Celebrating Helen

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blind faith, concentration, God's will, Helen Daly, perfect love, seek God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, tranquility, trust in God, wisdom seekers, wisdom way

Today I am up before even a hint of sunrise, getting ready to travel again to New Hampshire just for today to celebrate the life of Helen Daly, friend and benefactor. Helen, her friends agree, died much too early but gifted the world with a legacy of wisdom. The Sophia Center is just one recipient of grants over the past six years that have seen the creation and continuance of programs for “Wisdom Seekers” far and wide. Before her passing from this world, I was blessed by her light over six years and since I have continued to sense that light that cheers us on in the work we have been blessed to share with others. I invite you who read this blog to give thanks today for Helen and other generous people everywhere who understand the importance of God’s call to seek and serve in the Wisdom Way.

Here is what Thomas Merton has to say about wise people like Helen.

This is what it means to seek God perfectly: To have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God. Poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on God, to gather all that I am, and have all that I can possibly suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do God’s will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Lessons

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blessing, Ephesians, give thanks, God's will, responsibility, spiritual life, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the will of the Lord

There are two lines in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that do not necessarily seem connected but upon reflection can be, I think, a way forward in the spiritual life. Paul is preaching to the people of Ephesus about how best to live a good and wise life. (EPH 5:15-20). In the middle of this brief lesson he draws a conclusion, saying: “Therefore, do not continue in ignorance but try to understand the will of the Lord.” I see that as a call to responsibility to throw of any sort of “ho-hum” attitude and wake up to the very best we can be. What that will lead us to, it seems, is a clue hidden at the end of the text where he says, “giving thanks always and for everything.” In other words, it isn’t just the things that we recognize as good or happy that teach us important lessons, but also the difficult moments that can be some of the best lessons if we know how to find the deep meanings therein.

This is not a new concept for most of us but the reminder seems a good way to start this new week. May it be a blessing for all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

Ignatius of Loyola

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Ad majorem Dei gloriam, daily prayer, God's will, grace, jesuits, love one another, reflection, retreat, St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Society of Jesus, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Spiritual Exercises

When I was in elementary school at Our Lady Help of Christians parish, it was the custom on our tests (and probably other written work) to place a small cross at the top of the page and underneath to print JMJ (Jesus, Mary, Joseph). I don’t remember being instructed each time to do what was most likely supposed to become a habit of dedicating our work to the Holy Family but I suspect for many of us it was either a desperate prayer for help or a desire to be seen as pious. Later on, as we grew into the upper grades and got more sophisticated, the letters changed to AMDG (Ad majorem Dei gloriam = for the greater glory of God). Knowing the meaning in English was easier than remembering the Latin words, at least until we got to high school. It wasn’t until much later that I learned how famous that phrase was.

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of The Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits. The life story of Ignatius and his “society” is a great read which I will not repeat here (see “saint of the day” from www.franciscanmedia.com for the concise version) but it is clear that the influence of this man who lived from 1491 to 1556 – and died on this day – is greater today than in his lifespan because of his work that has come to be known as The Spiritual Exercises. Originally written for the Jesuits themselves, in our time the Exercises have been incorporated into the lives of people – religious and lay – throughout the world who are seeking spiritual growth. Based on the gospels and written as a four-week retreat, it is a rigorous daily commitment to prayer and reflection that can set one on a course for life. For those who cannot spend an entire month in retreat, there is “the nineteenth annotation” process, wherein each “day” becomes a week spread over 30 weeks. (much information on line).

The goal of everything for Ignatius was doing the will of God, thus the motto: Ad majorem Dei gloriam. This desire is captured in a simple, sincere prayer attributed to him that I believe may be the most profound gift we can offer to God each day.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will – all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Enduring Legacy

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Assumption, birth, Catholic Church, courageous choices, exile, God's will, Luke, Magnificat, Mary, Messiah, Pope Paul VI, poverty, say yes, Second Vatican Council

Today the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, into heaven. It is one of many feasts observed by Catholics the world over – in both Eastern and Roman rite – and gives pride of place to the woman who said yes to the call of God to bring Christ to the world in the most significant way possible: by birth. In the renewal of the past half century, begun at the Second Vatican Council, we have come to appreciate Mary in perhaps more expansive ways. What I mean is that if we do indeed recognize her as a young woman (probably still a teenager) who lived in a small village in the Middle East, perhaps illiterate and certainly not privileged in any social way, her “yes” to God seems as extraordinary as it always has, but with one additional understanding that generations rarely if ever conceded – or even considered. This seemingly ordinary, humble young woman who cooperated with grace in an uncharacteristic way is the same girl who responded to the recognition by her kinswoman Elizabeth that she was carrying the Messiah with the following words:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…From this day all generations shall call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me…He has shown the strength of his arm and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly…(LK 1:39-56)

Commenting on Marialis Cultus, Pope Paul VI’s apostolic letter on Mary, Elizabeth Johnson writes that the Pope “describes Mary as a strong and intelligent woman, one who has the wits to question back when the angel addressed her, one who experienced poverty and suffering, flight and exile. In the midst of these troubles she consistently gave active and responsible consent to the call of God, made courageous choices, and worked to strengthen the faith of others….In the most quoted passage from this letter, the Pope then declares that far from endorsing the particulars of Mary’s own life as exemplary, the Church proposes her to the faithful as an example to be imitated: not precisely in the type of life she led, much less for the socio-cultural background in which she lived and which today scarcely exists anywhere. Rather, she is held up as an example for the way in which, in her own particular life, she fully and responsibly accepted God’s will (see LK 1:38), because she heard the Word of God and acted on it, and because charity and a spirit of service were the driving force of her actions…(#35)“

Johnson concludes that “what has a permanent, universal, exemplary value is the way she walked the path of her own life before God, which can instruct and inspire people’s own creative responses in this new era. We can be inspired by her because we are all human together. Mary is ‘one of our race,’ ‘a true daughter of Eve,’ indeed (as Pope Paul says) ‘truly our sister, who as a poor and humble woman shared our lot’ (#56).”

Heed the Call!

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alarm, delight, Eli, God's will, greet the day, listen, Psalm 40, Samuel, sleep, Speak Lord, Thanksgiving, the call of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wakefulness

This morning I woke at 4:40am, much too early to begin the day. I snuggled back in but at 5:50 I opened my eyes a second time. I blamed this interruption of my sleep on the fact that in New York it was already nearly 7AM and settled back to wait until 6:30CST for my alarm. Five minutes later I heard the small sound alerting me that I had a text message on my phone and I knew I had a choice of how this day would proceed. With less than great gusto but with determination I got up from my bed saying to myself, “I greet this day with thanksgiving for all it will hold for me.”

God does have a sense of humor! As I began to read the Scriptures for the day, I recognized immediately the familiar story of the boy, Samuel, who sleeping in the temple near his teacher, Eli, wakes to the sound of his name being called. He goes to Eli and says, “Here I am; you called me.” Eli tells him to go back to bed because he hasn’t called him. When the scene is repeated twice more, Eli is finally awake enough to say to Samuel, “When you are called, say ‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening'”  because he knew that it was God calling Samuel. (SM 3:1-10)

Whether we hear the call of God in our sleep or during morning Scripture reading or in the circumstances of an ordinary day, Samuel’s willingness gives us a good example of how to respond. Psalm 40 adds an even more generous note to the message this morning as the psalmist sings, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight!” May you be blessed with a delightful day of wakefulness in God’s love.

My Delight

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attitude, delight, do your will, God's will, Here I am Lord, Psalm 40, purpose, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes life depends a lot on attitude. Often when “bad things” happen people are heard to say, “It’s God’s will.” Rarely have I heard anyone proclaim that it is God’s will when they are steeped in unbounded joy. To be fair, we tend to use other ways to express God’s presence in our lives at those times, saying things like “God has been good to me.” I wonder, though, if it would make a difference, even slightly, if we sang with the psalmist, “To do your will, O my God, is my delight and your law is in my heart!” (Ps. 40) And what if we woke up every morning with today’s psalm refrain on our lips: “Here I am Lord; I come to do your will.” For me, that line has a feeling of happy urgency, as if I am running toward God because I can’t wait to serve whatever purpose it is God is asking because it gives me such joy. I might even make a sign for the inside of my bedroom door with that line printed on it so it accompanies me each morning to the coffee pot. Can’t hurt – might help!