Back From Retreat and I'm Exhausted!

Not complaining, just explaining. Five days of silence was a real gift, but not, by any means,  a restful silence. One can be silent and working. Think of a Trappist monastery where the monks all pray (ora) and then go to their work in silence (labora). Some monks garden raising a crop to make jellies and jams. Some might suit up to work the apiary, checking the bees while praying for a sweet golden harvest. Some make fruit cake or roast and pack coffee beans. I once saw two monks up on ladders picking pecans at Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma. But all their work is wrapped in silence. 

Question for the Day: What is Our First Duty?

 "I must be holy because my Jesus wants it."    

                                    St. Bernadette Soubirous

The Church often reminds us of our obligations according to our state in life. A priest's or nun's duty is not the same as a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a student, an employer, or employee. But one duty in which we all share is to be holy "because my Jesus wants it."

How do we do that? It's not very complicated, but it's anything but easy. Mary showed us how in her "fiat." When she responded to the angel, she gave us the answer. "Be it done to me according to your word." The angel was the the messenger of God's will. If we want to be holy we have to do one thing -- embrace the will of God! It's better to embrace His will out of love than out of fear, but Scripture tells us that the "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." A child may behave out of fear of Daddy's anger, but it's better to behave out of love and respect. And as we mature in our faith, that hopefully becomes our default position.

If I Want to Love God, I Need to Know Him!

And how can we know him? Look to the pillars of the Church: Scripture, Tradition, and Doctrine as taught by the Magisterium. Prayer isn't mentioned specifically in that trio, but it is certainly implied. Reading scripture in prayer involves stopping to reflect and meditate. If we read scripture with the intent of meeting God through His Word, how can we not stop along the way to chat with Him? 

Serendipity: the Art of Happy Accidents

My husband and I spent the last six days with our youngest and her family celebrating our dual anniversaries. Larry and I chatted for the past few months about whether to do something special for our 55th. Trips have become a rare adventure for us. Driving long distances seems like too much trouble and neither of us wants to fly any more. Between the sardine can experience on the plane and the rude and crude treatment by the TSA, we'd rather go to the dentist. Our last significant trips were one for our 50th anniversary when we drove to the Great Smoky Mountains with another daughter and her husband and a trip to Sandbridge in 2021 for a beach week. In the Smokies we stayed in a charming air B and B with a Lord of the Rings theme complete with a cardboard Gandalf. Both of those trips were family events which always doubles the fun.

Sunday Meditation: If You Want to Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life......

O Lord, You made our hearts for Thee,

And ever restless will they be

Until they rest in Thee.

based on St. Augustine

The other day I wrote about happiness and the etymology of the word from Middle English meaning "luck, prosperity, and advantageous circumstances." That association can't hold up. Wealth and happiness are often mutually exclusive. How many rich people do you know or read about whose lives are a mess and families are miserable? Think of Hollywood, a glamorous hellhole filled with prosperous, unhappy people. A long-term marriage is rare, divorce and cohabitation the norm. How many wealthy people seek oblivion in drugs and alcohol. How many are addicted to sex and pornography? How many commit suicide?

Sunday Meditation: Is the Mass "Very Long and Tiresome" for You?

I found this quote from Chesterton today on a link from a blog I often visit. It set me to thinking about my own Mass experiences.

My husband and I go almost every day. I doubt if we miss Mass more than a dozen weekdays every year. I don't say that to boast; it is more a necessity to preserve me from being one more casualty of Satan's wiles. Daily Communion is as necessary to me as eating. I once read that perhaps those born into the Catholic church are given that grace because they are the ones most likely to be lost without the graces that come through Holy Mother Church. Knowing the potential for evil in myself, I believe it.

Thought for the Day: The "Hound of Heaven" is Your Friend

"The two greatest dramas of life are the soul in pursuit of God and God in pursuit of the soul."   Fulton Sheen 

One of my favorite poems is Francis Thompson's The Hound of Heaven.  I memorized the first stanza a number of years ago and often recite it to myself.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
    Of my own mind; And in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter....

I love the cadence which sounds the beat of the pursuing hound who follows "with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace." The poem fills me with wonder. The God of the universe pursues ME. In my youth when I was running away from God, he set the hound loose and he has been my friend ever since I stopped running and surrendered to the truth and listened in earnest to the voice of God. He loved me in my tragic state of rebellion and loved me into faithfulness; not a perfect faithfulness, unfortunately, but a striving one.

Alack! Thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art.
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save me, save only me?
All which I took from thee, I did'st but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy childs mistake fancies as lost,
I have stored for thee at Home.
Rise, clasp my hand, and come.

I am still unworthy of His love, but he loves me anyway! And then comes that oh-so-personal message to Me, a creature, who is literally less to Him than a grasshopper is to me:

Halts by me that Footfall.
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
Ah, Fondest, Blindest, Weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest.
Thou dravest Love from thee who dravest Me.

If only all men would know that when they drive God away, they drive away Love Incarnate. He is all in all, but he loves each of us, as St. Augustine says, as if there were just one of us. Any suffering he allows in our lives is only the "Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly." Oh, if only we could see it!

The hound of heaven is, indeed, man's best friend.