working, since God is doing the work within it. And it is not remarkable that the soul does not see this, for our senses cannot perceive what God does in the soul. . . if the soul stays in God’s care it will certainly make progress. ~ St. John of the Cross
LENT 17 ~ GIVE ME A SIGN
The bell of the Annunciation has chimed thrice in the last 7 days. My daughter unexpectedly reminded us about it last week. Yesterday, the priest informed the congregation of the special Mass times for the Feast. And this morning, a commenter wished me, Happy Annunciation Day.
Since 2016, the Feast of the Annunciation has chimed a special, hidden bell within my soul. That year, in the month of July, I had a strange experience. I was trying to gift Our Lady with a Joyful Mystery Rosary when She put out Her hand and gently restrained me to the First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation.
And then, She spoke 10 words,
The event of the Warning will begin with the Annunciation
Will begin with. For the first time then, I was faced with the likelihood that the Warning or the Illumination of Conscience was not merely to be a single, sudden event; it was also to be like a flower bud, going towards its full bloom, petal by petal unfurled. It was clearly imprinted on my heart that this unfurling of the Warning – for me – would begin in 2017. This has led me to believe that many people would have had the same experience – but with different dates.
Today, on the Feast of the Annunciation, remembering the signs of the Warning I have received, the First Reading stuns me:
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
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God
God is commanding Ahaz to ask for a sign. In my simpleton’s understanding of that line, God is actually asking Ahaz to move beyond his fear and tremulous faith, to put out into the deep, and to boldly ask God for His illumination.
let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky
This Illumination which God is commanding Ahaz to ask for will be a paradox. To some, this illumination will be the rainbow of all rainbows, high in the skies, beyond the sight of hope and expectation, an unexpected fire of joy. But to others, the illumination will bring severe pain, piercing to the very depths of all that has been secret thus far.
But Ahaz answered,
“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”
That was my exact answer when I first read the words of Isaiah 7 this morning, Ask for a sign.
I will not ask!
To ask is to be curious about what is to come.
To ask is to return to what I was before – painting my own picture of hope.
I will not ask!
I will not ask!
I will not ask!
Then, the words of the Responsorial Psalm came before me,
Sacrifice or oblation You wished not,
but ears open to obedience You gave me. ~ Psalm 40: 7
God reminded me of the change I have committed to – which includes moving from mere sacrifice to the sacrifice of obedience.
The obedience of not just asking for a sign – which may return me to who I was before – but to Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God.
And so, on this Feast of the Annunciation, I seek Mary’s fiat to obedience.
Give me a sign, O Lord,
From You
And You alone.
LENT 18 ~ REMEMBER HOPE
A silver rain beat down on our roof very early in the morning. Looking out at the freshened skies a little later, I saw a tiny fire~rainbow smile at me from the depths of a blue cloud.
Remember hope
whispered the rainbow before it returned to its Maker.
A missing blouse. Hours of a precious morn gone. A recurring health issue. Having to travel when I’d rather stay home. My husband is tired, weary from troubles. Unpleasant local and international news.
Remember hope
It’s easy to let go and fall, if just a little. It’s tempting to want to lower prayer~arms just for a bit. To lay my head down awhile and mourn all that will not be.
But a rainbow came, at the smile of day, to bid me remember hope. My God’s sign that He understands the day might be a little tough, that there might be more of such days on the necklace of weeks and months to come.
And so I will, in obedience, remember hope.
LENT 19 ~ EYES ON GOD
Last night, eyes of my heart moving over my day, I was chagrined to realise that my hours could have been lived better. I had done little and accomplished even less. I had given in to sluggishness. I had not served my family as much as I should have. I had not spent enough time to listen and to enjoy them.
I barely even heard the birds in the winds yesterday.
I did not forget the rainbow message of the morn – to remember hope – but even as I held on to the promise of hope, I forgot to try to live that promise in a deeper way. Instead, I had allowed my weariness over my health issues to cloud my day. I allowed it to hold back more of myself from giving love to others.
Today, I strongly sense that God must have watched me in my hours of yesterday. He must have observed me spend that time trying to hold on to hope by fighting my fears, suppressing my worries through positivity and some prayers.
And surely, He knew that yesterday, I forgot the most important prayer of all – the prayer of holding His hand through my family.
So, with the deepening of the night veils, He set about straightening my path.
He brought me a week’s old post of Melanie Jean Juneau’s where she had written of a situation she was facing. Of the fear. Of trying to hold on to Jesus’ hand even as she tried to walk on water. Of feeling the waves rise higher and higher over her.
Reading about it, pity and sympathy for a woman I admire so much pierced my heart and shocked me out of myself. Wanting to do something to help her, I bound Melanie to the Passion of Christ, to His Blood and Water, in fervent prayer for mercy for her and for her family.
I believe that prayer set me free. My health concerns paled in comparison to this pain. My eyes now just where He wanted them to be, God then set before me other posts – each bearing the message of keeping our eyes on the Lord as we walked on water towards Him.
No spirit can turn away from such a powerful sign; neither could mine. I knew my Master’s sign the moment I perceived it. I understood His urgent call and my spirit surged towards the impossibility of what He was calling me to: walk on water.
He’s not called a loving Father for nothing.
God knew I would hurry to obey. But then, like Peter, I would suddenly take my eyes off Him and I would begin to sink quickly. And so, He showed me how He wanted me to keep my eyes on Him.
…in the garden every morning are these exquisite blooms, ravishing roses, that are our beloveds …. As we step out each day, may we celebrate the blooms God has so graciously gifted us with. ~ Linda Raha, Time Enough, Reflections From An Open Window
God was telling me to return to my family. To love them. To serve them. As I cared for my beloved blooms, I would be keeping my eyes on Him and walking on water towards Him.
That is how He wants me to remember hope.
LENT 20 ~ THREE
A short while back, when it became certain that a health concern was recurring, I became anxious and worried. I had faced it before and knew firsthand how problematic and disruptive it could be.
In the midst of this Cross, I thought of Julian of Norwich and the way she had come one old night bearing the message,
All shall be well
I wished she would come once more now, to tell me again that I needn’t fear.
But she didn’t. It was just one more disappointment which I tucked into the folds of my heart.
Then came the exhortation that I ask God for His sign for me. After some dithering, I obeyed. On the third day, He brought me this sign early in the morning,
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices. ~ St Teresa of Avila
All things are passing away. My heart caught at those words. I could feel strength slowly return, gently watering the fear~dried gullies within me. I had just learnt an important lesson – to hold on to hope, to keep my eyes on God – through loving my family.
And so, to the garden of my beloveds I went to love. The hours flew by as the winds sang their hymns from the breast of trees. Late last night, the house stilled in slumber and my heart at peace, once more, St. Teresa smiled her words at me,
Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
This time, I felt her place her finger on Whoever has God lacks nothing. As my heart willingly embraced those words, someone quietly and gently stood behind me. Sensing a presence, my spirit turned, and I beheld,
All shall be well.
My beloved Julian of Norwich. The third of three.
LENT 21 ~ FREED
I had to go into the city pretty early today for an afternoon appointment. Since I had some time before the appointment, I decided to go to church. I was delighted. It was a Friday and what better way to observe Sacred Heart Friday as I called my Friday observance, one I’ve been trying to keep since the first Friday of the year.
I also had a little plan. There was someone at church I wanted to have a word with. She was the church clerk, Patricia, a simple, open and trusting young lady. I had met her sickly mother after Mass the week before and she had unhappily confided in me that Patricia was going to be married in a few months. I was happy for Patricia although I knew it was going to be hard for the mother whose last daughter was going to move to the capital, some 4 hours away, leaving the mother all alone here.
Slowly, I began to sniff out what was not being said – that the mother’s anxiety actually stemmed from the fact that Patricia was probably marrying a non-Catholic, more likely a non-Christian. To a woman whose own non-Christian spouse had walked out on her and her 4 very young children early in their marriage, it must have seemed like a revisiting of an old nightmare.
I felt the mother’s pain keenly and I was determined to help. A young relative of ours had married the same way a year ago and there was no end of problems unique to mixed marriages. I didn’t want to break up Patricia’s relationship or anything; I was not God and not about to play one either. But I hoped to at least remind Patricia to choose Jesus in her relationship with this man – and then see where that choice took her. If it didn’t change anything, fine. After all, both spouses being Catholic wasn’t a guarantee of marriage stability or permanence.
When my husband left me at church, I saw Patricia striding quickly towards her car and taking off rather hurriedly. I shrugged. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be. And anyway, the wedding was to be in September, so I still had some time.
It was a comfort to be inside the almost empty church. The deep stillness within was almost like a womb. I felt secure and loved and at peace.
Taking out my precious little brown rosary, I began to recite the Divine Mercy chaplet. I tried to pin intentions to the chaplet but by the second decade, it was clear that I could plan all I wanted; the Chaplet was going to proceed under Someone else’s leading.
Feeling unusually secure and mellow, I wasn’t in the mood to put up a fight. So, I let God lead and tried to empty myself – of myself.
After the second decade, I felt the Chaplet end prematurely. I looked around the church a bit as my heart shone a torch at my spirit to see what the problem was.
All was still. ‘Nobody’ was yielding any secrets.
I eyed Jesus in the Divine Mercy image. I am here to console Thee. If today You ask me to be still, I will be still, I told Him.
Having said that, I didn’t bother to try to discern any more intentions. I settled back and relaxed, my mind actually empty.
I was feeling pleased and was about to enjoy the feeling when I felt my eyes being taken, from Jesus’ face, to the words at the bottom of the Divine Mercy image.
I read the words, Jesus, I trust in You. Words I have seen and read many, many times before.
Simultaneously, I felt Someone write on my heart,
Trust in Me.
My breath didn’t still, my heart didn’t catch. Just peace and calm.
After a few minutes, I felt ready to leave the pew. As I stood up, I looked at Jesus on the Cross. Jesus, I have to go now, I told Him, but I leave my heart sealed in Your Tabernacle.
I had brought some work with me to do while I waited for the appointment in town. As I sat down to it in the Parish Community area, I saw Patricia return and walk into the office.
Strangely, despite my firm resolution earlier to do some good intentioned meddling, the fervor to go and poke my head into the young lady’s life had now disappeared.
Odd.
Several hours later, appointment over, I was back at church expecting my husband any second to come and get me and for us to make the long trip back to our home, when Patricia herself bounded up to my table.
I immediately brought up the topic of her marriage but almost immediately as well, I felt a strong urge to still my tongue and just listen to Patricia. It was not Patricia’s doing; it was from deep within me, this certainty that what was needed now was to empty myself of my plans and words and….just listen.
I found myself asking the girl gentle questions – but not to draw her to my turf – instead, to lead her to open up and speak. Again, what she needed to hear from me no longer mattered; what mattered was that she be allowed to speak freely.
I tell you in all honesty, that was never the plan. Never my plan, that is. Not that I wanted to push her into a corner and clap my hand over her mouth and force her to listen to me. I just didn’t want a long, drawn out conversation about her marriage plans. What little I had to say, I wanted to do it fast.
But nothing went to plan. Neither did I flail and lunge trying to steer the conversation to my earlier intentions. Patricia talked animatedly. I listened – with great interest.
At the end of our conversation, I did ask her if her fiancé was going to convert to the faith. She shook her head, a shadow passing over her face. It was clear that I had put my finger right on the pulse of Patricia’s struggle with her mother. Her answer should have upset me. Yet, with a strange firmness, I heard myself say,
If he ever converts, let it be only because he loves Jesus.
And he will love Jesus – through you,
I watched the light return to Patricia’s eyes.
Driving home with my husband afterwards, I gazed at the undulating road ahead and wondered what on earth had happened at church. Then, I remembered,
Trust in Me,
and
I leave my heart sealed in Your Tabernacle
In a silken sureness, I understood. I had given my heart to Jesus. In return, I was freed to do His will.
LENT 22 ~ SPRING IS STARTING!
Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is His coming,
and His judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth. ~ Hosea 6: 3
Spring is starting! I know it. I know it differently from the still quiet of the morning, rinsed and blessed by new rains. Before this, my knowing was of hope. Today, it is of certainty. Joy tingles my fingertips. To the physical eye, little has changed from the old hours. Yet, my spirit is curled in the delight of knowing the secret whispered among angels,
Spring is starting!
Suddenly too, emerges a desire, gentle yet sharp, to get my ‘house’ in order.
To clean,
to remove
To rebuild,
to restore.
Spring is starting!
Rejoice!
LENT 23 ~ I SEAL MY HEART
All through the night, at each gentle awakening,
I seal my heart in Your Tabernacle
The prayer of consoling Jesus, even when sleep might take me away from Him. For some reason, I was peacefully bound to this prayer last night. Perhaps someone was in need. Or that God needed the silence of my will to work on my heart. Or even yet another way He is helping me to keep my eyes on Him.
As the gentle rain ties diamonds everywhere it falls, I too secure my heart to Jesus once more,
I seal my heart in Your Tabernacle
LENT 24 ~ HOUSE OF MY HEART
Act of Humility
from the Small Roman Missal
O GOD of sanctity! Who am I, that Thou shouldst come to me?
“The heavens are not pure in Thy sight,” and wilt Thou dwell in my heart?
“Lord! I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof.”
The consciousness of my unworthiness would prompt me to exclaim: “Depart from me, O Lord! For I am a sinner.”
But oh, the wonderful condescension of Thy love! Thy pressing invitation encourages me, and dispels my fears.
“Here I am, for Thou didst call me.” Come then, O Jesus! Take possession of a heart that wishes to belong to Thee.
“Behold! They that go far from Thee shall perish.
“But, O my God! this house of my heart is too narrow for Thee: do Thou enlarge it;
it is falling to ruin; do Thou repair it;
it has been defiled by sin: do Thou cleanse and purify it.
Look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me. Oh, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee! Let Thy tender mercies come unto me, and I shall live!
Lord! I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof;
say but the word,
and my soul shall be healed.
LENT 25 ~ AT THE BREAK OF DAWN
My return to work after a short break brought with it the inevitable bite of winter. The oppression of loneliness and religious rejection. I tried everything I had learned on keeping my eyes on God, but I could sense the strength of spring slowly leave me.
Some hours later, I received a text message of a cousin’s pain. As I reached out to comfort her through my gift of tickles, a healing crept back into my spirit. Within the hour, though nothing at work had changed, I was upright once more.
I came home late yet determined not to bring winter in with me. I stoked the hearth to keep the fires of hope in spring alive. When bedtime came, I sought it with gladness as the day had been long and tiring.
Settling down to sleep, I began to feel a strange weight pressing down on my chest. It felt like an iron brick. I went still, trying to figure out what was happening. The ‘brick’ pressed down harder – but oddly, I didn’t have trouble breathing. My thoughts returned to the day and I knew then that it had been harder than I was willing to admit. And it was not just today. Today had been just one day out of many long years of this same suffering. No end seemed to be in sight.
Jesus, I calmly called out in the silence of my heart, Lay Thy hand upon my heart.
In a heartbeat, the pain lifted. Just like that, it was gone. I snuggled down in the comfort that God was close by.
But before I drifted off to sleep, I quietly asked God about my work woes, How long more till the promised help comes?
Today, I see something that brings to life the tiny embers within me,
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: 6
I recalled the pain in my chest and how it had lifted miraculously.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed
When will help come? I had asked.
Could this be the answer?
God will help it at the break of dawn.
LENT 26 ~ IMMERSE
Two days ago, when I had very little genuine and unforced compassion and charity for my superiors and co-workers, I asked God the question, How long more till the promised help comes?
God answered me early the next day with, God will help it at the break of dawn ~ Psalm 46: 6.
While it gave me deep consolation, it didn’t tell me how I was to bridge the gap between the now and the fulfilment. So, assuming this ‘how’ was hidden in the petals of a bloom I had once known, I returned to prayers I had prayed in the past.
Then, a small hand pushed a wreath of words towards me. Words I had read, believed and prayed as a prayer 3 years ago.
Today bring to Me ALL MANKIND, ESPECIALLY ALL SINNERS, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. In this way you will console Me in the bitter grief into which the loss of souls plunges Me. ~ Chaplet of the Divine Mercy novena, 1st day.
The words immerse and console pulsed strong. I had been firmly drawn to consoling Jesus through my recent night and early morn offerings of, I seal my heart in Your Tabernacle. Now, in a deeper way, I understood that it was not me; it had been Jesus drawing me closer to Him through that prayer – leading me to the next prayer:
Immerse souls in the sea of my Mercy.
Later that day, through another person’s sharing of a troubling experience with nightmare neighbours, yet again, Jesus deepened the lesson that the never ending duels with my superiors and co-workers had a purpose:
Only through suffering would I be hurt enough to cry to heaven.
Moreover, I had to cry to heaven not just for myself, but for those oppressors as well.
And the prayer for my oppressors now was to be,
I immerse them in the sea of Your mercy.
I stepped back from the call of life to meditate on this development. I realized it was no random prayer. I had journeyed to this point from the very early days of this Lent when God told me this was to be a Lent to console Jesus through the fasting for oppressors. I had discerned and obeyed as best as I could and that took me to the next stop and the next prayer for oppressors,
Replace his blood with Yours
And now, after that, after whatever offerings of sacrifice and obedience of worth, I had come to,
Jesus, I immerse them in the sea of Your mercy.
Each time, the darts of anger pierced my heart, I prayed,
Jesus, I immerse them in the sea of Your mercy.
Every time they annoyed me. Every time I observed my oppressors desecrate whatever was good and pure and blessed. Every time I felt that I could not go on another day in this hell.
Then, my husband shared his sufferings with me. And it was the same wounding too.
Jesus, I immerse them in the sea of Your mercy.
And also with our children.
Each and every time the spirit moves me, I pray that prayer. Through the day. Each awakening in the night. In hope. In brokenness. When I can. When I cannot. When I don’t want to.
Jesus, I immerse them in the sea of Your mercy.
LENT 27 ~ LIGHT THE DARKNESS
Come, Holy Spirit, enlighten the darkness of my understanding and sharpen my conscience, so that I may recognize God’s will in all things. Send forth Your light and truth into my soul!
Susan Skinner has written about a disturbing dream that speaks to our now and to what is coming: a deadly confusion – embraced as truth and reality – by more and more people. A confusion that will lead us to leave our faith – willfully – or without realizing it. We will give up all that is important for what isn’t.
Because the world will become our master and it will guide our choices. No longer will we choose Jesus in our families, in our places of work, or even, I suspect, in our worship. We will choose the god of the moment – anything that the world compels us to worship at any one time.
What Susan wrote hits very close to home as this is my suffering, my family’s suffering too. Each and every day, we are spiritually and emotionally hurt, sometimes even assaulted, by people who are angry that we are trying to choose Jesus when they won’t. My husband and I are suffering this on a daily basis at work. Our kids are struggling in school. It is not the usual disagreeable co-worker antics or the errant student or teacher.
It is far, far worse. It is a pervasive, multi-headed slave-owner mentality that seeks to control and force us all to bow down and worship its many gods – money, self, whatever the idol of the hour.
At the root of this abuse is the spirit of narcissism. We have the Holy Spirit. Satan’s is the spirit of narcissism.
It is the spirit of narcissism that will encourage us to neglect our children, spouses and loved ones, to favour ourselves. It will delude us to believe that as we try to break the glass ceiling at work, we are doing what’s best for our kids at home. Narcissism will whisper accolades into our ears as we go deeper and deeper into work, drawn not by need, but by the siren’s call to worship of money and self idolatry, leaving our homes, our marriage, our kids emotionally and spiritually starved. It is not about earning the honest dollar; it is about money replacing our hearts.
The spirit of narcissism feeds the winds of boredom. Suddenly, the Rosary is slow and ineffective, the Mass dull and uninspiring. Why isn’t the priest prancing around, where are the sermons of fire-and-brimstone? Narcissism pretends to commiserate with our spiritual lethargy – only to slyly draw us away from the Eucharist, from the Word of God, from the hard truths of the tenets of our faith, towards fads and trends, modern gurus and spiritual ear candy.
As the hour deepens, the voices that insist that we obey satan’s spirit will become louder and more convincing. It is easier to resist this nefarious wrecker’s wiles when it’s a single voice.
Not so when it is a chorus gaining in size and volume by the day as more and more people succumb to narcissism in all its shades and forms. People like our closest friends, co-workers, our superiors.
Our own family members.
Not so when those who have fallen employ various means, even emotional blackmail, to get us to cross over to their side.
Not so when we can no longer discern the fading line between truth and deception.
It will be very, very hard to resist but it will not be impossible. Susan Skinner’s words to us are to walk blind to know what is real. To not depend on our sight but to allow the Holy Spirit to lead.
To seek God in every way the Holy Spirit reveals to us, and then to depend on God to light the darkness for us.
LENT 28 ~ ANOTHER NAME
I’ve barely given St. Thomas much thought, despite worshipping for decades at a church named after him. The prayers to him that we sometimes recite as a congregation have never touched me before. He was just not someone who moved me. And that’s a little strange. He is commonly associated with his unfortunate moniker – Doubting Thomas – which should have made him my spiritual kin, as I too often struggle with doubts. Yet, I’ve never sought his company.
And I’m not sure he sought mine, either!
But then came Susan Skinner’s post, The Weight of St. Thomas. And her story of her dog and the Pay Attention to the Dogs message. I certainly paid attention because dogs have recently become a ‘stronger’ presence in my life as never before, leading me to wonder from 2 years back if dogs were to be some sort of sign for me, a warning sign. After Susan’s post, I went over our own latest experiences with dogs.
As I began to literally pay attention to the dogs, something began to reveal itself – but from the side of my consciousness.
China
The question I had asked myself very recently, of why Pope Francis had crushed the hopes of Vatican ordained Chinese Catholic bishops by ceding to the corrupt power of the Chinese Communist Party under whose power the church in China will now come.
The headline I had read just minutes before, Chinese Muslims Ordered To Hand Over All Copies Of The Quran Or Face Punishment.
Why China all of a sudden? I wondered.
Heaven remained silent. Won’t You tell me? I prodded once more.
The air would not stir. So, I returned once more to the dogs. What did they mean for me? Why was I sensing something there that I needed to understand and yet could not see?
The line in the next article I had picked at random, We were ordered to take down the Crosses on our churches, wrote a Chinese priest.
China. Again.
Banning of the faith.
Decimation of religion.
I didn’t know what God was asking of me. But we were going for Mass, to our parish of St. Thomas. I figured I’d ask Him then.
However, in church later, I completely forgot to ask God about dogs and China. Sitting in a pew, at a side we have never sat, after praying, I opened my battered copy of Diary of A Soul. I had been feeling empty all of that day and while I accepted it as consolation for Mother Mary, I didn’t feel there was any harm in knocking on heaven’s door. I said a quick prayer asking God to speak to me through St. Faustina and Jesus’ words to her. Give me something, Lord, I prayed.
… I have pressed my lips to the bitterness of the cup… ~ Entry 385, Diary of A Soul
I hastily shut the book. Yet, a soundless voice followed me into my heart, Drink of the cup of bitterness. I looked up the large Crucifix at the front of the church. I gazed awhile at the Divine Mercy image to the left of the church. Drink of the cup of bitterness, intoned that same voice.
At that very moment, I spied someone staring squarely at me. It was a statue outside the church, placed in the peaceful side gardens, seen now through the long glass windows, very far from my new place in this pew. For a few seconds, I wasn’t even sure who it was. And then, I knew.
St. Thomas
Of course, it being the Church of St. Thomas, this shouldn’t have come as any surprise. It’s also a statue which I’ve seen so many times from my quick stops at the quiet parish gardens.
But at that moment, just before the start of Mass, St. Thomas had firmly placed my eyes on him.
Why?
After Mass, I forgot about St. Thomas for a while. Wanting to write out Mass intentions for a beloved soul who had just passed away, I moved to the side of the church closest to the statue of St. Thomas just a few feet away outside the church. Once I had slipped the Mass envelope into the Intentions box, I moved to leave. Genuflecting, I looked up and saw the words mounted on the wall behind the sanctuary, My Lord and my God. They had been there for some years.
But now, for the first time, I said the words aloud, My Lord and My God.
During the journey home, my thoughts happily darting from one earthly port to the other, a soundless voice broke through,
Thomas the Twin
Didymus
I was mildly taken aback. I had forgotten about St. Thomas, what more, Thomas the Twin and Didymus. I suddenly realized that St Thomas was rapping insistently on the window of my consciousness.
Once home, I immediately looked up the saint to learn about him, and received my next surprise of the day.
My Lord and my God was attributed to none other than St. Thomas, who spoke them in shock and awe at the moment the eyes of his soul were opened to the miracle of Christ’s Resurrection.
It was clear that St. Thomas was not some random saint passing through the desert of my Lent. For some reason, St. Thomas wanted my eyes on him. Every time I turned my attention somewhere else, he seemed to be coming and tugging at my eyes.
Why? I asked yet again.
A whole night passed.
This morning, before he came, I went to him. I didn’t try to read up some more on this saint. I merely sat and waited for him to speak.
Two words from Susan’s post drifted in like a soft breeze,
Thomas. Atheism.
In the hours after his beloved Jesus’ Crucifixion, Thomas had suffered immensely as his world crumbled. He who had been so sure of his belief in Jesus’ words, he who had been willing to follow Jesus to possible death in Bethany when the Jews were seeking to kill Him, was now broken and crushed at the death of the Jesus he had loved. All that Thomas had fought and worked for seemed to be for nothing.
Perhaps, in his deep anguish and grief, he even doubted God. If so, then, in those pain – wracked hours, Thomas had entered into the suffering of an atheist’s soul. If before he knew of it, after the Crucifixion, he had been immersed into and was burned by the cold flames of atheism.
As the morning winds sing a soundless hymn, I slowly begin to understand.
China. Crushing of the flame of faith.
The seer’s words,
When Communism comes again, everything will happen. The rise of atheism.
That was why St. Thomas had come to me. To warn me of the rise of atheism. The hell he had once known and lived.
The spirit of atheism is an oppressor’s spirit. This Lent, I have been called to pray for oppressors. I had assumed it was confined to those in our family’s lives.
Now, St Thomas has come to lay another name on my spirit.
That of the oppressor known as Atheism.
LENT 29 ~ DO NOT COMPROMISE
I speak about a poison from which are all suffering: a virulent atheism. It permeates everything, even our ecclesiastical discourse. It consists in allowing radically pagan and worldly modes of thinking or living to coexist side by side with faith… We must no longer compromise with lies. ~ Cardinal Robert Sarah
LENT 30 ~ YOU CALLED ME SENÕRA
I remember a mother with young children, whose husband had left her. she did not have a steady job and only found temporary jobs a couple of months out of the year. When there was no work, she had to prostitute herself to provide her children with food. She was humble, she came to the parish church and we tried to help her… I remember one day – it was during the Christmas holidays – she came with the children… and asked for me… She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the packet of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. “Did you receive it?” I asked. “Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Senõra.” ~ Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy
LENT 31 ~ I WILL NOT
King Nebuchadnezzar said:
“Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
that you will not serve my god,
or worship the golden statue that I set up?
Be ready now to fall down and worship the statue I had made,
whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet,
flute, lyre, harp, psaltery, bagpipe,
and all the other musical instruments;
otherwise, you shall be instantly cast into the white-hot furnace;
and who is the God who can deliver you out of my hands?”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar,
“There is no need for us to defend ourselves before you
in this matter.
If our God, whom we serve,
can save us from the white-hot furnace
and from your hands, O king, may He save us!
But even if He will not, know, O king,
that we will not serve your god
or worship the golden statue that you set up.” ~ Daniel 3: 14 – 18
Today, this brings me strength. This story ends with a miraculous vindication and not fiery death. King Nebuchadnezzar realizes that God sent His angel to protect the 3 Jewish boys who refused to bow down to the king’s false god. But this is not the part that makes me strong; I receive hidden strength from the heartfelt witness of
But even if He will not (save us), know, O king,
that we will not serve your god
Despite how far I’ve come on this journey of Christian discovery, when I suffer at the hands of others, I always want to be vindicated. When God prefers not to answer my prayer in the way I seek, naturally, it hurts. But as Jesus has shown me this Lent, my hurt is always over the unfulfillment of my plans, not God’s.
Today, 3 young boys teach me what true faith looks like. True faith does not hold God hostage to earthly desires and tainted hopes. True faith allows God to be God and focuses on what I need to do to live my faith in my God.
So, in my hours of today, my heart’s response to those who delight in hurting me, is simply,
I will not serve your god.
LENT 32 ~ PREACH BY EXAMPLE
They who aspire to reform the morals of others lose their time and their pains, by not preaching by example, in correcting themselves first. ~ St. Ignatius of Loyola
Today, I begin the new day anew in at least one way – I will go out to preach to the spirit of oppression – but by example. For every hurt~arrow that finds its mark in me, I will try to preach by example the healing opposite.
For cruelty, compassion
For self-seeking, generosity
For pride, humility
I’d likely fall at the lowest hurdle but what is faith if not to get off the ground and try once more!
LENT 33 ~ UNEXPECTED
They who aspire to reform the morals of others lose their time and their pains, by not preaching by example, in correcting themselves first. ~ St. Ignatius of Loyola
Yesterday, the quote above touched me. When surrounded by so much negativity and wrong, and we’re trying to survive and thrive, it’s easy to forget to look within ourselves for the solution. When I read the quote, its gentle urge to work on myself filled me with unexpected light, and that light – to preach by example – I took to the day,
For cruelty, compassion
For self-seeking, generosity
For pride, humility
Towards the end of the work day, preparing for my final appointment, I reflected that, despite my best intentions, I didn’t really get the chance to press compassion, generosity and humility into the widening cracks of my workplace. There’ll be another day, I reassured myself.
Only the angels could have known what was waiting for me at that final session. We strayed slightly away from our discussion and I stumbled upon pain territory. I heard of truly heartless bullying by those tasked with protecting their charges. I heard the unspoken, deepening resentment. I heard voices stretch and crack from hurt. The blow was unexpected, but paled beside the rawness of the wounds suffered by those victims.
For a while, I couldn’t find words, anything to make it hurt less for them. As I struggled to wrest control over my emotions, I heard myself speak. I spoke about not rebelling – as I sensed it would worsen the situation. I told the group, all Muslims, that there is a God who sees and feels their tears. I found myself telling them about our natural reflex towards revenge – which is so entrenched in their religion – then gently steered them to rest that revenge in God’s heart, clearing the path in their own hearts to receive His powerful strength.
They were not empty words, not out of a book, or some preacher’s mouth. They were my journey, my struggles. But I didn’t tell them that because what mattered was their suffering and that they leave the room in hope.
Did I give them that? Was it enough? As I fretted about it hours later, someone softly spread this over my heart,
For cruelty, compassion
For self-seeking, generosity
For pride, humility.
LENT 34 ~ TWO ROSES
This morning, I returned to an old garden, hidden from the busy walkways of life. There, I plucked two blooms and carried them back with me in my heart ~ my two children returned to Heaven through miscarriage.
Later, a struggle with anger against oppressors attacking my kids, anger worsening with every mile to church. All through Mass. Wanting to protect my children. Planning. Then, not sure if anything I do will work. Twenty years of this, worse now because of the kids and the danger they face.
I tried saying the Rosary during our drive to church but I couldn’t focus on a single Mystery then. So, I resorted to simple Hail Marys, little roses for my Mother. I couldn’t seem to offer anything else.
I just wished She would say just one word to me.
Just before Mass began, I was with my Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul. Speak to me, please, I begged. The entries I read were to do with Confession. I read them carefully, searching for His voice. I couldn’t hear anything clearly. So, I moved on.
Then, I remembered that we were planning for Confession. I went back to the Confession entries.
Concerning Holy Confession.
We should derive two kinds of profit from Holy Confession:
1. We come to confession to be healed;
2. We come to be educated-like a small child, our soul has constant need of education. ~ #Entry 376
I understood the words. But I still could not access the direction and comfort I was desperate for. Then, somehow, I lost my place in the book. Searching, I stumbled upon something else – O Blessed Host… Despite my inner turmoil, I was drawn to those words.
O Blessed Host, our only hope in the toil and monotony of everyday life.
O Blessed Host, our only hope amid the ruin of our hopes and endeavors.
O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of the ravages of the enemy and the efforts of hell.
The efforts of hell. Yes. That aptly described what I was facing, what the kids and my husband were facing.
As the Host was raised, I cried out with heart and soul,
Save us, Jesus!
Save us, Jesus!
Later, during Confession, listening intently to my pastor’s words, quiet and gentle, unhesitating in his counsel, my soul was educated, and directed towards hope.
And towards the seeking of angels.
Just before his final prayer, this gentle priest who has known much suffering, told me to offer Heaven a gift. Two Hail Marys. Roses for my Mother. A softness stole into my heart.
I knelt to pray. Heart and soul, I offered up the Hail Marys. I begged Mother Mary to keep my children safe.
Then, I remembered my two wee babies returned to Heaven through miscarriage.
Two children
Two Hail Marys
Two roses. One for each child, for our Mother. Gift of angels.
LENT 35 ~ ANGELIC GUARDS
For He commands His angels with regard to you,
to guard you wherever you go.
With their hands they shall support you,
lest you strike your foot against a stone ~ Psalm 91: 11 – 12
LENT 36 ~ RAVAGES OF THE ENEMY
At Mass, I was given to understand what my family and I were facing.
O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of the ravages of the enemy and the efforts of hell. ~ Entry 356, Diary – Divine Mercy in My Soul, St. Faustina Kowalska
Ravages of the enemy. Efforts of hell.
From 3 days before, a strange pulsing over the number 15. No fear. No lightness either. I believed it would be a sign.
And today, the 15th of April, the iconic Notre Dame cathedral burns. Whatever its electrical cause, the fire is symbolic of the efforts of hell against us.
But hell will not prevail. Endure, Our Lady told me. Endure we will. We will keep our eyes on God. We will do His Will. We will not hate. We will love.
And we will endure.
LENT 37 ~ I MUST LOVE
I believe in my pain, made fruitless by selfishness, in which I see refuge.
I believe in the stinginess of my soul that seeks to take without giving.
I believe that others are good and that I must love them without fear and without ever betraying them, never seeking my own security ~ The Creed of Pope Francis, in Pilgrimage by Mark K. Shriver
I went to work today, armed with Pope Francis’ creed, determined to love without seeking my own heart. I fell soon enough. The invisible onslaught was too much. I forgot all about the creed but I know I fought and fought to love. And yet, I fell.
I believe in the stinginess of my soul that seeks to take without giving.
I gave but I asked for just a bit of kindness in return, for my parched heart. It was that seeking that made me fall. It took me away from Jesus’s hidden suffering.
His death was nearing but His apostles were distracted by tainted conversations, empty pleasures, the inflicting of pain on others. As His suffering increased, Jesus searched the crowd of consolers for my heart but alas, it was not bound to His.
No, my heart was seeking its own comfort today.
It is night here. Only the crickets sing. The air does not dare stir to soothe. I have only a few short hours before dawn comes once more.
I am weary from years of struggle. But the battle is not over yet. I seal my heart in His Tabernacle. I must love.
LENT 38 ~ DO NOT BE DISTRACTED
From yesterday, Do not be distracted.
The hurting by others. Insensitive remarks. Loudness. Nasty asides. Gatherings. Ruckus. Bullying. Gossip.
Distractions.
LENT 39 ~ THE GREATEST LOVE. THE GREATEST GRIEF.
And if the love of Mary towards her Son was immense, immense also must have been her grief in losing Him by death. “Where there is the greatest love,” says Blessed Albert the Great, “there also is the greatest grief.” ~ St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
LENT 40 ~ LITTLE SIGN
In the silence of grief
a tiny memory
of an innocent cross
she smiled then
Now
tears and tearing
swords pierce her
at memory’s return.
Little sign of old
given early
preparing spirits
for this day
grief unrestrained
years and years on
the lesson of the Cross
True Love.
writingonmyheart 