Dear Readers,

This evening, I felt like sharing some Scripture and thoughts with you. I didn’t proof the recording (lest I be tempted to edit it obsessively), so please forgive any distracting background noises, excessive “ums” or whatever. Often I feel like writing but, tonight, my energy is low and I just wanted to talk with you. (Wish I could hear you talk back!)

 
May God be with you always.

(I am currently taking a free online poetry workshop through the California Institute of the Arts. It is a ton of fun and one more way for me to waste time and not do the things I should be doing! I’d like to share a poem I just wrote in response to a prompt – because prompts, aka assignments, often push a person to write in ways that they would not usually, if left to their own inclinations. This particular prompt was to write a lipogram, i.e. a poem in which one restricts oneself to using only words containing a single vowel. I chose to use the vowel “O”. As I explored O-only words, the topic, which must have been lurking in my soul somewhere, began to emerge. I would enjoy any commentary that might develop – not as in “good poem” or “bad poem”, but whether it provoked any thought or soul-movement. It is, of course, a very different thing to author a poem than it is to read it. So, if you are inclined, let it bounce around for a while and comment if you wish – or not.)
 

 

“God’s so good”,

croons soft solo

comforts crowds forlorn.

monks vow cool grottos

gold cross sold to borrow

mood for noon or sloth.

“no – not good!” scoffs

bold son of strong throngs.

“bombs drop hollow horror.

cold world howls sorrow.”

droop, not bow, for doctor’s clock.

for poor told wormwood blossoms.

lost or torn, Book’s plot not known.

John’s Word, from womb to tomb, now

Son of Sorrow, holds root of rod or rot,

food, fool, forsook crown for thorns.

cock crows so cost of door most mock.

mob chops wood for scorn of “Lord”.

flood of blood stops on tomb’s cold brow.

fold flock sorrows, holds for tomorrow.

morn follows moon, fog prowls low,

torch longs slow, rock block worry to go.

knock cocoon door, no knob – so bloom –

song grown, Word known – flown to Joy.

The feast of St. Augustine follows the feast of his mother, St. Monica – so beautifully and appropriately. She who was so devout prayed for years that he return to the Faith she had taught him as a child.

Augustine’s father was apparently more interested in his studies than his faith and Augustine soon became enamored of worldly things. However, he never stopped searching for the truth. While living in Milan, out of curiosity, he went to hear the sermons of St. Ambrose and eventually became convinced of the truth of Christianity.

This did not result in an automatic conversion for him, however, because he did not find it easy to give up the things of the world that were not good for his soul. And perhaps it is for this that he is best remembered and most loved. Who among us cannot relate to this struggle?

While his Confessions are now considered a classic, at the time they were written they were virtually scandalous in that his admission of struggle and weakness was uncommon among those who embracing the relatively new Faith known as Christianity.

Last night, as I listened to a recording of an excerpt from his Confessions, I was moved to tears. This morning, I wanted to read the words in my own voice. I share my recording with you here – but suggest that you too may find yourself wanting to read the words aloud, so as to enter “into the inmost depth” of your soul along with Augustine.

 
[Text:]

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine

Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance into the inmost depth of my soul. I was able to do so because you were my helper. On entering into myself I saw, as it were with the eye of the soul, what was beyond the eye of the soul, beyond my spirit: your immutable light. It was not the ordinary light perceptible to all flesh, nor was it merely something of greater magnitude but still essentially akin, shining more clearly and diffusing itself everywhere by its intensity. No, it was something entirely distinct, something altogether different from all these things; and it did not rest above my mind as oil on the surface of water, nor was it above me as heaven is above the earth. This light was above me because it had made me; I was below it because I was created by it. He who has come to know the truth knows this light.

O Eternal truth, true love and beloved eternity. You are my God. To you do I sigh day and night. When I first came to know you, you drew me to yourself so that I might see that there were things for me to see, but that I myself was not yet ready to see them. Meanwhile you overcame the weakness of my vision, sending forth most strongly the beams of your light, and I trembled at once with love and dread. I learned that I was in a region unlike yours and far distant from you, and I thought I heard your voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men; grow then, and you will feed on me. Nor will you change me into yourself like bodily food, but you will be changed into me.”

I sought a way to gain the strength which I needed to enjoy you.
But I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who is above all, God blessed for ever. He was calling me and saying: I am the way of truth, I am the life. He was offering the food which I lacked the strength to take, the food he had mingled with our flesh. For the Word became flesh, that your wisdom, by which you created all things, might provide milk for us children.

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, we celebrated today the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. I have recorded some beautiful words from one of his sermons about the love between Christ and the soul, the Bridegroom and the bride.

What he preached speaks so profoundly of this intimate love, this marriage between the Divine heart and the human heart, that I dare not try to add anything to it. Instead, I read, I listen and I pray.

 
 
 

Text: (from a sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux)

Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?

Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.

What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists.

Just a quick note to announce that I have started another blog. Guess I decided I didn’t have enough to do with just one. 🙂

This blog will continue as a place where I write in whatever way God directs me for as long as He directs me. To Him be glory.

The new blog is primarily for images. As its title suggests, it too is guided by the Spirit. With less emphasis on words, it is meant to move us through our eyes and hearts. You are welcome to take a look, though I’m just getting started:  oholyearth.com

The Feast of the Transfiguration is deeply meaningful to me, though I am not sure that I can explain just why. As with many things of Faith, by God’s grace, my understanding develops and changes over time. In a sense, it is “transfigured”.

I read somewhere the idea that Christ Himself did not change when He, Peter, James and John went up the mountain. Rather, it was the disciples’ vision that changed. In that moment we call the Transfiguration, they were able to see who Jesus was in His fullness and who He had always been. All at once, their eyes had been opened.

I do not know if that is true – but I can relate to the idea. As I have written here more than once, I often find myself suddenly seeing something that seems to have always been right there. I did not know I had been going about with my eyes closed, but apparently I had.

Sometimes it seems that I have to bump into things and feel pain before I realize that this is what I am doing. Otherwise it is simply too easy to keep wandering through life with closed eyes.

Were the disciples like me in this sense, thinking they knew who Jesus was but needing to have their eyes opened? Or did God plan a special revelation to these three for some other reason?

Perhaps such a distinction does not matter. God is continuously revealing Himself to us. For Him, “a moment” is as nothing – or it is eternal. He need not start or stop anything. But we, we who are stuck in time and blinded by sin, we often cannot see what is always being shown to us.

On that mountain, a great revealing occurred. Indeed, a revealing of such extraordinary proportions that, aside from the Resurrection itself, little more is of greater significance in the tide of human history.

As I may have mentioned before, one of the things I sometimes struggle with as a lifelong Catholic Christian is that over-familiarity with certain Scriptures results in my no longer responding with amazement to what is truly astounding.

And so this evening, I was grateful to have experienced a bit of Scripture freshly, despite having undoubtedly heard it many times before. Apparently, while walking about with my eyes closed, I often have my ears closed as well.

Before reading and reprinting this short passage for you, I might add that I just completed my reading of, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers, by Marcellino D’Ambrosio Ph.D. (I hope to eventually write a review of the book on Amazon – 5 stars without a doubt.) As I read of the people and dilemmas of the early Church, I discovered that my relationship with the Church was being transformed.

Now, when I read or hear a passage written by one of the Apostles or Church Fathers, I am impacted in a manner that is notably different. Somehow, it feels as though I have received a communication about the Faith from a old friend whom I trust. Characters who had been two-dimensional to me before have now become three-dimensional – and alive.

And so today, I heard from Peter, one of the three who was on the mountain with the Lord:

 
Text: (2 Peter 1: 16-19)

It was not any cleverly invented myths that we were repeating when we brought you the knowledge of the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; we had seen his majesty for ourselves. He was honored and glorified by God the Father, when the Sublime Glory itself spoke to him and said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor.” We heard this ourselves, spoken from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. 

So we have confirmation of what was said in the prophecies; and you will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds.
 
My friend, Peter, tells me that he was there, on the holy mountain, and he saw this with his own eyes. No doubt he did not fully understand what it meant at the time and surely he was still weak and afraid.

But his life was changed. How could it not be?

And so my life too is changed. Seeing through his eyes, my own eyes become just a little more open.

Longing to see, longing to hear, I await the Lord’s word: “Ephphatha” (“Be opened.”)

May it be so.

“Prayer is nothing else than union with God.” (St. John Vianney)

I do not know how to pray. Sometimes I like to think that I do but that is only because I am prone to the sin of pride.

This sin of pride is not so much that I strut around thinking that I am holy and wise. I know to be on the watch for such obvious foolishness.

Where I get taken in is when God, in His great love and generosity, pours out a wondrous gift upon me. At first I am grateful and full of joy. But after a little time passes, it starts to feel like the gift is mine, that I brought it about by something I did.

Hence, if God in His great mercy allows me even a little taste of the glorious sense of union with Him of which St. John Vianney speaks, at the moment, I know it is a gift. How could it be anything else?

But I am a sinner and so I imagine myself better than I am. After a while, I imagine that I was sitting the right way, breathing correctly, saying the right words (or not saying words at all) – that I had through my years of practice learned how to pray.

So, knowing your author to be such a fool, you may be wise to quit reading now. However, I will continue to write, on the chance that God might use me tonight to communicate some blessing He wishes to offer you, despite my flaws.

Because I don’t know how to pray, if there is to be any hope for me, I must ask God to help me. It is natural that I turn to the Holy Spirit because of Jesus’ promise about the Paraclete, “He will teach you everything…” (John 14: 26)

It is comforting for us to know that the Spirit intercedes for us “with inexpressible groanings”… “when we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8: 26). When I don’t know how to pray or I cannot express myself before God, the Spirit is there as my helper.

And yet there is something puzzling about this teaching. I can understand the Spirit teaching me. But interceding? Does God (the Spirit) need to intervene with God (the Father) on my behalf?

This seems much like the perplexing question of Jesus needing to pray in private while on earth. Why would God (the Son) need to talk to God (the Father), except for our benefit? Do they not share all in common?

This is, of course, part of the great Mystery of God that is beyond fathoming.

Yet there is one aspect of this Mystery that strengthens me and helps me stay the course while on the often confusing path of prayer.

The words of St. John Vianney remind me that, in prayer, I am invited to receive the gift of union with God, an experience he further describes as “a most beautiful thing” and “a happiness that we cannot understand”.

In my very feeble understanding of the Holy Trinity, I see the union of love I am invited into. I do not mean, of course, that I will “become God” in His uncreated Essence. But I am invited to share fully in His life.

As I think of Jesus communing with His Father in a lonely spot, I get a glimpse of this Union as an outpouring of love that is dynamic – for there is no such thing as static love. Similarly, the Spirit who has been given to me, is loving the Father and Son in a fully personal way as He teaches, guides and intercedes for me. The relationship within Trinity is fully alive, fully loving and thus perfectly One.

How does this rudimentary understanding help me?

It helps me because I do not know how to pray.

Most often, I suspect, you and I would not define prayer as union with God. We would define it as the effort we make to bring ourselves to attention so that we can talk to God or praise Him or listen for Him. We think of it as something we do.

It is not wrong for us to be conscious of the work we must do. Of course, our effort is always necessary. But it is also true that our effort is never sufficient of itself. (Remember my sin of pride…)

In contemplating the Union of God in Trinity, God inviting me into union and God dwelling in me in the Spirit, suddenly prayer does not seem so hard.

I am not saying I know how to pray. But I trust that the Spirit will pray in me and with me if I ask Him to. I trust He will teach my heart to always be at prayer if I so ask. It is not for me to know how or at what rate He is teaching me. I simply trust that He does.

Much of my work, as I wrote in my previous post The new life, is to empty myself to make room for the Spirit to fully occupy my life. And, of course, not knowing how to do this either, I pray again for His help.

If I might, I will say a word or two about the Jesus Prayer as well. Before doing so, however, I would first add that I do not believe that there is any “method” of prayer that is right for all people at every stage of their lives. The way I pray at 60 years old is necessarily different than how I prayed at 6 – and not automatically better. Thus, my reflection is only what I see at this moment in my life and may mean nothing more.

I began saying the Jesus Prayer with my breath, without any particular guidance – although I am sure that God must have been protecting from the serious errors that I have since read can occur. It was almost like a “mantra” for me at first, a place to come “home” to when my mind inevitably wandered while at prayer.

Of course, it had to become more than a mantra. Even the weakest Christian cannot call on the name of Jesus and have it mean nothing. Over time, my wandering or troubled mind increasingly learned to return to this special “home” when it needed safe harbor, learning most likely because of sheer repetition – and sheer grace.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” As these words move with my breath, they slow me. I suppose they slow me much as any breathing exercise would, except that Jesus is there. Sometimes the words slip into the background, as the mind yields to the heart.

The words are my effort. The loss of the words in the Presence is the gift.

I do not know how to pray. But the Spirit within me is always “praying” in loving Union.

Oh that I might stay with the work of emptying myself to make room for Him!

Please pray for me, a sinner.

Three years ago this month, a very curious thing happened to me while in an MRI machine having my brain scanned. It was the opening of one of those doors I wrote about in the prayer of my last post.

The MRI was routine because of migraine. But the experience of a brain MRI is itself anything but routine. The head is immobilized, earplugs are put in place and one’s entire body is inserted into a long tube where one must lie completely still while random sounds (resembling jackhammers) come from all directions.

And so I was prepared and inserted into the tube in July of 2012.

To move through the experience, I had planned to prayerfully meditate. I began the meditation by being on a mountain and soon learned that it was a Holy Mountain. The Lord was there with me. I do not recall making an effort to imagine this nor was it a dramatic mystical experience; I was simply there and He was with me.

As the noise of the MRI grew intense, we climbed further up the Mountain, leaving the commotion down below so that it was not so loud or bothersome. Little by little, we moved higher and higher up the Mountain. It was a peaceful and beautiful time with my Lord.

Then came the words that I have never forgotten:

“And He sang to my heart.”

I was taken aback – indeed, overcome with both the tenderness of these words and my unworthiness to receive them. What did they mean?

After the test was over and I had returned home, I continued to ponder these words. It occurred to me that I didn’t recall ever hearing a reference to God singing.

Reflecting further, I did recall that Aslan, the mighty Lion of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, sang as He was bringing a new world into being.

I decided to Google “Aslan singing”. What resulted from that online search was a door opening, a life-changing movement of God in my soul.

Through Google, God led me to an article by Fr. Stephen Freeman, an Orthodox priest I had never heard of – I had barely heard of Orthodoxy – and his blog glory2Godforallthings.

As I started reading, I was intrigued. It was not so much that what I was reading was new or different but that it was true. This is not to say that what I had learned about Christianity up to that point had not seemed true. Rather, it was that the words before me expressed the Truth with such clarity that I could not stop reading them.

At that same time, I “met” through comments on Fr. Stephen’s 7/12/12 article, Fr. Aidan and Christine Kimel, who had just lost their dear son, Aaron, to suicide. Though I knew nothing about them, I felt compelled to share with them the words given to me on the Holy Mountain of my meditation. The words were intended for them.

This moment of sharing was so blessed that it seemed to transcend time and space. I could feel a door opening in my soul but, at that point, I had no idea where it was leading. I only knew that I had to step over the threshold to the other side.

For the next two or more years, I became a regular reader of Fr. Stephen’s blog, frequently commenting as I struggled to integrate into my soul what I was learning about the Christianity that I thought I knew.

Further, I became consumed with reading the Orthodox books suggested by members of this online community, thus becoming acquainted with contemporary elders and saints that won my soul to Christianity all over again. Reading the words and biographies of such great souls as Sts. Silouan, Porphyrios and Paisios of Mt. Athos, I discovered that what I had thought was a solid faith in my soul was but a tiny flicker.

This door-opening had another dimension as well, one so beautiful that it almost defies words. I will attempt to write of it a bit later…

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I am back and will try to write again. May God help me.

One of my earliest readings in Orthodoxy was Christ the Eternal Tao, by Hiermonk Damascene. My first attempt to read this book was slow and I ended up becoming distracted and set it down, something that often happens with spiritual books I am not ready to read.

However, I was moved to pick it up again later and then could not put it down. One of the many gifts this book gave me was a broader understanding of God’s movement across human history and cultures, an understanding derived from the work of Fr. Seraphim Rose. This is something I’m sure I do not understand adequately nor can I summarize it – but I have a reason for citing it here.

It seems as though approximately five thousand years before the birth of Christ, there were two great thinkers in two different ancient cultures who could not have had any knowledge of one another.

Heraclitus, one of the earliest philosophers of ancient Greece, wrote of the “Logos” (a word meaning the “Word”) which he described as “…the first principle of existence, that unity of the world process that sustains it as a process.”*

At approximately same time, in ancient China, Lao Tzu wrote of the Tao (a word meaning the “Way”) which is “the Pattern of Heaven, the Course that all things follow.” He admitted, “I do not know its name.”*

It occurred to me, as I read this, that God saw all of the people of the world as His own – and they were lost because of the ancestral sin. He wanted them to know Him again and so He revealed Himself. He did not reveal Himself in just one time or place. It was as though He was laying a sort of groundwork throughout the world.

However, it seems that the most that even the wisest of us humans were ready to accept at this early point in history was an Idea. There was some sort of pattern, principle or order to life.

Much more time passed before God’s revelation found a readiness in humanity for something more: an openness to understanding Him not just an idea or pattern but as Person. Moses heard God speak and he asked His name. One does not talk to an Idea – only to a Person.

And God confirmed His Personal nature to Moses, “This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). “I AM” is a statement of Being, of Personal Being.

While this exchange still left a great deal unknown about God, who will always be mystery beyond our knowing, it began an era of understanding God as wanting a relationship with His people. He was not a distant or indifferent Being. On the other hand, with the exception of holy leaders like Moses, the relationship was with His people as a community rather than as individuals.

With the Incarnation of Christ, the ultimate revelation occurs. The Word (the “Logos”), written of so long ago is made flesh to live among us. The man, Jesus, now declares, “I am the Way” (the “Tao”). All that was foreshadowed across cultures is now fulfilled in human history.

As incredible as this is, still something more has happened with this development. God is now more than just Presence guiding His chosen people. He is Being with and among us. He may, in fact, be sitting right next to me, eating, drinking and conversing with me as one person to another.

Even though He now has billions of people on the earth, through the human personhood of Jesus, the God-man, He might choose to converse with me as an individual.

He can look at me, touch me, call me by name. He can look into my eyes and tell me my sins are forgiven. He can heal the diseases of my body, my mind, my soul with a word or a touch.

I write in the present tense because God, having entered human history in Christ, never leaves it. Though historical Jesus has ascended, with Eucharist and the gift of the Spirit, the presence of God remains a Person so personal that there can remain no doubt of His desire to touch me as an individual, personally and intimately.

It is late. I will take another break and return.

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I have returned, to edit and write some more, by the grace of God…

Jesus knows He is about to be betrayed and killed. His disciples do not fully understand this but they know that He is in danger and that this Passover is different from all of the others. Jesus is sharing deeply with them – washing their feet, breaking the bread – it is His body? And now this…

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15: 15, NIV)

He has always made it clear that He loved them. He was Master and Teacher. But mostly they could not resist following Him because of His love. Yet these words – these words were the ones that bound their hearts to Him and one another like nothing before.

He called them friends and was speaking to them plainly. He was revealing the Father in  and through Himself:

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…” (John 14:11)

Not long ago, I published a post about being God’s servant, with a recording from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (To be God’s servant). I ended by proclaiming, “Yes, I want to be His servant…”

And, of course, I do. But I entitled this post “Servants no more” because we are invited to so much more. We are not like those those compelled or employed to do a duty. We are like those in love.

As God revealed Himself to His lost children, at first He was perceived to be an Idea, then an Almighty Deity who wanted to lead His disobedient people back to the Truth. And these perceptions were not wrong so much as they were incomplete.

In Christ, He has revealed Himself as Lover, intimate Lover of our souls.

It is the way of lovers that they find joy in serving one another. And He taught us this while in the flesh.

For He did not demand to be served but delighted in serving each and every individual He encountered, no matter how damaged he or she was by sin or disease.

And He invites us all to be lovers as well. Lovers of Him, lovers of each other. There cannot be one without the other… Lovers whose hearts overflow with an abundance of Divine love.

Once again, it is late and I must rest. I believe there is a bit more to be written…

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Once again, I return, asking God to help me write of things I know not how to write of…

Up till now, I have been writing more in generalities than is my usual way. Perhaps I have needed to tell some of what I have learned in ideas first. How else can I explain it?

I will try, knowing my words will be most inadequate.

I have come to know – I am just beginning to understand – that the Lord does indeed sing to my heart.

The God who was taught to me as a little girl, first as an idea, gradually becoming known to me as Creator, as good God…that God has now revealed Himself as the intimate Lover of my unworthy soul.

I hesitate to write this, for fear that I give the impression that God has singled me out for some special experience that others do not have.

The reality is that God has been revealing this continually, to every one of us, from the beginning of time. It is only that now, by His grace and mercy, my eyes are starting to open to get a glimpse of how great is His love.

How great is His love for my small, broken and disobedient soul. I cannot fathom it. That He should call me by name and take me, me as an individual to be His love – it is almost too much to bear…

Please pray for me. I am so unworthy.

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I will conclude with a recording (and reprint) of the words of St. Catherine of Genoa, one who knew far better than me what it meant to enter into the Love of Christ. (In the Catholic tradition, when we are confirmed, we choose a saint to be our guide and protector. St. Catherine of Genoa is my saint.) **

 

 
Text from Spiritual Dialogues 1, 8 **, by St. Catherine of Genoa:

When God wills to purify a soul from self-love, he first sends her his divine light, that by it she may discern a spark of that pure love wherewith he loves her, and how much he has done and still does by means of this love.

[…] He also reveals to her that our sins can never excite his anger so far that he ceases to do us good while we are in this world.

Rather does it seem that the more our sins remove us from him, so much the more does he seek to draw us toward himself by many incentives and inspirations, in order that his continued love and his benefits may keep us still in his love.

The better to effect this, he uses countless ways and means, so that every soul, beholding what he has done for her, may exclaim, full of admiration:

“What am I that God seems truly to have no care for anyone but me?”

And, among other things, he reveals to her that pure love with which he created us;

and how he requires nothing of us but that we should love him with that same love wherewith he has loved us;

and that we should remain ever with him, expecting no return except that he may unite himself to us.

[…] God, moreover, made known to this soul that he had created man for the highest good, namely, that with soul and body he might enter into his heavenly home.

He also showed her how great an evil is sin, into which she had herself fallen, and for which there was no remedy but another manifestation of his love….

And he further instructed her in that ardent love for us of which our Lord Jesus Christ gave such proof on the earth.

[…] He allowed her to see the great patience with which he had waited for her, and borne with so many of her sins, in which, if she had died, she would have been lost forever.

[…] He also reminded her of the many inspirations he had given her to save her from sin.

Although she had not only disregarded, but even gone contrary to his will, yet in his goodness, he did not cease to send them, now in one way, now in another.

He allured her free-will in such a way that he had, as it were, forced her to do that which in his goodness he required.

And this, too, he did so gently and patiently, that no example of human love was ever known on earth, which could compare with it.

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* Quotes and information about the work of Fr. Seraphim Rose were found in Christ the Eternal Tao, by Hiermonk Damascene. Citations for original texts are available there.

** Thanks to Mark Armitage and his blog, enlargingtheheart, for helping me find this particular text from St. Catherine of Genoa.

How do I begin?

If I try to start at the beginning, I must admit that I don’t even know where the beginning is. I only know that You have always been there.

Long before I have any conscious memory, You began Your work in me, with the waters of salvation poured upon my head when I was but ten days old. In the arms of my parents, You claimed me.

As I ponder the decades of my life, I see so much that, at first glance, seems to make so little sense. One moment, You were there and the next, it seemed that You were not.

Or was it me? Was I not praying enough or believing enough during those times You seemed so absent?

So I wondered at the time. But now I see differently.

You allowed me such beautiful moments in childhood: learning to pray, receiving You in Eucharist for the first time when I was 7, being confirmed in the Faith with the Holy Chrism when I was 8.

But you also allowed me many dull and ordinary moments, even difficult moments, in which irritability and fears and annoyances crowded out all of the good You had instilled within me. And I felt discouraged.

But greater perhaps than anything, You implanted in my soul a relentless hunger for You – a desire to know You and to know the truth about You. I wanted You to exist but You gave me a mind that would not accept merely believing what it wanted to believe.

And You allowed this hunger to both delight me with its holy promise and torment me with the possibility of a horrifying and inescapable emptiness. Sometimes both in the same day.

Your generosity with me in many ways seems boundless. You have allowed me so much opportunity in life, so much ability (none of which I have earned or deserved). You have sent me innumerable helps and guides and blessings through every phase of my life, in books and dreams and teachers and friends, all to instruct me and guide me that I might know You.

At the same time, at points in my life, You allowed me to undergo great mental suffering – and some physical as well – some of which endured for decades with little or no relief. Sometimes I could barely hold on. Sometimes I didn’t want to hold on, it hurt and frightened me so much.

Yet You never left me alone or without help. And afflictions that I thought would never leave me were lifted. All by Your grace.

There were times when working for You exhausted me so much that I became angry, though I did not recognize it at the time. I saw so many injustices that I could not remain quiet. I heard so many sorrows that I could not stop crying. But in each one, I was sustained in hope because of You.

And then You began opening new doors for me, leading me to unexpected places. Each new door led me through the same maze of challenge and growth, pain and joy, always with You leading and beckoning me to come in a bit further, to enter more deeply into Your promise.

With the openings, You allowed me to see more clearly my sinfulness, the total destitution of my soul when it ventures away from You, even for a moment. You taught me what it means to live a life of repentance. You planted in my heart a longing to pray without ceasing.

At the same time, You flooded my soul like an artist’s palette, with colors that long to be painted, images that call out to be received and words waiting to find form that they might praise You.

Certainly I have not fulfilled all that You have given me. Not even close. Yet I see now that You have been shaping me through each step, through each experience.

In Your presence, I have found joy and consolation. In Your “absence”, I have come to understand how deep is my need for You.

In the many gifts You have given me, I have learned that what I have to give others is not my own but Yours. In my challenges and suffering, I have discovered a compassion and humility that can only be learned through raw need.

For all of this, O God, for all of this – the joys and the sorrows, the suffering and the celebrations – I praise Your great glory. For all of it has led me to be where I am right now, standing before You in worshipful awe…