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| Someone decorated this little tree at the edge of the pond in the woods where we walk : ) |
I read two things today that struck a very deep chord within me. The first was from the beginning pages of, The Reed of God, by Caryll Houselander and the second is from Fr. Anthony de Mello's book, Seek God Everywhere: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
"That virginal quality which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness is the beginning of this contemplation.
It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended.
It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness, which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.
It is emptiness like the hollow cup, shaped to receive water or wine.
It is emptiness like that of the bird's nest, built in a round warm ring to receive the little bird.
The pre-Advent emptiness of Our Lady's perpetual virginity was indeed like these three things.
She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.
She was the flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.
She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.
Emptiness is a very common complaint in our days, not the purposeful emptiness of the virginal heart and mind but a void, meaningless, unhappy condition.
Strangely enough, those who complain the loudest of the emptiness of their lives are usually people whose lives are overcrowded, filled with trivial details, desires, ambitions, unsatisfied cravings for passing pleasures, doubts, anxieties and fears.....Those who complain in these circumstances of the emptiness of their lives are usually afraid to allow space or silence or pauses in their lives...
They have no sense of being related to any abiding beauty, to any indestructible life: they are afraid to be alone with their unrelated hearts.
Such emptiness is very different from that still, shadowless ring of light round which our being is circled, making a shape which in itself is an absolute promise of fulfillment.
The question which most people will ask is: 'Can someone whose life is already cluttered up with trivial things get back to this virginal emptiness?'
Of course he can; if a bird's nest has been filled with broken glass and rubbish, it can be emptied.
It is not only trivialities which destroy this virgin-mindedness; very often, serious people with a conscious purpose in life destroy it by being too set on this purpose. The core of emptiness is not filled by trifles but by a hard block, tightly wedged in. They have a plan, for example, for reconstructing Europe, for reforming education, for converting the world; and this plan, this enthusiasm, has become so important in their minds that there is neither room to receive God nor silence to hear His voice, even though He comes as light and little as a Communion wafer and speaks as soft as a zephyr of wind tapping on the window of a flower.
Zealots and triflers and all besides who have crowded the emptiness out of their minds and the silence out of their souls can restore it. At least they can allow God to restore it and ask Him to do so.
The whole process of contemplation through imitation of Our Lady can be gone through, in the first place, with just that simple purpose of regaining the virgin-mind, and as we go on in the attempt we shall find that over and over again there is a new emptying process; it is a thing which has to be done in contemplation as often as the earth has to be sifted and the field ploughed for seed." (Houselander, pp. 21, 22, 23)
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And from Fr. de Mello:
"St. Ignatius says: 'In every good choice, as far as depends on us, our intention must be simple. I must consider only the end for which I am created, that is, for the praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of my soul. Hence, whatever I choose must help me to this end for which I am created.' (no. 169). So the intention has to be simply 'What do you want, God?' One should not say: 'I want the glory of God and the welfare of the Church', or 'the glory of God and the welfare of the nation,' or 'my health.' No, the intention should be only the glory of God, nothing else. All other things will only confuse the issue.
Now, this can be difficult to accept. As I said before, one person's intention may be the 'welfare of my nation.' Maybe God wants the nation to cease to exist. Nations have risen and died out in the past. 'What about the glory of the Church?' Forget the glory of the Church. Maybe God wants the Church to be humiliated and to die in a particular way? So keep the Church out of this...And one's health has absolutely nothing to do with the question, because maybe God wants a person to have ill health. Very often our intentions are not simple and then we do not find God's will. What I should intend is God's glory, nothing else." (pp. 94+95)
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