Sister Ruth Burrows

How important it is to accept the destruction of our spiritual self-image! When it is endangered, we react like scalded cats. We back off; we scramble around for a way of escape; and then we set about doing what we can to reinstate ourselves. What the Spirit of Jesus asks us to do is lovingly, trustingly to accept the disillusionment. What does it matter that we are shabby and soiled when we have Jesus as our holiness? There is only one holiness, and that is Jesus. His holiness is there for us, and so we can be happy not to have a holiness of our own, one we can enjoy -- it would be illusory anyway.

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Have we not to say that God sacrificed Himself in creating the world, in becoming 'our God'? It is as if self-sacrifice -- which, after all, is the law of all genuine love -- lies in the depths of the Divine Reality, of the Supreme Being who is Love. To be taken into that Love, to live with the life of God, must perforce mean that sacrifice becomes our way of being too. God loved the world so much that He held nothing back from us, not even His own Son. Amen to this priceless gift of him who is made our wisdom, our justification, our holiness and atonement. Nothing is wanting to us. All is given. Strengthen us, O Given One, to be a glad Amen.

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R. Burrows, OCD, Essence of Prayer (HiddenSpring, Paulist Press, 2006), pp. 83-85, passim

Rhotacistic rhyme

A bionic butterfly in the middle of April
Will flutter more quickly than Superman's cape will.

(This couplet was the product of a late-evening "contest" of sorts, where a friend and I were trying to come up with rhymes for words that have no rhymes.)

Quotation : Forgiveness

A quick story: two friends describe their spiritual masters. One boasts, "My master has supernatural powers and can even walk on water." The second replies, "My master forgives all who have harmed him." The first: "Your master is more powerful than mine."

Fr Peter Feldmeier in Not by Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent 2004 (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota), p. 45

Quotation

We hear that love is blind. It isn't. It alone sees, and in seeing it accepts, it celebrates, and above all it embraces.

Fr Peter Feldmeier in Not by Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent 2004 (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota), p. 38

Quotation : Msgr Romano Guardini

We can do nothing better than place ourselves and all that we have in God's sight: "Behold me!" Let us put away the fear that prevents us. Let us abandon the sloth, the pretense of independence, and the pride. "Look at the good! Look at the shortcomings! The ugly, the unjust, the evil, the wicked, everything -- look at it, O God!"

Sometimes it is impossible to alter something or other. But let him see it at any rate. Sometimes one cannot honestly repent. But let him see that we cannot yet repent. none of the shortcomings and evil in our lives are fatal so long as they confront his gaze. The very act of placing ourselves in his sight is the beginning of renewal. Everything is possible so long as we begin with God. But everything is in danger once we refuse to place ourselves and our lives in his sight.

via Magnificat, March 2010, meditation for Monday the 1st

Quotation : St John Chrysostom

The instruments of God are always the humble.

found in Not By Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent 2004 (Liturgical Press), p. 31

Still here

Possibly upcoming: an excerpt from a Magnificat meditation, or an excerpt from John Baillie's lovely small book, A Diary of Private Prayer.

I shall return! (Eventually.)

Quotation: Basil Cardinal Hume

We have been told that we must love God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Mt 22:37-39). The spiritual lives of too many people are based on fear. Now I would not wish to minimise the importance of a wholesome filial fear of God. Fear of hell is, on occasions, no bad motive for avoiding sin. Furthermore, our task is to be pleasing to God and this means that we must keep the commandments, and do what He expects of us. Morality is important, and not only as an end in itself. It should be the test of our intent to love God and serve Him. We should be fearful lest in breaking His law we displease Him. There can be no serious spiritual life which ignores obedience to God. That is evident.

It would, however, be an impoverished spiritual life which was not based on trying to love God. After all, that is the first commandment. Fear is an exhausting emotion. Love must cast out fear, eventually. But I believe that it takes most of us quite a long time to learn about the love of God. It dawns slowly.

Cardinal Basil Hume, Ash Wednesday meditation in Daily Readings in Catholic Classics, ed. Fr. Rawley Myers (Ignatius, 1992), p. 323