The call

By Nancy Shuman

Painting by Adolf Friedrich Erdman
(Wikimedia Commons)

It was as insistent, sometimes, as a telephone ringing.  A persistent "come… come… come" that I couldn’t quite ignore.  Walking by the stairs leading up to the chapel of my high school, I almost always sensed that pull.  I imagined I felt the way steel might in the presence of a strong magnet.  Only, steel would not try to pull away as I often did.

I was eighteen.  The year before, rather quietly, God had begun to make Himself real to me, and I found I wanted to grow closer to Him.  So I had left public high school for a Catholic girls’ academy taught by semi-cloistered nuns.  In this place of peace and stillness a path was cleared for the Lord’s gentle voice to get through to me.  At first I stopped long enough to listen.  But as the school year progressed, I became more and more afraid of what the Lord was actually calling me to do.

This concern was particularly striking one day when my Speech teacher stopped me after class.

"I had a little dream about you last night," Sister said with a gentle smile.  "I dreamed you joined our Order here…" 

I was suddenly, acutely, aware of a hammering in my chest and ears, and of heat rising in my cheeks.  I think I managed to murmur something halfway coherent as I hurried away, wondering "what is God trying to tell me?  Was that merely an idle dream that Sister thought I’d find amusing?"  Or was it something else.  Everyone I’d known who appeared to really love the Lord seemed to be in a convent or serving as a priest.  Surely God didn’t call anyone as I’d felt Him calling me unless it was to be a Religious.


Continue reading at Nancy's blog The Cloistered Heart.

John the Baptist: bridging the Old and New Testaments

By Heidi

June 24 is the Solemnity of The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.  Today we celebrate the birth of the man who, as Saint Augustine tells us, “represents the boundaries between the two testaments, the old and the new.”  All of the events surrounding the birth of the Baptist suggest that the obscurity of the Old Testament prophesies are to be revealed and illuminated by the one who John is to proclaim, who John had already been proclaiming as he leaped in the womb of his mother Elizabeth at Mary’s arrival.  Leaping like David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant.  Even from the womb John points us past the signs to the ultimate realities.  This is why we celebrate his birth with a Solemnity!

John points us out of the wilderness, out of confusion, to the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah and the prophets.  Words that often were mysterious, and attain their deepest meaning only in the light of Christ’s salvific mission.  And us too, he points us past the mundane to Jesus, in whose light even the most obscure life is elevated and glorified.

Of course evil hates clarity and light.  The enemy of your soul will always try to confuse your vocation, obscure your accomplishments and highlight your failings. Even John the Baptist experienced moments of confusion and doubt as he faced down evil in his martyrdom (Matthew 11:2).  From his place of imprisonment John lived out what he had been preaching to all who would listen:   He turned to the Lord; he asked Him for reassurance and in the Lord’s response he was satisfied.  Even in his doubt he fulfilled his mission which is so beautifully portrayed in so many paintings;  in sending his messengers to Jesus, John was pointing to Him and showing us all the way out of our own confusion and self-doubt.


Continue reading at Journey to Wisdom.

What is really important in life?

By Melanie Jean Juneau

 

Nordic Madonna by Neuhuys (Wikimedia Commons).

 When Life is Stripped Down to The Basics

One afternoon before Easter, I was ironing cotton dresses and shirts for church the next day. Six year old Claire watched for a while and then pointed to the iron and asked,

“What is that mummy?”

I laughed because I realized that this little girl had never seen me iron; I usually used the clothes dryer as my wrinkle smoother when I wasn’t looking for perfection but rather efficiency. Actually it was not just the iron that seldom received attention as I mothered a large family, something that I considered essential was eliminated from my life with the birth of every child.

Painting portraits went with my first-born. Other births gave the boot to crafts, dusting, bread making, interesting meals and laundry folding ( each child dressed out of their own personal laundry basket). As every mother knows, a newborn takes at least eight hours a day to nurse, burp, rock and comfort, bath, change clothes and diapers( at least ten times a day), and to wash diapers, clothes, receiving blankets, sheets and baby blankets as well as your clothes which tend to get covered in vomit, and other nasty surprises.

The lack of sleep leads to a rather narrow existence where the best days are when you can sneak in a nap or shower and dress before noon. Oh, those were the days when life was reduced to the basics.


Continue reading at Melanie's blog joy of nine9.

Insights on Divine Providence

By Barbara A. Schoeneberger

Portrait of a Young Man at Prayerby Memling
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

This morning I was reading Father Romano Guardini’s The Art of Praying and found these passages that seem connected in a way with Archbishop Chaput’s address to the Baptist University of Houston on March 1, 2010 where he spoke on the vocation of the Christian in American public life:

The future of Christian life depends, among other things, on whether prayer can establish an active link with life as it is and with the stream of history.  Here, again, the idea of Providence is the starting point…

The will, the Divine Providence, of God is our salvation as St. Paul says (1 Thess. 4: 3), and we laity must work it out in the world, no matter how much some of us would like to flee to the cloister.The evil perpetrated by man against man and against creation cannot be lessened without each of us doing the job he has been given by God.  Yet sometimes life seems to be too much to bear and we want to give up and run away.  If we arrive at that point, it must be because we are depending too much on ourselves and not enough on God.  We are seeking our own will and not His Providential Will.  We are not praying the Our Father with an understanding of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Continue reading at Barb's blog  Suffering With Joy.

Jesus, teach me to pray

By Monica McConkey

Woman Kneeling at Prie-Dieu by Alexandre Bida
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Jesus, I want to know Your Truth AND live it. Jesus, I'm so easily distracted, so easily jostled, startled, untethered. Jesus, I worry about so many things.

Jesus, I want to pray. I want my words to be deliberate and heart-felt. I want to say what my heart feels and listen intently and hear Your Words to me in my heart, with no doubt, no second guessing. I want to be focused and consumed by You and undistracted.

I want to know You, bathe in Your Love, be directed by Your Priorities and I want to receive Your Love and Your intentions for me, correctly, fully, purely.

I want to brim over with the fire of your Love, uncontained, unfettered, unlimited, unconstrained so that I can only reflect Your Love, enthusiastically and untarnished by human limitations.

I want to see and think clearly, without muddying Your message to me, and to those around me.

I want to use the creative gifts You have given me to serve You and draw closer to You and to lead others to pursue You as You desire. I want to fulfil my vocation to the best of my abilities, recognizing but not giving in to my failings, offering up the little chores, the monotony and the little annoyances, frustrations and worries, surrendering my will and my lack of control, my pride for Your Greater Glory.

I want to pray. I want to express the yearning of my heart, to remain undistracted but focused on You. I want to connect with You, feeling Your unconditional Love, a love that is impossible for humans, only possible for God, loving me as if I was the only human, loving me incessantly despite my faults and failings, loving me without hesitation or requirements, expectations or conditions. Loving me because You have made me worthy through Your Suffering, for me, when no one except You could have even known I would exist.

Jesus, I don't want to get distracted by the meaningless details. I don't want to be preoccupied with menial concerns.



Continue reading at Monica's blog I blog Jesus.