Happy Christmas!

[With thanks to Andalusia Star News]

Happy Christmas to all The Mercy Blog readers!

A blessing of St Clare of Assisi

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he show his face to you and be merciful to you. May he turn his countenance to you, my sisters, and daughters, and give peace to you, and to all the others who come and remain in your company as well as to others now and in the future, who have persevered in every other monastery of the Poor Ladies.

I, Clare, a servant of Christ, a little plant of our most holy Father Francis, a sister and mother of you and the other poor sisters, although unworthy, beg our Lord Jesus Christ through his mercy and the intercession of his most holy Mother Mary and blessed Michael the Archangel and all the holy angels of God, of our blessed Father Francis, and all men and women saints, that the heavenly Father give you and confirm for you this most holy blessing in heaven and on earth. On earth, may he multiply you in his grace and his virtues among his servants and handmaids in his Church Militant. In heaven, may he exalt you and glorify you among his men and women saints in his Church Triumphant.

I bless you during my life and after my death, as I am able, out of all the blessings with which the Father of mercies has and does bless his sons and daughters in heaven and on earth and a spiritual father and mother have blessed and bless their spiritual sons and daughters. Amen.

Always be lovers of your souls and those of all your sisters. And may you always be eager to observe what you have promised the Lord.

May the Lord always be with you and may you always be with him. Amen.

The Testament of St Clare

Grace abounding…

Grace—it’s a strange concept for those of us who’ve become used to the “no such thing as a free lunch” way of thinking. It seems literally to be too good to be true. We cannot believe the universe works this way, that, as Cynthia Bourgeault writes:

…you will suddenly find yourself set down in a very different universe from the one we have grown accustomed to inhabiting in these recent, post-Enlightenment centuries. Rather than living in a “clockwork” universe run on implacable scientific principles by an absentee landlord God—or, even more desolate, a totally random, nobody-in-charge universe where the only law is the law of the jungle—instead you wake up inside a warm-hearted and purposive intelligence, a coherence of which you yourself are part of the expression…

Everything is given—and this is not some theoretical, abstract theological concept, a kind of story religious people tell each other to take their minds of the cold and the dark. Nothing is of final value earned—we could never deserve that. As Richard Rohr once said,

If it's too idealized and pretty, if it's somewhere floating around up in the air, it's probably not the Gospel. We come back, again and again, to this marvellous touchstone of orthodoxy, the Eucharist. Eucharist, in the first physical incarnation in the body of Jesus, is now continued in space and time in ordinary food…

You don’t have to put spirit and matter together; they have been together ever since the Big Bang, 14.6 billion years ago (see Genesis 1.1-2 and John 1.1-5). You have to get on your knees and recognize this momentous truth as already and always so. The Eucharist offers microcosmic moments of belief, and love of what is cosmically true. It will surely take a lifetime of kneeling and surrendering, trusting and letting go, believing and saying, “How could this be true?”

It is all gift. What we need, at the very deepest level, is already there, in the open, pierced hand held out to us. And yet it is very concrete—in our sisters and brothers we know that sustaining love in very truth, warm and breathing. We have only to be broken enough to need it. And love is strong as death… it outlasts the grave, lifts the orbits of the spheres, nourishes the star-fields… it is God himself.

On not being so different after all…

At first sight, joy seems to be connected with being different. When you receive a compliment or win an award, you experience the joy of not being the same as others. You are faster, smarter, more beautiful, and it is that difference that brings you joy. But such joy is very temporary. True joy is hidden where we are the same as other people: fragile and mortal. It is the joy of belonging to the human race. It is the joy of being with others as a friend, a companion, a fellow traveller.

This is the joy of Jesus, who is Emmanuel: God-with-us.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

In London over the weekend, I was struck by just this thought, walking across the Millennium Bridge, travelling on the Tube, sitting in The Palms of Goa watching Charlotte Street fill up in the early evening… So many sisters and brothers, their lives at least as intricate and loved as mine, going about their days on this earth of ours—and I found myself loving them, holding them before God in my own heart I suppose, in a way I had never been conscious of before.

London has all too often been hard to visit, difficult to be in; this time, though, it was all delight. I’m not saying I want to move there again after so many years and so many changes, yet I found again my love of this glorious, scarred, beautiful ball of energy and grace that is our capital. I was there with Susan, of course—but even so, this city is a pretty special place on its own. And being there, I became part of the place again: vulnerable I suppose, open to the spirit of the place, and so, somehow, part of its blessing myself. I am so grateful…

A New Year…

Lord, thank you for the gift of time. Thank you for the great geological ages, through which you shaped this beautiful world. Thank you for the generations of people who have lived and worked here; walked, dreamed and loved here.

Thank you, Lord, for this last year we have lived, for all that we have seen and heard and felt, whether they have seemed good to us or bad, for “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8.28)

Bless us, dear Lord, in this New Year. Teach us to use well the time you give us to serve you, to serve each other, in love and grace all this coming year…

Light in darkness…

In this state of self-abandonment, in this path of simple faith, everything that happens to our soul and body, all that occurs in all the affairs of life, has the aspect of death. This should not surprise us. What do we expect? It is natural to this condition. God has plans for souls and he carries them out very successfully, though they are well-disguised. Under the name of ‘disguise’ are such things as misfortune, illness and spiritual weakness. But in the hands of God everything flourishes and turns to good.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence

---

I am sometimes surprised when I hear people say, ‘How can you believe in a God that would let something like that happen to me (to my sister, brother, friend, lover…)?’

I know some people, some of whom I respect and admire, who have felt this way. For some reason I never have. I have not led a particularly sheltered life, at least for someone who has lived most of his life in England in peacetime, and I have been close to those who have suffered.

Why don’t I feel this rejection of God? Why don’t I turn away from the one who created this world in which there is such great pain, such injustice, such cruelty? Why don’t I blame him for the suffering of the innocent, the defilement of beauty, the loss of hope?

Of course it’s not because of any spiritual qualities of mine, and I don’t think it’s because I am unusually insensitive to others’ pain. I think the answer, so far as there is one, must have something to do with this ‘self-abandonment’ de Caussade speaks of here.

For some odd reason the sense has become clear to me – in some ways I think it has always been there – that God does have plans for us, and that these plans are indeed, ‘plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.’ (Jeremiah 29.11) God, it seems, would rather do this gently, in peace; but he will do it, no matter what we do, or what is done to us. The Prophets, Jeremiah particularly, make this pretty clear, in their stories of hope and blessing on the far side of war and exile; but the Cross makes it blindingly clear, and, through the grace Christ brought to us there, it opens the door to hope and blessing, to restoration and peace beyond all our trials.

Paul wrote, ‘I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us… We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8.18,28)

All things. For me it has somehow always been so. Oh, it’s hard to express this clearly enough without somehow seeming to rebuke those for whom it is terribly different, and I truly don’t want to do that. I just know that God has blessed me even in the worst times with his presence and his love, and he has shown me things I could not otherwise have seen.

Somehow – and for me it has always seemed to be caught up in the practice of the Jesus Prayer – these blessings have come about in the conscious, if not intentional, abandonment of my own self-interest. Somehow, as far as I have been able to respond to God’s call to set down my own instincts to self preservation, and abandon myself into his hands, I have been blessed with ‘treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places.’ (Isaiah 45.3)

‘God is light and in him there is no darkness at all…’ (1 John 1.5) But his light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. (John 1.5)

Scaring off the demons…

There was an anchorite who was able to banish the demons; and he asked them, “What makes you go away? Is it fasting?”

They replied, “We do not eat or drink.”

“Is it vigils?”

They replied, “We do not sleep.”

“Is it separation from the world?”

“We live in the deserts.”

“What power sends you away then?”

They said, “Nothing can overcome us, but only humility.”

Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?

Amma Theodora

After praying that God would take away his passions that he might become free from care, Abba John the Dwarf went and told an old man; “I find myself in peace, without an enemy.”

The old man said to him, “Go beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have, for it is by warfare that the soul makes progress.”

So he sought God and when warfare came, he no longer prayed that it might be taken away, but said “Lord, give me the strength for the fight.”

Abba Poeman

(Quotes with thanks to The Ecumenical Benedictines of Heartsong Hermitage)

I wonder if this has not something to do with the difficulty I find myself in when I am blessed by God? I pray God will teach me how to live truly in Christ’s own humility this Lent – for it is only so that I will be able to serve him as I am called to do, of that much I am sure!

What to do with blessings...

The other day I wrote that I was having difficulty knowing what to do with blessings, having grown so close to God during some of the most difficult times.

I keep remembering the children of Israel in the Old Testament, who learned (sort of) to trust God in the bad times, but who wandered away after false Gods and loose living when the good times came.

Thinking it over, I remembered reading a remarkable recent article by Victoria Boyson, where she discusses just this question.

"Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). A person with a thankful heart is a person of great power. A thankful heart is a victorious heart, which sees victory in the face of defeat.

In the course of battle, we can often get frustrated and find ourselves wrestling with God instead of contending the mountains in our lives. Through our frustration we end up rebuking God, instead of rebuking principalities and powers. We can get caught in the cycle of complaint with God concerning how long it is taking Him to meet our need; instead of thanking Him for all that He has already done for us. Our unhappiness can keep us continually seeking explanations from God, instead of thanking Him for the mountains He has already moved and the seas that He has parted to get us this far.

How soon we lose sight of all the miracles He has performed to bring us the victories we have already been given. While waiting for God to do the "big" thing for us, we forget to be thankful for the little victories along the way. I believe the small blessings we receive from God are a special test of our heart; He wants to know if we will be thankful even for the smallest gift.

On the other hand, Satan wants us to become dissatisfied with the victories God has given us, for a dissatisfied heart is easy for him to manipulate.  When we are frustrated, he can get us to do and say things we would not otherwise and attitudes can develop that hurt our faith. Jealousy and selfish ambition are both rooted in an ungrateful, dissatisfied heart. For a dissatisfied heart is like a hunger that is never filled, or a fire that never dies out. If we allow it, it will eat away at the enjoyment we find in this life...

Our thankful heart will produce an honest and accurate view of God. We will see that He alone holds the world in the palm of His hand, and that He alone is the creator of all things. As this awesome God blesses us everyday, we simply need to take the time to renew our minds by thinking of the blessings and victories He has given us. When we do this, we enlarge our capacity to believe in Him to do even greater things, and then we will trust Him more and lean more on the power and authority He has given us...

Victoria Boyson, 'A Heart of Thanksgiving'

If giving thanks to God even in the bad times opens the door to God's blessings, how much more will we be able to trust God if we can remains thankful in his blessings? After all, they are his blessings, not ours, and in offering them to him in our thankfulness, we are, in the words of the liturgy, giving him of his own.

My grace is sufficient for you…

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Prayer clarifies our hope and intentions. It helps us discover our true aspirations, the pangs we ignore, the longings we forget. It is an act of self-purification... It teaches us what to aspire to, implants in us the ideals we ought to cherish. Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives, to let God’s will prevail in our affairs; it is the opening of a window to God in our will, an effort to make God the Lord of our soul. We submit our interests to God's concern, and seek to be allied with what is ultimately right.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer simplifies things. When all around us, within and without, is desperately complicated, ambiguous and contradictory, prayer is one thing. Contemplative prayer, in whichever way, is very close to Jesus’ “one thing needed” (Luke 10:42). What is surprising, always, is how hard it is to remember this—to turn to prayer first, rather than as a last resort. We are so deeply marked by that original sin of wanting to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5) that we turn first to our own strength, cunning, experience, and to God last of all. Perhaps that’s why Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 5:3) Only those whose internal resources are spent and drained—or who through long discipline have learned their own emptiness—are open enough to receive from God his limitless blessing, his endless strength. As the Lord said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

It’s quite remarkable, looking back over the past few years’ extraordinary difficulties, just how close God has been to me at those times when I have had nothing left. I have actually seen for myself what Paul meant when he wrote, “That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

We are called to “imitate Christ” as Thomas à Kempis put it. It is surely at the Cross that we see most clearly where this is likely to lead. Jesus did warn us (Matthew 16:24, among other references) and it is here that we come closest to him, as he drew close to us in that appalling act of redemption.

In all this God has blessed me in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined, and often these days I just don’t know what to do with all the blessings! That, as much as anything, has been the reason I’ve been so quiet here. Maybe I shall have to share some more of this, loath though I am to go in for “confessional blogging…” Because it really is strangest thing. Why is it so hard to learn that God is good, to learn to trust that, to learn that there is such a thing as plain, honest joy, at the end of it all?

A blessed New Year?

Now when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 
    and he began to teach them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:1-12)

Now, as we stand—well, here in the UK we do—some are already there—on the threshold of the second decade of a new century, can we hear what Jesus is saying?

I find it actually quite hard, living here in England in winter, with the Christmas lights still glowing warmly through the dark evening from ordinary houses along the village streets, to hear Jesus’ voice clearly myself. His words here are as contrary to the spirit of our culture as they were to the spirit of Roman-occupied Galilee. Jesus’ blessings are for those whom a society like ours, or like the Romans’ or the Temple leaders’, consider least blessed, and least deserving of blessings.

Even within the context of each of our own lives, Jesus is calling blessed those times when we have felt, or seemed, least fortunate. The times when we have been poor in spirit, emptied out, feeling we have nothing to give; the times when we have not been able to stand up for ourselves; the times when we have not had the heart any longer for the main chance, the business advantage; when we have felt least dynamic, least thrusting, least competitive. These, says Jesus, are the truly blessed times, the times when we have drawn closest to our Saviour.

So often we have felt out of step with all that our society holds up as worthy of reward. Our hearts have been broken for the homeless, the defenceless, the hungry, when society demands our allegiance to the bottom line; we have longed for justice when society requires profitability. Yes, Jesus says, your unease is my unease—your feelings of being out of step with the world are true, prophetic perceptions, not suspicious signs of weakness.

If we act like this, speak like this, we will come in for some of the persecution Jesus himself suffered. Don’t worry, though, says Jesus—this too is one of my peculiar blessings. This too is the gate into the Kingdom of God, the true, the enduring Kingdom. This is the way home…

Blessed…

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5.3 NRSV)

What an opening line! And the reward is present tense! I always say this one liner is the beginning of Jesus’ inaugural address: “Congratulations to the poor in spirit.” It is a key to everything Jesus will teach and live. Your opening line often contains your main point or leads to your main point. I wonder if most Christians have seen a simple, humble spirit as absolutely central to Jesus’ teaching?

To be “poor in spirit” means to live without a need for your own rightness, or any sense of moral superiority to anyone else. It’s a free inner emptiness, with no outer need for advancing your own reputation or any opinionated one-upmanship. If you’re actually poor in spirit it won’t be long before you’re poor in other ways too. You won’t waste the rest of your life trying to get rich because you’ll know better on the inside. Inner poverty precedes and lays the foundation for a simple, non-consuming lifestyle.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Jesus’ Plan for the New World, p.130

I’m not sure about Rohr’s use of “congratulations” to translate makarios—blessed seems about right to me, better too than the “happy” in many translations. This word blessing here includes, implies, makes possible the freedom, the living in God’s hand, that allows real simplicity to develop in the un-grasping heart, the heart set free at last to love.

Hanging on...

Jesus is the Blessed One. When Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river a voice came from heaven saying: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you" (Mark 1:11). This was the blessing that sustained Jesus during his life. Whatever happened to him - praise or blame - he clung to his blessing; he always remembered that he was the favourite child of God.

Jesus came into the world to share that blessing with us. He came to open our ears to the voice that also says to us, "You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, my favour rests on you ." When we can hear that voice, trust in it, and always remember it, especially during dark times, we can live our lives as God's blessed children and find the strength to share that blessing with others.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Clinging to the blessing through thick and thin, good and bad... how I long for this simplicity of trust! But how on earth can this be done?

I don't know how it works for anyone else, but for me, instinctively, it's about clinging to the Cross. Literally. When I am praying to hang on, by the skin of my teeth as it feels, then I do physically hang onto my little olive-wood holding cross.

I've tried to think what might be happening here, spiritually or theologically. I know it's very crudely expressed, but it seems to me that perhaps when we "cling to the Cross" we are in our hearts acknowledging that it is only through Jesus' death on the Cross that we are saved; and no one and nothing can break his hold on us through the Cross.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.

(John 10.27-29)

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8.31-39)

Blessings...

May God bless you with anger
at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people
so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference in the world
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

– Franciscan Benediction

with thanks to Interrupting the Silence

And may God bless you with enough grief and frustration when you cannot do these things that you will cry out to him, come and fall at his feet in a total mess, and cling for dear life to the foot of the Cross by which alone all this can be done...