Sheltering Arms of God

This statue in the St. Michael Church in Cassis literally moved me to tears. It speaks to me of God's love and of those sheltering arms He sends to hold us in tough times.

If you enjoy gospel music, click here for a beautiful Gaither Homecoming version of "Lord, Send Your Angels."

Let There Be Light

I read a blog called 'Spiritual Travels.' It combines several things that I'm interested in: spirituality, travel and history. This week Lori, the blog's author, published a post on light using a poem by Hafiz to beautifully illustrate her subject. Light resonated in me as during the past week, I traveled to Provence and experienced light in various ways. Most notably, here in the Abbaye Notre Dame de Senanque monastery where light was used to not only illuminate the monks' living quarters, but also to cast a spiritual light on elements of worship within the ancient church itself. Narrow on the outside, these many windows lining the walls on both sides of the monks' dormitory are splayed outward on the  inside to catch and diffuse as much light as possible. Hear what Hafiz says about light...

GOD POURS LIGHT

God
pours light
into every cup,
quenching darkness.

The proudly pious
stuff their cups with parchment
and critique the taste of ink

while God pours light

and the trees lift their limbs
without worry of redemption,
every blossom a chalice.

Hafiz, seduce those withered souls
with words that wet their parched lips

as light
pours like rain
into every empty cup
set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.

~ Hafiz ~

(Interpretive version of Ghazal 11 by Jose Orez

 Lori's post and Hafiz's poem remind me to open and let God pour His light into me. Even small cracks and narrow openings will flood my soul and bathe me in God's lovely light.

For more photos and information about this Cistercian monastery, click here to go to Melanged Magic.

Untie the Strong Woman

During Holy Week, I read a review of this book, "Untie the Strong Woman" in a blog that I subscribe to: Spiritual Travels. It immediately grabbed my attention as yet again, Mary touched my life at Easter. I ordered the book and have already completed reading it. Like Dr. Estes' book "Women Who Run With the Wolves," (another personal favorite of mine), this one is full of stories, legends and mystical happenings that truly illustrate the 'Blessed Mother's immaculate love for the wild soul' which is the book's subtitle. I was enthralled; where has this Mary been all my life? That's one disadvantage of growing up Protestant...we don't have saints and once Christmas is past, we hear virtually nothing about Mary. Yet here she is...a living, breathing presence for so many people. A kind, compassionate heart to which those in pain, in trouble or in spiritual devastation pray. Mary comforts all and is part of all...politics, human rights, illegal immigration, abortion, the shameful history of oppresion and destruction of peoples. Her people pray to her in times of drought, war, pregnancy, prison, and troubled relationships. And Dr. Estes tells her story with ex-votos, poetry, and even a few naughty words. I think my favorite chapter in the book is actually a poem, "Guadalupe is a Girl Gang Leader in Heaven" That's my kind of woman!

I will begin re-reading this book today with pen and highlighter in hand just as I did with "Woman Who Run With the Wolves." There is much food for thought...and action here. At one point, Estes writes: “Her fingerprints are all over me….Her palm prints are on my shoulders from trying to steer me in various proper and difficult directions.” And now her fingerprints are all over me as well. Into which direction is she steering me? Time will tell.

Thanks to SoundsTrue for the book image.

Mary

I've been enwrapped in thoughts about Mary since Holy Week. I'm not surprised that she came into my thoughts then; for the past few years, I've experienced the Passion through her mother's eyes. It began my first Easter as a member of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church. My priest, Mary, took us through the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. As she read Station 4: Jesus Meets His Mother, her voice broke and tears flowed, both hers and mine. Ever since, I've journeyed towards Easter with Mary, Blessed Mother of Christ. Her presence has lingered this year, though. Perhaps because I'm here in France where her fingerprints are everywhere...if only you open your eyes to see them. Any town large enough to have more than one church, invariably has one named Notre Dame...Our Lady...of something. Think of Paris. Notre Dame de Paris,Notre Dame des Victoires, Notre Dame de Lorette, Notre Dame d'Esperance, Notre Dame de Perpetual Secours, Notre Dame de Bercy, Notre Dame de la Grace...the list goes on. She is present, though, in every church here as statue or....

stained glass.

She holds her precious baby in the ruins of ancient abbeys....

She prays in the outside grottoes of tiny villages....

She watches over pilgrims as they pass through the portals of ancient fortified towns

and from the walls of the hostels where pilgrims sleep...

Look up...you may see her praying high in a niche on the wall of someone's home...

And she is frequently a presence for travelers in roadside chapels and shrines.

Mary is always there. You just have to open your eyes to see her.

My eyes are open, and I'll share what else I've seen with you in another post.

(all photos are from my travels in France 2009-2012)

Happy Easter!

Joyeuses Paques!

Holy Saturday

It's Holy Saturday. The cross is empty. Outside it's raining; the skies are heavy and gray. I read the service for this day in my Book of Common Prayer. There are no hymns of joy, there are no prayers of the people. We pray only the Lord's Prayer. The focus this day is Christ. It's a day of mourning for him, and a day of awaiting his resurrection tomorrow. It's a day to think about him, his suffering and his sacrifice, not about my worries and wants. As I meditate on Sainte Foy's flickering candle, I sense that even her normally exuberant self is subdued and quiet this day. She, with all the other saints and angels of heaven, will spend these last hours of Holy Week mourning the earthly death of Christ by sitting in quiet meditation and prayer. The angel choir will not sing today; the saints will not march. On this day heaven holds its breath and waits with me for the joy that comes in the morning.

A Mother's Suffering

This is Holy Week. All my devotions ask me to pray about the suffering of Jesus during this time. While I can do that intellectually, it isn't until I pray about Jesus' mother, Mary, that my heart breaks wide open and the tears flow...

 As a mother, I can feel the joy she must have felt as he preached, as his ministry spread. She can feel his exhaustion and knows how dangerous his ideas are to others. I know how she longs to comfort him, to hold his hand while he prayed. I can sorrow with her in the understanding that not one of his friends will stay awake and pray with him. But his mother would. Mothers are always on-call for comfort and support. She would say to him...'you rest now; I'll keep watch over you as I did when you were a baby' ....fully knowing there is nothing she can do to prevent the events of this week unfolding. I am angry and indignant with her as she watches him being scourged and tormented and mocked...her child! How dare they do that to him! I flinch with her and my gut tightens as we listen to each nail being pounded in. Oh, the agony! And I can weep with her as she stands by the cross watching the life fade from his eyes as he gives up himself to his heavenly Father.

Mary, who unlike us, doesn't know the rest of the story until she hears the rumors on Sunday. The tomb is empty; He has risen!

As God's servant, she rejoices. But as Jesus' mother, she still weeps bitter tears, and I weep with her. He is gone forever from her life. She will never hug him or lean on his arm for support again.  Never again will he sit at her table to share a meal and later talk with her of his dreams, his ideas, and his Father's plan for him. There will be no grandchildren; no daugher-in-law to help her in her old age. Jesus will not be there to hold her hand and weep for her when she dies. There is an empty place in her heart that will never again be filled...in this life

But today, Maundy Thursday, she does not yet know all this. All she knows is that tonight, Jesus will share the Passover meal with his friends, his disciples. They will break bread, drink wine, say the prayers and sing the songs. He will not eat at her table tonight for already he belongs to the world.

A mother weeps and suffers.

Psalm 24

"Lift up your heads, O gates!

and be lifted up, O ancient doors!

that the King of glory may come in.

Psalm 24:7

God's Favorite Season

I think spring might be God's favorite season. Not only does spring provide Him with so many ways to remind us of His presence, we're also so ready to be aware of Him after the long, dark, cold winter. The perfume of blooming trees, the beauty of their flowers, sunlight glittering on the river, the smell of rich soil ready to welcome seeds, the fragrance of new-mown grass, birdsong from before dawn until after dark, bees buzzing, frogs croaking....all are God's miracles of spring, His gifts to us. Let us enjoy them in wonder and with gratitude in our hearts.

Surrounded by the Spirit

I live surrounded by the Spirit. I only have to open my eyes and look as I walk around my village. These are just some of the reminders I see every day that tell me God is here, watching over each of the 150 souls who live in this place.

Be A Vine

My friend, Edith, sent me a book of Lenten meditations this spring. It's called "Organic God" and is written by Kate Moorehead who was Edith's priest at St. James Episcopal Church in Wichita. She had sent me one of Kate's books for Advent and knew I enjoyed reading it as a daily spiritual discipline. Likewise I've enjoyed this Lenten book. Using the words of Jesus, Kate explores spiritual themes from an organic aspect using nature as her metaphor. One meditation that really caught my interest was the one on Sunday which explores the vine as a metaphor for discerning God's will. Searching for and interpreting God's will for my life has been a struggle. I never seem to quite 'get it.' And from what Kate writes, I'm not alone! As she explains it, God's will isn't a problem to be solved or a guessing game to win or lose. The fullness of God's grace and being allows us such freedom that almost anything we do...as long as it is rooted in Christ...is what makes Him happy and what He will support. There is no one right answer. This is rather like what Ignatius of Loyola suggests as well...that God gives us imagination and inspiration and ideas. And He expects us to use them! Kate uses the metaphor of the vine to explain this. Vines grow in any direction, on almost any surface. They are strong and versatile. Faced with a rock or a steep surface, they will find a way to survive and thrive, as long as they stay attached and rooted to the main stem of the plant. If we are the vine and Christ is the stem, we can grow and thrive and explore all our imaginings and inspirations if we always stay firmly rooted and attached to Him. As simple as this is---this is God's will.

Colloquy

I learned a new word this week as I continued to experience the Ignatian Prayer Adventure for Lent: colloquy.  A colloquy is an intimate conversation with God, Jesus or one of the saints at the end of your prayer time. Conversing with God and Jesus, I'm familiar with, but being a Protestant, I've never really conversed in prayer with a saint. Until I came to the Episcopal church, I'm not sure I even was much aware of saints. But having a conversation with a saint is appealing, and I've been giving it some thought. Which of the many hundreds of saints might I speak with? Here in France, the Virgin is, of course, the most popular of the saints with St. Joan of Arc and St. Therese of Lisieux running close in second place. But which saints speak to my heart? St. Jacques is my favorite. St. Jacques, the saint of the chemin or the camino. The saint of pilgrims and of seekers. And what would I say to him? "Please intercede on my behalf with the Holy Father to heal my knee, so that I, too, can walk the way to Santiago de Compostelle."

St. Foy is also a favorite. I first met her in Conques. You can see by her photo that many others pray to her as well. Her story is amazing; I've blogged about her in the past. I continue to be pulled into her mystery. I'm reading "Little Saint" by Hannah Green right now...for the third time!....because Foy has called me again to come to her. As I pray to her, my question would be "Why? why do I feel so drawn to you and your abbey church in Conques? What are you asking me to do?" When I think about St. Foy, her matrydom, and her miracles, I don't really envision her as she's shown in her chapel at Conques...all gilded and grown-up looking. My favorite image of her is as she's depicted in the church tympanum...a young girl kneeling in prayer and asking for God's blessing on her people.

My Friend

My friend, who is my age, has wanted to be a priest since she was a little girl. All through her life God kept nudging her towards the priesthood. He even talked the Episcopal church into ordaining women to help her out! Like the rest of us, she always had reasons that it couldn't be God whose plan this was. After all, seminary would be too hard, too expensive, too time-consuming. She was a wife....a mom...not a student. And most recently came the biggest excuse of all..."I'm too old." I was with her at a retreat the weekend that God not only nudged her, but poked her hard in the ribs and slapped her up side of her head. "Yes!" I said, "you should go for it." And she did  She started the process and is now in seminary. She's going to be a marvelous priest! She's smart, loving, open and compassionate. She's deeply spiritual and fiercely committed to living a life in Christ. I'm very proud of her. Here's my question, though. Why is so easy to see God's plan for other peoples' lives, yet so hard to discern His will for mine? Anyone have an answer?

Setting the Right Mood

I almost always play music while I read my daily devotions or worship with Morning Prayer. Along with lighting candles, music helps me set the proper mood for my time with God. I frequently play Vox de Nube, a CD that I bought online from the Glenstal Abbey. It has an even more powerful version of this beautiful song based on the Beatitudes. I love that the single female voice, Noirin Ni Riain, lifts above and beyond the voices of the men, almost as if she's singing a separate prayer that wafts towards God.

Blood of Christ

"Blood of Christ, inebriate me."

From the ancient prayer, Anima Christi.

An Ignatian Prayer Adventure

Even though I'm an Episcopalian, I often use Catholic online resources to help me deepen my spirituality and keep me in touch with a worshiping community when I'm far from my own church. I find Ignatian spirituality especially rich. How the Jesuits view God resonates with my own simple faith. This Lenten season I'm using the Ignation prayer adventure as an online retreat for my daily discipline. Using the Examen prayer as taught by St.Ignatius of Loyola, it will help me recognize God's gifts and His presence in my life and help me discern His purpose. My goal is to become what Ignatius calls 'spiritually free.' Free of any worldly attachments that keep me separated from my Creator.

A Lenten Journey

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Yesterday Laury asked me if I was giving up anything  for Lent. My reply is certainly not conventional; I don't give things up for Lent. To me, the Lenten season is about discipline, not necessarily about deprivation. I have many bad habits that I could give up, but what I need more are good habits to replace them. Afterall, if the bad habits go away...desserts, excess salt, too much solitaire on the computer...there will be a void. What will fill it? I know that it's supposed to be God who fills those places you empty out, but that doesn't always happen.

So, I choose instead to add a discipline to my daily life, a discipline that reminds me of God's presence and of the journey we're on right now. I choose to use this time to deepen my faith and to connect more fully with God's spirit. I choose to find those things that will grow me from a tightly clenched bud to an open-handed, spiritually filled, spiritually free woman. Like the spring flowers here, I'm on a journey of growth and blossoming. And like these same spring flowers, there will be death and re-birth at the end of the journey...Jesus' death and resurrection, the revitalization of my faith and hopefully, a positive discipline to my life. Blogging regularly here is the first of my Lenten disciplines.

Always We Begin Again...

God nudged me twice this morning! Over coffee, Laury asked me whether I was still posting here at Dona Nobis Pacem. Well...not in several months, I admitted. Then later this morning, I opened an email from a reader in Nova Scotia who just discovered my blog, Melanged Magic. She clicked over to Dona Nobis Pacem as well and in her email provided me with some information about Anglican worship here in the Lot. (She and her husband have purchased a retirement home not far from me after some years of vacationing in the area). Although I've been thinking since I returned here to France that the time was right to revive the blog, I just haven't motivated myself to do so.  Okay, God, I get it. Since Lent is just around the corner, it is, indeed, the appropriate time for a bit of discipline. As St. Benedict says in his Rule..."always we begin again." So, I will. It's nice to know that even saints have to be reminded of that.