Tag Archives: Contemplation

Holy Virgin, I Beg You

 

Mary Mother of God The teotokos

Mary, Mother of God: The Teotokos, art by Bradi Barth

 

St. Ildephonsus of Toledo, Spain, was proclaiming the joy of being “a servant of Mary” already in the 7th century. In one of his prayers he brings to full light the idea of Mary’s virginal Motherhood as a model of spiritual life for the Christian.

Mary must obtain for us from the Holy Spirit the grace for Christ to be formed spiritually in us just as she, through the power of the same Spirit, fashioned Christ according to the flesh.

 

Holy Virgin, I beg you:
enable me to receive Jesus from the Spirit,
according to the same process by which you bore Jesus.

May my soul possess Jesus
thanks to the Spirit
through Whom you conceived Jesus.

May the grace to know Jesus
be granted to me through the Spirit
Who enabled you to know how to possess Jesus
and bring Him forth.

May my littleness show forth the greatness of Jesus
in virtue of the Spirit in Whom
you recognized yourself as the handmaid of the Lord,
desiring that it be done to you
according to the word of the Angel.

May I love Jesus in the Spirit
in Whom you adored Him as your Lord
and looked after Him as your Son.

~ St. Ildephonsus of Toledo

 

~ From the book “Prayers to Mary” by Most Rev. Virgilio Noe

 

 

May, a blessed month with Our Lady!

 

The Old Has Died

 

trusting in the Lord art by Elizabeth Wang

Trusting in the Lord, art by Elizabeth Wang

 

By the cross of Jesus Christ “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). Not the world as God created it, but the spirit of the world: the conceit, the greed, and the egoism that are within us.

All this has died to me, Paul testifies. Therefore, it can’t control me, it has no claim on me, it can’t be the starting point of my actions.

Nevertheless, the spirit of the world has made its mark on you. But this cannot hurt you if you merely see it as a trace of something that has died. Nobody can be afraid of what has already died. The new life in Christ is your genuine reality.

Many people who begin to spend time in interior prayer complain that they become so very absent-minded. Thoughts rush in like horses in a gallop. What am I to do about that? they wonder uneasily. What definitely not to do is fight these thoughts aggressively or be afraid of them. If you fight or become afraid, you show that you take these thoughts seriously.

The only thing to take seriously is the new creation within you, the new life which is the life of Christ in you. Everything else is completely uninteresting: it has died, and you don’t have to lose time and energy on it.

The Christian life is so much simpler than you think. You don’t have to walk around fighting all kinds of things, or desperately try to conquer God. A Christian begins in the victory. The old has irrevocably died and come to an end. You must rest in the new that you already been given.

 
~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

 

When we contemplate the sufferings of Jesus, He grants us, according to the measure of our faith, the grace to practice the virtues He revealed during those sacred hours.
~ Saint Angela Merici

 

 

God Alone Suffices

 

Icon 3

Icon of the Holy Trinity, by Paternitas 1855 (State Museum of Palekh Art)

 

Ultimately, there really is only one thing you unequivocally can ask God: that he be your all. There is no need to coach God as to how best he ought to fulfill your needs. God is all, and, when he gives himself, he gives you everything you need. If you possess God, there is nothing more for which you can ask.

The first part of the Lord’s Prayer is completely focused on God himself: hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Following that, you are free to ask for what you think you need, but these special petitions must always be rooted in surrender to—and longing for—God’s very self.

The closer you are to God, the more emphasis is on the first part of the Lord’s Prayer. The more you trust God, the less you are inclined to specify your prayers for the various needs you may have for yourself and others.

There is a restless concern that is not of God, a restlessness that comes from trying to carry the suffering of the world on your own shaky shoulders, rather than laying it in God’s hands.

The one who in surrender commends the world to God will continue to feel compassion for all who suffer. But it is a compassion that is held up by a deep peace rooted in the knowledge that God, who is almighty, loves everyone and can assimilate everything in his plan to save the world.

~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

Si Sabrá la Primavera Que La Estamos Esperando…

 

sheeps2

Photo credit to: Pawel Uchorczak

 

Aquí tenéis un precioso poema-oración de una de Carmelita Descalza de Antequera

 

Si sabrá la Primavera
que la estamos esperando…

Si se atreverá a cruzar
nuestros pueblos despoblados,
colgando en nuestros balcones
la magia de sus geranios.
Si dejará su sonrisa
esculpida en nuestros campos,
pintando nuestros jardines
de verde, de rojo y blanco.

Si sabrá la Primavera
que la estamos esperando…

Cuando llegue y no nos vea
ni en las calles ni en los barrios,
cuando no escuche en el parque
el paso de los ancianos,
o el bullicio siempre alegre
de los chiquillos jugando.
Si creerá que equivocó
la fecha del calendario,
la cita que desde siempre
la convoca el mes de Marzo.

Si sabrá la Primavera
que la estamos esperando…

Cuando estalle jubilosa
llenando de puntos blancos
los almendros, los ciruelos,
los jazmines, los naranjos,
y no vea que a la Virgen
la preparan para el Paso.
Que se ha guardado el incienso,
el trono, la cruz y el palio.
Y que Cristo, igual que todos,
está en su casa encerrado,
y no lo dejan salir
ni el Jueves ni el Viernes Santo…

¿Pensará la Primavera
que tal vez se ha equivocado?

¿Escuchará los lamentos
de quien se quedó en el paro,
de quien trabaja a deshoras
por ayudar a su hermano,
de aquél que expone su vida
en silencio y olvidado?
¿Escuchará cada noche
los vítores, los aplausos
que regalamos con gozo
al personal sanitario?

¿Pensará la Primavera
que tal vez se ha equivocado
y colgará sus colores
hasta la vuelta de un año?

Si sabrá la Primavera
que la estamos esperando…

Que se nos prohíbe el beso,
que está prohibido el abrazo;
el corazón, sangre y fuego,
el corazón desangrado.

Si sabrá la Primavera
que ya la estamos soñando…
Asomados al balcón
de la Esperanza, esperamos
como nunca, que ella vuelva
y nos regale el milagro
de ver florecer la vida
que hoy se nos va de las manos…

¡Bienvenida, Primavera!
Hueles a incienso y a ramos,
con tu traje de colores
y los cantos de tus pájaros.
Ven a pintar de azul-cielo
esta tierra que habitamos.

¿No sentís que en este mundo
algo nuevo está brotando?
Si será la Primavera
que está apresurando el paso.

~ Hermana Lucía, O.C.D.

God Is Not Angry!

 

Cross in a blizzard art by jozef chelmonski 1907

Art by Jozef Chelmonski (1907)

 

Our God is different than we think. We have all heard of a God who demands atonement, a God who is just and wants restitution for the injustice he has been suffering. But our God is not justice. Our God is love.

We don’t need to reconcile God to us. God is reconciliation itself. God has never turned his gaze from us. It is we who have turned away from him. God had been waiting for us all along. No, not only waited. . .God has run to meet us with such overwhelming proofs of his love that it ought not possible for us to close our eyes to them.

It is not for us to appease God’s anger. God is not angry with us. Love is not resentful (1 Cor 13:5). It is, rather, God who tries to calm humanity’s anger. But he hasn’t been able to, since humanity is still angry at God. Has there ever been a time like our own in which humanity has been so cruel toward God? God is accused as never before: “What kind of God is it that allows for so much evil?”

Much of this human revolt against God is in reality directed toward a caricature of God—a God who seeks to judge, a God who looks for the first opportunity to punish. Such a God is only to be feared or despised.

But a God who hangs defenselessly on a cross, and who—with arms outstretched in a worldwide embrace—tries to unite all people with himself and one another, such a God is not hard to love.

 
~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

 

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone at this trying and unprecedented times with COVID-19 Global Pandemic. . .
May God’s strength, healing and peace be with us all and the whole world!

 

Tend to the Seed of Faith in Your Heart

 

mustard seed art by jane n

Art by Jen Norton

 

Doubt and despair have their deepest roots in a fundamental distrust of God. It is quite often a long journey before a human being is truly convinced that God really wants the very best for him or her.

As long as your heart remains unconvinced that the one who has created  and sustains you, loves you and leads you, through whatever happens, you will not find lasting peace.

You have several resources with which you can help yourself toward a firm belief in love. You can try to confront your doubt by emphasizing trust and confidence; you can open your heart to receive testimony and preaching about God; most importantly, you can listen to God’s own word.

God’s preeminent message is that he is love. This message is in itself effective and active. If you listen to it openly, it will reach your innermost recesses.

Emotions of love will not reach the core of your being; only faith does that. The capacity for faith is like a small seed laid down in you. To some extent, it is up to you to decide whether weeds and drought are to suffocate the faith when it begins to sprout. You have within you an ability to turn your gaze toward God and turn yourself over to him with trust. Then the seed will flourish.

 
~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

All Creation Is in God

 

hourglass 2

Hourglass, art by Akiane Kramarik

 

The world is fundamentally good. Everything is in God. The world is sacred, because it is created by God at every moment. You don’t have to go away from creation in order to find God—creation is God’s symphony.

God and the world are not opposites. God did not create the world at one time long ago and then leave it to its own destiny. Wherever there is a creature, there the Creator is present. As perfume spreads fragrance, so creation goes out as a fragrance from God.

You are, at all times, surrounded and swaddled in the love of Christ—you are created in him. All that you do, you do in Christ. This is why sin is so repugnant. When you sin, you abuse creation and force God to live in a soiled temple. When you dishonor a creature, it is the Creator you offend.

If you open your eyes and see that God is in everything and that everything is in him, you no longer need to seek him far away or ask yourself whether he is really near or not. If you have an authentically contemplative attitude, you no longer place yourself outside of life. Rather, you see right through everything and find God hidden in everything.

Every moment God creates all you need; all you have to do is to receive everything from his hand. If you learn to see the innermost meaning of creation, you will always find reasons for thankfulness.

 

~ A meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

 

 

 

 

Known and Loved From Within

Radiant Christ by anne chapin

Radiant Christ art by Ann Chapin

 

A miracle happens every time we open ourselves to the love of Jesus, every time we allow the light to enter and shine through us. Light exposes all that is impure in our hearts, and the impure becomes light. The one who discloses his or her darkness to Jesus will see it changed into light.

If Jesus only knew us from the outside—as a doctor knows the illnesses of patients—we would not, in spite of everything, be completely set free from our inner loneliness. But he knows us from the inside as well. He has been up against the reality we experience. Jesus knows from experience how tempting the way that is not God’s way can be: “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb 2:18).

Even though Jesus has not sinned, he has carried the sin of all humankind, yet not on his shoulders as were it a strange and unfamiliar burden which really didn’t impact him very deeply. No. He has carried this sin in his heart. Sin has entered and impacted him deeply. He has experienced—infinitely more than any of us who are sinners—how much sin hurts. Precisely because it was his nature to be one with the Father, the abandonment from the Father was, for us, an incomprehensible abyss of misery.

Jesus knows from within. No one knows us as well as he does. He is the only one who can change our darkness to light.

 

~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

Love Is Not an Ideology

 

roses and me

Art source unknown

 

Many people, believers and nonbelievers alike, are aware that love is the only transforming power in the world. But they believe in love the way they believe in democracy.

The love we Christians profess is not an ideology. Saint John writes in his first letter: “We have known and believe the love God has for us.” (4:16). This love is a personal relationship. We don’t believe the world is changed by ethical principles, however noble these may be. The Apostles’ Creed consists of twelve fundamental pronouncements about God’s love for humankind. All of the Scriptures, all of Christian theology, is nothing but an explanation of this love.

Through faith, you know you are loved by God with a creative, respectful, unique, and personal love. God calls you by name. God knows your joys and disappointments, your weakness and strengths, hopes and feelings. “You reach out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways… You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” (Ps 139:3,5).

The hardest thing for a human being is to comprehend that he or she is loved by such a love. Your whole life, every hour of prayer, all your spiritual reading, ought to deal with making this truth come alive in you. If you know yourself to be loved, you will radiate this love to the world.

 

~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

 

Happy St. Valentine’s Day to All!

 

 

Love Chooses a “You”

 

Watching a star

Art source unknown

 

Love, true love, is always directed at concrete people. Love is never anonymous. Love chooses; love doesn’t love an unknown mass.

God also chooses people onto whom he focuses his love. God wills that all people be saved, but he doesn’t begin with all. He chooses one man, Abraham. And Abraham becomes a people, Israel. Israel becomes the Church, the people of God, and the Church shines throughout the world.

To choose and be chosen is a characteristic throughout the Bible. God chooses someone from among the anonymous multitude and pours his love and gifts of grace over this person. From this person, love will in turn stream out to others.

If you want to live in love, you can’t begin by loving all of humanity. Start with your neighbor! Choose people you meet in your daily life. Love begins with a “you.”

The fire of love needs to spread all over the world, but its spark is always ignited in a relationship between two people. If you want to love everybody right away, you’ll end up loving no one for real. First, love the ones closest to you, then, through them, you may later acquire universal love.

 

~ A Meditation by Father Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.