Lay me down to sleep sweet Lord,
Place my head upon Your pillow,
Cover me with the warmth of Your sheltering,
Caress my temples,
Close my eyes with Your gentle touch,
Envelop and enfold,
Lay Yourself down upon me,
The blood of Your wounds healing,
Bring me to rest.
Today, with a friend, returning from a week of training in Columbus, I encountered a young woman from the Ivory Coast. We ventured downtown to the St John Cathedral only to discover the evening Mass was cancelled due to a funeral. In the process of altering plans, figuring out another daily Mass to attend, the young lady from the Ivory Coast, Miriam, joined our conversation. The breathtaking beauty of the woman was sheer grace. Radiating, her dark skin pronounced purity, excellence, and refinement. Her voice introduced intelligence and holiness. She pronounced that a year ago she was Muslim, her childhood formed by the Islamic faith. With no pretense or dramatics, she told how Our Holy Mother converted her. She was reading the Koran, the chapter detailing the life of Mary, when Mary lifted her heart and showed her the truth of her Son. There were more words, explanations, and relating, yet suffice to say no more. Fellowship blesses, and a new friend has been revealed. Influenced by the recent World Cup, I asked her if she knew the name Drogba. She smiled knowingly, saying of course she knew the man for he was a national hero. She spoke of the love her country possessed for their soccer hero Didier Drogba. The dynamic goal scorer has always been a favorite of mine.
The conversion story centered upon Mary involving the Islamic faith reminded me of two things. First, Our Holy Mother at Fatima—a city named after a Muslim princess named after a favorite daughter of Muhammed—identified the most holy woman standing within the gathered crowd as a Muslim woman. Second is a favorite movie, a Muslim movie on Mary.
…it is sufficient to indicate that the chase celibate, like everyone else, cannot expect to fathom intellectually or eliminate voluntarily the deep rivers of sexual desire or of the need for affection and intimacy. Only at the end of a long life of struggle can one hope to overcome the self-centered assertiveness which flows In many forms and the depths of the psyche. It is the task of spirituality to help us cope with these vast currents, not to attempt to damn them up. In these depths lie the profound energy systems of human existence, including energy to follow God’s call to holiness. –‘The Courage to be Chaste’ Father Benedict Groeschel
a poem by Jane Clark Scharl
The Swiffer glides, exactly as advertised,
Smoothly around the floor. I am in awe,
Or an infomercial. Beneath the bureau, surprised,
The dust bunnies have been busy,
And run like Auden’s years around the room.
Where does it come from, this trash
That, before I view it on the broom,
I have not seen, though born in my very home?
The Swiffer drags to the middle of the bare
Judicial tiles a specimen. I stoop and there,
Drawn in lines of long dark hair,
Is myself, in bits, disintegrating slowly in an
Endless crematorium, and all round in piles,
The rest of me: a hair, a lash, a million
Million discarded cells on the tiles
In an intricate heap. I am there, spun in webs
As delicate as a spider’s, but more useless,
A necessary decadence of a creation
That crowns itself not with happiness,
But with knowledge, just as in sweeping
The dust from my floor
I see and know myself more.
It is when we stand in the righteous all-seeing light of love that we can dare to look at, admit, and consciously suffer under this something in us which wills disaster, misfortune, defeat to everything outside the sphere of our narrowest precondition for the self-knowledge which enables us to follow a straight path, and so be victorious over ourselves, forgiven by ourselves. —Father Benedict J. Groeschel in ‘The Courage to be Chaste’ quoting Dag Hammarskjold from his dairy titled ‘Markings’, the struggles of a young man to live a life of celibacy.
Hear the word of the LORD,
princes of Sodom!
Listen to the instruction of our God,
people of Gomorrah!
What care I for the number of your sacrifices?
says the LORD.
I have had enough of whole-burnt rams
and fat of fatlings;
In the blood of calves, lambs and goats
I find no pleasure.
When you come in to visit me,
who asks these things of you?
Trample my courts no more!
Bring no more worthless offerings;
your incense is loathsome to me.
New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies,
octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear.
Your new moons and festivals I detest;
they weigh me down, I tire of the load.
When you spread out your hands,
I close my eyes to you;
Though you pray the more,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;
cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged,
hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.
Isaiah
No matter how perfect may be our confidence in God, no matter how absolute our self-surrender into the hands of his providence for all that belongs to his good pleasure, we shall never be dispensed from the obligation of following the prescriptions of prudence. The practice of this virtue, natural and supernatural, appertains to the signified will of God. It is the established law, always binding, God wills to help us, but only on the condition that we do all that depends upon ourselves, according to the proverb: God helps those who help themselves. To act otherwise would be to tempt God and to upset the order he has established. –Abbot Vital Lehodey ‘The Way that Leads to God’
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