Monthly Archives: March 2020

Mar052020

Certain within uncertainties

Father Jacques Philippe ‘Interior Freedom’

… for purification. If we were always sure we were doing God’s Will and walking in the truth, we would soon become dangerously presumptuous and at risk of spiritual pride. Not always being absolutely sure we are doing God’s will is humbling and painful, but it protects us. It preserves us in an attitude of constant seeking and prevents the sort of false security that would dispense us from abandoning ourselves to God.

When uncertain about God’s will, it is very important that we tell ourselves: “Even if there are aspects of God’s will that escape me, there are always others that I know for sure and can invest in without any risk, knowing that this investment always pays dividends”…. a defect…needs to be recognized and avoided: finding ourselves in darkness about God’s will on an important question–a large scale vocational choice or some other serious decision–we spend so much time searching and doubting or getting discouraged, that we neglect things that are God’s will for us every day, like being faithful to prayer, maintaining trust in God, loving the people around us here and now (avoiding sin, recognizing afflictions). Lacking answers about the future, we should prepare to receive them by living today to the full.

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Mar012020

Joseph and Mary after finding the child Jesus being about His Father’s business

They stood
So quietly and with such air of held
Suspended things, there might have been a flow
Of silence longer than the throbs of time
Can measure or endure; till Joseph spoke
Of haste and roads that still were waiting them
To Nazareth. The hush was gentle then,
And simple words were uttered easily,
And lighting smiles had come to almost hide
The inner shadows moving in their eyes,
But naught of shyness nor the strained defeat
Of ease, nor any cold constraint that cast
A reticence about their older ways.
They were not more aware of Him. No new
Attainment of a reverence had reached
Them that had not been clear, and only now
More certain portents shone within the days,
And she had found another kind of tears.
His words were dreams, and stars, and shepherds’ feet
Again, and swords, and Simeon’s avowal
Brought more near, and in a sudden speech
Made imminent. They had not thought that none
Would fall again. But greater gift was asked
In what she’d heard, and deeper draught of pain.
And she’d been waiting. For the long years now
She had been waiting. Only loneliness
Was new.

‘A Woman Wrapped In Silence’ John W. Lynch

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