The Way of the Cross

"The Way of the Cross is not only a great testimony to an inner depth and maturity, but it is in fact a school for interiority and consolation. It is also a school for examination of conscience, for conversion, for inner transformation and compassion - not as sentimentality, as a mere feeling, but as a disturbring experience that knocks on the door of my heart, that obliges me to know myself and to become a better person."

Pope Benedict XVI

Lenten Disciplines

"I have jotted down in my notebook my lenten resolutions, but I want to confirm them here. I must truly renew my life, and it is God whom I ask in all simplicity to transform me. I want to live interiorly more spiritually, exteriorly more gently and lovingly so as to make God better loved, who is the beginning and end of my spiritual life. More than ever I want to hide in the heart of Jesus my good works, my prayers, my self-denial, to preach only through example, to speak not at all of myself and little of God, since in this sad world one only gives scandal or annoys others by showing one's love for God. But whenever someone approaches me, or whenever it seems to be God's will that I should approach another, I will do so simply, very prudently, and disappear as soon as the task is done, mixing no thought of self with God's action. And should I be misunderstood, criticized, and misjudged unfavorably, I will try to rejoice in remembering our divine exemplar, and I will seek to be of no consequence in the esteem of others, I who am in fact so poor and little in the eyes of God. "

Elisabeth Leseur (1914), French married laywoman, currently in the process of canonization.

defenseless

Oh my Jesus, I bring you my sorrows and pains. I have begged for your mercy, to take these troubles away from me. You have always accepted them, telling me to leave them at your step, always available to me with your endless love.

Lord, what else do I have to offer but my selfish desire to be healed?

I can give but I don't know how to accept from you. I know that if I let go of my wants, only then you can fill my emptiness. Whenever I bring you my pain, I am for myself; therefore I am rejecting your invitation to openness. How can I empty myself to the point of not resisting you? I know I can't accept you fully until there is a space inside of me that is aching to be filled by you.

I imagine what it must be like to be as loving as you are, as others pour them self out, you are open and accommodating without condition or judgment. Sometimes I see you in them, in their desperation and pain. They suffer too, just like me. Lord, give me the grace to have a moment of compassion and love, the way you do.

So Lord, I won't beg you to free me of my troubles, but I'll pray for the grace to ask you for nothing at all. If I could approach you empty handed, my issues will become meaningless, and I can reflect your love more fully as I approach your people. Maybe then I will stop resisting you whenever I see You in their eyes.

The Seed Grows

"If you ask me just precisely how one is to go about doing the contemplative work of love, I am at a complete loss. All I can say is I pray that Almighty God in his great goodness and kindness will teach you himself. For in all honesty I must admit I do not know. And no wonder, for it is a divine activity and God will do it in whomever he chooses. No can earn it. Paradoxical as it may seem it would not even occur to a person - no, nor to an angel or saint - to desire contemplative love where it not already alive within him. I believe, too, that often our Lord deliberately chooses to work in those who have been habitual sinners rather than in those who, by comparison, have never grieved him at all. Yes, he seems to do this very often. For I think he wants us to realize the he is all-merciful and almighty, and that he is perfectly free to work as he pleases, where he pleases, and when he pleases.

Yet he does not give grace nor work this work in a person who has no aptitude for it. But a person lacking the capacity to receive his grace could never gain it through his own efforts either. No one at all, neither sinner nor innocent, can do so. For this grace is a gift, and it is not given for innocence nor withheld for sin. "

from The Cloud of Unknowing
written by an unknown mystic from the 14th Century

Like a River

"But he, who walks not on this road, goes under the Bridge, in the river where there are no stones, only water, and since there are no supports in the water, no one can travel that way without drowning; thus have come to pass the sins, and the condition of the world. Wherefore, if the affection is not placed on the stones, but is placed, with disordinate love, on creatures, loving them , and being kept by them far from Me, the soul drowns, for creatures are like water that continually runs past, and man also passes continually like the river, although it seems to him that he stands still and the creatures that he loves pass by, and yet he is passing himself continually to the end of his journey - death!"

from The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena