Monthly Archives: February 2023

Feb182023

Pilgrims sailing the Mediterranean Sea

Now, with deepest respect to Ignatius, things were far from being as simple as that. It is surprising that he did not at least mention a detail recorded by both Füssli and Hagen. No sooner did the pilgrims, crowded in the bows of the ship, sight the coast of Palestine than they joyfully burst into the Te Deum and the Salve Regina. The Salve had long been adopted as the special hymn of mariners and other sea-faring folk. The sailors on the Santa María of Columbus sang it lustily when the New World first dawned on their sight. It was indeed their customary prayer and the prayer of all sailing men when the shades of night began to close in on their little ships, isolated in the vast, unpredictable sea. –‘St Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Years’ by James Brodrick, S.J.

 

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Feb172023

Spiritual Canticle

XXXV

In solitude she lived,
And in solitude built her nest;
And in solitude, alone
Has the Beloved guided her,
In solitude also wounded with love.

XXXVI

THE BRIDE

Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,
To the mountain and the hill,
Where the pure water flows:
Let us enter into the heart of the thicket.

XXXVII

We shall go at once
To the deep caverns of the rock
Which are all secret,
There we shall enter in 

St John of the Cross

St John of the Cross Adoring

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Feb162023

Beggers in Spain

In his delightful and exciting autobiography, ‘Light on a Dark Horse’, Roy Campbell tells of his own experiences with beggars in Toledo: “In Spain everyone with a job becomes the regular ‘customer’ of two or three beggars. They were generally blind, half-witted, or deformed, but in this way they eked out a very tolerable existence. I have even heard a beggar giving one of his clients ‘the sack’ for having passed him three days running without offering alms, and the impeccably dressed client was pleading, almost with tears in his eyes, to be taken back, and making the excuse that he had lost everything gambling at the Casino, but would rectify matters when his salary came along…. Coming from a land [England] where poverty is regarded as a loathsome and degrading disease to one where it is a sacrament; and from one where deformity is an unmentionable and sinister monstrosity to one where it is considered as a lovable eccentricity, even by the deformed one, this happy companionship was a revelation to me” (pp. 330-31). What artists of other lands have depicted beggars and bobos with as much loving sympathy as Murillo and Velázquez? Mr. Campbell, who is himself a South African, is not quite fair to England. English people, mostly poor themselves owing to heavy taxation, do not regard poverty as a loathsome and degrading disease. They have intense sympathy for it.

Christ in Uniform

Close at my side a girl and boy
Fell firing, in the doorway here,
Collapsing with a strangled cheer
As on the very couch of joy,
And onward through a wall of fire
A thousand others rolled the surge,
And where a dozen men expire
A hundred myrmidons emerge —
As if the Christ, our Solar Sire,
Magnificent in their intent,
Returned the bloody way he went,
Of so much blood, of such desire,
And so much valor proudly spent,
To weld a single heart of fire.

Roy Campbell

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Feb152023

Clearing before entering into prayer

This deliberate act of putting ourselves in God’s presence sometimes requires an effort. We have to lay our worries aside, along with everything else we have on our minds or occupying our imaginations, in order to turn resolutely to face God and direct our attention and love to him. Before doing that, a sort of “airlock moment” to clear our heads can sometimes help us to rid ourselves of any agitation and enter into prayer: a five-minute walk, some moments of relaxation or deep breathing, a calm cup of tea. Sometimes our time of prayer must be preceded by a sort of psychological threshold that eases the transition from everyday stress to this very different kind of activity, made up largely of receptivity, which is prayer.

Thirsting for Prayer by Father Jacques Philippe

Ordained in Viviers in 1901, he (Charles de Foucauld) decided to settle in the Algerian Sahara at Béni Abbès. His ambition was to form a new congregation, but nobody joined him. Taking the religious name “Brother Charles of Jesus”, he lived with the Berbers, adopting a new apostolic approach, preaching not through sermons, but through his example. In order to become more familiar with the Tuareg, he studied their culture for over twelve years, using a pseudonym to publish the first Tuareg-French dictionary. He collected hundreds of Tuareg poems (paying a few sous to anyone who would bring poems to his hermitage) which he translated into French. He censored nothing in the poems, and never changed anything that might not conform to Catholic morality. De Foucauld’s works are a reference point for the understanding of Tuareg culture.

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Feb142023

Trying too Hard

…telling himself (St Ignatius) that he would neither eat nor drink until God came to his rescue or he saw himself to be at the point of death; because if he were to find himself so far in extremis that unless he took food he must forthwith die…This resolution he made on a Sunday, after receiving Holy Communion, and all that week he put nothing in his mouth, persevering at the same time in his customary exercises, and likewise attending the divine offices and making his prayer on his knees, even at midnight, etc. He was accustomed to tell his confessor in minute detail everything he did, so when the following Sunday came round and it was time for him to go to confession, he let him know also that he had eaten nothing during that week. The confessor¹ ordered him to break his fast and, though he felt strong enough, he nevertheless obeyed, to find himself free from scruples that day and the next. But the third day, Tuesday, while he was at prayer, he began remembering his sins and, as if he were threading beads, went on thinking of sin after sin of his past life, and it seemed to him that he was under obligation to confess them once more. At the end of this process, he began to feel a loathing for the life which he led, and a strong impulse to abandon it. With that, it pleased the Lord that he awoke as if from a dream. As he already had some experience in the discernment of spirits from the lessons which God had given him, he began to examine by what means that spirit [of scrupulosity] had come upon him; and so he resolved in full clarity of mind not to confess anything of the past ever again. From that day on he remained free from scruples such as had tormented him, holding it for certain that our Lord had been pleased to deliver him by His mercy.”

‘Saint Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Years 1491-1538’

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Feb132023

Utilitarian guidance

In God there is an intensity of life whose power we cannot begin to measure: “The Lord your God is a devouring fire” (Dt 4:24). And at the same time, there is in God a gentleness and peace of infinite depth, which is at least in part bestowed upon our hearts when we hold ourselves in humble openness to his presence. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28); “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7).

This gift of inner peace is a precious one, because in this aura of peace love can grow. This peace makes us ready for the work of grace and facilitates our discernment of situations and decisions that need to be taken. Obviously, it is not always experienced in the same way; it is normal for us to have ups and downs in this area, to go through times of trial in which we find ourselves filled with worry and cannot easily rid ourselves of it.

But my statement returns true: if, taken altogether, in the long term, we experience our prayer life as a habitual source of inner peace, it is a very good sign.

‘Thirsting for Prayer’ by Father Jacques Philippe

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