I pray each of you is well and carrying on bravely as you depend more and more on your inner resources, and I pray with Edith Stein:
“Oh my God, fill my soul with joy, courage and strength to serve you. Enkindle your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I will meet it with peace.”
We are blessed with the luxury of space and beauty and a way of life conducive to the current “program.” All are well. We have two long term retreatants with us who are helping prepare our gardens for planting. We have the privilege of celebrating Eucharist together. You can listen to our seasons special homilies, Occasion of Grace and Courage Unparalleled, on the following posts.
Carmelites are called to “watch and pray”. So I feel called to put most of my energy into prayer. Sr. Wendy has been providing good reminders.
On Prayer
“…as to why we pray: I would say because the Father made us to be His. The reason is His doing— we must pray, just as humans. But as to what prayer is, ah, only Jesus knows that. Just as there is no other holiness except His—and we have no other holiness of our own—so there is no prayer but the prayer of Jesus, and ‘our’ prayer means entering into His. But what did He do when He prayed? He gave His whole self to the Father through the Spirit. He too did not pray ‘on His own’, as a mere man, so to speak. No, it was always the Spirit who drove Him…
“Desire is the key because it means that we seriously seek Him in the actual context of our lives and cling to Him where He really is. And we can’t do this unless our hearts are free for Him. Cling on to the Jesus that your enlightened heart has seen.” pp.296-97
On Love
“We often think that love and holiness mean no bad thoughts, no struggle. But (struggle) is the very strife in which love is shown.”
“Jesus’ own rejection would be unbearable were it not that the only love He wanted was obedience to the Father, and our desire to give Him that is wholly effective, irrespective of time. This is the wonderful thing. The Lord will always arrange our lives for us, sweetly seeing to it that all things bring us closer to His heart, as painlessly as possible. ‘Why are you anxious, O you of little faith? Mt. 8.26 He Himself transforms our ‘little faith’ into total faith. We have only to wait in peace and prayer.”
From Spiritual Letters, Sr. Wendy Beckett
