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Somewhere in flatter-than-flat western Kansas, a patch of sky blue next to the edge of a golden orange-to-red cloud reflecting the setting sun is just so beautiful that you want to pause, hold your breath, soak it in all in, but it is so much bigger than you, you can’t take it all in, so you finally let go, and breathe. And be with it.
Dragonfly hovers
Wednesday, 14 Jul 2010, 2 pm · Saint Camillus de Lellis, pray for us
![[dragonfly]](http://cowpi.com/journal/media/2010/07/dragonfly-by-quy_tran.jpg "Image of dragonfly by Quy Tran")
Dragonfly hovers
Grace and time appear to pause
To taste the moment
Start Again
Saturday, 26 Jun 2010, 8 am · Saint Josemaria Escriva, pray for us
Heard this song at the end of the episode “Custody” in the TV show Flash Point. (sound clip or video)
You get lost in pursuit of glory
We find ourselves locked in denial
Ego has no intermission
When it headlines every night, yeahThose mistakes you made don’t make you half a man
There is weakness where there is pride
A broken heart don’t mean a broken girl within
It’s not a sin to start againThere is peace and forgiveness
Sometimes honor and lie, yeah
The only crime is indifference
No regret as long as you triedBut those mistakes you made don’t make you half a man
There is weakness where there is pride
A broken heart don’t mean a broken girl within
It’s not a sin to start againwhooooo, whooooo…
But those mistakes you made don’t make you half a man
There is weakness when there is pride, ooo
A broken heart don’t mean a broken girl within
It’s not, it’s not, it’s not a sin to start again— Illiyun
Theology
Friday, 25 Jun 2010, 11 am · Saint Prosper of Reggio, pray for us
“Theology” is not an end in itself. It is always but a way. Theology, and even the “dogmas,” present no more than an “intellectual contour” of the revealed truth, and a “noetic” testimony to it. Only in the act of faith is this “contour” filled with content. Christological formulas are fully meaningful only for those who have encountered the Living Christ, and have received and acknowledged Him as God and Saviour, and are dwelling by faith in Him, in His body, the Church. In this sense, theology is never a self-explanatory discipline. It is constantly appealing to the vision of faith. “What we have seen and have heard we announce to you.” Apart from this “announcement” theological formulas are empty and of no consequence. For the same reason these formulas can never be taken “abstractly,” that is, out of total context of belief. It is misleading to single out particular statements from the Fathers and to detach them from the total perspective in which they have actually been uttered, just as it is misleading to manipulate with detached quotations from the Scripture. It is a dangerous habit “to quote” the Fathers, that is, their isolated sayings and phrases, outside of that concrete setting in which only they have their full and proper meaning and are truly alive. “To follow” the Fathers does not mean just “to quote” them. “To follow” the Fathers means to acquire their “mind,” their phronema.
— Fr. Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition, p. 109 (via)
Jesus knew human nature…
Friday, 21 May 2010, 11 am · Saint Eugene de Mazenod, pray for us
Jesus knew human nature as we cannot know it. He knew its baseness, as we even do not know it; he knew its frailty, its inconsistency. Yet, knowing it, he dared to say to us: “Follow me.” How well he thought of us, how nobly he judged us who said to us, “Come where I go, follow me to the heights of self-sacrifice that I have climbed.” He would not have said it unless he meant it, unless he knew that we could. He was no dreamer. He knew mankind. He knew the shallowness of those who then followed him and of those who would follow him, but he knew also their depth, their greatness. And knowing this he calls all of us to follow him.
— Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P. (via)
What We Choose to Fight
Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 9 am · Saint Felix of Cantalice, pray for us
What we choose to fight is so tiny…
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.— Rainer Maria Rilke, from the poem “The Watching Man”
We Remember
Monday, 19 Apr 2010, 9 am · Saint Alphege, pray for us
We come here to remember those who were killed,
those who survived and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence.
May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
On this 15th aniversary, we remember the 168 victims (149 adults and 19 children), the survivors (30 children were orphaned), and their families of the Oklahoma City Bombing at 9:02 am on April 19, 1995. Our prayers still go out for you.
Each of the 168 chairs, representing the victims of the bombing, are lit at night to remind us of the light within each and every soul. From across the reflecting pool, you can see how that light, even though the person it represents is not visible, still affects, and reflects, in us today.
Please visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial if you ever pass through town. It will be time well spent.
The Stage Is Too Big…
Monday, 19 Apr 2010, 9 am · Saint Leo IX, pray for us
It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil—which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.
— Richard Feynman
I agree. Which means that: one, the good Mr. Feynman has too narrow a definition of religion (and concept of God); two, there is more to the meaning of life than we realize; and three, the “stage” is just the right size.
(I would be interested to see the context from which this quote was taken. It seems to be one of those quotes that could go either way, either used by people to demean religion and believers, or used to open the door beyond ones preceived ideas and notions. The latter would be a moment of grace if accepted.)
Godhead Here in Hiding
Wednesday, 14 Apr 2010, 11 am · Saint Peter Gonzales, pray for us
A hymn also known as Adoro Te Devote:
Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.On the cross Thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what Thy bosom ran
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with Thy glory’s sight. Amen.— Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated by Gerard Manley Hopkins
It’s All For You
Saturday, 20 Mar 2010, 7 pm · Saint Cuthbert, pray for us
Do we dare say it, “it’s all for you”?
The winters marked the Earth
Its floor with frozen glass
You slip into my arms
And you quickly correct yourselfYour freezing speech bubbles
Seem to hold your words aloft
I want the smoky clouds of laughter
To swim about me forever moreI will race you to the waterside
And from the edge of Ireland shout out loud
So they could hear it in America
It’s all for youThe shells crack under our shoes
Like punctuation points
The planets bend between us
A hundred million suns and starsThe sea filled in this silence
Before you said those words
And now even in the darkness
I can see how happy you areI will race you to the waterside
And from the edge of Ireland shout out loud
So they could hear it in a America
It’s all for youIt’s all for you (x4)
— Snow Patrol, “The Planets Between Us” (sound clip, video)
Many beautiful love songs apply to God and us as much as for two people in love. After all, God is love. That makes Him a lover too. This song in particular is heart-warmingly haunting. Not only the tone of the music, but especially the rising crescendo at the ending. It seems almost too good to be true.
Contemporary skeptics about God or even about humanity would say that it is presumptuous to say that “It’s all for you”, implying that this world, this universe was made just for us humans. In a way, it is. But it is not just about us; it’s about everything, all of creation is for all of creation. Also, if it is for us, then we have a responsibility to it, and to God the Giver of the gift.
Parts of this song remind me of a poem by St. Francis of Assisi, “God Too Would Kneel Down”, where God would travel around the world and be with people who are weeping, laughing, and worshiping. Here, God is singing to me, how my laughter is important to Him, how my presence is important to Him. I am reminded of the old father in the Lost Son parable (aka the Prodigal Son) running to meet his lost son, but this time, God is racing with me to the edge of the land, to shout across the ocean about His love for me. And I’m going to shout my love for God.
Then the lyrics kind of juxtapose themselves. Is it God singing to me, or me singing to God, or both? The silence, “before you said those words”. What words? Whose words? Words of love? Faith? Trust? Hope? Remember, it is both of us expressing these words.
America, a symbol of the modern world, can you hear God’s words? Can you hear mine? Do you dare take responsibility that it might just be all for us? That we all are here for each of us?
“They shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:23)