Mary TV Daily Reflection 1/15/2013

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

          

J.M.J.      

January 15, 2013

 

Dear Family of Mary!

 

Our Lady came with little Jesus in her arms and she did not give a message, but little Jesus began to speak and said : "I am your peace, live my commandments." With a sign of the cross, Our Lady and little Jesus blessed us together. (December 25, 2012)

 

I cannot forget this simple but profound message through Marija given on Christmas Day. It seems so alive. The grace still pours from it.

 

I feel that Jesus was inviting all of us into a very real relationship with Him. His call was so pure and direct, as only a child can speak.

 

I want to share with all of you something Caryll Houselander wrote about having a relationship with Jesus. I think it will help us to respond to this message, to this invitation from Jesus:

 

Could even God have done more than he has done to prove that he is real? ----to prove that he has a sensitive human heart and wants to be treated as one who is human?

 

Did he not become a baby needing a woman's devoted care? Did he not shed tears openly over the personal sorrow of his friends' death? Did he not reveal frankly that a small discourtesy had hurt him in the Pharisee's house and express pathetic gratitude to a sinful woman who came there to comfort him? Did he not reproach his apostles, sleeping during his agony? With his dying breath did he not speak of his thirst, of the anguish of his soul?

 

Yet we often treat him as if he did not exist, as if he were not real at all!

 

I speak to the virtuosa of the spiritual life, to the expert in spirituality with her network of rules and mortifications, her notebooks and hieroglyphics and all the rest. Don't be an expert in spiritual life. Treat Christ as the real Person that he is, don't fuss and worry about your soul.

 

Would it please you if one of whom you were passionately found, with whom you lived, to whom you devoted yourself completely, was so busy dusting the ornaments in the house that she never had a moment to listen to you, or indeed to notice that you were there?

 

We all know the woman who is exaggeratedly house-proud, who concentrates on the neatness, cleanliness, beauty of her house, to the exclusion of its comfort. Her house is not a home, nothing must ever be left about, out of place. To come in with muddy shoes is a crime, it is a crime to disarrange the cushions! In such a house one can neither work nor rest, one is never at home, because it is not a home.

 

There are many women who are "soul-proud" in the same way. They spend their whole time cleaning up their soul, turning out the rubbish, dusting and polishing. Like the house-proud woman they become nervous, tired, there is nothing left in them to give, they have wasted themselves on the silver, the curtains, the ornaments.

 

Christ wants to be at home in your soul. He will not go away and leave you if the house is chilly and uncomfortable; he loves you too much to leave you, but how often, how tragically often, he must say nowadays: "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

 

Christ asks for a home in your soul, where he can be a rest with you, where he can talk easily to you, where you and he, alone together, can laugh and be silent and be delighted with one another.

 

All this may seem daring, but it is true, it is the meaning of the incarnation; we should all realize that it is true were it not that for years and years Christ has been treated as if he were not real at all....

 

What then must we do?

 

Listen. Be silent. Let Christ speak to you. Forget yourself, forget your soul, let him tell you how he loves you, show you what he is like, prove to you that he is real. Silence in your soul means a gentle attention to Christ, it means turning away from self to him, it means looking at him, listening to him.

 

God speaks silently, he speaks in your heart; if your heart is noisy, chattering, you will not hear.

 

Every ordinary thing in your life is a word of his love, your home, your work, the clothes you wear, the air you breathe, the food you eat, the friends you delight in, the flowers under your feet are the courtesy of his heart flung down to you! All these things say one thing only:

 

"See how I love you."

 

He asks only one thing, that you will let him tell you this, directly simply; that you will treat him as someone real, not as someone who does not really exist. (Caryll Houselander. "This War is the Passion". P. 27-32)

 

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

 

Cathy Nolan

©Mary TV 2013