It might take time. I know; I have been there in the pit too. But keep praying. Keep trusting God’s timing and care, that He WILL vanquish the addiction at the proper time. Until then, keep your heart and mind grounded in hope. Prepare for His victory. It will come.

You have fallen, yes, but Christ fell under the Cross too. He understands; He knows exactly how it feels, and how to help you stand again.

Addiction is illness; it is not truth. You are not, and cannot, be defined by it. God will restore you; it is inevitable. He is the Divine Physician. Your wounded soul will be healed. Just keep asking Him. Persistence shows dogged faith, and such faith is powerful. It brings miracles from His Hand.

On those holy days, when trials and temptations increase, cry out to God! Run to Him and pray for His merciful grace-- for the armor of God! He will give it to you. He will dress you in it. Then fight with prayer, humility, and courage, trusting only in God, Who alone can deliver. Even if you stumble, God will catch you, and help you up. You may still bleed, and weep, and struggle bravely, but you will not be destroyed, for You belong to Him and He will save you.

Maybe you won't grasp just how much God has saved you from until the "war is over," and He calls you home. But He does give grace, in every battle until then, if you pray for it & open your heart to receive it. He will come to you and help you.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you-- not because of your resistance, for he could crush you in a moment-- but because now he sees Christ the Conqueror-- your victorious King-- standing beside his trusting child, and all hell is utterly powerless before Him.

petitefleuriste:

Thank You Lord, for not answering any of my ignorant prayers.

He does answer them, though.

Not a single prayer goes unheard or unanswered. God does not snub us, even in our ignorance. He loves us enough to always respond with compassion.

He says “No, my beloved child, I cannot give you that. You do not understand what you are asking. But I do. You beg for stones that sparkle but do not satisfy. Instead, I will give you bread. I will give you what is far better, far sweeter, far more beautiful than anything you are even able to ask for right now. Trust Me in this refusal. It is a redirection. I will give you exactly what your yearning soul needs.”

This is gorgeous.

I adore the position of her hands-- she is essentially exposing her heart to God. She has "removed the veil" for the Lord to enter her inmost sanctuary, and for Her to also enter into such intimacy with Him; God's Presence shall now dwell in Her as His Tabernacle, and take on His own "veil" of humanity there (Hebrews 10:20). Long before the Crucifixion occurred in time, the Body of Christ-- the "veil" through which we enter God's Presence-- opened that sacred door to and through Mary, His Mother, from whom His very Body and Blood would be born. She is the "Portal of the Sky"; the first gateway from heaven to earth.

And her face... what total trust, what peace, what ecstasy, what love for God! This is the moment she says 'YES' to the divine Incarnation, the moment that changed human history forever. There is something utterly timeless in her expression; something eternal in that serene bliss. That, too, is a glimpse of Heaven.

Her left foot is uncovered. I think of Exodus 3:5 and Isaiah 52:7-- where she kneels is holy ground, she who is to there become the Bringer of the Good News. It may also be a play on words... she has "bared her soul/sole" before God. Lastly, if I may be so symbolic... In Hebraic thought, the right represents the spiritual and the left represents the physical. In my thoughts here, for her left foot to be uncovered-- even unveiled-- speaks of humility and humanity, of what is spiritual becoming physical; of God Himself gaining feet so as to walk with us, to become so shockingly human. God Himself will trod the earth, will be the Good News, will take on our dust without becoming it-- will turn that dust to gold. And Mary's foot is there, pure and naked, crushing the serpent's head forever.

I have a lot of feelings about this artwork; it truly touches my heart. God bless the sculptor; may her soul rest in peace.

Mary, Mother of Christ, Handmaiden of God, pray for us your children, those your Son was born to save. We love you.

lauramakabresku:

Shelter

There are not only sparrows at His feet, but also a woodpecker, and both are tenderly touching His Wounded Feet with their tiny beaks. How they worship in their own small ways! How profound and pure is that worship! The bird that eats from holes it bores into trees, now finds food everlasting in the nail-holes from the Tree of the Cross. The bird that is deemed the least of all, offered as a poor man’s sacrifice, finds an understanding Heart through proof of Blood spilled to redeem the most impoverished and despised souls.

The Lamb embraces a lamb, innocent and unblemished, despite the single red stain on its hip joint– the sciatic nerve, which allows the body to stand upright; the place touched by an angel, a touch that both wounds the body and heals the soul. There, this little lamb is a testament to both the weakness of creation and the power of God– blessed by a curse, purified by what was thought to be impure, given life through death, and triumph through defeat. It carries blemish to the eyes of man but in the eyes of God it is faultless. So is the Lamb. And so are we, if, although we wrestle sorely with His Cross we refuse to let go, for God alone is victorious, and in surrendering to His glory in our defeat we are given a new name, a new purpose, a new life, yet carrying the scars as He did. Grace is given, not won, and it is only when we are humbled by the Lord that He can lift us up in truth. We are blessed with Blood, clothed in spotless white, yet always holding that salvific red, the holy humiliation that kills all perfect pride.

Christ holds us all in His caring embrace, and yet those very Hands and Feet speak of the suffering He endured through the same motive. It was for Love that He died; it was through Love that He rose again. His wounds sing of that Love always, and invite us into His very self– the Source of all Sweetness, the Tree of Eternal Life, the One Who kisses the fragile head of every sparrow. When they fall, He picks them up tenderly; when they die, He weeps. So He does with us. What holy pain unbearable, to see our sinful agony! How much more would He tend for our broken bodies if He so loves the sparrows– indeed, He was moved to destroy death itself. Thus it was that Christ died in our place… He let Himself be pierced through, falling to the ground, so that by the power of His healing grace, every tiny soul can fly again.

In His Wounds, the weary soul finds perfect rest. In His Heart, all find a home.

The animals recognize the Love in His Wounds and they adore. Through the Holy Spirit, the tiny bird singing in our hearts even now, let us do the same.

Don't leave me alone, a fugitive. I want your hands
To carry my heart. I long for the bread of your voice,
I long for everything. I long for myself... I long for you.

Mahmoud Darwish, Give Birth to Me Again That I May Know (tr. Abdullah al-Udhari)
 

 

 

Praying love poems to Jesus...

Just step outdoors, see the light on the hills, the stars at night-- that's enough.

-Anaïs Nin, from “The diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. 3: 1939-1944”

 

 

The fragile and grandiose beauty of this… it makes me weep.

Just… it’s enough. Lift up your eyes, lift up your hope. Breathe it in. Whatever wound is tormenting your poor heart tonight, it can be soothed, it can be hummed to sleep by the loving stars, by the light, by the gentle and ancient hills.

God is there in it all, the soul knows. We feel the brush of His fingertips in the night breeze. It is enough. It is, forever, enough.

“The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole order of the universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying any attention to the sky.”

— Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
 

Every life leaves an impression. We are God’s fingerprints.

-Noah benShea

 

Thinking deeply about this. “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours…” God continues to tangibly touch our lives through other lives. We’re all His children; we all exist because of Him, for Him, through Him. So when we touch another life, God inevitably touches them through us, however faintly. But are you letting His fingerprints be felt? Or are your own hands too dirty? What impression are you leaving– the pure love of the Father, or the sin-stained fumbling of your own mortality? How much do your own hands get in the way of His? Reflect on this.

 

sunflorally: repeat after me: my body is not wrong, or ugly, or too thin, or too big, or too pale, or too dark. it is the vessel of a precious life and that is always more than enough.

 

The very words “my body” still feel ugly and sick and wrong. The very concept of “my” is still poisoned with a deeply hidden, lingering self-loathing, injected by the abusive nightmares that made the word “body” sound like a torture chamber. The two words together are still so terrifying they make my emotions shut right down, unable to cope with what would surface otherwise.

It shocks me that, despite all the healing I have done and am still actively doing, this ancient horror still hasn’t faded. The wound won’t close, let alone scab or scar. I know I still believe the trauma lies somewhere and until I don’t, I’ll keep bleeding. But it’s very hard. Nevertheless, I know it must be done.

…The other thing that struck me about this is the phrase, “a precious life.” Me? My life is precious? It sounds utterly impossible, incredible, ridiculous. I can’t take it seriously; the very concept is beyond respect. My life is not precious… except, I’m a Catholic. And if there’s one thing I find super hard to believe, it’s the FACT that Jesus Christ has declared my wretched stupid life to be so precious that He chose to DIE a bloody death in order to save it from destruction. That’s a FACT that I cannot dispute. I can only look at it in helpless sobbing confused frustrated wonder, my bitter self-hatred faltering in the shadow of the Cross. It’s the only place I can learn how to love. It’s the only place I can learn how to finally accept that my life is, bewilderingly, actually precious… that my cursed “body” is also something Christ wants to bless and save and heal… that the possibility of both those profound changes in mindset are not only possible but already achieved in Him.

Yes, I’m still mentally sick in a lot of ways. I will shamefully admit that. But Jesus came into this world to heal sick souls like me, and if I have faith in that truth with all my heart, then I have a hope that cannot fail. And I’ll hold on to that, and keep re-reading this little message, until I believe its simple but pure truth, too.

"God will not numb your feelings or put you to sleep"-- how did I never realize that truth before?? When I am tempted by self-loathing to just give up and fall into that abyss, when I just want to rip my arms and legs and stomach wide open red, can I just... wait? Can I choose that terrifically difficult yet powerful virtue of faith instead? Can I choose hope? Can I choose patience, and gentleness, and longsuffering?

Can I rest in the knowledge that God is greater, that God is still Good, that He is forever victorious over every sin and struggle? Can I acknowledge that peace and rest in it? Can I surrender that totally? Can I beg for mercy from Mercy Himself instead of mercilessly attacking myself? Can I ignore the screaming rage of my head and instead sit in total silence before Him?

Yes, by His Grace, I can. And I must, or my poor soul will die.

Return to Christ. He will not abandon you. I need to remember that... I need to believe that. God is not like people. Jesus will not hurt me. Jesus will not suddenly decide that I'm not worth loving anymore. Jesus does not have a cold shoulder or a hard heart. Jesus loves me and forgives me and wants me to be healed and He is waiting for me. God is Love and that cannot change, no matter how evil I fear I am, no matter how badly I feel I deserve to die. God still wants to defeat those devils and bring me home.

Just wait for Him. Even if it takes time. God hears. God knows. God is working for you right now, and He is on His way. Wait for Him. He will be here, at the perfect time.

Choose your own adventure, they say. Yet I never felt I had a choice, in the way the pathway of my life progressed. Little did I realize there is always a choice, even if the options are miserable, even if hope is minimal, even if the choosing itself is uninformed and rushed and afraid and instinctive. There’s still choice.

And, well, now that I am aware of this, then I choose this. I choose recovery, I choose healing, I choose joy and light and life and hope and love. Wherever I find it, wherever I can follow its sunlit footsteps, I shall do so. I will make those tiny choices and they will add up into a march of blazing beauty that will utterly overcome every shadow that haunted my past.

The terror may be ancient, but it is still just a shade. This too shall pass, no exceptions. Love is the only truth and if it’s not love then it’s going to melt into dust and be forgotten in the waves of compassionate bliss that the universe itself radiates with every heartbeat, on and on and on. I will step into that sea of hope, I will wade into the depths of tenderness, I will walk into the very ocean with a smile on my face and let it wash away everything that held me shackled far from shore.

God’s got me in His hands. He’s calling me home. Our Lady has crushed the snake beneath her heel and Our Lord has proclaimed Himself to be the Omega as well as the Alpha and no matter what came before, this is the turning of the page, this is the renewal of my soul, this is unconditional love and eternal hope proclaiming “It Is Finished” to the sins of the past, and all the trauma and horror they brought. God hung all of those on a tree and opened the garden gate to a new life that we could never have imagined before.

"Do we not try to find good, tangible security in observances, in the reassuring feeling that, thanks to our fidelity, everything is in order in our relationship with the Lord? And when Jesus asks us one day to count on him alone, without telling us in advance what he is going to ask of us, and without explaining to us where he wants us to go, we tremble." (A Carthusian)

This hits hard. To rely so completely on the faithfulness of Christ that you no longer need "tangible proofs" to believe in His trustworthiness... that is walking by faith, not by sight-- that is the true road of the Cross. But it's a step into darkness, and that frightens us-- at least, unless we remember that we are following the Light Himself.

God is never obligated to reveal His ways or plans to us. He owes us no clarification, no explanation. Humility accepts this. Humility makes us recognize our unworthiness to know such divine things, let alone demand them. God doesn't have to tell us anything. But He does. He does comfort and guide and reassure us; He knows our weakness and He soothes us, leads us with the utmost tenderness, His little children. But children grow. And the day will come when He will suddenly step back, tell us to do something, and leave it at that. No explanation. No preparation. No understanding on our part. Will we still trust in Him, then? Will we remember how trustworthy and faithful He has always been, going forwards now with no immediate or tangible reminder of it? Will we surrender to our love for Him and walk with blindfold on, with road shrouded in fog, with shadows setting in? Will we step forward in faith alone, believing with all our heart that Our Savior will never lead us astray? That He will never abandon us, even if the new journey is long and cold and lonely? Will we hold on to faith?

It will happen. It will frighten us, as humans, as children. Deep down, we are afraid of the unknown. We are scared of the dark. But remember, dear hearts, remember that He is trustworthy and He knows where and why you are going. You can count on Him. You can count on Jesus even when, and especially when, there is no one and nothing else to rely on.

Have faith. Even if it's only a mustard seed. Plant it in love, and wait. It will grow in God's time, even if you can't see or sense anything until suddenly... it sprouts. It dies in the dark, to live in the light. So shall you.

Have faith in God, Who is real and trustworthy. Have hope in His faithfulness when we can't see it yet. Have love for God, Who IS Love, Who loves you endlessly, and Who will strengthen you for all that He leads you to... and through.

Plant faith, and trust Him, and do whatever He tells you.

godmechanic:

actually a little embarrassing how well the “omg surprise psalm today!” thing works

Oh man I have wept at how relevant the Compline psalms are some nights. It’s unreal.

I have the Universalis app, which I love, as it allows me to play the audio for each hour, which is indispensable when I have severe brain fog and/or poor cognition and cannot read. I always listen to Lauds & the Office of Readings as I start my day schedule, and the “surprise” at what Psalms I will hear then (and in the other variant places in the Office) is both a source of deeply interested joy, and of unfailingly edifying application to my life. God just… knows, man. Even though millions of folks are praying the exact same words, they are specially & specifically significant to each soul. It’s wonderful, even when it’s convicting. God loves us in all circumstances.

It’s not embarrassing, love; it’s genuinely heartwarming to hear that you have such experiences with it too.

godmechanic:

we like to forget how hard psalm 42 hits. but i am just here to remind everybody that it hits

fellas is your soul is athirst for God? athirst for the living God? have your tears have been your meat day and night? do you wonder why your soul is so full of heaviness and disquieted within you? boy do i have a psalm for you

Psalm 42 legitimately saved my life a decade ago. It’s been burned into the fibers of my heart since then. It is a beautiful, aching Psalm, a raw and sincere prayer wrenched from the very core. I love it dearly and pray it frequently; it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

To justify my neighbor’s suffering is a scandal. “My neighbor’s suffering is beyond justification; it is, in a word, meaningless.” Referring to Levinas, Batnitzky writes, “The Jewish tradition often maintains a difficult balancing act when it affirms both the theological and ethical value of suffering for others, while denying the necessity of suffering itself.” One cannot justify suffering. Thus an end to all theodicy, and “to all attempts, theological or otherwise, to justify suffering.”

Michael Purcell, “When God Hides His Face: The Inexperience of God”, The Experience of God: A Postmodern Response, ed. Kevin Hart and Barbara E. Wall
 

(Disclaimer: I am a Catholic, and so my reflection on this is within that context. I give all grateful respect to the Jewish perspective here, as it is the notable inspiration for my response.)

This hits me where it hurts. I’ve been raised to always justify suffering, which ultimately hardens one’s heart and makes one’s hands cold– if you believe that suffering is “deserved,” you smother compassion, and do nothing to relieve that suffering. Instead you say, “it builds character,” or “you’ll learn and grow from this,” or “well you must’ve brought this on yourself,” or just “offer it up,” without making a move to comfort them or care for them or remove the suffering altogether. Yes, suffering can teach, it can help us grow in virtue, it can have redemptive merit, but not inherently. Suffering in and of itself is just suffering. It’s the result of a fallen human nature and the inevitable consequences of sin=death, but sin is unnatural and suffering is therefore unnecessary. Yet it persists, in this life. Yes, this life is not all there is, but that shouldn’t cause complacency!! We can either sit there and shrug at people’s pain, or we can stand up and refuse to let it have its way. We can fight it. We should fight it. I say this because God fights it too.

God mandates compassion. God insists we care for our fellow man and relieve their suffering. As a Christian, I think of how Jesus healed so many who were ill, how he told parables of radical love, how He never said “you get what you deserve” to a suffering soul. No. Christ came to us as a healer, as a lover, as an instrument of mercy, Who literally died on a Cross that He could never deserve in order to destroy ALL human judgment of anyone “deserving” suffering like that. He took it all. Yes, all have sinned, and so suffering exists through sin, but God alone judges, and if I may be so bold, I say that HE deems suffering as absolutely unnecessary too. Sin is unnatural, remember? He didn’t create it! He doesn’t want it! He “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked man” (Ezekiel 18:33 & 23:11)! He wants us to have life, abundant life, in direct opposition to sin’s destructiveness (John 10:10). So Christ took every “deserved” pain onto Himself and now we must act on that grace of mercy. No one has to die or be destroyed. No one “deserves to die.” He sure didn’t. But He did die, taking the place of everyone who was ever judged as deserving it, so now we can never speak those words about anyone.

Take up your cross, yes, because suffering is inevitable in this life, but carry it knowing that through uniting it to Christ’s love, it now holds the weight of the sins of the world. When we bear our own crosses, we don’t abandon others to theirs! We’re not in this alone; Christ didn’t carry His “own” in the first place! He carried ours, so now we carry everyone’s crosses together. We are Simon and Veronica and Magdalene and Mary and Christ to each other. We live in hope of eternal life, where all pain ceases, and so until then, we reflect that hope to others as often as we can– we must manifest it. How can you hope for what you cannot comprehend? How can you yearn for relief if you don’t know it’s a possibility? We must give that hope and sustain it. We must make hope real, through real love, and real faith. Only then is suffering bearable– only then does our awareness of its meaninglessness become a strange sort of joy. Yes, it’s unnecessary. But therefore, it’s not forever, and until then, there are people acting as angels to make that truth absolutely tangible.

I hope this makes sense; it’s hard to put into proper words. But it struck me to the heart, that quote, especially as my life is saturated with suffering right now and my old ugly instinct is to just say “it’s deserved; let it be”. No. That is not God’s way. God hears the cry of the poor and lame and sick and sorrowful and hungry and frightened and lost, and when God hears HE ACTS. That is how we must live, or we are not His children. That is what we must do, or we are not disciples of Christ. We must bind up the broken, bandage the wounded, wipe away the blood and sweat and tears and spit and everything else. Compassionate works must be our only response to suffering. I don’t care what they’ve done. That’s not my concern. My job is to love.

Suffering is unnecessary, because we’ve been commanded to heal it.

"We will recognize that, whether we like it or not, what happens happens; to be upset about it is useless, and moreover deprives us of the crown of patience and shows us to be in revolt against the will of God."
- Saint Peter of Damaskos

This is a powerful truth. If we do not perpetually pray, "Thy Will be done," we will instead seek our own will, which is stunted by ignorance and corrupted by passions. Resistance to our God-given circumstances, because they don't match our plans or hopes or wants or dreams or expectations, is at its deepest root a rebellion-- however small, it is still ultimately fatal-- against God's authority and wisdom. Patience is a fruit of love, and love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. When we love God, we have the courage to say, "May it be done to me according to Your word," and whatever "it" is, we embrace it as coming from His heart out of love for us. To reject that ultimate divine motivation is to blind ourselves to the blessings He constantly showers upon us, especially in the paradox of the Cross: "The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God." (1 Corinthians 4:18) It is only through Christ's loving obedience in submitting patiently to the Cross that He was able to win our salvation; we must follow Him in that exact respect to obtain that new and eternal life. Such radical surrender to God's will in all circumstances-- that absolute relinquishment of control and even understanding-- is madness to those who live for this world alone. They have no hope of eternal joy with God, and therefore no reason to patiently endure suffering, let alone choose it for the sake of Christ. But we do, whether we "like it or not", because we're not motivated by "like", only love. And love counts it all as joy.

Some further illustrations from Scripture:

"We must not put Christ to the test... nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer... No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:9-10, 13)

"...We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)

"The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God." (Romans 8:6-8)

"I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead... [but] many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven." (Philippians 3:10-11, 18-20)

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." (James 4:7-8)

"...You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”" (James 4:14-15)

"And He said to all, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." (Luke 9:23-24)

"For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me." (John 6:38)

"Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God... The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. " (1 Peter 4:1-3, 7)

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. " (Romans 8:28)

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit." (1 Corinthians 5:16-19)

"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing... God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." (James 1:1-4, 12)

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“…God shouts to [you] in [your] pain [as] it insists on being [heard and] attended to. [This is because pain is sanctified in the life of a faithful Christian, playing a great purpose: every instance of your suffering] fits into a pattern for good, [as God is using it to confirm you to the image of] His Son. [Therefore, take courage and know that] nothing [painful] can come into your life without your Heavenly Father’s permission, [and when] God uses [your] circumstances, their source makes no difference to Him; [their instigator, be it human or spirit,] is irrelevant. [In every distressing circumstance, without exception,] God [says,] "I will make it fit into My Plan for your life, to make you like [my Son,] Jesus Christ.” [Remember that] God used the challenges, conflicts, and circumstances of life to prepare His Son for His destiny, [so since you are a disciple of His Son, He will] do the same in [your life, towards the same blessed end. If you remember this in your fear, then] instead of trying to escape your circumstances, [you can courageously] learn from them and [so] grow stronger [in faith by more closely imitating Christ].“

Honestly this is a vital reminder, especially for Lent. Repentance is repeatedly mandated by Christ, yes, but it is no heavy burden-- rather, it removes those weights from our hearts! The idea of being "ordered to do something objectively beneficial" may seem totally foreign to many of us Catholics, who are used to the negative "Thou Shalt Not's" that are probably haunting us during these 40 days. But repentance is wholly good for us. It, and those commandments it encompasses, only sound scary because they sharply bring to mind all the ways in which we've failed to avoid sin. But at their very core, they are meant to heal and help us.

Nevertheless, yes, it might absolutely be terrifying to examine one's conscience, just like preparing to clean out a coal cellar for the first time in years-- the amount of filth facing you may be overwhelming. But here's the thing... you don't have to clean it. You just have to point out that dirt to Jesus, specifically and honestly, and He will immediately and absolutely purify even the most rotten corners of your soul. For free. As often as you need.

Can you imagine, calling a plumber to drain your flooded basement and unclog the festering pipes, but not an hour after he leaves, you stuff them full of garbage again? And you call him back in a panic in the middle of the night? And he comes right over and fixes it all again? With a genuine smile? And doesn't charge anything? And this happens at least once a week, if not every day?

That's the staggering magnitude of forgiveness God offers to every repentant soul. That's the Sacrament of Confession!

We forget that we can repent whenever. Literally whenever, wherever, whoever you are, whatever you've done. Yet we are afraid to call the plumber even though we already did 458 times and not once has He ever complained or hung up. We are afraid He's going to lose His temper and charge us a fortune or leave us helpless with dammed-up pipes and sewage up to our waist... we're terrified of hearing "why??" or "how??" because our shame would choke and drown us more than all the black water in the world ever could.

But it has never happened, and it will never happen, so why don't you pick up the phone and give Him a call?

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iscariotapologist:

i think god probably made dinosaurs because they were sick as hell. actually though i’m not really aware of any dinosaur….theology? theology about dinosaurs? although i would CERTAINLY like to be. i do think there are relationships between god and animals, although they are necessarily going to be different than ours.
 

I always like to think about how the first two kinds of creatures God created in Genesis are birds & fish. Birds are the avian descendants of dinosaurs, and they are technically reptiles. Genesis’s “birds” could very well be referring to dinosaurs, in that roundabout respect. Plus, jawless fish were the first vertebrates to evolve, period. So the timeframe is accurate! (Mammals showed up a day later, haha.)

I was actually just thinking today about God’s relationship to animals. While they do not have a “living soul” like a human does (Gen 1:26; 2:7), they still have life and consciousness, which are from God. I believe that, by simple virtue of existence, every created thing yearns for God and can feel Him on some level. Only humans can know God, but I hope it’s theologically legitimate to say that nevertheless animals can still sense Him.

Scripture itself references animals “sensing God” notably in Ezekiel 38:20, implies it in Psalm 145:21, and of course we have Balaam’s dear donkey in Numbers 22. If we want to stretch the interpretation, we have even the donkeys that carried Jesus Himself in Matthew 21, and the one(s?) that carried the Holy Family to and from Bethlehem when they were fleeing Herod in Matthew 2… Noah’s dove, Elijah’s ravens, Jonah’s whale, Daniel’s lions… God works through animals a lot, so they must be spiritually receptive to Him, if they are so readily responsive to His influence. (God help us to be so obedient, too!)

Furthermore, there are so many common stories of both little children and animals apparently perceiving and reacting to ‘presences’ unseen by adults, potentially angels, for all we know– plus we must include all the Christian folktales of donkeys and lambs and even spiders at the Manger, all recognizing and adoring the Christ Child. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich even speaks of “gladness throughout all nature,” with the animals being “joyfully agitated” at both Christ’s birth and Mary’s birth. We have Saint Roche’s dog, Saint Columba’s horse, Saint Jerome’s lion, Saint Ciaran’s boar, Saint Francis’s wolf… and my arguable favorite, Saint Anthony’s mule. Just as animals fear those with malicious hearts, they respect and befriend those with loving hearts– and since God is love, I think there’s definitely something to that, in its utter simplicity. I don’t know what exactly they feel, but… they do. They know, in their own way.

I apologize for the huge response but this is a topic that’s actually quite dear to my heart, and I was moved to offer my thoughts on it, may they glorify God.

But yes, I daresay dinosaurs are objectively super cool. God has the best imagination, after all!

lauramakabresku:

Birds listening to God’s pulse

The heartbeat of God is music so beautiful, so rapturous, that even the very songbirds cannot help but hear its sweetness in silent awe.

traumacatholic:

My favourite thing about the ‘Psalter and Rosary of the Virgin (from f. 27), in two versions, and other devotional texts, including a litany’ is that there’s just many pages dedicated to drops of blood. (x, x)

From the source:

“…The text begins with three pages, each painted black, on which large drops of blood trickle down. The third page has been thoroughly worn, which may be the result of kissing; part of it has been rubbed and smudged rather than merely kissed…”

That is the devotion that defines a Christian. Thanks be to God that this beautiful testament to such heartfelt adoration still exists for our edification. May the love proven through these prayerfully-kissed pages inflame our own hearts with ardor to do the same!

I pray that He does give you answers soon, and that until then, He comforts you in your pain, and alleviates as much of it as He wills. May He grant you deepest peace and healing! 🙏

We all have needs that can only be met by God. That is such a key truth of life that is frequently forgotten.

And those needs aren’t strictly spiritual, either! My life crises as of late have proven to me, quite strikingly, that I have an awful amount of physical needs that I cannot meet on my own– only God can. I am helpless; He is all-powerful. I am foolish and frightened; He is Wisdom and Peace Himself. I am wracked by misery; He soothes me with mercy. I feel abandoned and alone… He loves me to all eternity. Deep down, those are my truest needs; GOD Himself is What I need to thrive. My survival needs will be met as He sees fit, if I trust Him to meet them– because, again, I cannot, and desperately trying to do so anyway will (and does) only make me more distraught and drive me to despair. However, prayerfully placing all my hopes in God, surrendering my life into His hands, and doing what I can without worrying about MY success but HIS… that gets me through. God’s Love never fails.

God knows I need this body to survive in order to serve Him here, and He will ensure that. He’s not ignorant; He “knows I am but dust.” But I am His dust, destined for redemption by the grace of Christ, and that truth is enough refuge for any new crisis. Even if I do die, it’s on His timing; and– have mercy on me a sinner– after the storms of life are over, I have an eternity in His arms to look forward to. Until then, I must live with my entire life geared towards that. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” That’s what Jesus means. God will provide the needs of your journey to Him, but stay on the journey! The ultimate goal is of ultimate importance; no matter how short or difficult our journey is, it will end one day, and then it won’t matter how tough things were prior. So trust. Don’t worry. God’s got this; God’s got you.

If you are in need today, any need– poor health, emotional distress, financial fears, physical pain, future panic, anything– remember that you don’t have the ability to solve those massive problems and that is both okay and intentional. NO human can do so… because GOD CAN, and He loves us so much He wants you to ask Him for help. Like an adoring Father cares for His children, He must let us try & learn on our own in order to grow, but when we stumble and cry out, He is always there to pick us up and help us to do what we cannot do alone.

And maturing in spirit isn’t about learning to do those things alone. Spiritally, we are always going to be God’s children. We’re little! We’re weak and ignorant and helpless, like a baby is… but babies are meant to be helped and loved and cherished and if we– if only through failed struggles– admit that we are just children, God will care for us as such… otherwise we’re trying too hard to be “grown up” in ways we cannot force, and we push our Father away through proud striving and/or shame. Don’t do that. Ask Him for help. Be simple and pure of heart.

There are things we will always need God’s help for, and when you put that in the proper perspective it is an absolute joy. God is our greatest need, our ultimate goal, our Protector in every trial, and our Provider in every situation. Even when we suffer, it’s under His watchful and compassionate Eye– “a Father disciplines those He loves.” Doesn’t suffering give you a unique opportunity to cling closer than ever to Him? Doesn’t it give you “strength training” for patience, trust, hope, perseverance, courage, surrender, faith? Doesn’t it give you a testing-fire to prove the power of grace in you? Yes it is hard to be gentle, kind, joyful, temperate, meek, and even loving when we are in the throes of suffering, but it’s only hard because we’re focusing so much on the suffering, and not on God, Who gives us the grace TO embody those virtues of His! I can attest to this firsthand. Fix your focus on God. Trust in His Power to save, against all odds, despite all confusion, especially if you can’t see or imagine a way out. He can, and He will. Look at your life! Hasn’t He already brought you safely in soul to this very moment? He has never once failed you. He is utterly faithful, worthy of all our trust, and that will never change.

Today, place your trust in your Father anew. Go to Him with all your aches of heart, and put them into His open hands. Ask Him for help… then rest. Rest, dear child. God will take care of you. You will never, ever have to struggle alone. He will meet your daily needs when you cannot; He doesn’t expect or want you to try otherwise. God will provide for you and the sparrows both.

Just remember… in Him, your deepest needs are already fulfilled. And that is how we thrive.

Anonymous asked,

I just sent [you a donation]
-an atheist who doesn’t want anyone to suffer the way it sounds like you’re suffering

 

I must still say “God bless you,” in my honest gratitude for your sincere charity. The sentiment holds true, even though our beliefs differ– I hope the highest good for you, in return for your interest in mine… and I firmly believe that my God can, will, and does do that for any compassionate soul, whether or not they share my religion. You’re human; by virtue of that fact alone, you are included in that divine care.

More generally: thank you for your generous kindness. Humanity is truly illuminated by our capacity to love; in this little testament to it, you have lit up my life a little more. 🙏

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, 
Through a belief in the Threeness, 
Through confession of the Oneness 
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today 
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism, 
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial, 
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension, 
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim, 
In obedience of angels, 
In service of archangels, 
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward, 
In the prayers of patriarchs, 
In preachings of the apostles, 
In faiths of confessors, 
In innocence of virgins, 
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven; 
Light of the sun, 
Splendor of fire, 
Speed of lightning, 
Swiftness of the wind, 
Depth of the sea, 
Stability of the earth, 
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me; 
God's might to uphold me, 
God's wisdom to guide me, 
God's eye to look before me, 
God's ear to hear me, 
God's word to speak for me, 
God's hand to guard me, 
God's way to lie before me, 
God's shield to protect me, 
God's hosts to save me 
From snares of the devil, 
From temptations of vices, 
From every one who desires me ill, 
Afar and anear, 
Alone or in a mulitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and evil, 
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul, 
Against incantations of false prophets, 
Against black laws of pagandom, 
Against false laws of heretics, 
Against craft of idolatry, 
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards, 
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul. 
Christ shield me today 
Against poison, against burning, 
Against drowning, against wounding, 
So that reward may come to me in abundance.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, 
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 
Christ on my right, Christ on my left, 
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, 
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, 
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, 
Christ in the eye that sees me, 
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, 
Through a belief in the Threeness, 
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation

St. Patrick (ca. 377)

This is forever my favorite prayer. It strikes me to the heart every time I speak it, and moves me to tears without fail.

Thank God for Saint Patrick. Thank God for his beautiful faith, and for his devotion in bringing that same faith to the people of Ireland. May he intercede for us today and always, that we too may all share in the heartfelt confession of the Oneness of the Creator of Creation, and so, through Him, be brought fully into the oneness of His Church, by the powerful grace and love of Jesus Christ, Who Is King of all nations forever. Amen. 💚🙏✝️☘
 

...However. I'm reblogging this particular instance of this beloved prayer, not only for the cleareformatting, but also because it lacks a period in the last stanza. That actually touches me deeply, even if it was an accidental omission.

That lack of a closing mark, immediately after the proclamation of the Trinity, speaks silent volumes of the infinitude of that very Creator, omnipresent and eternal, with no beginning or end. We are left with a blessedly "unfinished" prayer, refusing to conclude itself, standing forever open and thus overflowing into time beyond itself.

We confess our faith in the Creator of Creation, and though the words leave our lips, they remain in our souls. Their sound lingers in the air like music, an unresolved yet perfect chord, inviting our perpetual participation in this prayer, the secret purpose for which it was spoken in the first place.

This prayer is our breastplate, affixed to our heart always, repeated in every breath, realized in every circumstance. Christ is in all of it. He is present everywhere, always, never ending, enduring forever, and every atom of the universe confesses Him.

Don't "finish" this prayer. Let it continue through the rest of your life.

Nonetheless, Philothea, you must not rest satisfied with general desires and aspirations, but rather turn them into special resolutions for your individual correction and amendment. For instance, when you meditate upon the first of our Saviour's words from the Cross, you will assuredly feel a desire to imitate Him, to forgive and love your enemies. But that desire is worth little unless you proceed to some practical resolution, such as "I will no longer be angry at the irritating words which such a one says to me or of me; nor at the annoyance caused me by another; on the contrary, I will do and say all I can to soothe and them" - and so forth. In this way you will soon correct your faults, whereas mere desires will have but few and tardy results.

- St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2: Counsels Concerning the Soul's Approach f God in Prayer and the Sacraments, Chapter 6: Third Part of Meditation - Affections and Resolutions

This is VERY edifying advice for Lent.

Desire alone will only produce dreams of possible results. Deciding on a specific goal-- something practical and achievable-- will guarantee results, with the grace of God helping you through prayer.

God wants you to be free of sin! He will assist you in doing so, but you must know and recognize where you are bound first, or your prayers will be vague and unfocused. Show Him a specific struggle you have with sin, determine your weakest spots, get a battle plan, and resolve to fight with Christian virtue!

Small steps of virtue are still significant steps. Our Lord could work miracles with but a word or a touch. You do not need to do grandiose acts for Lent in order to draw closer to Him. Resolve to let His Living Water wash away your iniquities, be it drop by drop... but direct those drops to hit your wounds. You will heal. God always gets results.

(Saint Francis de Sales words this perfectly succinctly, but my hearts was nevertheless moved to elaborate from personal experience, for I too desperately need this advice. All thanks be to God!)

"Today, I shall do an act of charity for a poor or suffering person, even if I have to go out of my way to do it."

This is a beautiful challenge of charity.

Let us all keep our eyes, ears, hearts, and hands open today-- and through all of Lent-- for opportunities to help those in need, whatever that need may be, whoever may need it. Let us pray for the grace & discernment to act in compassion when God leads us to such an opportunity, not out of moral obligation or self-righteousness, but out of tender mercy and genuine love for our fellow man. Let us act in charity because we cannot help but do so. May the love that Christ had-- and forever has-- for the poor & needy overflow from our hearts today and always!

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Man of Sorrows (detail), 17th century

You can see the sorrow in His face, here– in the downturned humility of His gaze, in the slight but notable curve of His eyebrows, in the dark lines below His eyes… in His quiet mouth, like a Lamb led to slaughter.

A single thorn draws a bead of brilliant Blood from His forehead. The wretched crown wreathes His hair like a halo.

By His Wounds, we have been healed– but oh, so too by His sorrows, we have been comforted! What blessed, tragic paradox! What agonies our Lord endured for our sake!

God became a man, a man of sorrows, so that we, in our own miseries, would never suffer alone. We would, forever, have an Advocate of empathy, a Lord Who had bled and wept and feared just like us. Christ knows our pain.

Let your aching heart take refuge in Him.

 

akosuaa: I don’t want to be lukewarm loved

 slain-in-the-spirit: Imagine how God feels.

thatetherealgirl: This hit me.

363ci: Revelation 3:16 = So because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Yea this hits right now too.

 

Lukewarm “love” isn’t worthy of the name, when the heart of Love Himself is on fire.

God’s heart burns with love for us. When that hits us, it cannot help but spark a similar flame in our own hearts, however small it may start.

Feed that flame of love! Do not let it fizzle out or fade! Work it into a blazing ardor through acts of devotion and prayer. Start small, for your fire is yet a candle-light, but it will increase with every ounce of charity-fuel you put into it. Prayer gives you that fuel through grace. Without it, we’re helpless– we have no means to kindle a divine spark ourselves! But if God gives it, He will protect it. Pray for this!

During these 40 days of Lent, a spiritual desert whose nights bring terrible coldness & dark, set your eyes firmly on the heart of Christ, aflame with love for you– for you!!– and let that burning truth fill your own heart with zeal, pressing on towards the Cross, where that divine Love was proved… and is proven still.

Your cross, too, proves the heat of your love for God. Carry it! It us bringing you to Him!

Catholicism is inherently “weird & creepy” with “crazy ideas” according to the world; yes, we may affectionately and humorously use those terms for ourselves, but in truth we must also realize the bitter judgment behind them externally. It pains my heart to hear such comments because it implies the commenter only sees those qualities in our faith, not the beauty & mercy & love. We must pray sincerely for those people; their hearts are closed through misunderstanding, fear, or hatred, and Christ longs for their hearts to soften, repent, and return home to Him too.

Nevertheless, I am humbly grateful to be weird, creepy, & crazy, if that is how my relationship with Christ and His Church is perceived by the yet-unfaithful. It is a small yet significant joy & honor to see so many of us proclaiming the same.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”
Joel 2:12 BSB

To "break down the barriers separating your heart from God"-- to truly rend your heart-- you must first identify those barriers, those places so hardened and stiff they must be rent asunder lest you perish. It's tragically easy to find those spots-- whenever you feel resistance to His presence & input in a situation, whenever you feel unwilling or unable to pray, whenever you cannot hear His Voice or even remember what it sounds like-- all these frightening instances are barriers between your heart and His. They need to be removed-- destroyed completely, reduced to dust & ashes, beyond rebuilding-- but we have no strength to do that alone! All we can do is beg for help; all we can do is seek Him out, with feeble fervor if we must, but seek Him we must. When you cannot "pray," you can still cry to Him without words. When you cannot hear, you can still read Scripture. And when you feel that awful resistance, that is your greatest opportunity-- you can then show God EXACTLY where that obstacle is, and with hopeful trust, plead Him to remove it by His merciful grace. Then you must let Him work. You need only stand with Him and watch Him.

Over and over, moment to moment, breath by breath, you must constantly refocus on God. You must let Him into your broken heart, so He can remake it in His liking. The demolition is a rebirth. We fast from the world to feed upon Him. We weep for our sins to be grateful for His mercy. We mourn for Him Who died for us, because of us, so that we may feel the joy of the salvation His Blood bought for us.

When you let Him remove the chains shackling your soul to the secular world, you become free to embrace Him. Even if your wrists are bloodied and bruised, His pains to free you were greater, and you can take comfort in knowing that no amount of damage your soul or body may bear will ever deter Him from pulling you close. He is the Divine Physician; when He sees your wounds, He will kiss them to healing. Thus you must admit you have them, uncover them, offer them up to the divine scalpel and sutures if need be. Yes, the process is painful, but it is essential for life. Pain does not mean death, not if it is acted upon; it is only an alert that something needs to be rectified... and as you progress in penance, you shall find that what was once seen as suffering to the flesh is now sweet to your soul.

The call to penance is not a call to separation. In the very midst of our mortification, we are drawing closer to Christ. We are returning to the One Who loves us. We are coming home.

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HAPPY FORGIVENESS SUNDAY!

I’m not Orthodox, but the entire concept & celebration of Forgiveness Sunday is both deeply humbling and deeply beautiful.

Ask for forgiveness from God, ask for forgiveness from your neighbor– and then offer forgiveness to your neighbor in return, as we have received forgiveness from God.

Lent is all about forgiveness, mercy, & repentance. It’s a time to grow closer to God and act more like Christ, by loving & serving God and His people, and turning away from all sin, which harms those relationships.

Let us all look forward in hope to this time of penitence, for it is a time of restoration, and at the end of this desert road– by the way of the Cross– new life awaits us; life in the Lord!

Happy Forgiveness Sunday indeed! 🙏❤

This statement is not wrong, but it is not completely right, either. It is a basic observation from a genuinely religious people, who are simply unaware of the transcendent nature of that other religion's building.

Let me begin by correctly affirming the implication here of divinity within nature:

"The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, His boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God... God has written a precious book, “whose letters are the multitude of created things present in the universe,” [and] no creature is excluded from this manifestation of God." (Pope Francis)

God absolutely speaks to all people through nature; the created world is our most direct and immediately universal revelation of the beauty of the Creator. "Natural religion" is called that for a reason; it is an instinctive response to the divinity we see reflected in the blessed earth around us. Some cultures stop there, and worship nature itself-- not realizing that nature is our sister, not our mother (as Saint Francis beautifully penned). Some cultures do imagine "gods" in control of nature, but they are not creators, not of the very hearts of things; nor do they satisfy the even deeper human desire for something greater-- something we can know and touch, here, to tell us vividly of God, of the Heart of beauty itself.

Honestly? I say we still miss the Garden. We still dream of Paradise, after being cast out from it. Our "wanting more" was misplaced, as we already had everything... everything except loss. So we lost everything, and now we ache to return, not because it was lovely, but because of why it was lovely... because of Who created it and us.

That is the deeper point. For the Christian-- and especially Catholic-- soul, there is a recognition and explanation of the innately longed-for depth beyond the surface sparkle:

"When we immerse ourselves in the beauty of nature and be attentive to what is going on in our soul, we find that we have a longing for even greater beauty. No one ever said, “That sunset was all I ever wanted to see.” We always want one that’s a little brighter, a little longer, a little more picturesque. The beauty in nature awakens in us the desire for Infinite Beauty, Jesus Christ Himself." (Christian Williams)

And THAT is where the "building" comes in. It is not 'necessary' for worship, or for prayer, or for talking and listening to God. Nature is, indeed, a wonderful place for all those things. But nature has not been specifically instituted by God as a memorial of His Saving Sacrifice, as a specific and sacred spot of spacetime where He can still be with us physically. God is there in nature, yes, but not literally so. You can only touch God through the hands of a priest, and such a staggering miracle both deserves and demands a particular place to occur, something "set apart" from even the beauty of the natural world, which-- although inherently good-- can easily get tangled up in pagan pantheism, and whose greatest beauty pales spectacularly in the Presence of Christ.

We go inside a building to talk to God because He is literally there. We built Him a house we can visit Him in, like a friend, like a lover-- a place uniquely His own, built by His family on earth, something tenderly human and beloved even in its flaws. A church is not a sunset, but oh, once you have met the Lord there, you would gladly give up ever seeing another sunset, if it meant you could stay with Him instead, and taste Heaven on earth.

You will never have to hunger for Paradise again.

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‘Eve After the Fall’. Auguste Rodin. 1886.

This is terribly powerful in its simplicity.

Consider: this is the first woman. The very first! She was created pure, joyful, as simple and guileless as a child. She had no shame, no guilt, no fear. She walked with God in Paradise, and the very concept of suffering– of sin & evil– was alien to her.

However… yes, she was pure, but she was not perfect. She was still fallible– she had free will, and the possibility of choosing wrongly was an inherent risk of that liberty.

Satan knew this.

One day, as Eve was admiring the one tree she was forbidden to eat from, a strange serpent slithered into her sight and hissed the first human temptation– mistrust in God.

“Did God really say that…?”

Eve’s faith was not perfect. Some key part of her heart was not fixed on her Lord. She doubted, she desired, she took the fruit that was not hers to take… and suddenly, she knew.

She knew she had sinned.

And look at her now! Look, at this first woman, this poor young child of God, once a stranger to death but now she has tasted it firsthand. Look at what that knowledge has done to her. Her legs are crossed in shameful self-awareness, one foot held back and hesitant, betraying her new inner instability. She has one arm wrapped tightly around her chest in a gesture of unquestionable distress, hiding not only her breasts but also her heart: two parts of her body once innocent, now tainted by the suggestions of sin. Her other arm speaks volumes. It is crossed over the other, closing her body language totally, but the hand is raised– feebly, not to shield from a blow but to deter all contact, all comfort. Don’t look at me, it says. Don’t touch me. Her guilt is too great. She turns her head away, but does not bury it completely; she has not fallen entirely into self-pity. Perhaps she is holding on to hope, to the only light she has left within reach– “her offspring will attack the serpent’s head.” Somewhere in the future, her now-miserable body will once again cooperate with God’s will, and then– oh, so soon, she prays– evil will be crushed. Perhaps then she could return to Paradise, to her Lord, and leave behind this terrible curse.

Until then, here she stands… fallen, but not forgotten.

I apologize for not posting anything specifically about Lent. I know it's tomorrow. I've been thinking about it constantly. But I've also been very sick, in and out of the ER, and that suffering is eating up my focus as well. I feel like a wreck of a Christian, struggling so much just with everyday living. I don't know what else I can give up, other than my fears and anxieties, so that is my goal. I will pray more, and panic less, and be merciful to myself and others, and hold tightly to my hope in God, and a life with Him after this. Lent means so much to me. I am grateful it is here, even if I am weaker and more pitiful spiritually than ever. God have mercy on me during this penitential season. I pray that this time heals my poor soul.

May Our Lord bless you all this Lent. May your devotion bring you ever closer to the Heart of Christ.

"When you put those two things side by side—the naked fact that “God is” and that “you are"—letting the two exist together in quiet contemplation, you have entered the deepest, simplest mystery of prayer. "Take the good, gracious God, just as he is, without qualification, and bind him, as you would a poultice, to your sick self, just as you are.”"

Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality

There is nothing more to add to this beautifully phrased & intimately profound truth, other than the sincere entreaty to pray like this as often as possible.

Just… be there, heart thrown wide and aching open, in that silent recognition. Hold yourself close and quiet to Him like a tired and teary-eyed child clinging to his loving father. Just be there. You will feel the cosmic depth of it, and the utter simplicity of it. And God will speak unspoken Truth to your small yet such-beloved heart.

And you must live there. There is all peace, there is all joy, there is all love.


 

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
(Isaiah‬ ‭43:18-19‬)
 

When your past feels utterly wrecked, and your present utterly desolate, remember this. God wants you to look to Him instead of over your bruised shoulders. He wants you to look in trust, in wonder, in hope so keen it aches. Yes, you are in great sorrow and pain, but look! There is an oasis in the desert. Look! There is life blooming amidst the frozen rocks. Look! God is kissing your wounds. He is recreating you in love. No matter what you were before, no matter what you did… now, God is doing a new thing– He is doing it in you, for you!

Where you see only desolation, God sees an opportunity to work a miracle. His power is made perfect in weakness. Give Him your wastelands, and look– He shall fill them with flowers.

"Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone." (Galatians 6:10)

Keep your heart open to those opportunities, and you will see them everywhere– they are like glittering yet hidden diamonds waiting to be revealed and shared.

But be warned– if you grumble over the possibility of suffering to do good, over complaints of inconvenience and impatience and indignities, then you will miss thousands of priceless spiritual gems… your hardened heart will see everything, like itself, as a dulled rock.

Let love break that stone so you can shine. Start small, start sincerely. Even the tiniest jewel is inherently precious. Do good, always and everywhere, and watch the world around you begin to sparkle with the light of God.

Anonymous asked,

Hello, I am asking if you could please pray for me? I had a hallucination/waking dream last night or maybe a real spiritual event but I doubt it--in which a demon tried to attack me and I just want to know that people of God have my back. Thank you. God Bless

 

Dear sibling in Christ, as someone who also experiences such demonic torments, I will absolutely pray for you with empathetic sincerity.

Do not lose heart. Many saints have suffered at the hands of the devil. No matter what he or his minions do, however, Christ has your back. More than anyone else, He is there for you, even if He does not intervene directly. He has His holy purposes; all He allows is meant to help you grow in holiness and virtue, to conform your soul more closely to His. Satan hates our Lord– therefore he also hates His people. But he cannot and will not win, as long as you endure in faith. Take courage.

In any case, many prayers are being said for you, for mercy and deliverance, for strength and consolation. Saint Michael the Archangel, we particularly recommend this soul to your mighty care and protection. Saint Joseph, terror of demons, pray for them and stand by them. Mary, Queen of Angels, chase the fallen ones away! Stay with this soul as a mother who always defends and comforts her children. We ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ our sovereign Lord. Amen.

"Wherever I am, as soon as I raise the eyes of my heart in my affliction to God, the Lover of men immediately answers my faith and prayer, and the sorrow immediately departs. He is at every hour near me, only I do not see it, but I feel it vividly in my heart. Sorrow is the death of the heart and it is the falling away from God."

- St John of Kronstadt

Let suffering & sorrow bring you closer to Christ, by motivating heartfelt & fervent prayer– but pray with faith, and humble surrender nevertheless! Jesus longs to comfort you, even if the affliction does not abate. He will still bring His peace into your heart, true and unshakable, and that closeness to Him is what shall soothe all sorrow.

Do not fall into self-pity or despair; they will choke your soul. Instead, like a child in pain seeking its mother, run immediately to The Lord, Who Loves you. In this, even your worst afflictions will become gates to holy joy– through love they will take you to the Cross, where your pains unite bittersweetly with His, with Life Himself Who will deliver you thus from spiritual death. Fear not!

We typically have no idea what God is doing, in those scary times. We’re frightened, confused, and hurting. But God is holding you in His Hands even then, especially then, when everything but Him is powerless and at a loss. God’s glory is made manifest all the more stunningly in weakness. We know this from Saint Paul, but do we believe this?

Begin by thanking God for everything. It’s radical trust, radical surrender, radical love. And it will bring you the most profound peace.

In trouble,– today especially– I pray like this:

“God, I’m scared and upset and I’m distressed by what is happening… but I trust You. I know that Your Will is Good, and I want to surrender to it despite my fears. Help me to do that by Your grace. Help me to rest in Your Love and care, especially when I cannot see it clearly at work. Strengthen my faith in You during this time. I unite my sufferings to those of Christ Your Son in reparation for my sins. I thank you for this grace. I thank you for Your purposes in allowing these things to happen, however difficult, for You have a plan. I thank You for keeping me safe in Your plan despite my wretchedness, and for loving me so much that nothing in this world can separate me from You, no matter how terrible it may be. I thank You for everything, because I love You too, feebly but sincerely, and I do not fear Your Good Will. I trust You. Thank you for all of this. Amen.”

Just… pour your heart out to God. Center on your love for Him, and on His Love for you, and gratitude will flow out from your soul like a river.

Thank You, God, for everything, everything. Thy Will Be Done.

semperreformanda:

God holds all things together.

Rest.

Everything is under His loving control. He’s got you covered.

Be at peace, like a child in his Father’s arms. Rest there by His Heart.

As He holds you, so He holds the universe.


 

kweza-deactivated20221020:

at some point, you have to realise that all you can do for a hardened soul is pray for them. you don’t have the power to transform heart but God does.

Arguably, that prayer also has great merit because it can only spring from genuine humility– recognizing that I am not God, I cannot change them, I have no control or power nor should I. You must surrender them, and yourself, entirely into God’s care and good will.

Furthermore, this shift from “I must save them!” to “only God can save them” MUST be motivated by love and mercy. You are not “abandoning” a loved one’s hardened heart to the Lord– how could that heart’s Creator ever abandon it?– rather, you are relinquishing your desperate grip on it, so that He can hold it to His own Heart and soften it in a way no human ever could. To admit this exclusive grace is to also hope for it. We cannot see Love without Love first being in us, too, by that same grace.

But I continue with a warning. If, when you stop trying to save someone and “put it in God’s hands,” you fail to pray for them, OR you are begrudging in your loss of attempted saviorship– then you are being motivated by pride and that will drag your soul down into hardness with nauseating speed. “Love your enemies” is a paradox because, when you love someone– love, not necessarily like; there is a difference– they are no longer an enemy, but a lost friend. If you are so offended by your inability to transform them as such with your own power, they will never be loved by you, not in any truth. But when you choose to love them anyway, even with no outward transformation or sign, then– by God’s grace in your soul– they are nevertheless, despite all hell, a friend that you want to meet in heaven.

That’s how we must pray for our ‘enemies’. In fact, no one is our enemy but Satan. Every human being that has ever hurt you is just a lost and stumbling sheep– just like you. Forgive them, beloved, as Christ forgave you– for their soul, too, is beloved to God. Be humble, be merciful, be hopeful, be loving. Put them in God’s care, and tell Him how much you love them and desire their salvation– not for your own sake, but for His, because they may never convert in this life until the last moment. You may never be on “friendly terms” with them until heaven. No matter. Love hopes all things, with no self-interest, and rejoices in the salvation of all, for the love of God Who Is Love.

Pray for those who persecute and insult and hate you. Pray for their hearts to be delivered from evil and brought to God. Pray for all souls to know His mercy, especially those who need it the most. God can soften even a heart of steel. Have faith in this, and pray.

Renunciation of Peter (Fragment), 1311, Duccio di Buoninsegna

He still has his halo, but it is obscured– even as his feet are stretched out towards the flame. There is a powerful sermon in those details alone.

catholic-persephone:

To my fellow Christians, do you guys think we should reply or talk back (not harshly, but just to state or correct) professors during classes? And also to participate in general presenting another point of view? Or should we remain as the others and just pretend we are also insane and agree with everything?? Lol

As G.K Chesterton wisely said: “You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.” In other words, we must be willing to defend the honor of our beloved, or we have no honest right to call them beloved.

I, too, decry the use of harshness and similar rudeness in our responses to others, especially those in authority. Like Christ, we must speak firmly but gently, respectfully but with integrity. We must not bend to spiritual cowardice or laxity.

If we feel our conscience prickling in response to a professor’s statement– or anyone’s statement, regardless of professional context– we have a moral duty TO act upon that and speak up– again, not for our own sake, but for the sake of our Christian faith. Likewise, participation in the general “sharing of viewpoints” is arguably critical in this confused and relativistic age, when your voice may be the only one willing or able to contribute a Christian viewpoint.

Pretense is a form of dishonesty, and an insidiously corruptive one at that. All dishonesty comes from the evil one. The world is mournfully insane enough; to surrender yourself even to the appearance of it is arguably a sin of omission with gravely dampening effects on the Spirit’s fire in your soul. Enough pretense and you will forget the truth of who you are, which is ultimately anchored in Christ. So too does an admittedly spineless “agreeing with everything” attitude cloud your moral compass and rot your sense of fortitude and religious honor– I repeat, “we must fight for what we love,” if we truly love it, for all love will suffer from the cruel forces of hell… and what lover can bear to see his beloved so oppressed, attacked, mocked, wronged, and ignored? The one in love does not think of himself; he has no fear of ridicule, nor is he intimidated into hiding or diminishing his loyalty. He humbly yet faithfully rises to the challenge, and the purity of his heart will lead him to victory.

This may seem an overzealous response to such an everyday question, but that is in fact why I risk the appearance of excess. This is an everyday battlefield. This is one of those unassuming crossroads of character that we encounter regularly yet ignorantly, not discerning the ever-present stakes, the constant tug-of-war between God and Self in our lives, between the militant devotion of faith and the insouciance of the lukewarm soul. We must be vigilant, for evil never ceases to hunt us. We must be ever ready and willing to face the world and its liar Prince with swords drawn and hearts afire, saying with our Savior that “It is written and forever remains written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE ONLY HIM.’” (Luke 4:8)

“…For whoever denies and disowns Me for fear of men, I shall also deny before My Father and His angels in Heaven!” (Matthew 10:33; Luke 12:9)

“How can we understand forgiveness if we haven’t recognized the depth of our sin?”
- John Henry Newman

Truly, forgiveness means very little to one who feels he has no need of it– such a one may even feel offended at the implication that they have done something that needs to be forgiven.

Unless we are humbled– even crushed– enough to both see and admit our great sinfulness and need of forgiveness– unless we realize that we absolutely deserve to be crucified for our evil deeds, we will not, and cannot, understand the staggering mercy and love of God through Christ’s saving death in our place.

Our faith is a terribly beautiful paradox in this: that the greatest of all miseries– our contrite cognizance of how we have offended God– leads to the greatest of all joys… hearing our Savior say from the bloody Cross, “I forgive you.”

filmnoirsbian:

I love how quick people are to band together. Strangers waiting in line, strangers in an elevator, strangers at a concert, strangers in a public restroom, strangers in an airport, strangers on a bus…literally all it takes is one shared glance and we develop a sense of comraderie 🫂

Human hearts are made for relationship, and it’s beautiful to see them bloom so swiftly and sincerely. Even if you never meet again in this world, your souls have spoken, and that touch lasts forever.

Human connections, however brief, are golden sweet things. Beloved, make some today, in that very motivation of love. Smile, say hello, wave to a child, even talk about the weather. Just reach out and touch their heart, genuinely, even for a moment. Treasure that person. Glimpse their full life and potential in that heartbeat of time. Love them, and then let them go on too. Life is all about that shared camaraderie, and it will enrich your days like endless flowers. Give a stranger a bouquet today.

koinohnia:

Don’t worry about money or provision just keep God first and seek Him always.

Believe me, He will provide– if not financially, then with grace and spiritual support nevertheless. Eternal life is more important, and God will prioritize that– thanks be to Him– as we also must. So trust His judgment. Seek Him first, seek Him only, and He will take care of the details.

llleighsmith:

i’m so thankful we’re alive to smell flowers and touch saltwater and get chilled in the breeze and take deep breaths and make foods warm with love and dance and laugh and move and wake up and dig our hands in dirt and eat strawberries and draw mindlessly and remember and sing and joke and walk down the same street again and again and make meaning. we are so lucky we get to be and feel and keep going

God has created a truly beautiful world, yet it is only a pale glimpse of the undiluted blissful purity of heaven. May we treasure our short time on this fragile and precious earth, living our equally fragile and precious lives with charity and compassion and mercy for both it and each other, seeking always to preserve and protect and promote beauty in every action, in every moment.

There are flowers and oceans and gentle breezes, dirt and strawberries and sunlit streets, music and memories and much much more. There are people. There is you. Life is so wonderfully rich in loveliness and we must live in constant recognition and gratitude for it, while never losing hope and direction towards what further love awaits our tender souls after death. This is how Christ Himself lived– God Who became human in order to laugh and breathe and eat and cry and pray– who built furniture and broke bread and hugged children and healed lepers and died to take away our sins, so we could live our lives today with a fuller and brighter joy, with a stronger and truer hope, with steadfast faith and ardent love. Christ loved being human, and He loves humans, and He wants us to be fully human, and so we should imitate His heartfelt and holy life. That includes dirt and flowers and strawberries. That includes singing and sleeping and feeling. Do not worry, child. There is more loveliness to be found in His footsteps than you can ever imagine.

How lucky we are to have this life, this time, this world. How blessed we are to have a Savior Who made it all and shares in it with us as our friend… and how joyous we are to have the constant hope and promise of heaven with Him in the end. That is true life– here, and hereafter. God loves you all.

Everything that is, is because of God’s Will. He orchestrates the universe’s heart. Let that touch yours, as you look at the cosmos around you. It’s all God’s choice. You are, too.
 

“God is love, and all his operations proceed from love.”

— St. Lawrence of Brindisi

All means all. Remember this in your darkest days– God is still in control, and everything He orders and allows will and does serve His purposes of Love. It is His nature, His essence; it cannot be otherwise! So fear not. God is Love, forever and always and in all ways.

This prayer has me honestly weeping. It is heart-achingly beautiful.

Dear Saint Mary Madalene, pray for us, your poor sinful siblings, by the grace of the One Who you love so much! Remind our wounded souls that, as He healed you, so shall He heal us, who also seek Him in our sorrows. Help us to always remember the tenderness of His mercy and love, and to never despair, even when we too stand at the tomb. There is always an Easter morning. May God bless us with the grace to meet you, and Him, there.

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Steel pilgrimage amulet/souvenir depicting Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, and the Virgin Mary found in the River Thames in London, England, c. 1400-1700. [2832x3969]

My three Marys!! Oh wow. Found in a river, too… almost lost, but never forgotten by God. That’s the hope that Mary Magdalene & Mary of Egypt both exemplify for me– no matter how deep and turbulent and persistent a sin may be, its rough and choking waters will be forever stilled by Christ, Who calms every storm, Whose Heart is the purest ocean of Mercy. And Mary Our Mother, Star of the Sea, leads us to Him out of our muddy mires, never abandoning her children, but guiding them with tender care.

That all just pierces my heart with such aching tender love. I am so glad this was recovered and shared with the faithful.

Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Mary of Egypt, Our Blessed Mother Mary– pray for us poor sinners still drowning here, and seeking the shores of heaven! Continue to intercede for us until the day we stand safely alongside you in heaven, in the warmth of Our Savior’s Love!

ashstfu:

people are so lovely‼️ they do these ordinary and mundane things like someone is walking hand in hand with their lover and someone is helping a blind old lady cross the road and someone is dancing in the rain with their best friend and someone is helping a little girl find her mother on a crowded playground and someone’s cat is lying next to them on the couch snoring loudly and it’s adorable and someone is dancing to music alone in their room and someone just went into a bakery and is deeply inhaling the sweet smell of freshly baked bread and a little kid is waiting for his grandpa to pick him up and someone is making dinner for their family while singing their favorite song and someone just confessed their love to someone and someone is talking about something they love with a sparkle in their eyes and you’re reading this and you are alive and you are loved, everything will be fine, you’ll be okay and you’ll be happy

There is such sweet tenderness to just being human.

Treasure people. Really see them, and be grateful for them, and love them. That's what the heart of life sings about. God created us to love-- to love Him and to love the planet and to love people-- and really, that's the most beautiful truth. We're all included. We're all wrapped up in that beloved cosmic embrace, forever. In the end, there's only love. Take comfort in that. It will carry you, so you can carry others too-- gently, joyfully.

We will all be okay, held so closely to each others hearts.

Be human. Be loving.

    "Because many Christians are more eager to acquire much learning than to live in God’s purpose for their life they often go astray, and bear little or no fruit."
-Albert Finch

   
"Isn’t it incredible how man, blinded by his self-efforts, can turn something so beautiful, like spending quality time with Jesus, into a work?"
-Albert Finch

spacekrakens:

It would have been my brother’s birthday today, and my mom having a really difficult time with grief tonight, please pray for peace for her

Praying for all of you. 🙏

A small but real comfort: his soul is alive and he still loves you, too. Remember and rejoice that you have memories with him, even while you grieve– for grief is born from love inexpressible– and hold to your hearts thr blessed hope that you shall meet again in the end. God loves you all, and holds your lives and afterlives safely in His hands.

Eternal rest grant unto her brother’s soul, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

jurakan: The media be like, “The Catholic Church is so hypocritical for expecting Joe Biden to follow the beliefs he professes to believe in every Sunday!” Look, I don’t know how to put this more plainly: a man who will not keep his promises to God will not keep his oaths to us.

angeltreasure: He needs to change his ways and go to Confession. He says it’s a private matter but it’s not! Not when my country loves to ‘“police the world”’ so naturally this whole thing is going to blow up as other countries watch us and laugh. We need to pray for him.
 

We absolutely need to pray for him.

Furthermore, it’s never a private matter when scandal against the Body of Christ in His Church. Catholicism is a community of faith, a community of saints born from contrite sinners. If Biden fails to recognize that his actions and inactions are globally reflecting on the Church he has been baptized into, then he fails to recognize that Christ-relationship aspect of it– and that is fatal.

As members of Christ’s Body on earth, it is our holy responsibility to keep each other accountable to God. We are all on equal footing before Him. Politician or peasant, we are all subject to Divine Justice… and Divine Mercy. Pray for our president.

Treasure the lives of all those you know, even in passing. Love them, care for them, listen to them, help them. Tomorrow, they may be gone. What will you miss about them? Yes, you will miss them, even your most distant acquaintance– it is inevitable, for all human hearts are connected, and the loss of any and every one is felt. Think upon this. Do you appreciate the presence of their lives in theirs? Do you care for them? Do you love them? Because there is so much to love, in every one of them.

Kiss your children. Hug your parents. Visit your grandparents. Call a friend. Write to an old pal. Chat with the people at work. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Love people. Life is so short, so precious. Treat every soul you know like a precious jewel, which you rejoice to look at, for every glance shows some new beauty before unnoticed. One day they will be gone, taken back to God, and all you will have on earth are your memories of them– hopefully, with them, too. Go, make some blessed memories, for yourself and others, today.

This is a story of kindness perpetuated, but it concludes with a tremulous hope. Consider this! Are you anyone’s repeat customer? Do you care about the workers at the places where you shop and eat? Do you know any of their names? Do you want to know their stories, their hopes and dreams? If you knew they were struggling to make ends meet, would you be a little extra kind, compassionate, generous? Do you thank them for their indispensable role in allowing you to have the conveniences you rely on? They are people, beloved people, and they continue to exist once they are off the time clock. They are your neighbors; they could be your friends. Do you love them as such?

Take time today, this week, to be lovingly brave and act on this, if you haven’t ever before. Say hello, smile, say thank you, maybe even make some small talk. Yes, it is an investment, yes it is a commitment to a relationship, however small. But you will bring a little more love, a little more hope, a little more joy into someone’s life, someone who may feel utterly ignored, unappreciated, and unimportant. Have compassion on your neighbor.

And remember– heaven is all about relationship. It is a community of saints, a collective unity of holy love and friendship. If you forsake human connections now, how do you expect to handle heaven? Christ commanded us to love each other, friend and foe alike. This story is a simple yet true illustration of what that looks like.

Every tiny act of kindness and compassion makes a difference. Every single one. You may never see the full effects of it– you may not see any effects at all– but God does. God is Love and He will unfailingly deliver and perpetuate all love. So give a little love, no matter how little; it’s still love, and like the widow’s penny, it carries a precious worth inestimable.
 

"Here now is the shortest and easiest way to salvation: Be obedient and sober, do not find fault, and keep mind and heart from evil thoughts. Think that all men are good and beloved of the Lord. For such humility the grace of the Holy Spirit will dwell in you, and cause you to exclaim, “How merciful is the Lord!""
-St. Silouan the Athonite

This is the very mindset of Heaven, in which the mercy and tenderness of God permeates all our thoughts and actions. It is so beautifully simple, for all it requires is Love!

"The Holy Spirit teaches us to love our enemies, so that the soul pities them as if they were her own children. There are people who desire the destruction, the torment in hell-fire of their enemies, or the enemies of the Church. They think like this because they have not learned divine love from the Holy Spirit, for he who has learned the love of God will shed tears for the whole world.
You say that So-and-so is an evil-doer and may he burn in hell fire. But I ask you — supposing God were to give you a fair place in paradise, and you saw burning in the fire the man on whom you had wished the tortures of hell, even then would you really not feel pity for him, whoever he might be, an enemy of the Church even? Or is it that you have a heart of steel? But there is no place for steel in paradise. Paradise has need of humility and the love of Christ, which pities all men. The grace of God is not in the man who does not love his enemies."
~St Silouan the Athonite

Love your “enemies” as if they were your own children. Be just so merciful, tender, and longsuffering with them, as a mother is towards a lost child! Are not all souls, in fact, God’s children, even if they refuse to recognize it? Their Creator is still Our God, Who loves them most sincerely with a Heart that aches for their safe return home. How could we, knowing this, not share in that same compassion for all?

There is no place for steel in Paradise. If your heart is not willing to melt for others, regardless of their offenses towards you, then you do not yet understand how God loves… you do not yet understand the power of the Cross.

"God is long-suffering and merciful to you: this you experience many times every day. Be long-suffering and merciful to your brethren, also fulfilling the words of the Apostle, who thus speaks of love before everything: “Love suffereth long, and is kind.” You desire that the Lord should rejoice you by His love, rejoice on your part the hearts of others by your tender love and kindness."
- St. John of Kronstadt

This is such beautiful way to phrase that golden rule– may your tender love and kindness cause the hearts of all you meet to rejoice, just as your heart rejoices in God’s merciful love towards you.

"Lead those I entrust to you in the ways of simple love, love dedicated to my divine tenderness. If people had more trust in me and treated me with respectful but profound affection, how much more would they feel helped and at the same time loved. I am in the innermost being of each one of them, but how little they care for me or for my presence, my desires, and my contributions. I am he who gives and who wishes to give always more, but it is necessary that I be desired and relied on."
-Fr. Gaston Courtois

To be helped, we must admit we need help, we must want to be helped, we must be grateful for the help, and we must love the one who helps us. All of this springs from humility, simplicity of heart, and purity of desire.

Think of how much Jesus helps you, always! Reflect on what He has done to save and deliver you in the past, what He does to correct and guide you on the present, and what hope and joy He continues to give you for the future. He never stops giving, because He loves you tenderly, and knows you need His help. Are we so proud that we resist this love? Are we grateful, like an affectionate child, or do we resent needing help? Take time to sincerely thank Jesus for His unfailing help today, to align our desires and priorities with His, and to reverently love Him in every moment– for He is there, within us always, our dearest friend and ever-present salvation in trouble.

"Imagine yourself seriously indisposed, and that I, who love you tenderly, call to see you. After saying a few words of sympathy and consolation, I should certainly look at you with compassion and, through love of you, make your sufferings my own. Thus when we meditate on the Passion of Christ, seeing Him in such affliction, we ought to compassionate Him, and then to remain looking upon Him in so great torments, and, through compassionate love, make His sufferings our own."
-St. Paul of the Cross

True compassion is to suffer with. This intimacy can only truly occur in silence. Yes, kind and gentle words are not without merit, but true consolation is of the heart, not the mouth. When we are able to simply be with Christ in His Most Sorrowful Passion, not seeking anything for ourselves through speech or actions– and especially not seeking a conclusion to the encounter– but desiring only to join Him in His pain, indefinitely even, for the sake of pure love… this is compassion, and this is how Christ loves us.

"When we receive the Eucharist, we become living tabernacles. God has entered our hearts!"

"The correct definition of a good Catholic is a Catholic who takes the salvation of his soul seriously."
- Ven. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

"Be increasingly available; be confident. I have brought you along decidedly difficult roads but I have never abandoned you, and I am at your service in my own way for achieving the grand and beautiful design of love that we have fashioned from all eternity. I told you that you would suffer a lot—but that I would be near you, within you—and that, sustained by my grace, you would never suffer beyond your strength."
-Jesus, to Fr. Gaston Courtois

There is a deep truth here, a shockingly joyous truth– that, when we suffer for Christ, He is near us; He is within us! If we remember this, we will embrace all our sufferings as graces from God, for they are all blessed opportunities of love.

    “The passions are uprooted and turned to flight by constant occupation of the mind with God. This is a sword that puts them to death. Whoever always thinks about God drives the demons away from himself.”
    - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, Eighth Ascetical Homily

“In Advent… we relearn the lessons of the first covenant: that we cannot make God, however we long for him; that we must be surprised, ambushed and carried off by God.”

— Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness

Oh goodness I love this. God is the One Who must make the first move, as it were; He loved us first, after all.

That’s the strange and sweet thought of Advent– oh we do long for Him now, yes, but even when we were totally lost in sin, absolutely imprisoned, we were dearly loved by Him, and He longed to free us… but, we were helpless, powerless, confused, and despairing. We had nothing but the bleariest hope that ‘there has to be something more.’ So our merciful God did, and does, this: He bursts into our dark lives, breaks the fetters, and carries us off like a bride. That’s grace! It hits you like a whirlwind of roses, beautiful and terrible and completely unexpected. The devil is confounded, we are astounded, and no one can stop it. If your heart is at all open to it, if you have only the tiniest crack to let the light in, believe me, God will pour grace in by the tankful. Yes, it is only when He comes and gives us that grace of love that we can return it– without Him, we are useless, impotent, empty– but what lover would ever leave their beloved so alone? God jumps at the chance to lavish love upon us. Give Him the tiniest glance and He will sing about it. Grace is divine generosity and we cannot fathom that magnitude of unconditional compassion… but when it hits, it’s an ambush for sure. We cannot make God do it; that would not be love! Anything freely given cannot be forced. So we must wait, and hope, and trust, and this is Advent’s very heart– listening for love at the door.

“[H]oliness is not the denial but the acceptance of being creatures.”

— Rowan Williams, Creation, Creativity, Creatureliness: the Wisdom of Finite Existence

We cannot be holy if we are proud. The humility that accompanies this total submission to God’s sovereignty is the only door through which His grace can enter and change us, to make us holy. We cannot do that ourselves. We are only clay– He is the Potter.

When we accept and freely admit our status as feeble creatures, then we also admit that we have been Created, and therefore Our Creator can and will do whatever He wills with us… thanks be to Him, that very will is to make us holy.

“The Advent tension is a way of learning again that God is God: that between even our deepest and holiest longing and the reality of God is a gap which only grace can cross; otherwise we are alone again, incommunicado, our signals and symbols bounced back to us off the glassy walls of the universe.”

-Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness

“...In spite of appearances, God and the world belong together. There is no place where the love of God can’t go. And that is unbearably hard to believe.”

— Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in “A Ray of Darkness” (via intrinsicallydisordered)

Paradoxically, it is only hard to believe if we forget that our God is a suffering God, a loving Father Who meets His children directly in their distress. In the most decrepit, war-torn, diseased, corrupted, ignorant, sin-wracked parts of the world and the human heart, God is there, poignantly there, because He needs to be there– He wants to be there. God’s Presence in those places is, quite literally, What allows them to persist. Suffering might also persist, but when God is acknowledged there nevertheless, it becomes a seed-ground for the most powerful mercy, charity, and justice to be proven.

God created this world. That is a fact, one that cannot be revoked, no matter how damage this world has been subjected to since. This world belongs to Him, as do we, and we are forever beloved to Him. We belong together. He is, inevitably, always with us. And that is the deepest comfort.

Saint Francis in Meditation, 1606, Caravaggio

There is so much intimacy in this. The simplicity and silence of the scene is touching, a glimpse into a private prayer, and the tiny details say so much. Everything is a quiet brown, warmed by candlelight, humble and guileless… I love that his Bible is propped open on a skull, and the beloved Crucifix is balanced between those worn pages, a little lopsided… and Saint Francis’s expression, brow furrowed with emotion, head resting on folded hands in deep thought. It’s such a natural pose but it’s not at all casual; I can feel the prayer in it, the absolute attentiveness of his soul.

God bless Caravaggio, this is gorgeous.

“But realize, every “you shall not” in the Bible is a promise of God’s protection. He is not preventing you from enjoying life; rather, He is saving you—keeping you from destroying yourself. Every command in His Word is an expression of divine love to you, His beloved child… . Adam and Eve didn’t understand this and the world is still paying for it. Don’t you make the same mistake.”

— Charles Stanley

Honestly, if God said “you shall not eat fly agaric mushrooms” or “you shall not put your fingers in an electric outlet” would you still disobey “just in case He’s hiding something from you?” Pride is going to kill us. When are we going to just trust God? Don’t we understand the nature of correction? If someone is blindly walking off a cliff, wouldn’t you shove them out of the way to solid ground? God is protecting us from our feeble human ignorance and stupidity– and I say this with humility and affection, for I personally am very stupid and ignorant, and if God didn’t love me so much I’d have tripped headlong over the Grim Reaper’s toes years ago. God loves us. God knows we don’t know the right thing to do on our own– no child does! We can’t reason out morality because our ego gets in the way. We are lost and we need help and if we would just trust our loving Father and admit our frightened weakness He would sweep us up to safety in His arms in a heartbeat.

Honestly this simple sad truth always makes me tear up so bad. Every command of God is just a different translation of “I love you.” Why don’t we believe that? Why don’t we listen to Him? Why do we think we’re missing out and run away, when our Father is really just saving the most beautiful stuff for later, when we are grown up enough to truly appreciate it? There’s nothing outside but snakes and thorns. God’s enemies want to kill you. God wants you safe. He has warned us. But somehow, we get duped. A devil offers us a fruit and the taste makes us forget it’s poison. God rescues us, chides us, and we associate our guilty pain with His discipline instead and blame Him rather than the devil at fault. Why do we keep making that same mistake? Why do we harden our hearts and pretend nothing is wrong when we sin? Why do we reject the gentle yoke? Do we not understand love?

See, that doesn’t even count as “drag” anymore– unless you’re referring to the “old serpent,” pun gravely intended. That man is outright dressing up as a demon. No one is thinking that he is a woman– that’s obviously not his intent. He’s actively mangling femininity into a disturbing caricature, turning woman into goddess into devil. Satan is mocking Eve to this day, through people like this. Satan is turning femininity into a hideous parody and we ignorant sinners are praising it. But hey, pride is the devil’s trademark. It rots everything it touches. There is nothing beautiful or feminine in that crazed costume whatsoever. It’s an atrocity. I genuinely fear for the poor children who are being forcibly fed sugar-coated propaganda from a literal nightmare.

Seriously, pray for these people. This is spiritual warfare and they are glamour-blinded prisoners, doomed to die if they are not rescued. Their souls are very sick. Pray to The Woman who crushed the serpent– Our Lady, the Virgin Mary– to heal femininity in our world, to restore the truth and beauty God intended to every woman, and to heal the hearts of all men who do such scandalous things as this!

insertcringename: A gay man, talking to a class of children: “Hi, I have a boyfriend. I like to hold hands with him, kiss and maybe one day we’d like to get married, just like your parents are. This is not something to be afraid of, and I hope you all grow up to be respectful people who doesn’t hate and attack people for being different.” Some of you: “oMg whY is tHiS PErsoN tAlKINg aBOut diRTy seX WiTh mY kiDS???!!??!!”
 

Gay people aren’t inherently more sexual than straight people, no. That isn’t the statement being made. The point is that the LGBTQ+ community has and does actively associate with deviant sexual behavior, sexual promiscuity, and mental illness. Just look at this website. This is not a criticism of individuals– this is a well-deserved condemnation of the evils of the LGBTQ+ movement.

I, personally, hold zero hatred for gay/trans folks, and actively denounce all violence and discrimination against them as people. The gay man in genuine love who just wants to spend his life with his partner is no threat to our children. The movement associated with his sexual preference is– notably in the surreptitious morally-relative adjustments they persistently attempt to make in the psyches of children.

As a Catholic, I staunchly believe in sexuality as being sacred, and only valid when chastely expressed within the sacrament of marriage, between a biological man and woman, for the sake of childbearing via conjugal love. Marriage and family are deeply important to my faith and I will defend them to the utmost.

This is where the hidden danger comes in. A gay man in love does not intend to undermine the sacred teaching of the church on this subject, but his innocent misunderstanding of what marriage is will nevertheless achieve the same end. This also goes for LGBTQ+ views on sex in general: in practice, in purpose, and in one’s biological relation to it. The more our societal views on sex are subtly twisted to a hypercasual, entertainment-based, self-serving model as opposed to one anchored in formal reverence and self-sacrifice for the sake of a family, the more our society as a whole will morally deteriorate until we are left confused and hollow at the expense of compromising our integrity.

Difference isn’t the issue. The matter in which the LGBTQ+ mindset differs is. And while I will always respect human persons, regardless of sexual orientation, I will not and cannot respect the beast of “pride” that attempts to use such folks as puppets for its own self-gratification. That’s what is corrupting our children through the media. But unless people stand up against it in these sneaking atrocities, it will swallow up the identities of SSA individuals everywhere in its glut of rainbow-stained hedonism.

That’s why they think you’re talking about “dirty sex” whenever you mention homosexuality. They recognize the ravenous wolf when they see even a friendly pup, so to speak. They don’t know that there is a difference between the two– between the movement and the man. Those who fear it, will fear you. Those who hate it, will hate you. That is wrong, yes, but they don’t understand. Not yet. Until people in general are able to differentiate between the fact of someone helplessly experiencing same-sex attraction and the optional but fatal choice to identify with the now-toxic subculture based on making that inclination into a proudly sexual obsession, they will assume that they are the same.

That thing is the enemy. Not you.

“Religion isn’t just a cute necklace you vibe with.” Amen. Religion is a matter of life and death, of morals and priorities and values, of how you treat humankind and creation and time and responsibility. Religion must inundate everything in your existence, and if it doesn’t, you’re treating it like a toy instead of the solemn way of life that it is. And this, this ridiculous marketing of religion for fashion and kitschy “inspiration” is outrageously crass.

The general neopagan idea seems, to me, to be that “women are goddesses” in general; there is a frustrating and shocking inability to see women as both subservient and yet heroic. The very idea that a women could be successful, strong, inspiring, etc. and yet still be submissive, meek, and feminine, is alien to them. Hence the disturbing pseudo-worship we are now frequently seeing for such figures as RGB and Kamala Harris, and the childish abuse of such words as “fierce,” “fearless,” “independent,” “wild & free,” etc. as if female virtue was based on the traits of an attack animal. There’s also the pervasive worship of intelligence, seen in the growing hypertrust in science and disdain for simplicity, as well as the hidden fear of having to ask someone else for help. Can’t do that and be a “goddess,” now can you?

To this company, and many people in our modern society, “a strong woman cannot be submissive to a masculine God” and therefore, she is now hailed as the god(dess) instead– but in a solitary role of power, rejecting all masculine divinity as “unnecessary” or even a hindrance. This modern goddess worship is a frightening, antichrist, misandric erasure of God Himself. “Who is your inner goddess” is a garbage phrase that seeks to foment this satanic ego-worship. It’s blatant self-idolatry, not just heresy. “Non serviam,” in essence. Yet ironically, like Satan himself, they are still ignorantly imitating the very God they rebelled against– the women are trying to claim masculinity as their own, and the devil is trying to recreate everything in his own image. In trying to usurp God, they only prove His necessity to existence, and His sovereignty over it. They want His job, but humans are worse than devils in that they refuse to admit He has it– let alone that He even exists.

Worst of all, this labeling of not only female saints but The Blessed Virgin herself as “goddesses” specifically attacks the Christian God by denying the fact that His Power is made manifest in their love and humble obedience to Him. Again, rejecting the virtue of submissiveness to God. But this flat-out undermines the Incarnation, by not only refusing to grant any power to God as Father, but by also so idolizing the female that she is seen as not needing a Savior– especially not a male one. Heck, I’d say that Jesus’s profound humility and submissiveness are also seen as ironic threats to this goddess mindset, because deep down they cannot deny that there true power lies, and real Truth, and it starkly reveals the hollow pride of their stolen thrones. Mary is Queen of Heaven because of her Son and because she was unflinchingly submissive and faithful to God despite all agony and hardship. She had no power, influence, or accolades on earth! That’s not what her Queenship is about! She is forever Our Mother, Our Mediatrix, who incessantly prays for us and helps us in our needs. She seeks no glory; she seeks no reward other than God Himself. THAT is true feminine power– “Behold, I am the handmaid of the LORD; may it be done to me according to thy word.” We don’t worship Mary, and she would reject the very attempt. Seeing her idolized here is so ignorant and offensive, it’s actually disgusting.

This genuinely angers me so much, but that means I need to pray hardcore for these folks and plead Luke 23:34. We need to admonish, instruct, and forgive these terribly lost and confused souls. God can convert even them, as He converted even us.

“Be satisfied with the living conditions you now have. And do not be prompt to show your learning or skill. Hold back your remarks, No, it isn’t so-and-so, but so-and-so. Contradict nobody and do not get into arguments; let the other person always be right. Never set your own will above that of your neighbour. This teaches you the difficult art of submission, and along with it, humility. Humility is indispensable.”

— Way of the Ascetics 

This is terrifically counter-cultural. To not demand any privilege, to forsake luxury, to reject entitlement, to avoid publicity and recognition and acclaim… it’s the exact opposite of what we see in the media, in politics, and sadly even in our own homes. To place the good of others always above your own requires much grace; this virtue is not of man, unachievable by human effort alone. Man can mimic virtue, true, but pride will render those same actions worthless and repugnant before God. Pride can keep its mouth shut if it means people will praise it as a result, but it is still seeking to “win,” to be greater than others. Pride sees others not as people, but as opponents, as rivals, as servants, as adorers, even as fools. Pride cannot honor others. Pride cannot serve others. Pride cannot forgive others, or show mercy, or sacrifice. Only humility is capable of that, for humility is the crown of Christ, Who Is Love.

Yes, a simple holy gratitude fosters humility, when we remember that all we have is God’s gift, and we deserve nothing in and of ourselves. This applies to possessions as well as talents. But holding one’s tongue in check, refraining from commentary, remarks, arguments, willfulness, and attention, requires a deeper sense of one’s littleness and unworthiness before God– a sense that, without the grace of charity, will be manipulated by the devil into further twisted pride through self-loathing. No, only love can inspire virtuous behavior. Love for God is what moves us to obey Him– to submit to Him with quiet, trusting joy, knowing He does Good for us at all times. And this same love of God, overflowing to our fellow man, will make our tongue naturally gentle and kind, with no effort but transformative grace. The meek heart sees all men as fellow children of God, as beloved siblings by the Father’s Love, and such a soul cannot help but love them in return– a true and tender love, seeking always to do them good, always to show them gentle mercy.

Have faith in God’s Fidelity & Goodness; He will work this change in you for His glory and honor, if you would only ask Him with sincerity.

Blessed are the meek!

Anonymous asked,
"You know that Ada Limón poem where she’s like “i can’t help it i love the way men love”? my dad recently confessed to me that he became a shoemaker because they buried my grandma shoeless"

---

"When the plane went down in San Francisco,
I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes.
He memorizes the wrecked metal details,
     the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke.
Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes:
The one in blue Kentucky, in yellow Iowa.
It was almost a year before I learned
his brother was a pilot.
I can’t help it,
I love the way men love."

- Ada Limón, “Accident Report In The Tall, Tall Weeds”

Oh, how even death cannot stop love– and all the depths of grief serve to strengthen its roots to bloom. To turn loss into light, to transform sight through suffering, so that every glimpse of the grave becomes instead a fiercely tender testament to the indomitability of compassion…!

The love of a man is a love that cannot break, that never quits, that persists even secretly into eternity. There is a strength in his heart that carries thousands in fond fidelity. When a man loves, he loves with all his powers, and by his silent yet solid service to it, he will reflect the ardor of God to the aching world.

The powerful simplicity of this image really emphasizes the significance of that Most Blessed Sacrament. We recieve the very Bread of Angels-- We recieve Christ Himself, from His Own Hands! It's enough to, fittingly, bring one to their knees in awe.

What deep reverence this inspires. May we all treasure and contemplate this sacred mystery with ever deeper love and humble gratitude.

leitharstjarna:

Can you imagine what cathedrals would have been like if the medievals had access to neon lighting?
Some Vietnamese churches give a glimpse of what it might’ve been like:


 

I am wholeheartedly here for this aesthetic, oh my goodness! Talk about a Light in the darkness, for sure!

Honestly though, why don’t we incorporate more modern artistic technology into our religious spaces? Human culture is so creatively beautiful, a reflection of the infinite imagination of God, and Christ, in becoming man, embraced and blessed that creativity too. So why not bring that part of us to the altar as well?

This is honestly why I love, so much, seeing individuals creating devotional works of art– their faith and love is overflowing into a natural and unique expression of holy adoration, something that cannot be mass-produced or automated, something truly beautiful. It’s like the legends of Christmas, with the little drummer boy being the most well-known. We offer our individuality, not to destroy it, but to sanctify it– to use it to serve God instead of ourselves.

Let’s put neon in our churches– if we are moved to do so as honest worship, not just for style. That’s the key here. It’s totally fine to give God all the glitter you’ve got as long as you’re doing it for His glory, not yours. If it doesn’t move the soul into deeper love of the Lord, then even all the neon in the world won’t mean a thing. Beauty is of God, so let’s direct it all back to Him!
 

"Humility facilitates a person’s encounter with God and sheds fresh clarity on all life’s daily problems. I truly become the center of your life at such a moment. You act, you write, you speak, and you pray for me. It is no longer you who live, it is I who live within you. I become your all, and you find me in all those with whom you come in contact. Your welcome is then more compassionate; your word is more the bearer of my thought; your writings are much more the faithful expression of my mind. Yet for this to happen, how much you must detach yourself from your ego!"
-Jesus, to Fr. Gaston Courtois
 

Humility is, the more I see it, a way of living in devoted love– you become so saturated with adoration of God that you don’t even think of your self-will anymore; everything you do, think, feel, and say is soaked through with the color of Christ. “He becomes your All,” but joyfully so, not begrudgingly or ruefully. Does the soul in love ever complain about doting on their beloved? Never. It is because that love insists on expressing itself perpetually; no one forces or coerces it. Love just loves, and when you are in love, you want it to take over your life, pushing your selfish impulses gently aside, and making all your choices focused on that tenderness and happy service instead. Even when it hurts– especially when it hurts, for love proves itself most powerfully in trial!

This is how we must love Christ. This is how we are to become humble. You cannot “make yourself” humble. God’s grace will accomplish that feat, in crucifying your ego and uniting you with Jesus’s own self-sacrificial death unto true life. Only then, truly, can you live for Him, in Him, through Him, with Him, because your heart’s gaze will be fixed on Him alone. Like the poet and the lover, you will see Christ in all, and sing of Him in all, and serve Him in all.

"My degree of radiance in a soul depends on how intimately I am present. But I am always there insofar as I find in the heart of a person my meekness and my humility. In the measure with which you renounce all superiority, you enable me to grow within you. This, as you know, is the secret of all true spiritual fruitfulness in the domain of the unseen. Ask me to be as humble as I want you to be, without pretense but with utter simplicity."
- Jesus, to Fr. Gaston Courtois
 

You cannot have an intimate, loving relationship with someone whom you deem as lesser than yourself. You may protest that you do not treat Christ as such, but do you truly? How often do you put your own desires ahead of His? How often do you forsake time with Him in order to do your own thing? How often do you disdain or treat lightly His Commandments and teachings? This is no way to treat your Beloved! The subtle slights and distractions are the worst, for they rot all sincerity out of your interactions. The only cure for such encroaching doom is, indeed, humility. Only within that queen of virtues can true ardor, fidelity, and tenderness flourish. When you humbly treat another as deserving of greater merit and attention than yourself, you are not doing so out of shame or idolatry, for true humility requires charity. Humility simply loves so fiercely and gently that the soul graced with it joyfully lavishes their attention, time, and service to the beloved, seeking their highest good and yearning to love them more fully. Superiority cannot feel such a motivation, for it demands that others treat them as such! Not so the humble heart, which thrives on self-giving and communion, and asks nothing but the grace to serve more, giving no thought to any other ‘reward’ but charity itself. That is simplicity of heart, and in that purity, we can see God.

This is how Christ lives. This is how Christ loves. Humility is His royal crown. Meekness is His robe of honor. When your heart meets Him there, in that lowly yet sweet place– a secret, quiet place– it is able to embrace Him as Beloved, without self-interest or hesitation. The more you know Him, the more you can imitate Him; then you can love Him all the more, and serve Him, and bear fruit for Him. But it all starts with the grace of humility– to put your self aside, especially in simple things, for the sake of simple love. Thus you grow closer to Him constantly, and so tenderly, as that humble love begins to inundate all the tiny aspects of your life.

Christ is the Bridegroom of your soul. Do you live that way? Do you invite Him into your daily life? Do you have that humility and guileless openness to Him yet? Do you have the meekness to turn to Him in all things, and seek to do His will with all gentle submission? Do you do all of this with fidelity in love? That is what will illuminate your life with His Light– the closer you let Him hold you, the longer you embrace Him, the brighter His radiance will shine in you.

This is all so ironically difficult to put into words. Truly the simplicity of it is proven in that. When you love Christ, the tender sweetness of it– of Him– makes humility blossom. Live in Him, live with Him, live for Him, love Him!

traumacatholic:

If you’re seeing this, please take a moment to pray for yourself and your own mental health. May God comfort you in your misery, may He steady you in your anxieties, and may He strengthen you.

You are allowed to pray for yourself, remember. If you struggle with that, I do recommend praying some of the Psalms to get your heart into the first-person mode of prayer, as well as to tune more fully into the wholeness of your emotions– sadness, frustration, confusion, joy, wonder, love. Your heart will then naturally sing out on its own, now that it has heard what the music is like.

In your most dire needs, pray for faith, pray for mercy, pray for grace. Even if all you can muster is the name of Jesus, that is His name you are calling, and like any beloved one, He will come running to meet you.

God hears you, even if He doesn’t respond in a way you can hear. Trust in Him. Sometimes the most sincere and loving response cannot be heard– an embrace, a hidden kind act, a look of deepest compassion. He will steady and strengthen you, even if He does not remove the suffering. He carries that cross with You and for You. Lean on Him, and He will be an unfailing comfort even in the face of your greatest trials. Pray for this! He will give it. He loves you.

"Let them take courage who are humbled by their passions. For even if they fall into every pit and are caught in every snare, when they attain health they will become healers, luminaries, beacons and guides to all, teaching about the forms of every sickness and through their own experience saving those who are about to fall."
- St. John Climacus

As someone who carries a heavy cross of mental & physical illness, this gives me such profound comfort it moves me to sobs. It really is an awful struggle, a humiliating war, but I know that God sees me and loves me and will never abandon me. Like Joseph in the empty well, like David in the lion’s den, like Job in his devastation– these trials are given to me from the Hand of God as part of His holy and salvific plan for not just me, but all of His people. If I hold strong to faith in Him, if I persevere in prayer and draw ever closer to Christ despite all obstacles, I trust that He will give me health through Christ, and the trials I have endured will now become teachings OF God’s utter Faithfulness and purposes in the most excruciating circumstances. This is the sight given to the blind, the light to those in darkness, for I too am currently blind and shadowed and frightened and in pain. But I have a fierce fire of hope in my soul, the burning love of God the Holy Spirit, Who cannot disappoint and Who will guide me through this dark vale of tears into the greenest pastures I could ever dream of. And once He has led me there, once He has navigated me safely through the pitfalls, then I will become His servant to show others the way through, too. That is my uncrushable hope. And so I will carry this cross up this hill until, with my Jesus, I finally die to death and rise in new blessed life– through Him, with Him, for Him.

Take courage, dear heart! The tomb is empty!

tomicscomics: HOW you say matters more than WHAT you say. …Right?

Terribly relevant to the world we live in, and the curse of moral relativism, is the disturbing fact that language matters, and abuse of words is a direct affront to The Incarnate Word– Christ Jesus, Who Is Truth, and Who Created all things By His Word. In horrible contrast, the devil is a liar, The Liar, always was and is and will be, and in his hatred for God he really enjoys twisting language until the Truth is unintelligible. Political correctness, euphemisms, slang, even misused wordplay are all symptoms of this grossly cowardly offense. If you have to conceal or costume the roots of something with your words, you’re playing the devil’s game. God does not mince words or deny reality. Your words cannot change His facts, although you might bury them deep. They’re still alive, though, and when they are revealed, there will be awful consequences. After all, you can joke about murder all you want– someone is still ending up dead.

tomicscomics: We live in a society.

Oof, this is way too reflective of the state of the world lately, and not just in politics. I have sadly seen this very mindset running rampant online, especially in mental health circles, and it is lethal! Whenever we shift blame, responsibility, choice, or power onto someone else, we turn a blind eye to our own involvement– and trust me, nothing is ever a one-person affair. We all have an effect, at all times, on the people & resultant culture around us. We need to be humble enough to admit that our influence is not always a good one, even if we have no ill will. Our sins are actually contagious– you can and will spread their symptoms without actively meaning to. But you must expose yourself to it in order to catch it, and that is always your own decision! If you aren’t guarding your heart, that sinful stuff all around you will find a careless eye, an uncaring ear, or an open wound, and take root. It then festers and molds inside of our hearts, and if it’s not addressed properly, it will spread like a cancer to affect every part of us… and blaming someone else for “making you sick,” denying that you are ill, or claiming helplessness will only kill you faster, spiritually. There is a cure, but the only cure is humility & confession– admitting that you’re sick, understanding how and why, realizing that you are responsible for and seeking help from the Physician Of Souls, Christ Jesus!

In short? Don’t let pride suffocate you. Moral relativism is saying that a tickle in your throat and lung cancer cause the same cough, and it’s not a problem. Have some candy, that’ll fix it! Not so. You need to be sharply honest and discerning about the state of your soul. Your decisions matter. Your choices have consequences. You don’t get to dictate the morality of what you do, any more than you can pick what symptoms you get from a disease. So think about the spiritual environment you are putting yourself in! What are you exposing your heart to? What contaminants are you breathing & touching? Refusing to look at your hands and heart means that you’ll never see the sores and scabs adding up there. And refusing to admit that you can get sick is just toxic foolishness. Think about how you use your free will– God gave you a conscience and a brain, after all!

Knowing that the water is filthy but drinking it anyway because someone told you to is both your faults. They chose to tell you, and you chose to obey. Free will is always extant. Use it courageously. Be humble, sincere, & responsible, not a proud yet cowardly liar! Learn to stand up for the moral good. Claiming victimhood does not absolve you. Your eternal life depends on it!

tomicscomics: It’s about sending a message.

Sometimes God’s messages really are that blunt– and goofy! “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” after all. But honestly… God absolutely has a sense of humor, but He also tells it to us straight. He will never sugarcoat the Truth, although He might still give it to us anxiety-prone humans in a way that makes it more palatable. Just look at Jesus’s parables!

I like to think that angels delight in having some harmless holy fun, too– Lord knows their job is arduous enough!

tomicscomics: 06/04/2020

This is the sweetest thing… and it tugs at my heart for the depths that very sweetness reveals. How often do we, like Saint Joseph, marvel at the simple yet spectacular fact of the Incarnation? How often does it really hit us that God became a little boy? He went through the entire endearingly clumsy process of learning and growing, completely dependent on His parents, pure and ingenuous and so, so small! What meekness, what love– for the Creator of All to become a tiny toddler, willingly and tenderly, wanting with all His Heart to be with us in such a gentle and intimate way.

Jesus is God become man, yes, and that is grand enough– but in that very same truth, let us never forget that first He had to be a young man– a child– a baby. A boy. What a thought!

"We could name each individual raindrop and then mourn its loss when it reaches the sea, but we understand that the water was neither lost nor diminished by rejoining the vastness from which it came."

We all die one day, yes, but have you forgotten– we were all also born? From whence did we come? God is the one Who put us here, Who knits together our tiny bodies and breathed our life into us. But these blessed vessels are finite, and one day the path will loop back around to His doorstep where we began. We will be embraced once more in the arms of the Father Who loves us.

Remember this carefully! Do we lose ourselves here? We are not raindrops! We are individual souls, and sacredly so! God has not formed us so painstakingly only to smush us back into primordial clay. Souls don’t get recycled. Bodies don’t get erased, even if they do temporarily lose their structural coherence when we leave them. But atoms persist, and relationships, and purpose. Life is neither perfunctory nor accidental. It is also not stopped by death– only changed. We arrive here, and we leave here, for a reason, and nothing is lost, and nothing is forgotten.

Death is truly a bittersweet sorrow, for the pain of loss is s temporary one, wrapped in mysterious hope. Your dearly departed have only passed from here to there, and unlike the raindrop swallowed up in sea, you will see them again– entire, beloved, and alive.

Crucifixion and Pietà, Polish folk art woodcuts, circa 1831.

I’ve never before seen a Pietà where Mary and Jesus are crowned! That speaks volumes. In that moment of profound suffering, where the Mother held her Child in agony, in death, in apparent despair– even so, He had just conquered death itself, BY dying– and in her unwavering yet severely tested faith, she shared in the first foretaste of that victory. In that beautifully heart-rending moment, we see, with our own hearts, not a vision of doom, but one of utmost love and hope. In the Pietà, Christ has still won, and Mary is now essentially the Queen of His nascent Kingdom, having been given charge of His now Cross-saved people [John 19:26].

Christ Jesus is victorious, despite everything. Glory be to God!

"Always remember that despite how people treat you or make you feel, there’s an entire heavenly court who want nothing more for you than your good. In heaven are saints who, if they could, would come back to earth and do penance just to have you in heaven with them."
-Nichola Regina

This is 1000% true. That is how deeply and powerfully and sincerely you are loved by Heaven– by God the Trinity, by His Mother, by His angels, by His Saints. Yes, all of them love you. Yes, you. Tonight, right now, just as you are, in your struggles and sadness and pain and fears and even your sin. They love you. They want you to be with them in Heaven, healed and joyous and embraced in that love forever. They would leave that paradise and suffer all your agonies for you of it meant you would be delivered safely to God… and Jesus Christ, God Himself, did do that.

No human, no devil, nothing on earth, nothing in hell, nothing in all of Creation can ever alter this fact. You are loved by Heaven as a permanently indisputable fact. And when you feel most alone and unworthy, that love holds you all the more tenderly to its heart, to the very Heart of God.

Please, remember this always. Anchor your joy in it. Never lose hope. Have faith in it. If you open your heart to recieve it, I promise you, it will guide you through even the darkest nights, straight to heaven.

Painting at the ceiling of the chapel in Mergozzo (Italy).

This art is gorgeous in and of itself, but I dearly love the subtle deeper truth– Behold, the Lamb of God, in the image of the humble, pure and innocent child, but also in the Word Spoken through Scripture read in reverence, in the ever-blooming joy flourishing in all growing things through that same Voice, and– most clearly yet most mysteriously– in the infinite and eternal paradox of the Cross, the Divine death of Self-giving Love which brought true and holy Life to those who were living in mortal emptiness.

The Word of God, the Life of God, is so close to us, all the time, in such simple and profound ways… but do we behold Him? Do we recognize His reflection in creation, His recollection in the Gospel? Do we truly grasp that reality yet unfathomable– that God is with us? For so He Is, now and until the end of all ages. Behold!

"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will equal the physical trials of the martyrs. But in order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."
-Fr. Seraphim Rose

I think about this so often. It’s a harrowing yet steeling truth that is more visibly relevant now than ever.

Remember that key endnote: you must be living in a different world than the secular one you must inevitably travel through. Yes, your body dwells here physically, but keep your heart & mind unstained and separate! Fix your thoughts on God, and no matter what surrounds you, your soul will be set strongly in a higher place.

“I am the servant of the Lord. I will what God wills, when He wills it, as He wills it, because He wills it.”

— Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Oh this is beautiful. Powerful, absolutely, and yet so beautiful! I could, and would love to, prayerfully meditate on this for a while.

This is why Mary is so lovable. What a heart she has!!

I saw this and instantly burst into tears.

I’m so tired of the world lately. I’m so tired of being alive. And now I can’t even go to church, my one refuge. I spend my days sobbing uncontrollably. All I want is God. Everything else is just miserable vanity.

But this, this is just… joy. Jesus, my Jesus, arms open, welcoming me, light and flowers and beauty, all of it feeling exactly like a homecoming– so simple, but purely so, perfectly so. I cannot put into words how this makes me feel, what weeping bliss it breaks into my heart. I want to run into His arms and stay there forever, forever, laughing with final relief and love. I’m home. It’s over. I’m home with my Lord and the hells below will never touch me again.

God knows I don’t have much time left here. I know. I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of not absolutely inundating every millisecond of my life with God while I remain– which I haven’t been doing as the daily war of illnesses is hell and the lack of monastic-grade worship is making it more of a hell. But I don’t give up, God help me. This is my hope. This image is exactly the goal that keeps me breathing.

Jesus, when its time to come home, I’ll come home rejoicing. Until then, let me keep my heart fixed on that thought. Keep the lights on for me.

Mother Church of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.  Contains the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola and many other saints.

Just take a few minutes and genuinely look at each photo here. Take in the depth of beauty, skill, and devoted love evident in the grandeur of architecture and art. Look at the natural glory of the light and space from God’s hands that perfects it all. Realize that every inch of this gorgeous church exists solely for the praise and worship and love of God– a temporal glimpse of the eternal bliss portrayed in that third photo, in the presence of our beloved Lord forever.

I could legitimately live here.

As the Lenten Season of penance and prayer begins, Catholics are called again to tread in the Way of the Cross with Christ… Despite the crown of thorns and reed scepter, bother intended as mockeries of Christ’s claims, His Divinity and majesty are evident. The persecutors of the present day, who force Christ’s Mystical Body to undergo the humiliation and suffering of the road to Calvary, will also find at last that Christ is truly King and that His divine power cannot be overthrown by earthly tyrants.

His divinity transmuted everything He touched, awakening deeper truths within it all. Those thorns are a true crown, for through humility and suffering Christ became King over all the earth, whereas a crown of gold would have been hollow and superficial. That reed is a true scepter, a sign of power through the most weak and broken thing, the ability of God to reign both through what the world deems useless, and to rule over the world and its empty power with those same humble means.

Behold, the Man– the true Man and the true God, His revelations a divine paradox, understandable only by the pure and simple of heart! May we walk His holy road with Him this Lent, seeking to imitate His divine example of blessed poverty of spirit and body, in order to ultimately share in His boundless riches in heaven!

We are His Mystical Body even today, and we must embrace His Cross in our lives all the more ardently in these terrifying times, for it is only through uniting our sufferings to Christ’s Passion that we, through Him, can rise triumphant despite it all.

Running this through Google Translate gave me some unexpectedly poignant results…

“I am yours, take Me back.”

“I Will; Uphold Me.”

“I Am. Receive Me.”

Just… what truths. Take Christ back into your heart. Obey His requests and defend His Word. Christ is born, both in history and in our hearts, then and now and always– He Is, so embrace Him!

We are worth more than many sparrows to the Lamb of God.

We are His, and He has come to bring us back to Him.

The Nativity by Gari Melchers

This is the mysterious glory of the Incarnation– that God Himself became man, became a tiny infant, in our shoddy gritty shadowed world, in time and space and temporality.

Jesus existed as the Light of the World right there in those dusty streets.

He still does.

And just… look at Saint Joseph. Mary is resting, exhausted from the effort of birthing divinity, as any of our souls would and will also be… but now, there is the Child; here is the Child, Light shining out of darkness, and His foster father is just looking at Him. Wordlessly, he gazes on in awe and wonder, perhaps even with some fear over what this means, what this will bring, in this world– but above all, he looks at Jesus Christ with tender love. He probably doesn’t understand much of what’s happening but that doesn’t matter here. He trusts in God, and he trusts in this Infant before him, fragile and small and infinitely brilliant, impossible to comprehend but there, alive, breathing and loving and his child.

I really, really love this painting.

The Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow, Russia

I suddenly find this so fitting, the golden-white warmth and beauty standing strong amidst the frozen black trees, the frigid grey sky. Yes, I adore winter, but I adore it’s beauty, the glory of God’s creative dream manifest in it, whether or not I’m freezing as a result. It’s beauty is constant, despite all inhospitable conditions.

And that’s what I see here– the Annunciation, the proclamation of perfect beauty in the very midst of a tumultuous world, despite all pain and hardship and sorrow and fear that marred man’s heart, and would continue to do so. Rejoice nevertheless! Christ has come, and His glorious Presence turns even the coldest snows, bitterest winds, and harshest ice into things of gorgeous gratitude. Christ transmutes it all– unfailing light and warmth in the dead of winter– and it all began with the Annunciation.

A church, burned and destroyed by ISIS during the group’s occupation of the predominantly Christian town of Bakhdida, Iraq.

The town was under ISIS rule between 2014-2016 when it was liberated by the Iraqi Security Forces.

Try as they may to destroy the buildings, those who oppose Christ can never destroy the true Church, for it is founded upon unshakable truth and grace.

Even now, these ruins speak in tragic triumph to the soul of their message. Although no mass is celebrated there now, the simple sight of the altar and icons is enough to move a heart to resolute rejoicing, to worship and gratitude, to an act of loving recognition of God despite destruction’s futile efforts to silence it.

Ecce Homo, Titian
 

I love how His Face looks so bruised, like the red He is holding… and yet there is this profoundly sad gentleness in His eyes, and that divine yet softly ineffable glow around His thorn-wrapped Head.

Behold, The Man. I adore every portrayal of Our Lord Jesus like this.

Mouth of Hell. Speculum humanae salvationis. Bruges. Ca.1460 Chicago, Newberry Library

Hell is so disturbingly carnal. Demons are always naked and wrathful and salacious and hungry. Hell itself is portrayed with a literal mouth, gulping down the damned, as heaps of animalistic devils ravenously chew and bite and devour fallen souls. It’s blood and spit and sweat and screams. There’s too much flesh, too much physicality. Hell is something far too tangible.

Inferno, Canto 24. The Divine Comedy. Gustave Doré ~ 1885 

What scares me the most about depictions of hell is how many people are in it. All of them, wracked with blind fear and awful despair… oh how we must strive to lead souls away from such a fate!

The Fall of the Rebel Angels (detail). Matthias Berckmans ~ 1643 Kerk Sint-Gummarus [Lier] 

The textures in this are terrifyingly fascinating. That’s something I’ve noticed in art– that holy angels are textured by their beautifully billowing garments, while fallen angels are textured by contorted coils of flesh. Just looking at the writhing bodies here, the pain and rage of hell is nearly tangible.

Des douze Perilz d'enfer, Robert Blondel. Bourges ~ ca.1480 BnF • via Bibliothèque Infernale on FB

There is a harrowing power in the condensed message this painting. It’s something I love about medieval art like this– space itself is relative, so that the image becomes more symbolic than literal.

Here, we see Adam and Eve cast out from Eden, but they are entering what appears to be a castle gate– the doors to the “gilded prison” of the world. Furthermore, this is juxtaposed against the fall of the rebel angels, also cast out of God’s presence and into the world, their stolen kingdom and castle… a horrifying sight, marked by the angel’s flaming sword, as if in solemn warning to the first couple that disobeying God is never a small matter.

I also like that the blue of the angel’s wings reflects the distant glory of both heaven and the faraway scenery– something beautiful that we yearn for and must strive to eventually reach. Heaven is the faraway kingdom, and we only can reach it by means of God’s gracious help, for no fallen thing can ever crawl back up, nor can anyone cast out of Eden ever reenter. But, through Christ, we can be reborn, restored, and re-initiated into heaven’s pure light, and that is our greatest hope.

Knight, Death and Devil. Aleksandrov ~ 2012 • via Bibliothèque Infernale on FB

Ahead of every Christian soldier looms the fact of his terrible death, and behind him creeps the fact of his terrible past. Yet he must pay no heed to their whispers, their mockeries, and their attacks, for they only seek to drag him from the straight and narrow path. The Christian soldier must put on the full armor of God and march ever onwards in steadfast faith, knowing that in Christ neither death nor the devil hold any power over him.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…

Tower of Babel. Aleksander Mikhalchyk. Ukraine 

At first glance, this great tower does seem wondrous– but keep looking, and its utter hollowness becomes obvious. This is nothing but a monument to man’s pride and selfish ambition, striving to reach the glory of heaven but never able to either achieve or imitate its beauty. It’s just rock and rubble in the end. Without God, even the most magnificent work of human hands is worthless dust.

Isaac Blessing Jacob, 1670, Bartolome Esteban Murillo

I’m studying Genesis 27 right now, and I dearly love how intimately this historic moment is presented here… how commonplace it feels, with the holy scene indoors juxtaposed against the unaware outside world. I also really love that Rebekah is there, too! I never imagined the scene that way, but it’s a notable and sweet addition.

The use of color and shadow in this is sublime as well. It’s a joy to the eyes, as much as its content is to the heart.

Descent from the Cross, 1311, Duccio di Buoninsegna

 

There is such tenderness in everyone’s postures, actions, and expressions here– but my heart is just breaking at Mary.

I can’t even find words to describe her, here. It’s beyond words. I could meditate on this moment of ineffably mournful yet triumphant love between her and her Son for a very long time.

I really, really love this painting.

A mosaic of The Last Supper from the Benedictine Sisters’ Clyde Monastery Chapel in Missouri.

Our Lord Jesus Christ (Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ), James Tissot

This image of Jesus is overwhelming; it moves me to weeping. It is so beautiful, yet so powerful. I am stunned with love of Him Who loves me.

Behold, our Lord, His Hands pressed to His Heart, His Face solemn and serious– hear His unspoken words, this physical declaration of His ultimate Incarnated Love! Understand the importance, the gravity, the ultimate end and goal of the Truth communicated here: God is Love, and Jesus is God, and Jesus is Love, and that infinite eternal Love is there, here, tangible, tender and true and powerful within that Heart, beating for us beneath His Hands!

He is our Lord! What is there for us besides Him? He is our joy, our hope, our peace– He is our Everything, and He wants to be our everything; He desires so strongly to give us all He is that He even became a man like us, to live with us and love us in an intimately human way, in a way so staggeringly close that, I wonder, if we truly grasp the hugeness of it. God became a man so He could live and die for love of us. His death, cruel and tragic, merciless and bloody, He suffered at will so that we could be pardoned and live. His death was and is the righteous sentence for our sins and God Himself, our Judge, became also our sole source of pardon before Him, because He loves us and wants us to live– truly live, free from sin, full of hope, and able therefore to love Him with hearts broken in reciprocal love.

I honestly could speak His praises forever from the surge of ardent love I feel in beholding this image of Jesus. He is my love and my life, and that’s what hits so hard about His Hands and Face here– He knows this, and He knows how crucial, how vital, how monumental the Truth He is not only indicating, but Incarnating, is… and He so tells us, in this gesture of unfathomably passionate love hidden beneath humility, that we must never take this Truth lightly.

Annunciation, 1897, Carlos Schwabe.

I love how Mary is almost completely covered by light and flowers here– it highlights her selflessness, her focus on God alone. Surrounded by emblems of holiness, purity, and fruitfulness, a water jug at her feet, Mary becomes the bringer of Living Water and Divine Light to the whole world, the sweet fragrance of heaven itself clinging to her clothes.

The Annunciation
Cornelis van Poelenburgh—1635
 

The composition of this is stunning– with the clockwise embrace of clouds and angels leading to Gabriel’s outstretched hand, but ending right at the door, leaving Mary framed by a complimentary curve of earthly shadow. It’s the only thing separating them.

But that door feels like Christ– it feels like Mary’s ‘Fiat’ that brought Him into her world, down from heaven and into the flesh. She became His door to earth, and through her, He became our door to heaven. But no one else could open it– not even Gabriel, nor any other celestial power. He only revealed this potential passage, through God’s ultimate question, and gave her the choice as to what to do. And she said yes– yes, I will open the floodgates of heaven! Yes, I will open the door for Him! And thus, the divine was wed to the human, and Jesus Christ became man, in the womb of the humbly blessed Virgin Mary.

Alfred Agache (1843 - 1915)

L'Annonciation, 1891

Mary, Gate of Heaven and Star of the Sea, surrounded by their infinite blue, the vine above her reaching upward to the unseen realms where the True Vine she was about to conceive also hailed from.

And Gabriel, humble and honored, dressed in surprisingly earthly tones, knows he is not the focus here. He signifies the bringing of heaven to earth, foreshadowing the Son of God being wrapped in flesh, indistinguishable from any other earthly man in mere appearance. But these two figures, messenger and Mother, know the Truth about to be manifested– that the human girl dressed in heaven’s hues was to conceive God’s Son Himself as a little boy, and so unite both their realms and realities… the grandest end, in the humblest beginning, in this small exchange between two souls before the endless sea and sky.

Annunciation (detail)
by Michael Wening

The Christ Child was conceived in Mary’s Immaculate Heart even before He came into her womb.

So it must be with us, spiritually– we, too, must echo our Blessed Mother’s “yes” to His birth in our lives, letting the Divine Infant be conceived in our hearts, letting Him become the Lord of our lives, bringing Him to all we meet with humble yet exultant joy.

Annunciation
Mikhail Nesterov,

I love the dignity Mary shows here. Her “Fiat” is given with total willful grace, total surrender in love. There is no hesitation, doubt, fear, or confusion in her here– only humble pious finality, her agreement being the unbreakable foundation of Jesus’s coming Gospel on earth. The fruit tree blooming above her prophesies this, the divine Fruit of her womb coming, too, from above.

Lastly, I also love how Gabriel’s wings are that same gorgeous blue, the hue of heaven that so embraces our Blessed Mother.

Anunciación de Jaime Serra (Zaragoza, ZARAGOZA).

It always stuns me when God the Father is portayed with Jesus’s face– because that’s literally the only visible face the Father has for us. Yes, we can recognize God’s Presence in all of Creation, and we can acknowledge Christ’s Presence in the hearts of those who receive Him, but to see the Face of God? In the Old Testament, that very visage would strike you dead– innocently but inevitably, as no mortal mind could even comprehend His Face, let alone lay eyes on something so transcendent, so holy, so Real.

And then the Annunciation happened, and immediately, God began knitting together a Face for Himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Jesus is how we can look at God. The Father is seen in the Son, both literally and figuratively. Jesus Christ IS the “Face” of our Creator, in such a directly intimate way it moves one to tears– for only through Christ’s eyes can God meet our gaze with the most incomprehensibly tender love.

crawlingtowardchrist:

Always remember why we are Christian. God’s sacrifice is so unimaginable, incredible, and more than any one of us could ever do. Today is the day that Our Lord showed how much He loved us, and how much pain He would go through to save us!


 

This is the heartwrenching, gorgeous, terrible and beautiful paradox of Easter– that this awful truth of Christ’s bloody yet loving sacrifice of Himself has purchased for us eternal life and salvation through Him, through that same love.

Christ Crucified is not an image of death. This image, this vision of unimaginable pain, is also a declaration of unfathomable love. Christ chose this suffering in order to deliver us from damnation. This is how dearly He loves us!

This same Jesus who submitted to death has conquered death, victorious in His humble obedience, and has so opened the gates of heaven for us to enter through His holy example. Let us rejoice in this greatest of hopes, and now let us allow Him to wipe away our tears, for He Who Died has now been raised from the dead and lives forever!

“And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament, Fit you in all goodness, that you may do his will; doing in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.” - Hebrews 13:20-21

(The Risen by Severin Benz) +

He is truly risen!!

I love the use of color and shape here– the hard square browns of the rocky tomb elicit thoughts of the Cross, especially with the blood-red shroud draped across it at such a sharp intersecting angle. Yet from that same point, Christ’s crucified foot rises above it now, with beautifully billowing waves of purest white, the robes of our Living God wrapped about Him like the very clouds of heaven. Around Him, the blues of evening twilight brighten into the golds of dawn, night into day, darkness into light, even as He transmutes death into life. His Wounds still visible, His Cross now held as the banner of triumph, Jesus has been resurrected, and now points us to the heavenly Kingdom, Himself the Way, Himself the Victory.

Alleluia!!

“Make me a channel of your peace!” -St.Francis of Assisi 

This is arguably my favorite image of any Saint and Our Lord. The tenderness and devotion of the Love between Christ and Christian, made even more powerful by the Cross and Blood, and driven home by the shared Stigmata, strikes straight to my heart.

I could meditate on this image for years.
 

Reblogging this for everyone else with a cross of chronic illness, its constant reminder of mortality, and the feelings of helplessness and despair that may bring. Never give up. Keep faith, keep hope, keep joy, all of it in God. Fix your heart so firmly on Christ that nothing can shake you, for His Love will hold you secure. Although our bodies are dying, and inevitably so, Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and through Him– in Him, with Him, for Him– we have the promise of life eternal.

Never give up. The end is not the end.

Gerard van Honthorst, The mocking of Christ, ca. 1616-7

I think about this painting a lot. I can’t get over the striking contrast between the contorted faces of the shadowed men, loudly jeering and laughing, and the utterly innocent surrender of Jesus Christ, completely unresisting, His Face soft yet profoundly sad in the light, even with a rope around His neck, even with the red thrust rudely into His Hand, even with His Head pierced and bleeding. There’s a genuinely visible divinity about Jesus here, hidden to worldly eyes, right in the midst of suffering and mockery. It’s very moving.

Saint Joseph, look, I’m tired tonight,

But somehow I think that you care;

For being a father and one who works

Are things that both of us do share.

It tires a man, yet the heart is high,

For, Patron Saint, it’s all worth while.

Its rich reward is a loving wife,

And joyous light in a child’s smile.

O, Father, Worker, bear with me,

Help me, Joseph, to do my best,

To love, protect my family

Till work shall cease and Heaven is rest.

[My beloved grandpa died two years ago this April. We found this little prayer card as we were cleaning his work desk three days ago. I daresay Saint Joseph did answer this sweet petition for him. He is indeed now at rest, and today I specially remember him with love as I share this with you. Happy Father’s Day to all. 💛]

tomicscomics: It’s too soon for him to realize it’s too soon.
 

I actually love this because yes, those wood & nails DID hurt Jesus eventually, but! He still followed His dad’s advice, in a profound way– Jesus was ‘bullied’ worse than ever when He was crucified, His feelings being not just hurt but His Heart entirely broken… and yet, Jesus chose the Cross. He chose it when He was hated by the whole world. Jesus chose the wood & nails when others may have fought back or cursed in vengeance. Jesus bore all the hurt Himself, so no one else would have to, and He did it out of mercy, forgiveness, and love.

Carpentry ironically proved to actually be the literal answer for everything, in that Cross. Father knows best– pun intended!

Richly detailed stained glass like this really pulls at my heart, as the stunning colors and intricate artwork serves to glorify the portrayed truth in such a special way.

The luxuriant hues of the women’s garments speak symbolically– Mary’s blue speaking of the Divinity in her womb, the white attesting to her virgin purity; Elizabeth’s red humbly attesting her mortal age yet the gold of God’s light lifting it to miraculous fruitfulness! Even their halos speak: Mary, green as the new Eve, the true Garden, crowned with the gold of God’s power alive in her… Elizabeth in violet, inspired by the Holy Spirit to praise the Son hidden before her, this same color even highlighting her right foot, turned towards His Mother, turning her aged life to a new eternal life in following this new and beautiful Way.

The angels quoting the Gospel on their banners are truly gorgeous, their faces peaceful yet joyful, their very presences unseen by the women in time yet proclaimed by us in recognizing wonder. They elicit feelings of mysterious bliss, a trembling awareness of the incomprehensible God at work in this seemingly mundane exchange, a conversation that the eyes of the world can neither revere nor respect, but which the Children of God see and know and love for its eternally profound significance.

Religious art is a magnificent gift to God’s people, a gift given by Him and for Him, for His glory and love and gratitude. May all artists in His Church use their talents wholeheartedly for this holy purpose!

This is, in my opinion, one of the most disturbing portrayals of this event. It immediately strikes you how YOUNG Salome is. This girl, practically a child, danced for her stepfather and his lustful guests, then had her own mother use her to request the coldblooded death of a prophet, even John the Baptist, the harbinger of Christ Himself. And this child likely was completely ignorant of the great evils she was both the key player in and enabler of. Had she no conscience, no sense of moral propriety, no questions of motive? But this painting answers that, to me. Look at her face, at her blankly passive eyes, a child doing what mommy and daddy want and simply pleased with that, yet fatally incomprehensive of the greater immoral underpinnings of her obedient actions.

That backdrop of utter detachment and empty motive makes John's doom all the more awful. The greatest Prophet's mouth is open just beneath Salome's ears, but death is not what silenced him. Those who could hear him would hear him even in death. No, John's words were smothered only by hers, her simple fatal and terrible demand-- for regardless of the truth, regardless of the bigger picture, she neither knew nor cared nor concerned herself with it... and so, here, on that wretched silver platter, he is just a severed head.

Saint Jerome Writing, 1605, Caravaggio

I feel such a deep love for Saint Jerome, honestly. Just these images of him… an old man, alone in dark silence, devoted to studying the Word of God. I live with my beloved grandparents so I know the wrinkled forehead, the bald pate, the worn and fragile skin, the white and fraying hair. I also know the strength that illumines even a fading body through faith. I see that sliver of a blessed halo above that downturned face in holy focus and I genuinely love this Saint, this old man who adores the Lord, and I cannot wait to meet him in heaven, and I pray to imitate him more while I grow older on this earth until then.

Dear Saint Jerome, pray for us!

“Our Lord sometimes makes you feel the weight of the cross. The weight seems unbearable but you carry it because in His love and mercy, the Lord helps you and gives you strength.”
-Saint Padre Pio

This is so true– and the sculpture illustrates it so beautifully! Look at our Lord, how He leads us with gentle but unshakable reassurance! To imagine myself in Padre Pio’s place… it actually makes my heart ache with love. What joy there is to carry the Cross with Christ! ❤🙏

 

I never tire of meditating on the mystery of Christ’s Agony in the Garden. It’s heartwrenching and unfathomably deep. Christ, the Son of God, was in agony over what He was about to suffer for the salvation of mankind– He was going to do it, He wasn’t running away, but He asked His Father for mercy nevertheless. “If this cup can pass from me…” and He wept and sweated blood and pleaded with His friends to keep Him company and He suffered.

It’s… too much for my heart sometimes. “Not my will but Thine,” and He meant that sincerely, but it didn’t abate the pain, and that means a great deal to remember. Seeing my Savior like this, crumpled in sobs and desperate prayer, awaiting His own gory death… the Creator of the World Himself, trembling, helpless, fragile, and small in the shadows of the darkly knotted trees… it’s truly a divine mystery. And it’s just as beautiful as it is sorrowful.

Detail from Christ Crowned With Thorns, Dieric Bouts, 1470.

I am sure our Savior wept, silently perhaps, but still with His entire aching Heart, during the tortures of His Passion. He incarnated partly to share our weaknesses and pains, to be able to fully understand and assist us in our own torments… and He incarnated entirely to die. His saving death gives us life– but so, too, do His Tears, in a less literal way. Jesus wept because He felt every pain we have ever felt. He knows our afflictions. He knows how much it hurts. And so His Holy Tears flow with His Precious Blood, as He bears the Crown of Pain itself, the King over even those things that hurt us. He is Lord over all, and there is not a single thorn in our lives that He has not felt first. He is with us in every ache, crying with us, and loving us entirely.

Won’t you comfort Him in His sorrow, He Who wept to comfort you?

Simon Marmion - Man of Sorrows (c. 1460). Detail.

Presented so starkly, it becomes an honest shock to remember that nails were hammered through His Holy Hands. Nails! Big metal nails, sharp and solid, punched through flesh and sinew and bone and into raw wood… and then, after hours of world-changing agony, they were pulled out again– what an awful yet holy task!– leaving garish wounds, big bloodied holes, in their place.

Have you ever bled so? This sight, of red running down His arms in fat sticky drops, have you ever suffered similarly? True, nothing you have endured can compare to this, these sacred traumas, but can you empathize? Can you feel a twinge of shared suffering? Does your heart wince, imagining His great anguish, your own scars a mysterious reminder of His?

And His Pierced Side… oh, no human soul can fathom!

Look upon Him and tremble with grieving love! Weep with sorrow; reach out to comfort Him Who was crucified without consolation for your sake! We all suffer our splinters and sores, and we know how bitter injuries can be, so give this solace to your Savior, that you will endure your future pains with humble remembrance of His!

“Be not faithless, but believing.” (John 20:27) Reach out and feel His Hands, even here, even now. Behold thy Lord and thy God!

The Flagellation
This rare 18th century Spanish colonial figure represents The Flagellation of Jesus Christ. Hand carved and polychrome painted wood with inset glass eyes.
Unknown Artist.
 

Look at His back!!

His shoulders, His knees, from being crushed to the ground in agony, His shoulders, from the edges of the scourge…!

The blood He shed for us is unfathomable and it breaks my heart in half.

My Lord, what are you thinking, in such shocking pain, in such awful sorrow? What has moved your holy Face to such pensive distress?

O that I, too, should share Your grief-stricken meditation, in holding the terrible sight of Your wounds in my heart!

Every time I remember that Jesus kept His Wounds it just floors me. Our Savior is a Crucified Savior and that is so important to knowing Him, to understanding why He was born, and what He does for us now in Heaven.

I just see this, those horrible holes, dripping with dark blood, aching in agony, and I realize there is no bitterness or despair or complaint in it at all– it is Love, only Love, that suffered and died to save us from the pain of sin, to deliver us from damnation: a doom so unbearable that God Himself endured unbearable pain in order to destroy the very root of it.

Jesus keeps His Wounds to remind us that it is finished, that His Death is our Life, and His Blood is our Healing. What trembling joy and holy fear a heart must feel upon beholding them!

Christ in the Desert [1872]; Ivan Kramskoi [1837 - 1887]

This is forever one of my favorite paintings.

Look at that horizontal line of clouds, so low and dim; look at that bleak and rocky ground, so harsh and grey… Look at our Lord’s face. Look at his hands. Look at the way his robe is pulled tightly, as if against the cold desert night. I swear I can feel the silence, the vastness, the time… this artwork speaks volumes without a word. It is heartachingly beautiful.

Daniel Gerhartz

Every time I see these paintings, the sheer tender beauty of the light and color makes my heart ache in awe. The jewel tones are so precise, so stunningly vibrant amidst backgrounds of warm neutrals that they feel like rainbows gleaming in a dun sky. The brushstroke technique adds to this– everything is soft around the edges, watery like looking through tears, blurred like a dream right before waking. It feels specially transcendent because of this, as if its glorious subject matter is too magnificent to portray in any solid human manner or method… and indeed, isn’t it so? The radiance of Christian religion glows with divinity in every blessed item and action so devoted to it; it is perfectly fitting that any work of art striving to capture the precious essence of that worship would ultimately turn out like this– hazy with holiness, giving us a trembling but true glimpse of heaven’s splendor beyond the veil.

Polyptych of the Resurrection Virgin Annunciate, 1522, Titian

“Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.”

The great love, purity, and humility of our Lady is somehow so visible here, in the touching and sincere simplicity of her pose– the bowed head, the downturned eye, the hand to her heart. And yet her arms are open. She does not hide herself, nor turn inwards, but offers herself totally to God. So it is that the virginal red of her humanity is embraced by the blue of Divinity, with the pure white triangle of the Trinity fixed like a seal upon her heart… and the Mother of God shines as the morning star out of the darkness of the world.

“Be it done to me according to thy word.”

God loves us all. He doesn’t see political parties. He sees the heart. And even the most hardened sinner, even the most lost soul, has a chance to be redeemed and saved through His Divine Love and Mercy, if only they would believe in His Truth, and humbly submit to His teaching!

So remember this before you are tempted into judging politicians as people. They are sinners, just like us. And they are still precious to God, just like us. We are all at His mercy, and indebted to His Love. So let us honor Him by treating each other with merciful love, too.

Vote for policy, not personality– and above all, vote according to Christ.

HOPE IN GOD 

Death can shatter many hopes; it cannot break the Ties which unite an Immortal Soul to the Souls which it loves immortally.

The Temptation by the Devil , 1865

Gustave Doré, 1832-1883

 

I really love this, actually. There’s a symbolic visual truth to it that really strikes me.

Here we have Satan, fallen angel, self-proclaimed illegitimate prince of the earth, brazenly and bitterly trying to get Jesus to worship him– Jesus, the King of all worlds, the Creator of life itself, the very source and summit of incorruptible light– and yet, the devil is at Christ’s feet. He’s on his knees, furiously imploring perhaps, goading and sneering... But Jesus doesn’t even look at him. He knows that the devil has no right to sell His own planet back to Him.

And honestly, it’s apparent. The devil gestures to his “kingdom,” but all we see is a tiny huddle of man-made architecture swallowed up in miles of untouched green. And so is the truth. Amidst the wilderness of God’s natural art, all of man’s achievements– all the devil claims to control– will ultimately be reduced to the rubble and dust it came from, and time will proclaim God’s endless sovereignty. The devil has nothing to sell. And truly, Jesus knows it– as surely as He knows the birds flying free, which He protects to the last tiny chick, and as surely as He knows the sun, blazing gloriously behind Satan’s ignorant claw, testifying to the eternal light that will defeat him with every sunrise. Jesus owns the hills, the sky, the clouds, the dirt, the dawn, and the devil himself. But there is one last, heavy, hidden truth.

His Holy Face shining with the promise of true kingly glory, Jesus looks away from the devil’s spoils… and wreathed in the red that will one day purchase the one thing He wishes to claim irrevocably as His own special possession, he looks to us. And His eyes say, you are worth the cost.

Then I met Our Lady of La Salette. The weeping virgin. She looked so different from all other depictions of Mary. And yet it was still her!

I'm home from the hospital! Thank you all so, so much for your prayers. 🙏 Our Lord and Lady heard you and helped me in their merciful love; I am alive through grace and I will continue to live through grace. May I use all my remaining time for the glory of God who saved me. ❤