Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Reflections on the Saints
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While I’d love to post everyday, I will most likely not have the luxury of doing so. Instead, I shall make a sincere effort to post at least once every week. Toward that end, I will be posting my reflections based on the daily readings from Bert Ghezzi’s “Voices of the Saints” (© 2000, Image Books)
Today, by my calculations, is the 326th day of the year, but I will simply write a reflection based on the very first entry in this book (pg. 2)
†
St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1110 – 1167)
And so praying to Christ for your friend, and longing to be heard by Christ for your friend’s sake, you reach out with devotion and desire to Christ himself. And suddenly and insensibly, as though touched by the gentleness of Christ close at hand, you begin to taste how sweet he is and to feel how lovely he is. Thus from that holy love with which you embrace your friend, you rise to that love by which you embrace Christ.
How glad I am that my own experiences of love and friendship were described by one who lived almost a millennium before! Indeed, it is almost distressing to pray in such a way as this for a friend. I have experienced this first hand. When filled with the “longing to be heard by Christ for your friend’s sake” and with that “holy love with which you embrace your friend” and then expressing it in prayer to Christ, one becomes aware of the development of an intimate connection between them and their friend. This is distressing in our modern age, where we are taught to remain disconnected and isolated, in a world unto ourselves, where autonomy and individuality have supplanted love as chief of the virtues. For, now, because of this intimate connection, one’s fate is in part caught up in that of their friend. They render themselves vulnerable to the other.
Even greater than this is that devotion and desire for Christ which springs up from this love. At first this may come as a surprise, and it may seem that this is merely incidental or secondary, but this is not so. No, for holy love, authentic love, has Christ as its beginning and its end. It streams forth from the heart of the Crucified and returns “from whence it came.” It can only come to be in Christ and it can only find its completion in him.
This shows us how we can tell whether or to what degree true love is present in our hearts. We can ask ourselves, “Does this thing I call ‘love of Christ’ cause an increase in my love of my neighbor? And does this thing I call ‘love of neighbor’ lead to a greater love of Christ?”
A brief reflection on the condition of our love reveals how little is actually present. But if we find ourselves in this condition (and who in this life could ever claim for themselves the perfection of love?), we should not despair. Not at all! Remember that this holy love comes from Jesus. It is not really ours at all. We cannot manufacture it, or cause it to be by mere force of will. Know that Jesus wants to fill us to overflowing with this love. All we need to do is ask him for it and to remain open to receiving it. He will not give it if we do not ask him, and he will not force us to take it, if we do not open our hearts to receive it. So, we ought to pray,
“Jesus, give me an ever greater love for you, for my dear friends, and for my neighbor.”
†
0 comments
While I’d love to post everyday, I will most likely not have the luxury of doing so. Instead, I shall make a sincere effort to post at least once every week. Toward that end, I will be posting my reflections based on the daily readings from Bert Ghezzi’s “Voices of the Saints” (© 2000, Image Books)
Today, by my calculations, is the 326th day of the year, but I will simply write a reflection based on the very first entry in this book (pg. 2)
†
St. Aelred of Rievaulx (1110 – 1167)
And so praying to Christ for your friend, and longing to be heard by Christ for your friend’s sake, you reach out with devotion and desire to Christ himself. And suddenly and insensibly, as though touched by the gentleness of Christ close at hand, you begin to taste how sweet he is and to feel how lovely he is. Thus from that holy love with which you embrace your friend, you rise to that love by which you embrace Christ.
How glad I am that my own experiences of love and friendship were described by one who lived almost a millennium before! Indeed, it is almost distressing to pray in such a way as this for a friend. I have experienced this first hand. When filled with the “longing to be heard by Christ for your friend’s sake” and with that “holy love with which you embrace your friend” and then expressing it in prayer to Christ, one becomes aware of the development of an intimate connection between them and their friend. This is distressing in our modern age, where we are taught to remain disconnected and isolated, in a world unto ourselves, where autonomy and individuality have supplanted love as chief of the virtues. For, now, because of this intimate connection, one’s fate is in part caught up in that of their friend. They render themselves vulnerable to the other.
Even greater than this is that devotion and desire for Christ which springs up from this love. At first this may come as a surprise, and it may seem that this is merely incidental or secondary, but this is not so. No, for holy love, authentic love, has Christ as its beginning and its end. It streams forth from the heart of the Crucified and returns “from whence it came.” It can only come to be in Christ and it can only find its completion in him.
This shows us how we can tell whether or to what degree true love is present in our hearts. We can ask ourselves, “Does this thing I call ‘love of Christ’ cause an increase in my love of my neighbor? And does this thing I call ‘love of neighbor’ lead to a greater love of Christ?”
A brief reflection on the condition of our love reveals how little is actually present. But if we find ourselves in this condition (and who in this life could ever claim for themselves the perfection of love?), we should not despair. Not at all! Remember that this holy love comes from Jesus. It is not really ours at all. We cannot manufacture it, or cause it to be by mere force of will. Know that Jesus wants to fill us to overflowing with this love. All we need to do is ask him for it and to remain open to receiving it. He will not give it if we do not ask him, and he will not force us to take it, if we do not open our hearts to receive it. So, we ought to pray,
“Jesus, give me an ever greater love for you, for my dear friends, and for my neighbor.”
†
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Vocation of Love
†
In a previous entry I wrote:
I further resolve that I shall not seek out any particular form of this vocation, but shall trust that he shall reveal his calling in his good time. Indeed, he is already calling me and leading me in the way I should go, though I cannot tell where I am going.
In the absence of a clear call to take decisive action, I shall content myself with remaining as I am. I shall heed the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 7:24 NIV)
Louis and Zelie were an ordinary man and woman. As young adults, they were both drawn to the religious life and each unsuccessfully sought entrance into a religious community. With that path closed to them, at least for a time, they each settled down in a town in France. After some time, they met each other and were married.
It is clear to me that it is not important whether I am called to marriage or celibacy, but that I live out my vocation to love. Whether I am called to marry or to remain unmarried, I shall do so "because of the kingdom of heaven."
How else can I live?
†
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In a previous entry I wrote:
I wonder how it is that I continue finding these Theresian themes cropping up in my life. “My vocation is to love” she said. Perhaps if I had chosen a different saint for my patron when I was confirmed I would have seen the development of things attributed to them instead.All other vocations must have this vocation as their source. Each of them is but a different expression of the same vocation to love. I can be faithful to my vocation, though I do not know what form it shall take, for it is in the end a vocation to love.
I further resolve that I shall not seek out any particular form of this vocation, but shall trust that he shall reveal his calling in his good time. Indeed, he is already calling me and leading me in the way I should go, though I cannot tell where I am going.
In the absence of a clear call to take decisive action, I shall content myself with remaining as I am. I shall heed the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 7:24 NIV)
Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.He continues in vss. 29-31:
What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they are not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.The earth in its present form is passing away. This means that I ought not to do anything for the sake of earthly gain, for any earthly gain will pass away with the earth. I must fix my eyes on what is unseen, on what is eternal, that which does not pass away. What does this mean when it comes to discerning my vocation in life, particularly as concerns whether to marry or to remain unmarried? Jesus says (Matt. 19:11-12):
Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some. . . have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.The gift of celibacy is clearly a symbolic anticipation of the kingdom of heaven. It proclaims, "We live for more than this life, our destiny reaches beyond the doors of death." What then, is marriage but a concession for incapable of controlling their passions? Certainly it has that function. But let us consider an example from history:
Louis and Zelie were an ordinary man and woman. As young adults, they were both drawn to the religious life and each unsuccessfully sought entrance into a religious community. With that path closed to them, at least for a time, they each settled down in a town in France. After some time, they met each other and were married.
Louis, 34, and Zelie, 26, married and began their remarkable voyage through life. Within the next fifteen years, Zelie bore nine children, seven girls and two boys. "We lived only for them", Zelie wrote; "they were all our happiness".The Martins' delight in their children turned to shock and sorrow as tragedy relentlessly and mercilessly stalked their little ones. Within three years, Zelie's two baby boys, a five year old girl and a six-and-a-half week old infant girl all died.
Zelie was left numb with sadness. "I haven't a penny's worth of courage," she lamented. But her faith sustained her through these terrible ordeals. In a letter to her sister-in-law who had lost an infant son, Zelie remembered: "When I closed the eyes of my dear little children and buried them, I felt sorrow through and through....People said to me, 'It would have been better never to have had them.' I couldn't stand such language. My children were not lost forever; life is short and full of miseries, and we shall find our little ones again up above." (Source)
Loius Martin and Zelie Guerin married because of the kingdom of heaven. In their vocation to marriage, they were choosing the way of love, and were living for the world which is to come. Their last child was a girl, one who is known far more widely than either of her parents. They named her Therese — Therese Martin, whom we know as St. Therese, the Little Flower.
It is clear to me that it is not important whether I am called to marriage or celibacy, but that I live out my vocation to love. Whether I am called to marry or to remain unmarried, I shall do so "because of the kingdom of heaven."
How else can I live?
†
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