Mother Maria..St. Walburga...Feast of Ignatius of Antioch

We have today Ignatius of Antioch, a martyr of love. We are all called to a white martyrdom… but not everyone makes it. We are called to lay down our self-will, to try and cut it out at the roots. But it’s a deep weed. When we expose those roots, we don’t always look good.
Look to the Cross. Christ died as a criminal, the lowest of the low. He died looking very human.

We have a choice whether or not to accept looking like this.

We have in the reading from Terce today: “after your conversion you endured a great contest of suffering.” We all know what that’s like… one day you feel as if God were sitting right next to you, and you think, “this must be His will!” and the next day it’s all gone. That dryness is the contest of suffering. How do you get out of it? How do you know His will in dryness? Someone else will lead you. Trust ....... in God’s care for you.

Bat-gahim/Bat Galim

"My testimony is the call to disturb"....wrote Elie Wiesel..."I disturb...because I dare to put questions to God, the Source of all Faith...He alone is not disturbed by it."

"I disturb the miscreant because, despite my doubts and questions [and terrible pain], I refuse to break with the religious..(p.337)

Bat Galim (Hebrew: בת גלים‎, lit. Daughter of the Waves) is a neighborhood of Haifa, Israel, located at the foot of Mt. Carmel on the Mediterranean coast. Bat Galim is known for its promenade and sandy beaches.

Abandonment

Multiple unhealed wounds...unbelievably difficult...waited so long...to deal with the truth.
In popular imagination, but only rarely in reality, whirlpools can have the dangerous effect of destroying boats. In the 8th century, Paul the Deacon, who had lived among the Belgii, described tidal bores and the maelstrom for a Mediterranean audience unused to such violent tidal surges:

Not very far from this shore... toward the western side, on which the outcropping main lies open without end, is that very deep whirlpool of waters which we call by its familiar name "the navel of the sea." This is said to suck in the waves and spew them forth again twice every day...

They say there is another whirlpool of this kind between the island of Britain and the province of Galicia, and with this fact the coasts of the Seine region and of Aquitaine agree, for they are filled twice a day with such sudden inundations that any one who may by chance be found only a little inward from the shore can hardly get away.

I have heard a certain high nobleman of the Gauls relating that a number of ships, shattered at first by a tempest, were afterwards devoured by this same Charybdis. And when one only out of all the men who had been in these ships, still breathing, swam over the waves, while the rest were dying, he came, swept by the force of the receding waters, up to the edge of that most frightful abyss. And when now he beheld yawning before him the deep chaos whose end he could not see, and half dead from very fear, expected to be hurled into it, suddenly in a way that he could not have hoped he was cast upon a certain rock and sat him down. — Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, i.6

Trying

Let nothing trouble you.

Let nothing scare you.

All is fleeting.

God alone is unchanging.

Patience

Everything obtains.

Who possesses God

Nothing wants.

God alone suffices.

Still Standing

Still Standing...only by God's Grace but then I am chained to the tree...
Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ?...For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, or principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth(s), nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Savior. 

New Scapegoats

The family of scapegoats just keeps growing!

1 Peter 3:13-17

13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

St. Therese

It is her Hidden Face and her "struggle to love" that marks the title of this blog.  Few dare the "no greater love has any man than this, that he lay down his life for his brethren."  Today there is only agenda or save face/reputation---think they call it networking---I call it "huddling."  Jesus, was a pioneer, The Pioneer of Love.

An Old Friend

Elie Wiesel's statement,

"...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all..." 

stands as a succinct summary of his views on life and serves as the driving force of his work.

Habitation of Dragons

I also bought Habitation of Dragons by Keith Miller, charismatic leader of the 70's and 80's.
Great book to begin Lent with.  I might have gotten lost in the wilderness, but the Holy Spirit did not.  Thanks, God.

Real Life

At Real Life (really!) I bought a used notebook (.39), hey! times are hard.  What was astonishing is that last night when I opened it to continue my journaling, someone had printed in large red letters some lines that were meant just for me.  No one I know would even blink at the three notes but it stopped me.  It surprised me because of the importance of the day.  Here was Shrove Tuesday, the high holy day for the Holy Face, and I was acutely aware of it.  With broken heart I didn't ignore it but I just walked on by it.  The notes waited, closed up, until last night and then...a breeze through the darkness of the Land of Dragons.

All Rivers Run to the Sea

One drop rippling from the mountain rushes, dances to the sea...