Mother Teresa: Saint for those in Darkness

 Mother Teresa: Saint for those in Darkness

Today we keep the feast of the great saint of the 20th century Mother Teresa of Kolkatta.
While she is known mostly for her extraordinary work for the poor and the destitute in India and throughout the world very few still know of her deep mysticism of "darkness". This darkness has nothing to do with the darkness of evil, rather it is the effect on the soul's inner eye of those who have behld the bright light of the Divine Presence... We are simply blinded by its brightness and only that light can in time restore our inner vision. It is a mystical path walked by only the greatest of those the Lord calls and one of the most difficult to even imagine... simply put after the direct call of the saint to a particular path and mission the Lord seems to withdraw His light so that prayer is an unremitting desert with only very occasional indications that God is present at all... It is a participation in the humanity of Christ crucified upon the Cross and crucified to this day in the suffering of creation while at the same time, to all around them, the saint is a source of Divine Light and grace but the saint is called to ongoing teaching, working, praying all without any form of spiritual consolation in a dark night of the soul that produces extraordinary fruit in those around them while depriving the one who is going through it of anything other than the grace to contintually welcome and fulfil the will of God in the midst of it all.

This was seen beautifully in the famous miracle of the light described by Malcolm Muggeridge in his book about her. Coming to film the work of her sisters in the 70's the BBC crew he was with were horrified to discover just how dark the building in the slums where the sisters lived was. It was so dark as to be completely unsuitable for filming. Telling one of the sisters that they would have to abandon the project the news came to Mother who famously said "I will pray." She did so and despite the objections of the crew Malcolm insisted they would film. It was only when they got back to the UK that they discovered that the whole building appeared suffused in a beautiful calm light. The cameramen confessed themselves stumped... what we were seeing, said Muggeridge, was the light of Mother's prayer.

In some of her last words about this spiritual darkness Mother Teresa promised that she would be a "saint of darkness" and like Padre Pio and St. Therese the Little Flower, she promised that she would remain at the doors of Heaven to guide and help all those going through the trial of darkness in their own lives... She is a powerful advocate for those who are suffering and seeking... I pray to her often for light and suggest you might like to also.

Mother Teresa always said her work (and ours too) is simply to be faithful to God in the present moment and not to worry about success... success belongs to God and from the Divine perspective what looks like success to us can be failure to God and vice versa! Just think of the Crucifixion! To live the Christian life is to live one that ever more surely seems to be at odds with the way the world thinks and acts... in our topsy turvy witness we are those who remind the world of what and who are really important... perhaps that is the way that the darkness of our world and the way it treats the powerless, the poor and the hurting may be overcome by the light of the Gospel.

Moon Memories

Moon Memories:

Once,

The moon followed

me home,

I know,

because I watched her

out the back window of the car.

Occasionally slipping

behind trees or buildings

like a secret agent,

she kept up with us

effortlessly,

as I strained against

the straps of my seat

to meet her gaze.

I felt her interest

and her smile,

happy to have made

a new friend.

Once,

not afraid of the night,

but of the day

that would follow,

I was invited

by my Mother

to gaze on the Moon

outside our house,

and greet her as

Our Lady’s lamp

protecting all,

guiding all home,

wisdom

passed down

from her Father,

whom I had never met,

but always felt

I knew.

He loved the Moon

she said.

There is hereditary

of the heart,

as well as of the blood,

it seems.

To this day

I miss her calls

that would begin always

with,

Have you seen the Moon

tonight?

For I cannot look up

at the Moon

without looking

within

too.

Once,

I spent the night

in a wood made pure

silver

by her presence,

and felt the life in every thing

stir and sing

and dance

in a wild celebration

that is hidden from

the day.

I sat stone still

and watched

Foxes play

about me

and a Badger

pass by like an ancient sage

busy on his own quest,

and I believed

in magic again

by her light.

Once,

I remember her

appearing during the

long drawn out days

of dry schooling,

and seeing her

still serenity

so far above

the awfulness

of that age

made me breathe out

a breath

I did not even know

I had been holding

on to for years.

She felt like a friend

checking in.

We greeted each other

then,

as we do to this day,

each noticing the other

in the blessed acceptance

of being.

Once,

Sick and fevered I rose

gasping in the middle

of a winter’s night

and pulled back the curtain

to find her shining

over snow so newly fallen

that not a flake

had been disturbed

but glowed in her gaze

cascading in curves

over a street I knew

but saw again

for the first time

now softened

by snowlight’s reflection

of her blessed touch.

I looked and looked

at this gracious gift

of enchantment’s echo

until I felt I was being

looked at in turn

and blessed too.

In the morning,

I woke

well.

Once,

I walked the pier

between my parents

on the night before

I left to follow

the path.

We watched her rise

together,

in silence

and listened to a mandolin

playing in the distance.

We did not have to speak,

the Moon sang for us,

soul songs only we could hear.

Always remember this night,

they said later.

As if I could

do anything

else?

Once,

Feeling bereft and lost

I caught sight of her

rising over a strange city

(Though I remember her,

and the feelings,

but not the city it was.)

and I did not feel lost

anymore

How could you be lost

when you are always

under her graced gaze?.

How could you be alone

when everyone you know

and love is beneath her blessing

too?

I asked myself.

Once,

I saw her,

loom so large

as to almost

be alarming,

bedecked in harvest

gold and heavy seeming,

she lit the land beneath

so beautifully

that the cattle on the hills

cried out to her,

and the birds began their chorus

for a dawn

that was yet hours away.

I danced in her light

that night,

beneath the trees,

a slow sandaled

shuffle of monkish sort,

and bowed deeply

as she passed.

How could you not?

When all around

and within

was

psalming

celebration

of her compline

completeness.

Once,

I watched her rise

sickle sharp

over Assisi.

As though making manifest

the unseen divine smile

hanging in the air

over this holy place

where joy was married

to peace in the song

of brother-sisterhood.

I smiled back and felt

the saint smile too

behind it all

and wondered what

his long silent nights

of prayer

must have been like

measured only by her dance

across the sky

slowly revealing her face

to him,

as grace comes gently

to fill us

only as we empty

and so seem

to disappear

into divine darkness

just like

her.

Candlemas Feb 2^nd 2018

O Radix Jesse! A meditation on the third of the Great O Antiphons of Advent:

O Radix Jesse, O Root of Jesse!

We cry out to you O Root from which all springs,

first fecundity of the Divine!

Come and restore our fruitfulness so long shrivelled and sin wintered!

For we, obsessed only

with the flower that blooms

and is gone so quickly,

spill our tears upon the soiled surface

of the fading petal

and forget the virtue of the root!

O Root of Jesse!

Help us lest we forget that strong growth,

must come from a strong stock,

to know a flower that would

outlast the frost

must come from deep roots,

long buried,

and anchored in

the warm womb

of Mother Earth

resting down the long

ages in the divine dark!

O Root of Jesse!

Speak to us of Spring!

Of that new life you bring,

a quickening felt through all creation,

a gospeled spark,

begun in the deep pulse of a seed

now planted

in that gateless garden

so long prepared!

O Root of Jesse!

You are the point of origin

where all begins,

where from eternity time blooms;

where then comes forth from

Now;

until that sprouting moment

where all begins in you anew!

Save us for your harvest of hope!

O Root of Jesse!

Mixing your luminous seed

with the deep humus

of our muddied being

you bring forth new life!

Heal us

and raise us from our barren sleep

of sin and self

inviting us to bloom again

as first intended and

yet more so than even this

for now,

our roots entwined,

grafted to your Divine stock,

made at last again

one people, one plant, one garden

in which you will walk, delight and dwell.

O Root of Jesse!

We call to you in our evening song

as Adam did,

our gardener father who knew the names of all

and saw your face reflected in his own

until our bloom withered in his hand

plucked from its sustaining root

by selfish desire.

O Root of Jesse!

We sing you our Magnificat,

first sung by Eve our earth Mother,

long silenced since the sundering of her stock,

until she who is Eve and Jesse’s daughter too

became the place of planting

where you

divine root, and seed, and stock,

now born in time and lulled by her hymn

to sleep before your sorrows

renew in us your

love so radical that we are again

delivered into Eden, rooted in

peace,

God grafted into grace.

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Brother Leo remembers Brother Francis

An older one today... But one I keep coming back to....

Brother Leo remembers Brother Francis.

“What was he like?” 

I asked,

exhausted from my climb to pierce the

cold cliff top cloister of

this cowled brother’s retreat 

hoping to stir to remembrance his soul 

first stung by the Seraph’s fire so long ago,

yet burning still in eyes ancient but clear

that gazed upon my lack of grace with mercy, 

and smiled at me from a distance I cannot fathom.

“What was he like?” he whispered to himself 

holding my question as carefully as the jug 

with which he poured me water, cave cold and clear,

to quench a pilgrim’s thirst.

Then on that hill above Assisi

the old hermit friar spoke,

slowly at first, and stumbling,

as though his tongue, long lost in silence

of cave and forest, had now to stretch itself

and awaken language once spoken long ago,

like one who comes home from a foreign shore

and finds now the accents of his own confusing. 

So we sat before his cave he and I, 

friar and novice both,

lost in legends and lore, 

all the more beautiful for being

at the same time, 

truth; 

and needing to be told once more

to a world longing for his possibility to be made present

in edenic blessing

once again.

"What was he like?"

"Like a Tree he was, 

that on Summer days shines green 

and in its topmost branches feels, 

the waft of Heaven’s winds 

and dances even at the stillest hour, 

or that in Autumn clings not to leaf 

but 

changes loss to gift by 

casting clothes windwards and 

delights in lightness, 

its bare bones describing sky 

and pointing arrowlike 

always upwards."

"What was he like?"

"Like a Stone he was, 

smoothed by the sweet rain, 

graced by countless hours of chiselling prayer 

into a solidity of stillness. 

A cornerstone, a keystone, a foundation stone 

able to hold the weight of wisdom lightly,

yet bear up the broken and bridge the gap;

a stepping stone to wholeness and home

for those long lost."

 

"What was he like?"

"Like the Night Sky he was, 

open, and sheltering, and many 

couloured in magnificence, but 

starlit in simplicity. 

Its beauty simply a gradation of light, 

infinite in scope and eternal in origin."

"What was he like?"

"Like Fire he was, 

tracing his storied path from spark to ember, 

even in stillness, a banked flame, 

and always energy of exultation breathing blessed,

a conflagration of communion, 

buried just beneath the ashes of abstinence."

"What was he like?"

"Like a Stag he was,

who knows where the sweet water flows, 

and travels the deep dark valleys 

and mountain crags to reach his slaking spirit stream."

"Loud as a Bear he was, 

and as quiet too, 

spending his winters between 

wakefulness and sleep, 

lost in the cave of the heart, 

barely breathing, 

but 

murmuring mercy for all, 

until spirit spring stirs and his 

honeyed roar was heard again 

upon the hills."

"Like a Wolf he was, 

singing soul songs beneath sister Moon’s gaze 

with clear eyes lost in Heaven’s love, 

calling to himself his pack, those

who heard their song and soul sound 

in his echoes of emptiness."

"Badger brawny and 

filled with faith’s wisdom he was, 

and, likened to old Broc 

he knew the ancient ways and 

night walked, as they do, 

secret silent paths of prayer,

long trodden, but needing 

refinding always, in each 

generation’s journey."

"Like a Salmon leaping he was,

glittering like glass,

light sparkling from sliver scales, 

struck by sunlight, suspended

between sky and stream in a 

moment of stillness

over ever rushing river."

"What was he like?"

"A living song spark wrapped in the 

nest of Mother earth,

enfolded in the dun dust brown of the Sparrow,

small and thin he was,

with a barefooted skipping gait

barely holding the joy that burst from his breast,

his cross feathered soul 

never far from song."

"Like a Wren in a thornbush he was,

cocking its eye wryly at the earth bound,

certain of its power of flight

and yet choosing our company."

"Like a Robin he was,

who, tree hidden from view,

sings its piercing song of Heaven

drawing down remembrances 

of innocence past

into tired hearts sure they were 

long past childhood’s delight in sheer being,

and there waking wonder once again."

"Thin like a Thrush he was, 

who seeks the highest branch

even in storm, and sway-sings with delight a tone made purer

for the assault of wind, and rain, 

and thunder crackling all around it."

"Like a Hawk he was, 

staring with unblinking eye into Love’s light 

and falling like a stone from heaven 

to shock his sleeping prey awake."

"And now?"

"What is he like now?"

"Like a Lark he is, 

free and flying heaven high

whose sun-kissed song 

seeks only an open soul and then, 

beckons all skywards."

"And I miss him, though 

he sings his lark song in my heart too,

Aye, and in yours as well or you 

wouldn’t have visited me here

now would you?"

"But I shall fly to him soon, 

and there we will sing together 

once again our lark lauds for the One

who gathers all, bird, and beast, and brother, in blessing."

And then we sat, old and young together

Cowled in brown both, though centuries between,

and ghosts to each other,

meeting in eternity's one moment,

until the sun set and the moon rose

waiting for the Nightingale to chant her compline call

and Assisi bells 

to ring out again 

in midnight matins 

his song of peace.

The Paradox of Presence; a Meditation for Midsummer's Eve

The Paradox of Presence;
a Meditation for Midsummer's Eve

 Here I am Lord;
I am a passing shadow
I am a breath on the edge of being
I am a body of dust and ashes
I am a child of earth
I am from nothing
I am only ever almost
I am a ripple in the pool of life
I am a whisper in the silence
I am lost in time
I am unfulfilled yearning
I am a distorted reflection
I am delusion
I am desire
I am for now
And yet,
Here I am Lord;
I am made in your image
I am growing into your likeness
I am an idea in the Divine mind
I am called forth from nothingness
I am an exhalation of love
I am a child of God
I am an eternal soul
I am a word spoken by the Word
I am the temple of the Divine
I am from Being itself
I am called by name
I am held in being by Love
I am interpenetrated by light
I am sustained by pure attention
I am healed by Divine Compassion
I am redeemed by Mercy
I am for eternity
And so, I answer once again
caught in the pain of paradox,
on this point between the
shortest night
and the longest day:
Here I am Lord;
To be light in the shadows
To be your breath of love
To be the place where Being heals being
To be the moment where time touches Eternity
To be the voice who speaks the word into the silence
To be the torch aflame in the darkness
To be the temple of Divine encounter
To be the emptiness without absence
To be the call to compassion
To be the wound that heals
To be the child of heaven and the child of earth
To be in time and dwell in eternity
To live my I am in the I AM
To lose all so as to find all in you.
So,
Here I am Lord;
journeying from nothing to something
journeying from darkness to light
journeying from emptiness to fullness
by
journeying from something to no-thingness
journeying from light to light so bright it blinds and darkens my still too earthly sight
journeying from fullness to emptiness of being...
Here I am Lord;
a pilgrim on this paradox path
lost and found
and lost again
but with faith in the finding always...
and on this night of edges and shadows and barely there darkness
I surrender to the
silence of the Word
and simply say with open hands and
broken heart,
Here
I
am
Lord

Spy Wednesday: a meditation

Spy Wednesday:

We feel it once again
approach,
the annual reminder,
the telling of the
true tale;
of the betrayal
of love,
of light,
of God
that exists
not just then
but
always;
an option in each
moment.
Beguiled by shadows
of desire,
always appearing
bigger and better
than the that whose
shape
they,
in their smoke selves
flickeringly take
falsely;
we tell ourselves
the story
as old as eden
"It is for our good,
for their good,
for goodness sake,
for eventual good."
But we
know,
always,
deep down we
know,
as inch by inch,
step by step,
we turn our back on
Him,
on Love,
and allow
the callous clinking of
coin
to fall upon the
floor
of a once clean
sanctuary,
our fairy gold that
disappears
in morning light,
yet we,
knowing that good is
hard,
too often
take the eden easy
way,
and
descend the
steps of
desire
until despair
beckons...
Hold!
He is looking at
you,
always,
in this moment,
meet His eyes,
who saw you
first in
eternal
gaze of Love
from everlasting,
and hear Him call
your true
name!
Give Him
your
judas shrunken self,
lost in egoic agony,
and let
His betrayed and bought
blood
purchase for you
instead
Peter's
true tears,
crystalising
into repentant
rock
beneath
Easter's
thrice told
benediction.

Transitus: Passing as a Pilgrim with St. Francis.

This evening, after sundown, in friaries and convents and chapels and hermitages all over the world Franciscans come together to mark the Tranistus, the passing to the Lord, of our holy father Brother Francis. In the year 1226, worn our by his labours and knowing his end was coming close Francis asked the brothers to bring him to the little chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, just outside Assisi so that he could pass to the Lord under the watchful care of the Blessed Mother to whom he had entrusted his life and the Order he was leaving behind. Commemorating this event we franciscans gather every year and in song, chant, reading and reflection meditate upon the way of his passing and the teaching it brings. Last year I was asked to preach at one of these gatherings and a number of people asked me to publish the homily I gave on that occasion. I never got around to it but as the feast comes round again it offer the opportunity to make good my promise! So here it is... may it bring benefit and blessing so that inspired by Brother Francis we will all be a little more ready for our own Transitus whenever it comes...

Homily for the Transitus of Our Holy Father, Brother Francis of Assisi

We have entered into sacred time, into that storied time where past becomes present, as, once again, we stand at that sacred point between life and death, between this world and the next, and, in the eternity that is God, we turn our minds and hearts to that little cell outside the tumbledown chapel of St. Mary of the Angels as Brother Sun sets and Sisters Moon and Stars rise in the heavens, clear precious and fair. There the birds quieten their vesper singing and we take our place with all the followers of the “Poverello”, the little poor man of Assisi, who gather from all of time and space around him as he breathes slowly, gently towards his end… and as we vigil with his brothers and with all of creation we realise that we have forgotten how to die…

Does that sound strange? After all, die we shall. It is the one definite point in our existence. We have been born, we shall die.

But…

Tied up in life and in all of it’s vicissitudes we can begin to believe the great myth of human ego that this earthly life lasts for ever… and then, when Sister Death draws near to us, as she will to all of us, we are lost in panic, lost in pain, we are simply lost… and we hold out against her not knowing that her gentle purpose is simply to bring us home again…

And so we forget how to die…

St. Francis remembered how to die…

He knew that if we would face the embrace of our sister when it finally comes we must do so with love, yielding to her, being ushered by her into the Divine Presence; and for this to happen then in such a gentle way we must practice dying…

We must die, every day… just a little…

We must die to our self, die to our false self, die to every part of us that is not us but is the accretion of property and wealth for their own sake…

We must die to the use of others rather than to the love of others; die to the holding onto power so as to dominate and even and especially die to the belief that I am at the centre of all things and that I am in some way owed my existence, my success, even my life…

Francis…the little poor man now lying bare upon the bare earth, has long since died to each of these…

He has died to the rich home and sumptuous clothes of his youth and even to the joy a young man takes in his own vigour and power…

He has died to the rich young man, who was the toast of Assisi and the centre of attention who was named “Master of the Revels”…

He has died to his family’s longing to see him raise their profile and their fortune…

He has died to the noble knight whose armour was really forged from the ambition of his father and the myths that filled the head of a young boy who believed war could ever be noble…

He has died to a Mother’s love and favour…

He has died to the pride that saw only the sores of the lepers but never their souls…

He has died to the embarrassment of the Poor Man who begs for his living from door to door…

He has died to the rejection of some and the adulation of many…

He has died to the opinion of Bishops and Princes, Popes and Kings…

He has died to the fear that the brotherhood would not listen… and would not follow…

He has died to the desire to be a martyr…

He has died to the fear of suffering and pain…

He has died to his own flesh, to the world, to the devil…

He has died to his own will…

He has died upon the Cross with Christ…

And in so doing he has remembered how to die, and now with the last great effort of his being he teaches his brothers and sisters, present and absent and all those who will come after him how to die so that one may truly live…

Yes, he has died so completely, as only the saints truly die in life, that as Death approaches he recognises her and smiles at her knowing that she is only the shrouded sister whose touch brings entrance into the only real life there is…

His body is now only a mere shell that holds a heavenly treasure of mind and heart and soul so converted by grace, so consumed by Holy Spirit fire, that it can barely contain it anymore. It already shines radiantly from those five crimson stars seraph-sealed upon his body, when the deepest desire of his life to be one with the One who is love was fulfilled upon Alverna’s height…

And so, he who preached joy to men and beasts, to wolves and women, to birds and children and saw with Eden sight what seeds of the new creation are already planted in their souls, now gives to us his last and best sermon, and teaches a world that grasps greedily on to life and so fears the reaper and the quiet and the last stilling breath, simply how to die… so that one might truly live…

Absolved and blessed, and blessing others too he has heard the Gospel with ears now straining for Heaven’s summons and breathing deeply he looks with dim eyes beyond into silence…

And then…

He sings…

This poor man now blinded by tears and weak with sickness borne for humanity’s boon…

He sings…

And the brothers who had gathered sombrely and sadly, now with smiles newly rekindled begin to chant with him the song of his illumined heart the canticle of Sir Brother Son… a song a lifetime of grace in the making…

He, Francis, sings…

And for a moment, just for a moment, the Troubadour of peace, the Herald of the Great King, the one who charmed the birds and the beasts and the fierce men of war into silence and peace with his songs is amongst them once again…

“Laudato si mi Signor!” Be Praised my Lord… each verse rises as his farewell benediction… exulting one last time in the beauty that speaks more eloquently than any missive or word of sacred writ could ever do of the Love that holds all things in being and now calls back to itself Francis, its little one and its servant, first sent into the world to remind it of its beauty, its original blessing, its redemption and final calling into a communion of love in the Christ who is Love…

And so he surrenders himself to Love… singing as he goes upon his last journey, this pilgrim brother whose songs filled the roads for too short a time… and in his going he teaches us how to die…

How to leave behind all that would hold us back…

How to come empty handed before the One who fills us with His Song of Love holding back nothing of ourselves for ourselves so that the One who gave Himself totally for us may receive us totally…

Then… comes a moment of silence and stillness… the brothers stand in quiet reverence… the song seems to cease…  

And, barely above a whisper, his last words sound, “Welcome my sister death.”

The echo of his last breath, his last song, has barely passed and then from hills and valley and woods all about, in twilight star speckled skies, a mighty rush of wings is heard as the larks, those truest of his disciples, who own nothing more than their song, rise like arrows into the air, as brothers flocking together in the moon light and star light and sing his soul skywards…

His passing is complete…

He lived and died a little every day… and so in dying shows us how to live… that we too would remember to die a little every day until we may greet our Sister Death with only our own soul song to sing…and with empty hands but full heart enter into Life…enter into Love…

Let us begin again, for up until now we have done nothing...
Let us begin to die... so that we may live.

Amen.