Again I Begin

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Again I Begin

While praying recently for a fresh wind of prayer, I ran across the following.  I've edited it slightly, for I first scribbled this in a journal over twenty years ago.  Twenty years!  Before iPads, Kindles, Twitter, Pinterest, smart phones, dumb phones, texting, mobile apps.  Back then, people went to dinners disconnected, engaging in conversation with no concerns about a purse ringing just as salads arrived.   Yet even then, I was aware of how hard it was to tune in to the gentle presence of God.  

'We can hardly hear anything in this world of ceaseless distraction.  Our ancestors, even our recent ones, would be simply overwhelmed by the barrage of noises that surround us in this busy world, in this busy western world.  We are bombarded by entertainment, images, music, sounds, distractions we carry with us wherever we go. 

Perhaps we find our own thoughts too disturbing, so we drown them out with ceaseless chatter.  Maybe inactivity reminds us too clearly that we were created to fill our time with God, so we flee from the reminders by cramming our days full of mindless clutter

I know this because I am so this way, busily fluttering amid distractions that keep me blissfully unaware. 

If only we could see it!  If only we could see the drama in which we're engaged!  If only we could peer, eyes unveiled, into the truth for just a minute.  I can't believe that such acute awareness would not utterly change our lives...'

Over twenty years later, I am still struggling to quiet down and 'listen.'  Funny.  I thought I'd be settled into a real routine by now.  Not so.

Perhaps because routine has never been easy for me?  Possibly.  Maybe because distractions are becoming daily more present and ever more convenient for all of us?  Surely.

And, if I'm honest, probably because some part of me would rather look at glitter than into scripture.  It's a tough thing to consider, an even tougher thing to admit.  But it is at least partially true.  After all, a bit of online glitz will not remind me that I need to take time to pray for situations on the world stage.  Or perhaps that I can even, if I give Him time and space, encounter the loving presence of God.

Encountering the Presence of God.  Imagine!  I can do this very thing in prayer, even in the silence of my heart.  I know how this works; I've done it for years:  I can sit down and pray, giving God time and space and attention.  I can take another look at Lectio Divina.

Why on earth am I waiting?  Maybe if I ask Him, and maybe if I sit long enough to hear His still, small Voice, Our Lord will answer this very question.

I pick up my Bible. I open it.

Again I begin.

All text in this post © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org       

From the Heart of St. Paul of the Cross

Sunday, June 16, 2013

From the Heart of St. Paul of the Cross

Considering a few "cloistered hearts" gone before us, I quickly think of St. Paul of the Cross. “The world lives unmindful of the sufferings of Jesus..." wrote this saint; "we must arouse the world from its slumber.” 

Through a great number of letters and sermons, Paul of the Cross indeed helped awaken the world.   Founder of the Passionists and a tireless worker for Christ, Paul walked from town to town, church to church, for over 40 years, preaching "the loving memory of the passion and death of Jesus Christ..." (from "In the Shadow of His Wings")

The saints were the ideal "cloistered hearts," although most would not have thought in such terms.  Looking at the following words by St. Paul of the Cross, however, I have a feeling he was one of those who did....     

"Build an oratory within yourself, and there have Jesus on the altar of your heart. Speak to Him often while you are doing your work." 

"Rest tranquilly in the loving Heart of our dear Savior; do not lose peace, even though the world turn upside down."

"Faith tells us that our heart is a Sanctuary, because it is the Temple of God, the dwelling-place of the Holy Trinity.  Let us often visit this Sanctuary, and see that the lamps are alight - that is to say, Faith, Hope and Charity - and frequently stir up our faith when we are studying, working, or eating, when we go to bed, and when we rise, and make aspirations to God.”

"Take the holy, gentle will of God as your spouse, wedded each moment by the ring of faith in which are set all the jewels of hope and love."

“Nourish yourself with God’s Holy Will.  Drink of this Chalice of Jesus.  Close your eyes and do not seek to know what it may contain.  It is enough to know that Jesus offers it.”

"Celebrate the feast of Christmas every day, even every moment, in the interior temple of your spirit."    

For more about St. Paul of the Cross, click on this link                                                       

In the Inner Cloister of Her Heart

Friday, June 14, 2013

In the Inner Cloister of Her Heart

      "We absorb more and more of His Spirit until - in the midst of crowds or secluded in our cells - we are alone with our Master and inseparable Guide.  Jesus Christ is very nigh to the soul that seeks and loves Him, and she speaks to Him in the inner cloister of her heart.

      No one can measure how precious a thing this is, who has not experienced the strength and power, the joy and peace that is derived from it.  The soul talks familiarly with God in her own words and her own way.  She has no set form of speech, for none is needed.  She is at home with God, and He with her.  Jesus Christ is no far off Divinity, but very nigh, dwelling in her heart.  There is nothing she cannot tell Him about, whether it be joy or sorrow, success or failure.  It is all poured into His ears."   

                   (from Sheltering the Divine Outcast, by a Religious, Peter Reilly Co., Philadelphia, 1931, pp. 14-15)

Painting: Almeida Júnior  - Moça com Livro, US public domain   

The Cloistered Heart of St. Margaret Mary

Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Cloistered Heart of St. Margaret Mary

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque's was a heart filled with fire.  Jesus chose to reveal to this Visitation nun a Heart ablaze - His own Sacred Heart.  I think it's accurate to say that the saint encountered the Fire of Jesus' love and reflected it back to Him.  Love met love, Heart met heart, Fire met fire.  But the story did not end there.

Jesus entrusted to Margaret Mary a mission:  to spread the message of His fiery love.

"My Divine Heart," Christ said in an apparition to this humble nun in 1673, "is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you."

St. Margaret Mary later wrote: "Jesus asked for my heart, which I begged Him to take, and He placed it in His adorable One, in which He showed it to me as a tiny speck consumed in this burning furnace. Then, taking it out as a burning flame shaped like a heart, He replaced it in the place from which He had taken it."  

St. Margaret Mary said many things that strike at the very core of my "cloistered" heart.  I have room here for a few examples....

"Our Lord frequently told me that I should keep a secluded place for Him in my heart, where He would teach me to love Him."  

"I beg the Sacred Heart of Jesus to deign to consume ours in the flames of His holy love, so that they may live and breathe only to love, honor and glorify Him."  

"Jesus Christ is the true friend of our hearts, and they are made for Him alone.  They cannot find rest, joy, or satisfaction except in Him."

"He wants your heart without reserve."

Jesus wants my heart without reserve.  He desires my love in return for His.  

How will I respond?

Detail of painting by Georges de la Tours, cropped and digitally altered.  In public domain

to learn more about St. Margaret Mary, click here

The Habit Speaks

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Habit Speaks

Armand Gautier, Three Nuns in the Portal of a Church

What does a Religious habit say to me when I see someone wearing it?  

"I have found God to be worth the gift of my whole life," it tells me. "Nothing on earth is as important as He." 

I thought of this, of the witnessing power of the habit, today when I saw the video I'm sharing on this post. I share it with hope that you have a few minutes to prayerfully witness this clothing of someone making a total gift of self to God.  

As we know, each part of the monastic habit is deeply symbolic. 

Can I identify, in a spiritual way, with any of the habit pieces placed on Sister?   

I ask God to show me.  I ask Him to clothe me in His love and His grace. 
                                  
                                                                                                                                       

An Abyss of All Good

Thursday, June 6, 2013

An Abyss of All Good

'In a word, this Divine Heart is an abyss of all good, 

into which the poor must plunge their necessities.  

It is an abyss of joy, into which we must cast all our sorrows.  

It is an abyss of humiliation for our pride,

an abyss of mercy for the miserable,

and an abyss of love into which we must cast all our troubles.' 

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

From the Heart of St. Faustina

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

From the Heart of St. Faustina

Over the next few days, I'd like to look at several 'cloistered hearts' who have gone before us.  While these holy ones may never have thought of their hearts as 'cloistered,' indeed that was the reality.

I will be looking primarily at men and women determined by the Church to be saints, or at least ones recognized as on the steady path to sainthood.

After all, look at where their paths have led.

'I find pleasure, not in large buildings and magnificent structures,' said Jesus to St. Faustina Kowalska, 'but in a pure and humble heart.'  (Diary #532)

'In the dwelling of my heart is that wilderness to which no creature has access.  There, You alone are King.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #725)

'My heart is a permanent dwelling place for Jesus.  No one but Jesus has access to it.' (St. Faustina, Diary #193)

'Nothing terrifies me, even if the whole world should turn against me.  All adversaries touch only the surface, but they have no entry to the depths, because God, who strengthens me, who fills me, dwells there.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #480)

'Nothing disturbs my union with the Lord, neither conversation with others nor any duties; even if I am to go about settling very important matters, this does not disturb me.  My spirit is with God, and my interior being is filled with God, so I do not look for Him outside myself.  He, the Lord, penetrates my soul just as a ray from the sun penetrates clear glass.  When I was enclosed in my mother's womb, I was not so closely united with her as I am with my God.  There, it was an unawareness; but here it is the fullness of reality and the consciousness of union.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #883)

'My daughter, I want to repose in your heart, because many souls have thrown Me out of their hearts today.'  (Jesus to St. Faustina, #866 )

All quotes above are from Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina Kowalska, Marians of the Immaculate Conception, Stockbridge, 1996.  Click this link for more information.  

Painting: Adolf Kaufmann, 1904, detail, in US public domain 
Photo of St. Faustina in public domain