De Sales strikes again!

Happy St. Joseph's Day! I especially think of my friend Joyce today, and her special love and devotion to Glorious St. Joseph.

I want to share with you another bit of Roses Among Thorns. 

This is from the Chapter called, Saint Peter in Chains.

Do we love our sweet Savior? Oh, he knows full well that if we do not love him, we at least desire to love him. Now, if we love him, let us feed his sheep and his lambs, for that is the mark of faithful love. With what shall we feed these dear little sheep? With love itself, for they either do not love at all, or they live upon love. Between love and death there is no middle. We must die or love, for he who loves not, as St. John says, remains in death.

Or Lord said to St. Peter, "When you were young, you fastened your own belt and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will fasten your belt for you to carry you where you do not wish to go"(cf. John 21:18). Young apprentices in the love of God fasten their own belts. They take up the mortifications that seem good to them; they choose their penances and make up their own minds about God's will. But the old masters of the craft allow themselves to be bound by others and submit to the yoke imposed upon them, and travel down paths upon which they do not wish to travel. In spite of the resistance of their inclinations, they voluntarily allow themselves to be governed against their will and say that they would rather obey than make an offering, and this is how they glorify God, by crucifying not only their flesh, but also their spirit.

All I can say is. wow. With typical clarity and yet profundity, St. Francis de Sales strikes again. 

For me, this has been a very Lenten Lent. God knows how hard it is for me to put aside my own plans and preferences, so He has arranged that I am  mostly doing things that I am called upon to do, with a little of what I wanted to do for Lent and a small bit of  just what I want to do period, thrown in. I have also been dealing with some aches and pains, illness, emotional ups and downs and just a whole bunch of challenges from within and without. But this passage encourages me in that typically Saleseian way. 

His loudest message, to me, is always, not to fret about the limitations of my life or my humanity, but to graciously accept everything and also offer everything. Though I am worlds away from the "old masters" referred to above, I take heart that the small ways I am able to serve God through my daily life's path of running about doing small services, are taken into account.   

Lastly, friends, know that I am praying for you and offering my small struggles. Please pray for me also, especially my family and friends who are going through trials galore.

I am still being blessed with moments of joy this Lent, despite everything else! Not doing super great with some of my self imposed disciplines, but trying to hold that all loosely and let God lead.

Pardon Your Heart

I wanted to do a 7 Quick Takes on Friday, but the snowstorm on Thursday pushed all my errands to Friday, plus there is a nasty cold going around my house of which I was one of the lucky recipients. I am still coughing, sneezing and blowing my nose. And my voice has dropped an octave. I made it through work this weekend, but missed mass, Today I am trying to do some chores but also get some rest, which is admittedly not very realistic. But blogging is at least a sitting down thing, so. All that as a preface, here are some things I wanted to share.








This lovely passage from Roses Among Thorns, which I will type out, to avoid that weird box that comes with pasting text.

  Be patient with all, but especially with yourself. Do not trouble yourself about your imperfections. Always have the courage to pick yourself back up and begin again every day, for there is no better path to success in the spiritual life than always to begin again and ever to think that you have done enough.

Pardon Your Heart

We must always desire to carry out our spiritual exercises well and with precision, both prayer and the exercise of the virtues, and we must never be troubled, anxious, or surprised if we fail to do so. Our desires depend upon our fidelity, which should always be total and yet should grow from day to day; our failures are caused by our infirmity, which we will never be able to leave behind during this mortal life. When we have committed some fault, we should immediately examine our heart and ask ourselves whether we retain a lively and thorough resolution to serve God.

One hopes for a heart that would rather suffer a thousand deaths than fail to keep this resolution. We reprove our heart, "Why, then, are you hesitating now? Why are you so cowardly?" And we make our excuse,:"I was taken by surprise, and I hardly know how it happened, but now I am again thinking of my resolution." The heart must be pardoned. It is not through infidelity that it failed, but through infirmity. It must be corrected gently and calmly, that it not be brought to anger or further trouble. We should say to it, "My heart, my friend, in the name of God, be courageous. Let us walk together, taking care as we go, lifting ourselves up to our help, to our God." And, we must be charitable toward our soul, not taking it to task severely, provided we see that it is not offending purposefully. Do you not see that in treating it this way, we practice a holy humility?

It really strikes me how many times he unapologetically uses absolutes and commands; always, never, must, should. We in this present day are taught to avoid speech like that, yet if you read it and glean the message, it is anything but offensive, just clear and forthright. Yet, the message is one of having patience, compassion, and clearly seeing oneself. Which is as De Sales says at the end, the very definition of humility. Seeing ourselves as we really are.

My Lent has been full of such messages, and I do take them to heart as being straight from God. Not only as a way of dealing with myself, but also with others. The tender conversation between the person and his heart is so gentle but spot on in its message. "Okay, that thing happened, (maybe AGAIN). Let's go forward and offer it to God, asking for the grace to remember next time before we do that." Or something.  If you have kids, what a good message about correcting with patience and without rancor. That correlation of God as Father and we as parents can also be applied to our souls/hearts. 

For those of us enjoying our first tastes of Spring, hurray! Right? 

Peace, 

Kelly

so, how YOU doin' ?

I hope you all are having a fruitful, holy and joyful Lent! Doin' okay over here.

I want to share a few small excerpts from my readings. Here is one from Roses Among Thorns:

Jesus in Our Heart

"How happy you will be if while you are in the world you keep Jesus in your heart! Remember the principal lesson he left to us, and in only a few short words, so that we would be able to remember it:  "Learn of me, for I am meek, and humble of heart"(Matt. 11:29, Douay-Rheims). It is everything to have a heart that is meek toward our neighbor and humble toward God. At every moment give such a heart to our Savior, and let it be the heart of your heart, You will see that to the extent that this holy and considerate friend takes up a place in your mind, the world with its vanities and trifles will leave you."

As my friend Caroline mentioned, I also just love the practicality of dear St Francis De Sales. Frankly, it s refreshing to have someone say, JUST DO THIS! So many times, we hear, "well, I can't tell you what to do.." Haha.




Another book I am reading is The Way of Serenity, Finding Peace and Happiness in the Serenity Prayer, by Father Jonathan Morris. You may have seen him on EWTN or Fox News. In the book, he takes apart the Serenity Prayer; you know:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

courage to change the things I can, 

and the wisdom to know the difference.

This prayer is most associated with twelve-step programs. If you are a reader here much, you may remember I attend Nar Anon. So, I am familiar with the prayer, and was attracted to the book's title, and somewhat also by the author, having heard him on TV and Sirius Radio's Catholic Channel. He is candid about some of the struggles in the life of his family that initially caught my ear. 

Here are a few passages I have highlighted:

"The serenity to accept the things we cannot change must involve the ability to be patient with those things and decide they will not alter our state of mind and heart."

*(My observation-Notice how well this goes with the above passage of De Sales). 

"Given the fact that we cannot avoid all trouble in life, we have a choice to make regarding how we will deal with what comes our way. We can live in bitterness and sorrow, either from the real and present woes that afflict us or from the fear that trouble could be just around the corner. Or we can choose to live in peace despite our real trials and tribulations and in the confidence that nothing can befall us that we cannot handle with God's grace."

and

"Although we have sinned and chosen to do things our own way, God makes a promise to us that out of every instance of suffering and sin in this world, he will bring out of it a good even greater than the good that has been lost and that now we mourn. We see the fulfillment of this promise most perfectly in the person of Jesus Christ who gave up his life so that we might live with him forever in eternity, where every tear will be wiped away."

Did you see that? A good even greater? Hard to wrap our minds around, especially since we are not able to look into time in such a way as to see what may have happened in the past had different choices been made. We CAN however, look into our own past at certain choices, then follow them forward, and see where God really did bring immense good out of what seemed at the time to be extremely sorrowful, even hopeless.

So, on that note! 

I was awakened last night by some knucklehead who rang my phone at precisely 3AM. Not recognizing the number, I let it go to voicemail, when said knucklehead must have realized he or she dialed wrongly. But  then I was awake. (big sigh). Sometimes when awakened, I just cannot get back to sleep. This was one of those times. I remembered that the Divine Mercy Prayer is traditionally prayed at 3:00 PM, the hour when Jesus died, also called the "hour of mercy." I know 3AM is NOT the hour Jesus died, and is thought by some to be the hour that those who hate Jesus use as their "holy hour." I decided, in reclamation of that time, and for the souls of all who are undergoing persecution and slaughter around the world, to pray as much of the Divine Mercy prayer as I could until falling asleep as I could. So, a grace there. 

Happy Lent-ing, everyone! 

winter scene photo source:http://www.naportals.com/winter-scenes-hd-wallpapers.html

A post-a-day #2. rearranging the house and the heart

Like my daughter Meghann, I buy plants first, ask questions later. Such as, "where will this possibly go?"  This beautiful baby hydrangea had take-me-home vibes coming off it in waves. I guess it felt the Arrangement of living at Trader Joe's in Center City wasn't working out. It needed a commitment. It proceeded to look at me with its little plaintive pink and green blooms till I couldn't withstand it any longer.
The light out front is right by the textbook (east-facing) so, we'll see. The heat wave last week with temps over 100 degrees required several waterings a day.

Right next to him are my Michigan ferns. So named because Meghann dug up a few for me to bring home. They are also very thirsty. I visit these and the hydrangea every morning first thing. It is nice to have this little piece of Michigan here in the South of Philly.

 I also have this lovely wall sconce, given to me by Meghann, which she took right off her kitchen wall! She has something else in mind for that spot, and she knows of my affinity for wrought iron.

 After taking this picture, I felt it needed to be flanked with a little more color, so I swapped out the picture on the left with this one.

A little blurry, but another nice momento from my last visit with Meghann. We each painted the tree painting at a fun art class that included beer. And for me, sunburn.







Taking away the first picture necessitated putting it elsewhere, so it ended up in my kitchen.

 --which displaced another few things--some went over here--

 which left this one piece out--

Aannnnd--okay! I give up. I stubbed my toe on a chair and hammered a finger. I give! 

*breaking news* no, really, I mean it. The stubbed toe is indeed broken.

One other little fun thing I want to share is my back "yard." It is where I keep all the rest of my growing things and hang up laundry and read and sunbathe.

my "tumbling tom" --from -- you guessed it -- Michigan. Kalamazoo Farmers Market, to be exact.







I keep the little jewels here until we are ready to eat them.

Here is what I look at while sitting out there.

 

 miniature roses

 The little rustic corner that makes a very pleasant vignette. The ivy in the pot is a rescue from an almost dead plant. The "weeds" growing around everything migrated out of the bed. These were also brought home from Michigan last year. (We thought we had dug up tiger lilies). Actually they are called "common-day flowers." Little purple-blue flowers open in the morning and close later. And some basil and a few colors of begonias. A cat gets in there every now and then and uproots the pink begonias. If it so happens that my neighbor is reading this--please stop letting your kitty out to use my little corner of Escape-from-the-city as his potty.


And this is what I look up at and out from under. It is peaceful.

All this adds greatly to my peace of mind and helps me take time out from the goings on of the world.

Along with doing the Marian consecration--

--this one--










 I am reading this.   

My copy is not this fancy. 

It is not a super quick read, but not difficult either. Just very pithy. I can read and re-read it, and always be taught something new.


Here is where I am in it right now:

"To humble myself I resolve to do such and such things, to suffer such and such humiliations. I desire to change my life and henceforward to follow my Creator and to find honor in the state of being he has given me, employing it entirely in obedience to his will..."


As I have said to Bob many times, the vocation of parenthood affords one the automatic blessing of having built-in humiliations and opportunities for making sacrifices. We are taught daily about how to go beyond ourselves, and if seen as the good that it is, it is a light burden indeed.

The part about finding "honor in the state of being he has given me," has been unusually eye opening. I mean, yes, yes, we all know it is an honor to be a spouse, a parent, a child of God in any vocation--BUT-- to think of where I am, where you are in your life right. this. minute. as something he has given to us. Now that is something to consider.

Anyways, I just barely made it in time to still date this post today!

See you tomorrow!