Nature, in zeal for human amity, Denies, or damps, an undivided joy. Joy is an import; joy is an exchange; Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two; Rich fruit! heaven-planted! never pluck’d by one. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give To social man true relish of himself. From Edward Young's Night Thoughts.
Filed under Daily Reflections, poetry
Three extracts from Chesterton’s account of Saint Francis.
It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.” It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything.” It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them; and they are in themselves the best working example of the idea. For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.
But there is more than this involved, and more indeed than is easily to be expressed in words. It is not only true that the less a man thinks of himself, the more he thinks of his good luck and of all the gifts of God. It is also true that he sees more of the things themselves when he sees more of their origin; for their origin is a part of them and indeed the most important part of them. Thus they become more extraordinary by being explained. He has more wonder at them but less fear of them; for a thing is really wonderful when it is significant and not when it is insignificant.
From “Saint Francis of Assisi: The Life and Times of St. Francis” by G. K. Chesterton.
Filed under Daily Reflections, Laudato si', Mission
Filed under Daily Reflections, Lent, poetry
Today’s poem also comes from The Ballad of Saint Barbara. A Second Childhood by GK Chesterton urges us not to ‘grow too old to see / Unearthly daylight shine’. May we, despite our sins, grow ever new as we grow old; and may we never grow too old! And may we stop and stare, and Laudato Si!
When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed:
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And find I am not dead.A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.Strange crawling carpets of the grass,
Wide windows of the sky:
So in this perilous grace of God
With all my sins go I:
And things grow new though I grow old,
Though I grow old and die.
Filed under Daily Reflections, poetry
I found my first edition of The Ballad of St. Barbara by G.K. Chesterton the other day. A treasure that cost 50p in a charity shop. I’ve chosen a couple of poems to lead us into Lent, both looking at conscience. Before we read The Sword of Surprise we should remind ourselves of the verse that it meditates upon, Hebrews 4:12.
For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
As we have said before, an examination of conscience should encompass more than our ‘daily falls’. If we count our blessings we can put our sins into perspective, so let us pray for the grace to see also the daily wonders, and to feel life’s brave beat.
Sunder me from my bones, O sword of God,
Till they stand stark and strange as do the trees;
That I whose heart goes up with the soaring woods
May marvel as much at these.Sunder me from my blood that in the dark
I hear that red ancestral river run,
Like branching buried floods that find the sea
But never see the sun.Give me miraculous eyes to see my eyes,
Those rolling mirrors made alive in me,
Terrible crystals more incredible
Than all the things they see.Sunder me from my soul, that I may see
The sins like streaming wounds, the life’s brave beat;
Till I shall save myself, as I would save
A stranger in the street.
Filed under Daily Reflections, poetry
Life for both sexes—and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement— is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to one self. By feeling that one has some innate superiority—it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney—for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination—over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the chief sources of his power.”{from “A Room of One’s Own (Wisehouse Classics Edition)” by Virginia Woolf, available on Kindle}
Filed under Daily Reflections
Brother Givemore Mazhanje is a young Franciscan in Zimbabwe. There is a freshness in his writing which I hope you enjoy. The post is about when he attended
A WORKSHOP ON FAITHFUL VOCATIONS
Mr and Mrs Musiyiwa from St Francis of Assisi Parish, Waterfalls in Harare, were the facilitators.
Firstly, they took us through reflections on our life as religious men of today, including: what is the significant contribution of my vocation to people in the Church and in society? Is my choice of vocation an informed decision? Does my vocation have a foundation in God?
One’s choice of vocation gives life to the individual and humanity only if it has God as its source of being. God is the source and summit of each and everyone’s calling. All vocations are nurtured by Him. On the other hand, it is of paramount significance that each person should cultivate some crucial values and virtues; including endurance, flexibility, dedication, commitment, truthfulness, humility, trust and self-control.
Akin to these, is the establishment of personal boundaries that a person to protect oneself and remain focused. Boundaries can be emotional, physical, psychological and material. Above all these practices, a vocation is nourished with prayer. Without prayer, religious life can be fruitless and meaningless.
Several challenges affect faithful vocations: identity crisis, health, personal doubts, the balance between prayer, study and work, family demands, cultural diversity and economic crisis among others.
Identity crisis is a question of knowing oneself. It is a challenge in religious life if one does not really know who he or she is. Yet knowing oneself requires introspection and acceptance; failure to do such, one may remain in confusion.
Another challenge is the balance between prayer, study and work. All these three are to be given suitable space and time, considering their vital roles in the life of a religious. The challenge arises when one aspect is given more time at the expense of the other. For example, it is not healthy when more time is given to study while prayer and work are suppressed; or more time is given to prayer without studying and working. What is needed is a balanced undertaking of one’s prayer life, time for work and studies.
Secondly, a religious ought to make peace with one’s past and the present so as to build a better foundation for the future. Not only that but also to attend workshops where challenges are shared and discussed so as to gain skills of conducting oneself. Reflections, recollections and retreats are also of great importance. The workshop helped us to know the foundations and importance of a vocation and how to nurture a faithful, meaningful and life-giving vocation.
Let us pray that Givemore and his fellow novices may persevere in their vocations and find the Franciscan way life-giving.
Filed under Daily Reflections, PLaces
walking together
S. Anthony said that a man who knew he was praying was not praying. He meant that what was spontaneous and natural was most real; what was most studied and most conscious tended to lack reality.
Often I have heard people say they could pray to God while they were walking about and doing their chores, but that as soon as they knelt down they were plagued with distracting thoughts. The truth about that is that they prayed best when they were least conscious of themselves.
from The Life and letters of Fr Andrew, London, Mowbray, 1948, p210.
Filed under Daily Reflections
The fact that my way is illusory means that it cannot be natural, a mistake cannot be of the essence of anything. That this is world-wide and world-old cannot make it natural. Revelation has something to tell us about living together; and we must avoid supposing an autonomy of social science, which forgets that modern social theory is formulated specifically against theology. It shares the same illusion of seeing reality as setting one against another. As a consequence of faith in the Incarnation, we receive the awareness that self-awareness comes from seeing self as total gift – no rivalry, as each one is unique.
Why does the infant struggle to repeat words and sounds; a process we take for granted? It isn’t automatic [and often missing in the Autistic]. This pull we feel confronting us as gravity is for the planets. It is a call to imitate, it is repetitive learning. We move into adult life through relating and, like gravity, such imitating both attracts and repels. We are attracted and we imitate, but eventually imitation leads to rivalry, using the same model differently. Our model is now our rival through whom we define ourselves against.
We imitate not just what the model looks like – but also what he/she has; it is this moving towards an object other than the model that we call desire. It pulls us away from the model into a kind of autonomy. But something more is required to fashion me. This involves focussing on the model as being – wanting to be who the model is. It is this imitating that eventually leads to rivalry: an impossible rivalry. Rivalry is resolved by exclusion or marginalising the victim – asserting individual self over the self of the other – I establish me through many victories gained in this way.
Does this mean we are all victimisers? The sense of self is always given – not acquired. It is the tension set in place by my sense of self as given, and as self acquired by violent means – this is the essence of Original Sin. My sense of self is unstable, changeable, other-dependent – the other who is there before me. My “me” is dependent on the desires that gave rise to it. Christian scholars understood the way in which humans relate to God in terms of where we come from, where we are going and how to get there.
AMcC
Filed under Daily Reflections
Saint Maximilian Kolbe showed great fortitude in standing against Nazism and in giving his life for another.
The notion of fortitude takes a bit of explaining. Like prudence, it seems an old-fashioned word, not used very much in ordinary conversation. When, in fact, was the last time you heard someone use the term? Perhaps the answer is Never. And yet, fortitude is an important concept, and if you possess it as a virtue, you have something very valuable indeed. Why? Because fortitude is about having strength on the level of our deepest self. You might say that fortitude is about being the person you really want to be.
Paradoxically, however, fortitude presupposes human weakness, presupposes that we are liable to be wounded. A stone cannot have fortitude because it has no mind or soul or feelings (as we would understand them). Nor can an angel have fortitude, because an angel is immortal. Fortitude belongs to thinking and feelings beings that are mortal, that can be hurt, and even killed – and that’s us. We can be wounded on so many levels, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Fortitude is that virtue by which we are able to be brave in the face of threats to our emotional, spiritual or physical well-being. Josef Pieper spells it out: ‘...[E]very violation of our inner peace; everything that happens to us or is done with us against our will; everything in any way negative, everything painful and harmful, everything frightening and oppressive’, this is what fortitude is for. And he goes on, ‘The ultimate injury, the deepest injury, is death.’
For further study:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church ,Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1994
The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper, University of Notre Dame Press
Filed under Daily Reflections
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