Just Little Things

 My dearest God, I pray for this,

That all through life I may find bliss

In little, oft unnoticed things:

The rippling song the river sings;

A cat at play; wee hidden blooms,

The fragrance of their quaint perfumes;

Small tender plants that fade and die;

Each different shade of summer sky;

Fresh swelling buds; dead floating leaves;

The nest some loving robin weaves.

Then, through the years, as I grow old

A joy unknown to fame or gold

Will fill a heart that ever sings

Of pleasure found in little things.

By a Carmelite Nun

Published with the kind permission of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Rochester, NY

(Artwork: "Spring" by Mark Senior)

Holy Child of Cebu

Ornament of the Far East.

On Easter Joy

Some words from Our Holy Father.

The Lord's Easter is the supreme and insuperable act of the power of God. It is an absolutely extraordinary event, the most beautiful and mature fruit of the "mystery of God." It is so extraordinary that it cannot be recounted in its dimensions which escape our human capacity of knowledge and research. And yet, this is also an "historical" event, real, witnessed and documented. It is the event that founds the whole of our faith. It is the central content in which we believe and the principal content of why we believe.

The New Testament does not describe Jesus' Resurrection in its realization. It refers only to the testimonies of those whom Jesus met in person after resurrecting. The three Synoptic Gospels recount this announcement: "He has risen!" -- it is proclaimed initially by some angels. Hence, it is an announcement whose origin is in God; but God entrusts it immediately to his "messengers" so that they will transmit it to everyone, And thus it is these same angels who invite the women, who arrived in the early morning at the sepulcher, to go quickly to tell the disciples: that "he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him" (Matthew 28:7). Thus, through the women of the Gospel, that divine mandate reaches one and all so that, in turn, they will transmit to others, with fidelity and courage, this same news: beautiful news, joyful and bearer of joy.

Free to Love

Negation in the doctrine of St. John of the Cross.

To begin with, the starting point for approaching John's negation spirituality is the experience of being loved by a God who desires to enter into a personal relationship of love with human beings and our response to that love. Any notion of self-denial, detach ment, renunciation, or emptiness that is not born of an experience of God's personal love makes no sense to John of the Cross. God always takes the initiative. "We love because he first loved us" (1 Jn 4:19). In the beginning of the Spiritual Canticle , which sings of and recounts the Christian journey toward union with God in terms of love, John writes that the soul is only able to begin the journey of love in search for union with God because she first had an experience of God's love, and as a fruit of that experience, came to an aware ness that love is the purpose of existence (C, 1, 1). It is this experience of God's love that ignites the fire of love within a person so that one can begin the journey towards union with God through love.

       Where have you hidden,

       Beloved, and left me moaning?

       You fled like the stag

       after wounding me;

       I went out calling you, but you were gone. (C, 1)

       For John, this experience of the transcendent but intimate loving nature of God, who takes the initiative and touches us with love, has a profound effect upon us; it begins a trans formation process that frees us to love God, ourselves, creation, and all of life in the way God created us to.

This experience of God's love is pivotal for understanding some of the radical statements John makes about the "nothingness" of creation and all things in comparison to God who is All. For instance:

       All the creatures of heaven and earth are nothing when compared to God. All the beauty of creatures compared with the infinite beauty of God is supreme ugliness. All the grace and elegance of creatures compared with God's grace is utter coarseness and crudity. (A, 1, 4, 3-7)

       To possess God in all, you should not possess anything in all. For how can the heart that belongs to one belong completely to the other? (Letter 17 to Magdalena del Espiritu Santo, July 28, 1589)

The Beauty of the Resurrection Light

Let us not be distracted from it.

Feast of Mercy

If you but knew the gift of God.

Our Lord told St. Faustina that on the Feast of Mercy, "...are opened all the floodgates through which graces flow."  It is as if Jesus, "on the last and greatest day of the festival" cries out:  "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me; let him drink who believes in me.  Scripture has it: 'From within him rivers of living water will flow.'" - [John 7: 37-38]

"If only you recognized the gift of God, and who it is that is asking for a drink... Whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty; no, the water I give shall become a fountain within him, leaping up to provide eternal life." - [Jn 4: 10-14] 

Can anyone of us ever be satiated and refuse to come to him?

"Blood and water flowing forth from the side of Christ, I trust in you."

Jesus as Teacher

A new book by a medical doctor offers some insights into the life of Our Lord based on his independent study of Scripture and history. (The article is secular but may be of interest to persons of faith.) To quote:

In the English translation of the Bible Joseph has always been described as a 'just man'. Dr Bradford discovered that the word 'man' has been added and is not in the original Greek text at all. He also found that the origins of the word translated into 'just' more accurately translates to describe Joseph's position in society- most likely as a scholar who helped teach the Torah and was involved in the judiciary. 

Further to this, Dr Bradford re-examined Joseph's position as a carpenter. Again, he concluded there had been a mistranslation and that the Greek word 'tekton'- which describes Joseph's work- more accurately means master builder or architect. 

Dr Bradford claims this would explain why Jesus, who would have been brought up in his father's trade, made so many references to building in his teachings.