Tribulation Times
June 7, 2013
THE TRIB TIMES WILL RETURN IN TWO WEEKS, GOD WILLING (James 4:15).
(John
19:33-34) But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was
already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers with a
spear opened his side: and immediately there came out blood and water.
TIMELY LINKS
TIMELY LINKS
Jesus’s Heart: An abyss of love and mercy5 reasons to adore the Sacred Heart
Mama Mary as shield against war, disaster
ARCHBISHOP CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M.CAP.: The evidential power of beauty
“Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend for the hearts of men.”
– Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Late have I loved thee, Beauty so old and so new; late have I loved thee. Lo, you were within, but I was outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong — I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you.”
– Augustine, The Confessions
A friend once told me the story of how she first met God. She doesn’t remember her age; it must have been about 4 or 5. Her family lived in the countryside on the rim of one of our big eastern cities. And one June evening, cloudless, moonless, with just the hint of a humid breeze, her father took her out into the back yard in the dark and told her to look up at the sky.
From one horizon to the other, all across the black carpet of the night, were the stars — thousands of them, tens of thousands, in clusters and rivers of light. And in the quiet, her father said, “God made the world beautiful because he loves us.”
That was more than 50 years ago. My friend grew up and learned all about entropy and supernovae and colliding galaxies and quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity. But still, when she closes her eyes, she can see that carpet of stars and hear her father’s voice. God made the world beautiful because he loves us.
Creation is more than an accident of dead matter. It’s a romance. It has purpose. It sings of the Living God. It bears his signature.
The story of my friend offers several lessons we might consider this week as summer begins and life starts to briefly slow down.
First, the most powerful kind of witness doesn’t come from a classroom or pulpit. It doesn’t need an academic degree or special techniques. Instead, it grows naturally out of the lives of ordinary people – parents and spouses and friends; people confident in the love that God bears for them and eager to share it with others; people who know the world not as a collection of confused facts but as a symphony of truth and meaning.
Second, nature is sacramental. It points to things outside itself. God speaks and creation sings in silence. We can’t hear either if we’re cocooned in a web of manufactured distraction, anxiety and noise. We can’t see the heavens if our faces are buried in technologies that turn us inward on ourselves. Yet that’s exactly what modern American life seems to promote: a restless and relentless material appetite for “more,” that gradually feeds selfishness and separates each of us from everyone else.
Third and finally, every experience of real beauty leads us closer to three key virtues: humility, because the grandeur of creation invites awe and lifts us outside ourselves; love, because the human heart was made for glory and joy, and only the Author of life can satisfy its longings; and hope, because no sadness, no despair, can ultimately survive the evidence of divine meaning that beauty provides.
If the world we see taking shape around us today in the name of a false freedom often seems filled with cynicism, ugliness, little blasphemies and sadness, we need to ask why. And then we need to turn our hearts again to the God of beauty – Augustine’s “Beauty so old and so new” — who created us, who sings his longing for us in the grandeur of the world he made, and who renews our souls.
God lives in the summer rain, the stars in the night sky, the wind in the leaves of the trees. He speaks to us through a creation alive with his love. We need to be silent, and watch and listen. And then we need to join in nature’s symphony of praise.
– Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Late have I loved thee, Beauty so old and so new; late have I loved thee. Lo, you were within, but I was outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong — I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you.”
– Augustine, The Confessions
A friend once told me the story of how she first met God. She doesn’t remember her age; it must have been about 4 or 5. Her family lived in the countryside on the rim of one of our big eastern cities. And one June evening, cloudless, moonless, with just the hint of a humid breeze, her father took her out into the back yard in the dark and told her to look up at the sky.
From one horizon to the other, all across the black carpet of the night, were the stars — thousands of them, tens of thousands, in clusters and rivers of light. And in the quiet, her father said, “God made the world beautiful because he loves us.”
That was more than 50 years ago. My friend grew up and learned all about entropy and supernovae and colliding galaxies and quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity. But still, when she closes her eyes, she can see that carpet of stars and hear her father’s voice. God made the world beautiful because he loves us.
Creation is more than an accident of dead matter. It’s a romance. It has purpose. It sings of the Living God. It bears his signature.
The story of my friend offers several lessons we might consider this week as summer begins and life starts to briefly slow down.
First, the most powerful kind of witness doesn’t come from a classroom or pulpit. It doesn’t need an academic degree or special techniques. Instead, it grows naturally out of the lives of ordinary people – parents and spouses and friends; people confident in the love that God bears for them and eager to share it with others; people who know the world not as a collection of confused facts but as a symphony of truth and meaning.
Second, nature is sacramental. It points to things outside itself. God speaks and creation sings in silence. We can’t hear either if we’re cocooned in a web of manufactured distraction, anxiety and noise. We can’t see the heavens if our faces are buried in technologies that turn us inward on ourselves. Yet that’s exactly what modern American life seems to promote: a restless and relentless material appetite for “more,” that gradually feeds selfishness and separates each of us from everyone else.
Third and finally, every experience of real beauty leads us closer to three key virtues: humility, because the grandeur of creation invites awe and lifts us outside ourselves; love, because the human heart was made for glory and joy, and only the Author of life can satisfy its longings; and hope, because no sadness, no despair, can ultimately survive the evidence of divine meaning that beauty provides.
If the world we see taking shape around us today in the name of a false freedom often seems filled with cynicism, ugliness, little blasphemies and sadness, we need to ask why. And then we need to turn our hearts again to the God of beauty – Augustine’s “Beauty so old and so new” — who created us, who sings his longing for us in the grandeur of the world he made, and who renews our souls.
God lives in the summer rain, the stars in the night sky, the wind in the leaves of the trees. He speaks to us through a creation alive with his love. We need to be silent, and watch and listen. And then we need to join in nature’s symphony of praise.
MEDITATION: Thoughts by St Theophan (1815-1894)
[Acts 14:20–27; John 9:39–10:9] And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind (John 9:39). They which could not see were the simple people who believed the Lord in simplicity of heart, while they which saw were the scribes and learned men of that time, who due to their pride of mind did not believe, and held back the people.
Our clever ones think that they see, and, this is why they are alienated from that faith in the Lord that the simple in heart and mind firmly hold to. Therefore, according to the truth of the Lord they are blind, whereas the people see. They are exactly like those birds which can see at night, but not during the day. The truth of Christ is dark for them, whereas what is contrary to this truth — falsehood — to them seems clear: here they are in their element. This is so obvious, but nevertheless they are ready to ask: Are we blind also? (John 9:40). There is nothing to hide; you are blind. But since it is your own fault that you are blind, the sin of blindness and not seeing the light lies on you. You can see, but you do not want to, because you came to love a deceptive, yet tempting lie.
Thoughts and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and Suffering
13.
Nothing unites us so closely to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus
Christ as the cross which is the most precious pledge of his love.Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerRequest3@aol.com
This month's archive can be found at: http://www.
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