Illuminate

 

It's easy, in this dark, barbarous and benighted age to become a doomer, and with that blind to the light. But hold on, here's this from Archpriest Andrew Phillips:

Christ teaches us then that all things can be used for our healing and benefit and salvation, but that they must first be touched by His grace.

In this way our bodies, mere flesh and bones and blood, can become containers of Christ. Our souls activated, we can become lamps of the Holy Spirit; the eyes of our souls, the doors of perception, become seeing, and we see the whole of God's Creation as it really is. We see that every blade of grass and every hill, every tree and every cloud, every drop of rain and every ocean, all creatures and all people, are miracles of God's handiwork, signs of His sacramental presence among us, and we see that we live not in the banal, everyday world, but in potential Paradise, the world as it really is, as God made it first, for we see God the Creator behind all things and all people.

And then we too, together with the man born blind, can say:

'I was blind, now I see'.

Amen.

Amen indeed, especially so to we see that we live not in the banal, everyday world, but in potential Paradise, the world as it really is. Especial emphasis on as it really is. 

That very same thought struck me as I walked from, of all places, the local Shamrock back to the Compound, the sun rising and filling the air with golden light. Illuminate, φωτίζω.

Lift up your hearts,

LSP

What A Beautiful Day

 

Yes, the sun shone, big birds wheeled across the sky, woodpeckers did their thing in the pecan trees and the squirrels got, well, nasty. I guess they thought it was Spring, and it sure felt like it, T shirt weather. So, struck by the beauty of the moment I reflected on the Gospel for Sunday, the miracle at Cana, water into wine.

This struck me, by Farrer:

Christ attended a wedding.  What, then, was Christ’s concern – what is Christ’s concern – in the weddings of his friends?  We do not read that he laid down the law to them at that time, or told them their obligations – we read that he concerned himself with the supply of their wine.  It seemed a shame to him, if anything was lacking that could spread abroad delight.  The bride and bridegroom drank from the cup.  They passed it round, and their friends tasted the very flavour of their joy.  Christ would not bear to see the flow of happiness interrupted, for lack of wine in which to drink it.

Does this surprise you?  Did you not expect Jesus to be the servant of natural delight, the abettor of warm-hearted pleasure?  But have you forgotten what Christ is?  He is the desire of nations, he is the joy of all mankind: he came to take away the cold religion of duty, and to substitute the religion of delight.  We are to do our duty – yes, but we are to delight in it, for the love of our neighbour, and for the dear love of God.  There is nothing else but this, that we can hope for in heaven itself – nothing but to do good unalloyed by any meanness, and to do it with infinite delight.  And how shall we be able to do so?  By feasting on the vision of a face, whose eyes are the deep wells of happiness and love.

It is not surprising at all, then, that Christ should begin his ministry at a wedding: for a true marriage is a special favour of God’s grace, and a direct foretaste of heaven.  God’s glory is reflected, for those who truly love, in one another’s faces; they see the Creator shining through his handiwork, and the vision inspires them with a simple delight in doing one another good, and in furthering God’s will.  Those who are being married know what they want to do: and it is exactly what God desires them to do.  They do not, as the rest of us so often must, make themselves care about the will of God: they do care for it: for they care for one another.

 

I sent this to a churchman who writes books like we shoot, a lot, and he liked it too. "It is clear," he emailed magisterially, "that Jesus loved a good party—that was about 120 litres of the best :)" Well said!

Do not lose heart, punters, whatever the circumstance. Instead, rejoice in the power of the Lord who is joy in Himself and shares that perfection with us, His Bride, the Mystical Body of Christ.

Ad Gloriam,

LSP

Wisdom

 

 I was struck by this today, by Romano Guardini:

He simply commands us to follow his instructions. Only from the depths of a great faith is it possible to obey. One must be utterly convinced that such obedience evokes a divine reaction in our relationship with God, that when we act according to his will we participate in the divine creation, in the forming of a new world, for it is creative conduct that is commanded here.

When man so acts, he not only becomes good in himself and before God, but the divine goodness dormant in him becomes active power. This is what the Lord means when he speaks of "salt" that has not lost its flavor, "light" which lights the whole house.

 

The divine goodness dormant in him becomes active power; the seed of grace, God's life, unfolds with tremendous, unfathomable, brilliance in the souls of the faithful. Those with eyes to see will have have seen this light.

God bless,

LSP

A Short Sunday Sermon - The Canaanite Women

And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

I found this short reflection on Sunday's Gospel helpful (Matthew 15:21-28):

What are the cries of the Canaanite woman if not a prayer to the Lord? What is her pursuit of Him if not a pivotal point in her life where she turns to His word? Her humility, her acceptance of the fact that, yes, she was an unworthy dog who was asking only for a few crumbs as a blessing, only what was left over from the table of the masters, what is that if not repentance and confession? And the final answer of the Lord is nothing other than His open embrace, God’s acquiescence in the face of unshakeable faith.

Today’s Gospel doesn’t merely tell us about a miracle performed by the Lord. It presents us with the way to approach the Lord, the only way by which we avoid the traps of the idols of this world and are able to cast ourselves, in tears, into the embrace of our Father. It presents us with how the Father operates in order to open to us the path of return to Him, without doing away with our freedom. It presents us with the face of our Saviour. It presents us with the way in which we must open our souls to His miraculous Grace. In other words, it presents us with the feast of our salvation... (Archbishop Christodoulos (Paraskevaïdis) of Athens (1998-2008, †)

And note the final verses of the miracle. Christ identifies the pagan and possibly occultist Canaanite as a "dog" but when she admits as much, "yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table," a remarkable thing happens. The dog becomes a woman, "O woman, great is thy faith." A miracle, the last has become the first, blessed are the poor in spirit, and the demon is driven away. 

We are the spiritual heirs of this woman. By the grace of God, may the quality of her faith be our own so that we too, with her, will be raised up to the full stature of sons and daughters of God, and the evil which afflicts us banished to the Pit from whence it came.

Vade Retro,

LSP