All those little difficulties. . . .

Sarah at "Just another day of Catholic pondering" was musing on The Breaks today and reminded me of a reflection on the Agony of Christ in the Garden, the first of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary by Fr. Didier-Marie.

"Jesus comes to meet each one of us in our misery to transform our human misery into the divine mystery of love. Jesus does not come to destroy our suffering, but to transform it profoundly so that it may not be ours any more but that it may be a path to enter in His divine life. . . ."

Christ was, as Sarah so aptly reminds us, distinctly aware of the sufferings of daily life. His humanity was complete. He suffers with us, just as a father suffers with his children when he sees them hurt by others. We have the tendency sometimes to minimize our concerns, the stresses we endure, comparing them to those of others or to the sufferings of Christ, but this denies Christ the opportunity to transform our lives in the smallest moments, in the moments when we may need Him the most. What may be insignificant to others but significiant to us is significant to Christ. They give Him an opportunity not only to manifest His great love for us, but also to teach us about humility.

Father Didier-Marie continues, reflecting on the Scourging and the Crowning of Thorns:
"Jesus in the Scourging and the Crowning of Thorns comes to encounter those daily miseries that each of us experience in our days, all those little difficulties that make the day sometimes very heavy, that sometime make us lose our joy, lose our hope. Jesus comes in our scourging, in our crowning of thorns, each time that we experience a humiliation to help us to discover in that humiliation His humble heart. [He says,] 'Learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart'. . . ."

These reflections really drive home the deep love of Christ for us. He takes each of our own sorrows and miseries, no matter how small, into His sacred heart. He bids us to lay our heads on His heart and allow Him to apply the salve of His love and mercy intp the deepest wounds of our souls. At the same time He teaches us gentleness and humility. Seeing the effect that these "little" difficulties can have on us, that we can sometimes lose the inner peace and focus on Christ that we seek reminds us just how in need of His Love and Mercy we are.

The Love shown at the cross and the humiliation of Christ's burial are reminders of the limitlessness of Christ's love for each of us. We must always remember that in the little difficulties of the day or in the darkest night of the soul that: "Our backs might be pressed to the wood of our cross, but our heads are always resting on the outstretched arms of our God who was lying there before us." We are never abandoned.

The Defining Light of Christ

Sitting at adoration the other night in the back of the Novitiate chapel I noticed that in the darkness the light reflecting on and then eminating from the monstrance silhouetted my spiritual father, defining him in the the darkened chapel. In the darkness it can be difficult to discern which brother is which, but when he shifted positions his physical form and each curve of his face became evident and I knew beyond a doubt that it was him.

Yet it was more than a physical definition. Who he is as a priest, as a child of God is defined in the light of Christ. It shapes his life and his heart illuminating his heart and mind in the darkness of the world allowing him to bring the light of Christ to others. Each choice he makes, and indeed his entire life and being, is defined by the Light. His presence reveals the Light in both the physical contrast in the chapel of his silhoutte against the light and in a metaphorical way by the way in which we see the Light defining his entire being and purpose.

May each of us allow ourselves to be illuminated and defined by that same Light.

Deep Thoughts . . .

Complements of Micah and PhatCatholic. . .

Silence and Contemplation a la Papa Ben

Today Pope Benedict XVI spoke on contemplation and its role in our lives. Exceprts are posted here for your spiritual edification....

Though he is speaking about theologians his words are ones we all should heed in our journeys into the heart of Christ who IS love.

"In this homily, the Pope mentioned the figure of Saint Bruno, whose feast day is celebrated today and whose mission was characterized by "silence and contemplation (...) which allow us to find this deep, continuous union with God, in the dispersion of every day".

The mission of the theologian, Benedict XVI said, is to "keep in present the essential words in the loquacity of our times and other times (...) For the purification of our words and therefore those of the world, we need that silence that becomes contemplation, which allows us to enter into God's silence and thus reach the point where the Word is born, the redeeming Word".

He continued: "Our words and thoughts should only be used that they may be heard, may find space in the world, God's speaking, God's Word. Thus, once again, we are invited to this path of renouncing our own words; to this path of purification, that our words may be only instruments through which God may speak . . . "