The Grace of Poor Health

This is an English translation
that I did of a French holy card.

The original can be seen at the
"Holy Cards for Your Inspiration" blog.

Holy and Great Friday

I saw how the Lord suffered as He was being scourged. Oh, such an inconceivable agony! How terribly Jesus suffered during the scourging! O poor sinners, on the day of judgement how will you face the Jesus whom you are now torturing so cruelly: His blood flowed to the ground, and in some places His flesh started to fall off. I saw a few bare bones on His back. The meek Jesus moaned softly and sighed.

~St. Faustina Kowalska, Diary 188

Jesus Encounters of the Gospel Kind

I've been studying the Gospel of Mark with some friends. In the first two chapters we met several people: John the Baptist, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, a man with an unclean spirit, Simon's mother-in-law, a leper, a paralytic with some dedicated friends, scribes, Pharisees, Levi the tax collector and a dinner party full of sinners.

While reading a book called "Abba's Child" by Brennan Manning I came across something that caused me to read their stories in a deeper way:

"Jesus discloses God's true feelings toward us. As we turn the pages of the gospels, we discover the people Jesus encounters there are you and me. The understanding and compassion He offers them, He also offers you and me."

I am each of those characters. He calls me to follow Him. He wants to deliver me from bondage, from sickness, from paralysis. He wants to be with me even if I am a social outcast. Am I the voice crying out in the desert, or the self-righteous Pharisee? I can think of times where I've been both.

We should let the Lord love us and heal us.

God Enters History

God seeks out man in the midst of his worldly and earthly connections and relationships; God, whom no one, not even the purest of men, can discover for himself, comes to man of His own volition and enters into relationship with him... God is the one who acts, and it is He who brings salvation to man. (1)

He [God] has entered into history, has come to meet man, and thus man can go to meet Him. He [man] can unite himself to God, because God has united Himself with man. (2)

Human listening to the message of faith is no passive reception of hitherto unknown information; rather, it is the awakening of our submerged conscience and the opening up of the powers of understanding that are awaiting the light of truth within us. (3)

The longing for the infinite is alive and unquenchable within man. None of the attempted answers will do; only the God who Himself became finite in order to tear open our finitude and lead us out into the wide spaces of His infinity, only He corresponds to the question of our being. (4)

In the revelation of God it is, in the end, precisely a matter of Him, the Living and True One, breaking into our world and thus breaking open the prison of our theories, by means of whose iron bars we seek to protect ourselves against the coming of God into our lives. (4)

~Pope Benedict XVI

(1) The Unity & Diversity of Religions
(2) The Truth of Christianity
(3) Truth-Tolerance-Freedom
(4) The New Questions that Arose in the Nineties
** Compiled in the collection "Truth & Tolerance"

Cup-O-Camel

I take my relationship with Christ seriously. But it's the kind of "seriousness" that children exhibit when they play. Intensity and absorption mingled with abandonment and joy. As G.K. Chesterton said, "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

There is a kind of "seriousness" that is poison. It leads to legalism and even depression. That was the problem the pharisees had. They were so uptight that they served God out of duty rather than love.

This "tainted seriousness" is not just found in religion, but also in politics and everyday living. Rigidness is one manifestation. Another is to believe that things are actually as bad as you imagine they are.

So what's the antidote? One is to just lighten up. Another is to exaggerate circumstances until they are so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh. St. Francis of Asissi was good at this as exemplified in a conversation he had with friar while walking in a cold winter storm:

"When we come to St. Mary of the Angels (monastery) soaked by the rain and frozen by the cold, all soiled with mud and suffering from hunger, and we ring at the gate of the place and the brother porter comes out and says angrily: 'Who are you?' and we say: 'We are two of your brothers.' And he contradicts us, saying, 'You are not telling the truth. Rather you are two rascals who go around deceiving people and stealing what they give to the poor. Go away!' And he does not open for us, but makes us stand outside in the snow and rain, cold and hungry, until night falls--then if we endure all those insults and cruel rebuffs patiently, without being troubled and without complaining, and if we reflect humbly and charitably that the porter really knows us and that God makes him speak against us, oh, Brother Leo, write that perfect joy is there."

By imagining such an extreme scenario, he could walk in the snow and rain with joy rather than complaint and despair. Plus, even if such a thing happened, he was already prepared to be joyful.

Jesus offered the cure of exaggeration to the pharisees. They were blind to justice, mercy, and faith because of their "seriousness". Our Lord said that they "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24). What an absurd image, but it showed how ridiculous their legalism was. Then he continued with images of cups that are clean on the outside but filled with filth, of whitewashed tombs that contain decaying bodies.

Take the horrendous tragedies in your life and look at them in a way that will make you laugh. If you are taking life too seriously, have a bowl of camel soup.

The Seeds of God's Love

For it is God's love that warms me in the sun and God's love that sends the cold rain. It is God's love that feeds me in the bread that I eat and God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting. It is the love of God that sends the winter days when I am cold and sick, and the hot summer when I labor and my clothes are full of sweat: but it is God Who breathes on me with light winds off the river and in the breezes out of the wood. His love spreads the shade of the sycamore over my head and sends the water-boy along the edge of the wheat field with a bucket from the spring, while the laborers are resting and the mules stand under the tree.

It is God's love that speaks to me in the birds and streams; but also behind the clamor of the city God speaks to me of His judgements, and all these things are seeds sent out from His will.

If these seeds would take root in my liberty, and if His will would grow from my freedom, I would become the love that He is, and my harvest would be His glory and my own joy.

~Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)

God's Love in the History of Salvation

Our Heavenly Father has been watching over us throughout all of history, saving us from destruction over and over again. He longs to onvince us of His pasionate love for each one of us, that relentless mercy which calls--and enables--us to share His own divine life, that fiery outpouring of love by which the Father eternally begets the Son in the Holy Spirit. Only an infinite, raging love such as appears among the Blessed Trinity can explain the mysteries of human sin and salvation.

Let's face it, we humans really don't want God to love us that much. It's simply too demanding. Obedience is one thing, but this sort of love clearly calls for more than keeping commandments. It calls for nothing less than total self-donation. That might not be a difficult job for the three infinite Persons of the Trinity, but for creatures like us, such love is a summons to martyrdom. This invitation requires much more suffering and self-denial than simply giving up chocolate for Lent. It demands nothing less than a constant dying to self.

~Scott Hahn, from "A Father Who Keeps His Promises" (1998 Servant)

**Wow! If you want an amazing book that explores God's Covenantal Love throughout Scripture, this is it! DST