God's Kingdom

“If we desire to live in the dwelling-place of his kingdom there is no means of reaching it except by the way of good deeds.” -St. Benedict

Read more: http://spiritualdirection.com/2014/10/22/the-answer-matthew-22-34-46#ixzz3GtwWDv1u

Some autumn thoughts:

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays a while like an old friend that you have missed.  It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.

It stays on through October and, in rare years, on into November.  Day after day the skies are a clear, hard blue, and the clouds that float across them, always west to east, are clam white strips with gray keels.  The wind begins to blow by the day, and it is never still.  It hurries you along as you walk the roads, crunching the leaves that have fallen in mad and variegated drifts.  The wind makes you ache in some place that is deeper than your bones.  It may be that it touches something old in the human soul, a chord of race memory that says Migrate or die--migrate or die.

                                                                               -Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

In Principio

Julie Davis over at Happy Catholic quoted this from Ronald Knox's translation of the Bible:

God, at the beginning of time, created heaven and earth. Earth was still an empty waste, and darkness hung over the deep; but already, over its waters, stirred the breath of God. Genesis, The Holy Bible, Knox Translation

I love that, "already, over the waters...". God has cared for us from the beginning.

Gladdened by the Thought of God

Our little Morning Prayer booklet up at church this morning contained this:

Morning prayer is intended and arranged to sanctify the morning.  St. Basil the Great gives an excellent description of this character in these words:  'It is said in the morning in order that the first stirrings of our mind and will may be consecrated to God and that we may take nothing in hand until we have been gladdened by the thought of God.'  (from the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours)

How apt is it to speak of being "gladdened by the thought of God"!  

The Mystery of the Cross

“This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it—it was the moment my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me—Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”

The quote above is from an article about Husserl's students, and is Edith Stein talking about Husserl;s death.  The article is quite interesting, and can be found here.

The thing about music is you never know the shape of anyone's desire.

from Orfeo, by Richard Powers Wouldn't this apply to prayer as well?

Weep Before Your Father in Heaven

This is from A Song For Nagasaki by Paul Glynn, S.M. Takashi Nagaii is writing to his two young children:

"My death will leave you orphans, vulnerable and alone in the world. You will weep. Yes, you might even weep your hearts out, and that will be good--provided you weep before your father in heaven. We have it on the authority of his Son, and I have experienced the truth of it personally: 'Happy are those who weep, for they shall be comforted.' Spill your tears before him, and he will always dry them."

Dr. Nagaii was a pioneer in Japan in the use of X-rays, a convert to Catholicism, a survivor the the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and revered in Japan as Gandhi is in India. The story is fascinating.

Wisdom from Padre Pio

I saw this on Pinterest:

You don't have to be worthy, you only have to be willing.

This quote came in an email from Loome Theological Booksellers. It is from Romano Guardini, who more often than not challenges me. The book is titled "The Last Things".

“The central position of man in Christianity confers on the Sacraments, especially on the Eucharist, a meaning wholly new. What did Christ mean when He said, ‘He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day’? (John 6:55). Why did He not say, He that attaches his spirit to My spirit, who undertakes to do My will? Because what matters is not ‘spirit,’ but the living, human-divine reality of Christ, which has its point of decision precisely in that which any spiritualizing tendency first relinquishes – namely, the body, or, in the precise language of St. John, ‘the flesh.’ Because in man it is the living whole that matters, not the soul. The point of decision is the physical act of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking,’ in contrast to any attempts at vaporizing this solid reality. The fruit of this sacred ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ is the resurrection on the last day. Truly a ‘hard’ saying, for it involves the end and purpose of the Christian life. The doctrine of the Eucharist is guaranteed by the doctrine of the resurrection”.

I think I'll have to chew on this for a while.

Wisdom from Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction: Is there anything wrong with remaining childless?

This is worth reading> Here's a snippet:

Women won’t be liberated by “freedom” from children, for two reasons: children aren’t the problem, and self-centeredness isn’t freeing. The only liberator is Jesus Christ, who frees us from our prisons of selfishness through the love that He is. When our horizons are contracted to the limits of pleasure-seeking and comfort, He opens us up to the wide expanse of the Father’s plan of loving goodness.

and

Here’s the irony. The world thinks it’s cornered the market on sexual pleasure. But as Aquinas and Augustine both make a point of saying, sexual pleasure would have been far more intense before the Fall than it is now. Why? Because the sexiest thing of all is losing yourself in the intimate interiority of reality. And to get inside reality, we have to use our intellects: pay attention, ask questions, be ready to wonder. Intellect gives rise to the most intense delight.

and, finally,

For that, in the end, is what all that sexual desire in us is for. Why is it so strong? Because the Father just loves babies, billions and billions and billions of them. It’s that yearning for more persons, for more knowing and loving, for more wonder in the world that is the truth of the human sex drive. What an awesome Father we have!

Sayings from Billy Graham

In honor of Dr. Graham's birthday, The Anchoress has a nice little column that includes a few nice aphorisms, Here's a sample:

“Christ not only died for all: He died for each.”

and

Right now, Calah Alexander is giving a feisty, well-written smackdown to the phrase “God never gives you more than you can handle” but Graham says it differently: “The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.”

and

he was the fellow, after all, who — when asked why he would attend a dinner for Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky story broke — said, “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.”

It's worth reading.

The True, the Good, and the Beautiful

There is a thought-provoking little article over at CatholicCulture.org. Here's a taste:

When we think of the transcendentals—of the good, the true, and the beautiful—we find that the intellect is profoundly engaged by the true, the will is profoundly engaged by the good, and the imagination is profoundly engaged by the beautiful. All three are party to our personal redemption, but too often in our particular culture, the imagination is associated merely with entertainment, and ignored as a very special conduit of, or connection with, being itself.

I am convinced that the art of Michelangelo and the music of Bach, for example, are time-release capsules that can touch many hearts who would not listen to any Christian speaker or read any Christian book under any circumstances.

To Want To Be a Saint

As she does so often, Julie Davis at Happy Catholic gets to the heart of the matter with this quote from Thomas Merton:

“What you should say”– he told me — ”what you should say is that you want to be a saint.” A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said: “How do you expect me to become a saint?” “By wanting to,” said Lax, simply. “I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.” Lax said: “All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don’t you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you will consent to let him do it? [emphasis mine] All you have to do is desire it.” Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Read the whole thing here.

Imprisoned in Our Selfishness

This quote from Pope Francis hit home:

He tells the prison chaplains to deliver this message as well: “You can tell them this: The Lord is inside with them; He too is one imprisoned, even today, imprisoned by our selfishness, by our systems, by so many injustices. Because it is easy to punish the weakest ones, but the big fish swim freely in the water.”

This was from Gregorian Institute email newsletter. You can read the whole thing here.

The danger is...

Ooooh, this is good. From Happy Catholic's Quote Journal.

The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself it is not hungry. Simone Weil

Strange Times, Indeed!

Writing about the new law in California allowing abortions to be performed by nurses, midwives, and physician's assistants, Chuck Donovan over at The Corner says (emphasis mine):

We live in extraordinary times. Bearing a child has never been safer; never have its processes been more dramatically presented to the human eye than they are now through advanced ultrasound; and medical miracles are happening on the frontiers of perinatology with dazzling regularity. In the midst of all this, our governing overseers offer women and girls less time and less care with less-accomplished medical professionals, no public health tracking, and precious little follow-up. By what standard of civilization does this make sense – or constitute justice?

Amen, brother!

“Men settle down when they get married: if they fail to get married they fail to settle down.” Read more here.

"Don't Assume That Everyone Knows That God Loves Them"

This is turning into quote day. I am passing this along from The Anchoress, who is quoting another blogger, Rebecca Ryskind Teti. Anyway, here's the quote:

Now the tears came to my eyes, too. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here was a beloved daughter of God who did not know how much God loves her: who had no inkling of the beauty and value of her own soul, no notion of God’s infinite mercy – his power to draw good from evil circumstances, to “make all things new.” How it must have ached her fragile heart to sit in this class hearing about the beauty of the relationship with Christ, but with no understanding that it was available to her, too. She thought she had “blown it” and must forever look wistfully in at the windows of Christianity, never to be allowed inside.

This reminds me of the saying, "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle." We never know what wounds and burdens others are carrying.

The Cross and Colonoscopies

I haven't posted anything from Happy Catholic recently, so there is no time like the present. She is reflecting on the Catholic practice of "Offering it Up", as she had a chance to do with her coloscopy. Actually, this is a quote of a quote. She found this in Magnificat magazine.

Crosses are the great means God employs to deny self-love in us and to increase and purify his love within us. While we, on our side, labor for these two ends by the means which he has placed at our disposal. The crosses finish the work; without them it would be imperfect. The reason of this is clear. Self cannot kill itself; the blow must be struck from elsewhere and self must rest passive in receiving it. As long as I act I live; I shall mortify myself in vain, I shall not succeed in dying spiritually by my own efforts. God must do this for me. He must act within me, and the fire of love must consume the victim. There are so many different kinds of crosses that it is impossible to enumerate them all; and the same crosses are capable of infinite variety. They change according to different characters, different circumstances, different degrees. Some are simply painful, others are humiliating, others unite humiliation to pain. Some assail a man in his worldly possessions, in those who are dear to him in his health, in his honor, even in his life. Others assail him in his spiritual interests, in that which touches his conscience, in that which concerns his eternal salvation; and these are undoubtedly the most frequent, the most destructive, and the most difficult to bear ... All have an effect upon us which inward mortification is unable to produce, and without them we cannot expect to attain to an eminent degree of holiness. Father Jean-Nicholas Gage

Good stuff!

Head and Heart

I read this over at Catholic Culture.org:

The conservative or traditional Catholic, on the other hand, sees in such a “preferential option for the affective” a direct challenge to the Faith itself, such that love becomes unmoored from meaning, and we are doomed to love in ways which do not, in fact, really seek the other’s good. Consequently he spends the bulk of his “spiritual” time fortifying his own understanding of the content of the Faith and explaining why those who do not accept the whole content are not truly Catholic at all. As this becomes habitual, the conservative gains a reputation for being doctrinaire; he becomes increasingly dismissive of those who resist the full authority of Catholic teaching. His acid test for the Christian life becomes orthodoxy. What is important is the head, not the heart.

It hits home. Guilty, O Lord!