Fear. A thought.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.” (1 John 4:18)

What with ISIS in the news, and rioting in Missouri, and instability in the world, and reading about history in general, it's got me thinking of late about WHAT it is that leads to violence and hate.  The only thing that makes sense to me is FEAR.  Fear of another (person/group/nation/religion) leads to the rationalization that what one does is out of self-preservation, and it is therefore justified in their own minds.   We don't hate anyone or anything as much as the person we most fear.

Fear.  It's capable of unsettling our very foundations, as individuals.  It rattles everything we know.  I have been overwhelming blessed in my life.  I know peace, happiness, security, health.  My fears are petty and imaginary for the large part.  Worries, not fear.  But looking around, I wonder.  What would I do, how would I act, if I was truly AFRAID?   And that scares me.  Because I can think that I'm a pretty good person, and that I would NEVER act in such and such a way, but if  I was afraid?  For myself?  For my family?  What would I be capable of doing?  Is there a part of me that I've held back, beyond where I've let God live, that COULD act contrary to Him, if I was afraid?

I'm not afraid of dying.  I am afraid of leaving my children before they are fully raised.  Am I afraid of suffering physically?  Maybe a little, but not to the point where I would not recognize myself if I did, I think.   But I am afraid of abject fear.  That may not make sense at all.  But if  I was met at the door with knife-wielding terrorists, ready to behead my family unless I denied my Lord - if I was faced with the martyrdom of my family as the early Christians were - would I be as secure in my love for Christ as they were?  Would I gladly offer my neck, as they offered their lives?  Or would I crumble and become inert, fear rendering me unrecognizable to myself?  And THAT is what I'm afraid of; that when confronted with abject, total fear, I do not rise to the challenge, that I am not strong enough, that my soul is not strong enough.

So that is Freedom, then.  When love chases fear away, and it no longer has a hold over you.  Not recklessness.  Recklessness isn't courage.  Courage is when love has freed us enough from the grip of fear that we can look at whatever is in front of us with true eyes - God's perspective - and know that it has no hold over us, can't touch what's TRULY important.  Because we have the bigger picture, and know the ultimate reality.  God knows no fear, because He knows all, and knows there is nothing FOR Him to fear.  Our petty brains fear the unknown, fear the loss of temporal things - but the more we tap into Him, the more we do His will - the more we realize that the most important of things (our soul!) is untouchable when we rest in Him.  Courage is the ability to be our best selves in the face of fear, despite fear, because we know the strength of a Savior.

That's what the early Christians knew, what St. Ignatius wrote of as he rejoiced on the way to be torn apart by lions.  That is what Jesus and the angels cry out to us repeatedly in scripture.

 "BE NOT AFRAID!"

Merry and Blessed Christmas!

 

'And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased’ (Lk 2:12-14).


According to the evangelist, the angels ‘said’ this. But Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song, in which all the glory of the great joy that they proclaim becomes tangibly present. And so, from that moment, the angels’ song of praise has never gone silent. It continues down the centuries in constantly new forms and it resounds ever anew at the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It is only natural that simple believers would then hear the shepherds singing too, and to this day they join in their caroling on the Holy Night, proclaiming in song the great joy that, from then until the end of time, is bestowed on all people."
— Pope Benedict XVI

The True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, circa 388 AD

"Your Lord is seated at the Father’s right hand in heaven. How then is the bread His body? And the chalice, or rather its content, how is it His Blood? These elements are called Sacraments, because in them one thing is perceived by the sense and another thing by the mind. What is seen has a bodily appearance; what the mind perceives produces spiritual fruit. You hear the words, ‘The Body of Christ’, and you answer ‘Amen’."
St. Augustine

Catholic Guilt

I've heard a lot of people complain over the years about "Catholic Guilt".  You know.  How somehow, being Catholic and having to "earn" your way to heaven, you've been ingrained to know that it's never enough, and that makes you feel guilty.  Or how those Catholics have such a long list of rules and regulations, if you break one, you feel guilty.  That kind of thing.  Guilt.  Shame.  A feeling of "not being enough".   Can't we just enjoy the gospel and get rid of the fear?  Where is the security of knowing for a fact that we're going to Heaven?  Where is the contentment and peace?

You know what?  Part of it is true. 

But it's not coming from the Church.

In my own journey, I feel like every time I grow a bit in my spiritual life, God says to me "OK.  Now I want more".  And I groan and resist and hold back.  MORE?  But I'm already busy!  I have a young family!  The house is a mess!  I'm busy with work!  I don't have more to give!  And then I feel guilty.  Who am I to say "No" to Almighty God???  But I do.  A lot. 

And I realize, it's because I'm holding some back for me.  And He knows it.  My time, my effort.  Where I spend my thoughts.   Those things are firmly entrenched here and now in this little bubble I call my life on earth, and He wants that bubble I've created to pop.  He wants ME.  All of me.  Am I willing to give?

So yesterday, because time was short and half my family was sick, we went to the small local church instead of our regular church.  I almost didn't go.  We were half way there, and I was debating, since we were late, to go all the way into town and go to our regular church and be on time, or take the convenient route and go to St. Anne's locally here, even though we'd be late.  Quinn decided for me. 
"Mom, it's only five minutes late.  Just go here to St. Anne's".  So we did.

We made it just before the Gospel reading, of Jesus' death on the cross, and the words hit me like a ton of bricks.  His sacrifice.  The words, as they floated through the air, seemed sacred, like I should have been face down on the floor instead of standing to hear them.   Commending His spirit to God, in the act of ultimate, self-giving love.  I was nearly crying, not five minutes after walking through the door. 

And then Father Ben began the homily, and it began with an explanation of purgatory, and related it to physical therapy.  Hello.  I'm a physical therapist.  It caught my attention.  How apropos, he was talking about my field.  Huh.  It didn't take me long to realize, though, that he wasn't just talking generally about my career path.  He was talking about ME.  To ME.  Well, not Father Ben, because he doesn't know me from Adam.  God was talking to me through Father Ben.  Very, very specifically. 

See, two years ago, I was given an idea for a book, and it gelled for a good long time, but the idea wouldn't go away.  So I began writing down, every single morning, the ideas that would spontaneously pop into my head when I first awoke.  Complete scenes, characters, plot.  It was all complete, and was given to me, a day at a time, for about a year.  I would wake up, and write down the next thing.  Things that at first seemed completely unrelated I later realized fit perfectly at some point or another, and eventually, a solid story formed.  Last year in October, I was encouraged by a big-name published Catholic author (personally!  It's in my inbox!) to write that story down.  She had written a post about how God gave her a dream that she needed to encourage SOMEONE to finish the story they had started, and she gave her readers resources and encouragement to get started.  When I commented on her post, she responded directly, encouraging me.  OK.  Got it.  Write a book.  In my spare time.  What spare time?  And I started, in the month of November, for National Novel Writing Month.

I got to chapter 8 in my book before life got too busy, and I had to stop.  There was no time set aside that I could focus on the book, and so it languished.  I'm not a novelist, who was I to think I could write a book anyway?  It's probably no good.  The few people I had read it didn't seem all that interested.  Just a waste of time, and I had things that needed done around here.  I wanted to continue, but... where is the time?  I am a mother and a therapist.  That's got to come first.  I'll write when the kids are grown.

 But then I went to church yesterday - not our normal church - and Father Ben gave a homily just for me.  You know what he said in that homily?

The plot of my book.  The VERY PLOT OF MY BOOK.  Exactly.

I scoured my brain to remember if I had read the analogy before coming up with my plot, and I'm pretty sure I haven't.  I remember writing a post on this blog about an analogy for Salvation, as it makes sense to me, and that analogy became the basis for my book.  I know for a fact that Father Ben doesn't read this blog.  He didn't hear it from me, I didn't hear it from him, and I'm pretty positive I didn't hear that exact analogy from anyone else, because I remember the day the analogy came to me in the shower, very clearly.   And I wrote it down soon after, because I was thinking about my atheist nephew, and later shared the analogy with him. 

So, here was Father Ben, telling the whole congregation about the plot of my book.  Although he didn't know he was doing that.  Really, God?  IWhen?  How?  You want me, with my lack of skills, to write THIS story?  Is that what you're asking of me?  Isn't there someone better suited, more talented, with more time? 

He wants all of me.

  It's officially National Novel Writing month again.  Time to get back on the horse.

Quote of the Day - Thomas a Kempis

"Ceaseless prayer is, therefore, especially necessary to counteract all the dangers of this world and to serve as a sturdy breastplate against the attacks of the enemy. Whoever does not pray does not fight; and he who does not fight or show resistance is quickly conquered and forfeits the victor’s crown. But who can always pray and continually fight? All things are possible to him who calls upon God and puts his trust in Him."

Quote of the Day, From Pope Francis

On the Church, during a speech made at the close of the Synod on the Family on October 17th.

"And this is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. 

This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem. 

The is the Church, our Mother! And when the Church, in the variety of her charisms, expresses herself in communion, she cannot err: it is the beauty and the strength of the sensus fidei, of that supernatural sense of the faith which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit so that, together, we can all enter into the heart of the Gospel and learn to follow Jesus in our life. And this should never be seen as a source of confusion and discord."

Evolutionary Thoughts

So here's what I've been contemplating lately - questions about evolution that just cannot, to my mind, be answered satisfactorily by an atheist paradigm.....

OK.  Let's assume that conditions after the creation of this planet were "ripe" for the emergence of life, and that the possible (if we assume the universe is infinite, and only if we make that assumption) but highly improbable event of life forming itself out of those conditions, actually occurred.  You know.  Like all the ingredients of a cake sitting on a counter baking themselves into an ornate wedding cake with a gust of wind. Only a kazillion times more complex, and unlikely.  Or something.  But let's go there.  If the Universe is infinite, then the chances improve, because the number of chances of something to TRY to form a wedding cake is infinite.  But, for the sake of argument only, give the atheist's that.  Let's say a single living cell forms spontaneously from "ingredients", and life begins. From that single cell, other cells have to perpetuate, or the "one in an infinity" chance is lost.  So we need that one-in-an-infinity cell not only to survive, but to reproduce itself, and divide.  Asexual reproduction that passes on genetic code. Maybe it happened by chance that first time, due to some environmental factors that accidentally split something in two, but at some point, reproduction became an INTERNAL function, and not an EXTERNAL function, and that in itself is a leap.   And from there, that single cell needs to survive, multiply, and evolve - with nothing more than it's own perpetuated genetic code (admittedly subjected to occasional random mutations) - into a multicell organism.  And from there it needs to evolve into specialized cells allowing complex life-forms, and from there - take an enormous LEAP - into intelligent life forms with language.  All by highly improbable chance.

But not just THAT, and this is what has been getting me lately:  you need two KINDS of each thing.  Complementary things.  A male and a female, to account for sexual reproduction.  So... one kind of mutation might happen by accident, and something evolve into the next step... but that's not enough.  Because in order to perpetuate, there needs to be TWO of that same thing, right?  Two separate, same species but different genders?  We do not replicate asexually, but sexually.  And on a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" level, this does not jive with an atheist, "happens independently of outside forces" mentality.

We can surmise the importance of sexual reproduction.  It introduces genetic variability, which in the LONG TERM, ensures sustainability against disease, environmental forces, etc.  But Darwinian evolution is made up of choices by creatures that did not have the benefit of an "over-arching, over millions of years, what will help my species survive" choice.  The Darwinian model presupposes evolutionary behaviors that were motivated by surviving in the here and now.  Survival of the fittest RIGHT NOW.  And quite honestly, asexual reproduction takes less energy expenditure, and ensures the reproduction of the species FAR better in the here and now than does sexual reproduction.  I wouldn't have to seek a mate to perpetuate, I wouldn't have to undergo the energy expenditure to seek a mate, or the energy expenditure TO mate.  It's an inefficient system to say the least.   Quite honestly, the evolution of sexual reproduction leaves more questions than answers, unless one sees that there IS an over-arching purpose to it, a reason, a WHY that happens not on the "creature" level, but above the "creature" level. 

More thoughts are a-brewin' on polygenosity vs monogenosity in our creation.  I've wanted to write about that for a long time.

I'm no scientist, obviously, but sometimes.... I feel that scientists don't ask themselves the right questions, and can't see the forest for the trees.

Quote of the Day. St. Augustine.

 

"Now, may our God be our hope. He Who made all things is better than all things. He Who made all beautiful things is more beautiful than all of them. He Who made all mighty things is more mighty than all of them. He Who made all great things is greater than all of them.

 

Learn to love the Creator in His creature, and the maker in what He has made."

Quote of the Day: From the Mouth of a Martyr

"Our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world."
— St. Ignatius of Antioch

Quote of the Day - The Journey

"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at this moment is progressing to the one state or the other."— C. S. Lewis

Meditations and Musings

We have started a family prayer table.  It's long overdue and has truly been a blessing.  After a hectic day, we now have a time to gather in quiet, light a candle, read the Bible, and pray together.  It may not happen as often as I'd like, but when it does, it really is a blessing.

Last night, we reviewed the 10 Commandments, and then read about Judgement day.  You'd think my kids had never heard about it before.  And they were listening!  And SHOCKED!!!  What does this mean???  "If you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me?"

I told them "Some day, you ALONE will stand before Jesus, and He will ask you how you lived out His love to the world."

Colby asked, "Well?  What am I supposed to say?  What's the answer?"

Me:  "You won't have to say anything.  He already knows.  There is no right answer.  He sees your heart, He sees how much you love Him, and those around you."

Colby: "So, what I do to people here it does to Jesus?"

Me: "Yes.  However you treat your brother or your sister, or the kid at school.... it's as if you were doing it to Jesus.  Think about that.  And every time you hurt your brother or your sister or someone else... Jesus takes that on Himself, too."    All three kids were very quiet with that.  That's a whole new way of looking at things.

Colby: "If I have just a little bit of love in my heart, is that enough that I can live in Heaven with Jesus?"

Me: ""It's not a test with a passing grade, Colby.  You can't just 'sneak by just enough'.  No matter how hard you try, you will never have enough love on your own to be able to be in the presence of almighty God.  Jesus knows that.  That's why He died for us.  So that when we fall short, He takes that part of you on Himself.  So, He takes your bad, you take His good, and it transforms you.  It's called Sanctification. Making us Holy.  Our job is to be open to that, and follow where Jesus leads us.  He wants us with Him.  We just have to stop resisting." 

And then we went into an analogy, about how life, THIS life that we're leading right now... it's like we're in the womb.  We're being formed, shaped, prepared, for a bigger, greater life.  Some people just don't know it, and try to stay in the womb forever, and focus only on the womb, because they don't know about the world full of life and light and sounds and experiences outside of it.  They can't imagine, even though there are glimpses of the world outside, even from inside the womb.  They can hear their mother's voice, they can feel her touch, they are fed with her blood, through her body.   We can know God in similar ways, if we pay attention.  And just as a baby can't grow outside of the mother's womb, so we can't prepare ourselves for Heaven without the sustenance and grace that comes from God Himself. 

Colby: "What happens to those babies who die before they're born?  Do they go to Heaven?"

Me: "No one knows for absolutely sure, because the Bible doesn't talk about it.  But we know that Jesus loves children, and that God is merciful, so we have every hope that they do. You have at least five brothers and sisters in Heaven, you know.  Can you imagine if we had eight children in this family?"

Reagan: "My sister is in Heaven!  The one that was with me!"

Me: "Yup.  And you'll get to meet her someday!  Won't that be wonderful?"

And then we prayed together.  And all the fear of this scary world disappeared, and we were at peace.

Thank you, Lord, for this family, this home.  Blessings.  We've got some. 

Thought of The Day, circa 200 AD

"Some people who think themselves naturally gifted don’t want to touch either philosophy or logic. They don’t even want to learn natural science. They demand bare faith alone—as if they wanted to harvest grapes right away without putting any work into the vine. We must prune, dig, trellis, and do all the other work. I think you’ll agree the pruning knife, the pickaxe, and the farmer’s tools are necessary for growing grapevines, so that they will produce edible fruit. And as in farming, so in medicine: the one who has learned something is the one who has practiced the various lessons, so that he can cultivate or heal. And here, too, I say you’re truly educated if you bring everything to bear on the truth. Taking what’s useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy itself, you guard the Faith from assault."
— St. Clement of Alexandria

And one More Quote of the Day, because it's Apropros

“Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.” 
G. K. Chesterton

QUOTE OF THE DAY - Twain Style

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme".  Mark Twain

Just Awe Inspiring

Images from the Hubble Telescope.

Wow.

 

 

 

 

 

Normal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link

 

 

 

 

Link

 

Quote Of The Day: On FAMILY

“The history of mankind, the history of salvation, passes by way of the family.... the family is placed at the centre of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love. To the family is entrusted the task of striving, first and foremost, to unleash the forces of good, the source of which is found in Christ the Redeemer of man.” (Pope St. John Paul II, Letter to Families, 23.4, 1994)

The Bread of Life

 John 6:47-59

47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever." 59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper na-um

Jesus, On Sola Scriptura

39 You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

John 5:39-40

 

These words of Christ are in a nutshell how I see the fallacy of Sola Scriptura.  The scriptures bear witness to Him, and are in the inspired word of God.  They bear witness.  And yet, the REALITY of Him is offered to us in the church in a very real and concrete way - that He may abide in us, and us in Him.  Like reading a story about someone (all very edifying) when the actual person is standing right in front of you... and choosing the story.    The real person is life-giving, even without the book - although the book tells us who that person really is. The book introduces us to the person standing before us.  The book, though, is not life-giving without the real person.  Because the book bears witness to, and the sacrament actually IS.  If someone who also knows Him accurately introduces us to this person  standing before us, we can know just as much about Him as reading the book, and recognize Him for who He is.  But if our nose is in a book alone, and we do not look up to see Him standing right before us in concrete reality... how can we accept in concrete reality the gift He is offering to us?

 

At church yesterday, I was looking at all the stained glass windows, the images around the church.  Each one told a story without words.  An image of John the Baptist was holding a seashell, dressed in animal furs.  If I had no access to the book (as the majority of Christians did NOT until the invention of the printing press) but someone had accurately told me the story, the image alone would confirm that he baptized with water, and lived in the wild.  An image of Mary was clothed in blue (indicating her purity) and stepping on the head of a serpent, as told in Revelation, symbolizing her role as the New Eve.  St. Paul held a sword, showing him as a defender of the gospel.  These images, everywhere I turned, played out the book in ways that would speak to me, even if I did not have access to the book or could not read.  Christians for 1500 years had images, and stories told to them.  A few could read, and if you could, then you could access the immensely rare and expensive hand-written Bibles at the local church.  But for the majority who could not, they were not lost.  Their salvation was not through the book alone.   They had the church, the liturgy.  They were introduced to the real and actual Christ not only through their eyes by reading, but through their ears hearing, their hands touching, their bodies moving, their lips tasting.  They lived the gospels with the rhythm of their lives as the celebrated feasts and the liturgical year.  They came to be healed by Him in confession.  They came to be made His child in baptism.  They celebrated the union of the Church with Him in marriage.  And - greatest of all - they became one with Him in the Eucharist, the most intimate union this side of Heaven.  Because He was standing before them, through all generations, in the church, His body.  When Jesus came to St. Paul, He did not ask why Paul was persecuting the church.  He asked "why are you persecuting ME?"  Because the church is the Body of Christ.  It is His hands, His heart, His presence, until He comes again.  And the Scriptures bear witness to that fact.   

 



 



Quote Of The Day: Theology

"In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones – bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected."
— C. S. Lewis

Wild Fire

We are out west, and wild fires are raging at the moment.  The summer in Washington has been hot and dry.  With the winds picking up, conditions are ripe for fires.  The middle of the state is in flames, there is another wildfire not 10 miles from here, and the sun here has been blocked for several days.  There is ash on the deck.  An entire town is gone.  This is tragic stuff.

In Montana, where my husband is camping... it is green.  There are no wildfires, surprisingly.  Here, everything is dry, the grass is brown.  There, it is still moist with life.  Life protects the wilderness from burning.  Amongst the thousands of acres burned in the middle of Washington, the only things saved were the apple orchards.  Because they had been watered, and had been bearing fruit. 

I can't help but think of judgement day, when the fullness and intensity of God's love is poured out onto everyone in it's full force.  If we are dead, if we do not have His life in us, if we have dried up in the sun of this world... we will burn, just as the standing dead tree burn, and the brown grass burns.  Who will survive?  Those still green with life.  Those bearing fruit. Life is from Him, fed by the water of His spirit, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  The fire will not harm us; although it may be painful, the fire will not consume us.  It will purify us, burn off the parts of us that are dead, in preparation for eternity in His presence. 

Some day, we all will experience the wildfire.  Of that I am certain.



Quote of the Day

"The Church, which has spread everywhere, even to the ends of the earth, received the faith from the apostles and their disciples . . . Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition."

St. Ignatius of Antioch (AD 35-98)

Quote of the Day....St. Augustine

Remarkable how this man is so relatable.  How much I see myself in this.....

"I was sure that it was better for me to give myself up to your love than to give in to my own desires. However, although the one way appealed to me and was gaining mastery, the other still afforded me pleasure and kept me victim. I had no answer to give to you when you said to me, ‘Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you.’ When on all sides you showed me that your words were true, and I was overcome by your truth, I had no answer whatsoever to make, but only those slow and drowsy words, ‘Right away. Yes, right away.’ ‘Let me be for a little while.’ But ‘Right away—right away’ was never right now, and ‘Let me be for a little while’ stretched out for a long time."
— St. Augustine

A Picture I Love

... Because it reminds me of my boys, and that they are not only in my care alone.

Quote of the Day....

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
— Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

A Letter by Tolkein on Miracles....

I found this letter very touching and insightful. 

Letter 89   To Christopher Tolkien 7-8 November 1944 (FS 60)   20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

. . . . Your reference to the care of your guardian angel makes me fear that 'he' is being specially needed. I dare say it is so. . . . It also reminded me of a sudden vision (or perhaps apperception which at once turned itself into pictorial form in my mind) I had not long ago when spending half an hour in St Gregory's before the Blessed Sacrament when the Quarant’ Ore [Forty Hours Devotion] was being held there. I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it. (Not that there were individual rays issuing from the Light, but the mere existence of the mote and its position in relation to the Light was in itself a line, and the line was Light). And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God's very attention itself, personalized.

And I do not mean 'personified', by a mere figure of speech according to the tendencies of human language, but a real (finite) person. Thinking of it since – for the whole thing was very immediate, and not recapturable in clumsy language, certainly not the great sense of joy that accompanied it and the realization that the shining poised mote was myself (or any other human person that I might think of with love) – it has occurred to me that (I speak diffidently and have no idea whether such a notion is legitimate: it is at any rate quite separate from the vision of the Light and the poised mote) this is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine: i.e. angelic. Anyway, dearest, I received comfort, part of which took this curious form, which I have (I fear) failed to convey: except that I have with me now a definite awareness of you poised and shining in the Light – though your face (as all our faces) is turned from it. But we might see the glimmer in the faces (and persons as apprehended in love) of others. . . . .

On Sunday Prisca and I cycled in wind and rain to St Gregory's. P. was battling with a cold and other disability, and it did not do her much immediate good, though she's better now; but we had one of Fr. C's best sermons (and longest). A wonderful commentary on the Gospel of the Sunday (healing of the woman and of Jairus' daughter), made intensely vivid by his comparison of the three evangelists. (P. was espec. amused by his remark that St Luke being a doctor himself did not like the suggestion that the poor woman was all the worse for them, so he toned that bit down). And also by his vivid illustrations from modern miracles. The similar case of a woman similarly afflicted (owing to a vast uterine tumour) who was cured instantly at Lourdes, so that the tumour could not be found, and her belt was twice too large.

Lourdes

And the most moving story of the little boy with tubercular peritonitis who was not healed, and was taken sadly away in the train by his parents, practically dying with 2 nurses attending him. As the train moved away it passed within sight of the Grotto. The little boy sat up. 'I want to go and talk to the little girl' – in the same train there was a little girl who had been healed. And he got up and walked there and played with the little girl; and then he came back, and he said 'I'm hungry now'. And they gave him cake and two bowls of chocolate and enormous potted meat sandwiches, and he ate them! (This was in 1927). So Our Lord told them to give the little daughter of Jairus something to eat.

"I'm hungry!"

So plain and matter of fact: for so miracles are. They are intrusions (as we say, erring) into real or ordinary life, but they do intrude into real life, and so need ordinary meals and other results. (Of course Fr. C could not resist adding: and there was also a Capuchin Friar who was mortally ill, & had eaten nothing for years, and he was cured, and he was so delighted about it that he rushed off and had two dinners, and that night he had not his old pains but an attack of plain ordinary indigestion). But at the story of the little boy (which is a fully attested fact of course) with its apparent sad ending and then its sudden unhoped for happy ending, I was deeply moved and had that peculiar emotion we all have – though not often. It is quite unlike any other sensation. And all of a sudden I realized what it was: the very thing that I have been trying to write about and explain – in that fairy-story essay that I so much wish you had read that I think I shall send it to you. For it I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (for which see the essay) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.

Eucatastrophe

Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story. But since the author if it is the supreme Artist and the Author of Reality, this one was also made to Be, to be true on the Primary Plane. So that in the Primary Miracle (the Resurrection) and the lesser Christian miracles too though less, you have not only that sudden glimpse of the truth behind the apparent Anankê of our world, but a glimpse that is actually a ray of light through the very chinks of the universe about us. I was riding along on a bicycle one day, not so long ago, past the Radcliffe Infirmary, when I had one of those sudden clarities which sometimes come in dreams (even anaesthetic-produced ones). I remember saying aloud with absolute conviction: 'But of course! Of course that's how things really do work'. But I could not reproduce any argument that had led to this, though the sensation was the same as having been convinced by reason (if without reasoning). And I have since thought that one of the reasons why one can't recapture the wonderful argument or secret when one wakes up is simply because there was not one: but there was (often maybe) a direct appreciation by the mind (sc. reason) but without the chain of argument we know in our time-serial life. However that's as may be. To descend to lesser things: I knew I had written a story of worth in 'The Hobbit' when reading it (after it was old enough to be detached from me) I had suddenly in a fairly strong measure the 'eucatastrophic' emotion at Bilbo's exclamation: "The Eagles! The Eagles are coming!'. . . . 

And in the last chapter of The Ring that I have yet written I hope you'll note, when you receive it (it'll soon be on its way) that Frodo's face goes livid and convinces Sam that he's dead, just when Sam gives up hope.

And while we are still, as it were, on the porch of St Gregory's on Sunday 5 Nov. I saw the most touching sight there. Leaning against the wall as we came out of church was an old tramp in rags, something like sandals tied on his feet with string, an old tin can on one wrist, and in his other hand a rough staff. He had a brown beard, and a curiously 'clean' face, with blue eyes, and he was gazing into the distance in some rapt thought not heeding any of the people, cert. not begging. I could not resist the impulse of offering him a small alms, and he took it with grave kindliness, and thanked me courteously, and then went back to his contemplation. Just for once I rather took Fr. C. aback by saying to him that I thought the old man looked a great deal more like St Joseph than the statue in the church – at any rate St Joseph on the way to Egypt.

He seems to be (and what a happy thought in these shabby days, where poverty seems only to bring sin and misery) a holy tramp! I could have sworn it anyway, but P. says Betty told her that he had been at the early mass, and had been to communion, and his devotion was plain to see, so plain that many were edified. I do not know just why, but I find that immensely comforting and pleasing. Fr. C says he turns up about once a year.

This is becoming a very peculiar letter! I hope it does not seem all very incomprehensible; for events have directed me to topics mat are not really treatable without erasions and re-writings, impossible in air letters ! . . . .

Your own father.